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EMINENT WOMEN OF THE AGE.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

BY JAMES PARTON.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE is one of the fortunate of the earth. Inheriting from nature a striking and beneficent talent, she was able to cultivate that talent in circumstances the most favorable that could be imagined, and, finally, to exercise it on the grandest scale in the sight of all mankind. Whatever difficulties may have beset her path, they were placed in it not by untoward fortune; they existed in the nature of her work, or were inseparable from human life itself. She has had the happiness, also, of laboring in a purely disinterested spirit, and has been able to do for love what money could neither procure nor reward.

The felicity of both her names, Florence and Nightingale, has often been remarked; and it appears that she owes both of them to accident. Her father is William Edward Shore, an English gentleman of an ancient and wealthy Sheffield family, and her mother is a daughter of William Smith, who was for many years a member of Parliament, where he was particularly distinguised for his advocacy of the emancipation of the slaves in the British possessions. In 1815, her father inherited the estates of his grand-uncle, Peter Nightingale, on the condition expressed in his uncle's will, of his assuming the name of Nightingale. It so happened that she first saw

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the light while the family were residing at the beautiful city of Florence, and to this fact she is indebted for her first name. The family consists of but four members, father, mother, and the two daughters, Parthenope and Florence. The date of the birth of the younger sister, Florence, is variously given in the slight accounts which have been published of her life; but it was said in the public prints, at the time when her name was on every tongue, that she was born in the same year as Queen Victoria, which was 1819.

Her father is a well-informed and intelligent man, and it was under his guidance that she attained a considerable proficiency in the Latin language and in mathematics, as well as in the usual branches and accomplishments of female education. Early in life she was conversant with French, German, and Italian; she became also a respectable performer upon the piano; and she had that general acquaintance with science, and that interest in objects of art, which usually mark the intelligent mind.

Even as a little girl she was observed to have a particular fondness for nursing the sick. She had the true nurse's touch, and that ready sympathy with the afflicted which enables those who possess it to divine their wants before they are expressed. In England, as in most other densely peopled countries, poverty and disease abound on every side, in painful contrast to the elegance and abundance by which persons of the rank of Miss Nightingale are surrounded. One consequence of this is, that the daughters of affluence, unless they are remarkably devoid of good feeling, employ part of their leisure in visiting the cottages of the poor, and ministering to the wants of the infirm and the sick. It was thus that Florence Nightingale began her voluntary apprenticeship to the noble art of mitigating human anguish. Not content with paying the usual round of visits to the cottages near her father's estate, and giving, here a little soup, and

there a flannel petticoat, and at another place a poor man's plaster, she seriously studied the art of nursing, visited hospitals in the neighborhood, and read with the utmost eagerness whatever she could find in her father's library relating to the treatment of disease, and the management of asylums.

This was no romantic fancy of her youth. Miss Nightingale is a truly intelligent and gifted woman, -as far as pos sible removed from the cast of character which is at once described and stigmatized by the word romantic. She earnestly desired to know the best manner of mitigating the sufferings of the sick, the wounded, and the infirm; and she studied this beautiful science as a man studies that which he truly and ardently wishes to understand.

As it is the custom of wealthy families in England to spend part of every year in London, Miss Nightingale was enabled to extend the sphere of her observation to the numberless hospitals and asylums of that metropolis. These institutions are on the grandest scale, and were liberally endowed by the generosity of 'former ages; but at that time many of them abounded in abuses and defects of every description. Everywhere she saw the need of better nurses, women trained and educated to their work. Excellent surgeons were to be found in most of them; but in many instances the admirable skill of the surgeon was balked and frustrated by the blundering ignorance or the obstinate conceit of the nurse. Those who observed this elegant young lady moving softly about the wards of the hospitals, little imagined, perhaps, that from her was to come the reform of those institutions.

Miss Nightingale may almost be said to have created the art of which she is the most illustrious teacher; but she was yet far from having perfected herself; many years were still to elapse before she was prepared to speak with the authority of a master. Mrs. Gamp still flourished for a while, although her days were numbered.

It must not be supposed that this noble-minded lady denied herself the pleasures proper to her age, sex, and rank. She enjoyed society and the pleasures of society, both in the country and in town. Without being strictly beautiful, her face was singularly pleasing in its expression, and she had a slight, trim, and graceful figure. Her circle of friends and acquaintances was large, and among them she was always welcome; but, like most properly constituted persons of our Saxon blood, the happiest spot to her on earth was her own home. The family connection of the Nightingales in England is numerous, and she had friends enough for all the purposes of life among her own relations.

About 1845, in company with her parents and sister, she made an extensive tour in Germany, France, and Italy, visiting everywhere the hospitals, infirmaries, and asylums, and watching closely the modes of treatment practised in them. The family continued their journey into Egypt, where they resided for a considerable time, and where the gifts of Miss Nightingale in nursing the sick were, for the first time, called into requisition beyond the circle of her own family and dependants. Several sick Arabs, it is said, were healed by her during this journey, which extended as far as the farthest cataracts of the Nile. Her tour was of eminent use to her in many ways. It increased her familiarity with the languages of Europe, and gave her a certain knowledge of the world and of men, as well as of her art, which she turned to such admirable account a few years later. Returning to England, she resumed her ordinary life as the daughter of a country gentleman; but not for a long time.

Miss Nightingale, born into the Church of England, was then, and has ever since remained, a devoted member of it. In her religion, however, there is nothing bigoted nor excessive; she is one of those who manifest it chiefly by cheerfulness, charity, and good-living; nor does her attachment to

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