Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/409

 CARE OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED. 365 sufferings of our army were at their very worst, chap. the ladies, who till then had all toiled on the ' shores of the Bosphorus, detached a part of their strength to confront new horrors, new dangers, and extend their gracious empire to our hospitals Hospitals in in the Crimea. It does not lie in my power to trace step by step the effect of their presence, nor even to assign the period when their efforts gained what they would recognise as a completed victory, but it is certain that within a few weeks from the time of their coming, the General Hos- pital at Balaclava had been brought into an ex- cellent state.(^^) IV. But great would be the mistake of any Chronicler fancying that the advantage our country derived from womanly aid was only an accession of nurses ; for, if gifted with the power to comfort and soothe, woman also — a still higher gift — can impel, can disturb, can destroy perni- cious content ; and when she came to the rescue The price 1gs3 r6in- in an hour of gloom and adversity, she brought forcemeut to her self-imposed task that forethought, that power tiiat agile bram-power, that organising and governing tutiierescu« faculty of which our country had need. The males at that time in England were already giving proofs of a lameness in the use of brain- power which afterwards became more distinct. Owing, possibly, to their habits of industry, applied in fixed, stated directions, they had lost that command of brain -force which kindles