CHAPTER VIII

MR. JOWETT AND OTHER FRIENDS Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close--then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others.--RUSKIN. The last chapter was largely concerned with Miss Nightingale's activity in public affairs and with acquaintanceships which she formed in connection with them. In such affairs she was forcible, clear-sighted, methodical. Sir Bartle Frere, on first making her acquaintance, had said to a friend that it was "a great pleasure to meet such a good man of business as Miss Nightingale." But she was many-sided, and even in her converse with men or women on public affairs she was generally something more than a good "man of business." Much of her influence was due to the fact that so many of those who first saw her as a matter of affairs became her friends, and that to the qualities of a good man of business she added those of a richly sympathetic nature. This aspect of Miss Nightingale's life and character has already been illustrated sufficiently in the case of her relations with Matrons, Superintendents, and Nurses. It may be discerned clearly enough, too, in the account of her official work with Sidney Herbert and other of her earlier allies. But it was as marked in her later as in her earlier years, and in relation to the men as to the women with whom she was brought into touch. In reading her collection of letters from various doctors and officials of all sorts, I have been struck many times with a quick change of atmosphere. The correspondence begins on a formal note. Her correspondent will be "pleased to make the acquaintance of a lady so justly esteemed," etc., etc. The interview has taken place, or a few letters have passed, and then the note alters. Wives or sons or daughters have been to see her, or kindly inquiries and messages have been sent, and the correspondence becomes as between old family friends. Young and old alike felt the sympathetic touch of Miss Nightingale's manner. The name of Mr. J. J. Frederick has been mentioned in earlier pages. He was a junior clerk in the War Office when Miss Nightingale first made his acquaintance. Not many months had passed before she was helpfully interested both in his family and in various good works to which he devoted his spare time. There is much correspondence, during the years with which we were concerned in the last chapter, with Mr. (now Sir Robert) Morant, at that time tutor in the Royal Family of Siam. Miss Nightingale had made his acquaintance before he left for Siam; and he came to see her when he was on leave in England, "leave apparently meaning," she wrote (Sept. 24, 1891), "working on his Siamese subjects 23 hours out of the 24." She became almost as much interested in Siamese affairs as in those of India itself; but the letters show that the public interest was combined with a personal, and almost motherly, affection. Mr. J. Croft, on the staff at St. Thomas's, who had for many years been medical instructor to the Nightingale Probationers, resigned that post in 1892, and in returning thanks for a testimonial described the pleasure he had found in working under "so lovable and adorable a leader as Miss Nightingale." Colonel Yule had first made Miss Nightingale's acquaintance in an official capacity as the member of the India Council charged with sanitary affairs, but he soon came to love her as a friend. In 1889 he was ill, and wrote her a valedictory letter (May 2), in which, after giving advice about some official matters, he said: "As long as I live, but I am not counting on that as a long period, it will be a happiness to think that I was brought into communication with you--useless as I fear I have been in your great task: in fact my strength had already begun to fail. And so, dear Miss Nightingale, I take my leave: let it be with the words of the 4th Book of Moses, ch. vi., and those that come after us will put in your mouth those of Job, xxix."[238] His strength failed more rapidly; and in his last illness he craved to know that Miss Nightingale had not forgotten him. She sent him a message of fervent gratitude. "I will look at it not as misapplied to myself," he answered (Dec. 17, a few days before his death), "but as part of the large and generous nature which you are ready to apply to others who little deserve it. I praise God for the privilege of having known you. I am sunk very low in strength, and cannot write with my own hand, so use that of one of my oldest and dearest friends. God bless and keep you to the end, as you have been for so many years, a pillar in Christ's Kingdom of Love and of this state of England. Ever, with the deepest affection and veneration, your faithful servant, H. Yule." The strength of her older friend and fellow-worker, Dr. Sutherland, ebbed rapidly, and he did not long survive his retirement. He died in July 1891. He was in great weakness at the