Chapter X: Part 10

When his years were numbered in the thirties, he was meditating retirement from business; and when he was in the sixties, his irrepressible activities carried him into the development of the elevated railway system on Manhattan Island, with the same ardor and fixed purpose with which, thirty years before, he had invaded the wilderness of Newfoundland to find a basis of operations for the conquest of the Atlantic. His faith was undaunted and without limit. His touch revealed new fortunes. He saw that the elevated lines that developed Harlem, would also improve lower New York; and the Washington Building, No. 1 Broadway, was the materialization of the thought. The intensity that was remarked in his childhood, and that commanded the confidence of the capitalists of England, knew no abatement. He had been very cautious in advising Englishmen about investments, but had imparted to some of them the assurance that United States Bonds were as sound as the English investment of national debt, and they profited by accepting his judgment. He insisted upon popularizing the elevated roads by a uniform fare of five cents, and had it done against strong opposition, and was more confident than ever in the stock, of which he had an enormous holding. But it took years longer than he had calculated to make good his plans, and in the interval came a financial storm that compelled him to submit to a heavy loss. He bore his misfortune with fortitude, and still had a competency ample for him, when there came a torrent of ill-fortune--the loss of his beloved wife, and the failure of his sons, under circumstances that bore the distressing stamp of insanity in one of them, a taint of madness that was in the blood which had been so prolific of genius. He suffered where he was strongest and weakest--in his love and his pride.

His spirit would have been invincible if his heart had not been broken. No husband and father was ever more solicitous for the welfare of wife and children. The death of his wife, followed by the disasters that overtook his sons, wounded him as mortally as if a flight of arrows had pierced him. The very contingencies of fortune against which he thought he had provided with infinite painstaking, fell upon him as if from clouds in a sky he thought clear. His deepest resolution was that, after the long strain of facing the total loss of fortune during the dark years of the cable enterprise, he never again would consent to take the chances of the catastrophe that had haunted him, and from which he had escaped at such hazard that the fortunate interposition seemed miraculous; and he did not consciously do the wrong to himself and dear ones he had with such anxiety sought to avoid. His misfortunes were as incalculable as incurable.

The family affection of the Fields is one of their distinctions, and the love the four brothers, known to all the world, bore each other, was as gentle and full of all happiness as that of children. The "little acts of kindness, little deeds of love," that, as the old hymn says, would make the world an Eden, were never wanting. The festivals in which they delighted were those of the family--the eightieth birthday of the oldest brother--the golden wedding. In his long travels, Mr. Field was ever thoughtful of home, and it was like him, giving a dinner to a company of Americans in Edinburgh, to telegraph to their families so that each guest found the news of that day, from his own fireside, in a cablegram on his plate.

Mr. Field was no doubt attracted to Iceland, in 1874, by his studies of the northern waters; the way the world tapers off in the high latitudes, and the fact that Iceland must have been often in his mind as he studied Newfoundland and Ireland, and knew that Iceland was so near Greenland as to belong to the American continent, and to have been a stepping-stone from Norway to Labrador. He was regarded by the Icelanders as almost as great a man as the King of Denmark, who visited his remote possession at the same time; and they thought Field even a greater discoverer than Columbus, for they said the Genoese navigator got his knowledge of the land in the west from their ancestors, and sailed on a certainty.

On the day President Garfield was shot down, he was on his way to Williams College, and was to dine that night with Mr. Cyrus Field at Ardsley, and go to the old place he called "the sweetest in the world" next day. A yacht was waiting to convey the President from Jersey City, when the news of the assassination became known. The President suffered mentally because he had not made adequate provision for his family, and Mr. Field headed a subscription list with a liberal sum, and in a few days had a quarter of a million dollars safely invested for Mrs. Garfield and her children. The motive of this timely and apt generosity was, first, to afford consolation to the dying chief magistrate.

It was within the scope of the ambition of Mr. Field to span the Pacific as well as the Atlantic Ocean with a cable; but having triumphantly overcome one ocean, he failed to put a girdle round the earth, as De Lesseps, having succeeded with the Suez Canal--the only work of the age to be named with the Atlantic telegraph--failed at Darien.

If the prosperity of Mr. Field had continued, and the light had not gone out in his home, he would not have been content until he had ransacked the globe for ways and means to have followed the sun to Asia with the telegraph. His footsteps point the way, and the road to India is westward.

