HOSPITAL SKETCHES TEXT

done, he crept away, leaving me to feel, as somebody says, "as if angels were a watching of me in my sleep;" though that species of wild fowl do not usually descend in broadcloth and glasses. I afterwards discovered that he split the wood himself on that cool January midnight, and went about making or mending fires for the poor old ladies in their dismal dens; thus causing himself to be felt--a bright and shining light in more ways than one. I never thanked him as I ought; therefore, I publicly make a note of it, and further aggravate that modest M.D. by saying that if this was not being the best of doctors and the gentlest of gentlemen, I shall be happy to see any improvement upon it. To such as wish to know where these scenes took place, I must respectfully decline to answer; for Hurly-burly House has ceased to exist as a hospital; so let it rest, with all its sins upon its head,--perhaps I should say chimney top. When the nurses felt ill, the doctors departed, and the patients got well, I believe the concern gently faded from existence, or was merged into some other and better establishment, where I hope the washing of three hundred sick people is done out of the house, the food is eatable, and mortal women are not expected to possess an angelic exemption from all wants, and the endurance of truck horses. Since the appearance of these hasty Sketches, I have heard from several of my comrades at the Hospital; and their approval assures me that I have not let sympathy and fancy run away with me, as that lively team is apt to do when harnessed to a pen. As no two persons see the same thing with the same eyes, my view of hospital life must be taken through my glass, and held for what it is worth. Certainly, nothing was set down in malice, and to the serious-minded party who objected to a tone of levity in some portions of the Sketches, I can only say that it is a part of my religion to look well after the cheerfulnesses of life, and let the dismals shift for themselves; believing, with good Sir Thomas More, that it is wise to "be merrie in God." The next hospital I enter will, I hope, be one for the colored regiments, as they seem to be proving their right to the admiration and kind offices of their white relations, who owe them so large a debt, a little part of which I shall be so proud to pay. Yours, With a firm faith In the good time coming, TRIBULATION PERIWINKLE. New Publication. Ready September 1. Speeches, Lectures, and Letters: by Wendell Phillips. Fourth Edition. In One Vol., crown octavo, pp. 570; printed on clear new type, and the best tinted linen paper; bound in the English green or maroon vellum-cloth; with gilt tops, and illuminated title; and illustrated with an excellent portrait of Mr. Phillips, on steel, by H. Wright Smith, of Boston. Price $2,50. The first three editions of this work were sold as rapidly as they could be bound, and demand continues unabated. In his Prospectus, the Publisher guaranteed to produce this work in the best style of Boston manufacture; and that he amply redeemed this pledge, the universal testimony of the Subscribers, the Agents, and the Trade attest. It was announced at $2, and intended to be of 500 pages. But it is considerably larger, and more expensively gotten up than was originally designed; and hence, and in order, by the last adornments, to make it the very finest Book in the Boston market, its price has been necessarily increased to $2.50. Due notice has been given to all Agents,--all their subscribers having been supplied at the price first announced,--no injustice is done to any party by this increase in charge. By mutual agreement, also, between the Publisher and his Agents, he is now at liberty to offer the Book to the Trade, and will be ready to supply cash orders at the shortest notice. The following is a table of the Contents of the Volume: I. Publisher's Advertisement, containing a letter from Mr. Phillips. II. The Murder of Lovejoy. Mr. Phillips' first Speech in Boston, delivered December 8, 1837, which at once established his fame as one of the ablest of living orators. III. Women's Rights. Speech at Worcester, October 15, 1851, with the Resolutions, embodying the whole philosophy of the Women's Rights Movement, prepared and presented by Mr. Phillips. IV. Public Opinion. Delivered January 28, 1852. V. Surrender of Sims. January 30, 1852. VI. Sim's Anniversary. April 12, 1852. VII. Philosophy of the Abolition Movement. January 27, 1853. VIII. Removal of Judge Loring. February 20, 1855. IX. The Boston Mob. October 21, 1855. X. The Pilgrims. December 21, 1855. XI. Letter to Judge Shaw and President Walker. August 1, 1859. XII. Idols. October 4, 1859. XIII. Harper's Ferry. November 1, 1859. XIV. Burial of John Brown. Delivered at the Grave of the Martyr, December 