Politics and social observations mingle in the diary with artistic and architectural notes. The city which seems most to have appealed to her imagination was not Florence; though she said that she "would not have missed it for anything," and, curiously, her sojourn in her birthplace was the occasion of a characteristic incident. An English lady, who afterwards became Princess Reuss Köstritz, was staying in the same lodgings and fell ill, and Florence Nightingale volunteered to nurse her. But the city which she most admired was Genoa La Superba. She notes indeed the excessive indolence of the nobles and excessive poverty of the people, but the palaces "realized an Arabian Nights story" for her. Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale had many friends and brought many introductions. In the various towns where they stayed they mixed in the best society, and their daughters were thrown into a lively round of picnics, concerts, soirées, dancing:
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow--
There were Court balls at which Grand Dukes were "exceedingly polite" to Florence Nightingale and her sister. They went to an evening Court at Florence, and found "everyone most courteous and agreeable." There was a ball at the Casino in Genoa, at which, writes Florence in her diary, "my partner and I made an _embrouillement_, and a military officer came up with a very angry face to challenge me for having refused him and then not dancing." But the music was not all to the tune of "A Toccata of Galuppi's." What gave Florence the greatest pleasure on this tour was the Italian opera. In those days the reigning singers were Grisi, Lablache, Rubini, and Tamburini. Florence Nightingale heard them all. Her Italian diary is nowhere so elaborate as in descriptions of the operas and in notes on the performers. She kept a separate book in which she wrote tabulated details of all the performances. "I should like to go every night," she said in her diary; and for some time after her return from the Continent she was, as she wrote to Miss Clarke, "music-mad." She took music-lessons at Florence, and in London studied under German and Italian masters. She played and sang. It was as yet uncertain whether "the call"--to what, as yet also unknown--might not be drowned in the tastes, interests, and pursuits which fill the life of other young ladies in her position.