Volume 1

The life of Florence Nightingale / Sir Edward Cook.

  • Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir, 1857-1919.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life of Florence Nightingale / Sir Edward Cook. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the perfect law of Love and Goodness ” like yours ?—the more of disappointment, the more suffering, the stronger faith. I also can rely on the invisible Power ; but can I give a more reasonable account of my Faith than he who believes in Atonements, Incarnations, Revelations, and so forth ? Was ever sentence truer than yours ?—“ God’s plan is that we make mistakes ; in them I will try to learn God’s purpose.” 1 I also feel myself mistaken all day long in thought, feeling, or doing—but what help do I find ? do I learn therefrom ? do my three score years and more give me the repose of a life spent in helping others or even in helping myself ? . . . [Then he turns from such reflec¬ tions as if too hard for him, describes to her the doings of her favourite cats, and talks of the hills and streams of her old home hoping against hope, it may be, to lure her back, and jotting down his wandering thoughts the while.] But you will say, Tell me no more of my idle cats ; I have cares enough, and thoughts enough elsewhere. My other belongings, where are they ? I relied on a Secretary of State, where is he ? where, my Hospitals ? where all my many friends on whom I placed my work ? where is my strength ? My mind still strains over the immeasurable wants of the Army I have served, and I am left alone, with my physical powers confining me to my chamber.” How vain then is my thought that here, if you had wings, you might be at rest—at this calm peaceful window where the hills keep creeping down into the far-receding valley and multiply my thoughts as it were into Eternity. You will (in your mind’s eye at least) rejoice with me, while I recount a day too soon gone, too full perhaps of erring reflection, too short of inspiration. The relations between father and daughter had been made more intimate by her book of religious and philosophi¬ cal speculation. Mr. Nightingale, it may be added, had enlarged Florence’s allowance at the time of the marriage of his other daughter. Henceforth he undertook to pay, without question, all her bills for board and lodging, and to allow her £$oo a year besides. She had made, too, a con¬ siderable sum by her Notes on Nursing, and was able to enlarge the scale of her benefactions. Among the first uses which she made of her enlarged means was to give £500 for the improvement of the school near Lea Hurst, in which her cousin Beatrice (who during these years often lived there with Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale) was greatly interested, especially for the sanitary improvement, for which purpose 1 Suggestions for Thought, vol. ii. p. 90.