Chapter X: “Five were wise, and five foolish.”

When the great moment came, there was one wise virgin whose lamp had long been trimmed and daily refilled with ever finer quality of flame. She was not alone. There were others, and she was always among the first to do them honour. But she stood easily first, and first, too, in the modesty of all true greatness. All her life had been a training for the work which was now given to her hand.

Among the many women who longed to nurse and tend our soldiers, many were fast bound by duties to those dependent on them, many were tied hand and foot by the pettifogging prejudices of the school in which they had been brought up. Many, whose ardour would have burned up all prejudice and all secondary claim, were yet ignorant, weak, incapable. Florence Nightingale, on the contrary, was highly trained, not only in intellect, but in the details of what she rightly regarded as an art, “a craft,” the careful art of nursing—highly disciplined in body and in soul, every muscle and nerve obedient to her will, an international linguist, a woman in whom organizing power had been developed to its utmost capacity by a severely masculine education, and whose experience had been deepened by practical service both at home and abroad.

Her decision was a foregone conclusion, and a very striking seal was set upon it. For the letter, in which she offered to go out to the Crimea as the servant of her country, was crossed by a letter from Mr. Sidney Herbert, that country’s representative at the War Office, asking her to go. Promptitude on both sides had its own reward; for each would have missed the honour of spontaneous initiative had there been a day’s delay.

Here is a part of Mr. Herbert’s letter:—

“_October 15, 1854._

“DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE,—You will have seen in the papers
that there is a great deficiency of nurses at the hospital of
Scutari. The other alleged deficiencies, namely, of medical
men, lint, sheets, etc., must, if they ever existed, have
been remedied ere this, as the number of medical officers
with the army amounted to one to every ninety-five men in the
whole force, being nearly double what we have ever had before;
and thirty more surgeons went out there three weeks ago, and
must at this time, therefore, be at Constantinople. A further
supply went on Monday, and a fresh batch sail next week. As to
medical stores, they have been sent out in profusion, by the
ton weight—15,000 pair of sheets, medicine, wine, arrowroot in
the same proportion; and the only way of accounting for the
deficiency at Scutari, if it exists, is that the mass of the
stores went to Varna, and had not been sent back when the army
left for the Crimea, but four days would have remedied that.

“In the meantime, stores are arriving, but the deficiency of
female nurses is undoubted; none but male nurses have ever been
admitted to military hospitals. It would be impossible to
carry about a large staff of female nurses with an army in the
field. But at Scutari, having now a fixed hospital, no military
reason exists against the introduction; and I am confident they
might be introduced with great benefit, for hospital orderlies
must be very rough hands, and most of them, on such an occasion
as this, very inexperienced ones.

“I receive numbers of offers from ladies to go out, but they
are ladies who have no conception of what a hospital is, nor
of the nature of its duties; and they would, when the time
came, either recoil from the work or be entirely useless, and
consequently, what is worse, entirely in the way; nor would
these ladies probably even understand the necessity, especially
in a military hospital, of strict obedience to rule, etc....

“There is but one person in England that I know of who would
be capable of organizing and superintending such a scheme,
and I have been several times on the point of asking you
hypothetically if, supposing the attempt were made, you would
undertake to direct it. The selection of the rank and file
of nurses would be difficult—no one knows that better than
yourself. The difficulty of finding women equal to the task,
after all, full of horror, and requiring, besides knowledge and
goodwill, great knowledge and great courage, will be great; the
task of ruling them and introducing system among them great;
and not the least will be the difficulty of making the whole
work smoothly with the medical and military authorities out
there.

“This is what makes it so important that the experiment
should be carried out by one with administrative capacity and
experience. A number of sentimental, enthusiastic ladies turned
loose in the hospital at Scutari would probably after a few
days be _mises à la porte_ by those whose business they would
interrupt, and whose authority they would dispute.

