In August 1854 Miss Nightingale took a few days' holiday at Lea Hurst, where Mrs. Gaskell, the authoress, was on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale. It was then that Mrs. Gaskell wrote the description of Florence's personal appearance, which has already been given (p. 39). Mrs. Gaskell was struck no less by the beauty of her character. She gave a sketch of Miss Nightingale's career, and then continued: "Is it not like St. Elizabeth of Hungary? The efforts of her family to interest her in other occupations by allowing her to travel, etc.--but the clinging to one object! She must be a creature of another race, so high and angelic, doing things by impulse or some divine inspiration, not by effort and struggle of will. But she seems almost too holy to be talked about as a mere wonder. Mrs. Nightingale says with tears in her eyes (alluding to Andersen's _Fairy Tales_), that they are ducks, and have hatched a wild swan. She seems as completely led by God as Joan of Arc. I never heard of any one like her. It makes me feel the _livingness_ of God more than ever to think how straight He is sending His Spirit down into her as into the prophets and saints of old...." And in another letter:[66] "I am glad that Miss----likes _North and South_. I did not think Margaret _was_ so _over_ good. What would she say to Florence Nightingale? I can't imagine! for _there_ is intellect such as I never came in contact with before in woman!--only twice in man--great beauty, and of her holy goodness who is fit to speak?" A famous writer has said of the saints, that the greatest and most helpful of them have always shown some wit or humour;[67] and of Florence Nightingale Mrs. Gaskell noted further: "She has a great deal of fun, and is carried along by that, I think. She mimics most capitally." [66] To Catherine Winkworth, Jan. 1, 1855. [67] See Ruskin's _Works_, vol. xxxi. p. 386, vol. xxxii. p. 72. Miss Nightingale cut short her holiday on hearing that an epidemic of cholera had broken out in London. She volunteered to give help with the cholera patients in the Middlesex Hospital. She was up day and night receiving the women patients--chiefly, it seems, outcasts in the district of Soho--undressing them, and ministering to them. The epidemic, however, subsided, and she returned to her normal work in Harley Street. VI