of obstacles. She was born in Germantown, Pa., Nov. 29, 1832, in the
home of an extremely lovely mother and cultivated father, Amos Bronson
Alcott. Beginning life poor, his desire for knowledge led him to
obtain an education and become a teacher. In 1830 he married Miss May,
a descendant of the well-known Sewells and Quincys, of Boston. Louise
Chandler Moulton says, in her excellent sketch of Miss Alcott, "I have
heard that the May family were strongly opposed to the union of their
beautiful daughter with the penniless teacher and philosopher;" but he
made a devoted husband, though poverty was long their guest.
For eleven years, mostly in Boston, he was the earnest and successful
teacher. Margaret Fuller was one of his assistants. Everybody
respected his purity of life and his scholarship. His kindness
of heart made him opposed to corporal punishment, and in favor of
self-government. The world had not come then to his high ideal,
but has been creeping toward it ever since, until whipping, both in
schools and homes, is fortunately becoming one of the lost arts.
He believed in making studies interesting to pupils; not the dull,
old-fashioned method of learning by rote, whereby, when a hymn was
taught, such as, "A Charge to keep I have," the children went home
to repeat to their astonished mothers, "Eight yards to keep I have,"
having learned by ear, with no knowledge of the meaning of the words.
He had friendly talks with his pupils on all great subjects; and some
of these Miss Elizabeth Peabody, the sister of Mrs. Hawthorne, so
greatly enjoyed, that she took notes, and compiled them in a book.
New England, always alive to any theological discussion, at once
pronounced the book unorthodox. Emerson had been through the same kind
of a storm, and bravely came to the defence of his friend. Another
charge was laid at Mr. Alcott's door: he was willing to admit colored
children to his school, and such a thing was not countenanced, except
by a few fanatics(?) like Whittier, and Phillips, and Garrison. The
heated newspaper discussion lessened the attendance at the school; and
finally, in 1839, it was discontinued, and the Alcott family moved to
Concord.
Here were gifted men and women with whom the philosopher could feel at
home, and rest. Here lived Emerson, in the two-story drab house,
with horsechestnut-trees in front of it. Here lived Thoreau, near his
beautiful Walden Lake, a restful place, with no sound save, perchance,
the dipping of an oar or the note of a bird, which the lonely man
loved so well. Here he built his house, twelve feet square, and lived
for two years and a half, giving to the world what he desired others
to give,--his inner self. Here was his bean-field, where he "used to
hoe from five o'clock in the morning till noon," and made, as he said,
an intimate acquaintance with weeds, and a pecuniary profit of eight
dollars seventy-one and one-half cents! Here, too, was Hawthorne,
"who," as Oliver Wendell Holmes says, "brooded himself into a
dream-peopled solitude."
Here Mr. Alcott could live with little expense and teach his four
daughters. Louisa, the eldest, was an active, enthusiastic child,
getting into little troubles from her frankness and lack of policy,
but making friends with her generous heart. Who can ever forget Jo in
_Little Women_, who was really Louisa, the girl who, when reproved
for whistling by Amy, the art-loving sister, says: "I hate affected,
niminy-piminy chits! I'm not a young lady; and if turning up my hair
makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty. I hate to
think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and
look as prim as a china-aster! Its bad enough to be a girl, anyway,
when I like boy's games and work and manners!"
At fifteen, "Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of
a colt; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs,
which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical
nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were
by turns fierce or funny or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her
one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net to be out of her
way. Round shoulders had Jo, and big hands and feet, a fly-away look
to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was
rapidly shooting up into a woman, and didn't like it."
The four sisters lived a merry life in the Concord haunts,
notwithstanding their scanty means. Now, at the dear mother's
suggestion, they ate bread and milk for breakfast, that they might
carry their nicely prepared meal to a poor woman, with six children,
who called them _Engel-kinder_, much to Louisa's delight. Now they
improvised a stage, and produced real plays, while the neighbors
looked in and enjoyed the fun.
Louisa was especially fond of reading Shakespeare, Goethe, Emerson,
Margaret Fuller, Miss Edgeworth, and George Sand. As early as eight
years of age she wrote a poem of eight lines, _To a Robin_, which her
mother carefully preserved, telling her that "if she kept on in this
hopeful way, she might be a second Shakespeare in time." Blessings on
those people who have a kind smile or a word of encouragement as we
struggle up the hard hills of life!
