during 1851, the year of the first Great Exhibition, that she was
thus fitting herself practically for the great task that lay before
her in the not very distant future.

On her return to England, Miss Nightingale found a patient that
required all her time and help of every kind. This patient was none
other than the Sanatorium in Harley Street for gentlewomen of
limited means. Into the saving of this valuable institution Miss
Nightingale threw all her energy, and for two or three years, hidden
away from the outside world, she was working day and night for her
poor suffering ladies, until at length she was able to feel that the
Sanatorium was not only in good health, but on the high road to
permanent success.

Florence Nightingale's own health, however, gave way under the
long-continued strain of anxiety and fatigue; she was obliged to
leave the invalids for whom she had done so much, and go home for
the rest and change she so sorely needed.

Now, while Miss Nightingale had been quietly getting "Harley Street"
into working order, the gravest and most terrible changes had taken
place in the affairs of the nation, and not only in those of
England, but in those of the whole of Europe. In 1851, when the
first Great Exhibition was opened, all was peace--the long peace of
forty years was still unbroken--people said it never was to be
broken again, and that wars and rumors of wars had come to an end.
So much for human foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors
of the Crimean war had reached their climax. The _Times_ was full,
day by day, of the most thrilling and appalling descriptions of the
hideous sufferings of our brave men--sufferings caused quite as much
by the utter breakdown of the sanitary administration as by even the
deadly battles and trenchwork; while every post was bringing
agonizing private letters appealing for help.

Men were wounded in the Crimea, the hospitals were far off at
Scutari, the wide and stormy Black Sea had to be crossed to reach
them; the stores of food, clothing, and medicine that might have
saved many a life were at Varna, or lost in the Black Prince; the
state of the great Barrack Hospital at Scutari was indescribably
horrible; everybody was frantic to rush to the relief; no one knew
what best to do; public feeling was at fever-heat. How could it be
otherwise when William Howard Russell, the _Times_ correspondent,
was constantly writing such true but heartrending letters as this: