LITTLE WOMEN LETTERS

FROM THE

HOUSE OF ALCOTT

Frontispiece.
Orchard House, the Alcott Homestead.

Copyright, 1914 ,
By John S. P. Alcott .

All rights reserved

Published, September, 1914

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

[Pg v]

FOREWORD

Next to the joy of giving to the Alcott-loving public "Little Women" as a play, is the privilege and pleasure of offering this book of letters, revealing the childhood and home life of the beloved Little Women.

May they bring help and happiness to many mothers and inspiration and love to many children.

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS

chapter page

• The "Really, Truly" True 1
• The Alcott Boy; The Alcott Man 10
• The Alcott Children 28
• The Alcott Baby Book 39
• Letters and Conversations with Children 59
• The Mother's Influence 98
• Children's Diaries 122
• Girlhood and Womanhood 140
• Friendships and Beliefs 162

• Chronology 195

[Pg ix]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

• Orchard House, the Alcott Homestead Frontispiece
• page
• A. Bronson Alcott at the age of 53, from the portrait by Mrs. Hildreth 54
• Facsimile of Mr. Alcott's Letter to Louisa, Nov. 29, 1839 82
• Facsimile of Mr. Alcott's Letter to Louisa, June 21, 1840 86
• Facsimile of Mr. Alcott's Letter to Elizabeth, 1840 92
• Abigail May, Mrs. A. Bronson Alcott, from a Daguerreotype 106
• Anna Bronson Alcott, from a Daguerreotype 122
• Abba May Alcott, from a Photograph 142
• Louisa May Alcott, from a Daguerreotype 160

[Pg 1]

LITTLE WOMEN
LETTERS FROM THE HOUSE
OF ALCOTT

CHAPTER I

The "Really, Truly" True

WHEN "Little Women," the play, reopened to many readers the pages of "Little Women," the book, that delightful chronicle of family life, dramatist and producer learned from many unconscious sources the depth of Louisa M. Alcott's human appeal. Standing one night at the back of the theater as the audience was dispersing, they listened to its comments on the play.

"A wonderful picture of home life, [Pg 2] only we don't have such homes," said a big, prosperous-looking man to his wife, with a touch of regret in his voice.

"Yes," agreed his young daughter, a tall, slender, graceful girl, as she snuggled down cosily into her fur coat and tucked a bunch of violets away from the touch of the frosty night, "it is beautiful; but, daddy, it isn't real. There never was such a family."

But it is real; there was such a family, and in letters, journals, and illustration this little book gives the history of the four Little Women, the Alcott girls, whom Louisa immortalized in her greatest story: Anna, who is Meg in "Little Women"; Louisa, the irrepressible and ambitious Jo; Elizabeth, the little Beth [Pg 3] of the book; and Abba May, the graceful and statuesque Amy.

Rare influences were at work in this ideal American home, where the intellectual and brilliant father was gifted in all ways except those that led to material success, and the wise and gentle mother combined with her loyalty and devotion to her husband a stanch, practical common sense, which more than once served to guide the frail Alcott bark through troubled seas.

Following her remarkable success as a writer of short stories, Louisa M. Alcott was asked for a book. She said at first it was impossible, but repeated requests from her publishers brought from her the announcement that the [Pg 4] only long story she could write would be about her own family. "Little Women" resulted, and, in erecting this House of Delight for young and old, Louisa Alcott builded better than she knew. Her Jo has been the inspiration of countless girls, and the many-sidedness of her character is indicated by the widely diverging lines of endeavor which Jo's example has suggested to the girl readers of the story.

In the case of the two editors, both from early childhood found their inspiration in Jo. One, patterning after her idol, sought success in a stage career, beginning to "act" before a mirror, with a kitchen apron for a train and a buttonhook for a dagger. The other, [Pg 5] always with a pencil in hand, first copied Jo by writing "lurid tales" for the weekly sensation papers, and later emerged into Newspaper Row.

It was more than a year after the success of "Little Women" as a play had become a part of theatrical history that they visited the scenes hallowed by the memories of the Little Women. They wished to see Concord together, so they made a Sentimental Journey to the House of Alcott.

The sun was shining, and the air was crisp—just such a day as Miss Alcott described in the Plumfield harvest home, the last chapter in "Little Women." They spent hours in Orchard House, touching reverently the small personal [Pg 6] effects of Louisa M. Alcott, seeing the shelf between the windows in that little upper room, where she wrote and dreamed. They even climbed to the garret and wondered which window was her favorite scribbling seat, with a tin kitchen for her manuscripts, a pile of apples for her refreshment, and Scrabble, the bewhiskered rat, for her playfellow.

Through the woods back of Orchard House they followed the winding pathway to the Hall of Philosophy, half hidden among the trees, where Bronson Alcott had his Conversations, where Emerson and Thoreau were often heard, and the most intellectual debates of the century took place.

At sunset they visited Sleepy Hollow, [Pg 7] the resting place of the Alcotts, with Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne close by—a goodly company, neighbors still as they were for so many years when they made Concord America's literary shrine.

Evening came, and the two pilgrims read together the Alcott journals and letters. The ink was faded, the quaint, old-fashioned writing was hard to decipher, but, beginning with a letter to Louisa written by Bronson Alcott when his daughter was seven years old, they read on until the dawn.

Only one result could be expected from such an experience. They asked permission to publish the letters and such portions of the journals as would [Pg 8] most completely reveal the rare spiritual companionship existing between the Alcott parents and children. And, asking, they were refused, because of a feeling that the letters and journals were intimate family records, to be read, not by the many, but by the few. This same sentiment withheld the dramatization of "Little Women" for many years.

"You forget," they argued, holding fast to the dimly written pages, "that Bronson Alcott and Louisa Alcott are a part of America's literary heritage. They belong to the nation, to the world, not alone to you."

This course of reasoning finally prevailed, but not without many months of [Pg 9] waiting. And thus, with the consent of the Alcott heirs, the book of "Little Women Letters from the House of Alcott" came to be.

[Pg 10]

CHAPTER II

I

The Alcott Boy

ONCE upon a time in the little town of Wolcott, Connecticut, was born a boy destined to offer to the world new and beautiful thoughts. He was laughed at and misunderstood; but the thoughts were truth, and they have lived, although the boy grew weary and old and passed on.

The boy was Amos Bronson Alcott. He was a country lad, used from infancy to the rugged life of the farm, with its self-denial and makeshifts. The seeming [Pg 11] disadvantage, however, proved quite the opposite. His close communion with Nature brought him nearer to the truths of life. For him God ceased to be a mythical object to be studied and read about on Sunday; but, as he roamed the fields and climbed the hills, the lad found Him in the rocks and the woodlands, and in the sparkling streams. He became a reality. The boy and God were friends.

