Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/214

 370 WORKMEN AND HEROES 1 don't suppose that any of my young readers have ever seen a hospital nurse of the now nearly extinct Gamp type ; but I have. I have seen her, coarse- faced, thick of limb, heavy of foot, brutal in speech, crawling up and down the stairs or about the wards, in dresses and aprons that made me feel (although quite well and with a good healthy appetite) as if I would not have my good dinner just then These were the old- fashioned " Sairey Gamps." But Florence Night- ingale has been too strong for even the immortal " Sairey." Go now through the corridors and wards of a modern hospital ; every nurse you meet will be neat and trim, with spotless dress and cap and apron, moving quickly but quietly to and fro, doing her work with kindness and intelligence. It was in 1820, the year George the Third's long life quite faded out, that the younger of the two daughters of William Shore Nightingale was born at Florence, and named after that lovely city. Mr. Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, was a wealthy land-owner. He was of the Shores of Derbyshire, but inherited the fortune with the name of Nightingale through his mother. Lea Hurst, where Miss Nightingale passed the summer months of each year, is situated in the Matlock district, among bold masses of limestone rock, gray walls, full of fossils, covered with moss and lichen, with the changeful river Derwent now dashing over its stony bed, now quietly winding between little dales with clefts and dingles. Those who have travelled by the Derby and Buxton Railway will remember the narrow valleys, the mountain streams, the wide spans of high moorland, the dis- tant ranges of hills beyond the hills of the district. Lea Hurst, a gable-ended house, standing among its own woods and commanding wonderful views of the Peak country, is about two miles from Cromford station. At Lea Hurst much of Florence Nightingale's childhood was passed. There she early developed that intense love for every living suffering thing, that grew with her growth, until it became the master-passion of her life. Florence Nightingale always retained her belief in animals. Many years after her name was known all over the world, she wrote : " A small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially." An invalid, in giving an account of his nursing by a nurse and a dog, infinitely preferred that of the dog. " Above all," he said, " it did not talk." Even Flor- ence Nightingale's maimed dolls were tenderly nursed and bandaged, Mr. Nightingale was a man singularly in advanee of his time as regards the training of girls. The " higher education of women " was unknown to the gen- eral public in those days, but not to Mr. Nightingale. His daughter was taught mathematics, and studied the classics, history, and modern languages under her