circumstances. The income was of the slenderest. Sometimes Mr. Alcott
gave a lecture or "conversation" and received a few dollars; sometimes
he did a day's farm work for a neighbor; now and then Mr. Emerson
called and clandestinely left a bank note, and many valuable packages
came out from relatives in Boston; but frugal housekeeping was the
chief asset of the family. Discouraging as the outlook was, some
bitter experience might have been escaped if the Alcotts had remained
in Concord, pursuing their unambitious career. It was, however, the
era of social experiments in New England. The famous Brook Farm
community was then in the third year of its existence, and it was
impossible that Mr. Alcott should not sympathize with this effort to
ease the burden of life, and wish to try his own experiment.
Therefore, in 1843, being joined by several English socialists, one of
whom financed the undertaking, Mr. Alcott started a small community on
a worn-out not to say abandoned farm, which was hopefully christened
"Fruitlands."
Visiting the community five or six weeks after its inception, Mr.
Emerson wrote: "The sun and the evening sky do not look calmer than
Alcott and his family at Fruitlands. They seem to have arrived at the
fact,--to have got rid of the show, and so to be serene. They look
well in July; we will see them in December." An inhospitable December
came upon the promising experiment, as it generally has upon all
similar enterprises. Under the title Transcendental Wild Oats, in
"Silver Pitchers," Miss Alcott gives a lively account of the varying
humors of this disastrous adventure.
Whatever disappointments and privations the enterprise had in store
for their parents, the situation, with its little daily bustle, its
limitless range of fields and woods, its flower hunting and berry
picking, was full of interest and charm for four healthy children all
under the age of twelve years. The fateful December, to which Mr.
Emerson postponed his judgment, had not come before the elders were
debating a dissolution of the community. "Father asked us if we saw
any reason for us to separate," writes Louisa in her journal. "Mother
wanted to, she is so tired. I like it." Of course she did; but "not
the school part," she adds, "nor Mr. L.", who was one of her teachers.
The inevitable lessons interfered with her proper business.
"Fruitlands" continued for three years with declining fortunes, its
lack of promise being perhaps a benefit to the family in saving for
other purposes a small legacy which Mrs. Alcott received from her
father's estate. With this and a loan of $500 from Mr. Emerson, she
bought "The Hillside" in Concord, an estate which, after the Alcotts,
was occupied by Mr. Hawthorne. Thither Mrs. Alcott removed with her
family in 1846, and the two years that followed is the period which
Louisa looked back upon as the happiest of her life, "for we had," she
says, "charming playmates in the little Emersons, Channings,
Hawthornes, and Goodwins, with the illustrious parents and their
friends to enjoy our pranks and share our excursions." Here the happy
girlish life was passed which is so charmingly depicted in "Little
Women," and here at the age of sixteen, Louisa wrote, for the
entertainment of the little Alcotts and Emersons, a series of pretty
fairy tales, still to be read in the second volume of Lulu's Library.
Much as there was to enjoy in these surroundings, the problem of
subsistence had not been solved and, with the growth of her daughters
toward womanhood, it became more difficult for Mrs. Alcott. The world
had, apparently, no use for Mr. Alcott; there were six persons to be
fed and clothed, and no bread-winner in the family. The story is that
one day, a friend found her in tears and demanded an explanation.
"Abby Alcott, what does this mean?" asked the visitor, and when Mrs.
Alcott had made her confessions, her friend said, "Come to Boston and
I will find you employment."
Accepting the proposition, the family removed to Boston in 1848, and
Mrs. Alcott became the agent of certain benevolent societies. Mr.
Alcott taught private classes, or held "conversations"; the older
daughters, Anna and Louisa, found employment; and we may think of the
family as fairly comfortable during the seven or eight years of its
life in Boston. "Our poor little home," says Miss Alcott, "had much
love and happiness in it, and was a shelter for lost girls, abused
wives, friendless children, and weak and wicked men. Father and mother
had no money to give but they gave time, sympathy, help; and if
blessings would make them rich, they would be millionaires." Fugitive
slaves were among the homeless who found shelter, one of whom Mrs.
Alcott concealed in an unused brick oven.
