The Life of Florence Nightingale Volume II Part 21

VI

The friends to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most regularly on matters other than business, and in whose visits she took the greatest intellectual pleasure, were, next to Mr. Jowett, Monsieur and Madame Mohl. Her letters to them show some of her more general interests:--

(_To M. Mohl._) _Feb._ 16 [1868].... I see Mad. Blanchecotte is publis.h.i.+ng her _Impressions de Femme_--what is that? Do men publish their _Impressions d'Homme_? I think it is a pity that women should always look upon themselves (and men look upon them) as a great curiosity--a peculiar strange race, like the Aztecs; or rather like Dr. Howe's Idiots, whom, after the "unremitting exertions of two years," he "actually taught to eat with a spoon."

(_To M. Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Nov._ 24 [1872].... Insensible, cruel, aggravating man! you break off just where I want to hear. The only thing that amuses me is Papal Infallibility. The only thing that interests me not painfully (out of my Chaos)--always excepting Livingstone, East African Slave-trade, Central African exploration--is Prussian Politics. Not that I suppose you to be very well satisfied with them, but I want to _know_ about the doings--Bismarck, Old Catholics, Infallibilists--this extraordinary conflict between the old man at Rome and the Junker-Devil-statesman, Bismarck; also about the struggle with the Upper House and the de-feudalizing Bill. I am athirst to know _your_ mind about these things.... Have you seen Stanley's _How I found Livingstone_? I have desired the publisher to send you a copy. It is, without exception, the very worst book on the very best subject I ever saw in all my life.... Still I can't help devouring the book to the end, though it tells little more of Livingstone than what Livingstone in the despatches has told himself already. But then Stanley and his newspaper have discovered and relieved Livingstone, when all our Government, all our Societies, all our Subscriptions, all the Queen's men could not set Livingstone up again!... Quetelet has sent me his last books--_Anthropometrie_ and _Physique Sociale_--with a charming letter. I answered by a violent and vehement exhortation to him to prepare his second edition at once--the first (1869) of the _Physique Sociale_ being entirely exhausted.[192] Did I tell you that when Mr. Jowett was elected chairman for the subjects of Final Examination at Oxford, I insisted on Social Physics being one?

[192] The actually first edition had been issued in 1835, when the t.i.tle of the book was _Sur l'Homme et le Developpement de ses Facultes, ou Essai de Physique Sociale_. In 1869 it was much enlarged, and Miss Nightingale treats it as a new book.

(_To Madame Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 19 [1873].... You asked me what Mill's _Autobiography_ was like: and as it is a book impossible to describe, I send it to you. I think it almost the most curious and interesting of modern books I ever read; but curious just as much for its nonsense as for its sense. I should think the account he gives of his intellectual and moral growth from the age of three quite unique: quite as singular as if a man were able to describe all his anatomy and physiology in a state of growth from the time he was three. But quite, quite as extraordinary as this is his own stupidity in not seeing that very many of his moral and intellectual, and especially of his religious, opinions were fixed inalterably for him by the process he underwent, so that all his reasoning afterwards upon them was _un_reasoning: fixed as much beyond his power to change, or even to see that a change was desirable or possible, as the eyes of a man who becomes stone-blind in his youth, or the right arm of a man who is paralysed on that side, or &c., &c., &c. He has written me pages and pages, which I never could understand--from a man so able--till I read his _Autobiography_: that--there being Laws was no proof of there being a Law-giver; that--if evil were to produce good, there ought to be _more_ of it! Then, you see he says in his book that his wife was to be applauded, because she had thrown aside the "monstrous superst.i.tion" that this world _could_ be made on the best possible design for perfecting Good thro' Evil!... And I still think the _Autobiography_, its high tone, its disinterested n.o.bility of feeling and love of mankind, one of the most inspiring (modern) books I know. But then please to remember: when Mill left the India Office he might most materially have helped all my Sanitary Commissions, Irrigation and Civilizing Schemes for India.

