FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1943, 29 December 1913, Page 7

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

STORY OF II K.I! LOYK Why Florcnco Nightingale did not marry is revealed ill a fascinating biography by Sir ICdward Cook (states an English reviewer). In tho breast of the "ministering angel," "The Lady with the Lamp," raged a conflict between the desire for love, home, and children, aiid a passion for a life spent wholly in tho pursuit of a moral ideal. This moving self-revclatiou is shown in letters to her friends and entries ill her diary. At tho ago of thirty, after she had formed one deep attachment, she renounced all ideas of marriage. She made this declaration on her birthday in her diary of ISoO: I am 30, the age at which Christ bopn His mission. Now, no more childish things, no moro vain things, no more love, no more marriage. Now, Lord, lot mo only think of Thy will. The name of tho man who made such an impression on her heart that she half-repented her choice of a single life, is not given. Ho is spoken of as "tlio stranger." For como years he pressed his suit. Friends thought marriage with him promised every happiness, and by many it "might have beeii galled brilliant." "Florence herself." says her biographer, was strongly drawn to her admirer. She had not come to this stato of mind ill luisty inclination. Sho was oil her guard against any such temptation. Many years before in a letter to her "brother 'Jonathan,'' as she called Miss Hilary Bonham Carter, sho had written: Crowth of First Love. It strikes me that in all the most unworldly poetry (both prose and verse) la passion qu'on appclle inclination is treated in a very extraordinary way. When one finds a comparative stranger becoming all of a sudden moro essenti.il to one than one's family (via flattery, in general, of one sart or another), ono is content with saying to cncself, "Oh! that's love," instead of soyinn;, "How unjust and ho a- blind this feeling is." I wonder whether, if peoplo were to examine ' they would not find (whatever it may ripen to afterwards) this feeling at first is generally begun by vanity or jealousy cr self-love; and that what is very much to be guarded against, instead of submitted to, is the stranger's admiration (and I suppose everybody has been susceptible at one time of their lives) huviijg moro effect upon one than ono's own family.

_ ''In this ease, however (continues tho biographer), tho stranger's admiration had stood tho test. She felt drawn to him, not by vanity or self-love, but because she admired his talents and because tho mbro she saw of liini tho greater pleasure did she find- in his society. She leaned nioro and moru upon his sympathy. Yet, when tho proposal first-camp she refused it; and when it was renewed she persisted. "Then, it may' bo said, sho cannot havo been 'in love' with him. And in one sense that is, I suppose, quite true; for love, as tho poets" tell us, does not reason, and Florence Nightingalo reasoned deeply over her ease. But it is certain sho felt at least as - much af-i feetion as suffices to make half tho marriages in tho world. Sho turned away from a path to which she was strongly drawn in order to pursue, hor Ideal. In one of the. many pages of, autobiographical notes which sho preserved in relation to this- episode .in 'h'er,'life. sho. thus explained her refusal to many: Why She Refused Him. I have 'an intellectual" iiatur'o which requires satisfaction, and that would find it in him. I have a passional nature . .which requires • satisfaction, and that would find it in him. I have a, itloral, an activo nature which requires satisfaction, and that would not find it in his life. I can hardly (ind satisfaction ■ for any of my natures. Sometimes I think that I will satisfy my passional nature at all events, becauso that will at least secure mo from tho evil of dreaming. ■ But would it? I could bo satisfied to, spend a-lifo with him combining our different powers in some great object. I could not satisfy this nature by spending a lifo with him in making society and arranging domestic things. ... To be nailed to a continuation and exaggeration of my present- lifo without hope of another would ho intolerable to inc. , Voluntarily to put it out of my , power ever to be able to seize tho ehanco of forming for myself a true and rich life would scein to mo like .suicide.

"Florence Nightingale was no vestaL ascetic," says her biographer:

I don't agree at all (she wrote in 18-16) that a woman has no reason (if she does not care for anyone else) for not'marrying a- good man who asks her, and I don't think Providence does cither. I think He has as clearly marked out sonic to bo single women as He has others to bo wives, and has oganised tlicm afccordingly for their vocation. I think some have every reason for not marrying, and that for these it _ is much better to educate tho children who are already in tho world • and can't be got out of it, than to bring moro into it. The Primitive Church clearly 'thought so, too, and 'i provided accordingly; and though no doubt the Primitive Church was in many matters an old woman, yet I think the oxporienco of ages has proved her right in this. Death (slio wroto in her notebook in 18-16) is often tho gateway to tho garden where wo shall no longer hunger and thirst after real satisfaction. Marriage, on tho contrary, is often an initiation into the meaning of that inexorable word Never; .which does not deprive us, it is true,.of.what,"at their fcstivals the idlo and inconsiderate call life," hut which brings in reality the end of our lives, and tho chill of death with it. Lover's Aftor-Pangs. "If, as some may hold, alio was in lpve, writes tho biographer, ".Vet. slio confessed to herself many of a lover's pangs, and there were moments when, as she met her admirer again, or as sho thought of him, she was half inclined to repent of .her choice of the single life. . . . To havo entered into a marriago which gave no sure promiso of her ideal would havo been, she felt, the suicido of a soul; yet, when she was called to choose between the two paths, her present lifo was starvation. "Perhaps it was tho price which she had paid for her ideal that led to what, in later years, somo considered a certain hardness in her. When onco a woman had devoted her life to the work of nursing, Miss Nightingale had little sympathy with any turning back. Sho seemed sometimes in such eases to regard marriago as the unpardonable sin." ' Miss Nightingale wanted to make, conditions of marriago better. "11l tho world in which sho lived, daughters, slio wrote, 'can only have a choice among those people whom their parents like, -and who like their parents well enough to conic to their bouse.' By throwing open new spheres of usefulness to women, Miss Nightingale hoped at nuo and tho same timo to improve the lot of those, who wero marked out to ho wives, and to find satisfaction for tlioso marked out for the single, life."

There aro many references to the live yours of groat friendship between Miss Nightingale and Lord Herbert, one-time Srcretar'v of AVar under Sir Hobert, J'oel. She used to speak of this period as licr "Heavcu upgfl cartel."•