The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus W. Field was attended by hundreds of those who knew and loved them, and the great double house of the Fields, fronting on Gramercy Park, was full of bright faces and glittering with lights. The historic home was soon darkened and made desolate. The master, the renowned victor--no name more certain of an honorable immortality than his--was one whom "unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster." His wife passed away at Ardsley before the deeper gloom of the storm, and he died there July 12, 1892. In his delirium on the morning of his death, he was again on the stormy coast with the cable fleet; and he said: "Hold those ships--do not let them sail yet." Through the centuries there had descended to him from the old astronomer, his ancestor, the far-flashing conception of enterprise and understanding of the splendor of destiny that was his star, and mingled with its light were the gentle influences of the religion of his fathers, always to him real and radiant. He sleeps well, amid the scenes where he passed his boyhood, and for which his heart yearned always--beside his beloved wife; and carved in the marble of their tomb as the last testimony to the loving heart of his companion, are the words: "Love is eternal." The recollection of his sorrows will not, as the centuries come and go, dim the beautiful light of his illustrious name.

[Signature: Murat Halstead.]

QUEEN VICTORIA

By DONALD MACLEOD, D.D.

(Born 1819-1901)

Well do I remember the effect produced on the audience of students, of which I was then one, when Lord Macaulay delivered his Rectorial address in the University of Glasgow, and when, after giving such pictures as he alone could paint, of the character of the four centuries that had closed since the university had been founded--each epoch presenting a scene of bloodshed and misgovernment--he sketched the possible future of the college, and anticipated the time when coming generations would tell how certain contemplated changes had been accomplished during the reign of "the Good Queen Victoria." The phrase was accentuated by an oratorical swing; and when it was given, the tremendous burst of enthusiasm showed that they who listened felt the great historian had chosen the right epithet, and that he intended it in the sense that, as some monarchs are called "Great" and some "Little," so for all time Victoria would be named "the Good Queen." This was said more than forty years ago, before Tennyson had fixed the "Household name," "Albert the Good," for

"That star
Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made
One light together."

The epoch in our history which is embraced between the years 1837 and 1887, is unparalleled. At no time in the history of the nation, or of the world, has there been such rapid and beneficent progress. We, who are citizens of "the old country," scarcely realize the extent of our dominion. The Roman Empire was one-fourth its size; all the Russias contain an eighth less; it is sixteen times as large as France, and three times as large as the United States. The United Kingdom, with its colonies and dependencies, includes about one-fifth of the entire globe. The rapidity with which population has grown in some parts of our dominion may be measured by Australasia, which in 1837 had 134,059, and in 1885, 3,278,934, or twenty-three times as many more. When we turn from these figures to consider other fields of progress, we are still more amazed. It goes without saying that these last fifty years have seen the growth of railways and steamships from their infancy to their present world-embracing influence. The mileage of railways open in the United Kingdom in 1837 was about 294 miles, but a great proportion was worked by horses. In 1885 the mileage was 19,169, the gross receipts, £69,555,774; they carried about 1,275,000,000 passengers, and employed 367,793 men. Not a steamer had crossed the Atlantic by steam alone when the queen came to the throne, and her accession was in the year previous to that during which Wheatstone in this country, and Morse in America, introduced electric telegraphy. We, who enjoy express trains, six-penny telegrams, half-penny post-cards, and the parcel post, can scarcely realize that we are so near the time when mail-coaches and sailing-packets were almost the only means of conveyance, and when postage was a serious burden. The greatness of the changes in social life may be realized when we remember that, so recently as 1844, duelling was banished from the code of honor; that crime has diminished seventy-one per cent. since 1837; and that while fifty years ago Government did nothing for education, there are now 30,000 public schools under the Privy Council. These facts are suggestive of the extent of the advance. Or if, without touching on the marvellous victories of science, we try to form an estimate of religious progress, and take the tables for Protestant missions as giving a fair indication of the zeal and self-sacrifice of the churches, we find that while British contributions in 1837 amounted to £316,610, in 1885 they reached £1,222,261.

