Homes and Hospitals; or, Two Phases of Woman's Work, as exhibited in the Labors of Amy Button and Agnes E. Jones. Boston: American Tract Society; New York: Hurd & Houghton.
Doubtless we should not, though most of us do, feel a tenderness for the Dorcas who proves to be a lady of culture and distinction, rather different from the careless respect we accord to the Dorcas who has large feet and hands, and mismanages her h's. In this elegant little book "Amy" is the descendant of influential patrons and patronesses, and "Agnes" is the lovely saint whom Miss Nightingale calls "Una," though her high-bred purity and lowly self-dedication rather recall the character of Elizabeth of Hungary. Agnes, in Crook lane and Abbot's street, encounters old paupers who have already enjoyed the bounty of her ancestress's (Dame Dutton) legacy. When she becomes interested in the old Indian campaigner, Miles, she is able to procure his admission to Chelsea through the influence of "my brother, Colonel Dutton." She lightens her watches by reading Manzoni's novel, I Promessi Sposi, she quotes Lord Bacon, and compares the hospital-nurses to the witches in Macbeth. These mental and social graces do not, perhaps, assist the practical part of her ministrations, but they undoubtedly chasten the influence of her ministrations on her own character. It is as a purist and an aristocrat of the best kind that Miss Dutton forms within her own mind this resolution: "If the details of evil are unavoidably brought under your eye, let not your thoughts rest upon them a moment longer than is absolutely needful. Dismiss them with a vigorous effort as soon as you have done your best to apply a remedy: commit the matter into higher Hands, then turn to your book, your music, your wood-carving, your pet recreation, whatever it is. This is one way, at least, of keeping the mind elastic and pure." And with the discretion of rare breeding she carries into the haunts of vice and miserable intrigue the Italian byword: Orecchie spalancate, e bocca stretta. A similar elevation, but also a sense that responsibility to her caste requires the most tender humility, may be found in "Una." When about to associate with coarse hired London nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital, she asks herself, "Are you more above those with whom you will have to mix than our Saviour was in every thought and sensitive refinement?" It was by such self-teaching that these high-spirited girls made their life-toil redound to their own purification, as it did to the cause of humanity. The purpose served by binding in one volume the district experiences of Miss Dutton and the hospital record of Miss Jones is that of indicating to the average young lady of our period a diversity of ways in which she may serve our Master and His poor. With "Amy" she may retain her connection with society, and adorn her home and her circle, all the while that she reads the Litany with the decayed governess or Golden Deeds to the dying burglar. With "Agnes" she may plunge into more heroic self-abnegation. Leaving the fair attractions of the world as utterly as the diver leaves the foam and surface of the sea, she may grope for moral pearls in the workhouse of Liverpool or train for her sombre avocation in the asylum at Kaiserwerth. Such absolute dedication will probably have some effect on her "tone" as a lady. She can no longer keep up with the current interests of society. Instead of Shakespeare and Italian literature, which we have seen coloring the career of the district visitor, her life will take on a sort of submarine pallor. The sordid surroundings will press too close for any gleam from the outer world to penetrate. The things of interest will be the wretched things of pauperdom and hospital service—the slight improvement of Gaffer, the spiritual needs of Gammer, the harsh tyranny of upper nurses. "To-day when out walking," says the brave young lady, as superintendent of a boys' hospital, "I could only keep from crying by running races with my boys." The effect of a training so rigid—training which sometimes includes stove-blacking and floor-washing—is to try the pure metal, to eject the merely ornamental young lady whose nature is dross, and to consolidate the valuable nature that is sterling. Miss Agnes, plunged in hard practical work, and unconsciously acquiring a little workmen's slang, gives the final judgment on the utility of such discipline: "Without a regular hard London training I should have been nowhere." Both the saints of the century are now dead, and these memoirs conserve the perfume of their lives.
Songs from the Old Dramatists. Collected and Edited by Abby Sage Richardson, New York: Hurd & Houghton.
Any anthology of old English lyrics is a treasure if one can depend upon the correctness of printing and punctuating. Mrs. Richardson has found a quantity of rather recondite ones, and most of the favorites are given too. Only to read her long index of first lines is to catch a succession of dainty fancies and of exquisite rhythms, arranged when the language was crystallizing into beauty under the fanning wings of song. That some of our pet jewels are omitted was to be expected. The compiler does not find space for Rochester's most sincere-seeming stanzas, beginning, "I cannot change as others do"—among the sweetest and most lyrical utterances which could set the stay-imprisoned hearts of Charles II.'s beauties to bounding with a touch of emotion. Perhaps Rochester was not exactly a dramatist, though that point is wisely strained in other cases. We do not get the "Nay, dearest, think me not unkind," nor do we get the "To all you ladies now on land," though sailors' lyrics, among the finest legacies of the time when gallant England ruled the waves, are not wanting. We have Sir Charles Sedley's
"Love still hath something of the sea
From which his mother rose,"
and the siren's song, fit for the loveliest of Parthenopes, from Browne's Masque of the Inner Temple, beginning,
"Steer, hither steer your winged pines,