The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir
History
The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2
Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir
Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910
Clough is expressed or reflected in letters
which she wrote or received at the time:--
(_Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale._) BALLIOL, _Nov._ 19 [1861].
Thank you for writing to me. I am very much grieved at the tidings
which your letter brought me. I agree entirely in your estimate of
our dear friend's character. It was in 1836 (the anniversary is
next week) that I first saw him when he was elected to the Balliol
Scholarship. No one who only knew him in later life would imagine
what a noble, striking-looking youth he was before he got worried
with false views of religion and the world. I never met with any
one who was more thoroughly high-minded: I believe he acted all
through life simply from the feeling of what was right. He
certainly had great genius, but some want of will or some want of
harmony with things around him prevented his creating anything
worthy of himself. I am glad he was married: life was dark to him,
and his wife and children made him as happy as he was capable of
being made. He was naturally very religious, and I think that he
never recovered the rude shock which his religion received during
his first years at Oxford. He did not see and yet he believed in
the great belief of all--to do rightly. Did I quote to you ever an
expression which Neander used to me of Blanco White: _einer Christ
mehr in Unbewusstseyn als in Bewusstseyn_? It grieves me that you
should have lost so invaluable a friend. No earthly trial can be
greater than to pursue without friends the work that you began with
them. And yet it is the more needed because it rests on one only.
If there be any way in this world to be like Christ it must be by
pursuing in solitude and illness, without the support of sympathy
or public opinion, works for the good of mankind. I hope you will
sometimes let me hear from you. Let me assure you that I shall
never cease to take an interest in your objects and writings.--Ever
yours sincerely, B. JOWETT.
(_Miss Nightingale to Sir John McNeill._) SOUTH STREET, _Nov._ 18....
He was a man of rare mind and temper. The more so because he
would gladly do "plain work." To me, seeing the blundering harasses
which were the uses to which we put him, he seemed like a
race-horse harnessed to a coal truck. This not because he did
"plain work" and did it so well. For the best of us can be put to
no better use than that. He helped me immensely, though not
officially, by his sound judgment and constant sympathy. "Oh,
Jonathan, my brother Jonathan, my love to thee was very great,
passing the love of woman." Now, not one man remains (that I can
call a man) of all those whom these five years I have worked with.
But, as you say, "we are all dying."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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