end, and was hardly able to read or to speak; but his wife said that she had received a letter from Miss Nightingale with messages for him. To her surprise he roused himself once more, read the letter through, and said, "Give her my love and blessing." They were almost his last words. [238] Numbers vi. 24-26: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc. Job xxxi. 11-16: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me," etc. II The affectionate sympathy which Miss Nightingale gave to her friends was not lacking to her relations. In 1889 one of the dearest of them, her "Aunt Mai," had died at the age of 91. Her husband, the "Uncle Sam" of earlier chapters, had died eight years before; and the widow's bereavement seems to have done away with such estrangement as there had been between her and her niece. They resumed their former affectionate correspondence on religious matters, and Miss Nightingale was again the "loving Flo" of earlier years. "Dearest friend," she wrote on the card sent with flowers when her aunt died; "lovely, loving soul; humble mind of high and holy thought." Miss Nightingale was not one of those persons who keep their tact and kindly consideration for the outside world and think indolent indifference or rough candour good enough for the family circle. I have been told a little anecdote which is instructive in this connection. Miss Irby came into the garden hall at Lea Hurst one day, fresh from an interview with Miss Nightingale. "I must tell you," she said, laughing, to one of Miss Nightingale's younger cousins, "what Florence has just said; it's so like her. She said to me, 'I wonder whether R. remembered to have that branch taken away that fell across the south drive.' I said, 'I will ask her.' 'Oh, no,' said Florence, 'don't ask her that. Ask her _whom_ she asked to take the branch away.'" This is only a trifle; but the method of the thing was very characteristic. Miss Nightingale was a diplomatist in small affairs as in great. She was careful not to run a risk of making mischief through intermediaries. She took real trouble to that end, and never seemed to find anything in this sort too much to do. Her influence with every member of her family was used to make relations between them better and more affectionate. With many of the younger generation of her cousins and other kinsfolk she maintained affectionate relations. She regulated her hours very strictly, as we have heard, but she found time, especially in her later years, to see some of these young friends repeatedly. When she did not see them, she liked to be informed of their comings and goings, their doings and prospects, their marriages and belongings. She held in deep affection the memory of Arthur Hugh Clough, and she loved tenderly her cousin, Mr. Shore Smith. She entertained a generous solicitude for Mr. Clough's family; and the family of her cousin, Shore, were especially close to her. A little note to Mrs. Shore Smith--one of hundreds--illustrates incidentally Miss Nightingale's love of flowers and their insect friends:-- 10 SOUTH STREET, _April_ 24, 1894. Dearest, I feel so anxious to know how you are. Thank you so much for your beautiful Azaleas which have come out splendidly, and the yellow tulips. The smell of the Azaleas reminds me so of Embley. On a tulip sat a poor little tiny, tiny, pretty little snail of a sort unknown to me. He said: "I was so happy in my garden on my tulip, and I was kidnapped into that horrid box. And whatever am I to do?" So we carried him out and carefully put him among the shrubs in the boxes on the leads (lilacs). But my opinion is that he is very particular about his diet and that his opinion was that he could find nothing worthy of his acceptance there. He must either have been drowned in the water-spout, or dree'd the penalty of being particular. Now I return to our brutality in letting you go without even partaking of "Baby's bottle." My kindest regards to Baby and its Mama. Ever your loving F. N. Miss Nightingale was godmother to Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Bonham Carter's son, Malcolm. With Norman, an Indian Civilian, a younger son of Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, she kept up a correspondence. She was much attached to Miss Edith Bonham Carter,[239] who had taken up nursing, and there were several other relations who saw her and in whom she was much interested. The number of family letters which she preserved is very large; and among them those relating to the family into which her sister had married are almost as numerous as those relating to her own kith and kin. For Margaret Lady Verney, in particular, Miss Nightingale entertained a deep admiration and a most tender affection. She was attached also to Sir Harry's younger son, Mr. Frederick Verney, who in these later years helped her in many of her undertakings, and whom she in