It will have been seen that during the years treated in the foregoing chapters (1867-1871) Miss Nightingale did an enormous amount of work. Her health during the same period had been no better. Country air did not bring any accession of strength; there is evidence of sleepless nights in numbers of her letters dated in the small hours of the morning; and during 1870 and 1871 especially her letters and diaries speak of great weakness. She was able to do as much as she did only by the devotion of the same friend, Dr. Sutherland, whose relations with his task-mistress have been described in an earlier chapter. More and more, indeed, she seems to have fallen into the habit, which had become almost a necessity, of saying nothing, doing nothing, writing nothing (her letters to Mr. Jowett and a few other intimate friends alone excepted) without first consulting Dr. Sutherland. I have illustrated this point incidentally in previous pages, but such occasional references give an inadequate account of the extent to which she relied upon him. "The only way I can work now," she wrote to him in 1870, "is by receiving written notes from you, and working them up into my own language, then printing and showing you the work." Her Papers, with hundreds upon hundreds of drafts and memoranda in Dr. Sutherland's hand, show that such was in fact the way in which the work was done, and the process was applied not only to things ultimately printed, but almost to the whole range of her correspondence. He was sometimes called upon to draft even the most delicate family letters. She was asked to suggest an inscription for a memorial to Agnes Jones at Liverpool. Dr. Sutherland had first to try his hand at it. She was put out by an unwarranted liberty which a publisher had taken with her name. The case was sent to Dr. Sutherland, with a pressing appeal, "What _shall_ I do? I have no one to act for me." He acted for her. He had artistic tastes, and served as eyes for her at the International Exhibition of 1871, when he selected some French bronzes for her to give to Mr. Jowett. Whenever she was asked to join a Society, or subscribe to a new institution, Dr. Sutherland had first to advise and report. Sometimes she accompanied her references to him with amusing comments, as to Uncle Sam in earlier days. Did Dr. Sutherland advise her to join a new "Central Philanthropic Agency"? She was inclined against it, remembering that "When Crosse invented a new insect, my grandmother was heard to exclaim, 'Are there not enough insects already?'" Sometimes a reference may have been made only, or mainly, for the fun of the thing; as when the Census Paper was left at South Street in 1871 and she sent it off by special messenger to Dr. Sutherland at the War Office to know how she was to fill it up. "Am I the head of this household?" Dr. Sutherland forbore to say that no doubt was conceivable about _that_. "Occupation column: as I think that