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Journal Notes Short, Dated Notes on Religion (1844-77) T hese deeply personal ‘‘dated notes’’ provide the reader a (partial) chronology of Nightingale’s spiritual journey. There are earlier letters relative to her spiritual journey, many in Volume 1, but they were clearly written to someone, while these notes were written for her own private use. The focus is her views on religion and her own faith, especially, early, her desire to find God’s will for her life, but of course they deal with many subjects. Thus there are anguished reflections on her family, her decision not to marry, her desire to die (if she could not work), the importance of Kaiserswerth, her political ideals, her views on the Crimean War and war in general. The notes give us a great deal of information on her devotional reading , her prayers for colleagues, her work and even her adversaries, and her remembrances, on anniversaries of friends’ deaths. They record her dreams and messages from a ‘‘Voice,’’ even in old age. Sources for this very rich material include the vast number of short notes Nightingale made, normally on the same, printed stationery she used for letters (mainly British Library volumes, some from other collections ). For two years only there are actual diaries: 1850, for her trip to Egypt and Greece, which includes her first, short, visit to Kaiserswerth, and for the year 1877, the only working year for which we have a diary. (A few entries are dated 1878 and there are 1877 notes apart from the diary, so that there is some overlap between the separate notes and the diary entries.) In the case of the separate papers dates, or approximate dates, have been estimated by her relative Rosalind Nash or biographer E.T. Cook. One entire volume of notes in the British Library’s Nightingale Collection (Add Mss 45844) consists of dated notes. Some of the short 362 / notes in Add Mss 45845 also are dated, and these are integrated with the former; the undated notes appear in Theology on notes by theme. The dating, of course, is sometimes uncertain, especially when there are several notes, which appear to have been written at different times, on the same piece of paper. Her notes begin in 1845 when Nightingale was twenty-four and still far from realizing her calling. There is only a brief note from her 1848 retreat in Rome, which was so influential, and during which we know that she wrote a great deal.1 There is material from her 1849-50 travels in Egypt and Greece, again significant for her faith journey. Short excerpts only are reproduced here for there will be full publication, with the letters, in European Travels and Mysticism and Eastern Religions respectively.2 This material shows a preoccupation with her ‘‘reputation ’’: would she be willing to work anonymously for God, without getting any public credit? The problem of reputation reappears in the diary of 1877. This may help to explain her apparently inordinate reluctance to have her name used (without her work), her refusal to be honorary president of organizations or to sign petitions and ultimately the engraving on her tombstone, with dates and initials only. Nightingale spent three months at Kaiserswerth in 1851, when she took copious notes of sermons and Bible classes, with little reflection on them. This material is too extensive for inclusion here and is reported in European Travels. There are no notes for 1852 perhaps because Nightingale was putting her thoughts on religion into the first draft of Suggestions for Thought. There are obvious reasons of pressure of work for so little from the Crimean period (only two notes and an entry in a devotional book the eve of her departure). The notes begin again in 1856 immediately on Nightingale’s return and there is interesting reflection on the war experience. There is some material from 1858, when she was already ill but still enormously productive. There is nothing for 1859 and 1860, only one note approximately dated early 1860s, little in the early 1870s, periods when she made extensive dated annotations in her Bible and other devotional books (especially the Imitation of Christ and Port Royal). Moreover in 1859-60 she was very occupied with further writing on Suggestions for Thought. 1 I.B. O’Malley cites notes taken of conversations with the ‘‘madre,’’ Laure de Ste Colombe, but these apparently have since been lost. See her Florence Nightingale 144-45. 2...

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