Page:Notes on Nursing What It Is, and What It Is Not.djvu/24

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. A subscription being raised by the workingmen of Sheffield to erect a monument in that town to the memory of their countrymen who had fallen in the Crimea, a request was made, in October, to Miss Nightingale, through her relative Miss Shore, of Meersbrook Hall, that she would consent to lay the foundation stone. Miss Nightingale, in refusing, sent a check for twenty pounds towards the object proposed, but said, "It is with real pain that I feel compelled to decline the privilege, which they offer me, of laying the first stone; but I believe I shall best honor the cause of those brave dead by abstaining from appearing to court that publicity which I consider to have been my greatest impediment in the work I have engaged in for their sakes—impeding it by arousing in some minds a care for worldly distinctions."

As an instance of her large-hearted benevolence, we may cite an incident which occurred on her return. In France there exists a charitable institution,—the "Œuvre de Notre Dame D'Orient,"—under the direction of l'Abbé Legendre, almoner of the hospital of Bourbonne-les-bains, a town to which large numbers of military men resort annually for the benefit of the waters. A relief fund being set on foot to aid infirm soldiers on their discharge from the hospital. Miss Nightingale forwarded a donation of one hundred francs, through Lady Fox Strangways, widow of the general who fell at Inkerman. Accompanying this donation was a graceful letter, addressed to the Abbé, in which she said, "I feel the warmest sympathy with you in the touching object of your work, and I am happy to join in it to the limited extent which my own engagements allow. I received, too, from the excellent religious ladies who were attached to the French army in the East, so many tokens of their friendship,—they gave me their assistance with such entire self-denial, and lightened my hard task in the hospital with so much devotedness, that I shall always seek any opportunity of showing my gratitude to France and to her brave children, whom I have been taught by these ladies to love and respect."

A graceful and interesting incident, in connection with the Nightingale Fund, occurred very recently. It will scarcely be forgotten that Mr. and Madame Goldschmidt contributed more than two thousand pounds to the fund, being the proceeds of a grand concert given at Exeter Hall for the purpose, when the generous donors not only performed gratuitously themselves, but insisted on defraying every expense connected with the concert. This munificence, showing that true genius is at all times kindred and sympathetic, excited such admiration, that several of those who took a deep interest in the success of the Nightingale undertaking resolved to present Mr. and Madame Goldschmidt, as a testimony of their regard, a copy in marble of Durham's bust of Her Majesty. This desire was carried into effect at the Mansion House on the 17th of last June, when the Lord Mayor, Lord Monteagle, Mr. and Madame Bunsen, Mr. and Mrs. George Grote, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Dr. Mackay, Mrs. and Miss Stanley, Mr. Bracebridge, and several other friends and subscribers, were present. The Lord Mayor offered the bust in the name of the subscribers, and truly remarked, in a very happy speech, that "gifted as Madame Goldschmidt was with the divinest faculty of song, it has been and is her greatest honor that she has ever been prepared to devote a proportion of the proceeds of her genius to the large purposes of charity."

One of the brightest, noblest names in the list of brave, heroic women, is —

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, xii