fretting because the clergyman did not cone in time, "Meanwhile, Mrs.
D., there is providence." Of a good-humored young radical who wished to
make war on all conventional forms, religious and political parties, he
remarked, "Unless our friend changes his ideas he will not be the happy
man at forty that he is now;" and the saying came true. If we are to
judge the value of Alcott's thought by the constant cheerfulness and
contentment of his daily life, his ideas must have been of an excellent
quality. His flowing white hair, and the calmness and purity of his
aspect, gave him quite an apostolic look; and once while visiting at the
house of a friend, a certain small boy--the same for whom John Brown
afterwards wrote his autobiography of a boy--asked his mother if that
man was one of Christ's disciples. Such was the father of "Little
Women."
The Alcotts received their friends weather permitting on Monday
evenings, and some favored youths of Mr. Sanborn's school would go there
to play whist, make poker-sketches, and talk with the ladies; while Mrs.
Alcott, who had played with the famous automaton in her younger days,
would have a quiet game of chess with some older person in a corner.
Louisa usually sat by the fire-place, knitting rapidly with an open book
in her lap, and if required to make up a table would come forward with a
quiet look of resignation and some such remark as "You know I am not a
Sarah Battles." Then after a while her love of fun would break forth,
and her bright flashes of wit would play about the heads of all who were
in the room. Just after ten Mr. Alcott would come in with a dish of
handsome apples and his wife produce some ginger cakes; a lively chat
for fifteen or twenty minutes would follow, and then the guests would
walk home. It was in this way Louisa acquired that stock of information
about young people and their affairs which she made such good use of
afterwards. Human nature to the poet and novelist is like a Calumet and
Hecla mine which never becomes exhausted.
Louisa Alcott resembled her mother in figure, features and color, and in
her ardent and impulsive temperament. In the greater number of families
the eldest child resembles the father; the second and third are more
like their mother, and the fifth (if there be so many) is often like the
grandparents. In the Alcott family however it was just the reverse of
this, for May the youngest daughter was the only one like her father,
inheriting the artistic side of his nature, instead of the
philosophical. Neither did Louisa resemble her grandmother's family, the
Sewalls. She was emphatically a May, and the best of all the Mays,
though there have been many of them who were excellent. I think she was
indebted to her father for her enterprising spirit and keen sense of
character. Mr. Alcott knew the people of Concord much better than they
understood him, and was always most interesting when he talked of the
distinguished people with whom he had been acquainted. May was fond of
society, and a walk to and from the school dances cold winter nights;
and then ready next morning for a skating party on Walden pond; but she
said her sisters had little entertainment in their youth, dressing
always in the plainest manner and practising a stoical self-denial.
Louisa liked to look at other people dancing, and generally it made her
happy to see the young folks enjoy themselves. This shows the true woman
in her. The portrait she has given of herself as Jo in "Little Women" is
not to be taken too literally. Like Thackeray in "Pendennis" she has
purposely left out the noble side of her nature,--for indeed that was
only disclosed at rare intervals and for those who had eyes to see. She
had the strongest features of the family, and a quick decisive manner
which was sometimes mistaken for arrogance.
[Illustration: LOUISA ALCOTT. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1858.]
Louisa and her sister Annie (now Mrs. Pratt) were excellent actresses,
and were always in demand when private theatricals were on foot. To see
them perform in the "Two Buzzards" with her sister and F. B. Sanborn was
a treat of the first order. I can hear Louisa now saying, "Brother
Benjamin, brother Benjamin!" in a scene of which all the rest is gone
from my memory. Another favorite _role_ of hers was Dickens'
character of Sarah Gamp in the nocturnal interview with her friend Betsy
Prig. As Mrs. Jarley exhibiting her wax tableaux she was inimitable. She
did it with a snap. Once she was called upon to assist at an
entertainment given at the house of the village blacksmith: she invented
a charade which was both novel and appropriate. She arranged her father
to look like the Boston statue of Franklin--and the resemblance was a
very striking one--and then came in with another gentleman in a
travelling dress, and surveyed and criticized him. When she said, "He
seems to have rather a brassy expression," Mr. Alcott could scarcely
hold his face. This was the first part: the second consisted of the
scene from the "Two Buzzards" already mentioned, and for the third a
witty dialogue about Mr. Sanborn's school. As more than half of the
audience was composed of Mr. Sanborn's pupils this charade produced a
great effect.
