Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/427

 CARE OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED. 383 ins; in all things her word. There was grace — chap. "VT grace almost medieval — in his simple, yet roman- L. tic idea ; and, if humbly, still not the less use- fully, he aided the sacred cause, for it was one largely, mainly, dependent on the power of the lady he served ; so that, when by obeying her orders he augmented her means of action, and saved her precious time, there were unnumbered sufferers deriving sure benefit from his opportune, well-applied help. By no other kind of toil, however ambitiously aimed, could he well have achieved so much good. On the 23d of November, Lord Eaglan re- placed Major Sillery, by sending Lord William Paulet to take charge of affairs on the Bos- phorus ; (^^) and in reference to this whole- some change, the Sebastopol Committee reported that there took place a gradual improvement in the state of the liospitals from the time when Lord William assumed his command ; (^^) but the Committee went astray, if they meant that that date marked the beginning — the very be- ginning and origin — of decisive improvement ; for before the early days of December (when the wisely exerted authority of the new commandant began to tell with advantage), that accession of impelling and governing faculties which our hos- pital system received on the 4th of N'ovember(^^) had already been followed by progress — by pro- gress towards good administration maintained against all the obstructors.(^^) Without at all seeking unfairly to infer causa- tion from sequence, I may yet, I think, say that