Negotiations were now on foot for Miss Nightingale to take charge of a benevolent institution in London, and Madame Mohl advised her to keep in their places the great ladies who were concerned in it. Neither now, nor at any time, was she much in love with committees, but not every word in the following account of the negotiations need be taken very seriously:--
(_To Madame Mohl._) LEA HURST, _April_ 8. In all that you say I cordially agree, and if you knew what the "fashionable asses" have been doing, their "offs" and their "ons," poor fools! you would say so ten times more. I shall be truly grateful if you will write to Pop--my people know as much of the affair now as I do--which is not much. You see the F.A.S. (or A.F.S., which will stand for "ancient fathers" and be more respectful, as they are all Puseyites), the F.A.S. want me to come up to London now and look at them, and if we suit to come very soon into the Sanatorium, which, I am afraid, will preclude my coming back to Paris, especially if you are coming away soon, for going there without you would unveil all my iniquities, as the F.A.S. are quite as much afraid of the R.C.'s as my people are. It is no use telling you the history of the negotiations, which are enough to make a comedy in 50 acts. They may be summed up as I once heard an Irish shoeless boy translate Virgil: _Obstupui_, "I was althegither bothered"--_steteruntque comae_, "and my hair stood up like the bristles of a pig"--_vox faucibus haesit_, "and divil a word could I say." Well, divil a bit of a word can I say except that you are very good, dear friend, to take so much interest, and that I shall be truly glad if you will write to Pop, ... _dans le sens du muscle_.
All your advice, which I sent to Mrs. Bracebridge, I give my profoundest adhesion to--I would gladly point the finger of scorn in the liveliest manner at the F.A.S. and ride them roughshod round Grosvenor Sq. I will even do my very best--but I am afraid it is not in me to do it as I should wish. It would be only a poor feint--a mean Caricature. But I will practise and you shall see me.
My people are now at 30 Old Burlington Street, where I shall be in another week. Please write to them there, and if you can do a little quacking for me to them, the same will be thankfully received, in order that I may come in, when I arrive, not with my tail between my legs, but gracefully curved round me, in the old way in which Perugino's Devil wears it, in folds round the waist.