Of schooling he had little. When work at the farm permitted, he attended the country school near his father's house. "Our copies," he told his little daughters, "were set by the schoolmaster in books made of a few sheets of foolscap, stitched together and ruled with a leather plummet. [Pg 12] We used ink made of maple and oak bark, which we manufactured ourselves. With this I began keeping a diary of my doings."

This was when the boy was twelve. His hours at school were few, but as he went about his daily tasks on the farm, his thoughts grew and grew until his mental stature far exceeded his physical. He read as he guided the plow along the furrow, sometimes unmindful of his work until a sudden punch from a neglected handle, as the plow struck a stone, would bring him back to earth with a thump. He sowed seeds in the moist, sweet earth, but his face was turned to the skies, and he knew the clouds and the stars. When he gathered firewood, [Pg 13] his eyes were keen for the soft, dainty mosses, the clinging lichens. As he picked berries for the home table, he never missed the whirr of a bird wing or passed unnoticed the modest flowers half hidden in the soil. Nature was his library, and she spread out her choicest treasures to this growing boy.

A love for all of God's creations characterized him. He was fond, not only of the growing things in the wood, but of all life. His love for animals amounted almost to a passion, one reason for his being a strict vegetarian and insisting upon bringing up his little family on a vegetable diet. But in boyhood it was not always clear whether humanity or the craving for knowledge made him so [Pg 14] considerate of the plodding team in the field. Never was team more carefully tended. Many were its hours of grazing, when the noonday sun rode high in the heavens, and the Alcott boy, book in hand, curled up under the shade of a gigantic elm and read until the shadows began to lengthen. But these lapses were only occasional, for the lad was faithful to his tasks, except when he yielded to the lure of the printed page.

When scarcely more than a child he began to keep a record of his books and his reading, showing the first traces of the reflective, introspective quality of mind which later led him to set down in letters and unpublished manuscripts [Pg 15] his inmost thoughts. He cultivated the same habits of thought in his children, one reason, doubtless, for Louisa's accurate and realistic descriptions of the lives of the four Little Women of the Alcott family.

His favorite books in boyhood, and, for that matter, in manhood, were the Bible and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which he read and reread and commented upon. Years later he mentions in his journal that he made it a practice to read "Pilgrim's Progress" every year, which is a remarkable record to the modern boy and girl who find it difficult to struggle through that wonderful allegory even once.

Bronson Alcott took his chance and [Pg 16] made a stepping-stone of every difficulty. Each obstacle he encountered in getting an education created in him an even stronger determination to gain one. The modern boy has the world of books opened wide to him through the library and the free school. The treasures of art are spread out before him in the museums. He is surrounded by helps. The boy of to-day is studied as an entity. The boy of the last century could tell quite a different story.

So the Alcott boy, passing long hours in the woods, reading, thinking, getting close to Nature and to God, walked as one apart, seeing the invisible. While still a boy, he began casting off the garment of a conventional creed and to [Pg 17] think for himself of God, the creation, of life, unconsciously putting from him the trammeling, cumbersome conventions with which man has often hidden truth.

Out of this the man Alcott emerged—a great soul.

[Pg 18]

II

The Alcott Man

With Bronson Alcott the craving for knowledge was scarcely stronger than the craving for adventure, so it is not surprising that in the first flush of young manhood he did not settle down to life on the farm. He longed for the great world lying beyond the hills and valleys of peaceful New England. He wanted experience, and experience he had.

He went South, hoping to teach school, as he had original ideas on the training of children. Unsuccessful in this, he decided to be a peddler, naïvely remarking that "honesty of purpose could dignify any profession."

[Pg 19] Think of the courage of this boy, for he was scarcely more than a boy, a philosopher at heart, living in a world of dreams and books, his ambitions all for intellectual rather than material achievement, tramping the southern countryside, undauntedly peddling buttons, elastic, pins and needles, and supplying all the small wants of the country housewife! Often he encountered rebuffs, sometimes he had a hearty welcome, for the visit of the country peddler was eagerly awaited by the children. At times, when night came and he was far from the shelter of an inn, he had to beg a lodging from some planter. On one such occasion, as he entered the grounds, he saw a huge sign, "Beware the dog." [Pg 20] A shout from the house also warned him, and he saw dashing toward him a savage-looking dog, powerful enough to have torn to pieces the slender young peddler-student. But his love for animals triumphed. Alcott stretched out his hand. The huge creature stopped short; then, recognizing a friend and a fearless one, he bounded on, tail wagging, barking joyously, snuggling his nose into the young man's palm, which he licked as he escorted his new-found friend to the house. Animals always recognized in Alcott an understanding comrade.

From most of these trips Alcott brought back money to add to the scanty funds at home, but on one memorable occasion the love of finery proved [Pg 21] stronger than the necessity for saving, and he returned to the farm penniless, but dressed in the latest fashion, having used his savings for a wardrobe that was the wonder of the countryside. That one debauch of clothes satisfied him for life; after that his tastes were markedly simple. With him the "dandy period" was short-lived indeed. That he repented bitterly of this one excess of folly is shown in his journals, where he sets down minutely what to him was a mistake that amounted almost to a sin. As a rule, he was singularly free from folly. His thoughts were too high, his ideals too lofty, for him to be long concerned with trifles such as clothes, and the next expenditure mentioned in his [Pg 22] journal is for the "Vicar of Wakefield" and Johnson's "Rasselas." Ever impractical, one likes him the better for the little human moment when the vanities of the world overcame him.

At last he secured a school, and then began the realization of his ideals regarding the teaching of children. His methods were original and highly successful, especially with the very young. He established a mental kindergarten, and the fame of his teaching spread abroad. Through his work as a teacher he achieved his greatest happiness, for it led to his meeting with the woman who was destined to become his wife.

As the result of correspondence between himself and Mr. May of Brooklyn, [Pg 23] Connecticut, whose attention had been attracted to the work of the young teacher, Alcott, then twenty-eight years old, drove from the Wolcott home to Brooklyn, where he met Abigail May of Boston, who was visiting her brother. With both it was love at first sight, a love that grew into a perfect spiritual union.

It seemed almost providential that Bronson Alcott should have come into Abigail May's life at just this time, when her heart had been touched by its first great sorrow—the loss of her mother. Hitherto she had been a light-hearted girl, fond of dancing and of the material side of life. The young philosopher, with his dreams and his ideals, brought a new interest into her now lonely life, and [Pg 24] all that was spiritual in her nature responded as he freely discussed his plans and ambitions with her. In her he found both sympathy and understanding.

