Florence Nightingale is one of those who belong to no individual, no group, no homeland, no land: they belong to humanity entire — like light; like beauty, whether it be veiled or spread abroad; like art; and like perfume, whether it be sealed up or diffused. They are the hoped-for loftiness, whether it show itself or stay concealed.
Those like Florence will always remain for us splendid examples of love, service, and cooperation. They are the symbol of the succoring, merciful heart, and the emblem of faithful friendship — not for money, standing, and power, in pursuit of gain, but for giving, for sacrifice, and for devotion to the wretched.
Many have written of Florence Nightingale the heroine; here I shall content myself with recording a little about the first pioneer of the modern art of nursing.
In one of the loveliest regions of England, the county of Derbyshire, on a wooded height, stands a stately English house, looking out upon the beauty of the county around it and upon the gardens that wind about it, bright in summer with heaps of colored blossoms. Down the slope of the hill stretches a flowering meadow, ending in an incline clothed with woods down to the river, which sleeps in and out among the hills like a gleaming silver thread.
In this beautiful house Florence lived as a little girl, through spring
and summer, with her parents and her sister — seeming herself a part of the flowers and the music of the birds, with her sweet, radiant face and her glossy brown hair falling on either side of it.
She was born in 1820, and though she lived with her family through autumn and winter in another place, in Hampshire, she always counted that house, with its spacious gardens, its green meadows, and its great trees, the home of her childhood.
She was merciful from her earliest years. Her heart was moved for every bird or animal that was wounded or came to harm, and for every plant that flowered on bare rocky ground.
When her lessons were done, she would go out carrying a little basket with gardening things in it — a watering can and the like — and often she would go far afield, where the wild flowers grew, tending them, mending the broken fences, watering and propping up whatever needed her care.
Her father once said: "Florence was born a nurse." That was after he found her making a nest in a thicket for a nightingale with a broken wing.
And when he saw how she delighted in caring for everything that could not help itself, he set apart a place for her in the glasshouse at home, for a hospital; and whenever she found a bird or a dog or any suffering creature,
she would carry it to this hospital and tend it until it was well.
One day, as she rode her little horse alongside the parson of the village church, they came upon an old shepherd, bent, with a palsied hand, having great trouble gathering his scattered sheep. The parson asked him: Where is your dog, Roger?
The shepherd answered sadly: He'll be no good for anything anymore. The boys stoned him and broke his leg, and I am thinking of putting an end to his misery.
Little Florence Nightingale said: Oh! Can I do something for him? Is it not cruel to leave him all alone in his trouble?
Then she looked imploringly at the parson and asked that she be allowed to help the poor animal. The parson turned his horse toward the pen where the dog lay stretched out, whimpering with pain. Florence urged on her little horse, reached the pen before the parson, dismounted, rushed inside, and knelt on the ground with the utmost tenderness, stroking the dog until he turned his great black eyes and looked gratefully into her face.
When the parson had examined the leg, he found no break in the bone, and judged that a hot compress should be laid on the injured leg. Florence listened to him eagerly, and set to work with a will, together with the shepherd's son, lighting the fire and fetching the boiling water.
Then, with the parson's help, she bandaged the leg, and the poor injured creature rested. She would not consent to leave him until he was ready and able to do his part in herding the sheep.