FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
Mr. Clough made a visit at “Green Peace” which I shall never forget,
since it produced one of the small tragedies of my childhood.
Our house was one of those rambling structures, built at different
periods of time, wherein the space is not disposed of to the best
advantage. Hence, as we were a large family and each of us had a
separate room, some one had to be, turned out in order to accommodate
Mr. Clough. He was accordingly established in the housekeeper’s room,
and we children were duly warned not to go there, as was our custom. But
I forgot this caution, and next morning turned with some difficulty the
old-fashioned brass handle of the housekeeper’s door and peeped into the
room.
Little Red Riding-Hood was not more surprised at the transformation of
her grandmother into the wolf than I was at the sudden change which had
come over our young and handsome housekeeper. As some one sat up in bed
(after the fashion of the wolf in the story) to ask what I wanted, I
said to myself, “Why, Mrs. S—— has grown bald and gray in one night!”
Then the true state of the case flashed upon my infant consciousness and
I went away suddenly and much abashed. It is to be feared that I left
the door open.
When I came down to breakfast Mr. Clough looked up and said, as it
seemed to me rather cruelly, “_I think that I have seen this young lady
before, this morning._”
Mr. Clough’s poem, “The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich,” was republished in
this country, and was widely read both here and in England. He was
present at one time where some thoughtless young men were amusing
themselves with laughing at the new aspirant for poetical honors.
“Who is this old Clough?” says one.
“I should like to see him,” says another.
After listening to their remarks for some time, the grave, quiet man
rose to leave the room, and as he passed the group who were making so
merry at his expense he simply said, “The name is _Clough_” [Cluff].
Frederika Bremer, the Swedish authoress, visited us when I was a very
little child. She traveled extensively in America and related her
experiences in _Homes of the New World_. In this she described “the
dark, energetic father and two charming little girls, all lilies and
roses.” After it had been translated into English, people told us that
we had been put into a printed book. Our young friends wished that they,
too, could have the great happiness of being put into a book, like Julia
and Flossy Howe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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