Her acting had this peculiarity, that she seemed always to be herself
and the character she was representing at the same time. This is the
case also with some professional actors and actresses, notably with
Madame Ristori and Edwin Booth: but it is not the finest kind of acting.
The anti-slavery conflict and the civil-war with which it ended appealed
strongly to her ardent and sympathetic nature; and this finally resulted
in her enlisting as a nurse to tend the wounded soldiers. Her lively and
picturesque "Hospital Sketches" written at Washington for the "Boston
Commonwealth" are the echo of this period. Very few passed through that
crisis without bearing the scars of it for life, and the fever which
Louisa Alcott contracted in the camp sapped her vitality and probably
shortened her days. She was one of the veterans, and deserved a pension.
While she was convalescing she said to a friend who condoled with her on
her misfortunes, "The loss of my hair was the worst of it" (this had
been cut off by order of the doctor); "I felt as if that were a
disgrace." When some one asked her how she amused herself she replied,
"I think out sketches of stories and put them away in little
pigeon-holes in my brain for future use."
On the Fourth of July 1864 there was an evening-party at the house of
Hon. E. R. Hoar, and nearly at the close of it Miss Alcott came to me
with a humorous twinkle in her eye and said: "A few of us are going to
have a picnic to-morrow at Conantum"--a picturesque bluff owned by one
Conant, about three miles up the river--"and Mrs. Austin and I have
engaged a boat for the occasion and are now looking for a muscular
heathen to row it. Will you come?" Nothing could have pleased me better;
so next morning we all started in the best of spirits. There was however
a head wind, the boat was without a rudder, and the Concord River is
very crooked. I think Miss May Alcott was also in the party. I found it
terribly hard rowing, and finally exclaimed, "This is the darnedest boat
I ever pulled." "Frank," said Louisa, "never say darn. Much better to be
profane than vulgar. I had rather live in hell than in some places on
earth. Strong language, but true. Here, take some cold tea." She had a
claret-bottle full of this beverage, and gave me a good drink of it. Her
vigorous piece of common-sense was also very refreshing, and Conantum
being now in sight, Miss Alcott and her sister insisted on landing at
the next bridge, leaving Mrs. Austin [Footnote: Mrs. Jane G. Austin, a
bright little story-writer of those days and very much like her English
namesake.] and myself to continue the way alone. Unluckily there was no
one now to care for the bottle of cold tea, and rolling about in the
stern of the boat the cork came out and the tea was spilled. This was a
severe loss to Miss Alcott who was not yet strong enough for an all-day
picnic, and when I explained it to her she said, "Don't talk to me. I
know you college-boys. That cork never came out by accident. You drank
the tea yourself, and now in what way I am going to punish you for it I
cannot tell." With such biting humor she partly relieved and partly
concealed her just vexation.
Characteristic writers are commonly the last to be appreciated, and Miss
Alcott's first novel did not meet with an encouraging reception from the
public. Some tender critics even complained that the story was
subversive of conservative morality. "I cannot help that," Louisa
remarked in her emphatic manner, "I did not make morality or human
nature, and am not responsible for either: but people who are given to
moods act as I have described; sometimes they like one person and
sometimes another." Perhaps she was thinking not so much of moody
natures as of those contradictory characters who have inherited the
traits of very dissimilar ancestors. She wrote another novel which she
herself liked much better and had great hopes of, which was lost in some
miraculous way by her publisher Mr. Fields. He paid her for it what many
people would consider a handsome compensation--exactly the sum that
Stuart Mill paid Carlyle for burning up the first volume of his "French
Revolution"--but it was a trying affair for both sides. How so bulky an
object as a novel in manuscript could have been lost without its falling
into the hands of some person who knew what to do with it, is most
difficult to imagine.
