Miss Nightingale did not relish all this. They had sent her various supplies for the sick, and also a packet of "Lives," "Portraits," and the like to Scutari. "My effigies and praises," she wrote in reply, "were less welcome. I do not affect indifference to real sympathy, but I have felt painfully, the more painfully since I have had time to hear of it, the éclat which has been given to this adventure. The small still beginning, the simple hardship, the silent and _gradual_ struggle upwards, these are the climate in which an enterprise really thrives and grows. Time has not altered our Saviour's lesson on that point, which has been learnt successively by all reformers from their own experience. The vanity and frivolity which the éclat thrown upon this affair has called forth has done us unmitigated harm, and has brought mischief on (perhaps) one of the most promising enterprises that ever set sail from England. Our own old party which began its work in hardship, toil, struggle, and obscurity has done better than any other."
When it became known in England that Miss Nightingale had recovered from her illness, and had resolved to remain at her post until the end of the war, a movement at once sprang up for marking in some public manner the nation's appreciation of her services and her devotion. There was at first some idea, as Lady Verney wrote, of a personal testimonial in the "teapot and bracelet" kind. Mrs. Herbert, who was consulted in the matter, knew her friend well enough to be certain that Miss Nightingale would decline to accept any such proposal. The only form of testimonial to which she would ever listen was something to enable her the better to carry on her work for others. Miss Nightingale was written to, and replied, in accordance with Mrs. Herbert's expectation, that she must absolutely decline any testimonial of a personal character. Her friends knew well that what she would best like was the establishment in one form or another of "an English Kaiserswerth." This suggestion was accordingly put before her, and she was asked to submit a plan. Her reply was, again, very characteristic. Immersed in the crowded work of the moment, she was in no mood to make future plans; but she took the earliest opportunity of intimating that, whatever the plan might be, she must be the autocrat of it. "Dr. Bence-Jones has written to me," she said (Sept. 27), "for a plan. People seem to think that I have nothing to do but to sit here and form plans. If the public choose to recognize my services and my judgment in this manner, they must leave those services and that judgment unfettered." She was experiencing enough of fetters in the East to last her for a lifetime. An influential Committee was formed, on which Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mr. S. C. Hall served as honorary secretaries, and it was decided to raise a fund for the establishment of some School for Nurses, under a Council, to be nominated by Miss Nightingale. A public meeting was called for November 29, 1855, at Willis's Rooms, "to give expression to a general feeling that the services of Miss Nightingale in the hospitals of the East demand the grateful recognition of the British people." The room proved far too small. It was crowded to suffocation; and never, said the _Times_, in reporting the meeting, had a more brilliant, enthusiastic, and unanimous gathering been held in London.