The neighborhood of the bridges was occupied by tenement-houses, making the approach to South Boston rather squalid. The House of Correction and other public institutions then established there lessened the attractiveness of the peninsula. So when Boston began to expand in earnest it took the usual course of cities and grew toward the west. The Back Bay was duly filled in, for the new part of Boston is on made ground. My father considered this much less wholesome than the original soil.
In the days of my childhood, South Boston, while not a fashionable suburb, counted many substantial and fairly well-to-do citizens among its inhabitants. Toward the eastern end it was pleasantly open and still retained a rural air. At City Point were semi-circles of granite, built for the cannon of the Revolution. Facing it, with a mile of water stretching between, was the grim gray outline of Fort Independence, not yet reduced to innocuous desuetude by the changes in methods of warfare.
As there was already a baby girl, it was hoped that I would be a boy. My father was much disappointed at my failure to fulfil this hope. He declared that the only way to console him would be to name me for Florence Nightingale, which was accordingly done. This was before the Crimean War had made her famous. My parents, however, had spent some days at “Embley,” the home of the Nightingale family, while on their wedding-tour. Florence, then a young woman of twenty-three, was already turning toward her life-work. She consulted my father, as a philanthropist of experience, about the propriety of her studying nursing and devoting her life to the care of the sick. He, of course, counseled her to do so. Ever in advance of his own day and generation, he would have had small patience with the people who even now consider a nurse as a species of social pariah.
Miss Nightingale corresponded with my parents before she had taken up her public work. The beautiful and devout spirit of her later years, as well as an intense interest in the movements in behalf of political and religious freedom, is manifest in these early letters. Touches of fun remind us that she had a happy sense of humor. Throughout the correspondence we see the great admiration of the young English gentlewoman for the man whose life was dedicated to the cause which she longed to take up.
She thus acknowledged the news of my birth and of the decision to name the new baby after her, foreshadowing, also, her own future career.
Embley, December 26.
I cannot pretend to express, my dear kind friends, how touched and pleased I was by such a remembrance of me as that of your child’s name. … If I could live to justify your opinion of me, it would have been enough to have lived for, and such thoughts as that of your goodness are great thoughts, “strong to consume small troubles,” which should bear us up on the wings of the Eagle, like Guido’s Ganymede, up to the feet of the God, there to take what work He has for us to do for Him. I shall hope to see my little Florence before long in this world, but, if not, I trust there is a tie formed between us which shall continue in Eternity—if she is like you, I shall know her again there, without her body on, perhaps the better for not having known her here with it.
… Good-by, my dearest friend, which word I am sure I never say to you without its good old meaning, God be with you. You never can tell me enough about yourself, or about Dr. Howe’s reforms.
I have no time to be ashamed of myself for writing you such a long and barren letter in return—I would write now, because, from the day after Christmas Day, for a month, I shall not have a moment to myself, except the solemn minute of the procession in to dinner, when everybody knows that each person may have the full and exclusive possession of his or her thoughts to him or herself, till the dogs are fairly feeding.
If I could live to see anything like a Protestant Sisterhood of Charity in England “my eyes would indeed have seen His salvation,” but now I see nothing but a mist, and only hope, when the mist clears away, to see something else.
Pray excuse me—I’m coming back—but only to say this time, what I never can express, how very earnestly I am ever your loving and grateful Florence.
Pray give our very kindest remembrances to Dr. Howe—and so fare you well, very well, my dear, dear friends.
In a later letter she writes of the two babies:
… I often think of your little couple, and imagine what they are like, and fancy the curious mixture there must be in them. I see them standing in the doorway, looking at me with irresolute eyes, and I sit quite still, that they may not go away—perhaps the only intercourse that will be permitted me with them on earth. It would be a curious speculation (if one’s acquaintance were but large enough to enable one to collect a sufficient number of facts to form a sort of experience) to find out what materials in the parents’ characters kneaded together into what sort of pâte in the children’s—and the general laws of these admixtures. I wonder, in this diving and grubbing age, that people don’t make at least rough theories about it (there must be some laws, if we could but find them out)—beginning with Genesis, where we see that the “sons of God” which, I suppose, only means the men great in wisdom and virtue and piety, who led these antediluvian females to the Hymeneal altar, who, I am afraid, were pagans or at the least something very bad by their being called the “daughters of men,” we see that their offspring, poor things! were strong and violent and restive and whatever else we may suppose symbolized under the character of “giants.” N. B.—This, upon second thoughts, looks like an uncivil apologue, and, as I remember, poor Mrs. Fowler got into a scrape by sealing a letter once with a wafer on which were two donkeys with the motto “When shall we three meet again?” of course implying that the receiver of the letter was the third donkey (though preserve me from putting you into the same category of souls as Mrs. Fowler’s correspondent!), yet I must beg to assure you that the above is no parable.
The downfall from the heavens has been so prodigious these last three weeks, that the river has been the driest place, and standing in it up to one’s shoulders the best shelter from the rain. Archbishop Whately is practising mesmerism at Dublin with a Catholic priest. Miss Martineau’s last books are stupid—if the revelations of the laws of Nature, which were made to her in a state of mesmerism, have found their incarnation in her recent Game-law Tales in sea-green covers, I wish her “toutes sortes de prospérités et un peu plus de goût.” The laws of Nature are uncommon dry ones—but I have come to the end of my paper, and with all our kindest remembrances to Dr. Howe, believe me, dearest Julia,
Yours till Doomsday i’ th’ afternoon,
Florence.
Florence Nightingale did not content herself with sending loving messages to her godchild. Her christening-gift—a beautiful edition of Knight’s Shakespeare—is one of my most treasured possessions. I still have also the remains of a bracelet made of her hair, with a little golden heart at the clasp.
In my mother’s correspondence with her sisters the “babies” are important figures. Maternal affection represents us in a glorified aspect; nevertheless, it is pleasant to have our early virtues and talents recorded by her loving hand. A few extracts from her letters are given below.
New York, Oct., 1845.
To Mrs. Thomas Crawford.
… You complain that no one tells you about Florence. Oh! she is a perfect angel! The little creature lies in my arms all night, and makes me too happy. She is the image of our dear father—is not that strange? She has his eyes, his brow, almost his smile. So strong is the likeness that even Lizzie Hogg cried out: “Oh! she is like dear Mr. Ward!” This endears her to me very, very much. She was christened in our little study at South Boston. No one was present but Sumner, [Doctor] Fisher, Wightie, and Laura. The good Mr. Burton christened her, and made the service even more touching and beautiful than did