At thirteen she wrote _My Kingdom_. When, years afterward, Mrs. Eva
Munson Smith wrote to her, asking for some poems for _Woman in Sacred
Song_, Miss Alcott sent her this one, saying, "It is the only hymn I
ever wrote. It was composed at thirteen, and as I still find the
same difficulty in governing my kingdom, it still expresses my soul's
desire, and I have nothing better to offer."
"A little kingdom I possess
Where thoughts and feelings dwell,
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well;
For passion tempts and troubles me,
A wayward will misleads,
And selfishness its shadow casts
On all my words and deeds.
"How can I learn to rule myself,
To be the child I should,
Honest and brave, and never tire
Of trying to be good?
How can I keep a sunny soul
To shine along life's way?
How can I tune my little heart
To sweetly sing all day?
"Dear Father, help me with the love
That casteth out my fear;
Teach me to lean on Thee, and feel
That Thou art very near:
That no temptation is unseen,
No childish grief too small,
Since Thou, with patience infinite,
Doth soothe and comfort all.
"I do not ask for any crown,
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.
Be Thou my guide until I find,
Led by a tender hand,
Thy happy kingdom in myself,
And dare to take command."
Louisa was very imaginative, telling stories to her sisters and her
mates, and at sixteen wrote a book for Miss Ellen Emerson, entitled
_Flower Fables_. It was not published till six years later, and then,
being florid in style, did not bring her any fame. She was now anxious
to earn her support. She was not the person to sit down idly and
wait for marriage, or for some rich relation to care for her; but
she determined to make a place in the world for herself. She says in
_Little Women_, "Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid; what
it was she had no idea, as yet, but left it for time to tell her," and
at sixteen the time had come to make the attempt.
She began to teach school with twenty pupils. Instead of the
theological talks which her father gave his scholars, she told them
stories, which she says made the one pleasant hour in her school-day.
Now the long years of work had begun--fifteen of them--which should
give the girl such rich yet sometimes bitter experiences, that she
could write the most fascinating books from her own history. Into her
volume called _Work_, published when she had become famous, she put
many of her own early sorrows in those of "Christie."
Much of this time was spent in Boston. Sometimes she cared for an
invalid child; sometimes she was a governess; sometimes she did
sewing, adding to her slender means by writing late at night.
Occasionally she went to the house of Rev. Theodore Parker, where she
met Emerson, Sumner, Garrison, and Julia Ward Howe. Emerson always had
a kind word for the girl whom he had known in Concord, and Mr. Parker
would take her by the hand and say, "How goes it, my child? God bless
you; keep your heart up, Louisa," and then she would go home to her
lonely room, brave and encouraged.
At nineteen, one of her early stories was published in _Gleason's
Pictorial_, and for this she received five dollars. How welcome was
this brain-money! Some months later she sent a story to the _Boston
Saturday Gazette_, entitled _The Rival Prima Donnas_, and, to her
great delight, received ten dollars; and what was almost better still,
a request from the editor for another story. Miss Alcott made the
_Rival Prima Donnas_ into a drama, and it was accepted by a theatre,
and would have been put upon the stage but for some disagreement among
the actors. However, the young teacher received for her work a pass to
the theatre for forty nights. She even meditated going upon the stage,
but the manager quite opportunely broke his leg, and the contract
was annulled. What would the boys and girls of America have lost, had
their favorite turned actress!
A second story was, of course, written for the _Saturday Evening
Gazette_. And now Louisa was catching a glimpse of fame. She says,
"One of the memorial moments of my life is that in which, as I trudged
to school on a wintry day, my eye fell upon a large yellow poster with
these delicious words, '_Bertha_, a new tale by the author of _The
Rival Prima Donnas_, will appear in the _Saturday Evening Gazette_.' I
was late; it was bitter cold; people jostled me; I was mortally afraid
I should be recognized; but there I stood, feasting my eyes on the
fascinating poster, and saying proudly to myself, in the words of the
great Vincent Crummles, 'This, this is fame!' That day my pupils had
an indulgent teacher; for, while they struggled with their
pot-hooks, I was writing immortal works; and when they droned out the
multiplication table, I was counting up the noble fortune my pen
was to earn for me in the dim, delightful future. That afternoon my
sisters made a pilgrimage to behold this famous placard, and finding
it torn by the wind, boldly stole it, and came home to wave it like
a triumphal banner in the bosom of the excited family. The tattered
paper still exists, folded away with other relics of those early days,
so hard and yet so sweet, when the first small victories were won, and
the enthusiasm of youth lent romance to life's drudgery."
