Something of the same impression was made by Miss Nightingale upon all who visited her, whether at Lea Hurst or in her upper room at South Street. She was often lonely and despondent, and accounted herself, as we have heard, the weakest of human vessels, the lowest of God's servants. To those who knew her well, she was a tower of strength. Mr. Jowett used to say that he never saw Miss Nightingale or received a letter from her without feeling strengthened for his duties. The thought of her working in solitude was constantly with him. "I think no day passes," he wrote to her, "in which I do not think of you and your work with pride and affection." If men admired Miss Nightingale, women worshipped her. To many a devoted woman, who had learnt from her example and who was inspired by her friendship, she was "My Mistress and Queen," or "My Hero Saint." Women of the great world laid at her feet an almost equal adoration, and young girls had something of the same feeling. "I used at first to be shy with her," says one of them, "but when I was older and talked more freely, I found her the most charming person to talk to. She always seemed interested and glad to see one. I always used to come away with a sort of buoyant feeling. She seemed to raise one into a different atmosphere." "I shall ever remember my visit to you," wrote her "ever affectionate Luise" (the Grand Duchess of Baden) in 1879, "as one of those moments coming directly out of God's hand and leading men's hearts up to Him in thankfulness. It belongs to those things which are in themselves a sanctuary."[191] And Lady Ashburton, who still came sometimes to see the friend of earlier days, her "Beloved Zoë," wrote: "I like to think of you in your tower--so high up above us all"; and, again, "I am humbled in the dust when I think of what you say of me--poor, wretched, profitableless me, and yourself the guiding-star to so many of our lives." [191] The Grand Duchess's knowledge as a nurse proved useful when her father, the Emperor William, was wounded in the attempt made upon his life by Nobiling in 1878. The Empress Augusta sent, through Miss Lees, her kindest remembrances to Miss Nightingale with one of the bandages made for the Emperor by the Grand Duchess. VI The friends to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most regularly on matters other than business, and in whose visits she took the greatest intellectual pleasure, were, next to Mr. Jowett, Monsieur and Madame Mohl. Her letters to them show some of her more general interests:--