A year of letter-writing, a frank and honest exchange of thought, brought out the harmony of their natures and developed in both a sense of oneness, laying a firm foundation for the comradeship which was not broken through all the years, even when the wife and mother passed into the Great Beyond.

The Alcott-May courtship was ideal. Retaining the heaven that lay about him in his infancy, keeping his close companionship with God and God's great laboratory, Nature, Bronson Alcott demanded something more than mere [Pg 25] physical attraction in choosing his wife. A certain quaint circumspection characterized their love-making. Abigail May once wrote: "Mr. Alcott's views on education were very attractive, and I was charmed by his modesty," and long after their engagement she spoke of her lover as "her friend." He was, and so he continued to be in the highest sense of the word.

So satisfying were those friendship-courtship days, that apparently both were loath to end them, for another twelvemonth passed before the announcement of their betrothal, and it was nearly three years from the date of their first meeting before their marriage in King's Chapel, Boston, where the brother who [Pg 26] had been the means of bringing them together performed the ceremony.

As their marriage day approached, there was little festivity and none of the rush that usually precedes a modern wedding. Everything was simple, quiet, and sure.

This is Bronson Alcott's letter, asking a friend to act as best man at his wedding.

[Pg 27] So began the Alcott pilgrimage, their fortune consisting of love and faith and brains. In these they were rich indeed, and thus closed another chapter in the life of the gentle philosopher, of whom Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "Our Alcott has only just missed being a seraph."

[Pg 28]

CHAPTER III

The Alcott Children

FOR some months after their marriage the Alcotts lived in Boston, where the young enthusiast taught a school for infants. Again his fame as a teacher traveled, and he received an offer from the Quakers of Philadelphia to start a school there, an offer so tempting that the Alcotts moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where Anna and Louisa were born.

Eugenics and prenatal influence were not discussed then as they are to-day, but in the Alcott family nearly a century [Pg 29] ago they were being thought and lived. Bronson Alcott and his wife considered children an expression, not of themselves, but of divinity, and as such to be accepted as a trust, rather than as a gratification of their own human longing for fatherhood and motherhood. They felt it their parental privilege rather than their duty to aid the human development of the child and thus further the fulfillment of its destiny. Each little soul was humbly asked for and reverently prepared for. From the moment they knew their prayer had been granted, the individuality and rights of that soul were respected. It was considered as a little guest that must be made happy and comfortable, carefully cherished, [Pg 30] mentally and physically, while its fleshly garment was being prepared and the little personality made ready for its earthly appearance. How careful they were of every thought and influence, for to both parents this period was the most sacred and wonderful in their lives and in the lives of their children.

The depth of his joy and the simplicity of his faith are exquisitely expressed in the lines which Bronson Alcott wrote before the birth of his first child, Anna:

To An Expectant Mother

Louisa, the second child, born on her father's birthday, was the most intellectual and the most resourceful of the Alcott children, reflecting in her own buoyant personality the happy conditions existing before and at the time of her birth, when her father had attained his greatest material prosperity and was also realizing his mental ambitions in his little school, and her mother was temporarily relieved from the cares that so often weighed heavily upon her.

Shortly before the birth of Elizabeth the father makes this entry in his journal: [Pg 33]

The birth of Elizabeth is followed by this entry in his journal:

One of the most trying of the Alcott family's experiences came after the birth [Pg 34] of Elizabeth, when Bronson Alcott, again in Boston, aroused a storm of protest with his radical teachings and his advanced interpretations of the Bible. Shocked that the city where he expected to find sympathy and encouragement should have repudiated him, his school disrupted and abject poverty his lot, broken mentally and physically, he met with another cruel disappointment in the death of his infant son. Yet even then there was no word of bitterness, and no mention is made in his journal of the father's grief. Indirectly it is expressed in a subsequent entry announcing the birth of the fourth daughter, Abba May.

She was born under sunny skies. The [Pg 35] storm had passed, and the Alcott family had removed to Concord, where they enjoyed many of their happiest years. A presage of May Alcott's artistic gifts, her queenly bearing, elegance, and charm, all familiar to readers of "Little Women," is found in this entry in the father's journal:

Bronson Alcott did not feel his responsibility as a father alone; he appreciated his own debt to his children, the mental and spiritual help that came to him through them, an appreciation that found expression in this poem, entered in his journal before the birth of Elizabeth:

[Pg 39]

CHAPTER IV

The Alcott Baby Book

BRONSON ALCOTT wrote the first Baby Book, a book which throws new light on the character of the lovable philosopher, showing one of New England's intellectual leaders as a very human and lovable man as well as "a fond and foolish father."

His Baby Book, however, contains no minute record of the first tooth, or when the baby began to say "Goo" and "Pitty light"; rather it is the father's earnest effort to learn how early [Pg 40] in life the infant mind begins to awaken, to indicate comprehension, thought, or logic. As Maeterlinck studied the bee, so Alcott studied his children, and his findings are a revelation, even to-day, when the study of the child has become a science.

Mr. Alcott considered vital the development of the child's individuality and mind; the body seemed to him of secondary importance, for this disregard of the material care of his family he has been severely censured; but, not recognizing in his own life the claims of the body, devoting all his energies to mental growth, it is not surprising that he found his fatherly duty in the guidance of his children's minds. His firm [Pg 41] faith in the admonition, "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you," was to him excuse enough for considering the intellect more than the body.

His practical shortcomings reaped a rich and unexpected reward in the next generation, for Louisa M. Alcott would probably not have developed her original and highly entertaining literary gift without the vicissitudes caused by her father's impractical nature and his sublime faith that at all times and in all emergencies the Lord would provide. He did provide; but Louisa was usually the channel, and many of her stories were written under the whip of stern necessity.

[Pg 42] Doing without has its advantages. The Alcott children, never overfed, overentertained, overburdened to baby boredom with dolls and toys and games, developed appreciation, observation, and ingenuity. The creative faculty was aroused. They found resources within themselves. What a handbook Louisa might have written on How to be Happy though Poor!

Mrs. Alcott's keen sense of humor, a characteristic inherited by Louisa, often came to her rescue and allowed her to get fun out of a harassing situation. In a letter to her brother, Colonel May, praising her husband's intellect, she laughingly comments upon his disregard of physical necessities: "I am not [Pg 43] sure that we shall not blush into obscurity and contemplate into starvation."

