Having recently discovered the popularity and diversity of snail mail clubs (yes, I am slow to the trend), I find the following quote rather inspiring. It is from a story about Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) and her most treasured possessions.
It is said that at the age of 25, Nightingale was expected to become a wife and mother in the way that most women from England’s upper class did in the mid-19th century. Her desire to become a nurse and serve the greater good only met with anger and distress from her affluent family, who considered nursing as “lowly” work.
Then Nightingale received a letter from a friend, who encouraged her to follow what she felt was her calling. She did, and the rest, as they say, is history. It is said that Nightingale treasured this letter for 60 years, because it changed her life. “No one keeps an email for 60 years,” so begins the quote.
“And it’s the same reason a real letter still stops us today,” the quote from 1000 Libraries continues. “An email costs nothing – we get 121 a day and keep none. A letter costs something: time, ink, a walk to the postbox. it says you are worth my time. You are worth the wait.”
“The Japanese call letters tegami – ‘hand-paper’ – and the fading ink and softening folds aren’t flaws; they’re proof that something real happened, and was meant for you. Emails get archived. Letters get kept, re-read, and passed down. 60 years, sometimes.”
I really love this quote, so I did some search to find out who was the friend that wrote the letter to Nightingale. It turned out to be Elizabeth Herbert (1822-1911), “an English Roman Catholic writer, translator, philanthropist, and influential social figure” according to Wikipedia.
How wonderful it would be, I imagine, to know your true calling, and to receive these words from someone who knows you really well: “I do feel that if you refuse [your calling], you will have lost the most noble opportunity of doing the greatest possible amount of good, just the sort of good which you alone can do.”
Image thanks to: Wikipedia, Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Herbert.
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 