Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

“ The ranks are full, the hospitals are empty. The angel of mercy still lingers to the last on the scene of her labors; but her mission is all but accomplished. Those long arcades of Scutari, in which dying men sat up to catch the sound of her footstep or the flutter of her dress, and fell back on the pillow content to have seen her shadow as it passed, are now comparatively deserted. She may be thinking how to escape, as best she may, on her return, the demonstration of a nation's appreciation of the deeds and motives of Florence Nightingale. ”

“ Slowly, gradually, the truth came to Florence Nightingale: she was never going to be strong or well again. Always delicate, the tremendous labors [Pg 163] of the Crimea had been too much for her. While the work went on, the frail body answered the call of the powerful will, the undaunted mind, the great heart; now that the task was finished, it sank down broken and exhausted. Truly, she had given her life, as much as any soldier who fought and died in the trenches or on the battlefield. ”

“ One who knew our heroine well wrote in a more personal vein:
"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. ”

“ Neither Lady-in-Chief nor nurses had had time to rest after their long voyage, to make plans for systematic work, even to draw breath after their first glimpse of the horrors around them, when this great avalanche of suffering and misery came down upon them. No woman in history has had to face such a task as now flung itself upon Florence Nightingale. ”

“ He heard with deep distress the dreadful tidings of suffering that came from the Crimea, and his heart responded instantly to the call for help. Yes, the women of England must rise up and go to that far, desolate land to tend and nurse the sick and wounded and dying; but who should lead them? What one woman had the strength, the power, the wisdom, the tenderness, to meet and overcome the terrible conditions? Asking himself this question, Mr. Herbert answered without a moment's hesitation: "Florence Nightingale!" ”

“ The doctors ordered that she should be taken to the Sanatorium. Amid general grief and consternation she was laid on a stretcher, and the soldiers for whom she had so often risked her life bore her sadly through the streets of Balaklava and up the mountainside. A nurse went with her, a friend held a white umbrella between her and the pitiless sun, and poor little Thomas, "Miss Nightingale's man" as he had proudly called himself, followed the stretcher, crying bitterly. Indeed, it seemed as if everyone were crying. The rough soldiers—only she never found them rough—wept like children. ”

“ Tending the dying physicians as she had tended their patients; walking, sad but steadfast, behind the bier that bore her dear and devoted helpers to the grave; adding each new burden to the rest, and carrying all with unbroken calm, unwearying patience; Florence Nightingale seemed to bear a charmed life. ”

“ My father replied: "My dear Miss Florence, it would be unusual, and in England whatever is unusual is apt to be thought unsuitable; but I say to [Pg 35] you, go forward, if you have a vocation for that way of life; act up to your aspiration, and you will find that there is never anything unbecoming or unladylike in doing your duty for the good of others. Choose your path, go on with it, wherever it may lead you, and God be with you!"
It was in this spirit that Miss Nightingale now began to train herself for her life work. ”

“ Are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the East in the hospitals at Scutari? Are there none of the daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work of mercy? France has sent forth her Sisters of Mercy unsparingly, and they are even now by the bedsides of the wounded and the dying, giving what woman's hand alone can give of comfort and relief. ”

“ Hear the nightingale that's come to the Crimea;
'Tis a nightingale as strong in her heart as in her song,
To carry out so gallant an idea.
Of course there were some people who shook their heads; there always are when any new work is undertaken. Some thought it was improper for women to nurse in a military hospital; others thought they would be useless, or worse; others again thought that the nurses would ruin their own health and be sent home in a month to the hospitals of England. ”

“ Miss Nightingale had no time to waste. Her "Hospital Notes" may be read to-day with the keenest interest by all who care to know more of that great story of the Crimean War; her "Notes on Nursing" became the handbook of the Nursing Reform, and ought to be in the hands of every nurse to-day as it was in 1860, when it was written. Nor in the hands of nurses only; I wish every girl and every boy who reads this story would try to find that slender, dingy volume in some library, and "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" its contents. They would know a good deal more than they do now. ”

“ All night long Florence Nightingale sat beside those five men, one of the faithful nurses with her, feeding them with a spoon at short intervals till consciousness returned, and a little strength began to creep back into their poor torn [Pg 88] bodies; then washing their wounds, making them tidy and decent, and all the time cheering them with kind and hopeful words. When morning came the surgeons, amazed, pronounced the men in good condition to be operated upon, and—we will hope, though the story does not tell the end—saved. ”

“ The windows are narrow, but still the moonbeams struggle in, and cast a dim light along the corridor. The vaulted roof is lost in blackness; black, too, are the corners, and we cannot see where the orderly nods in his chair, or where the night nurse sits beside a dying patient. All is silent, save for a low moan or murmur from one cot or another. See where the moonbeam glimmers white on that cot under the window! That is where the Highland soldier is lying, he who came so near losing his arm the other day. The surgeons said it must be amputated, but the Lady-in-Chief begged for a little time. ”