Finding that there was money in sensational stories, she set herself
eagerly to work, and soon could write ten or twelve a month. She says
in _Little Women:_ "As long as _The Spread Eagle_ paid her a dollar a
column for her 'rubbish,' as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman
of means, and spun her little romances diligently. But great plans
fermented in her busy brain and ambitious mind, and the old tin
kitchen in the garret held a slowly increasing pile of blotted
manuscript, which was one day to place the name of March upon the roll
of fame."
But sensational stories did not bring much fame, and the conscientious
Louisa tired of them. A novel, _Moods_, written at eighteen, shared
nearly the same fate as _Flower Fables_. Some critics praised, some
condemned, but the great world was indifferent. After this, she
offered a story to Mr. James T. Fields, at that time editor of the
_Atlantic Monthly_, but it was declined, with the kindly advice that
she stick to her teaching. But Louisa Alcott had a strong will and a
brave heart, and would not be overcome by obstacles.
The Civil War had begun, and the school-teacher's heart was deeply
moved. She was now thirty, having had such experience as makes us very
tender toward suffering. The perfume of natures does not usually come
forth without bruising. She determined to go to Washington and offer
herself as a nurse at the hospital for soldiers. After much official
red tape, she found herself in the midst of scores of maimed and
dying, just brought from the defeat at Fredericksburg. She says:
"Round the great stove was gathered the dreariest group I ever
saw,--ragged, gaunt, and pale, mud to the knees, with bloody bandages
untouched since put on days before; many bundled up in blankets, coats
being lost or useless, and all wearing that disheartened look which
proclaimed defeat more plainly than any telegram, of the Burnside
blunder. I pitied them so much, I dared not speak to them. I yearned
to serve the dreariest of them all.
"Presently there came an order, 'Tell them to take off socks, coats,
and shirts; scrub them well, put on clean shirts, and the attendants
will finish them off, and lay them in bed.'
"I chanced to light on a withered old Irishman," she says, "wounded in
the head, which caused that portion of his frame to be tastefully
laid out like a garden, the bandages being the walks, and his hair the
shrubbery. He was so overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash
him, as he expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his eyes and
bless me, in an irresistible style which was too much for my sense of
the ludicrous, so we laughed together; and when I knelt down to take
off his shoes, he wouldn't hear of my touching 'them dirty craters.'
Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, leaning their
tired heads against me as I worked; others looked grimly scandalized,
and several of the roughest colored like bashful girls."
When food was brought, she fed one of the badly wounded men, and
offered the same help to his neighbor. "Thank you, ma'am," he said, "I
don't think I'll ever eat again, for I'm shot in the stomach. But I'd
like a drink of water, if you ain't too busy."
"I rushed away," she says; "but the water pails were gone to be
refilled, and it was some time before they reappeared. I did not
forget my patient, meanwhile, and, with the first mugful, hurried back
to him. He seemed asleep; but something in the tired white face
caused me to listen at his lips for a breath. None came. I touched his
forehead; it was cold; and then I knew that, while he waited, a better
nurse than I had given him a cooler draught, and healed him with a
touch. I laid the sheet over the quiet sleeper, whom no noise could
now disturb; and, half an hour later, the bed was empty."
With cheerful face and warm heart she went among the soldiers, now
writing letters, now washing faces, and now singing lullabies. One day
a tall, manly fellow was brought in. He seldom spoke, and uttered no
complaint. After a little, when his wounds were being dressed, Miss
Alcott observed the big tears roll down his cheeks and drop on the
floor.
