said (July 22), "I return the proof corrected. Don't swear, but read the reasons on the accompanying paper. It is a good thing you are at Lea Hurst or your 'dear sisters' would infallibly break your head. They will probably break your windows. However, you are clearly right, and let them scream and stamp. The Book is a very good contribution to the subject, and will excite surprise and some opposition. But the facts are too strong." Miss Nightingale put out her book tentatively in a questioning spirit, as she explained in this characteristic dedication (which had received Mr. Jowett's imprimatur, but puzzled some of the reviewers):-- If I may dedicate, without permission, these small "Notes" to the shade of Socrates' Mother, may I likewise, without presumption, call to my help the questioning shade of her Son, that I who write may have the spirit of questioning aright and that those who read may learn not of me but of themselves? And further, has he not said: "The midwives are respectable women and have a character to lose."[122] [120] Vol. I. p. 464. [121] See above, p. 189. [122] _Theaetetus_, 150. V The preparation of this book had been delayed by the Franco-German War of 1870-71, which brought a great addition to Miss Nightingale's labours. There is a huge pile of documents on the subject amongst her Papers. A letter to an old friend gives an idea of one branch of the correspondence:-- (_Miss Nightingale to Harriet Martineau._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Feb._ [1871]. Oh this year of desolation! The one gleam of comfort through it all was the rush of all English-speaking people, in all climates and in all longitudes,--not the rich and comfortable, but the whole mass of hard-working, honest, frugal, stupid people--who have contributed every penny they could so ill spare. Women have given the very shoes off their feet, the very suppers out of their children's mouths--not to those of their own creed, not to those of their own way of thinking at all, but--to those who _suffered most_. In this awful war, all, all have given--every man, woman, and child above pauperism. I have been so touched to receive from places I had never even heard of, but which it would take me a day to enumerate,--from congregations who had "seen my name in a stray London newspaper" as helping in the relief of the war sufferers--sums collected by halfpence (with a long letter to say how they wished the money spent)--from poor hard-working negro congregations in different islands of the West Indies--poor congregations of all kinds, Puritan chapels in my own dear hills, National Schools, Factories, London dissenting congregations without a single rich member, London ragged schools who having nothing to give, gave up their only feast in the year that the