Mitchiner Memorial Lecture: 'The Nightingale touch'.

Sir Edward Cook in Ihis life o [ Florence Nightingale recalls tlus amongst so many 'Pungent observations as an ,illustration of her dedication to ract rather than to imagination, to thc objective rather than to the empirical, to the statistical and not Ito the anecdotal attitudes man 'can takc towards problem 'Solving. ' ~What does ~t pfll V?" sruid the old lSootc'hwoman of IParadise L<1st and was abused for sayi ng ,it. T say the sa me t hing. Paradise Lo;t 'Pruvs nothing. Samson Agonistes pruvs a great deal, Tennyson never pruvs anything. Browning's Paracelsus pruvs something. Shakespeare in whatever he writes in the deepest 'highest tragedies, like 'King Lear' o r 'Hamlet' pruvs everyt.hing and does most to explain the ordinary life of everyone of LI S! Already we may surmise (if she would a llow us ,to surmise) that she didn't suffer fool s gladly. And we ean ask ourselves immediatel y what ,is I'here to