When we touch on the third period of her life—which may well be termed that of sorrow, although brightened by many happy events in the domestic life of her children—we reach times that are familiar to every reader. These have been years in which the cares of state have often been exceedingly burdensome. The days of anxiety during the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny have more than once had their counterpart. Afghanistan, Zululand with its Isandula, and the Transvaal War with its Majuba Hill, Egypt, and the Soudan, brought hours of sore anxiety to the sovereign; but they were probably not more harassing to intellect and heart than the months of difficult diplomacy which the threatening aspect of European politics frequently laid upon Government.
I may say in passing that no portrait of her appears to me to be quite satisfactory. They usually have only one expression, that of sadness and thoughtfulness, and so far they give a true representation; for when there is nothing to rouse her interest and when she is silent, that look of sadness is doubtless what chiefly impresses one. Her face then bears the traces of weary thought and of trying sorrow; but when she is engaged in conversation, and especially if her keen sense of humor has been touched, her countenance becomes lit with an exceedingly engaging brightness, or beams with heartiest laughter.
Her life at Balmoral since her great sorrow maintains, as far as may be, the traditions of the happy past. She still makes expeditions, cognita or incognita, sometimes to the scenes of former enjoyment or to new places of interest. She has in this way visited Blair, Dunkeld, Invermark, Glenfiddich, Invertrossachs, Dunrobin, Inverlochy, Inverary, Loch Marll, and Broxmouth.
The queen, among her people at Balmoral, gives a splendid example to every landlord. "The first lady in the land" is the most gracious mistress possible. Her interest is no condescending "make-believe," as we sometimes find it in the case of others, who seek a certain popularity among their dependents by showing spasmodic attentions which it is difficult to harmonize with a prevailing indifference. With the queen it is the unaffected care of one who really loves her people, and who is keenly touched by all that touches them. She knows them all by name, and in the times of their sorrow they experience from her a personal sympathy peculiarly soothing. There is indeed no part of the volumes she has given us more surprising than the minute knowledge she there shows of all the people who have been in any way connected with her. The gillies, guides, and gamekeepers, the maids who have served her, the attendants, coachmen, and footmen, are seldom mentioned without some notice of their lives being recorded as faithfully as is the case with peers and peeresses. How few mistresses are there who, burdened as she is with duty, would thus hold in kindest remembrance each faithful servant, become acquainted with their circumstances, and provide for them in age or in trial with generous solicitude. It is this rich humanity of feeling that is her noblest characteristic. The public are accustomed to see messages of sympathy sent by the queen in cases of disaster and of accident, but they cannot know how truly those calamities fall upon her own heart. As far as her life in the Highlands is concerned, she is now perhaps the best specimen we have of what the old Highland chieftain used to be, only that in her case we find the benefits of paternal government without its harsh severities. There is the same frank and hearty attachment to her dependents, the same intimate knowledge of each one of them, the same recognition of services. It is a queenly quality to recognize what is worthy, no matter what the rank may be. It was from this she placed so much confidence in her faithful attendant, John Brown. Her great kindness to him was her own generous interpretation of the long and loyal services of one who, for more than thirty years, had been personal attendant on the Prince Consort and herself, leading her pony during many a long day upon the hills, watching over her safety in London as well as on Deeside, and who, on more than one occasion, protected her from peril. "His attention, care and faithfulness cannot be exceeded," she writes in the first volume of the "Leaves," "and the state of my health, which of late years has been sorely tried and weakened, renders such qualifications most valuable."[Back to Contents]
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
By Lizzie Alldridge
(BORN 1820)
A very distinguished lady nurse, who has been in half the hospitals in Europe, once said to me: "To Florence Nightingale, who was my own first teacher and inspirer, we owe the wonderful change that has taken place in the public mind with regard to nursing. When I first began my hospital training, hospital nursing was thought to be a profession which no decent woman of any rank could follow. If a servant turned nurse, it was supposed she did so because she had lost her character. We have changed all that now. Modern nursing owes its first impulse to Florence Nightingale."
I don't suppose that any of my young readers have ever seen a hospital nurse of the now nearly extinct Gamp type; but I have. I have seen her, coarse-faced, thick of limb, heavy of foot, brutal in speech, crawling up and down the stairs or about the wards, in dresses and aprons that made me feel (although quite well and with a good healthy appetite) as if I would not have my good dinner just then. These were the old-fashioned "Sairey Gamps." But Florence Nightingale has been too strong for even the immortal "Sairey." Go now through the corridors and wards of a modern hospital; every nurse you meet will be neat and trim, with spotless dress and cap and apron, moving quickly but quietly to and fro, doing her work with kindness and intelligence.
It was in 1820, the year George the Third's long life quite faded out, that the younger of the two daughters of William Shore Nightingale was born at Florence, and named after that lovely city.