She says: "My heart opened wide and took him in, as, gathering the
bent head in my arms, as freely as if he had been a child, I said,
'Let me help you bear it, John!' Never on any human countenance have I
seen so swift and beautiful a look of gratitude, surprise, and comfort
as that which answered me more eloquently than the whispered--
"'Thank you, ma'am; this is right good! this is what I wanted.'
"'Then why not ask for it before?'
"'I didn't like to be a trouble, you seemed so busy, and I could
manage to get on alone.'"
The doctors had told Miss Alcott that John must die, and she must take
the message to him; but she had not the heart to do it. One evening he
asked her to write a letter for him. "Shall it be addressed to wife or
mother, John?"
"Neither, ma'am; I've got no wife, and will write to mother myself
when I get better. Mother's a widow; I'm the oldest child she has,
and it wouldn't do for me to marry until Lizzy has a home of her own,
and Jack's learned his trade; for we're not rich, and I must be father
to the children and husband to the dear old woman, if I can."
"No doubt you are both, John; yet how came you to go to war, if you
felt so?"
"I went because I couldn't help it. I didn't want the glory or the
pay; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept saying the men who
were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the Lord knows! but
I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was my duty. Mother
saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady, and said 'Go'; so I
went."
"Do you ever regret that you came, when you lie here suffering so
much?"
"Never, ma'am; I haven't helped a great deal, but I've shown I was
willing to give my life, and perhaps I've got to.... This is my first
battle; do they think it's going to be my last?"
"I'm afraid they do, John."
He seemed startled at first, but desired Miss Alcott to write the
letter to Jack, because he could best tell the sad news to the mother.
With a sigh, John said, "I hope the answer will come in time for me to
see it."
Two days later Miss Alcott was sent for. John stretched out both hands
as he said, "I knew you'd come. I guess I'm moving on, ma'am." Then
clasping her hand so close that the death marks remained long upon
it, he slept the final sleep. An hour later John's letter came,
and putting it in his hand, Miss Alcott kissed the dead brow of the
Virginia blacksmith, for his aged mother's sake, and buried him in the
government lot.
The noble teacher after a while became ill from overwork, and was
obliged to return home, soon writing her book, _Hospital Sketches_,
published in 1865. This year, needing rest and change, she went to
Europe as companion to an invalid lady, spending a year in Germany,
Switzerland, Paris, and London. In the latter city she met Jean
Ingelow, Frances Power Cobbe, John Stuart Mill, George Lewes, and
others, who had known of the brilliant Concord coterie. Such persons
did not ask if Miss Alcott were rich, nor did they care.
In 1868 her father took several of her more recent stories to Roberts
Brothers to see about their publication in book form. Mr. Thomas
Niles, a member of the firm, a man of refinement and good judgment,
said: "We do not care just now for volumes of collected stories. Will
not your daughter write us a new book consisting of a single story for
girls?"
Miss Alcott feared she could not do it, and set herself to write
_Little Women_, to show the publishers that she could _not_ write a
story for girls. But she did not succeed in convincing them or the
world of her inability. In two months the first part was finished, and
published October, 1868. It was a natural, graphic story of her three
sisters and herself in that simple Concord home. How we, who are
grown-up children, read with interest about the "Lawrence boy,"
especially if we had boys of our own, and sympathized with the little
girl who wrote Miss Alcott, "I have cried quarts over Beth's sickness.
If you don't have her marry Laurie in the second part, I shall never
forgive you, and none of the girls in our school will ever read any
more of your books. Do! do! have her, please."
The second part appeared in April, 1869, and Miss Alcott found herself
famous. The "pile of blotted manuscript" had "placed the name of March
upon the roll of fame." Some of us could not be reconciled to
dear Jo's marriage with the German professor, and their school at
Plumfield, when Laurie loved her so tenderly. "We cried over Beth, and
felt how strangely like most young housekeepers was Meg. How the tired
teacher, and tender-hearted nurse for the soldiers must have rejoiced
at her success! "This year," she wrote her publishers, "after toiling
so many years along the uphill road, always a hard one to women
writers, it is peculiarly grateful to me to find the way growing
easier at last, with pleasant little surprises blossoming on either
side, and the rough places made smooth."