In Miss Alcott's journal of this period, we find the burden of
existence weighing very heavily upon her, a state of mind apparently
induced by her first experience in teaching. "School is hard work,"
she says, "and I feel as though I should like to run away from it. But
my children get on; so I travel up every day and do my best. I get
very little time to write or think, for my working days have begun."
Later, she seems to have seen the value of this experience. "At
sixteen," she writes, "I began to teach twenty pupils and, for ten
years, I learned to know and love children."
Amateur theatricals were still the recreation of the Alcott girls, as
they had been almost from infancy, and the stage presented a
fascinating alternative to the school-room. "Anna wants to be an
actress and so do I," writes Louisa at seventeen. "We could make
plenty of money perhaps, and it is a very gay life. Mother says we are
too young and must wait. Anna acts splendidly. I like tragic plays and
shall be a Siddons if I can. We get up harps, dresses, water-falls,
and thunder, and have great fun." Both of the sisters wrote many
exciting dramas at this period, and one of Louisa's, "The Rival Prima
Donnas," was accepted by the manager of the Boston Theatre, who
"thought it would have a fine run" and sent the author a free pass to
the theatre, which partly compensated for the non-appearance of the
play. Some years later, a farce written by Louisa, "Nat Bachelor's
Pleasure Trip, or the Trials of a Good-Natured Man," was produced at
the Howard Athenaeum, and was favorably received. Christie's experience
as an actress, in Miss Alcott's novel entitled, "Work," is imaginary
in its incidents, but autobiographical in its spirit.
All these experiments in dramatic literature, from Jack the
Giant-Killer on, were training the future story-teller. Miss Alcott's
first story to see the light was printed in a newspaper at the age of
twenty, in 1852, though it had been written at sixteen. She received
$5.00 for it, and the event is interesting as the beginning of her
fortune. This little encouragement came at a period of considerable
trial for the family. The following is from her journal of 1853: "In
January, I started a little school of about a dozen in our parlor. In
May, my school closed and I went to L. as second girl. I needed the
change, could do the wash, and was glad to earn my $2.00 a week."
Notice that this is her summer vacation. "Home in October with $34.00
for my wages. After two days' rest, began school again with ten
children." The family distributed themselves as follows: "Anna went to
Syracuse to teach; father to the west to try his luck,--so poor, so
hopeful, so serene. God be with him. Mother had several boarders.
School for me, month after month. I earned a good deal by sewing in
the evening when my day's work was done."
Mr. Alcott returned from the west, and the account of his adventures
is very touching: "In February father came home. Paid his way, but no
more. A dramatic scene when he arrived in the night. We were awakened
by the bell. Mother flew down crying, My Husband. We rushed after and
five white figures embraced the half-frozen wanderer who came in,
hungry, tired, cold, and disappointed, but smiling bravely and as
serene as ever. We fed and warmed and brooded over him, longing to ask
if he had made any money; but no one did till little May said, after
he had told us all the pleasant things, 'Well, did people pay you?'
Then with a queer look he opened his pocket book, and showed one
dollar, saying with a smile, 'Only that. My overcoat was stolen, and I
had to buy a shawl. Many promises were not kept, and traveling is
costly; but I have opened the way, and another year shall do better.'
I shall never forget how beautifully mother answered him, though the
dear, hopeful soul had built much on his success: but with a beaming
face she kissed him, saying, 'I call that doing very well. Since you
are safely home, dear, we don't ask anything else.'"
One of Miss Alcott's unfulfilled purposes was to write a story
entitled "The Pathetic Family." This passage would have found a place
in it. It deserves to be said that Mr. Alcott's faith that he had
"opened a way and another year should do better," was justified.
Fifteen years later, from one of his western tours, he brought home
$700, but, thanks to Louisa's pen, the family were no longer in such
desperate need of money.
More than once Miss Alcott declares that no one ever assisted her in
her struggles, but that was far from true, as appears from many favors
acknowledged in her journal. It was by the kindness of a lady who
bought the manuscripts and assumed the risk of publication, that her
first book, "Flower Fables," was brought out in 1854. It consisted of
the fairy tales written six years before for the little Emersons. She
received $32.00, a sum which would have seemed insignificant thirty
years later when, in 1886, the sale of her books for six months
brought her $8,000; but she says, "I was prouder over the $32.00 than
over the $8,000."