“My question simply is—would you listen to the request to go
out and supervise the whole thing? You would, of course, have
plenary authority over all the nurses, and I think I could
secure you the fullest assistance and co-operation from the
medical staff, and you would also have an unlimited power of
drawing on the Government for whatever you think requisite
for the success of your mission. On this part of the subject
the details are too many for a letter, and I reserve it for
our meeting; for, whatever decision you take, I know you will
give me every assistance and advice. I do not say one word to
press you. You are the only person who can judge for yourself
which of conflicting or incompatible duties is the first or the
highest; but I think I must not conceal from you that upon your
decision will depend the ultimate success or failure of the
plan.... Will you let me have a line at the War Office, to let
me know?

“There is one point which I have hardly a right to touch
upon, but I trust you will pardon me. If you were inclined
to undertake the great work, would Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale
consent? This work would be so national, and the request made
to you, proceeding from the Government which represents the
nation, comes at such a moment that I do not despair of their
consent.

“Deriving your authority from the Government, your position
would ensure the respect and consideration of every one,
especially in a service where official rank carries so much
respect. This would secure you any attention or comfort on your
way out there, together with a complete submission to your
orders. I know these things are a matter of indifference to
you, except so far as they may further the great object you may
have in view; but they are of importance in themselves, and of
every importance to those who have a right to take an interest
in your personal position and comfort.

“I know you will come to a right and wise decision. God grant
it may be one in accordance with my hopes.—Believe me, dear
Miss Nightingale, ever yours,

“SIDNEY HERBERT.”

Miss Nightingale’s decision was announced in the _Times_, and on October 23 the following paragraph appeared in that paper:—

“It is known that Miss Nightingale has been appointed by
Government to the office of Superintendent of Nurses at
Scutari. She has been pressed to accept of sums of money for
the general objects of the hospitals for the sick and wounded.
Miss Nightingale neither invites nor can refuse these generous
offers. Her bankers’ account is opened at Messrs. Glyn’s, but
it must be understood that any funds forwarded to her can only
be used so as not to interfere with the official duties of the
Superintendent.”

This was written by Miss Nightingale herself, and the response in money was at once very large, but money was by no means the first or most difficult question.

No time must be lost in choosing the nurses who were to accompany the Lady-in-Chief. It was not until later that she became known by that name, but it already well described her office, for every vital arrangement and decision seems to have centred in her. She knew well that her task could be undertaken in no spirit of lightness, and she never wasted power in mere fuss or flurry.

She once wrote to Sir Bartle Frere of “that careless and ignorant person called the Devil,” and she did not want any of his careless and ignorant disciples to go out with her among her chosen band. Nor did she want any incompetent sentimentalists of the kind brought before us in that delightful story of our own South African War, of the soldier who gave thanks for the offer to wash his face, but confessed that fourteen other ladies had already offered the same service. Indeed, the rather garish merriment of that little tale seems almost out of place when we recall the rotting filth and unspeakable stench of blood and misery in which the men wounded in the Crimea were lying wrapped from head to foot. No antiseptic surgery, no decent sanitation, no means of ordinary cleanliness, were as yet found for our poor Tommies, and Kinglake assures us that all the efforts of masculine organization, seeking to serve the crowded hospitals with something called a laundry, had only succeeded in washing _seven_ shirts for the entire army!

Miss Nightingale knew a little of the vastness of her undertaking, but she is described by Lady Canning at this critical time as “gentle and wise and quiet”—“in no bustle or hurry.” Yet within a single week from the date of Mr. Herbert’s letter asking her to go out, all her arrangements were made and her nurses chosen—nay more, the expedition had actually started.

The War Office issued its official intimation that “Miss Nightingale, a lady with greater practical experience of hospital administration and treatment than any other lady in this country,” had undertaken the noble and arduous work of organizing and taking out nurses for the soldiers; and it was also notified that she had been appointed by Government to the office of Superintendent of Nurses at Scutari.

The _Examiner_ published a little biographical sketch in reply to the question which was being asked everywhere. Society, of course, knew Miss Nightingale very well, but Society includes only a small knot of people out of the crowd of London’s millions, to say nothing of the provinces. Many out of those millions were asking, “Who is Miss Nightingale?” and, in looking back, it is amazing to see how many disapproved of the step she was taking.

In those days, as in these, and much more tyrannically than in these, Mrs. Grundy had her silly daughters, ready to talk slander and folly about any good woman who disregarded her. To Miss Nightingale she simply did not exist. Miss Martineau was right when she wrote of her that “to her it was a small thing to be judged by man’s judgment.”

