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