But, to get back to the baby book, or, as Mr. Alcott called it, "the psychological history," it was started with a high and unselfish motive; it was developed to an astonishing degree. Its purpose and scope are best expressed in this extract from Mr. Alcott's journal:

When Anna was born, the father began keeping a record of her "physical and intellectual progress." When she was seven weeks old, her mother wrote: "It seems as if she were conscious of his observations and desirous of furnishing him daily with an item for this record."

The following excerpt from the father's diary shows how well Anna succeeded in her baby attempt:

Moral advancement of a baby five months old!

Birth of Louisa

On November 29, 1832, his thirty-third birthday and also the natal day of his friend, Ellery Channing, the poet, Mr. Alcott chronicles an "interesting event," how interesting the father little dreamed, nor how important, not alone to the house of Alcott, but to the world. Under the heading of Circumstances, the father thus records the birth of Louisa May Alcott: [Pg 46]

While the New England philosopher was studying the development of his little daughters and deducing therefrom facts for his psychological history, these same little daughters were developing him, for, as the child nature unfolded, the father's understanding of childhood expanded.

Thus the baby book grew:

When Anna was three years old and Louisa eighteen months, the father writes in his journal:

He might have answered the question by looking within himself. Child companionship kept alive the spirit of the Alcott boy, which constantly shone [Pg 49] through the man's philosophy. As the boy saw in every rock and tree and flower an expression of the Infinite, is it any wonder that the man should have recognized God's higher manifestation in the child, and should have written in his journal these lines, which are the very glorification of fatherhood and reveal the sacredness with which he looked upon his stewardship?

From the first, Louisa must have shown strong individuality and unusual tendencies, for Mr. Alcott's notes on Louisa are entitled "Observations on the Vital Phenomena of My Second Child." A more vital, lovable, contradictory specimen of childhood cannot be imagined. Blessed with her father's brilliancy of mind, her mother's quick wit and love of fun, Louisa furnished a problem for endless study. She was less than two years old when her individuality had so asserted itself that her father found himself puzzled and admitted that elements were [Pg 51] finding their way into his observations of whose origin he could give no account. "My analysis, however accurate and elaborate, was still imperfect, and I was left in doubt. I had made no provision for the admission of innate influences from the mind itself."

Here is a quaint little record of the Alcott babies' school days, when Anna was four years old and Louisa a little more than two:

(This of a baby of four.)

A spiritual and moral inventory of the progress of Anna and Louisa is set down by the father when his daughters had reached the dignified ages of six and four:

That they did prove real blessings the history of the Alcott family has shown.

A. Bronson Alcott at the Age of 53.
From the portrait by Mrs. Hildreth.
Page 54.

How many fathers ever acknowledge their spiritual debt to the gift of fatherhood as has Bronson Alcott:

Out of his theories, his studies, and meditations came a sublime ambition, a desire to become a laborer in the "Field of the Soul."

Home and its influence upon children meant much to Mr. Alcott, and in all his writing the nearest approach to a [Pg 57] protest against the poverty he was called upon to endure was when, for a time, he was obliged to give up that home. Deep is the pathos that lies between the lines of this entry in his journal:

[Pg 58] The home was reestablished—and such a home! An influence felt throughout the world, the inspiration of every book Louisa Alcott wrote.

[Pg 59]

CHAPTER V

Letters and Conversations with Children

HAPPINESS reigned in the Alcott home, and poverty seldom brought with it a shadow. The girls had toys and a variety of them,—rag dolls, kittens, gingerbread men, and barnyard animals (the latter skillfully cut out of cake dough by the mother, who had a genius for inventing surprises). As they grew older, they delighted in private theatricals. Some of their plays, written by Anna and Louisa, have been published under the title of "Comic Tragedies." They are thrillingly melodramatic, [Pg 60] thickly sprinkled with villains and heroes, witches and ruffians, lovely ladies in distress, gallant knights to the rescue, evil spirits and good fairies, gnomes and giants. All are direfully tragic and splendidly spectacular. Louisa as a child showed the dramatic quality which later found artistic expression in her stories. On a rainy afternoon the children were never at a loss for entertainment. They "acted" in the attic or played dolls in their own playroom, and such dolls! Old Joanna, of whom Louisa has drawn a lifelike picture in "Little Women," is to-day in existence, battered, scarred, but none the less precious, one foot carefully bandaged, after the army-nurse method.

[Pg 61] Poverty was made interesting. At Christmas a tree was hung with apples, nuts, and popped corn, and small trifles made by the children were fastened to the branches. Father and mother made much of the spirit of the Christ birthday, which was celebrated in simple, wholesome fashion, in vivid contrast to the modern Christmas festival.

The Alcott letters and journals show tremendous intellectual activity on the part of the small atoms of humanity who came to grace the Alcott home. Anna and her father held moral and intellectual discussions when Anna was four. Louisa was writing a daily journal before she could more than print. As soon as a child could read, family reproofs were [Pg 62] administered by notes from father and mother to the erring one, not only pointing out the fault, but how to correct it.

The father encouraged his daughters to study themselves and to write down their thoughts. Their journals, in consequence, reflect the characteristics of each one and are storehouses of information. Louisa, poor little soul, in her happy, hoydenish childhood, found time one day in a fit of mentality to set down in black and white her chief faults. One of her most serious, according to the self-imposed confession, was "love of cats," a sin which easily beset her all her days, for she inherited her father's love of animals and of children.

Widely varied in character and temperament [Pg 63] were the four Alcott girls. Anna, the first, reflected the beauty, the happiness, and the romance of the Alcotts' first year of married life. Louisa, born some eighteen months later, when father and mother had grown even closer together through the new bond formed by the love of their little daughter, embodied a deeper, stronger, surer character. She was decisive, with a determination and surety of self and brilliancy of mind that reflected the best in both parents. Elizabeth, the third child, was, in some respects, the most beautiful character of all. About her, from the hour of her conception, seemed to hover a spiritual, protecting love. Seemingly from earliest infancy she stood [Pg 64] on the borderland of the spiritual world, in flesh all too fragile to retain the spirit which remembered and longed, notwithstanding the love with which she was surrounded, to return to the mystical beauty from which she had come. A child of dreams and fancies, loving all that was harmonious, she entered this life at twilight, she left it at the dawn, a coming and going typical of this dream child, who was lent for a little time to make the world more glad.

The birth of Amy is also symbolical, the one sunny-haired, sunny-hearted girl of the family, who came with the rising of the sun. She seemed made for love, sunshine, and happiness, and had them all, but she was brave to face hardships [Pg 65] and equally ready to accept comfort and luxury. A queen, the father called her the morning of her birth, and so they brought her up, the Little Snow Queen.

