[65] See _Stanmore_, vol. i. pp. 111-120.
Though the work was hard and the anxieties many, Miss Nightingale did not lose heart. "Our vocation is a difficult one," she wrote to Miss Nicholson (Jan. 10, 1854), "as you, I am sure, know; and though there are many consolations, and very high ones, the disappointments are so numerous that we require all our faith and trust. But that is enough. I have never repented nor looked back, not for one moment. And I begin the New Year with more true feeling of a happy New Year than ever I had in my life." She had found her vocation. But her family had not yet quite fully accepted it. On their side there was still some looking back. Her father, indeed, took pride in his daughter's success, and the correspondence between them at this time is very pleasant. He was himself a county magistrate, concerned in the administration of hospitals and asylums; and he followed every move in his daughter's strategy with lively interest. He admired her masterfulness, but was not quite sure that she might not carry it too far. "You will have," he wrote, "to govern by a representative system after all. In England we go this way to work, and a good way it is, for a good autocrat is only to be found at intervals. Despots do nothing in teaching others. Republicans keep teaching each other all day long." He was most sympathetic in her difficulties, but he was not sure that those about him would be so. There is a postscript in one of his letters which tells a good deal between the lines: "Better write to me at the Athenæum so as not to excite inquiry." Her mother and sister seem to have thought that while they were in London Florence might have lived at home, or, at any rate, have often been with them. Why should she be wearing herself out away from them? Their point of view was put by Madame Mohl, who was the affectionate friend of both sisters:--
(_To Madame Mohl._) HARLEY STREET, _August_ 27 [1853].... I have not taken this step, Clarkey dear, without years of anxious consideration. It is the result of the experience of years and of the fullest and deepest thought; it has not been done without advice, and it is a step, which, being the growth of so long, is not likely to be repented of or reconsidered. I mean the step of leaving them. I do not wish to talk about it--and this is the last time I shall ever do so, but as you ask me a plain question, Clarkey dear, I will give you a plain answer. I _have_ talked matters over ("made a clean breast," as you express it) with Parthe, _not once but thousands of times_. Years and years have been spent in doing so. It has been, therefore, with the deepest consideration and with the fullest advice that I have taken the step of leaving home, and it is a _fait accompli_. With regard to "_my_ sacrificing my peace and comfort," it is true that I am _here_ entirely for their sakes. But to serve my country in this _way_ has been also the object of my life, though I should not have done it in this time or manner. But it is not a sacrifice any more than that I have done a thing in a bad way, which I should fain have done in a good one. For _this_ is sure to fail. So farewell, Clarkey dear, don't let us talk any more about this. It is, as I said before, a _fait accompli_.