turn helped greatly in his. A few of her own family letters, covering a large space of time, will best show the pleasantly affectionate terms, now grave, now gay, on which she placed herself with her relations:-- (_To Mrs. Clough._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Jan._ 2 [1873]. I lit upon the edition of Byron (without _Don Juan_) which we wished for. There are two vols. more than in our edition, which may be trash. But _Childe Harold_,--the descriptions of Greece in the Tale: Poems,--Chillon,--but above all _Manfred_: there is nothing like it in the world, especially the last scene. The Spirit there is really a spirit--the only spirit out of Job and Saul. The Ghost in _Hamlet_ is surely a very gross unpleasant dead-alive unburied man, with the most vulgar full-bodied sentiments, clamouring for vengeance on his murderer (not even so spirit-like as a dying man), quite unlike what his son describes him--a Thief and Impostor, I am sure, going to take the spoons. _Manfred_, to my mind, stands alone, and is the most spiritual view of immortality, of what hell and heaven really are, of any poetry in the world. One only wonders how Byron ever wrote it. (_To a niece_,[240] _who was going to College._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _August_ 22 [1881]. MY VERY DEAREST R.--Aunt Florence is filled with you and your going to Girton. I can say nothing I would and, saying nothing, I would ask those greatest of the "heathens"--Plato, Aeschylus, Thucydides--to say much to you. Aeschylus, whose _Prometheus_ is evidently a foreshadowing of, or, if you like it better, the same type (with Osiris of Egypt) as, Christ: the one who brought "gifts to men," who defied "the powers that be" (the "principalities" and "powers" of evil), who suffered for men in bringing them the "best gifts" (the "fire from heaven"), who _could_ only give by suffering himself, and who finally "led captivity captive." It seems to me that I see in nothing so much the _history of God_--in the religions of the world which M. Mohl learnt Oriental languages to write--as in these great "heathens"--Persian, Chinese, Indian, Greek also, and Latin too, but specially Aeschylus and Plato; and perhaps, too, in Physiology--the _greatness_ of His work, the silence of His work, what spirit He is of. His "glory" and poorness of spirit--and that to be "poor of spirit" constitutes His glory, if to be poor of spirit means utter unselfishness, perfect freedom from self and from the very thought of self, and from affectations and from "_vain_ glory." My very dearest child, fare you very well--very, very well is the deepest prayer of AUNT FLORENCE. (_To a niece who had taken up vegetarianism._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Nov._ 8 [1887]. DEAREST--I send you two "vegetables" in their shells. We shall have some more fresh ones to-morrow. A new potato is, I assure you, _not_ a vegetable. It is a mare's egg, laid by her, you know, in a "mare's nest." No vegetarian would eat it. I send you some Egyptian lentils. I have them every night for supper, done in milk, which I am not very fond of. The delicious thing is lentil soup, as made every day by an Arab cook in Egypt, over a handful of fire not big enough to roast a mosquito.... Ever your loving AUNT FLORENCE. (_To a niece, who was full of the co-operative movement._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 14 [1888]. DEAREST--Your co-operative usefulness is delightful. If it is not in the lowest degree vulgar, I should ask if I might give them some books. But I suppose this is contrary to all Co-operative principle. Lady Ashburton is gone to Marienbad, to distribute Bibles and Tracts in Czech-ish. There is a very large Co-operative Estate about 20 miles distant on the borders of the Forest, which she has seen and believes to be entirely successful. And I have charged her to send me home (for you) details--and of course to prove its success. You see how my manners and principles have been corrupted by you, the youthful prophet. If you observe aberration, do not lay it at my door. It is sad how youth corrupts old age. Your faithful and loving old (co-operative) Aunt, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. (_To Mrs. Vaughan Nash._) CLAYDON HOUSE, _Jan._ 3 [1895]. I have never thanked you, except in my heart, which is always, for my beautiful book--Villari's _History of Florence_: its first two centuries. It does look so interesting, and I have always been interested in Florentine history above all others. I think it was from studying Sismondi's _Républiques Italiennes_ when I was a young girl (book now despised--you rascal!) and from knowing Sismondi himself afterwards at Geneva. The end of this Villari does look so very enthralling, where he traces the causes of the decline and fall of the Florentine Republic--its very wealth and commerce assisting its