Page:Portraits of celebrated women Florence Nightingale.djvu/9

 VIII.

AN ANGEL OF MERCY—FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

most barren desert is not without its oasis, where the green grass springs up and the flowers blossom. Nor is there any region so girt with ice and sand, that its desolation is unrelieved by the lichen clinging to its native rock and greeting the eye with its verdure. So the darkest scenes of human history are often relieved by the revelation of some angel of mercy and love, commissioned for deeds that warm the heart with holy admiration. This gives us hope of our humanity, even in its darkest and most forbidding forms. The scenes of the Crimean war in 1854 and 1855 are thus relieved by the heroic and philanthropic devotion of one whose name will live, enrolled upon the bright page of the world's benefactors, long after the illustrious generals who led in the conflict have been forgotten. The death-defying charge upon the field of Balaklava has not more certainly become "storied" in the world's history than have the philanthropy and heroism of.

Miss Nightingale was born, according to the best authority we have seen, at Florence in the year 1823. She received her Christian name from that renowned and beautiful Italian city. She was the youngest daughter of Mr. William Shore Nightingale, of Embley Park, Hampshire, and the Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, in England. She was a young lady of singular endowments, both natural and acquired. She early acquired a knowledge of the ancient languages, and of the higher branches of mathematics; while her attainments in 109