Her fierce pen, shaking
with intimate anger, depicts in biting sentences the fearful fate
of an unmarried girl in a wealthy household. It is a cri du
coeur; and then, as suddenly, she returns once more to instruct
the artisans upon the nature ofOmnipotent Righteousness.
Her mind was, indeed, better qualified to dissect the concrete
and distasteful fruits of actual life than to construct a
coherent system of abstract philosophy. In spite of her respect
for Law, she was never at home with a generalisation. Thus,
though the great achievement of her life lay in the immense
impetus which she gave to the scientific treatment of sickness, a
true comprehension of the scientific method itself was alien to
her spirit. Like most great men of action--perhaps like all--she
was simply an empiricist. She believed in what she saw, and she
acted accordingly; beyond that she would not go. She had found in
Scutari that fresh air and light played an effective part in the
prevention of the maladies with which she had to deal; and that
was enough for her; she would not inquire further; what were the
general principles underlying that fact--or even whether there
were any--she refused to consider. Years after the discoveries of
Pasteur and Lister, she laughed at what she called the 'germ-
fetish'. There was no such thing as 'infection'; she had never
seen it, therefore it did not exist.
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