"Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room."
LONGFELLOW.
"She would speak to one and another, and nod and smile to many
more, but she could not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by
hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads
on our pillows again, content."
So wrote one of the soldiers from the hospital at Scutari of Florence
Nightingale, the soldier's nurse, and the soldier's friend.
Let us see how it happened that Florence Nightingale was able to do so
much for the British soldiers who fought in the Crimea, and why she
has left her mark on the history of our times.
Miss Nightingale was born in the city of Florence in the year 1820,
and it is from that beautiful Italian town that she derives her
Christian name.
Her father was a good and wealthy man, who took great interest in the
poor; and her mother was ever seeking to do them some kindness.
Thus Florence saw no little of cottage folk. She took them dainties
when they were ailing, and delighted to nurse them when ill.
She loved all dumb animals, and they seemed to know by instinct
that she was their friend.
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