He did nothing. He was quite incapable of understanding anything but schemes on paper, correspondence, the literary Office aspect in short, for India. As for that jargon about the "Inspiration" coming from "woman," I really am incapable of conceiving its meaning: if it has any at all. I am sure that my part in Administration has been the very reverse of "Inspiration": it has been the fruit of dogged work, of hard experience and observation, such as few men have undergone: correcting by close detail work the errors of men which came from what I suppose is called their "inspiration": what _I_ should call their Theory without Practical knowledge or patient personal experience.

(_To Madame Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Feb._ 27 [1875].... Do read Pascal's _Provinciales_. There is nothing like it in the world; it is as witty as Moliere; it is as closely reasoned as Aristotle; it has a style transparent like Plato. You said you had not read it. I have a great mind to send it you. I read it every year (as Lord Morpeth said he did Miss Austen's novels) for the pure pleasure it gives my imagination. Voltaire said, did he not? that tho' Pascal was "fou," he fixed the language.

Nothing that she read in these years pleased her more than Mr. John Morley's fine address on "Popular Culture," now included in his _Miscellanies_, which first appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for November 1876. She wrote to him to express her grateful admiration and to ask if she might be allowed to distribute copies of the paper.

Mr. Morley, who had already arranged for a cheap reprint, sent her several copies.

In January 1876 came the death of M. Mohl--to Madame Mohl an irreparable loss; she was never the same woman after it; to Miss Nightingale also a heavy loss. "I am grieved to see," wrote Mr. Jowett to her (Jan. 7), "that you have lost a friend, one of the best and truest you ever had.

His death must bring back many old recollections. Your father told me of his fetching you away from the Convent when you were ill, and, as he thought, saving your life." But it was not only that his death revived affectionate recollections. M. Mohl had a great admiration for Miss Nightingale's intellectual powers. He loved to talk and correspond with her on politics, literature, and philosophy, and she regarded his studies in Eastern religion as a real contribution to "theodike," one of her princ.i.p.al preoccupations.

Miss Nightingale lost another friend a few weeks later, whose death greatly moved her:--

(_Dr. E. A. Parkes to Miss Nightingale._) SOUTHAMPTON, _March 9_ (dictated). Your letter reached me on what must be, I believe, my deathbed. Perhaps before you receive this I shall be summoned to my account. For what you say I thank and bless you. About two months hence the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge will publish a little book on "the personal care of health." A copy will be sent to you. I had small s.p.a.ce, only 26 pages, but I put in as much sanitary information as I could, of a very simple kind. I hope it may be a little useful to you. It is addressed entirely to the poor. And now thank you and bless you for all the support you have always given me. Believe me, very gratefully, (signed) E. A. PARKES.

(_Miss Nightingale to Dr. H. W. Acland._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _March 17 [1876]_. The death of our dear friend, Dr. Parkes, fills me with grief: and also with anxiety for the future of the Army Medical School at Netley. He was a man of most rare modesty: of singular gifts. His influence at the School--there was not a man who did not leave the better for having been under him--is irreplaceable. But the knowledge and instruction he has diffused from the School as a centre has extended and will extend wherever the English language is spoken, and beyond. Dr. Parkes died like a true Christian hero "at his post," and with the simplicity of one. I think I have never known such disinterestedness, such self-abnegation, such forgetfulness of self. His death was like a resurrection. When he was dying, he dictated letters or gave messages to everybody: _all_ about what ought to be done _for the School_, for the spread of hygienic knowledge, for other useful and Army purposes: _none_ about himself.... On March 9, when it was evident he could not last many days, he commended _the School_ to Sir William Jenner and dictated a letter to me about hygienic interests, merely saying of himself that he might be "summoned to his last account" before I received it. On March 13 he rallied. I was allowed to send down a Trained Nurse. On March 15 he died.... Let us, as he went to the sacrifice of himself (he was only 56) with joy and praise--as the heroes of old--so part with him. But let us try to save what he would have saved....

