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Sister Philippa was only one of the many war-nurses to whom their Chief showed this tender friendship. During their service abroad, she was constant in letters of encouragement and advice:--

She had indeed, and more. I have counted the letters. There were sixty-five to Miss Williams during her service in Egypt.

"THE NURSES' BATTLE"; AND HEALTH IN THE VILLAGE

Nursing cannot be formulated like engineering. It cannot be numbered or registered like population.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE .

What can be done for the health of the home without the woman of the home? In the West, as in the East, women are needed as Rural Health Missioners.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE .

And in this month, too, Florence Nightingale was to die; but nearly a quarter of a century of life was first granted to her, and for the greater part of the time she remained in full possession of her faculties. Though she might be an "old lady" to young nurses, others remarked that she looked wonderfully fresh and youthful for her years. If old age had set in, her powers had by no means failed, and in many directions her work, though sometimes sore beset, continued to prosper. We will take first in our survey her work in the nursing world.

See Bibliography A, No. 120.

An Association founded by Sir Henry Burdett, out of which came the Nurses National Pension Scheme . She took a different view of his Directory of Nurses.

Proceedings of First General Meeting, February 24, 1888.

Letter from Miss Nightingale to Mr. Rathbone, read to the Privy Council: see p. 90 of the book cited below .

It was in 1889 that the occasion came for resolute action. The British Nurses Association announced their intention of applying for a Charter, and proceeded to enlist public support. Miss Nightingale set to work on the other side. She made the acquaintance at this time of Miss L?ckes, then, as now , the Matron of the London Hospital, who was strongly opposed to the idea of registration. The acquaintance speedily ripened into friendship, and henceforth Miss Nightingale was looked to for support and sympathy by the Matron of the London, hardly less than by her of St. Thomas's. Other nurse-training schools came into line, and a manifesto was issued announcing their intention to oppose any petition for a Charter. There was desultory skirmishing for some time between the Registrationists and anti-Registrationists. There was a lively polemic in the newspapers. There were as many fly-sheets and pamphlets as if it were a theological dispute in a University. In 1891 the British Nurses Association applied to the Board of Trade to be registered as a Public Company, without the addition of the word "Limited" to its name. The Memorandum and proposed Articles of Association were duly filed, and the foremost place was again given, among the declared objects, to a register of trained nurses, and to power to determine from time to time the test for registration. Miss Nightingale and her allies took up the challenge. Through Sir Harry Verney she approached the President of the Board of Trade with a statement of the case against the Association. A counter-petition was presented; and after full consideration the Board refused the application. The first engagement had thus resulted in a victory for Miss Nightingale. In the same year there was a Committee of the House of Lords to inquire into the London Hospitals. Mr. Rathbone, coached by Miss Nightingale, gave evidence on the question of the registration of nurses, and the Committee reported against it. A second victory! But the Registrationists now brought up their most formidable reserves. Permission was obtained from the Sovereign to use the title "Royal." Thus strengthened by favour in the highest quarter, the Royal British Nurses Association petitioned the Queen for a Royal Charter. The petition was referred in the usual course to a special Committee of the Privy Council, and the two sides marshalled their forces. A campaign fund was raised by the anti-Registrationists. Miss Nightingale appealed privately to the Lord President of the Council and wrote various letters, Memoranda, Statements. She enlisted support from the medical profession. Her old pupils, now in charge of nurse-training schools throughout the country, rallied round her. Two petitions, of special weight, were presented to the Privy Council against the Charter. One was from the Council of the Nightingale Fund, the body which had been the pioneer in promoting the training of nurses. The other was the "Petition of Executive Officers, Matrons, Lady Superintendents, and Principal Assistants of the London and Provincial Hospitals and Nurse Training Schools, and of Members of the Medical Profession and Ladies directly connected with Nursing and the Training of Nurses." The list of signatures, which occupies twenty-three folio pages, was headed by "Florence Nightingale." In the preparation of these documents, Miss Nightingale had a large share, though much of the work--especially in the instruction of the lawyers, in consultations and so forth--was done by Mr. Bonham Carter.

