Sometimes when exhausted nature could not be denied repose, she would depute the last sad office to another lady. "Selina [Mrs. Bracebridge] is sitting up with a dying man. Florence at last asleep, 1 A.M." Her days were always long; for she deemed it well not to allow any of her nurses to be in the wards after eight at night. And often, when all else was quiet, and she had been sitting up to finish her heavy correspondence, she would make a final tour of the wards. A lady volunteer, who two days after her arrival was sent for to accompany Miss Nightingale on such a tour, recalled the scene. "We went round the whole of the second story, into many of the wards and into one of the upper corridors. It seemed an endless walk, and it was one not easily forgotten. As we slowly passed along, the silence was profound; very seldom did a moan or cry from those deeply suffering ones fall on our ears. A dim light burned here and there. Miss Nightingale carried her lantern, which she would set down before she bent over any of the patients. I much admired her manner to the men--it was so tender and kind."[152] The description of these midnight vigils, given by Mr. Macdonald, the commissioner of the _Times_ Fund, became famous, by adaptation, throughout the world:-- Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form and the hand of the despoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen. Her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort, even amid the struggles of expiring nature. She is a "ministering angel" without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand,[153] making her solitary rounds. [152] _Eastern Hospitals_, vol. i. pp. 69-70. [153] The lamp of famous memory was a camp lamp, and was taken possession of by Mrs. Bracebridge. Famous, too, became the words which one poor fellow sent home. "What a comfort it was to see her pass even. She would speak to one and nod and smile to as many more; but she could not do it to all, you know. We lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again, content." "Before she came," said another soldier's letter, "there was cussin' and swearin', but after that it was holy as a church." Mr. Sidney Herbert read out these letters at a public meeting in November 1855.[154] Lord Ellesmere used Mr. Macdonald's description in the House of Lords in May 1856.[155] And Longfellow, in the following year, made a poem of it all, one of the most widely known poems, I suppose, that have ever been written:-- [154] Below, p. 270. [155] Below, p. 303.