It may be said with truth that the progress thus indicated must have gone on, no matter who sat on the throne; but it would be unjust not to recognize the close influence which the Crown has directly and indirectly exercised on its advance. There has been no movement tending to the development of the arts and the industries of the country which has not enlisted the active sympathy of the royal family. From the first the Prince Consort recognized the important part which the sovereign could fulfil in reference to the peaceful victories of science and art. Beginning with agriculture--the improvement of stock and the better housing of agricultural laborers, we trace the effect of his constant toil in the series of industrial triumphs, of which the great exhibition of 1851 was the magnificent precursor; and, in recent years, the same kind of objects have always enlisted the best energies of the queen and her children.

The contrast is great and touching between the scene in Westminster Abbey, when, amid the pomp of a gorgeous ceremonial and the acclamation of her subjects, the fair girl-queen received the crown of Britain, and that other scene, when, after fifty years of a government that has been unblemished, she once more kneels in the same spot--a widow surrounded by her children and her children's children, bearing the burden of many sad as well as blessed memories, and encompassed with the thanksgivings of the three hundred millions of her subjects. We can imagine how oppressive, for one so loving, must then be the vision of the past, as she recalls, one after another, the once familiar and dear faces which greeted her coronation, those relatives, great ministers of state, and warriors of whom so few survive; and when all her happy married years and the years of parting and desolation appear in vivid retrospect. But if ever monarch had cause to bless God for His tender mercies, it must be she who can combine with the memory of her own life's hopes and trials the consciousness that, in the great work given her as a sovereign, she has been enabled to fulfil the beautiful desire of her innocent childhood, when, on her first being informed of her royal destiny, she indulged in no vain dream of power, but uttered the simple longing "to be good." That goodness has been her real greatness.

The life of her majesty is marked by three great stages--her youth, her married life, and her widowhood. Each is bound to each by the tie of a consistent growth, passing through those experiences which are typical of God's education of His children, whether high or low, rich or poor.

Her childhood, with its wise education, is very much the key to her after-life. Possessed naturally of a quick intellectual capacity, and an unusually accurate memory, a taste for music and the arts, and a deeply affectionate heart, she was admirably brought up by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, on whom the training of the future queen devolved from her infancy. If the education was as high as it was possible to afford a young and intelligent spirit, the moral influences were equally beneficial. The young princess, instead of being isolated within the formalities of a court, was allowed to become acquainted with the wants and sufferings of the poor, and to indulge her sympathies by giving them personal help. The contrast was a great one between the court of George IV., or even that of William, and the truly English home where the Duchess of Kent nurtured this sweet life in all that was simple, loving, and pure. There could scarcely have been a better school for an affectionate nature. All that we learn of her majesty at that time gives a consistent picture of great vivacity, thorough directness in her search after truth, warmth of heart, and considerateness for others, with a genuine love for all that is morally good. These were the characteristics which impressed those who saw her on the trying occasion when she was suddenly ushered into the foremost place in the greatest empire in the world. It was these characteristics which touched the hearts of the good archbishop and of the Chancellor of England when they announced her great destiny to the girl suddenly summoned from slumber. That first request, "My Lord Archbishop, pray for me!" revealed the depth of her character. It was the same when she had next day to pass through the ordeal of meeting the great councillors of state for the first time. Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington, Peel, and the keen-eyed Secretary Greville, all felt the beautiful combination of dignity with unaffected simplicity, and of quick intelligence with royal courtesy. But they did not see the episode which followed the fatigue and excitement of the long formalities of the council, when the young queen rushed first of all to her mother's arms, there to indulge her feelings in a burst of tears, and then, with girlish naïveté, claiming the exercise of her royal prerogative to procure for herself two hours of absolute solitude.

The earlier years of her reign were happily blessed with the wise and beneficent influence of Lord Melbourne. His relationship to the youthful sovereign was more that of a father and able political instructor than of a formal first minister of the crown. He was too experienced not heartily to appreciate the beautiful character of his young mistress, and the interest he took in her political education, and in everything likely to further her prosperity and happiness, was evidently kindled by warm affection. She was equally favored in having as adviser so sagacious a relative as her uncle Leopold, the late King of the Belgians. The Duke of Wellington regarded her almost as a daughter; and there was also, ever at hand, another, whose trained intellect and loyal heart exercised no little influence on her career--Baron Stockmar--to whose lofty ideal of the functions of royalty, calmly balanced treatment of all questions of state policy, and high-toned moral sympathies, both the queen and the prince consort have amply expressed their indebtedness.