ruin, and shows how its "Commune" could not develop into a "State" (that may help some reflections on Indian Village Communities). But I do not see that he shows--tho' as I am reading backwards, like the Devil, I may come to it--how different were the Florentine ideas of Liberty from ours. With them it was that everybody should have a share in governing everybody else; with us, that everybody should have the power of self-development without hurting anybody else. I remember Villari's _Savonarola_ well: it must have been published 30 or 40 years ago. (I always had an enthusiasm for Savonarola.) It was heavy, learned, impartial, exhaustive. It was my father's book: he read it much. I think I told you that I possess copies of the last things that Savonarola ever wrote--Commentaries on two Psalms--not a word against his enemies and persecutions, or any mention of them, or indeed any lamentation at all, but all one long and fervent aspiration after a perfect re-union with the Father of light and love. Good Fenzi, Evelina Galton's husband, had these copies made for me from the originals in the Palazzo Vecchio. (_To Norman Bonham Carter._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _August_ 2 [1895].... You will see by the accounts of the General Election how the Conservatives have got in by an enormous majority, and the Liberals are discomfited. But I am an old fogey, and have been at this work for 40 years. And I have always found that the man who has the genius to know how to find details, and the still greater genius of knowing how to apply them will win, and party does not signify at all. My masters[241]--that is, Sir Robert Peel's school, never cared for place, but always worked for both sides alike. I learn the lesson of life from a little kitten of mine, one of two. The old cat comes in and says, very cross, "I didn't ask you in here, I like to have my Missis to myself!" And he runs at them. The bigger and handsomer kitten runs away, but the littler one _stands her ground_, and when the old enemy comes near enough kisses his nose, and makes the peace. That is the lesson of life, to kiss one's enemy's nose, always standing one's ground. I am rather sorry for Lord Salisbury. A majority is always in the wrong. (_To Louis Shore Nightingale._[242]) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 21 [1896]. I have been thinking a great deal of what you said on both sides about a Church at Lea. I wish you could consult some one, not Church-y, like Harry B. C., upon it. What you say that, if the Church is to be done, the proprietors and trustees of Lea Hurst should not set themselves against it is true. The Church is like the Wesleyans, another Christian sect--not to be put down. On the other hand, the Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees than like Christ. The Bishops and the High Church look upon work among Dissenters as work among the heathen. They would upset all the present work in Lea and Holloway if they could. Christ would have laughed at the "Validity of Orders" difficulty of the present day. He would have no dogma. His Dogmas were, He tells us distinctly, Unselfishness, Love to God and our neighbour. He takes the Ten Commandments to pieces and shows us the spirit of them (without which they are nothing) in the Sermon on the Mount. He even ridicules Sabbath observance. What are now called the "essential doctrines" of the Christian religion He does not even mention. A High Churchman and especially a H. Ch.'s wife would upset everything.... Ever your loving AUNT F. (_To Norman Bonham Carter._) _August_ 27 [1897].... I wish you God-speed, my dear friend. India is a glorious field, provided you keep out of "little wars." As you are not a military man, there is just a chance that you may not have perverse views on this subject. I see Charlie sometimes. He is a very good fellow, tho' a military man. But then his mind is not warped by "Frontier Wars." And I know at Dublin he did a good deal for the men. One of our nurses, Sister Snodgrass, who died just after she had gone out to foreign service, was some years in Dublin military fever wards. She did so much for them, and got many of her orderlies to reform their lives. When they heard of her death, they cried like children. I know how hard worked you are. So am I. But your Father helps me with his excellent judgment. God bless you. (_To Louis Shore Nightingale._) 10 SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 23 [1898]. I send a small contribution to your journey. I approve of Switzerland, but wish you could prick on to Italy. I always do. If you make a bother about this bit of paper, you will find that, in the words of the immortal Shakespeare, "Ravens shall pick out your eyes and eagles eat the same." I have the Doctor coming this afternoon, whom I dare not put off, from considerations of the same nature. If you are so good as to