“My committee refused me to take in Catholic patients--whereupon I wished them good morning, unless I might also take in Jews and their Rabbis to attend them. So now it is settled, _and in print_, that we are to take in all denominations, whatever, and allow them to be visited by their respective priests and Muftis, provided _I_ will receive (in any case whatsoever that is _not_ of the Church of England) the obnoxious animal at the door, take him upstairs myself, remain while he is conferring with his patient, make myself responsible that he does not speak to, or look at, any one else, and bring him downstairs in a noose, and out into the street. And to this I have agreed! And this is in print! “Amen. From committees, charity and schism--from the Church of England and other deadly sins--from philanthropy and all the deceits of the Devil--Good Lord deliver us!” To her father in 1853, she wrote another characteristic letter which affords a glimpse of the experience in “managing” people she was getting at this time, and which was later to be most helpful in her great task of helping to reorganize the affairs of the army hospitals. In this letter, she says: “You ask for my observations upon my line of statesmanship. I have been so very busy that I have scarcely made any resume in my own mind. “When I entered into service here, I determined that, happen what would, I never would intrigue among the committees. Now I perceive that I do all my business by intrigue. I propose in private to A, B or C, the resolution I think A, B or C most capable of carrying in committee, and then leave it to them, and I always win. * * * I have observed that the opinions of others concerning you depend not at all, or very little, upon what _you_ are, but upon what _they_ are. “Last General Committee I executed a series of Resolutions on five subjects and presented them as coming from medical men: “1. That the successor to our house surgeon (resigned) should be a dispenser, thus saving our bill at the druggists of 150 pounds per annum. “2. A series of House Rules, of which I send you the rough copy. “3. A series of resolutions about not keeping patients. “4. A complete revolution as to diet, which is shamefully abused at present. “5. An advertisement for the Institution. “All these I proposed and carried in committee without telling them that they came from me, and not from the medical men; and then, and not till then, I showed them to the medical men, without telling them that they were already passed in committee. “It was a bold stroke, but success is said to make an insurrection into a revolution. The medical men have had two meetings upon them and approved them all, and thought they were their own. And I came off with flying colors, no one suspecting my intrigue.