And the spirit in which she chose the women who were to go out under her to the Crimea may be judged by later words of her own, called forth by a discussion of fees for nurses—words in which the italics are mine, though the sentence is quoted here to show the scorn she poured on fashion’s canting view of class distinction.

“I have seen,” she said, “somewhere in print that nursing is a
profession to be followed by the ‘lower middle-class.’ Shall we
say that painting or sculpture is a profession to be followed
by the ‘lower middle-class’? _Why limit the class at all?_ Or
shall we say that God is only to be served in His sick by the
‘lower middle-class’?

“_It appears to be the most futile of all distinctions to
classify as between ‘paid’ and unpaid art, so between ‘paid’
and unpaid nursing, to make into a test a circumstance as
adventitious as whether the hair is black or brown—viz.,
whether people have private means or not, whether they are
obliged or not to work at their art or their nursing for a
livelihood._ Probably no person ever did that well which he did
only for money. Certainly no person ever did that well which
he did not work at as hard as if he did it solely for money.
If by amateur in art or in nursing are meant those who take it
up for play, it is not art at all, it is not nursing at all.
_You never yet made an artist by paying him well; but an artist
ought to be well paid._”

The woman who in later life wrote this, and all her life acted on it, could not only well afford to let _Punch_ have his joke about the nightingales who would shortly turn into ringdoves—although, indeed, _Punch’s_ verses and illustration were delightful in their innocent fun—but could even without flinching let vulgar slander insinuate its usual common-minded nonsense. She herself has written in _Nursing Notes_:—

“The everyday management of a large ward, let alone of a
hospital, the knowing what are the laws of life and death
for men, and what the laws of health for wards (and wards are
healthy or unhealthy mainly according to the knowledge or
ignorance of the nurse)—are not these matters of sufficient
importance and difficulty to require learning by experience
and careful inquiry, just as much as any other art? They do
not come by inspiration to the lady disappointed in love, nor
to the poor workhouse drudge hard up for a livelihood. And
terrible is the injury which has followed to the sick from such
wild notions.”

Happily, too, she was not blinded by the narrow sectarian view of religion which was, in her day and generation, so often a part of the parrot belief of those who learned their English version of the faith by rote, rather than with the soul’s experience, for she goes on to say:—

“In this respect (and why is it so?) in Roman Catholic
countries, both writers and workers are, in theory at least,
far before ours. They would never think of such a beginning
for a good-working Superior or Sister of Charity. And many a
Superior has refused to admit a postulant who appeared to have
no better ‘vocation’ or reasons for offering herself than these.

“It is true we make no ‘vows.’ But is a ‘vow’ necessary to
convince us that the true spirit for learning any art, most
especially an art of charity, aright, is not a disgust to
everything or something else? Do we really place the love of
our kind (and of nursing as one branch of it) so low as this?
What would the Mère Angélique of Port Royal, what would our own
Mrs. Fry, have said to this?”

How silly, in the light of these words, was the gossip of the idle person, proud of her shopping and her visiting list and her elaborate choice of dinner, who greeted the news of this nursing embassy to the Crimea with such cheap remarks as that the women would be all invalided home in a month; that it was most improper for “young ladies”—for it was not only shop assistants who were called “young ladies” in early Victorian days—to nurse in a military hospital; it was only nonsense to try and “nurse soldiers when they did not even yet know what it was to nurse a baby!”

Such folly would only shake its hardened old noddle on reading, in the _Times_ reprint of the article in the _Examiner_, that Miss Nightingale was “a young lady of singular endowments both natural and acquired. In a knowledge of the ancient languages and of the higher branches of mathematics, in general art, science, and literature, her attainments are extraordinary. There is scarcely a modern language which she does not understand, and she speaks French, German, and Italian as fluently as her native English. She has visited and studied all the various nations of Europe, and has ascended the Nile to its remotest cataract. Young (about the age of our Queen), graceful, feminine, rich, popular, she holds a singularly gentle and persuasive influence over all with whom she comes in contact. Her friends and acquaintances are of all classes and persuasions, but her happiest place is at home, in the centre of a very large band of accomplished relatives.”

