Some unfinished letters from M. Mohl, found in his blotter after his death, were sent to Miss Nightingale by Madame Mohl, who leaned much on her “Flochen's” sympathy in her loss:—
(To Madame Mohl.) Lea Hurst, August 6 [1876]. Dearest very Dearest Friend—Indeed I do think I was worthy of him if always thinking of him, rejoicing in his progress in perfection and (formerly) grieving with his troubles and cares (but now he has none, now he is always making glorious progress, else this world is a nonsense), made me so. But why do you distress yourself (your loss is great enough, immeasurable, irreparable, for this world) with saying such things about not having made the most of him while you had him? He would not have said so. You found him a melancholy man: you made him a happy one. You gave zest to his life: all that it wanted. He always felt this himself: he could not bear to be without you. O thank God and say (like the Lord of Ossory about his son): I had rather have my dead son than any one else's living one. Who has been so blest as you? Where will you find so perfect a man? And you felt it, I know you did. And he felt your feeling it.… For M. Mohl's glorious life on earth I thank God: but I thank Him yet more, because this was only a beginning of life infinitely more glorious—as Milton says: “death, called life, which us from life doth sever.” Fare you well. May God be with us all. Your old Flo. It is 20 years to-day since I came back from the Crimea. It is 15 since I lost Sidney Herbert.
(To the same.) South St., Feb. 7 [1878]. Dearest Friend, ever Dearest—Indeed I do: I think daily and nightly of him and of you: the world is darker every year to me, and darker without him: for it seems as if a great light were gone out of it. And the people who survive seem so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable compared with those I knew once, loved once.… No: we shan't give a doit to help the Turks. What! crush all those struggling young peoples, Sclav and Greek, back under the hideous massacres and oppression and corruption of the Turk? We could not if we would. I don't feel very hopeful: for the worst Eurasian Government, we are allowing the worst European Government to substitute itself. Turkey was falling to pieces[320] anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let Russia act alone in the coming freedom. May God give liberty to the Christian provinces to work out their own salvation!
Miss Nightingale's interest in the Eastern Question, moved by the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, had been heightened by her close friendship with Miss Paulina Irby. Of the women friends whom Miss Nightingale saw frequently, and with whom she corresponded regularly, Miss Irby was one of the few who could in any intellectual and spiritual sense be called her equal. Miss Irby was a woman of the highest cultivation, an excellent scholar; a woman of most generous kindliness and simplicity of mind who truly thought no evil.[193] There was a sort of innocence in her that seemed to disperse difficulties of itself, and Miss Nightingale's papers contain references to occasions on which Miss Irby's friendly offices resolved many worries. She was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, and Florence had first met her at Embley in 1869. She was one of the many women who revered the name of Florence Nightingale, and she had spent some months at Kaiserswerth. She was enraptured by making the personal acquaintance of her heroine, and was used to say henceforth that any good she was able to do was owing to Miss Nightingale's example and sympathy. The good that Miss Irby did was great; in promoting education among the Sclavonic Christians of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in relieving the distress among orphans and refugees. During the years 1874–79 Miss Irby was often in England, to collect funds and for other purposes connected with her work in the East. Miss Nightingale helped her much therein, and thus became very familiar with some aspects of the Eastern Question. This interest, combined with her detestation of the forward policy on the Indian frontier, formed a link of sympathy with Mr. Gladstone.
VII
Was Miss Nightingale's life happy or unhappy? Her sister used to say to her, thinking of her many political acquaintances: “You lead such an interesting life.” Mr. Jowett told her that her life was a blessed one, and that she ought so to think it. He always sent her a New Year's letter, and on the last day of 1879 he wrote to her thus:—
(Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale.) I cannot let the new year begin without sending my best and kindest wishes for you and for your work: I can only desire that you should go on as you are doing, in your own way. Lessening human suffering and speaking for those who cannot make their voices heard, with less of suffering to yourself, if this, as I fear, be not a necessary condition of the life you have chosen. There was a great deal of romantic feeling about you 23 years ago when you came home from the Crimea (I really believe that you might have been a Duchess if you had played your cards better!). And now you work on in silence, and nobody knows how many lives are saved by your nurses in hospitals (you have introduced a new era in nursing); how many thousand soldiers who would have fallen victims to bad air, bad water, bad drainage and ventilation, are now alive owing to your forethought and diligence; how many natives of India (they might be counted probably by hundreds of thousands) in this generation and in generations to come have been preserved from famine and oppression and the load of debt by the energy of a sick lady who can scarcely rise from her bed. The world does not know all this or think about it. But I know it and often think about it, and I want you to, so that in the later years of your course you may see (with a side of sorrow) what a blessed life yours is and has been. Is there anything which you could do, or would wish to do, other than you are doing? though you are overtaxed and have a feeling of oppression at the load which rests upon you. I think that the romance, too, which is with the past, did a great deal of good. Like Dr. Pusey, you are a Myth in your own life-time. Do you know that there are thousands of girls about the ages of 18 to 23 named after you? As you once said to me “the world has not been unkind.” Everybody has heard of you and has a sweet association with your name. It is about 17 years since we first became friends. How can I thank you properly for all your kindness and sympathy—never failing—when you had so many other things to occupy your mind? I have not been able to do so much as you expected of me, and probably[322] never shall be, though I do not give up ambition. But I have been too much distracted by many things; and not strong enough for the place. I shall go on as quietly and industriously as I can. If I ever do much more, it will be chiefly owing to you: your friendship has strengthened and helped me, and never been a source of the least pain or regret. Farewell. May the later years of your life be clearer and happier and more useful than the earlier! If you will believe it, this may be so.
In Mr. Jowett's example, his friend found strength and help, even as he did in hers. “He offers himself up to Oxford,” she used to say of him with admiration; and she offered up all her powers to the causes she had espoused. There were still to be many years during which she was able to work unceasingly for them. Her life was to be not less useful than before, and perhaps, as increasing years brought greater calm, her life was also clearer. But happiness, as the world accounts it, she neither attained nor desired. She had a friend who was losing his devotion to high ideals, as she thought, in domestic contentment. “O Happiness,” she said of him, “like the bread-tree fruit, what a corrupter and paralyser of human nature thou art!”