Page:Portraits of celebrated women Florence Nightingale.djvu/21

Rh pretty account from a soldier, describing the comfort it was, even to see Florence pass. 'She would speak to one and to another, and nod and smile to as many more; we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again content.' What poetry there is in these men! I think I told you of another, who said: 'Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin'; and after that it was as holy as a church.' That consoling word or two, that gentle 'nod and smile' in passing, were precisely the tokens of sympathy that would come with such home-felt charm to those manly hearts from a face possessing the emotional expression which we can conceive it naturally to have, just the woman with just the countenance to exercise an almost magical moral influence over men's minds. We are told, eye-witnesses have averred, that it was singular to remark how, when men, frenzied, perhaps, by their wounds and disease, had worked themselves into a passionate refusal to submit to necessary operations, a few calm sentences of hers seemed at once to allay the storm; and the men would submit willingly to the painful ordeal they had to undergo." Noble being! Exactly that blended firmness and gentleness which makes a woman's nature so all potent in its beneficial ascendency over manhood. Rough, brave fellows, that would have resisted like iron any amount of men's persuasion, would melt at once into submission at a "few calm sentences" from those lips of hers. We can fancy the mouth, capable of smiles, or quivering with deepest feeling, compressed into resolute steadfastness, as it persuaded the men into reasonable acquiescence with what was for their good, while betraying the latent sympathy with their every pang.

Among all her anxieties, responsibilities, and more vital affairs, also, she found opportunity to attend to intellectual needs; for on one occasion, we find from a letter written in the camp before Sevastopol during the Spring of 1856, that "through the exertions of Miss Nightingale a considerable quantity of school material, such as maps and slates, was