8, 1859. XV. Lincoln's Election. November 7, 1860. XVI. Mobs and Education. December 21, 1860. XVII. Disunion. January 20, 1861. XVIII. Progress. February 17, 1861. XIX. Under the Flag. April 21, 1861. XX. The War for the Union. December, 1861. XXI. The Cabinet. August 1, 1862. XXII. Letter to the New York Tribune. August 16, 1862. XXIII. Toussaint L'Ouverture. December, 1861. XXIV. A Metropolitan Police. April 25, 1863. XXV. The State of the Country. May 11, 1863. ☞ Copies will be sent by mail on receipt of the retail price. James Redpath, Publisher, 221 Washington Street, Boston. Transcriber's Notes Welcome to the Project Gutenberg presentation of Hospital Sketches. We used the 1863 version of the book for this transcription. A scanned copy of this book is available through Hathitrust, courtesy of Duke University. We tried to preserve the original spelling of words, punctuation, and italics in the Sketches. Changes to the text are listed below, in the Detailed Notes. The Detailed Notes includes other issues that have come up during the transcription of the text. In addition, we have added some notes of explanation for some references in the text that, we hope, will help the reader. The 1863 book was the first release of Hospital Sketches in book form. In 1869, the Sketches were combined with nearly three hundred pages of eight Camp and Fireside stories written by Miss Alcott. Detailed Notes Nurse Sarah Gamp, a character from the novel Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, was a stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era, before the reforms of Florence Nightingale. On page 7, changed three page numbers in the Table of Contents: 10 to 9, 64 to 66, and 84 to 86. On page 12, Change never-come to never come in "If I never-come back, make a bonfire of them." On page 14, being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, meaning "having to choose between two evils". On page 14, the Massachusetts governor in 1862 was John Albion Andrew. On page 16, change Milk street to Milk Street in the clause "and bore down upon Milk street." This matches the spelling of two other references to Milk Street in the Sketches. Even today, the Koh-i-noor diamond mentioned on page 16 is considered the most valuable diamond in the world. On page 21, change Perewinkle to Periwinkle in the clause "Nurse Perewinkle does exist." On page 27, the Baltimore riot of April 19, 1861 was a civil conflict between Confederate sympathizers against members of out-of-state militia (primarily Massachusetts and some Pennsylvania men). The incident is called "The First Bloodshed of the Civil War." On page 34 transcribe door-ways with the hyphen, because the hyphen is found in door-step, door-handles, and door-mat. On page 42 add period after comfortable in the clause: "was immensely cheering and comfortable." On page 54, remove period after My in "My. Ganymede departed." On page 61, add comma after moment in the sentence: He seemed a little startled at first, pondered over the fateful fact a moment then shook his head, with a glance at the broad chest and muscular limbs stretched out before him: On page 75, Henry Wilson was the Senator from Massachusetts from 1855-1873. On page 75, Preston Brooks beat Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner with a cane on March 22, 1856, in retribution for an anti-Kansas speech by Sumner that attacked Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. On page 77, Florence Nightingale ran the first group of organized female nurses to support the British Army in the Crimean War. On page 79, Mark Tapley was a beloved character created by Charles Dickens in his novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. On page 82, Aunt Chloe was a character from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. On Page 82-83, New Year's Day in 1863 was celebrated by abolitionists because Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect on that day. On Page 83, cosy is a variant of cozy, and we preserved this as it appeared in the original Sketches. The author did use cozy on page 47 and page 100. On page 89, transcribe Ward-master with the hyphen. The book typically used 'ward master.' On page 93, three characters from the novels of Charles Dickens are mentioned: a) Mrs. Cluppins from The Pickwick Papers, b) Chadband, a pompous preacher from Bleak House, and c) Sam Weller from The Pickwick Papers. On page 95, change "good by" to "good bye." On page 96, changed "waved hier hands" to "waved their hands." Four times in Chapter 6, the author omitted the hyphen in Hurly-burly House after using the hyphen with references to Hurly-burly House and Hurly-burly Hotel in previous Chapters. Those four times occurred on Page 90, Page 99 (twice) and Page 101. We added the hyphen to the four items in Chapter 6.