That so many of the world's benefactors are doomed to incalculable
torments here on earth may be a good argument for immortality, but for
Divine Providence it is no better evidence than the Lisbon earthquake
which so startled the optimists and thinking men of the last century.
There is no telling why this is so; for misfortune falls upon the just
as well as the unjust, and often no human foresight can prevent it.
Louisa Alcott supposed that she was nearly well of her fever when
inflammatory rheumatism set in. The worst of this was the loss of sleep
which it occasioned. Long continued wakefulness is a kind of nervous
cremation, and resembles in its physical effect the perpetual drop of
water on the head with which the Spanish inquisitors used to torment
their heretics. Any mental agitation makes the case very much worse, and
it requires great self-control to prevent this. It was melancholy to
behold her at that time. Her pallid face, the dark rings about her eyes,
and her dreary, hopeless expression might have penetrated the most
obdurate heart. "I don't suppose it is going to kill me," she said, "but
I shall never get over it. I go to bed at nine o'clock and think
steadily of the wood-box in order to keep my mind from more serious
subjects."
It is not always darkest before dawn, especially when the moon is on its
last quarter, but happily it was so in this instance. Three years later
she was in much better health, and had published "Little Women." First
the young people read it; then their fathers and mothers; and then the
grandparents read it. Grave merchants and lawyers meeting on their way
down town in the morning said to each other, "Have you read 'Little
Women'"; and laughed as they said it. The clerks in my office read it,
so also did the civil engineer, and the boy in the elevator. It was the
rage in '69 as "Pinafore" was in '78. It was re-published in London,--a
rare compliment for a book of its kind.
Rumors of this unusual success had reached the little household in
Concord and filled their home with pleasant expectations; but they had
no idea of the extent of it. The evening papers announced on the night
before Christmas that Miss Alcott's publishers had sent her that day a
very large cheque. There were many glad hearts at this news beside those
in the Alcott family; where, I fancy, tears and prayers were not wanting
to complete the sacrament. The long struggle was ended, and peace and
rest had come at last. Louisa had won a glorious victory, and the laurel
wreath was on her brow.
The style of "Little Women" is not classic; but as Goldsmith says in his
preface to the "Vicar of Wakefield," "It matters not." It filled a
vacant place in American and perhaps also in English literature, and
must continue to fill it. Novelists usually take up their characters at
the age of twenty-one, or somewhere in the twenties, and there have also
been many excellent books written for children; but to describe the
transition period between fifteen and twenty there had not as yet been
anything adequate--if we partially except Thomas Hughes' sketches of
life at Rugby and Oxford. It is a period of life which deserves much
more consideration than it often receives. It is the integrating period,
during which we make our characters and form those habits of thought and
action which mainly determine our destiny. The bloom of youth may
conceal this internal conflict, but it is there none the less, and
frequently a very severe one. "You have no idea how many trials I have,"
I once heard a schoolgirl of sixteen say, the perfect picture of health
and happiness; and those who remember well their own youth will not be
inclined to laugh at this. The tragedy of childhood is the commonest
form of tragedy; and youth is a melodrama in which pathos and humor are
equally mingled. Those who by some chance have escaped this experience
and have had the path of early life made smooth for them, may grow to be
thrifty trees but are not likely to bear much fruit. It is for her clear
perception of these conditions and her skill and address in dealing with
them that Miss Alcott deserves the celebrity that is now attached to her
name. Her simple pictures of domestic country life are drawn with a firm
and confident hand. They stand out in strong relief, and take their
color from her own warm-hearted womanly nature. Her characters act
unconsciously before us as if we looked at them through a window. In
American fiction "Little Women" holds the next place to the "Scarlet
Letter" and "Marble Faun."
There is one of Boccaccio's stories which differs so much from the
others in closeness of statement and fulness of detail that it is judged
to have been an experience of his own. As the critics say, he knew too
much about his subject. Louisa Alcott wisely avoided this error. Her
characters are always real, but,--in her best work at least,--not
realistic. There are people in natural life, full of peculiarities, whom
it would take pages to describe, while others can be hit off in a few
sentences. Miss Alcott knew that characters of a few simple traits were
best suited to her purpose; and she was too good an artist to imitate
her model. Her impersonation of herself as Jo was pretty near the truth,
but Beth, Amy, and Meg only resemble her sisters in a very general way.
