"
MARGOT (indignantly): "Do you mean to say you have burnt all
George Eliot's letters, Matthew Arnold's, Swinburne's, Temple's
and Tennyson's?"
JOWETT: "I have kept one or two of George Eliot's and Florence
Nightingale's; but great men do not write good letters."
MARGOT: "Do you know Florence Nightingale? I wish I did."
JOWETT (evidently surprised that I had never heard the gossip
connecting his name with Florence Nightingale): "Why do you want
to know her?"
MARGOT: "Because she was in love with my friend George Pembroke's
[Footnote: George, Earl of Pembroke, uncle of the present Earl.]
father."
JOWETT (guardedly): "Oh, indeed! I will take you to see her and
then you can ask her about all this."
MARGOT: "I should love that! But perhaps she would not care for
me."
JOWETT: "I do not think she will care for you, but would you mind
that?"
MARGOT: "Oh, not at all! I am quite unfemnine in those ways. When
people leave the room, I don't say to myself, "I wonder if they
like me," but, "I wonder if I like them."
This made an impression on the Master, or I should not have
remembered it. Some weeks after this he took me to see Florence
Nightingale in her house in South Street. Groups of hospital
nurses were waiting outside in the hall to see her. When we went
in I noted her fine, handsome, well-bred face. She was lying on a
sofa, with a white shawl round her shoulders and, after shaking
hands with her, the Master and I sat down.
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