thinking, because in this book are recounted many things concerning sick
or wounded folk, and those astonishing surgeons and nurses who are
supposed to have helped them on to their feet again.

The ghastly amusement which came to me out of the young lady in this
volume, who amputates a man's leg, made me reflect a little about the
mode in which writers of fiction have dealt with sick people and
doctors. I lay half awake, and thought over this in no unkindly critical
mood,

"With now and then a merry thought,
And now and then a sad one,"

until I built myself a great literary hospital, such as would delight
Miss Nightingale. For in it I had a Scott ward, and a Dickens ward, and
a Bulwer ward, and a Thackeray ward, with a very jolly lot of doctors,
such as Drs. Goodenough and Firmin, with the Little Sister (out of
Philip) and Miss Evangeline to take care of the patients, besides cells
for Charles Reade's heroes and heroines, and the apothecary (out of
Romeo and Juliet) to mix more honest doses than he gave to luckless
Romeo.

Should you wander with a critical doctor through those ghostly wards,
you would see some queerer results of battle and fray than ever the
doctors observe nowadays,--cases I should like to report, it might be:
poisonings that would have bewildered Orfila, heart-diseases that would
have astounded Corvisart, and those wonderful instances of consumption
which render that most painful of diseases so delightful to die of--in
novels. I have no present intention to weary my readers with a clinic in
those crowded wards, but it will ease my soul a little if I may say my