* * * * * "Our dear Flo," wrote Mrs. Bracebridge to Miss Clarke in 1844, "has just recovered from a severe cold, but I hear nothing of what I long for, _i.e._ some noble-hearted, true man, one who can love her as she deserves to be loved, prepared to take her to a house of her own." And three years later another friend, Fanny Allen, in describing a visit to Embley, said of Florence: "What a wife she would make for a man worthy of her! but I am not sure I yet know the mate fit for her." The two Nightingale girls, she surmised, would experience a "difficulty in finding any one they would like well enough to forsake such a home."[50] In the case of Florence, the position was ill understood by outsiders. To her the home was not a happy garden which she would be very reluctant to forsake, but rather a gilded cage from which she eagerly sought a way of escape. To us who have the means of knowing her inmost thoughts and feelings, the question thus presents itself in another light than that in which it appeared to her friends at the time. She craved for a larger, fuller life than she could find at home. Why could she not, or why did she not, seek it in marriage? It is love that sometimes "frees the imprisoned spirit," that enables it to find and to express itself. That Miss Nightingale remained single was not the result of lack of opportunity to marry. The reason is to be found elsewhere--in feelings, thoughts, and ideals, in reasoned convictions and aspirations, which, if I can present them aright, will illuminate her character and her career. [50] _A Century of Family Letters_, vol. ii. pp. 106, 107.