Without touching further on the earlier period of her reign, which was not without many incidents of interest, we turn to the married years of the queen as to a bright and sunny memory.

The position of an unmarried or widowed queen necessarily entails a peculiar loneliness. She is surrounded by the rigorous demands of state necessity. If she has to form a judgment upon documents submitted to her, there is no one so close to her and so independent of all other influences as to be truly an _alter ego_. Faithful servants of the crown may do their best to be of use, but no one of them can be so near as to receive such unguarded confidences as can be given to the husband who shares every joy and sorrow. The queen's married life was ideally perfect. She married the man she loved, and each year deepened her early affection into an admiration, a reverence, and a pride which elevated her love into consecration.

There was no home in England made more beautiful by all that was tender, cultured, and noble than that in which "the blameless prince" fulfilled his heroic career of duty, and shed the bright light of his joyous, affectionate, and keenly intellectual life. There were few homes in which a greater amount of trying and anxious work was more systematically accomplished, or in which there was a more exquisite blending of hard thinking with the enjoyment of the fine arts and the fulness of loving family happiness. We have picture after picture given us in the life of the Prince Consort which puts us in touch with these brilliant years, when the queen and he were never parted but for one or two brief intervals. Early hours of close labor were followed by a genial and hearty relaxation, and at every turn the wife and sovereign felt the blessedness of that presence which ministered to her in sickness with the gentleness of a woman, and which she leaned upon in hours of difficulty with complete trust in the strength and trueness of his wise intellect. There was no decrease on either side in those feelings and utterances of feeling which are so beautiful when they carry into after years the warmth of the first attachment, only hallowed and deepened by experience.

There were many fresh features in the kind of life which was introduced by the queen and the consort into the habits of the court. Among these none were more marked than the breaking up of that monotony which the restrictions that hitherto prevailed as to the residence of the royal family in one or two state palaces entailed. We can well understand how the Empress Eugénie should have found the Tuileries, in spite of its grandeur, no better than "_une belle prison_," and her delight at the comparative freedom she enjoyed at Windsor. The queen and Prince Consort inaugurated a new era in the customs of the court by taking advantage of the facilities afforded by modern methods of conveyance. Scarcely any part of the country celebrated for scenery, or any town famous for its industries, remained unvisited by them.

The beneficial effects of these journeys were great. Loyalty is to a large extent a personal matter, and is necessarily deepened when the representative of the state not only possesses moral dignity of character but comes frequently into contact with the people. It is also of use to the crown that its wearer should know, from actual observation, the conditions of life in the country. It is in the light of this mutual action of acquaintance between prince and people that we estimate the value of that knowledge which the Prince of Wales, his brothers, and his sons have gained of so many parts of the empire. The Prince Consort felt keenly the use of these influences. "How important and beneficent," he once said, "is the part given to the royal family of England to act in the development of those distant and rising countries, who recognize in the British crown and their allegiance to it, their supreme bond of union with the mother country and to each other!"

During each year of their married life the queen and Prince Consort went on some interesting tour. In England, Oxford and Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, received royal visits, while such historical houses as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Stowe, and Strathfieldsay were honored by their presence. Ireland was thrice visited. Wales more than once. The first visit to Scotland was made in 1842, another in 1844, and from 1847 only one year passed without a long residence in the north--first at Ardverachie, on Loch Laggan, and then at what was to be their Highland home on Deeside. Repeated visits were also made to the Continent, sometimes in state and sometimes in as much privacy as could be commanded.

It is when we come to this bright time, so full of fresh interest and of a delightful freedom, that we have the advantage of the queen's own "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands." Her visit to Edinburgh in 1842, and the drive by Birnam and Aberfeldy to Taymouth, and the splendor of the reception, when, amid the cheers of a thousand Highlanders and the wild notes of the bagpipes, she was welcomed by Lord Breadalbane, evidently stirred every feeling of romance. "It seemed," she wrote, "as if a great chieftain of olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign." It appeared like a new world, when, throwing off for a time the restrictions of state, she found herself at Blair two years afterward, climbing the great hills of Atholl, and from the top of Tulloch looking forth on the panorama of mountain and glen. "It was quite romantic; here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies, not a house, not a creature near us but the pretty Highland sheep, with their horns and black faces. It was the most delightful, most romantic, ride and walk I ever had." These early visits to Scotland inspired her with her love for the Highlands and the Highlanders. She found there quite a world of poetry. The majestic scenery, the fresh, bracing air, the picturesqueness of the kilted gillies, the piping and the dancing, and the long days among the heather, recalled scenes which Sir Walter Scott has glorified for all time, and which are especially identified with the fortunes of the unhappy Stuarts, of whom she is now the nearest representative.