The picture of Jo in a garret in "Little Women," planning and writing
stories, is drawn from Louisa's experiences of the following winter. A
frequent entry in her journal for this period is "$5.00 for a story"
and her winter's earnings are summed up, "school, one quarter, $50,
sewing $50, stories, $20." In December we read, "Got five dollars for
a tale and twelve for sewing." Teaching, writing, and sewing alternate
in her life for the next five years, and, for a year or two yet, the
needle is mightier than the pen; but in 1856, she began to be paid $10
for a story, and, in 1859, the _Atlantic_ accepted a story and paid
her $50.
A friend for whose encouragement during these hard years, she
acknowledges great indebtedness and who appears as one of the
characters in her story, entitled "Work," was Rev. Theodore Parker, a
man as helpful, loving, and gentle as she depicts him, but then much
hated by those called orthodox and hardly in good standing among his
Unitarian brethren. Miss Alcott, then as ever, had the courage of her
convictions, was a member of his Music Hall congregation, and a
regular attendant at his Sunday evening receptions, finding him "very
friendly to the large, bashful girl who adorns his parlor regularly."
She "fought for him," she says, when some one said Mr. Parker "was not
a Christian. He is my sort; for though he may lack reverence for other
people's God, he works bravely for his own, and turns his back on no
one who needs help, as some of the pious do." After Mr. Parker's
death, Miss Alcott, when in Boston, attended the church of Dr. C. A.
Bartol, who buried her mother, her father and herself.
In 1857, the Alcotts returned to Concord, buying and occupying the
Orchard House, which thenceforth became their home. Other family
events of the period were, the death of Miss Alcott's sister
Elizabeth, Beth in "Little Women," the marriage of Anna, Meg in
"Little Women," and a proposal of marriage to Louisa, serious enough
for her to hold a consultation over it with her mother. Miss Alcott is
said to have been averse to entangling alliances for herself, to have
married off the heroines in her novels reluctantly at the demand of
her readers, and never to have enjoyed writing the necessary
love-passages.
The year 1860, when Miss Alcott is twenty-seven, has the distinction
of being marked in the heading of her journal as "A Year of Good
Luck." Her family had attained a comfortable, settled home in Concord;
Mr. Alcott had been appointed superintendent of public schools, an
office for which he was peculiarly well qualified and in which he was
both happy and admirably successful; Anna, the eldest sister, was
happily married; May, the youngest, was making a reputation as an
artist; and Louisa, in perfect health, having in May before, "walked
to Boston, twenty miles, in five hours, and attended an evening
party," was becoming a regular contributor to the _Atlantic_, and
receiving $50, $75, and sometimes $100 for her stories.
In these happy conditions, Miss Alcott sat down to a more ambitious
attempt at authorship and wrote the first rough draft of "Moods," a
"problem novel" that provoked much discussion and, though it caused
her more trouble than any other of her books, was always dearest to
her heart. It was written in a kind of frenzy of poetic enthusiasm.
"Genius burned so fiercely," she says, "that for four weeks, I wrote
all day and planned nearly all night, being quite possessed by my
work. I was perfectly happy, and seemed to have no wants. Finished the
book, or a rough draft of it, and put it away to settle." It was not
published till four years later. Even in this year of good luck, there
seem to have been some privations, as she records being invited to
attend a John Brown meeting and declining because she "had no good
gown." She sends a poem instead.
The breaking out of the Civil War stirred Miss Alcott's soul to its
depths, and we have numerous references to its progress in her
journal. "I like the stir in the air," she writes, "and long for
battle like a war-horse when he smells powder." Not being permitted to
enlist as a soldier, she went into a hospital in Washington as a
nurse. Her experiences are graphically and dramatically told in
"Hospital Sketches." That book, chiefly made from her private letters,
met the demand of the public, eager for any information about the
great war; it was widely read and, besides putting $200 in her purse,
gave her a reputation with readers and publishers. Many applications
for manuscript came in and she was told that "any publisher this side
of Baltimore would be glad to get a book" from her. "There is a sudden
hoist," she says, "for a meek and lowly scribbler. Fifteen years of
hard grubbing may come to something yet." Her receipts for the year
1863, amounted to $600 and she takes comfort in saying that she had
spent less than one hundred on herself.
The following year, after having been twice re-written, "Moods" was
brought out and, thanks to the "Hospital Sketches," had a ready sale.
