The Life of Florence Nightingale Volume I Part 21

[146] He had died in hospital from his wounds, and his body was to be sent to England.

[147] _Stanmore_, vol. i. p. 373.

The occasion described by Miss Stanley was post-day. Still busier were the awful days on which fresh consignments of sick and wounded arrived from the Crimea. Miss Nightingale has been known, said General Bentinck, to pa.s.s eight hours on her knees dressing wounds and administering comfort. There were times when she stood for twenty hours at a stretch, apportioning quarters, distributing stores, directing the labours of her staff, or a.s.sisting at the painful operations where her presence might soothe or support. She had, said Mr. Osborne, "an utter disregard of contagion. I have known her spend hours over men dying of cholera or fever. The more awful to every sense, any particular case, especially if it was that of a dying man, the more certainly might her slight form be seen bending over him, administering to his ease by every means in her power, and seldom quitting his side till death released him."[148] "We cannot," wrote Mr. Bracebridge to her uncle, Mr. Smith (Dec. 18, 1854), "prevent her self-sacrifice for the dying. She cannot delegate as we could wish; but the cases are so interesting and painful; who could leave them when once taken up?--boys and brave men dying who can be saved by nursing and proper diet." It is recorded that on one occasion she saw five soldiers set aside as hopeless cases. The first duty of the overworked surgeons was with those whom there seemed to be more hope of saving. She asked to be given the care of the five men, and the surgeons consented. a.s.sisted by one of her nurses, she tended the cases throughout the night, administering nourishment from her stores, and in the morning they were found to be in a fit condition for surgical treatment.[149] "Miss Nightingale," said a Chelsea pensioner, in recalling his experiences at Scutari, "was always coming in and out. She used to attend to all the worst cases herself. Some of the new men were a bit shy at first, but many a time I've heard her say, 'Never be ashamed of your wounds, my friend.'"[150] "I believe," wrote a Civilian doctor who saw her at work, "that there was never a severe case of any kind that escaped her notice, and sometimes it was wonderful to see her at the bedside of a patient who had been admitted perhaps but an hour before, and of whose arrival one would hardly have supposed it possible she could be already cognisant."[151]

[148] _Scutari and its Hospitals_, p. 26.

[149] _Daily News_, June 2, 1855.

[150] _Wintle_, p. 113.

[151] _Pincoffs_, p. 78, where a particular case in point is recorded.

Sometimes when exhausted nature could not be denied repose, she would depute the last sad office to another lady. "Selina [Mrs. Bracebridge]

is sitting up with a dying man. Florence at last asleep, 1 A.M." Her days were always long; for she deemed it well not to allow any of her nurses to be in the wards after eight at night. And often, when all else was quiet, and she had been sitting up to finish her heavy correspondence, she would make a final tour of the wards. A lady volunteer, who two days after her arrival was sent for to accompany Miss Nightingale on such a tour, recalled the scene. "We went round the whole of the second story, into many of the wards and into one of the upper corridors. It seemed an endless walk, and it was one not easily forgotten. As we slowly pa.s.sed along, the silence was profound; very seldom did a moan or cry from those deeply suffering ones fall on our ears. A dim light burned here and there. Miss Nightingale carried her lantern, which she would set down before she bent over any of the patients. I much admired her manner to the men--it was so tender and kind."[152] The description of these midnight vigils, given by Mr.

Macdonald, the commissioner of the _Times_ Fund, became famous, by adaptation, throughout the world:--

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 grat.i.tude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired 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.

[152] _Eastern Hospitals_, vol. i. pp. 69-70.

[153] The lamp of famous memory was a camp lamp, and was taken possession of by Mrs. Bracebridge.

Famous, too, became the words which one poor fellow sent home. "What a comfort it was to see her pa.s.s 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:--

[154] Below, p. 270.

[155] Below, p. 303.

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

And slow, as in a dream of bliss, The speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow, as it falls Upon the darkening walls.