It was in 1848 that the court proceeded for the first time to Balmoral, then a picturesque but small castle. The air of Deeside had been recommended by Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and his anticipation of the benefits to be derived from residence there was so completely realized that although four years passed before the property was actually purchased, yet preparations were made for establishing there a royal home. Plans for the future castle and for laying out the grounds were gone into by the prince with keen delight. "All has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own laying out, as at Osborne; and his great taste and the impress of his dear hand have been stamped everywhere."

It was here that the queen and the Prince Consort enjoyed for more than twelve years a delightful freedom, mingling with their people, devising the wisest methods for insuring their well-being, going with them to worship in their plain (very plain!) parish church, and being to each and all unaffectedly sincere friends. Every spot around soon became consecrated by some sweet association. Every great family event had its commemoration amid the scenery around the castle; though many a cairn, once raised in joy, is now, alas! a monument of sorrow. The life at Balmoral was in every sense beneficial. There never has been there the kind of relaxation that comes from idleness. Systematic work has been always maintained at Balmoral as at Windsor. Early hours in the fresh morning and a regular arrangement of time during the day have given room for the constant business of the crown; but every now and then there were glorious "outings," whether for sport or for some far-reaching expedition, which gave fresh zest to happy and united toil.

There is more than one characteristic of the queen which may recall to Scotchmen the history of their own Stuarts, and among these is her enjoyment of expeditions _incognita_. The Prince Consort, with his simple German heart, entered fully into the "fun" of such journeys, as, starting off on long rides across mountain-passes and through swollen burns and streams, lunching on heights from which they could gaze far and wide over mountain and strath, they would reach some little roadside inn, and there, assuming a feigned name, had the delight of feeling themselves "private people," while the simple fare and the ridiculous _contretemps_ which frequently occurred were enjoyed the more keenly because of their contrast to accustomed state. And during all these years their domestic life was unbroken by any great family sorrow. It was not till a year before her great bereavement that the queen lost her mother, the Duchess of Kent. Few can read the account of that sorrowful parting without being drawn nearer to the sovereign by the tie of a common humanity, so deep and tender is the affection that is revealed.

But till 1861 the queen was surrounded by all those who were dearest to her, and she and the prince shared the sweet task of superintending their children's education. Few parents more anxiously considered the best methods for securing a sound moral and religious training. "The greatest maxim of all," writes the queen, "is that the children shall be brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible, that (without interfering with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." As to religious training, the queen's conviction was that it is best when given to a child "day by day at his mother's knee." It was only the great pressure of public duty which rendered it impossible for her to fulfil her part so completely as she desired. "It is a hard case for me," her majesty writes, in reference to the princess royal, "that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says her prayers."

The religious convictions of the queen and the Prince Consort were deep. They both cared little for those mere accidents and conventionalities of religion which so many magnify into essentials. The prince, eminently devout, insisted on the realities of religion. "We want not what is safe, but true," was his commentary on the exaggerated outcry against "Essays and Reviews." "The Gospel, and the unfettered right to its use," was his claim for Protestantism. For his own spirit, like that of the queen, was truly religious. The quiet evenings spent together before communion, and the directness and reverence with which both served God were combined with an utter abhorrence of all intolerance. Such qualities are generally misunderstood by the narrow-minded, who have only their own "shibboleths" to test all faith, and the one Church--whatever it may be--that they regard as "true." The queen and the prince rose above such distinctions; they shared the Catholicism of St. Paul, "Grace be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."

But these bright and happy years were doomed to a sudden ending. It is only when we have realized all that her husband was to her that we can measure how fearful was the blow to her loving heart when he who was her pride and her constant companion was laid low. We may well feel what a shattering it brought to all that hitherto had enriched her life, and how very desolate her position became when she was left in loneliness on the throne, a widow separated by her queendom from many of those supports which others find near them, but from which she was deprived by her position. "Fourteen happy and blessed years have passed," she wrote, in 1854, "and I confidently trust many more will pass, and find us in old age as we now are, happily and devotedly united. Trials we must have, but what are they if we are together?" In God's wisdom that hope was not to be realized, and in 1861 the stroke fell, and it fell with crushing power.

