Note 86 — Chapter V · THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS

The world has long admired the noble qualities of heart and mind of Florence Nightingale but admiration for her has been greatly enhanced by the recent publication of certain letters of hers, previously unknown, which she wrote to one of her associates in the care of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Crimean War. I reproduce a part of one of which she addressed to the Mother Superior of a band of Catholic sisters who were her collaborators in the great work of mercy to which she devoted herself with such sublime self-abnegation:

“Your going,” she writes, “is the greatest blow I have yet had. But God’s blessing and my love and gratitude go with you, as you well know. You know well, too, that I shall do everything I can for the Sisters whom you have left me. But it will not be like you. Your wishes will be our law. And I shall try to remain in the Crimea for their sakes as long as any of us are here. I do not presume to express praise or gratitude to you, Reverend Mother, because it would look as if I thought you had done the work not unto God but unto me. You were far above me in fitness for the General Superintendency, both in wordly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual qualifications which God values in a superior. The being placed over you in our unenviable reign in the East was my misfortune and not my fault. Dearest Reverend Mother what you have done for the work no one can ever say. But God rewards you for it with Himself. If I thought that your valuable health would be restored by a return home, I should not regret it. My love and gratitude will be yours wherever you go. I do not presume to give you any tribute but my tears.” The letter concludes with the words, “The gratitude of the Army is yours.” Dublin Review, October, 1917.