Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey (sight word books txt) 📖

miles off, that he never has been bitten at all, but has had a boil, from which he is fast recovering.” But Lord Panmure had troubles of his own. His favourite nephew, Captain Dowbiggin, was at the front, and to one of his telegrams to the Commander-in-Chief the Minister had taken occasion to append the following carefully qualified sentence⁠—“I recommend Dowbiggin to your notice, should you have a vacancy, and if he is fit.” Unfortunately, in those early days, it was left to the discretion of the telegraphist to compress the messages which passed through his hands; so that the result was that Lord Panmure’s delicate appeal reached its destination in the laconic form of “Look after Dowb.” The Headquarters Staff were at first extremely puzzled; they were at last extremely amused. The story spread; and “Look after Dowb” remained for many years the familiar formula for describing official hints in favour of deserving nephews.

And now that all this was over, now that Sebastopol had been, somehow or another, taken; now that peace was, somehow or another, made; now that the troubles of office might surely be expected to be at an end at last⁠—here was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene with her talk about the state of the hospitals and the necessity for sanitary reform. It was most irksome; and Lord Panmure almost began to wish that he was engaged upon some more congenial occupation⁠—discussing, perhaps, the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland⁠—a question in which he was profoundly interested. But no; duty was paramount; and he set himself, with a sigh of resignation, to the task of doing as little of it as he possibly could.

“The Bison” his friends called him; and the name fitted both his physical demeanour and his habit of mind. That large low head seemed to have been created for butting rather than for anything else. There he stood, foursquare and menacing in the doorway of reform; and it remained to be seen whether, the bulky mass, upon whose solid hide even the barbed arrows of Lord Raglan’s scorn had made no mark, would prove amenable to the pressure of Miss Nightingale. Nor was he alone in the doorway. There loomed behind him the whole phalanx of professional conservatism, the stubborn supporters of the out-of-date, the worshippers and the victims of War Office routine. Among these it was only natural that Dr. Andrew Smith, the head of the Army Medical Department, should have been preeminent⁠—Dr. Andrew Smith, who had assured Miss Nightingale before she left England that “nothing was wanted at Scutari.” Such were her opponents; but she too was not without allies. She had gained the ear of Royalty⁠—which was something; at any moment that she pleased she could gain the ear of the public⁠—which was a great deal. She had a host of admirers and friends; and⁠—to say nothing of her personal qualities⁠—her knowledge, her tenacity, her tact⁠—she possessed, too, one advantage which then, far more even than now, carried an immense weight⁠—she belonged to the highest circle of society. She moved naturally among Peers and Cabinet Ministers⁠—she was one of their own set; and in those days their set was a very narrow one. What kind of attention would such persons have paid to some middle-class woman with whom they were not acquainted, who possessed great experience of Army nursing and had decided views upon hospital reform? They would have politely ignored her; but it was impossible to ignore Flo Nightingale. When she spoke, they were obliged to listen; and, when they had once begun to do that⁠—what might not follow? She knew her power, and she used it. She supported her weightiest minutes with familiar witty little notes. The Bison began to look grave. It might be difficult⁠—it might be damned difficult⁠—to put down one’s head against the white hand of a lady⁠ ⁠…

Of Miss Nightingale’s friends, the most important was Sidney Herbert. He was a man upon whom the good fairies seemed to have showered, as he lay in his cradle, all their most enviable goods. Well born, handsome, rich, the master of Wilton⁠—one of those great country-houses, clothed with the glamour of a historic past, which are the peculiar glory of England⁠—he possessed⁠—besides all these advantages: so charming, so lively, so gentle a disposition that no one who had once come near him could ever be his enemy.

He was, in fact, a man of whom it was difficult not to say that he was a perfect English gentleman. For his virtues were equal even to his good fortune. He was religious, deeply religious. “I am more and more convinced every day,” he wrote, when he had been for some years a Cabinet Minister, “that in politics, as in everything else, nothing can be right which is not in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel.” No one was more unselfish; he was charitable and benevolent to a remarkable degree; and he devoted the whole of his life, with an unwavering conscientiousness, to the public service. With such a character, with such opportunities, what high hopes must have danced before him, what radiant visions of accomplished duties, of ever-increasing usefulness, of beneficent power, of the consciousness of disinterested success! Some of those hopes and visions were, indeed, realised; but, in the end, the career of Sidney Herbert seemed to show that, with all their generosity, there was some gift or other⁠—what was it?⁠—some essential gift⁠—which the good fairies had withheld, and that even the qualities of a perfect English gentleman may be no safeguard against anguish, humiliation, and defeat.

That career would certainly have been very different if he had never known Miss Nightingale. The alliance between them which had begun with her appointment to Scutari, which had grown closer and closer while the war lasted, developed, after her return, into one of the most extraordinary friendships. It was the friendship of a man and a woman intimately bound together by their devotion to a public cause; mutual affection, of