Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/415

 CAKE OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED. 371 because they felt her ascendant, — these officials chap. were always longing to give her the very ^^' choicest and best of their facts and ideas. But a simpler explanation of the abundant mental resources at which people wondered might be found in the keen discrimination enabling her to judge at the instant whether any of the words addressed to her should be treasured, or set at nought ; and — simpler still — in the fact that, from her early years, a stead- fast, impassioned benevolence had impelled her to devote great powers of mind and unconquer- able energies to the object of becoming well- practised in the conduct of hospital business. However originating, the gift, without which she could never have achieved what she did, was her faculty of conquering dominion over the minds of men ; and this, after all, was the force which lifted her from out of the ranks of those who are only ' able ' to the height reached by those who are 'great.' One who would not, I know, be prone to misuse our most choice words of praise, has ascribed to the Lady-in- Chief nothing less than ' commanding genius.'(^^) Whilst she thus had great weight with the men in authority, her ascendant held good with the orderlies and all other soldiers whose ener- gies, whose patience, whose loyal devotion, she often had to task hard. ' During all that dread- ' ful period,' no one of them failed her in obedi- ence, in ready attention, in thoughtful, consid- enile delicacy. For lier sake, they toiled and endured beyond the measure of all that official