come, please come at 5--for only half an hour, that is till 5.30. [239] Daughter of Mr. John Bonham Carter (see Vol. I. p. 29). [240] Not really a niece, but Miss Nightingale was "Aunt Florence" to all her cousins in the second generation; as also to the children of some old friends. [241] She was writing, it will be observed, on the anniversary of Sidney Herbert's death. [242] Younger son of Mr. Shore Smith, who had assumed the name of Nightingale in 1893. Multiply such letters largely; add to them letters of a like kind, _mutatis mutandis_, addressed to her "children" in the nursing world; bring further into count her solicitude for servants and dependents: and it will be seen how faithfully Miss Nightingale followed the words placed at the head of this chapter--words which she had copied out as "A New Year's Greeting" for 1889. She had a soft place in her heart even for criminals who despitefully used her. In July 1892 burglary was committed in her house in South Street. It was in the early morning, and she espied the burglar resting for a moment with his spoils (some of her plate and her maid's money) in a hiding-place behind the house. If her maids or the police or both had been more alert, the malefactor would have been arrested. Her sense for efficiency was outraged, but she relented when the Inspector came to see her. "Perhaps it was just as well that you didn't catch the man," she said with a twinkle, "for I am afraid you don't do them much good when you lock them up." She was fond of the police, and during the Jubilee year admired from her window their handling of the crowds. She noted the long hours; made friends with the Inspector at Grosvenor Gate, and sent supplies of hot tea and cakes for his men. III There was a time, as we have heard, when Miss Nightingale's friendship with Mr. Jowett, though it did not diminish, yet became sensible, on her side at least, of a certain discomfort;[243] but that time was short. Later years brought occasion for a renewal of more effective sympathy; and as old age began to steal upon them, the friends held closer together. Mr. Jowett was deeply interested in many of Miss Nightingale's later Indian interests--especially in those that related to education, whether in India itself or of Indians and Indian civil servants in this country. He introduced to her Miss Cornelia Sorabji, whom he befriended at Oxford. He talked and corresponded much with Miss Nightingale about University courses in relation to India. "I want to prove to you," he wrote (Oct. 14, 1887), "that your words do sometimes affect my flighty or stony heart and are not altogether cast to the winds. Therefore I send you the last report of the Indian Students, in which you will perceive that agricultural chemistry has become a reality; and that, owing to YOU (though I fear that, like so many other of your good deeds, this will never be known to men), Indian Students are reading about agriculture, and that therefore Indian Ryots may have a chance of being somewhat better fed than hitherto." When Lord Lansdowne had settled down in India, Mr. Jowett thought that he might without impertinence write to his friend and tell him what he should do to become "a really great Viceroy." What should be suggested? Perhaps Miss Nightingale would consider? She took the hint most seriously: the education of Viceroys was a favourite occupation with her. Without disclosing the particular occasion, she took many advisers into council, and discussed with them what reforms might most usefully be introduced. She forwarded her views to Oxford, and they filtered through Mr. Jowett to Simla. Mr. Jowett continued throughout these years to see Miss Nightingale frequently, and generally stayed with her once or twice a year--either in London or at Claydon. In 1887 he was staying in South Street when he was taken ill. Miss Nightingale found him "a very wilful patient"; he would not take the complete rest which she and the doctor considered essential; and she had to enter into a secret plot with Robert Browning to keep him from the excitement of seeing friends. "I am greatly ashamed," he wrote on his return to Oxford (Oct. 13), "at the trouble and interference to your work which I caused. The recollection of your infinite kindness will never fade from my mind." She sent him elaborate instructions for the better care of his "Brother Ass," the body. "How can I thank you enough for your never ending kindness to me? May God bless you 1000 times in your life and in your work. I sometimes think I gossip to you too much. It is due to your kindness and sympathy, and you know that I have no one else to gossip to." From this time forward Miss Nightingale was constantly solicitous about her friend's health, and entered into regular correspondence with his housekeeper, Miss Knight, who was grateful for being allowed to share her anxieties with so high an