The wise, fostering love of the father, the helpful, understanding watchfulness of the mother, are reflected in their letters to their children. Time was not considered wasted that was devoted to these letters of gentle admonition and kindly counsel. There was no discussion of faults or mistakes in the Alcott household; reproofs remained little secrets between father and daughter, or mother and daughter, and the effect of this wise and constant watchfulness grows more apparent as the children advance from childhood to girlhood and on to womanhood. [Pg 66] They were taught to know themselves. They were taught, too, the relation of the Christ child with their own childhood, beautifully expressed in some of the letters from Bronson Alcott to his eldest daughter.

It was the father's habit to write each child on her birthday anniversary and at Christmas. Anna was six years old when he gave her this beautiful description of the coming of the Christ:

[Pg 68] Again on Christmas Eve, two years later, he describes to his little daughter of eight years her own coming into the world of material things.

The belief in prenatal influence is strongly indicated, for the father tells his little girl that they thought just how she would look and pictures to her the joy and the love with which she was surrounded before her coming into the land of the material and first seeing with her baby eyes the light of a world day.

On her birthday some three months later, he continues the thought in this exquisite letter:

This letter and his allusion to "your life on earth" show plainly his belief in life eternal, for Bronson Alcott considered earthly existence merely a period in the evolution of the soul.

On Christmas Eve, 1840; when Anna was nearly ten, Louisa just past her eighth birthday, May, the golden-haired baby of the Alcott household, and Elizabeth the little shadow child of four, he [Pg 73] wrote Christmas letters to his daughters, which show his appreciation of their special needs, and his respect for their individualities. The letter to Elizabeth is missing; to Anna he wrote:

For Anna
1840

beauty or duty
which
loves Anna best?
a
Question
from her
father
Christmas Eve
Dec. 1840
Concordia.

[Pg 74] For Louisa, the father's message was this:

For Louisa
1840

Louisa loves—
What?
(Softly)
fun
Have some then,
Father
says.
Christmas Eve, Dec. 1840
Concordia.

[Pg 75] For the baby of the household, the father's love message took poetic form:

[Pg 76] Almost without the dates, one could keep track of the development of the Alcott girls through their father's letters. This one demonstrates his gift of teaching by the use of suggestion:

Such a gift to an eleven-year-old girl on her birthday! One would expect not kindly counsel, but a toy, a picture book, something pretty for her body, not much for her mind. The spirituality and the wisdom of the poet-philosopher [Pg 81] are shown in this letter with its "excuses, almost always lies," and "delay is a laggard."

When Louisa was seven years old, her mother was ill, and the child was sent away from home for a time. To his little absent daughter the father sends this letter, printed so that she might read it for herself:

On her seventh birthday he writes her one of the most wonderful letters of the many that have been preserved in the volumes of the Alcott manuscripts:

[Pg 83]

His explanation to a seven-year-old girl that conscience is "God in your soul," and the lines, "since you have lived in a body," are eloquent manifestations of his belief. It is not surprising that, given such thoughts at seven, Louisa [Pg 85] at ten or eleven wrote that she was sure in some previous life she must have been a horse,—she loved so to run. A month before May Alcott was born, little Louisa, then eight, again away from home, received this letter from her father:

On her eighth birthday, her father writes:

[Pg 88] At ten, her birthday greeting from her father is this:

To little Elizabeth the letters were few. The child was so constantly the companion of father and mother, that by speech rather than written word, their messages were given. But on her fifth [Pg 92] birthday, her father carefully printed this letter:

His wish to encourage the little girl in her efforts to be good, kind, gentle, and patient, and his appreciation of her accomplishment, is set forth in this characteristic little note:

[Pg 96] Little May, the youngest, was the pet, not only of the Alcott household, but of all the Alcott kin. This quaint little dolly letter, written to her by her Uncle Junius, has been framed and hangs to-day in the library of May Alcott's nephew, John:

[Pg 98]

CHAPTER VI

The Mother's Influence

UPON the lives of all four of her daughters the mother's influence rested like a benediction. It is felt in her letters; it is reflected in the journals of her girls and in the musings of Bronson Alcott, as set down in his voluminous journals. And the mother spirit hovers over Orchard House, where "Little Women" was written and lived.

While letters to Anna from her mother are missing, Anna's journal shows how vital was Mrs. Alcott's power in the [Pg 99] upbuilding of her noble character. Louisa in "Little Women" has said that the girls gave their hearts into their mother's keeping, their souls into their father's. Anna's letters bear eloquent testimony to the strong, helpful, cheery influence of the mother upon the child. Among the first was this letter, written by Anna when she was five years old and visiting Mr. Alcott's family at Wolcott:

(On this she had drawn her hand.)

She was six years old when she wrote this:

A letter eloquent of the tender relation between mother and child is this written during the Fruitlands period:

Many copies of her mother's letters are found in Louisa's journals, showing the daughter's intense, almost idolatrous [Pg 103] affection. Louisa admired, respected, and loved her father, but to her mother her tenderest thought was given. Marmee understood the wayward, tempestuous, lovable child as no one else did, not even loyal Anna, or admiring Elizabeth. On her birthday the mother writes to Louisa:

Louisa was ten when this birthday letter was sent: [Pg 104]

During the Fruitlands period, when Louisa was eleven, she found this little [Pg 105] note tucked carefully away in a spot where only she would find and read it:

In the following letter, a pretty little deference to the child's own personality [Pg 106] is shown by the mother, in that way bringing out in the child respect and deference for others:

Louisa Alcott filled her diary with letters from her mother, occasionally [Pg 107] adding in later life annotations of her own. This letter from her mother when Louisa was eleven is an example:

Abigail May, Mrs. A. Bronson Alcott.
From a daguerreotype.
Page 106.

Then follows the picture and the lines written by Louisa in her journal: [Pg 108]

Louisa lived to see her hope realized and the dream of many years a beautiful reality.

[Pg 109] Like most writers, Louisa was moody, and in her hours of depression and despondency she looked upon her work as a failure and herself as a useless drag upon the family. At such times Marmee invariably came to the rescue and persuaded her discouraged daughter to use the pen she was ready to lay down. Even in Louisa's childhood, when her only promise of future literary achievement were her tragedies and melodramas of lurid style, little gifts show the mother's faith and pride in her daughter's work. So did her letters, of which this is an example:

On her fourteenth birthday the mother accompanies the gift of a pen with this little poem:

Oh, may this pen your muse inspire,
When wrapt in pure poetic fire,
To write some sweet, some thrilling verse;
[Pg 111] A song of love or sorrow's lay,
Or duty's clear but tedious way
In brighter hope rehearse.
Oh, let your strain be soft and high,
Of crosses here, of crowns beyond the sky;
Truth guide your pen, inspire your theme,
And from each note joy's music stream.