The Professors at the Army Medical School had written to Miss Nightingale in alarm at a report in the newspapers that the inst.i.tution was once more threatened. She begged Dr. Acland, who was a friend of the War Secretary (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), to do what he could; and meanwhile she took direct action herself. She drew up for Mr. Hardy, as she had done years before for Mr. Cardwell, the case for the defence of the School; she added personal entreaties of her own; and she sent Sir Harry Verney to present the doc.u.ments to the minister in person. "Mr. Hardy listened attentively while I read your papers," reported Sir Harry. "I emphasised pa.s.sages underlined by you, indeed showing him your marks and initials. He said that he had not decided the matter, and I replied, 'And Miss Nightingale wants to get hold of you before you do.' I shall congratulate you most earnestly, my dearest Florence, if your representations save the School, for I know that such success cheers you more than anything else." Three weeks later, the minister returned the papers to Sir Harry, announced that the School would not be touched, and said he might tell Miss Nightingale that he would make the appointments she had suggested.

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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d: 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.sacres 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 subst.i.tute itself. Turkey was falling to pieces anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let Russia act alone in the coming freedom. May G.o.d 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 friends.h.i.+p 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.

[193] It is unfortunate that no record of this admirable woman exists except a slight article in one of the Reviews. Her letters were, I am told, destroyed at her death in 1912; those from Miss Nightingale among the rest. A very large number of letters from Miss Irby is preserved among Miss Nightingale's papers.

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 d.u.c.h.ess if you had played your cards better!). And now you work on in silence, and n.o.body 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 a.s.sociation 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 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 friends.h.i.+p 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!"

CHAPTER VI

LORD RIPON AND GENERAL GORDON

(1880-1885)

I thank G.o.d for all He is doing in India through Lord Ripon.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1884).

General Gordon was the bravest of men where G.o.d's cause and that of others was concerned, and his courage rose with loneliness. He was the meekest of men where himself only was concerned. You could not say he was the most unselfish of men: he had no self.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1886).

"SOUTH STREET, _Feb._ 2 [1880]. DEAREST--My dear mother fell asleep just after midnight, after much weariness and painfulness. The last three hours were in beautiful peace and all through she had been able to listen to and to repeat her favourite hymns and prayers, and to smile a smile as if she said, 'I'm dying: it's all right.' Then she composed her own self to death at 9 last night: folded her hands: closed her own eyes: laid herself down, and in three hours she was gone to a Greater Love than ours.... Do you remember what Ezekiel says: 'And at eve my wife died: and I did in the morning as I was commanded.'"[194] Miss Nightingale's mother had almost completed her 93rd year. Queen Victoria sent a message of sympathy to which Miss Nightingale replied with particulars of the last hours such as Her Majesty was known to like, and she asked leave to address a letter to the Empress of India on the condition of that country. Permission was granted, and "doing in the morning as she was commanded" Miss Nightingale turned from thoughts of her mother's death to the grievances of the Indian peoples and composed in general terms a plea for their redress. The Queen made no response, but presently she sent a copy of the _Life of the Prince Consort_. The _Life_ contains much information about the famous Proclamation to the People of India, in which the Queen and the Prince Consort had been personally concerned, and Miss Nightingale made use of the fact when she next had an opportunity of addressing her Sovereign on Indian subjects.

[194] Letter to Miss Pringle.

Meanwhile, Miss Nightingale was suffering from nervous collapse, and the doctors ordered sea air. She went for three weeks to the Granville Hotel, Ramsgate, but the change did her little good. "The doctors tell me," she wrote to Miss Pringle (March 28), "I must be 'free' for at least a year 'from the responsibilities which have been forced upon me'

(and which, they might say, I have so ill fulfilled) and from 'letters.'

