Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/528

 48-i ArrENDix. ill, and that ' prevention was better than cure,' Macdouald, with good sense and high spirit, consented to strain his authority. Note 31.— Seb. Comm. Rep., 7002, 7003, 7004. Note 32. — To the kindness of Mrs Q-aven [n4e Florence Lees) and the Sisterhood of ' the Home,' where her sway is still lo'ingly remembered, nay, still, I think, lovingly felt, I owe my means of alluding to what I have called ' the gracious dynasty.' Mrs Craven (who herself was in some sort the pupil — the gifted, the radiant pupil — of the Lady-in-Chief) once told me that the ladies of the Sisterhood are ' the most hard- worked women in London ; ' yet in the few hours of holiday that — only now and then — they allow themselves, they show none of the weariness that some- times follows the industry of toiling after amusement. ' Reac ' tion, after great strain on tlie powers of self-sacrifice and endur- • ance that they have to exert, ' may be thought to account in some part for the happy result ; but, whatever the cause, their society has in it all that can best and most surely a,ttract — grace, fresh- ness, and natural ' charm.' Note 33. — Alluded to ante, in note 32 to chap. iii. Note 34. — Agnes, the first Lady George Paget, now no more. Note 35. — Lord Raglan to Duke of Newcastle, 23d November 1854. Note 30.— Fifth Rep., p. 22. Note 37. — The day when the ladies disembarked on the Bos- phorus. Note 38. — The Sebastopol Committee was apparently unani- mous when reporting ' that the first real improvements in the ' lamentable condition of the hospitals at Scutari are to be attrib- ' uted to private suggestions, private exertions, and private ' benevolence.' — Fifth Rep., p. 22. That the State defaiilt im- plied in these words was caused by the want of what I have called a ' real War Department ' and that that want was dis- tinctly traceable to our ' mixed English polity,' we have else- where seen — ante, chap. iii. Note 39. — It was so early as the latter end of December that, after having ' minutely examined ' the great Barrack Hospital, Sir George Brown came to the almost enthusiastic conviction which is shown, ante, p. 370. Note 40. — That, whatever might be the process of self-decep- tion, men, especially men in authority, had brought themselves