Louisa Alcott owed much to her mother's example and perhaps even more to her mother's influence. This letter, carefully preserved in the daughter's journal, reveals a wealth of mother-love and of God-given wisdom:

[Pg 113] Deeds, not words, characterized Elizabeth Alcott, as readers of "Little Women" will recall. She was about seven when she sent this letter, one of the very few she wrote, to her mother:

[Pg 114] Birthdays were always celebrated with much rejoicing in the Alcott household, the gift made secondary to the spirit of the day. From the time they were old enough to print, the Alcott children on the mother's birthday made her some little gift, accompanying it with a note. Abba May or May, as she was always called, at nine years old, began in prose but lapsed into poetry:

With Mrs. Alcott, hardship, poverty, the grief of seeing her husband misunderstood and often scoffed at, never lessened her love for him, or her contentment in the marriage relation. The year following her marriage in a letter to her brother she wrote: "My father has never married a daughter or son more completely happy than I am. I have cares, and soon they will be arduous ones, but with the mild, constant, and affectionate sympathy and aid of my husband, with the increasing health and loveliness of my quiet and bright little Anna, with good health, clear head, grateful heart and ready hand,—what [Pg 116] can I not do when surrounded by influences like this?"

Ideals were never shattered; illusions, if so they may be called, were never lost by Mrs. Alcott through the stormy years that laid between the first happy months of her married life and the sunset days when all her burdens were laid down. To her, the husband who was so long denied material success and intellectual sympathy ever remained the lover and friend. Her admiration for him was unbounded, her faith in him complete. So high she held him in heart and mind, that it was difficult even for those who loved him most to appreciate her estimate of him as Poet, Philosopher, and Sage.

[Pg 117] Concerning the most famous portrait ever made of Bronson Alcott, done in crayons by Mrs. Richard Hildredth, wife of the historian and aunt of the portrait painter, George Fuller, which, beautiful as it was, did not satisfy the wife's ideal, Mrs. Alcott writes:

Contentment, whatever her lot, was an attribute of Marmee; she underestimated herself always. Unquestionably, Louisa inherited her literary gift quite as much from mother as from father, and flashes of the quaint humor so delightful in the daughter's books are found in the mother's letters. To a friend she writes: "My gifts are few. I live, [Pg 119] love and learn, and find myself more content every day of my life with humble conditions."

Louisa Alcott never laid claim to poetic gift, but on a few occasions her verses take to themselves true poetic beauty. One of the most exquisite of these poems was written by her on the death of her mother, and was first published anonymously in the "Masque of Poets" of 1878:

[Pg 122]

CHAPTER VII

Children's Diaries

THE Alcott children were brought up to think for themselves, to reflect, and to give expression to their thoughts. Never laughed at, they were not afraid to speak or write of what was in their minds. Each kept a diary, and no incident that concerned the little girls was too trivial for mention in the record of the day. These incidents, collected, give a more comprehensive view of the Alcotts as a family than do the father's voluminous journals.

Anna Bronson Alcott.
From a daguerreotype.
Page 122.

[Pg 123] When Anna was ten, she gravely explains under date of April 13, 1841:

This sewing bee recalls the long evenings in the March home, described in [Pg 124] "Little Women," when the four girls and the mother sewed dutifully on sheets for Aunt March, dividing seams into countries, discussing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America as they stitched.

When she was twelve, Anna's literary aspirations sought a vent in attempted poetry. Later she collaborated with Louisa in writing the "Comic Tragedies." Anna's confidante and comrade, Louisa, was frequently the victim of these poetic effusions, her reception of which gives quite a line on her ardent temperament. This entry in Anna's journal for April 23, 1843, is eloquent:

[Pg 126] Two or three years later Anna writes:

Reading was a part of the daily routine in the Alcott household, and Anna's taste for German recalls vividly certain episodes between Meg and John Brooks in "Little Women."

Helpfulness was encouraged in the Alcott household; habits of industry [Pg 135] were carefully fostered. The Alcott children worked when they worked, played when they played, but wasted hours were unknown. They were taught to make the most of every day. When Anna was seventeen she wrote in her diary:

[Pg 136]

An entry in Louisa's diary during the Fruitlands period gives this insight into one of her average days, when a child of eleven:

Note, too, that when it came to a conference concerning family affairs, the father asked the advice of his eleven-year-old daughter, instead of following the more customary method of withholding from her the family confidence and deferring discussion of plans until the children had gone to bed.

"Know Thyself," was ever the aim of Bronson Alcott in the training of his children, and Mr. Lane at Fruitlands followed this same line of mental development. This is one of his sample [Pg 138] lessons which Louisa Alcott has copied into her journal:

In this same lesson comes the twelve-year-old Louisa's explanation of the difference between faith and hope:

[Pg 139] Louisa's love of nature, her trained habits of thought, her poetic imagination, and her keen appreciation of beauty are indicated in this entry in her journal, written at Fruitlands in 1843 or 1844, when she was a child of ten or eleven:

[Pg 140]

CHAPTER VIII

Girlhood and Womanhood

FAMILIAR to every reader of "Little Women" is the March family's quaint brown house with its many windows, its old-fashioned garden, its homely, homelike air, its unfailing hospitality. This home, as described by Louisa M. Alcott, is a picture of the Alcott home at Concord, the scene of the girlhood and young womanhood of the Alcott children. Many of Louisa's books were written there; "Little Women" was lived there. In Concord, [Pg 141] Anna met John Pratt, and the first love story in "Little Women" is Anna's life romance. There little Beth passed from the material to the spiritual life, and Amy first developed the artistic talents which later caused her work to be sought for by art museums and private collectors.

Anna's marriage was a great trial to Louisa, for from early childhood the two girls had been inseparable companions, and after Anna's marriage Louisa learned to look upon John as her brother.

Louisa's diary in the April following the passing of Elizabeth touches upon the change of homes in Concord, the absence of May, who was studying art in Boston, of Elizabeth and of Anna:

[Pg 142]

April.

Abba May Alcott.
From a photograph.
Page 142.

Amy's artistic efforts and her failures in "Little Women" are taken from May's actual experiences in Concord. Turning the career of the youngest of the [Pg 143] Alcott girls into a romance earlier in "Little Women" than it actually occurred in life, doubtless prevented Louisa Alcott from chronicling the artistic success of her youngest sister, a success to which she largely contributed and in which she took great pride.