authority on matters of health. During Mr. Jowett's illnesses, Miss Nightingale had daily letters or telegrams sent to her reporting the patient's condition in much detail. This was her regular practice in the case of relations or friends for whom she was solicitous. Such bulletins were especially numerous during the fatal illness of her cousin, Miss Hilary Bonham Carter. Miss Nightingale thought, no doubt, that her request for daily particulars would keep the nurses up to the mark; and sometimes it was that she had herself recommended the nurse. There were bulletins of the kind sent to her about Lady Rosebery, whose acquaintance she had made, as already related, in 1882. Lord Rosebery was during some years an occasional caller at South Street. [243] See above, p. 240. The friendship of Miss Nightingale and Mr. Jowett was to have been commemorated between themselves in an interesting way, for Mr. Jowett desired to contribute towards a scheme which occupied much of Miss Nightingale's time during 1890 and 1891. It was connected with one of the ruling thoughts of her life. She was, as I have said, a Passionate Statistician. Statistics were to her almost a religious exercise. The true function of theology was to ascertain "the character of God." Law was "the thought of God." It was by the aid of statistics that law in the social sphere might be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of "the character of God" thereby revealed. The study of statistics was thus a religious service. In the sphere of immediate application, she had pointed out thirty years before[244] that there were enormous masses of statistical data, already pigeon-holed in government offices or easily procurable by government action, of which little or no use was made. Statistics, said Lord Brougham, in a passage already quoted, were to the legislator as the compass or the lead to the navigator; but the actual course of legislation was too often conducted without any such compass or lead at all. "The Cabinet Ministers," she now wrote,[245] "the army of their subordinates, the Houses of Parliament have for the most part received a University education, but no education in statistical method." The result was that legislation is "not progressive, but see-saw-y." "We legislate without knowing what we are doing. The War Office has on some subjects the finest statistics in the world. What comes of them? Little or nothing. Why? Because the Heads don't know how to make anything of them (with the two exceptions of Sidney Herbert and W. H. Smith). Our Indian statistics are really better on some subjects than those of England. Of these no use is made in administration. What we want is not so much (or at least not at present) an accumulation of facts as to teach the men who are to govern the country the use of statistical facts." She gave particular instances of the kind of questions which she desired to see thoroughly explored by the statistical method. What had been the result of twenty years of compulsory education? What proportion of children forget all that they learnt at school? What result has the school-teaching on the life and conduct of those who do not forget it? Or, again, what is the effect of town life on offspring, in number and in health? What are the contributions of the several classes (as to social position and residence) to the population of the next generation? Some of the questions which she hoped to see solved by the statistical method came near to those with which a later generation is familiar under the name of Eugenics. Her friend M. Quetelet had made a beginning in the science of "Social Physics." Both he and Dr. Farr had hoped that she would carry on the work. She had often talked with Mr. Jowett on the subject, and now a scheme was suggested. She would give a sum of money, and he a like amount, and between them they would found at Oxford a Professorship or Lectureship in Applied Statistics. They agreed first to consult various friends and experts. Mr. Jowett seems to have discussed the matter with Mr. Arthur Balfour and Professor Alfred Marshall. Of Mr. Balfour, he wrote (Dec. 4, 1890) that "he has more head and power of thinking than any statesman whom I have ever known." Miss Nightingale on her side called into council Mr. Francis Galton, who took up the idea warmly and elaborated a detailed scheme. He raised, however, a preliminary objection. A Professor at Oxford or Cambridge of any subject which is not a principal element in an examination "School" is a Professor without a class, and often sinks into somnolence. He suggested that the Professorship would be more useful if attached to the Royal Institution. Mr. Jowett, who had perhaps entered into the scheme from interest rather in Miss Nightingale than in the subject, was not very helpful in matters of detail, but he was ready to acquiesce in any scheme which Miss Nightingale