Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The life of Florence Nightingale : Vol. 1 (1820-1861). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.
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![thing both ways here. When I hved in society (EngHsh) it seemed to me that, in conversation, people, but more especially women, were always doing one or more of three things :—(i) Addressing themselves : as when they adduce those little moral reasons for doing whatever they hke. (2) Saying something to mean some- thing else. Since I began what M. Mohl caUs my War against Red Tape, the commonest argument brought against me both by men and women, the best and cleverest, and within the last week too, is that I am led by dishonest flatterers and that they trust I may awaken to a sense of my duty as a woman. Now they don't really believe that I am led by dishonest flattery. But they think I shall not Hke it to be supposed that I am. This is only an anecdote (I hate anecdotes, don't you ?). But it is a very fair illustration of my No. 2, (3) Acting an amiable or humble idea : as when people teU an ill-natured story and then its palliation, and then say We might have been worse. And all the while all they mean to be in your mind is, how amiable they are and how humble they are, and they mean you to believe the story and not the paUiation. ... I have done with being amiable. It is the mother of mischief. Miss Nightingale may have done with being amiable ; but she had certainly not done with a lively sense of humour. At the Burlington one day, or rather one night, there was a domestic catastrophe. Miss Nightingale's dressing-room was flooded. She sent a characteristic account of the subse- quent proceedings to her cousin :— {Miss Nightingale to Miss H. Bonham Carter.) [1861.] . . . I have just re-enacted the Crimea on a small scale. Everybody did their duty, and I was drowned. But so distrustful was I of the results of their duty that I extorted from Mr. X. a weekly inspection of the cistern. I acted myself and no one has yet been drowned again. Mr. X. convinced four men—Sir Harry Verney, Papa, Uncle Sam, Uncle Octavius—whom I brought under weigh, that it was the frost and that he had done all that was possible. Then / had up Mr. X., and he admitted at once that it was nothing to do with the frost, and that what the workmen had done, viz. not altering the waste-pipe, was rascally. I said he came off with an excuse. And I came off with a severe internal congestion, vide Medical Certificate. I have had a larger responsibiUty of human Uves than ever man or woman had before. And I attribute my success to this :—/ never gave or took an excuse. Yes, I do see the difference now between me and other men. When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20452366_0548.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