Girton and Newnham, Somerville and Lady Margaret did not then exist. If any one had dreamed of them, the dream had not yet been recorded. Perhaps its first recognized expression, in Tennyson’s “Princess” in 1847, mingling as it does with the story of a war and of the nursing of wounded men, may have imperceptibly smoothed away a few coarse prejudices from the path Florence Nightingale was to tread, but far more effectually was the way cleared by her own inspiring personality. Mrs. Tooley quotes from an intimate letter the following words: “Miss Nightingale is one of those whom God forms for great ends. You cannot hear her say a few sentences—no, not even look at her—without feeling that she is an extraordinary being. Simple, intellectual, sweet, full of love and benevolence, she is a fascinating and perfect woman. She is tall and pale. Her face is exceedingly lovely, but better than all is the soul’s glory that shines through every feature so exultingly. Nothing can be sweeter than her smile. It is like a sunny day in summer.”

She who advised other women to make ready for the business of their lives as men make ready had been for long years preparing herself, and there was therefore none of the nervous waste and excitement of those who in a moment of impulse take a path which to their ignorance is like leaping in the dark.

But she knew well how much must depend on those she took with her, and it was clear that many who desired to go were quite unfitted for the work.

With her usual clearsightedness she knew where to turn for help. Felicia Skene was among those whom she consulted and whose advice she found of good service. It has already been noted in these pages that Miss Skene had, without knowing it, been preparing one of the threads to be interwoven in that living tapestry in which Miss Nightingale’s labours were to endure in such glowing colours. Like Miss Nightingale she had real intimacy with those outside her own order, and by her practical human sympathy understood life, not only in one rank, but in all ranks. By night as well as by day her door was open to the outcast, and in several life-stories she had played a part which saved some poor girl from suicide. Full of humour and romance, and a welcome guest in every society, she will be remembered longest for her work in rescuing others both in body and in soul, and you will remember that, on the two occasions when the cholera visited Oxford, she nursed the sick and the dying by day and by night, and did much to direct and organize the helpful work of others. Miss Wordsworth speaks of her “innate purity of heart and mind,” and says of her, “one always felt of her that she had been brought up in the best of company, as indeed she had.” It was just such women that Miss Nightingale needed—women who, in constant touch with what was coarse and hard, could never become coarse or hard themselves; women versed in practical service and trained by actual experience as well as by hard-won knowledge.

Moreover, it chanced that after Miss Skene’s labour of love in the cholera visitation, her niece, “Miss Janie Skene, then a girl of fifteen, who was staying in Constantinople with her parents, had gone with her mother to visit the wounded soldiers at Scutari. Shocked by their terrible sufferings and the lack of all that might have eased their pain, she wrote strongly to her grandfather, who sent her letter to the _Times_, where it did much to stir up public opinion.”

“It struck Felicia,” says Miss Rickards, “that having with
great pains trained her corps of nurses for the cholera, they
might now be utilized at Scutari, her great desire being to go
out herself at the head of them. Had these events occurred at
the present day, when ideas have changed as to what ladies,
still young, may and may not do in the way of bold enterprise,
perhaps she might have obtained her parents’ permission to go.
As it was the notion was too new and startling to be taken into
consideration; and she had to content herself with doing all
she could at home to send out others.

“Her zeal was quickened by a letter she received from Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, who had been much struck by her energy
and ability, urging her to do all she could in England to send
to the rescue.

“At once she set out as a pioneer in the undertaking,
delighted to encourage her nurses to take their part in the
heroic task.

“Meantime Miss Nightingale was hard at work enlisting recruits,
thankful to secure Felicia’s services as agent at Oxford. She
sent her friends Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge down there, that they
might inspect the volunteers and select the women they thought
would be suitable.

“The interviews took place in Mr. Skene’s dining-room, along
the walls of which the candidates were ranged.

“Kind-hearted as Mrs. Bracebridge was, her proceedings were
somewhat in the ‘Off with their heads!’ style of the famous
duchess in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ If the sudden questions fired
at each in succession were not answered in a way that she
thought quite satisfactory, ‘She won’t do; send her out,’ was
the decided command.

“And Felicia had to administer balm to the wounded feelings of
the rejected.”[7]