adopted. He made only two conditions; first, that he should be allowed to contribute; and next, that the Professorship should be called by her name. Mr. Galton went on with his plans which, as they were developed, were found to require a very large sum of money. Miss Nightingale, whose resources were in great part tied up by settlements, consulted her trustees. They did not deny that she could put down £4000,--the sum which Mr. Galton's scheme seemed to require as her contribution,--but they were not passionate statisticians and did not underrate the objections to such a gift. Meanwhile time was passing; Mr. Galton was busy with other things, and Miss Nightingale herself, being much occupied during this year (1891) with other affairs, laid the scheme aside. [244] See Vol. I. p. 435. [245] In a letter of 1891 to Mr. Jowett. Mr. Jowett, moreover, was very ill in the same year--having a serious heart attack, from which he barely recovered and which was premonitory of the end. At the beginning of October he spent a few days at Claydon with Sir Harry Verney and Miss Nightingale. On returning to Oxford he was worse. "You will be tired of hearing from me," he said to her in a dictated letter of farewell (Oct. 16), "and I begin to think that I may as well cease. Many interesting things have been revealed to me in my illness, of which I should like to talk to you. I never had an idea of what death was, or of what the human body was before, and am very far from knowing now. I am always thankful for having known you. I try to go on to the end as I was. I hope you will do so too; it is best. I hope that you may continue many years, and that you may do endless kindnesses to others. Will you cast a look sometimes on my old friends, Miss Knight and Mrs. [T. H.] Green, and my two young friends, F. and J.? It would please me if you could say a word to them from time to time. But perhaps it is rather drivelling to try and make things permanent which are already passing away. Ever yours affectionately, B. J." He thought that he was on the point of death, and in a will made at this time he bequeathed "£2000 to Miss Nightingale for certain purposes." It was the sum which he had meant to contribute to the "Nightingale Professorship of Statistics." He rallied, however, and begged her to do as she had offered, and come over from Claydon to see him. "I am delighted to hear," he wrote (Nov. 18), "that you will do me the honour to come to Balliol to see me. Acland will send his carriage for you to the station. It will be a great event for me to have a visit from you." Mr. Jowett was spared for nearly two years, and he still came from time to time to see her. "I want to hold fast to you, dear friend," he wrote (May 26, 1892), "as I go down the hill. You and I are agreed that the last years of life are in a sense the best, and that the most may be made of them even at a time when health and strength may seem to be failing." In August 1893 Mr. Jowett was again very ill. He dictated a letter to Miss Nightingale, commending some of his friends to her once more. He rallied a little and came up to London to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Campbell. On September 18 he dictated his last letter to Miss Nightingale: "We called upon you yesterday in South Street, but finding no one at home supposed you had migrated to Claydon. Fare you well! How greatly am I indebted to you for all your affection. How large a part has your life been of my life. There is only time I think for a few words." On October 1 he died at the house of Mr. Justice Wright in Hampshire, to which he had gone a few days before. "Do you know," wrote Miss Nightingale to Mrs. Clough (Nov. 7), "that he sometimes felt glad in the society of 'Clough' during his last illness? He was in London at the house of those dear Lewis Campbells for doctoring and nursing from September 16 to 23rd. He was lying in the way he liked--silent, with Mr. Lewis Campbell sitting beside him--when suddenly he opened his eyes and said, 'Oh, is it you? I thought it was Clough.'" Pinned to Miss Nightingale's letter, there is one which Mr. Jowett had written, thirty-two years before, to Mrs. Clough on the death of his friend, her husband. In it he had said: "I loved him and think of him daily. I should like to have the memory of him, and also of Miss Nightingale, present with me in death, as of the two persons whose example I value most, as having 'walked by faith.'" Miss Nightingale had other bereavements at this time. "I have lost," she wrote, "the three nearest to me in twelve months" (1893-94). In February 1894, Sir Harry Verney died, and she felt the loss of "his courage, his courtesy, his kindness." In August, her cousin, Mr. Shore Smith, died--"her boy" of the old days, whom throughout his life she had regarded with something of a mother's love; nor had she ever forgotten the fond and