The men idolized her. They kissed her shadow, and they saluted her as she pa.s.sed down their wounded ranks. "If the Queen came for to die,"

said a soldier who lost a leg at the Alma, "they ought to make _her_ queen, and I think they would." Her lively sense of humour, which Mr.

Osborne had discerned in talks with her in the hospital, was appreciated also by the patients. "She was wonderful," said one, "at cheering up any one who was a bit low," "She was all full of life and fun," said another, "when she talked to us, especially if a man was a bit down-hearted."[156] Who can tell what comfort was brought by the sound of a woman's gentle voice, the touch of a woman's gentle hand, to many a poor fellow racked by fever, or smarting from sores? And who can say how often her presence may have been as "a cup of strength in some great agony"? "The magic of her power over men was felt," as Kinglake has described, "in the room--the dreaded, the blood-stained room--where operations took place. There perhaps the maimed soldier, if not yet resigned to his fate, might at first be craving death rather than meet the knife of the surgeon; but, when such a one looked and saw that the honoured Lady-in-Chief was patiently standing beside him, and--with lips closely set and hands folded--decreeing herself to go through the pain of witnessing pain, he used to fall into the mood for obeying her silent command, and--finding strange support in her presence--bring himself to submit and endure."[157] And when the hour of death came, how often must the pa.s.sing have been soothed by a presence which, with words of womanly comfort, may have carried the soldier's last thoughts back to home and wife, or child? A member of Parliament, well known in London Society, Mr. Augustus Stafford, went out during the recess of 1854 to Scutari, and made himself very useful to Miss Nightingale. "He says," wrote Monckton Milnes (Jan. 1855), "that Florence in the Hospital makes intelligible to him the Saints of the Middle Ages. If the soldiers were told that the roof had opened, and she had gone up palpably to Heaven, they would not be the least surprised. They quite believe she is in several places at once."[158] They were impressed by her power, no less than they were touched by her tenderness, and ascribed to the Lady-in-Chief the gifts of leaders.h.i.+p in the field. "If she were at their head, they would be in Sebastopol in a week;" was a saying often heard in the hospital wards.

[156] _Wintle_, pp. 106, 108.

[157] _Invasion of the Crimea_, vol. vi. p. 425.

[158] _Life of Lord Houghton_, vol. i. p. 505.

II

Of all the doc.u.ments that have pa.s.sed under my eyes in writing this memoir, none have touched me more than a bundle of letters to and from friends and relatives of Crimean soldiers. Miss Nightingale was careful to take note of any dying man's last wishes or messages, and the letters in which she forwarded these, to wife or mother, must, by their touch of womanly sympathy, have brought balm to many a stricken heart.

"My dear Miss," writes one mother, "I feel the loss of my poor son's death very keenly, but if anything could help my grief it is the thought that he was looked to and cared for by kind friends when so many miles away from his native land." "I beg," writes a sister, "to return you my grateful thanks for all your kindness to my poor dear brother and for writing to tell me of his death. It is great consolation to know that both his soul and body were so kindly cared for." "I can a.s.sure you,"

writes another, "that you are beloved by every poor soldier I have seen." Correspondence of this kind continued in the same manner when Miss Nightingale pa.s.sed on from Scutari to the Crimea. One letter to a bereaved mother may be given as a representative of many:--

... The first time I saw your son was in going round the wards in the General Hospital at Balaklava. He had been brought in, in the morning.... He was always conscious, and remained so till the very last. He prayed aloud so beautifully that, as the Nurse in charge said, "It was like a sermon to hear him." He asked "to see Miss Nightingale." He knew me, and expressed himself to me as entirely resigned to die. He pressed my hand when he could not speak. He died in the night.... He was decently interred in a burial-ground we have about a mile from Balaklava. One of my own Sisters lies in the same ground, to whom I have erected a monument. Should you wish anything similar to be done over the grave of your lost son, I will endeavour to gratify you, if you will inform me of your wishes.