Wherever she went, she says, she "found people laughing or crying over
it, and was continually told how well it was going, how much it was
liked, how fine a thing I had done." The first edition was exhausted
in a week. An entire edition was ordered by London publishers. She was
very well satisfied with the reception of "Moods" at the time, though
in after years when fifty thousand copies of a book would be printed
as a first edition, the sale of "Moods" seemed to her inconsiderable.
The present day reader wonders neither at the eagerness of the public
for the book, nor at the criticisms that were freely made upon it. It
is interesting from cover to cover and as a study of "a life affected
by moods, not a discussion of marriage," it is effective. In spite,
however, of the warning of the author, everyone read it as "a
discussion of marriage," and few were satisfied. The interest centres
in the fortunes of a girl who has married the wrong lover, the man to
whom, by preference, she would have given her heart being supposed to
be dead. Would that he had been, for then, to all appearance, she
would have been contented and happy. Unfortunately he returns a year
too late, finds the girl married and, though endowed with every virtue
which a novelist can bestow upon her hero, he does not know enough to
leave the poor woman in peace. On the contrary, he settles down to a
deliberate siege to find out how she feels, wrings from her the
confession that she is miserable, as by that time no doubt she was,
and then convinces her that since she does not love her husband, it is
altogether wrong to live under the same roof with him. Surely this was
nobly done. Poor Sylvia loves this villain, Miss Alcott evidently
loves him, but the bloody-minded reader would like to thrust a knife
into him. However, he is not a name or a type, but a real man, or one
could not get so angry with him. All the characters live and breathe
in these pages, and no criticism was less to the purpose than that
the situations were unnatural. Miss Alcott says "The relations of
Warwick, Moor, and Sylvia are pronounced impossible; yet a case of the
sort exists, and a woman came and asked me how I knew it. I did not
know or guess, but perhaps felt it, without any other guide, and
unconsciously put the thing into my book."
Everyone will agree that Miss Alcott had earned a vacation, and it
came in 1865, in a trip to Europe, where she spent a year, from July
to July, as the companion of an invalid lady, going abroad for health.
The necessity of modulating her pace to the movements of a nervous
invalid involved some discomforts for a person of Miss Alcott's
pedestrian abilities, but who would not accept some discomforts for a
year of European travel? She had a reading knowledge of German and
French, and in the abundant leisure which the long rests of her
invalid friend forced upon her, she learned to speak French with
facility.
On her return from Europe, she found her circumstances much improved.
She had established her position as a regular contributer to the
_Atlantic_ whose editor, she says, "takes all I'll send." In 1868,
she was offered and accepted the editorship of _Merry's Museum_ at a
salary of $500, and, more important, she was asked by Roberts Brothers
to "write a girl's book." Her response to this proposition was "Little
Women," which she calls "the first golden egg of the ugly duckling,
for the copyright made her fortune." Two editions were exhausted in
six weeks and the book was translated into French, German and Dutch.
"Little Men" was written, a chapter a day, in November of the same
year, and "An Old-fashioned Girl," a popular favorite, the year
following. "Hospital Sketches" had not yet outlived its welcome, was
republished, with some additions, in 1869, and two thousand copies
were sold the first week. She is able to say, "Paid up all debts,
thank the Lord, every penny that money can pay,--and now I feel as if
I could die in peace." Besides, she has invested "$1,200 for a rainy
day," and is annoyed because "people come and stare at the Alcotts.
Reporters haunt the place to look at the authoress, who dodges into
the woods."
The severe application which her achievement had cost had impaired
Miss Alcott's fine constitution and, in 1870, taking May, her artist
sister, she made a second trip to Europe, spending the summer in
France and Switzerland and the winter in Rome. A charming account of
the adventures of this expedition is given in "Shawl-Straps." A
pleasant incident of the journey was the receipt of a statement from
her publisher giving her credit for $6,212, and she is able to say
that she has "$10,000 well invested and more coming in all the time,"
and that she thinks "we may venture to enjoy ourselves, after the hard
times we have had."
In 1872, she published "Work: a story of Experience," and it is for
the most part, a story of her own experience. "Christie's adventures,"
she says, "are many of them my own: Mr. Power is Mr. Parker: Mrs.
