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cism, but did not convert. Indeed she became increasingly critical of Catholicism over the years, identifying as a liberal, broad church member of the Church of England, and, more significantly, simply as a (Protestant) Christian. She drew on a wide range of sources for spiritual nourishment, including Roman Catholic (from the Church Fathers through the medieval mystics to the French, liberal Dominicans of her own age). Protestant sources also range widely, from the German critical, historical school, Puritans, the seventeenth-century ‘‘metaphysical’’ poets, to contemporary sermons. Influences can be seen that are clearly Lutheran (from her stay at the Deaconess Institution at Kaiserswerth) and Wesleyan (from her own chapel attendance early in life, and an enduring respect for reformer John Wesley [1703-91]), as well as her own Church of England. Early Writing: Suggestions for Thought (1852-60) The first writing Nightingale ever published, and that anonymously, was a short essay, ‘‘The Institution of Kaiserswerth’’ (1851), after her first visit there in 1850 (see European Travels). Her first substantial writing dates from 1852, a sixty-five-page draft of Suggestions for Thought, which she expanded into an 829-page, three-volume work in the late 1850s, and had printed in 1860 for circulation to a small group of men, but which she never published.13 It is published in full in the Collected Works for the first time. That this was missionary outreach to the unchurched working class can be seen in the succession of titles she used: To the Artizans of England for the first draft, the full Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Truth among the Artizans of England for the first volume of the three-volume set, falling off to Suggestions for Thought to the Searchers after Religious Truth for the second and third volumes. At the very least Nightingale had reason not to publish Suggestions for Thought for the brutally critical treatment of her family—it would have hurt them—and less harsh but decidedly unfavourable remarks about a book co-authored by Harriet Martineau (1802-76),14 who was 13 Three very partial editions are available: Mary Poovey, ed., Florence Nightingale : Cassandra and Other Selections from Suggestions for Thought; Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. Macrae, eds., Suggestions for Thought by Florence Nightingale; Rosemary Hartil, ed., Florence Nightingale: Letters and Reflections. 14 Henry G. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau, Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development. 20 / Florence Nightingale: Her Life and Family then a valued partner in several causes. More fundamentally, Suggestions for Thought represents Nightingale’s thoughts on religion when she was still developing them. The material reflects her approach to life before she had seen war or known illness. She is a confident, perhaps arrogant, analyst, much imbued with secular positivism as a philosophy , and hurting from the lack of serious roles for women in her church (that, of course, remained, but she found other outlets). The second and much longer draft dates from 1859, but still includes views she later abandoned. Suggestions for Thought is here treated as a major source of Nightingale ’s early views on religion, philosophy and society, but one to be considered with great care. The first draft of Suggestions for Thought, which includes the highly autobiographical ‘‘Cassandra’’ (twenty-five pages), dates from the period of frustration and depression that immediately succeeded the Egyptian trip, when Nightingale was still forbidden to nurse. There is a fierce determinism in Suggestions for Thought, with Nightingale insisting on a doctrine of ‘‘necessity’’ too rigorous even for J.S. Mill (1806-73). Again, a simple look at her own life at the time serves to explain it, for, forbidden to nurse or prepare to, Nightingale’s life was highly determined by forces beyond her control , the conventions of an upper-class Victorian family. Later she was able not only to shape her own life but to affect the lives of millions. Her views on determinism/necessity evolved accordingly. The emotional, stream-of-consciousness ‘‘Cassandra’’ essay coincides with Nightingale’s second ‘‘call,’’ this time to be ‘‘a saviour,’’ a term which also implies a healer. (The Oxford English Dictionary gives as its first definition of healer ‘‘one who heals or saves; in early use, Saviour.’’) Yet Nightingale was still not able to realize her first calling. She was suffering from her family’s angry reaction to the Kaiserswerth visit, for which she had to compensate by indulging her sister’s whims. The Cassandra...

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