With true sympathy for your loss, I remain, dear Madam, yours sincerely, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

There is another bundle, hardly less touching, which contains letters of anxious inquiry addressed to Miss Nightingale from all parts of the United Kingdom, begging her to send, if she can, particulars of the whereabouts or of the illness or of the last hours of husband, brother, father, or son. "In order that you may know him," writes one fond mother, "he is a straight, nice, clean-looking, light-complexioned youth." "Died in hospital, in good frame of mind," was Miss Nightingale's docket for the reply. Every letter was carefully answered, and every message was, I doubt not, given whenever it was in her power to do so. Many are the blessings invoked on Miss Nightingale's head. Often the writer begins by explaining that the newspapers have told of her great kindness and so she will forgive the intrusion. Others show that they take all that for granted by beginning, "Dear Friend," or ending, "Yours affectionately." Many wives beg her to let the soldier know that the children are well and happy. And one letter sends a message to a wounded Lancer from the girl he left behind him, "If alive, please mention my name to him."

III

The strain upon Miss Nightingale's physical and mental powers was incessant. Her health, as it proved in the end, was seriously impaired; but during all her work at Scutari, she was never absent from her post.

"You had the best opportunities," she was asked by the Royal Commission of 1857, "for observing the condition of the soldier when he entered the hospitals, while he resided in them, when he died and was sent to the cemeteries, when he was sent home as an invalid, and when he rejoined the army?" "Yes," she answered; "I was never out of the hospitals."

During the worst time of cholera and typhus, three of her nurses died, and seven of the army doctors. Miss Nightingale tended two of the doctors in their last moments, and the thinning, for a while, of the medical ranks increased her labours. The amount of clerical work which devolved on her was, it may be well imagined, enormous. Lady Alicia Blackwood records that when she was starting a school in the women's and children's quarters at Scutari, Miss Nightingale said laughingly, "Oh, are you really going to do that unkind thing--to teach children to write? I am so tired of writing, I sometimes wish I could not write!"

The laugh must have had a certain grimness in it, I fear. The extent of the correspondence which Miss Nightingale kept up with Ministers at home, with military and medical officers at the seat of war and at Scutari, may be gathered from the foregoing chapters. Her superintendence of the nurses entailed in account-keeping and in letters to complainants among them, and to their relatives, another ma.s.s of correspondence. Then I find next, amongst her papers, piles of store-keeping accounts (mostly in her own handwriting), and other bundles of correspondence referring to offers of help in money or in kind. That Miss Nightingale ultimately broke down under the strain was natural; the marvel is that she bore up against it so long. She could not have coped with the ma.s.s of detail involved in her multifarious labours without a good deal of help. To Mr. Macdonald's a.s.sistance I have already referred; and like a.s.sistance was rendered for a time by the Rev. and Hon. Sydney G.o.dolphin Osborne, the famous S.G.O. of letters to the _Times_. Mr. Kinglake devotes a charming page to "the enthusiastic young fellow who, abandoning his life of ease, pleasure, and luxury, went out, as he probably phrased it, to 'f.a.g' for the Lady-in-Chief." The reference is probably to Mr. Percy, mentioned in a previous chapter, or possibly to Mr. William Sh.o.r.e, a distant relative of Miss Nightingale's father; he was put in charge of a soldiers'

library. But it was Miss Nightingale's old friends, Mr. and Mrs.

Bracebridge, who rendered the longest and the most helpful aid. Mrs.

Bracebridge shared alike her room and her labours, and with Mr.

Bracebridge cared, as we have heard, for the soldiers' wives. But Mr.

Bracebridge did much else. His knowledge of the East, and his persevering good humour, determined to help everybody about everything, were invaluable. Faithful, cheery, and indefatigable, no less now among the arduous labours of Scutari than in former days of sight-seeing at Rome and in Egypt, he fetched and carried for Miss Nightingale, wrote letters or orders for her, and kept minutes of her interviews; and, at times of less strain, relieved her of visitors or callers by taking them for excursions in the Straits or to Constantinople.