It is not for us to lift the curtain of sorrow that fell like a funeral pall over the first years of her widowhood. For many a day it seemed as if the grief was more than she could bear, and although she was sustained through it all by God's grace, and supported by the sympathy of the nation, yet it was naturally a long-continued and absorbing sorrow. Other blows have fallen since then. The tender and wise Princess Alice, and the thoughtful and cultured Duke of Albany, have also been gathered to their rest; and the queen has had to mourn over one after another of her most faithful servants taken from her. But the hallowing hand of time, the soothing remembrance of unspeakable mercies, and the call to noble duty, have done much to restore the strength, if not the joy, of former days. Her people rejoice, and the influence of the Crown is enormously strengthened, when in these later years the queen has been able once more to mingle with the nation.

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."

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.

Mr. Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, was a wealthy land-owner. He was of the Shores of Derbyshire, but inherited the fortune with the name of Nightingale through his mother. Lea Hurst, where Miss Nightingale passed the summer months of each year, is situated in the Matlock district, among bold masses of limestone rock, gray walls, full of fossils, covered with moss and lichen, with the changeful river Derwent now dashing over its stony bed, now quietly winding between little dales with clefts and dingles. Those who have travelled by the Derby and Buxton Railway will remember the narrow valleys, the mountain streams, the wide spans of high moorland, the distant ranges of hills beyond the hills of the district. Lea Hurst, a gable-ended house, standing among its own woods and commanding wonderful views of the Peak country, is about two miles from Cromford station.

At Lea Hurst much of Florence Nightingale's childhood was passed. There she early developed that intense love for every living suffering thing, that grew with her growth, until it became the master-passion of her life.

Florence Nightingale always retained her belief in animals. Many years after her name was known all over the world, she wrote: "A small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially." An invalid, in giving an account of his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the dog. "Above all," he said, "it did not talk." Even Florence Nightingale's maimed dolls were tenderly nursed and bandaged.

Mr. Nightingale was a man singularly in advance of his time as regards the training of girls. The "higher education of women" was unknown to the general public in those days, but not to Mr. Nightingale. His daughter was taught mathematics, and studied the classics, history, and modern languages under her father's guidance. These last were afterward of the greatest use to her in the Crimea. But she was no "learned lady;" only a well-educated Englishwoman all round. She was an excellent musician, and skilful in work with the needle; and the delicate trained touch thus acquired stood her in good stead, for the soldiers used to say that a wound which Miss Nightingale dressed "was sure to get well."

She felt a strong craving for work, more even than the schools and cottages, the care of the young, the sick, and the aged (in which she followed her mother's example) could afford her at her father's home. Mrs. Browning tells us to

"Get leave to work
In this world; 'tis the best you get at all."

Florence Nightingale not only got leave to work, but did so, very quietly but very persistently. And so she became a pioneer for less courageous souls, and won for them also "leave to work." Taught by her father, she soon learned to distinguish between what was really good work and which mere make-believe. She had many opportunities, even as a child, of seeing really fine, artistic work both in science and art. She set up a high standard, and was never satisfied with anything short of the best, either in herself or others. It is a grand thing to know good work when you see it.

The love of work, however, with Florence Nightingale, always went hand in hand with that love for every living thing in God's world which was born with her and which was never crowded out by all this education. As she grew up she more and more felt that helpfulness was the first law of her being; but her reason and intellect having been so carefully trained, she was thoroughly persuaded that, in order to help effectually, one must know thoroughly both the cause of suffering and its radical cure.

The study of nursing had an irresistible attraction for her. Few people in England at that time valued nursing. Florence Nightingale was convinced that indifference arose from the all but absolute ignorance of what nursing should be, and she set herself to acquire the necessary knowledge to enable her to carry it out in the very best and most scientific way. She never lost an opportunity of visiting a hospital, either at home or abroad. She gave up the life of so-called "pleasure," which it was then considered a young woman of her position ought to lead, and after having very carefully examined innumerable nursing institutions at home and abroad, at length went to the well-known Pastor Fliedner's Deaconesses, at Kaiserswerth, where she remained for several months.

