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Miss Nightingale labour, but especially in the cause of the British Army. The rôle of the Soldiers' Friend which she had filled in the Crimea was enacted on a conspicuous stage. Her work was now all done behind the scenes; and done, as I have already described, under heavy physical disability. Much of the work was, moreover, dull and even uncongenial; but she fed her soul on higher things:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Mrs. Moore._) 32 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 15 [1863]. DEAREST REVD. MOTHER--I am here, as you see--(My brother-in-law's house--where you were so good as to see me last year--to think of that being more than a year ago) and have been here a good bit. But I have had all your dear letters. And you cannot think how much they have encouraged me. They are almost the only earthly encouragement I have. I have been so very ill--and even the little change of moving here knocks me down for a month. But God is so good as to let me still struggle on with my business. But with so much difficulty that it was quite impossible to me to write even to you. And I only write now, because I hear you are ill. I have felt so horribly ungrateful for never having thanked you for your books. S. Jean de la Croix's life I keep thankfully. I am never tired of reading that part where he prays for the return for all his services, _Domine, pati et contemni pro te_. I am afraid I never could ask that. But in return for very little service, I get it. It is quite impossible to describe how harassing, how heart-breaking my work has been since the beginning of July. I have always, with all my heart and soul, offered myself to God for the greatest bitterness on my own part, if His (War Office) work could be done. But lately nothing was done, and always because there was not one man like Sidney Herbert to do it.... I don't think S. Jean de la Croix need have prayed to be dismissed from superiorships before he died. For as the Mère de Bréchard says, there are more opportunities to humble oneself, to mortify oneself, to throw oneself entirely on God, in them than in anything else. I return the life of S. Catherine of Genoa. I like it so much. It is a very singular and suggestive life. I am so glad she accepted the being Directress of the Hospital. For I think it was much better for her to make the Hospital servants go right than to receive their "injures"--however submissively--much better for the poor Patients, I mean.

I am quite ashamed to keep Ste. Thérése so long. But there is a good deal of reading in her. And I am only able to read at night--and then not always a large, close-printed book. Pray say if I shall send her back. And I will borrow her again from you perhaps some day. I am so sorry about poor S. Gonzaga's troubles. I know what those Committees are. I have had to deal with them almost all my life.

My strength has failed more than usually of late. And I don't think I have much more work in me--not, at least, if it is to continue of this harassing sort. God called me to Hospital work (as I fondly thought, for life)--but since then to Army work--but with a promise that I should go back to Hospital--as I thought as a Nurse, but as I now think, as a Patient. But St. Catherine of Siena says: "Et toutesfois je permets cela luy advenir, afin qu'il soit plus soigneux de fuyr soi mesme, & de venir & recourir à moy ... et qu'il considère que par amour je luy donne le moyen de tirer hors le chef de la vraye humilité, se reputant indigne de la paix & repos de pensée, comme mes autres serviteurs--& au contraire se reputant digne des peines qu'il souffre," etc.

My sister and her family come to spend here two or three nights occasionally to see friends. But I was only able to see her for ten minutes, and my good brother-in-law, who is one of the best and kindest of men, not at all--nor his children.... I sent you back St. Francis de Sales, with many thanks. I liked him in his old dress. I like that story where the man loses his crown of martyrdom, because he will not be reconciled with his enemy. It is a sound lesson. I am going to send you back S. Francis Xavier. His is a life I always like to study as well as those of all the early Jesuit fathers. But how much they did--and how little I do.... Ever my dearest Revd. Mother's loving and grateful, F. N.

Miss Nightingale never lost sight of the end in the means. She was doing "God's work" in the "War Office." She thought it was "little" that she did, for it is often the hardest workers who thus deem themselves the most unprofitable servants. And the work was often drudgery; yet through it all she had inspiration from her memories of heroism in the Army, for whose "salvation" she was working. "I have seen to-day [from my window]," she wrote to her mother in 1863, "the first Levée, since all are dead whom I wished to please. A melancholy sight to me. Yet I like the pomp and pageant of the old veterans covered with well-earned crosses. To me who saw them earned, no vain pageant. It is like the Dead March in _Saul_--to me, who heard it on the battle-field, no vain sound, but full of deep and glorious sadness."

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