IV

Miss Nightingale's thoughtfulness devised many practical ways of helping the men who were not too ill to think of their worldly affairs. In order to encourage them as much as possible to occupy themselves and to keep up a communication with home, she supplied stationery and postage stamps to those in hospital. If a soldier was illiterate or too ill to write, she or one of her nurses, or some other volunteer, would write at the sick man's dictation. Mr. Augustus Stafford, as mentioned above, spent some portion of the autumn recess (Nov.-Dec. 1854) at Scutari, and he gave his experiences to the Roebuck Committee. He described the pitiable condition of the wounded on their arrival, "their thigh and shoulder bones perfectly red from rubbing against the deck" of the vessel which had brought them from the Crimea; but then Miss Nightingale's nurses came round, "and with a precision and rapidity which you would scarcely believe, would bring the soldiers arrowroot mixed with port wine, which was the greatest comfort; the men expressed themselves very thankfully, and said that they felt themselves in heaven." But it was in writing letters for the soldiers that this "cherished, yet unspoilt, favourite of English society"[159] spent most of his time at Scutari. Of Miss Nightingale's reading-rooms some account will be found in another chapter (XI.).

[159] _Kinglake_, p. 436.

She was much touched by the men's appreciation of these attentions, and she was no less impressed by the conduct of the orderlies in the hospitals. In describing to the Secretary of State certain sanitary reforms which she carried out in the hospitals of Scutari, she wrote: "I must pay my tribute to the instinctive delicacy, the ready attention of orderlies and patients during all that dreadful period; for my sake they performed offices of this kind (which they neither would for the sake of discipline, nor for that of the importance to their own health, which they did not know), and never was there one word nor one look which a gentleman would not have used; and while paying this humble tribute to humble courtesy, the tears come into my eyes as I think how, amidst scenes of loathsome disease and death, there rose above it all the innate dignity, gentleness, and chivalry of the men (for never, surely, was chivalry so strikingly exemplified), s.h.i.+ning in the midst of what must be considered as the lowest sinks of human misery, and preventing instinctively the use of one expression which could distress a gentlewoman."[160]

[160] _Notes_, p. 94.

Even in the lowest sinks of human misery there are chords which will respond to a sympathetic touch. It was the innate dignity of her bearing that struck every one who saw Florence Nightingale; and, amidst those scenes of loathsome disease and death, she was herself "the sweet presence of a good diffused."

CHAPTER VIII

THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY

Your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, ... these are the true fog children.--RUSKIN.

Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings.--ST. PAUL.

Every generation has its own "religious difficulty," by which phrase is meant, not the difficulty which the individual soul or the collective soul of a nation may find in its religious beliefs themselves, but a difficulty which intrudes itself into allied or alien matters from the sphere of religious disputation. In the present day, the religious difficulty with which we are most familiar concerns questions of education. In the days of Miss Nightingale's mission to the East there was a religious difficulty in questions of nursing.

It was not enough that such a mission as hers was conceived in the very spirit of the Founder of Christianity: "I was sick, and ye visited me."

The question was eagerly and angrily canva.s.sed under which of the rival Christian banners the visitation of the sick soldiers should be, and was being, carried on. The country had at the time hardly recovered its mental equilibrium after the shock administered to it by the Tractarian movement, and echoes of the "No Popery" cry of 1850 were still resonant in many quarters. The religious difficulty appeared at the very start of Miss Nightingale's Crimean work, and dogged her footsteps to the end of it. I have dealt already with the difficulties which her experiment encountered from social ideas, military prejudices, official routine; but I am not sure that of all her difficulties the religious one was not the most wearing and worrying, as it was also a.s.suredly the most unnecessary and the least excusable. It enveloped a n.o.ble undertaking in a fog of envy, strife, and futile railing.