When _Little Men_ was announced, fifty thousand copies were ordered in
advance of its publication! About this time Miss Alcott visited Rome
with her artist sister May, the "Amy" of _Little Women_, and on
her return, wrote _Shawl-straps_, a bright sketch of their journey,
followed by an _Old-Fashioned Girl_; that charming book _Under the
Lilacs_, where your heart goes out to Ben and his dog Sancho; six
volumes of _Aunt Jo's Scrap-bag_; _Jack and Jill_; and others.
From these books Miss Alcott has already received about one hundred
thousand dollars.
She has ever been the most devoted of daughters. Till the mother went
out of life, in 1877, she provided for her every want. May, the gifted
youngest sister, who was married in Paris in 1878 to Ernst Nieriker,
died a year and a half later, leaving her infant daughter, Louisa
May Nieriker, to Miss Alcott's loving care. The father, who became
paralyzed in 1882, now eighty-six years old, has had her constant
ministries. How proud he has been of his Louisa! I heard him say,
years ago, "I am riding in her golden chariot."
Miss Alcott now divides her time between Boston and Concord. "The
Orchards," the Alcott home for twenty-five years, set in its frame of
grand trees, its walls and doors daintily covered with May Alcott's
sketches, has become the home of the "Summer School of Philosophy,"
and Miss Alcott and her father live in the house where Thoreau died.
Most of her stories have been written in Boston, where she finds
more inspiration than at Concord. "She never had a study," says Mrs.
Moulton; "any corner will answer to write in. She is not particular
as to pens and paper, and an old atlas on her knee is all the desk she
cares for. She has the wonderful power to carry a dozen plots in her
head at a time, thinking them over whenever she is in the mood. Often
in the dead waste and middle of the night she lies awake and plans
whole chapters. In her hardest working days she used to write fourteen
hours in the twenty-four, sitting steadily at her work, and scarcely
tasting food till her daily task was done. When she has a story to
write, she goes to Boston, hires a quiet room, and shuts herself up in
it. In a month or so the book will be done, and its author comes
out 'tired, hungry, and cross,' and ready to go back to Concord and
vegetate for a time."
Miss Alcott, like Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, is an earnest advocate of
woman's suffrage, and temperance. When Meg in _Little Women_ prevails
upon Laurie to take the pledge on her wedding-day, the delighted Jo
beams her approval. In 1883 she writes of the suffrage reform, "Every
year gives me greater faith in it, greater hope of its success, a
larger charity for those who cannot see its wisdom, and a more earnest
wish to use what influence I possess for its advancement."
Miss Alcott has done a noble work for her generation. Her books have
been translated into foreign languages, and expressions of affection
have come to her from both east and west. She says, "As I turn my face
toward sunset, I find so much to make the down-hill journey smooth and
lovely, that, like Christian, I go on my way rejoicing with a cheerful
heart."
* * * * *
Miss Alcott died March 6, 1888, at the age of fifty-five, three
days after the death of her distinguished father, Bronson Alcott,
eighty-eight years old. She had been ill for some months, from care
and overwork. On the Saturday morning before she died, she wrote to
a friend: "I am told that I must spend another year in this 'Saint's
Rest,' and then I am promised twenty years of health. I don't want
so many, and I have no idea I shall see them. But as I don't live for
myself, I will live on for others."
On the evening of the same day she became unconscious, and remained so
till her death, on Tuesday morning.
MARY LYON.
[Illustration]
There are two women whose memory the girls in this country should
especially revere,--Mary Lyon and Catharine Beecher. When it was
unfashionable for women to know more than to read, write, and cipher
(the "three R's," as reading, writing, and arithmetic were called),
these two had the courage to ask that women have an education equal to
men, a thing which was laughed at as impracticable and impossible. To
these two pioneers we are greatly indebted for the grand educational
advantages for women to-day in America.
Amid the mountains of Western Massachusetts, at Buckland, Feb. 28,
1797, the fifth of seven children, Mary Lyon came into the world, in
obscurity. The little farm-house was but one story high, in the midst
of rocks and sturdy trees. The father, Aaron Lyon, was a godly man,
beloved by all his neighbors,--"the peacemaker," he was called,--who
died at forty-five, leaving his little family well-nigh helpless--no,
not helpless, because the mother was of the same material of which
Eliza Garfields are made.