Читать книгу The Life of Florence Nightingale (Vol. 1&2) - Edward Tyas Cook - Страница 27

The year 1847 was one of much social movement in Miss Nightingale's life. In the spring she was in London “doing the exhibitions and hearing Jenny Lind; but it really requires a new language to define her.” Then she went with her parents to the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, where Adams and Leverrier, the twin discoverers of Neptune, were the lions of the day. She wrote many lively accounts of the meeting to her friends, from which a passage or two may be given:—

Here we are in the midst of loveliness and learning; for never anything so beautiful as this place is looking now, my dearest, have I seen abroad or at home, with its flowering acacias in the midst of its streets of palaces. I saunter about the churchyards and gardens by myself before breakfast, and wish I were a College man. I wish you could see the Astronomical Section—Leverrier and Adams sitting on either side of the President, like a pair of turtle-doves cooing at their joint star and holding it between them. … We work hard. Chapel at 8, to that glorious service at New College; such an anthem yesterday morning! and that quiet cloister where no one goes. I brought home a white rose to-day to dry in remembrance. Sections from 11 to 3. Then Colleges or Blenheim till dinner time. Then lecture at 8 in the Radcliffe Library. And philosophical tea and muffins at somebody's afterwards. The Fowlers, Hamilton Grays, Barlows and selves are the muffins; Wheatstone, Hallam, Chevalier, Monckton Milnes and some of the great guns occasionally are the philosophy. …

and so forth, and so forth; with particulars of “church every two hours” on Sunday, and of a luncheon with Buckland and his famous menagerie at Christ Church, when Florence petted a little bear, and her father drew her away, but Mr. Milnes mesmerised it. “And one thing more,” she adds; “Mr. Hallam's discovery that Gladstone is the Beast 666 (in the Revelations) came to him one day by inspiration in the Athenæum, after he had tried Pusey and Newman, and found that they wouldn't do.”

Miss Nightingale paid many visits during the same year with her father. They went, for instance, to Lord Sherborne, whose daughter, Mrs. Plunkett, became a great friend of hers; and they spent a couple of days with Lord Lovelace. Lady Lovelace, Byron's daughter, conceived a great admiration for Florence Nightingale, which found expression in the verses already quoted. It was in this year that Miss Clarke married her old admirer, M. Mohl. Florence's letter of congratulation was not without significance upon the state of her own feelings, as will be seen in a later chapter:—

Embley, October 13 [1847]. Dearest Friend—To think that you are now a two months' wife, and I have never written to tell you that your piece of news gave me more joy than I ever felt in all my life, except once, no, not even excepting that once, because that was a game of Blind-man's-Buff—and in your case you knew even as you were known. I had the news on a Sunday from dear Ju, and it was indeed a Sunday joy and I kept it holy, though not like the city, which was to be in cotton to be looked at only on Sundays. As has often been said, we must all take Sappho's leap, one way or other, before we attain to her repose—though some take it to death, and some to marriage, and some again to a new life even in this world.

Which of them to the better part, God only knows. Popular prejudice gives it in favour of marriage. Should we not look upon marriage, less as an absolute blessing, than as a remove into another and higher class of this great school-room—a promotion—for it is a promotion, which creates new duties, before which the coward sometimes shrinks, and gives new lessons, of more advanced knowledge, with more advanced powers to meet them, and a much clearer power of vision to read them. In your new development of life, I take, dearest friend, a right fervent interest, and bless you with a right heartfelt and earnest love.

We are only just returned to Embley, after having passed through London, on our way from Derbyshire. News have I none, excepting financial, for no one could talk of anything in London excepting the horrid quantity of failures in the City, by which all England has suffered more or less. Why didn't I write before? Because I thought you would rather be let alone at first and that you were on your travels.

And now for my confessions. I utterly abjure, I entirely renounce and abhor, all that I may have said about M. Robert Mohl, not because he is now your brother-in-law, but because I was so moved and touched by the letters which he wrote after your marriage to Mama; so anxious they were to know more about you, so absorbed in the subject, so eager to prove to us that his brother was such a man, he was quite sure to make you happy.

And I have not said half enough either upon that score, not anything that I feel; how “to marry” is no impersonal verb, upon which I am to congratulate you, but depends entirely upon the Accusative Case which it governs, upon which I do wish you heartfelt and trusting joy. In single life the stage of the Present and the Outward World is so filled with phantoms, the phantoms, not unreal tho' intangible, of Vague Remorse, Tears, dwelling on the threshold of every thing we undertake alone, Dissatisfaction with what is, and Restless Yearnings for what is not, cravings after a world of wonders (which is, but is like the chariot and horses of fire, which Elisha's frightened servant could not see, till his eyes were opened)—the stage of actual life gets so filled with these that we are almost pushed off the boards and are conscious of only just holding on to the foot lights by our chins, yet even in that very inconvenient position love still precedes joy, as in St. Paul's list, for love laying to sleep these phantoms (by assuring us of a love so great that we may lay aside all care for our own happiness, not because it is of no consequence to us, whether we are happy or not, as Carlyle says, but because it is of so much consequence to another) gives that leisure frame to our mind, which opens it at once to joy.

But how impertinently I ramble on—“You see a penitent before you,” don't say “I see an impudent scoundrel before me”—But when thou seest, and what's more, when thou readest, forgive.—You will not let another year pass without our seeing you. M. Mohl gives us hopes, in his letter to Ju, that you won't, that you will come to England next year for many months, then, dearest friend, we will have a long talk out. If not, we really must come to Paris—and then I shall see you, and see the Deaconesses too, whom you so kindly wrote to me about, but of whom I have never heard half enough. …

The Bracebridges are at home—she rejoiced as much as we did over your event—Parthe is going at the end of November to do Officiating Verger to a friend of ours on a like event.—Her prospects are likewise so satisfactory, that I can rejoice and sympathize under any form she may choose to marry in. Otherwise I think that the day will come, when it will surprise us as much, to see people dressing up for a marriage, as it would to see them put on a fine coat for the Sacrament. Why should the Sacrament or Oath of Marriage be less sacred than any other?

The letter goes on to speak of a visit recently paid to Mrs. Archer Clive, well known in her day as the authoress of Poems by V. and of Paul Ferroll, a sensational novel of some force—a lady whose powers of heart and mind were housed in an infirm body. Miss Nightingale admired her talents and her character, and valued her friendship.

But new friendships and varied interests did not bring satisfaction to Miss Nightingale. She was still constantly bent on pursuing a vocation of her own. Her parents caught eagerly at an opportunity which offered itself at the end of this year (1847), for giving, as they hoped, a new turn to her thoughts.