But when is that year to come? I believe, however, I must go away again for a time, if only to work up the arrears of my Indian work, which weigh heavily on my mind." She went in April for a few weeks to Seaton, where Lady Ashburton had placed Seaforth Lodge at her disposal. She was not to be disturbed, but her hostess came from Melchet for a few days, and had, as she wrote, "the deep joy of communion with my beloved." In the following month Miss Nightingale spent some days at Claydon, where in subsequent years she often stayed for a longer time, taking much interest in local affairs there. Her sister was now and henceforth an invalid, suffering sadly from rheumatic arthritis. Nothing cheered her so much, said Sir Harry Verney, as her sister's society, and now that Mrs. Nightingale's death made visits to Lea Hurst less imperative they hoped that Florence "would treat Claydon more as a home" than heretofore. She did as she was bidden, and for several years paid an annual visit to Claydon, where "Florence Nightingale's room" is still shown. For the rest, Miss Nightingale's life continued on the old lines,[195] and whether at Claydon or in South Street the Sabbatical year of freedom from responsibilities, letters, interviews, and Blue-books did not come.

[195] Except that in March 1881 she spent ten days at the Seaford Bay Hotel.

II

In the spring of 1880, Miss Nightingale was intensely interested in the elections. Her dislike of Lord Beaconsfield's policy, her recent intercourse with Mr. Gladstone, her hopes for India, her interest in the Verneys, as well as her own sympathy with liberal ideas and the Liberalism traditional in her family, made her a stout partisan. "I hope, dearest," she wrote to a nursing friend (March 28), "you care about the elections. You are in the thick of them. Sir Harry with patriotic pluck is in his 79th year fighting a losing battle at Buckingham.[196] But what delights me is that the Liberal side find that the labourers and the working man have waked up during the last 6 years to interests entirely new to them. Then, 6 years ago, we could hardly get a hearing: now men jam themselves into small hot rooms, struggling for standing-room while for 3 hours they listen to political talk.

Whether we win or not, such interest will never die." When the Liberal victory was complete, she was eager, like the rest of the political world, to know who would be Prime Minister, and more anxious than other people (except the few personally concerned) to know who would succeed Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India. Sir Harry Verney sent her the latest rumours from the Row in the morning and from the Clubs in the afternoon.

She must have been greatly pleased when Lord Ripon's appointment to India was announced; but curiously there is no note about it, nor any record of a visit from him, nor at this stage any correspondence. They were, however, old friends; and as soon as Lord Ripon set to work in India, correspondence, at once cordial and confidential, began. Advocacy of Lord Ripon's Indian policy was indeed one of the absorbing interests which occupied Miss Nightingale during the years covered in the present chapter. Her other main preoccupation was the state of the Army Medical and Hospital service--a matter which became urgent in connection with the campaigns in South Africa, Egypt, and the Soudan.

[196] Sir Harry, however, won the battle.

These two branches of work now occupied the front; but they did not cause Miss Nightingale to abandon other responsibilities, and the reader must supply a background of the various kinds of work described in earlier chapters. She was still busy with details of Indian sanitation, for the _Sanitary Annual_ was still submitted to her revision. She was still consulted on questions of nursing administration and hospital construction. "They are in difficulties," wrote Sir Harry Verney (Jan. 30, 1881), in forwarding an application of this kind; "so they appeal to you--the Family Solicitor to whom we all turn when we get into a sc.r.a.pe, but your Family is a large one--the whole human race."