The Committee of the Privy Council sat in November 1892 to hear the case. Of the first day's proceedings Miss Nightingale wrote an account in which, as will be seen, she did not let the Registrationist dogs have the better of it, but which betrays at the same time serious anxiety about the result:--

The Committee took time to consider their advice to Her Majesty. In May 1893 the decision was announced. The Committee advised Her Majesty in Council to grant a Charter in accordance with a Draft revised by them. On June 6 the Charter was granted.

Bibliography A, No. 131.

In the following year Miss Nightingale had some correspondence with the Princess, who, as President of the Royal British Nurses Association, had made a scheme for enrolling a "War Nursing Reserve" through the Hospitals, and had written to consult Miss Nightingale about it. The Hospital Sisters were according to this scheme to be placed "in subordination to the Army Sisters"--nurses with the larger experience under those with the smaller. This seemed to Miss Nightingale a mistake; and she noted other details in which the scheme appeared to her inadequately considered. She pointed these things out faithfully to the Princess, but the correspondence on both sides was cordial. The letters from the Princess made Miss Nightingale exclaim, "How gracefully Royalty can do things!" And on her part she desired to be conciliatory. "We should, I think, be earnestly anxious," she wrote, "to do what we can for Princess Christian as she holds out the flag of truce, in order to put an end as far as we can to all this bickering, which does such harm to the cause."

The fate of Miss Nightingale's work in the cause of Public Health both in India and at home was chequered during these years, even as was that in the cause of trained nursing, but here again substantial advance was made in several directions. There was once a Secretary of State who entered the India Office possessed by a strong and personal interest in sanitation. There was some excitement in the Office. There were one or two men around the Minister who heartily approved; there were more who shook their heads. The Minister must have been listening, they thought, directly or indirectly, to a certain lady's "beautiful nonsense." He was too impressionable. He was anxious to do things, in spite of the claims of economy. He was too much in a hurry. They took him in hand in order to quiet him down. They thought to have succeeded in making him satisfied to leave things as they were. The other side became conscious of a change. "It is essential," wrote one of them to a certain lady, "that you should see him at once." The lady, who was the hope of one side and the fear of the other, was Miss Nightingale. The Minister need not be identified; for these things, though true also of a particular case and time, are here given as a general allegory. For thirty years and more, through all changes and chances in the political world, Miss Nightingale was a permanent force, importuning, indoctrinating, inspiring, in the interests of better sanitary administration.

For some time after the early months of 1885 the political situation was very unsettled. The Government formed by Lord Salisbury after the defeat of Mr. Gladstone in June was only a "Cabinet of Caretakers," and it was not worth Miss Nightingale's while to approach any of them. Besides, she instinctively recognized the Secretary of State for India as a hopeless subject. She was right. Lord Randolph Churchill was all against Lord Ripon, and all for economy. When Lord Salisbury's Government was in turn overthrown, after the general election in December, Miss Nightingale, through various channels, approached Mr. Gladstone, and begged him to send Lord Ripon to the India Office. He returned polite but evasive answers, and so controversial an appointment was obviously improbable. Lord Ripon went to the Admiralty. The excitement of the first Home Rule Bill followed; the Government was defeated; another general election was necessary, and all was in confusion. Dr. Sutherland, anxious to retire from the public service , was pressing Miss Nightingale to devise measures for safeguarding his department after he was gone. She pressed him to stay on yet a while. "During the political earthquakes of the last 8 months, still continuing, no permanent interest can be expected," she wrote to him , "in those who are so little permanent. The subject excruciates me." Lord Ripon, who came to see her ten days later, thought that the times were unpropitious generally for good causes--an opinion which defeated Ministers are apt to hold. "There are waves in these matters," he said. "The thing is to come in upon the crest of the waves. You would have done nothing for the Army and Sanitation if it had not been for the crash in the Crimea. Now, the wave is against India."

