[141] Letter to Captain Galton, June 28, 1862. On the general question, see vol. ii. p. 64.
[142] It was a _mot_ of Mr. Stafford's that he had only met two men in the East, Omar Pacha (the Turkish Commander) and Florence Nightingale.
[143] _Scutari and its Hospitals_, p. 27.
[144] See _Kinglake_, vol. vi. pp. 43, 436.
Then in such hour of need ... Ye, like angels, appear, Radiant with ardour divine!... Order, courage, return ... Ye move through the ranks, recall The stragglers, refresh the outworn, Praise, reinspire the brave! Eyes rekindling, and prayers, Follow your steps as ye go. MATTHEW ARNOLD.
In the preceding chapters we have seen at work the impelling power of a brain and a will; but, with these, Florence Nightingale brought to her mission the tenderness of a woman's heart. She was the matron of a hospital no less than the mistress of a barrack. She was a resolute administrator; but also, as was said at the time in a hundred speeches, letters, articles:
When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou.
Upon those behind the scenes, upon ministers and officials, it was the former side of her activity that made the profounder impression. Some of them applauded what she did, recognizing that only the advent of a new force could have driven a way through the quagmire; others complained that in her methods there was something too imperious and masterful; all alike perceived her power and strength of will. But to the sick and wounded among whom she lived and moved, and to the great public at home which heard of her work, it was the softer side of her character that made the more instant appeal. By them she was known and honoured not as the rigid disciplinarian or creative organizer, but as the compassionate and tender nurse. Those who had no means of knowing what other work she had to do supposed that ministration to the sick, in the narrower sense, comprised it all. But, in fact, as she wrote to Mr. Herbert (Jan. 14, 1855), nursing was "the least important of the functions into which she had been forced"; and those on the spot, who watched the arduousness of these other duties, wished that she could be persuaded to spare herself more of one kind of work or of the other. The marvel is that in unstinted measure she combined them both.