She still filled the part of Lady Bountiful, with more than that lady's usual care for detail, to her poorer neighbours in the country. The Working-Men's Inst.i.tute at Holloway (near Lea Hurst) referred to her the question whether playing-cards should be admitted. She was in favour of the cards, but a majority of the Committee were against them, and, before giving her opinion, she conducted an inquiry as elaborate and far-searching as if it were a case of cholera. And more a.s.siduously, rather than less, did she devote herself to the affairs of the Nightingale School and its old pupils. There are years at this period during which as many as 400 letters from nurses were preserved in this sort, and there are Sisters to each of whom more than fifty letters were written. She introduced the innovation of sending her probationers to the National Training School of Cookery, and she looked over their notes on the lessons, founding thereon hints to the teachers. The extension of trained nursing in workhouse infirmaries called for more Nightingale nurses. "Yesterday," she wrote to Madame Mohl (June 30, 1881), "we opened the new Marylebone Infirmary (760 beds). We nurse it with our trained nurses, thank G.o.d! I have each of these women to see for three or four hours alone before she begins work." It was during this period that Miss Nightingale paid her first visit to the new St. Thomas's Hospital. She drove there on January 27, 1882, and inspected the quarters of her Training School and one of the Hospital wards. "Just one week has elapsed," wrote the Matron (Feb. 4), "since you honoured us with your more than welcome presence, and I cannot go to bed to-night until I have thanked you for all the admiration in which you speak of _your Home_ and the pretty Alexandra Ward. No words of mine can ever express the delight it gave us to welcome you, our dearly loved Chief, to the Home and School which has for more than 20 years borne 'her honoured name.'" The time was drawing near when pupils of the School were to follow in the footsteps of their Chief and do nursing service in the East.

III

In April 1880 a notable addition was made to Miss Nightingale's hero friends. General Gordon introduced himself to her in order to introduce his cousin, Mrs. Hawthorn. She was the wife of a Colonel in the Engineers, and devoted herself to good work in military hospitals. She had been painfully impressed by the inefficiency of the orderlies, and had begged General Gordon to "go to Miss Nightingale" in the matter. The character of "Chinese Gordon" was already most sympathetic to Miss Nightingale, and the personal touch now heightened her admiration. She gained at the same time in his cousin a friend to whom she became warmly attached, and who served as eyes and ears for her in a way which enabled her to forward useful reforms. General Gordon's letters appealed strongly to Miss Nightingale as those of a kindred soul:--

(_General Gordon to Miss Nightingale._) _April_ 22 [1880]. In these days when so much is talked of the prestige of England, &c., &c. I cannot help feeling a bitter sentiment when one considers how little we care for those near and how we profess to care for those afar off. You wrote some kind words on your card when I called, and I am much obliged for them, but I do not think that I have done 1/20 part or suffered anything like the nurse of a hospital who, forgotten by the world, drudges on in obscurity. (_April_ 29.) I do not know the details myself. I took up the paper on the entreaties of my cousin, feeling sure that the truest way to gain recruits to our army would be by so remedying the defects and alleviating the sufferings of soldiers that universally should it be acknowledged that the soldier is cared for in every way. Decorations may popularise the army to the few, but proper and considerate attention to the many is needed to do so to the public. To my mind it is astonis.h.i.+ng how great people, who have all the power to remedy these little defects, who pride themselves on the prestige of our name, whose time must hang so very heavily on their hands, can remain year after year heedless of the sick and afflicted. I speak from experience when I say that both in China and Soudan, I gained the hearts of my soldiers (who would do anything for me) not by my justice, &c., but by looking after them when sick and wounded, and by continually visiting the Hospitals.... [If you cannot help us] well! I fall back on my verse "If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perversity of judgment marvel not at it, for He that is higher than the Highest regardeth it."

Miss Nightingale took the matter up at once. She put the case into form, and submitted it, through Sir Harry Verney, to the Secretary for War, Mr. Childers, who promised to look into it. Presently he called for a report on hospital nursing by orderlies, and in August the Departmental answer was forwarded to Miss Nightingale. "I have seen such answers,"

she wrote,[197] "at the Crimean war time. 'The patient has died of neglect and want of proper attendance; but by Regulations should not have died; therefore the allegation that he is dead is disposed of.'" In this case the allegations were not disposed of, as we shall hear presently.

[197] To Captain Galton, August 21, 1880.