Miss Nightingale, however, did not allow herself to be tempted into inactivity by this wave-theory. For the moment, indeed, there was nothing to be done with Ministers at home; but she had not been neglectful of cultivating relations with Anglo-Indians and Indians in positions of influence. In 1885 she had added Sir Neville Chamberlain and Sir Peter Lumsden to her list of Anglo-Indian acquaintances. Lord Reay had called upon her before leaving to take up the governorship of Bombay, and she corresponded with him frequently on sanitary subjects. In October, Lord Roberts came before going out to India as Commander-in-Chief. Miss Nightingale took great pains with this interview, Dr. Sutherland having furnished her in advance with an admirable synopsis of what might still be done to improve the health and welfare of the troops. Lord Roberts's command was fruitful of some reforms in which Miss Nightingale had been a pioneer. He established a club or institute in every British regiment and battery in India. He closed canteens. He opened coffee-stalls. He established an Army Temperance Association. No letter which Miss Nightingale received in her Jubilee Year can have pleased her more than one which the Commander-in-Chief in India sent her from Simla on August 6. In this letter Lord Roberts told her that the Government of India had sanctioned the employment of female nurses in the Military Hospitals. A commencement was to be made at the two large military centres of Umballa and Rawalpindi, and 18 nurses, with lady superintendents in each case, were to be sent out from England at once. The selection of nurses was entrusted to Surgeon-General Arthur Payne, who in the following month had several interviews with Miss Nightingale. Thus, after twenty-two years, was the scheme which she had put before Sir John Lawrence brought to fruition. Miss Nightingale saw the Superintendents before they went out, and letters from them were now added to the pile of those which she received from hospitals throughout the world, reporting progress or asking advice. Miss C. G. Loch wrote from Rawalpindi describing how she had found that, as Miss Nightingale always said, the education of the Orderlies was the most important thing for the nurses to do.

The official introduction of female nursing into the Indian military hospitals was by no means the only satisfaction which Miss Nightingale received during Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty. He had declared himself ignorant of Indian sanitary things, but had promised to learn; and not only was he as good as his word, but Lady Dufferin was keenly interested also. She founded the "National Association for Supplying Medical Aid to the Women of India." Miss Nightingale had long been interested in the subject, and Lady Dufferin consulted her at every stage. One of the first things needful, Lady Dufferin had written , was a supply of Sanitary Tracts. "In using the word tract, I am thinking of some little books in Hindustani written by A.L.O.E. which I am obliged to read as part of my studies in the language. They are stories with a moral, and I don't see why something of the kind might not be published with health as a moral." Miss Nightingale took great pains in collecting suitable raw material, and during the remainder of Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty wrote to her by almost every mail.

