![]() She was thoroughly realistic, with that great talent, so rare in reformers, for grasping the main point. Mama" she wrote about one occasion when she was in fever of work, "was to lie on two sofas and tell one another not to get tired by putting flowers into water *** I cannot describe to you the impression it made on me." ![]() ![]() Like many another great Victorian she was quite uncharacteristic of our present picture of that age.Īrriving in Paris in 1853 she is described as being "so thankful to drop being ladylike." She had no patience whatever with ladies - her mother and sister drove her to the verge of frenzy. Her opponents and overwhelmed them with her encyclopedic knowledge of her field, she despised sentimentality. Brilliant, ruthless, a magnificent organizer, a genius at administration, a negotiator who at once charmed The limbo of Victorian sentimentality in which Florence Nightingale has lingered for so long must have irritated her transient spirit intensely. Woodham-Smith's "Florence Nightingale" is such a book. "Queen Victoria," this is achievement indeed. ![]() ![]() However, a first biography whose solid scholarship is matched only by its readability and intuitive perception, a biography worthy to stand between David Cecil's "The Young Melbourne" and Lytton Strachey's Once or twice a year at least a first novel is hailed with such a paean of praise as almost to prepare the reader in advance forĭisappointment. FebruMercy Was Her Mission By ELIZABETH JANEWAY ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |