In Mr. Jowett's example, his friend found strength and help, even as he did in hers. "He offers himself up to Oxford," she used to say of him with admiration; and she offered up all her powers to the causes she had espoused. There were still to be many years during which she was able to work unceasingly for them. Her life was to be not less useful than before, and perhaps, as increasing years brought greater calm, her life was also clearer. But happiness, as the world accounts it, she neither attained nor desired. She had a friend who was losing his devotion to high ideals, as she thought, in domestic contentment. "O Happiness," she said of him, "like the bread-tree fruit, what a corrupter and paralyser of human nature thou art!" CHAPTER VI LORD RIPON AND GENERAL GORDON (1880-1885) I thank God for all He is doing in India through Lord Ripon.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1884). General Gordon was the bravest of men where God's cause and that of others was concerned, and his courage rose with loneliness. He was the meekest of men where himself only was concerned. You could not say he was the most unselfish of men: he had no self.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1886). "SOUTH STREET, _Feb._ 2 [1880]. DEAREST--My dear mother fell asleep just after midnight, after much weariness and painfulness. The last three hours were in beautiful peace and all through she had been able to listen to and to repeat her favourite hymns and prayers, and to smile a smile as if she said, 'I'm dying: it's all right.' Then she composed her own self to death at 9 last night: folded her hands: closed her own eyes: laid herself down, and in three hours she was gone to a Greater Love than ours.... Do you remember what Ezekiel says: 'And at eve my wife died: and I did in the morning as I was commanded.'"[194] Miss Nightingale's mother had almost completed her 93rd year. Queen Victoria sent a message of sympathy to which Miss Nightingale replied with particulars of the last hours such as Her Majesty was known to like, and she asked leave to address a letter to the Empress of India on the condition of that country. Permission was granted, and "doing in the morning as she was commanded" Miss Nightingale turned from thoughts of her mother's death to the grievances of the Indian peoples and composed in general terms a plea for their redress. The Queen made no response, but presently she sent a copy of the _Life of the Prince Consort_. The _Life_ contains much information about the famous Proclamation to the People of India, in which the Queen and the Prince Consort had been personally concerned, and Miss Nightingale made use of the fact when she next had an opportunity of addressing her Sovereign on Indian subjects. [194] Letter to Miss Pringle.