After leaving Kaiserswerth, Miss Nightingale was for a while with the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris, so anxious was she to see how nursing was carried on under many different systems. It was during 1851, the year of the first Great Exhibition, that she was thus fitting herself practically for the great task that lay before her in the not very distant future.

On her return to England, Miss Nightingale found a patient that required all her time and help of every kind. This patient was none other than the Sanatorium in Harley Street for gentlewomen of limited means. Into the saving of this valuable institution Miss Nightingale threw all her energy, and for two or three years, hidden away from the outside world, she was working day and night for her poor suffering ladies, until at length she was able to feel that the Sanatorium was not only in good health, but on the high road to permanent success.

Florence Nightingale's own health, however, gave way under the long-continued strain of anxiety and fatigue; she was obliged to leave the invalids for whom she had done so much, and go home for the rest and change she so sorely needed.

Now, while Miss Nightingale had been quietly getting "Harley Street" into working order, the gravest and most terrible changes had taken place in the affairs of the nation, and not only in those of England, but in those of the whole of Europe. In 1851, when the first Great Exhibition was opened, all was peace--the long peace of forty years was still unbroken--people said it never was to be broken again, and that wars and rumors of wars had come to an end. So much for human foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors of the Crimean war had reached their climax. The _Times_ was full, day by day, of the most thrilling and appalling descriptions of the hideous sufferings of our brave men--sufferings caused quite as much by the utter breakdown of the sanitary administration as by even the deadly battles and trenchwork; while every post was bringing agonizing private letters appealing for help.

Men were wounded in the Crimea, the hospitals were far off at Scutari, the wide and stormy Black Sea had to be crossed to reach them; the stores of food, clothing, and medicine that might have saved many a life were at Varna, or lost in the Black Prince; the state of the great Barrack Hospital at Scutari was indescribably horrible; everybody was frantic to rush to the relief; no one knew what best to do; public feeling was at fever-heat. How could it be otherwise when William Howard Russell, the _Times_ correspondent, was constantly writing such true but heartrending letters as this:

"The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness; the stench is appalling; the fetid air can barely struggle out to taint the atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs; and for all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being made to save them. Here they lie, just as they were let gently down on the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with them. The sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the dying."

Miss Nightingale, who was then recovering from her Harley Street nursing, deeply felt the intensity of the crisis that was moving the whole nation; but, whereas the panic had driven most of the kind people who were so eager to help the army, nearly "off their heads," it only made hers the cooler and clearer. She wrote, offering her services to Mr. Sidney Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert, the minister for war, who, together with his wife, had long known her, and had recognized her wonderful organizing faculties, and her great practical experience.

It was on October 15th that she wrote to Mr. Herbert. On the very same day the minister had written to her. Their letters crossed. Mr. Herbert, who had himself given much attention to military hospitals, laid before Miss Nightingale, in his now historical letter, a plan for nursing the sick and wounded at Scutari.

"There is, as far as I know," he wrote, "only one person in England capable of organizing and directing such a plan, and I have been several times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed to make the attempt. That it will be difficult to form a corps of nurses, no one knows better than yourself."

After specifying the difficulty in finding not only good nurses, but good nurses who would be willing to submit to authority, he goes on: "I have this simple question to put to you. Could you go out yourself and take charge of everything? It is, of course, understood that you will have absolute authority over all the nurses, unlimited power to draw on the Government for all you judge necessary to the success of your mission; and I think I may assure you of the co-operation of the medical staff. Your personal qualities, your knowledge, and your authority in administrative affairs, all fit you for this position."

Miss Nightingale at once concurred in Mr. Herbert's proposal. The materials for a staff of good nurses did not exist, and she had to put up with the best that could be gathered on such short notice.

On the 21st, a letter by Mr. Herbert, from the War Office, told the world that "Miss Nightingale, accompanied by thirty-four nurses, will leave this evening. Miss Nightingale, who has, I believe, greater practical experience of hospital administration and treatment than any other lady in this country, has, with a self-devotion for which I have no words to express my gratitude, undertaken this noble but arduous work."

