Yet, all the while, she was "out of office." The conjunction of circumstances which gave her much immediate power at the War Office, through Sidney Herbert, and afterwards in the earlier stages of Indian sanitary reform, was no longer operative; and there was now disproportion between her expenditure of effort and the immediate effect which it produced. In this part of her life's work Miss Nightingale suffered from some confusion of aim. Her official connections, though they gave her the advantage of some good information, interfered with the effect of her work as a publicist. Her work as a publicist made her distrusted in some official circles. She would perhaps have done better to confine her exertions to the influencing of public opinion by more consistent and sustained writing. The pity of it is, as we shall learn presently, that the book which she designed as a permanent contribution to the Indian question was never completed in her life-time. Still, in spite of all, Miss Nightingale's work as an Indian Reformer, which absorbed many hours of every day in her life for twenty-five years, was not without effect. In various specific matters she exerted some influence at the time; whilst her personal influence and her writings did something to form the public opinion which made later reforms possible. II Miss Nightingale's primary interest in India was in connection with sanitation, and I shall give one or two instances of her resumed activity in this field before passing to the larger sphere into which that interest came necessarily to be absorbed. From time to time she still intervened, and not without success, to promote the health of the Army in India. Thus, on July 21, 1874, the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Napier of Magdala, wrote to her, enclosing a Minute which he had "been obliged to write in defence of the soldiers," as improvements to barracks and in other respects were "delayed year after year." The Minute, he explained, was Private and Confidential, but he wished that the facts which had called it forth could be used in some legitimate way. "I cannot help telling you, dear Miss Nightingale, as I know you love the soldiers as well as you did in the Crimea when you broke down the doors of red tape for them, a scene which I hope to see embodied in marble before I die." On receipt of this letter, Miss Nightingale called a meeting of _her_ Indian Council--Sir Bartle Frere and Dr. Sutherland. Sir Bartle made inquiries about the Minute, and found that the Government of India had not yet communicated it to the India Office. He prepared the ground by informing the Secretary of State of the fact that such a Minute had been written. He suggested to Miss Nightingale that, without using any private and confidential information, it would be possible to draw up a statement upon measures urgently needed for the further improvement of the health of the soldiers in India. With the help of Sir Bartle Frere and Dr.