dutiful affection which he had shown towards her own mother. Miss Nightingale felt the three losses deeply, but a note of serenity marked her old age. "This is a sad birthday, dearest," she wrote a little later; "but let me send a few roses to say what words cannot say. There is so much to live for. I have lost much in failures and disappointment, as well as in grief; but, do you know, life is more precious to me now in my old age." The place left vacant by Mr. Jowett's death was in some respects filled henceforth by the Rev. Thory Gage Gardiner, who from time to time administered the Sacrament to Miss Nightingale in her room, and in whose work in South London she came to take a lively interest. The Professorship which Mr. Jowett and Miss Nightingale were to have founded was never realized. Miss Nightingale had laid the scheme aside at the end of 1891--"with a sore heart," she said, for it had been "an object of a lifetime." Mr. Jowett, knowing that she had abandoned the scheme, had omitted his bequest in a new will made during his last illness. But when three years later she in turn came to make her will she still had the scheme in mind. It was a trust, she used to say, committed to her by M. Quetelet and Dr. Farr, and it was connected with memories of Mr. Jowett. She gave accordingly "to Francis Galton £2000 for certain purposes," and declared that "the same shall be paid in priority to all other bequests given by her Will for charitable and other purposes." Her hope was that the £2000 would suffice for some _educational_ work in the use of Statistics, but Mr. Galton differed, and in the following year she revoked the bequest by Codicil. A pencilled note found among her Papers gives the reason: "I recall or revoke the legacy of £2000 to Mr. Francis Galton because he does not think it sufficient for the purpose I wished and proposes a small Endowment for _Research_, which I believe will only end in endowing some bacillus or microbe, and I do not wish that." IV Miss Nightingale's life, said Mr. Jowett, had been a large part of his. That his life had also been a large part of hers, this Memoir will have shown. Few men or women had known him so well, and into the inscription which she sent with her flowers she distilled her memories: "In loving remembrance of Professor Jowett, the Genius of Friendship, above all the Friend of God." Among the many letters which she received about his death none touched or interested her so much as those of Lord Lansdowne:-- SIMLA, _October_ 11. Our dear old friend is, as far as his bodily presence in our midst is concerned, lost to us. It is a real sorrow to me. I had no more constant friend, and I cannot express the gratitude with which I look back to his unfailing interest in all that befell me and to his help and guidance at times when they were most needed. His saying that he meant to get better "because he had yet so much to do" is touching and characteristic. He was one who would never have sate down and said that his task was done, or that he was entitled to rest from toil for the remainder of his days. It would, however, be very far from the truth to think that his work was at an end because he is no longer here to carry it on with his own hands. SIMLA, _October_ 25. Of all the true and appreciative words which you have written of him, none seem to me truer than those in which you speak almost impatiently of the shallow fools who thought that he had "no religion." His religion always seemed to me nearer to that which _The_ Master taught his followers than that of any other man or woman whom I have met, and I doubt whether any one of our time has done so much to spread true religion and Christianity in the best sense of the word. All this was precisely and profoundly what Miss Nightingale felt about her friend. Of all men whom she had known, none seemed to her to have led a Christian life more consistently than Mr. Jowett. In her thoughts about him she had only one regret. It was that their friendship had never resulted in any formal re-statement of religious doctrine. She had not been able to put into any such form as satisfied him the scheme of Theodicy which they had discussed during thirty years, and he had devoted too much time, she thought, to criticism and too little to reconstruction. But in religious practice, how rich was his legacy--both in precept and in example! In letters of his later years, no thought had been more often expressed by Mr. Jowett than that of Browning's _Rabbi Ben Ezra_--a poem which he was constantly recommending to Miss Nightingale. And there was another poem which he sent her: _The Song Celestial_, translated from the Mahâbhârata by Sir Edwin Arnold. "I think," he wrote (Nov. 6, 1886), "it expresses some of the deepest thoughts of the human heart." These two poems which Miss Nightingale read, marked, and learnt, were to set the note of her last years.