If the book were more of a biography it would not be good fiction. Some
of the incidents in it were taken from her own or the family
experiences, but more are either imaginary or conventional. It is said
that her primary intention was to leave Jo in a state of single
blessedness, and that Roberts Brothers fairly declined to publish the
second volume unless she was married off to somebody. Thus originated
the episode of the German Professor, one of the best in the story.
Laurie was supposed to have been taken from Julian Hawthorne, because he
lived in the next house and was rather an attractive kind of boy. Louisa
herself said there was no ground for this: and yet Laurie seems to me a
good deal like him.
I remember meeting her at the radical club in Boston in January 1868,
and her drawing me into a corner where she told me that she was writing
a book for young people and would like to know about the game of
cricket. This fixes the time pretty closely when "Little Women" was
begun. She was frequently to be seen at the meetings of the radical
club, afterwards called the Chestnut Street club, where her father was
one of the leading members. She did not care for lectures, but greatly
enjoyed listening to the discussion of learned and thoughtful men. It
was an era of large designs and great mental activity; and in such
periods the best literary work is always accomplished. Once she said (in
her father's presence), "It requires three women to take care of a
philosopher, and when the philosopher is old the three women are pretty
well used up." But at another time she said, "To think of the money I
make by writing this trash, while my father's, words of immortal wisdom
only bring him a little celebrity." She honored her father, and lived
more for him than for anybody else, including herself.
Her journey through Europe was like a triumphal procession. Doors were
opened to her everywhere; not the palace of the Rothschilds or the
apartments of the ex-Queen of Naples, but those of distinguished artists
and literary people. Mr. Healy, the best American painter in Rome,
requested permission to paint her portrait. This she consented to, and
was rather surprised when he afterwards presented it to her. "I
wondered," she said while we were looking at the picture, "what was
going to come next; when one day Mr. Healy's daughter appeared with a
novel in manuscript which she wished I would give an opinion of. I found
it to be good and sent it to my London publisher, who happily published
it for her." Posterity ought to be grateful for Healy's little
manoeuvre.
[Illustration: THE ALCOTT HOUSE.]
The same attentions followed her on her return to Boston; but she did
not care for them. She had learned that the satisfaction of good work is
the only one which we never have to regret. She was busy with plans for
the future, considering especially how she might order and arrange her
affairs for the benefit of her family. Ladies whose names she had never
heard, came in fine carriages and sent in their cards to her. This
amused her very much. "I don't care who their grandfathers and
grandmothers were," she said. "John Hancock was my great-great-grandfather,
but nobody ever came to see me on his account." If she had leisure she
received them: otherwise not. In her next novel, the "Old Fashioned Girl,"
she introduces herself with the name of Katie King, and says to her young
friends: "Beware of popularity; it is a delusion and a snare; it puffeth
up the heart of man, and just as one gets to liking the taste of this
intoxicating draught, it suddenly faileth."
When "Little Men" was published a rather censorious critic complained
that Miss Alcott's boys and girls had no very good manners, and made
some inquiry after the insipid "Rollo" books which were in circulation
forty years ago. It is true their manners are not of the best, but they
are the Concord manners of that period. Were they otherwise they would
not be true to life. Very few boys and girls of sixteen have fine
manners; and even after they have acquired the art of good behavior in
company they continue to act in quite a different fashion towards each
other. What else can we expect of them? Exactly the same objection has
been made to "School Days at Rugby"; and when some one complained of
Goethe that the characters in "Wilhelm Meister" did not belong to good
society he replied in verse, "I have often been in society called
'good,' from which I could not obtain an idea for the smallest poem."
Concord was large enough for Thoreau, but not for Louisa Alcott. She had
no proclivity for paddling up and down Concord River in search of ideas.
