Memoirs of a Professional Lady Nurse. By M. Stannard. (Simpkin.,
Marshall, and Co.)—Lest anyone should be led by the title of this book to imagine it may contain any information useful to women intending to devote themselves to the work of nursing, we think it may be as well to observe there is no hint on the subject throughout the book, which is. merely the very uninteresting autobiography of a person who managed in the gold-fields of Australia, on shipboard, and elsewhere, to earn a. livelihood as a nurse, and ended by becoming matron to some hospital. Her adventures are recorded in very ungrammatical English, and with an amount of egotism which touches the ludicrous. The style of the book may be gathered from the following mild specimens. Mrs. Stannard had been frightened by the frequent appearance of a man she believed to be a bushranger, and observes :—" Three weeks passed, and one Sabbath morning I felt as if I could not cease wrestling with God, that He would not allow the man to do us any harm. But no promise came to my mind to give me comfort. But the same day, in the afternoon, as the man was passing our tent, he fell down when opposite the door Itwas soon discovered that he was dead. When the people were carry- ing him away, I thanked the Lord for such a display of sovereign love." And here is a verse taken at random from a rhyming letter which the authoress says "brightened her pathway of care" :—
'-But this paper looks so bed,
It will not be wisdom more to add, And though to you it may seem dark, I trust that you are in the ark."
If any one feels disposed to question if the prose of this pretentious little volume can be equally vague and unsatisfactory, we would ask them to try and transpose into lucid English the following sentence :- "In the meantime, streaks of canvas had arisen, in the shape of stores,, and which received the title of township ; yet, in spite of these stores, everything could be bought, such as meat and spirits of every kind, and from a silk dress to a tin pot, yet up goes a 'shanty' or Tom and Jerry,' which has been, and still is, the curse of the colony." We should not have thought this book worth our notice, but for its title, which is likely to deceive the unwary.
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