Yet more was to be "fired," during Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty, of sanitary "shot" supplied, as he had requested, by Miss Nightingale; but we must now turn back to London, where, partly from circumstances and partly of necessity, Miss Nightingale was presently engaged in a vigorous campaign. There is a large bundle of correspondence during these years upon a matter which is referred to in some of the letters as "The Sutherland Succession." Now, Dr. Sutherland was in Miss Nightingale's eyes the indispensable man. Not any longer in the personal sense, as described in an earlier chapter; for he was now a very old man, and was only able to help her on rare occasions. She had already found a successor in this personal sense, or rather she had put Dr. Sutherland's place into commission. Sir William Wedderburn was during these later years her most constant collaborator in Indian matters, and for the rest she relied upon Sir Douglas Galton. She had often chafed at Dr. Sutherland's delays, but I expect that when Sir Douglas succeeded to him she may in one respect have parodied to herself the well-known Cambridge epigram, and said, "Poor Dr. Sutherland! we never felt his loss before." For Sir Douglas Galton, though devoted also to Miss Nightingale's service, was an exceedingly busy and much-travelling man, and she had to be content with the crumbs of his time. "As it was some time in the dark ages," she wrote , "since I saw you last--my memory impaired by years cannot fix the date within a decade--I seize the first day you kindly offer." And again : "I must take your leavings, as beggars must not be choosers. Yes, please, your dog will see you to-morrow on your way from Euston for as long as you can stop." Miss Nightingale relied greatly on Sir Douglas Galton's advice; she had a very high opinion, not only of his thorough knowledge of all sanitary subjects, but of his sound judgment generally. From the personal point of view, then, Dr. Sutherland was gone already; but in his official capacity he was still indispensable. He was the mainspring of the system of sanitary administration, both for the home Army and for India, which Miss Nightingale had built up. He was the one paid working member, and he was also the working brain, of the Army Sanitary Committee, and it was to that Committee that Indian sanitary reports were referred. But he was impatient to retire. At any moment his health might become worse, and he might send in his resignation before arrangements had been made for the appointment of a successor. So long as he remained at his post, no changes were likely to be made; but if he retired, it was very probable that no successor would be appointed, and that the whole system would collapse. That the heads of the Army were ignorant of Dr. Sutherland's services, had been burnt in upon Miss Nightingale's mind a few years before. In discussing some matter of army nursing with the minister of the day, she had suggested the reference of it to Dr. Sutherland. "Who is he?" said the minister; "I have never heard of him." At the India Office it was much the same. "I don't think," wrote a friend , "that this office in general appreciates the importance of those reviews of Indian sanitary matters of which Dr. Sutherland has been the real author hitherto." The whole system would lapse, he feared, unless she was able to do something.

Captain Galton was knighted in 1887.

Nor was this all. The sanitary service in India itself was in danger. The annexation of Burma had made retrenchment necessary; a Finance Committee was at work in recommending economies; and Miss Nightingale received private information that the Sanitary Commissioners were marked down by the Committee for destruction. The whole edifice thus seemed to be crumbling. This was what she had in her mind when, in the Jubilee retrospect quoted at the beginning of the chapter, she said that the work of thirty years had all to be done again.

It was a subject of recurring self-reproach to Miss Nightingale in subsequent years that she had not found time to follow up this latter opening and organize a new crusade for the spiritual and moral welfare of the soldiers. She had already done much in that sort; and Mr. Jowett's equally recurring comment was to the point: "Why complain because you cannot do more than you do, which is already more than any other ten women could do?"

An early intimation of this policy made Miss Nightingale the more anxious about the fate of the Army Sanitary Committee. If the sanitary condition of the barracks was to be improved, it was all-important that a strong Sanitary Committee should be in existence to supervise the work. At first, however, she had been unable to secure any promise about the Sutherland Succession. The War Office would not consider the matter until a vacancy occurred; the India Office would do nothing until it knew what the War Office meant to do. In 1888 the long threatened thing happened. Dr. Sutherland resigned. No successor was appointed. The whole subject, she was informed, was under consideration, and then under reconsideration. Ultimately Mr. Stanhope, after interviews with Miss Nightingale, reconstituted the Committee . Sir Douglas Galton remained upon it. Dr. J. Marston was appointed paid member in succession to Dr. Sutherland, and Miss Nightingale's friend and ally, Surgeon-General J. W. Cunningham was appointed as an Indian expert. Her friend Mr. J. J. Frederick retained his post as Secretary to the Committee. The danger was overpast.

"The Government has recently given its serious attention to the subject of Sanitation, and has laid down the lines upon which, in its opinion, sanitary reform should be applied to our towns and villages. It has given Sanitation a local habitation and a name in every great division of the Empire; and it has arranged for the establishment of responsible central agencies from one end of the country to the other, who will be in close communication with all the local authorities within their respective jurisdictions" .

