never lost his temper, and never made her reproaches an occasion for declining to help her any more. "All I can say is, I am ready to help." "I am at your orders in this as in all things." Such is the continual note of his messages. In private meditations often, and in letters occasionally, Miss Nightingale spoke of herself as a "vampyre." When she wrote in some such sense to Mr. Jowett, he told her to put such talk aside as idle, for "that way madness lies." Yet in a sense there was an element of truth in what she said. She was terribly exacting. She accepted no excuses, made few allowances, and sometimes assumed that those who worked with her had nothing else to do. Dr. Sutherland was a hard worker, but allowed himself diversions. At Norwood he had a garden, and Miss Nightingale was sarcastic about his fondness for digging ponds. But he had also, besides a strong interest in their common work, an abiding admiration for the gifts, the character, and the self-devotion of his friend. In addition to his own bread-winning work, he gave an immense amount of time and labour to Miss Nightingale. In any estimate of her services to great public causes, and especially in connection with sanitation in India, an honourable place is due to the collaborator who helped her through many years with unfailing devotion. PART VII WORK OF LATER YEARS (1872-1910) I ask no heaven till earth be Thine, Nor glory-crown, while work of mine Remaineth here. When earth shall shine Among the stars, Her sins wiped out, her captives free, Her voice a music unto Thee, For crown, New Work give Thou to me. Lord here am I. I found this in an intensely evangelical Baptist American's work--a lecture he had delivered upon me. Now these lines appear to me exactly true, and an extraordinary advance in the way of truth on English Evangelicalism which banishes work, like sin, from heaven, and has no idea that heaven is to be made out of earth by us.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (from a letter to her father, 1869). CHAPTER I "OUT OF OFFICE"--LITERARY WORK (1872-1874) I am glad that you have given up drudgery for public offices.... The position which you held was always a precarious one, because dependent on "temples of friendship" and the goodwill of the Minister. I am glad that you have a straightforward work to do now in which you are dependent on yourself.... I want you to have a new life and interest. The way of influencing mankind by ideas is the more excellent way.--BENJAMIN JOWETT (_Letters to Miss Nightingale, 1871, 1872_).