Yet to say
that, is perhaps to say too much. For to those who watched her at
work among the sick, moving day and night from bed to bed, with
that unflinching courage, with that indefatigable vigilance, it
seemed as if the concentrated force of an undivided and
unparalleled devotion could hardly suffice for that portion of
her task alone.
Wherever, in those vast wards, suffering was at its worst and the
need for help was greatest, there, as if by magic, was Miss
Nightingale. Her superhuman equanimity would, at the moment of
some ghastly operation, nerve the victim to endure, and almost to
hope. Her sympathy would assuage the pangs of dying and bring
back to those still living something of the forgotten charm of
life. Over and over again her untiring efforts rescued those whom
the surgeons had abandoned as beyond the possibility of cure. Her
mere presence brought with it a strange influence. A passionate
idolatry spread among the men-- they kissed her shadow as it
passed. They did more. 'Before she came,' said a soldier, 'there
was cussin' and swearin' but after that it was as 'oly as a
church.' The most cherished privilege of the fighting man was
abandoned for the sake of Miss Nightingale. In those 'lowest
sinks of human misery', as she herself put it, she never heard
the use of one expression 'which could distress a gentlewoman'.
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