A couple of days later there was a paragraph in the _Times_ from Miss Nightingale herself, referring to the gifts for the soldiers that had been offered so lavishly: "Miss Nightingale neither invites nor refuses the generous offers. Her banking account is open at Messrs. Coutts's." On October 30th, the _Times_ republished from the _Examiner_ a letter, headed, "Who is Miss Nightingale?" and signed "One who has known her." Then was made known to the British public for the first time who the woman that had gone to the aid of the sick and wounded really was; then it was shown that she was no hospital matron, but a young and singularly graceful and accomplished gentlewoman of wealth and position, who had, not in a moment of national enthusiasm, but as the set purpose of her life from girlhood up, devoted herself to the studying of God's great and good laws of health, and to trying to apply them to the help of her suffering fellow-creatures.

From October 30, 1854, the heroine of the Crimean war was Florence Nightingale, and the heroine of that war will she be while the English tongue exists and English history is read. The national enthusiasm for her was at once intense, and it grew deeper and more intense as week by week revealed her powers. "Less talent and energy of character, less singleness of purpose and devotion, could never have combined the heterogeneous elements which she gathered together in one common work and labor of love."

I met the other day a lady who saw something of Miss Nightingale just before she went out to the East. This lady tells me that Miss Nightingale was then most graceful in appearance, tall and slight, very quiet and still. At first sight her earnest face struck one as cold; but when she began to speak she grew very animated, and her dark eyes shone out with a peculiarly star-like brightness.

This was the woman whose starting for the East was at once felt to be the beginning of better things; but so prejudiced were many good English people against women-nurses for soldiers, that Mrs. Jameson, writing at the time, calls the scheme "an undertaking wholly new to our English customs, much at variance with the usual education given to women in this country." She, sensible woman, one in advance of her day, hoped it would succeed, but hoped rather faintly. "If it succeeds," she goes on, "it will be the true, the lasting glory of Florence Nightingale and her band of devoted assistants, that they have broken down a 'Chinese wall of prejudices,' religious, social, professional, and have established a precedent which will, indeed, multiply the good to all time."

The little band of nurses crossed the Channel to Boulogne, where they found the fisherwomen eager for the honor of carrying their luggage to the railway. This display, however, seemed to Miss Nightingale to be so out of keeping with the deep gravity of her mission, that, at her wish, it was not repeated at any of the stopping-places during the route. The Vectis took the nurses across the Mediterranean, and a terribly rough passage they had. On November 5th, the very day on which the battle of Inkermann was fought, the ship arrived at Scutari.

Miss Nightingale and her nurses landed during the afternoon, and it was remarked at the time that their neat black dresses formed a strong contrast to those of the usual hospital attendants.

The great Barrack Hospital at Scutari, which had been lent to the British by the Turkish Government, was an enormous quadrangular building, a quarter of a mile each way, with square towers at each angle. It stood on the Asiatic shore a hundred feet above the Bosphorus. Another large hospital stood near; the whole, at times, containing as many as four thousand men. The whole were placed under Miss Nightingale's care. The nurses were lodged in the southeast tower.

The extent of corridors in the great hospital, story above story, in which the sick and wounded were at first laid on wretched palliasses, as close together as they could be placed, made her inspection and care most difficult. There were two rows of mattresses in the corridors, where two persons could hardly pass abreast between foot and foot. The mortality, when the _Times_ first took up the cause of the sick and wounded, was enormous. In the Crimea itself there was not half the mortality in the tents, horrible as were the sufferings and privations of the men there.

"The whole of yesterday," writes one of the nurses a few days after they had arrived, "one could only forget one's own existence, for it was spent, first in sewing the men's mattresses together, and then in washing them, and assisting the surgeons, when we could, in dressing their ghastly wounds after their five days' confinement on board ship, during which space their wounds had not been dressed. Hundreds of men with fever, dysentery, and cholera (the wounded were the smaller portion) filled the wards in succession, from the overcrowded transports."

Miss Nightingale's position was a most difficult one. Everything was in disorder, and every official was extremely jealous of interference. Miss Nightingale, however, at once impressed upon her staff the duty of obeying the doctors' orders, as she did herself. An invalids' kitchen was established immediately by her to supplement the rations. A laundry was added; the nursing itself, was, however, the most difficult and important part of the work.

But it would take far too much space to give all the details of that kind but strict administration which brought comparative comfort and a low death-rate into the Scutari hospitals. During a year and a half the labor of getting the hospitals into working order was enormous, but before the peace arrived they were models of what such institutions may be.