May Alcott's pictures are found to-day in art museums and in leading private collections in this country and abroad. Her copies of Turner are remarkable. In the Kensington Gallery in London students are given them to study in preference to the originals. Several fine examples are in American museums, and a few are owned by members of the Alcott family.

When the Alcotts moved into Orchard [Pg 144] House, the girls painted and papered the interior themselves. May filled the nooks and corners with panels, on which she painted birds and flowers. Over the fireplaces she inscribed mottoes in Old English characters.

The study in Orchard House was the real center of the household. For the chimney piece Ellery Channing wrote an epigram, which May Alcott painted upon it, and which has been used in the stage reproduction of "Little Women":

In Orchard House to-day, walls, doors, and window casings are etched with May Alcott's drawings, many preserved under [Pg 145] glass, including a miniature portrait of a little girl, naïvely and modestly inscribed "The Artist."

High thoughts and cheerful minds triumphed over poverty in those Concord days. Shortly after the family's return from Fruitlands, Louisa wrote for Ellen Emerson the fairy stories, "Flower Fables." She was at the time only sixteen. This was her earliest published work, and it was many years before she achieved literary fame, although, as did Jo in "Little Women," she materially helped in the support of the family by writing lurid tales.

Literature rather than commerce freed the Alcotts from the burden of debt. Louisa's fame was the result, neither of [Pg 146] accident, nor of a single achievement, but had for its background the whole generous past of her family. Her "Hospital Sketches" were her letters home, when she was serving as hospital nurse during the Civil War. "Little Women" is a chronicle of her family. Louisa certainly made good use of the vicissitudes of the Alcotts. She always saw the funny side and was not afraid to make book material of the home experiences, elevating or humiliating. Her books number between twenty-five and thirty. Nearly every one takes its basic idea from some real experience. The books written by the Alcott family, including some eight or ten published by Mr. Alcott, Louisa's output, and one or [Pg 147] two written by May, fill two shelves of an alcove devoted to Concord authors in the Alcott town library.

Anna's little sons, familiarly known in the Alcott household as Freddie and Johnnie, or Jack, gave to Bronson Alcott in his later days fresh opportunity for his favorite study—childhood. To both boys came frequent messages and gifts from Grandpa, Grandma, and Aunt Louisa.

Louisa Alcott sent to Freddie this poem on his third birthday:

On the outside of the letter appears:

On his sixth birthday Grandpa contributes: [Pg 150]

[Pg 151] Grandma, not to be outdone, sent this:

[Pg 152] 1873.

On his twelfth birthday Aunt Louisa again lapsed into poetry:

John, the original of Daisy in "Little Women," received in his babyhood days from Aunt Louisa, some tiny blue stockings with this verse:

On his tenth birthday, both Grandpa and Grandma Alcott sent these characteristic greetings to their younger grandson:

In these days of private secretaries, labor-saving devices, and specialization, [Pg 157] it is difficult to comprehend the obstacles that Louisa Alcott encountered in writing. Her day was filled with other tasks, housework, sewing, teaching, nursing—yet the pen was never idle, the busy brain was never still. Her power of concentration made it possible for her to write under harassing conditions. This is her own description of her methods of work:

Louisa May Alcott.
From a daguerreotype.
Page 160.

With all her love for her father, irreverent Louisa delighted in making fun of him. The complacent philosopher, with his voluminous journals, his several books in manuscript, his liking, despite the brilliancy of his conversations, for the written rather than the spoken word, was a wasteful user of paper and a careless dispenser of ink. That her father enjoyed her good-natured banter is shown by the fact that in his journal he has entered the following poem, written by Louisa at nineteen:

[Pg 162]

CHAPTER IX

Friendships and Beliefs

RARE friendships existed among the great minds of that period, when Transcendentalism in America was first talked and lived, a close bond of sympathy uniting Bronson Alcott, Emerson, Thoreau, Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. Such association made its impress upon the Alcott daughters. Anna's diary is filled with references to visits with the Emersons. Louisa's deal less with the family and more with the intellectual life of the great philosopher, whom she [Pg 163] made her idol. Through life he was her stanch and understanding friend.

"The Apostles of the Newness" was the scoffing term applied to these literary giants of New England by those who lacked the mental and spiritual insight to recognize greatness in others.

This attitude of ridicule was largely responsible for the continued attacks upon the Dial , a quarterly issued by the Transcendentalists, edited from 1840 to 1844 by Emerson, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, and Thoreau. Between its modest covers were many of the intellectual masterpieces of the time: its rare volumes are still treasure-houses of literature which to-day command any price. Mr. Alcott selected its title and [Pg 164] was to a large extent responsible for its policy. His Orphic Sayings in the Dial , now looked upon as classics, were the butt of the press at the time, and the derision of Boston society.

In these Orphic Sayings, he gave this remarkable definition of Reform: "Reforms are the noblest of facts. Extant in time, they work for eternity: dwelling with men, they are with God."

Conversation among these friends was neither trivial nor useless, and in the Alcott circle, which included Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Parker, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. Cheney, and other of the early Transcendentalists, later on augmented by James Russell [Pg 165] Lowell and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a series of drawing-room symposiums was established, with Alcott, whom Emerson called "serious and superior," as a leader. Much of the substance of these conversations is found in the Alcott journals, and in the unpublished manuscripts of the poet-philosopher.

In Concord, the Alcotts once more enjoyed the literary companionship they craved. Emerson was a near neighbor. Thoreau had his cabin at Walden, where he had established "a community of one." To and from Boston came others of the Transcendental group, and Concord became the center of thought for New England.

Thinking, however, was not the only [Pg 166] occupation of Bronson Alcott. Dreamer he was, but he delighted in toil and ever upheld the dignity of labor, not ashamed nor afraid to work for hire as a laborer in his neighbor's field, while nightly conducting drawing-room conversations with a company of peers and students.

When Thoreau built his cabin, Alcott helped him. They cut the trees from Emerson's grove. While Emerson was abroad, they built a summer-house for him on his grounds. It stood for many years, a picturesque temple of friendship. William Henry Channing mentions a morning spent there, reading Margaret Fuller's Italian letters. May Alcott has made drawings of it, which were published in a volume of "Concord Sketches" [Pg 167] that also contained her drawing of Hawthorne's house.