“ It was fair spring weather now, and the fresh, soft air and beautiful scenery must have been specially delightful to the women who had spent six months within the four bare walls of the hospital surrounded by misery and death; but when she found that there were some sick soldiers on board, Miss Nightingale begged to be taken to them. She went from one to another in her cheerful way, and every man felt better at once. Presently she came to a fever patient who was looking very discontented. ”

“ The vicar saw his trouble, and rode up to him. "What is the matter, Roger?" he asked kindly. "Where is your dog?"
"The boys have been throwing stones at him, sir," replied the old man. "They have broken his leg, poor beast, and he will never be good for anything again. I shall have to take a bit of cord and put an end to his misery."
"Oh!" cried Florence, who had ridden up with the vicar. "Poor Cap! Are you sure his leg is broken, Roger?" ”

“ So, no one will ever know the full amount of good that this noble woman has done. The Sanitary Commission of our own Civil War, the Red Cross which to-day counts its workers by thousands in every part of the civilized world, both owed their first impulse to the pebble dropped by Florence Nightingale—even her own life, given freely to suffering humanity. ”

“ The wards were full to overflowing, and the corridors crowded with sick and wounded, lying on the floor, with the rats running over them. She looked out of the windows; under them were lying dead animals in every state of decay, refuse and filth of every description. She sought the kitchens; there were no kitchens, and no cooks; at least nothing that would be recognized to-day as a hospital kitchen. ”

“ Perhaps—who knows?—they may have sat in the kitchen, gathering about the great fireplace for warmth; the lights out, for fear of spies, only the firelight gleaming here and there, lighting up the dark corners and the eager, intent faces. And when the plot was discovered, and Queen Elizabeth's soldiers were searching the country round for the young conspirators, riding hither and thither along the pleasant country lanes and thrusting their sabres in among the blossoming hedgerows, it was here at Dethick that they sought for Anthony Babington. ”

“ Miss Nightingale had established and fitted up a kitchen, from which eight hundred men were fed daily with delicacies and food suitable to their condition. Beef-tea, chicken broth, jelly—a quiet wave of the wand, and these things sprang up, as it were, out of the earth. ”

“ Step by step, and all unconsciously, Florence Nightingale had been training her hand and eye to follow the dictates of her keen mind and loving heart. Now, grown a young woman, she began to think seriously how she should apply this training. What should she do with her life? Should she go on like her friends, in the quiet pleasant ways of country life? The squire's daughter was busy enough, surely. Every hour of the day was full of useful, kindly work, of happy, healthy play ”

“ The result was that England, France, Sardinia (now a part of Italy, but then a separate kingdom) , and Turkey made an agreement with one another, and all together declared war upon Russia.
England had been at peace with all the world for forty years, ever since the wars of Napoleon, which were closed by the great victory of Waterloo. The English are a brave race; they had forgotten the horrors of war, and remembered only its glories and its victories; and they sprang to arms as joyously as boys run to a football game. "Sharpen your cutlasses, and the day is ours!" ”

“ I confidently assert that but for Miss Nightingale the people of England would scarcely, with all their solicitude, have been spared the additional pang of knowing, which they must have done sooner or later, that their soldiers, even in the hospitals, had found scanty refuge and relief from the unparalleled miseries with which this war has hitherto been attended."
Look with me for a moment into one of these wards, these "miles of sick" through which the [Pg 111] agent of the Times passed with his guide. It is night. Outside, the world is wide and wonderful with moon and stars. ”

“ In those days one of the nurses wrote home to England:
"It does appear absolutely impossible to meet the wants of those who are dying of dysentery and exhaustion; out of four wards committed to my care, eleven men have died in the night, simply from exhaustion, which, humanly speaking, might have been stopped, could I have laid my hand at once on such nourishment as I knew they ought to have had.
"It is necessary to be as near the scene of war as we are, to know the horrors which we have seen and heard of. ”

“ All through the winter she helped these poor souls in every way, employing some in the laundry, finding situations for others in Constantinople, sending widows home to England, helping to start a school for the children. Altogether about five hundred women were helped out of the miserable condition in which she found them, and were enabled to earn their own living honestly and respectably. Writing of these times later, Miss Nightingale says: "When the improvements in our system which the war must suggest are discussed, let not the wife and child of the soldier be forgotten." ”

“ They spread in long smooth green billows, miles and miles of them, the slopes so gentle that it is delightful to drive or ride on them; only you must be careful not to go near the edge, where the green breaks off suddenly, and a white chalk cliff goes down, down, hundreds of feet, to the blue sea tossing and tumbling below. ”