Lord Dufferin was succeeded by Lord Lansdowne, who was introduced to Miss Nightingale by Mr. Jowett. She saw Lord Lansdowne twice before he left for India, and they corresponded frequently on sanitary affairs. "He did much for us in every way" is her comment on his Viceroyalty.

The constitution of the Sanitary Boards in India proceeded with due regard to "the periods of Indian cosmogony," and Miss Nightingale watched their formation and their proceedings carefully, putting in words of encouragement, expostulation, or reminder, whenever and wherever an opportunity was offered or could be made. It was soon apparent that the great obstacle to sanitary progress among the masses of India lay, where perhaps for many generations it is still likely to lie, in the immobility of immemorial custom, especially in the villages. Education was making some slight impression, but the force of passive resistance, combined with lack of funds, prevented the hope of any rapid or signal advance. Recognition of these factors now led Miss Nightingale to concentrate her efforts upon Village Sanitation, and a scheme for combining the power of education with a financial expedient formed the motive for the last of her Indian campaigns.

See Bibliography A, Nos. 115, 118, 119, 122, 123.

Mr. S. Digby was acting as Hon. Secretary to the Indian Section of the International Conference.

Bibliography A, Nos. 132, 135.

The document, unfortunately not complete, is in part typewritten and in part in the handwriting of a lady who at this time rendered her some secretarial assistance.

She refers no doubt to Dr. Hewlett.

At the time when Miss Nightingale's Indian work was thus largely concentrated upon village sanitation, she was no less busily employed, though in a different way, upon work of a like kind at home. Her interest in local affairs at Claydon has already been touched upon, and this was much increased after the death of her sister in 1890. Lady Verney had been a sufferer for many years, but had borne her illness with unflagging spirit. In May 1890 she was in London, very ill, and was counting the hours to her removal to Claydon, but she would not give up a Sunday in town--a day which Florence now kept sacred for her sister. On Sunday May 4 Lady Verney was carried into Florence's room, and the sisters did not see each other again. On Monday Lady Verney was moved to Claydon, and there, a week later, on Florence's birthday, she died. "You contributed more than anyone," wrote Sir Harry , "to what enjoyment of life was hers. I have no comfort so great as to hold intercourse with you. You and I were the objects of her tender love, and her love for you was intense. It was delightful to me to hear her speak of you, and to see her face, perhaps distorted with pain, look happy when she thought of you." Miss Nightingale at once went to Claydon, where she remained for several months. Sir Harry, now in his 90th year, relied greatly upon his sister-in-law, and for the remainder of his life she devoted herself to him with constant solicitude. He was never happy if many days passed without sight of her or hearing from her. The butler always put Miss Nightingale's letter on the top of his master's morning pile, and no mouthful of breakfast was eaten till he had read it through. When he was in the country and she in London, he was always wanting to run up to town for the day--to buy a new waistcoat, or to consult his solicitor: any excuse would serve so that he could see his sister-in-law in South Street. They used to say at Claydon that there was a sure way of discovering whether Sir Harry found a new guest sympathetic or not: if he did, the conversation was invariably turned to Miss Nightingale. Upon the death of her sister, Claydon became Miss Nightingale's country-home, and she brought her managerial thoroughness into play there. She looked into Sir Harry's affairs, interested herself greatly in the estate, inquired into the conditions of surrounding village life, made acquaintance with local doctors. These interests brought home to her the conviction that village sanitation was necessary to civilize England hardly less than India, and she saw that as in India, so in England, education must be one at least of the civilizing agencies. She set herself to make a beginning where her lot now happened to be cast, in Buckinghamshire.

See Bibliography A, Nos. 126, 133, 134.

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. 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 , "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 , 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." 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 , "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.

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.

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 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, 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:--

Daughter of Mr. John Bonham Carter .

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.

She was writing, it will be observed, on the anniversary of Sidney Herbert's death.

Younger son of Mr. Shore Smith, who had assumed the name of Nightingale in 1893.

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; 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 , "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 , 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 , "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.

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