Wilkins is imaginary, and all the rest. This was begun at eighteen,
and never finished till H. W. Beecher wrote me for a serial for the
_Christian Union_ and paid $3,000 for it." It is one of the most
deservedly popular of her books.
In 1877, for Roberts Brothers' "No Name Series," Miss Alcott wrote "A
Modern Mephistopheles," her least agreeable book, but original,
imaginative, and powerful. The moral of the story is that, in our
modern life, the devil does not appear with a cloven foot, but as a
cultivated man of the world. Miss Alcott's Mephistopheles is even
capable of generous impulses. With the kindness of a Good Samaritan,
he saves a poor wretch from suicide and then destroys him morally. The
devil is apparently a mixed character with a decided preponderance of
sinfulness.
Miss Alcott had now reached her forty-fifth year, had placed her
family in independent circumstances, thus achieving her early
ambition, and the effort began to tell upon her health. A succession
of rapid changes soon came upon her. Mrs. Alcott, having attained her
seventy-seventh year, was very comfortable for her age. "Mother is
cosy with her sewing, letters, and the success of her 'girls,'" writes
Miss Alcott in January; but in June, "Marmee grows more and more
feeble," and in November the end came. "She fell asleep in my arms,"
writes Louisa; "My duty is done, and now I shall be glad to follow
her."
May, the talented artist sister, whom Louisa had educated, had once
taken to Europe and twice sent abroad for study, was married in London
in 1878, to a Swiss gentleman of good family and some fortune, Mr.
Nieriker. The marriage was a very happy one but the joy of the young
wife was brief. She died the year following, leaving an infant
daughter as a legacy to Louisa.
Mr. Emerson's death in 1882, was, to her, much like taking a member of
her own family: "The nearest and dearest friend father ever had and
the man who helped me most by his life, his books, his society. I can
never tell all he has been to me,--from the time I sang Mignon's song
under his window (a little girl) and wrote letters _a la Bettine_ to
him, my Goethe, at fifteen, up through my hard years, when his essays
on Self-Reliance, Character, Compensation, Love, and Friendship helped
me to understand myself and life, and God and Nature."
Mr. Alcott is still with her, vigorous for his years. In 1879, at the
age of eighty, he inaugurated the Concord School of Philosophy, "with
thirty students. Father the dean. He has his dream realized at last,
and is in glory, with plenty of talk to swim in." The school was, for
Miss Alcott, an expensive toy with which she was glad to be able to
indulge her father. Personally she cared little for it. On one of her
rare visits to it, she was asked her definition of a philosopher, and
responded instantly: "My definition is of a man up in a balloon, with
his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth
and trying to haul him down." For her father's sake, she rejoiced in
the success of the enterprise. Of the second season, she writes, "The
new craze flourishes. The first year, Concord people stood aloof; now
the school is pronounced a success, because it brings money to the
town. Father asked why we never went, and Anna showed him a long list
of four hundred names of callers, and he said no more."
In addition to the labors which the school laid upon Mr. Alcott, he
prepared for the press a volume of sonnets, some of which are
excellent, especially one to Louisa:
"Ne'er from thyself by Fame's loud trump beguiled,
Sounding in this and the farther hemisphere,--
I press thee to my heart as Duty's faithful child."
Mr. Alcott seemed to be renewing his youth but, in November, he was
prostrated by paralysis. "Forty sonnets last winter," writes Louisa,
"and fifty lectures at the school last summer, were too much for a man
of eighty-three." He recovered sufficiently to enjoy his friends and
his books and lingered six years, every want supplied by his devoted
daughter.
With Miss Alcott the years go on at a slower pace, the writing of
books alternating with sleepless nights and attacks of vertigo. "Jo's
Boys" was written in 1884, fifty thousand copies being printed for the
first edition. In 1886, her physician forbids her beginning anything
that will need much thought. Life was closing in upon her, and she did
not wish to live if she could not be of use. In March, 1888, Mr.
Alcott failed rapidly, and died on the sixth of the month. Miss Alcott
visited him and, in the excitement of leave-taking, neglected to wrap
herself properly, took a fatal cold, and two days after, on the day of
his burial, she followed him, in the fifty-sixth year of her age. Dr.
C. A. Bartol, who had just buried her father, said tenderly at her
funeral: "The two were so wont to be together, God saw they could not
well live apart."