The Life of Florence Nightingale, Volume 1

Both of her names were the result of circumstance. Her father came of the old Derbyshire family of Shore of Tapton, and changed his name in 1815 from William Edward Shore to William Edward Nightingale on succeeding to the property of his mother's uncle, Peter Nightingale of Lea, in the same county. Mr. William Nightingale was fond of travel, and the close of the French war, shortly before his marriage (1818), had thrown the Continent open to the grand tour. Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale's only children, two daughters, were born during a sojourn in Italy. The elder was born at Naples in 1819, and was named, firstly, Frances, after her mother, and, secondly, after the old Greek settlement on the site of her birthplace, Parthenope. She afterwards became the second wife of Sir Harry Verney.[4] The younger daughter, the subject of this Memoir, was also named after her birthplace. She was born at Florence on May 12, 1820, in the Villa Colombaia, near the Porta Romana, as a memorial-tablet now affixed to the house records; and there on the 4th of July she was baptized by Dr. Trevor, Prebendary of Chester. The place-names became in familiar intercourse “Parthe” or “Pop,” and “Flo.”

“The surprises of sainthood,” said a speaker at a Congress on Eugenics, “are no less remarkable than those of genius.

Well, my dearest, I am not yet come to the great thing I wanted to say. I have always found that there was so much truth in the suggestion that you must dig for hidden treasures in silence or you will not find it; and so I dug after my poor little plan in silence, even from you. It was to go to be a nurse at Salisbury Hospital for these few months to learn the “prax.”; and then to come home and make such wondrous intimacies at West Wellow, under the shelter of a rhubarb powder and a dressed leg; let alone that no one could ever say to me again, your health will not stand this or that. I saw a poor woman die before my eyes this summer because there was no one but fools to sit up with her, who poisoned her as much as if they had given her arsenic. And then I had such a fine plan for those dreaded latter days (which I have never dreaded), if I should outlive my immediate ties, of taking a small house in West Wellow.—Well, I do not like much talking about it, but I thought something like a Protestant Sisterhood, without vows, for women of educated feelings, might be established. But there have been difficulties about my very first step, which terrified Mama. I do not mean the physically revolting parts of a hospital, but things about the surgeons and nurses which you may guess.

On her return to London in the early summer of 1848 she sent her friends occasionally the talk of the town:—

(To Madame Mohl.) July 26 [1848]. In London there have been the usual amount of Charity Balls, Charity Concerts, Charity Bazaars, whereby people bamboozle their consciences and shut their eyes. Nevertheless there does not seem the slightest prospect of a revolution here. Why, would be hard to say, as England is surely the country where luxury has reached its height and poverty its depth. Perhaps it is our Poor Law, perhaps the strength of our Middle Class, perhaps a greater degree of sympathy between the rich and poor, which is the conservative principle. Lord Ashley had a Chartist deputation with him the other day, who stayed to tea and talked with him for five hours. “That a man should ride in a carriage and have twenty thousand a year is contrary to the laws of Nature,” said their leader, and slapped his leg. “I could show you, if you would go with me to-night,” said Lord Ashley, “people who would say to you,[81] that a man should go in broadcloth and wear a shirt-pin (pointing to the Chartist's shirt) is contrary to the laws of Nature.” The Chartist was silent. “And it was the only thing I said,” says Lord Ashley, “after arguing with them for five hours which made the least impression.”

In one of the many pages of autobiographical notes which she preserved in relation to this episode in her life, Miss Nightingale thus explained her refusal to marry. “I have an intellectual nature which requires satisfaction, and that would find it in him. I have a passional nature which requires satisfaction, and that would find it in him. I have a moral, an active nature which requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in his life. I can hardly find satisfaction for any of my natures. Sometimes I think that I will satisfy my passional nature at all events, because that will at least secure me from the evil of dreaming. But would it? I could be satisfied to spend a life with him combining our different powers in some great object. I could not satisfy this nature by spending a life with him in making society and arranging domestic things.… To be nailed to a continuation and exaggeration of my present life, without hope of another, would be intolerable to me. Voluntarily to put it out of my power ever to be able to seize the chance of forming for myself a true and rich life would seem to me like suicide.”

Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form and the hand of the despoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen. Her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort, even amid the struggles of expiring nature. She is a “ministering angel” without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired[237] for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand,[153] making her solitary rounds.

Famous, too, became the words which one poor fellow sent home. “What a comfort it was to see her pass even. She would speak to one and nod and smile to as many more; but she could not do it to all, you know. We lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again, content.” “Before she came,” said another soldier's letter, “there was cussin' and swearin', but after that it was holy as a church.” Mr. Sidney Herbert read out these letters at a public meeting in November 1855.[154] Lord Ellesmere used Mr. Macdonald's description in the House of Lords in May 1856.[155] And Longfellow, in the following year, made a poem of it all, one of the most widely known poems, I suppose, that have ever been written:—

Lo! in that hour of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom, And flit from room to room.