She had a broad cosmopolitan mind, and the slow routine of a
country-town was irksome to her. She did not care for nature; and the
great world was not too large a field of observation for her. Even in
Rome she preferred the living image of a healthy bambino to the statue
of the gladiator who has been dying in marble for so many centuries. She
loved the society of people who were abreast of the times, who could
give her fresh thought and valuable information. The books she read were
of the most vigorous description. When some one asked her if she had
read Mallock's "New Republic" she replied, "I do not read cotemporary
writers; only Emerson and the classics." "Louisa," said I, "you speak to
my soul." "Do I?" said she, with a tenderness of feeling such as I had
never noticed before. Her attachments were strong; but her resentments
were of long duration.
EMERSON HIMSELF.
Emerson might be seen on his way to the post-office at precisely
half-past five every afternoon, after the crowd there had dispersed. His
step was deliberate and dignified, and though his tall lean figure was
not a symmetrical one, nor were his movements graceful, yet there was
something very pleasant in the aspect of him even at a distance. The
same has also been said of good statuary, even before we know what is
its subject. He knew all the people old and young in the village, and
had a kindly word or a smile for every one of them. His smile was better
than anything he said. There is no word in the language that describes
it. It was neither sweet nor saintly, but more like what a German poet
called the mild radiance of a hidden sun. No picture, photograph or bust
of Emerson has ever done him justice for this reason; only such a master
as Giorgione could have painted his portrait.
Every morning after reading the "Boston Advertiser" he would go to his
study, to take up the work of the day previous and cross out every word
in it that could possibly be spared. This procedure and his taste for
unusual words is what gives the peculiar style to his writing. It was
characteristic of him physically and mentally. He had a spare figure;
was sparing of speech, sparing of praise, and sparing of time; in all
things temperate and stoical. He had an aquiline face, made up of
powerful features without an inch of spare territory.
"With beams December planets dart
His keen eye truth and conduct scanned."
His eyes were sometimes exceedingly brilliant; his nose was strong and
aquiline; and the lower part of his face, especially the mouth, was
notably like the busts of Julius Caesar. His voice was a baritone of
rapid inflections, and when he was very much in earnest it changed to a
deep bass. He once said, "Whenever I look in the glass I feel a
depression of spirits"; but his friends did not feel so. He was always
an agreeable object to them, even in his last years when he looked in
his study like an old eagle in his eyrie. Mental power is more
attractive than beauty even to ladies.
He was a modern Stoic, and carried that kind of life to a high degree of
perfection. He sometimes smoked a cigar, and sometimes drank a glass of
wine, but the only real luxury he indulged in was dining with the
Atlantic Club once a month in Boston. During his lecturing tours he was
the recipient of a great deal of hospitality, and became the objective
centre of many a social gathering; but how much he enjoyed this it would
be difficult to tell. He was too modest and genuine to like being
lionized. He had neither pride, vanity, nor self-conceit; and his great
celebrity never weighed heavily upon him, or discovered itself in his
manners. In this respect he carried his stoicism a little too far, for
he never would permit any one to talk with him about himself, and
enthusiastic admirers of his genius commonly met with a rather cold
reception. He repelled everything in the shape of a compliment. Dr.
Edward Emerson says somewhere that his father was used to eat whatever
was set before him with Spartan-like indifference. This mistake may have
arisen from the good quality of Mrs. Emerson's housekeeping, and the
excellent fare which she provided for her husband and his friends.
Emerson wished to bear the hardships of life without complaining, but he
also knew that to make life unnecessarily hard is not only unwise but
has an injurious effect on character. As he would have said, it is not
according to nature. A horse seeks the best of the road, and a cow the
freshest grass in the pasture. Studious people and others who live
mostly indoors are obliged to be careful of what they eat. You could not
call Emerson an epicure, but he knew how to appreciate a fine dinner.
Several witnesses have given their testimony in regard to his partiality
for what he called "pie." He was also fond of pears; knew the best
varieties and the order in which they ripened. He used to say that there
is only ten minutes in which a pear is fairly ripe: before that it is
too hard and afterwards too soft. His friend Dr. F. H. Hedge once made a
similar remark concerning ripe scholars.