Mr. Alcott practically rebuilt Orchard House for his own family. Mrs. Child, a friend of Mrs. Alcott, thus describes this home, which is now preserved as a memorial to Louisa M. Alcott and is visited by thousands every year:

Thoreau, master builder himself, has paid to Bronson Alcott this tribute:

Emerson, who saw the boy mind beneath the philosopher's dignity, said tenderly of Bronson Alcott: "He is certainly the youngest man of his age we have seen. When I looked at his gray hairs, his conversation sounded pathetic; but I looked again and they reminded me of the gray dawn."

Even his friends, to say nothing of Louisa, occasionally poked fun at him for chronicling so minutely all his thoughts. Ellery Channing called his library, "Encyclopediea de Moi-meme, en cents volumes." Yet these journals and records are now worth more than the [Pg 170] fine library he collected and in which he delighted.

Emerson has thus described the origin of the Fruitlands community:

The Fruitlands experiment and its failure have been immortalized by Louisa Alcott in her "Transcendental Wild Oats." The detail of it is thus described by a friend of the Alcott family, who had the story from Bronson Alcott himself:

Indeed, it was always Mrs. Alcott who could have given the tragic side, skillfully as she kept her worries hidden. Her own family, indignant because Bronson Alcott could not better provide the [Pg 173] material needs for his family, on more than one occasion besought the faithful wife to leave him.

A letter from her brother, urging this step, drew forth from her a defense of Bronson Alcott which the husband enters in his journal as follows:

[Pg 178] An appreciative account of Mr. Alcott's famous school in the Masonic Temple, Boston, is found in the "Record of a School," edited by Elizabeth Peabody, published in 1835, republished in 1874. The "Conversations with Children on the Gospels," edited by Mr. Alcott in two volumes, appearing in 1836-1837, caused such a commotion in Boston as to result in the downfall of the Temple School. Reading these conversations to-day, one is impressed with the modern quality of their thought. They were forerunners of that higher criticism, which with the Bible student now supplants the old blind acceptance without reflection of even obscure Biblical passages.

[Pg 179] On philosophy and religion Mr. Alcott and Miss Peabody delighted to talk and write. Their discussion of the existence of evil is startlingly modern.

"I do not think that evil should be clothed in form by the imagination," writes Miss Peabody to Mr. Alcott; "I think every effort should be made to strip it of all individuality, all shaping and all coloring. And the reason is, that Evil has in truth no substantial existence, that it acquires all the existence it has from want of faith and soul cultivation, and that this is sufficient reason why all cultivation should be directed to give positiveness, coloring, shaping, to all kinds of good—Good only being eternal truth."

[Pg 180] In reply, the philosopher thus comments in his diary: "Evil has no positive existence, I agree with Miss Peabody, but it has usurped a positive place and being in the popular imagination, and by the imagination must it be made to flee away into its negative life. How shall this be done? By shadowing forth in vivid colors the absolute beauty and phenomena of good, by assuming evil not as positive, but as negative."

"I shall always love you for loving Alcott," writes Emerson to his schoolmate and lifelong friend, the Reverend W. H. Furness. "He is a great man, the god with the herdsman of Admetus. His conversation is sublime; yet when I see how he is underestimated by cultivated [Pg 181] people, I fancy none but I have heard him talk."

In the midst of slander and petty persecutions, Alcott writes in his diary for April, 1837:

Emerson, weary of seeing his friend misunderstood, urges him to give up teaching and become an author, picturing as his golden view for Alcott that one day he will leave the impracticable world to wag its own way, sit apart, and write his oracles for its behoof.

"Write! let them hear or let them forbear," he thunders. "The written word abides until, slowly and unexpectedly, and in widely sundered places, it has created its own church."

The unreality of evil, as taught and believed by Alcott nearly a century ago, laughed and scoffed at then, was twenty-five years later practically the foundation [Pg 183] of a belief which gained its first foothold in New England, and, with headquarters in Boston, has spread, until to-day its followers and churches circle the civilized globe—a new-old religion, based on the literal acceptance of the teachings of Christ. What to-day is called metaphysical teaching was in the Alcott period scoffed at as Transcendentalism.

Mr. Alcott's strict adherence to a vegetarian diet was also the topic of ridicule from public and press, although the Alcott children seemed to thrive on it, and certainly, as four-year-old Louisa once remarked, "Did pitty well for a wegetable diet."

Louisa, in her journal, gives this sample [Pg 184] of the vegetarian wafers they had at Fruitlands:

Bronson Alcott constantly sought self-improvement, and the shortcomings of his early education were more than offset by his untiring study. Realizing at one time his lack of a vocabulary, he comments in his journal, that to rectify this [Pg 185] he has just bought two books, "A Symposium of Melancholy," and "Hunter on the Blood."

In their memoirs of Bronson Alcott, F. B. Sanborn and W. T. Harris have thus summed up his character: "He was the most filial son, the most faithful lover, the most attached friend, the most generous philanthropist of his time. And when he died, he left fewer enemies than any man of equal age can have provoked or encountered in so long a career."

In his study of childhood, Mr. Alcott sought first to reach the mind, recognizing that as "the God within us." He encouraged individuality in his children, trying in their earliest years to make [Pg 186] them think for themselves. All through his teaching runs the boy's friendship with God, and his sense of oneness with his Maker was a part of the divine heritage he passed on to his daughters.

He records in his diary a conversation with Anna, who was four, and Louisa, who was two, after reading to them the story of Jesus, which he made so vital that, given their choice, they asked for it in preference to a fairy tale. Anna remarked that Jesus did not really die. "They killed his body, but not his soul." Her father asked: "What is the soul, Anna?" The little four-year-old replied: "It's this inside of me that makes me feel and think and love." "And," said the father, "what became of [Pg 187] Jesus' soul?" Anna replied: "It went back to God." Whereat little two-year-old Louisa asked: "Why, isn't Dod inside of me?"

A note in the father's diary at the birth of Elizabeth records "Anna's first interview with her sister" (Elizabeth a few hours old), and a day later comes this record: "Anna and Louisa interview their sister." Louisa, two years old, wishes to have the baby sister put in her arms, when four-year-old Anna says warningly: "Treat her very carefully, Louisa, she comes from God." What a beautiful thought to give a child of the divine mystery of birth!

Instead of asserting what he intended to make of his children, Alcott encouraged [Pg 188] the child to make itself, beginning when it was a small baby, treating it as an individual, giving it opportunity to use its mentality, instilling principles of right and wrong by suggestion. Alcott never commanded. "You don't wish to do that," was his way, not exacting blind obedience, but expressing his conviction that the child wished to do right.

To him, God was love. He had no fear of God, for perfect love had cast out fear. This same spirit was manifested in all his children. To them the change called Death was not to be dreaded; it was a stepping forward and upward.

This thought that death is not the end, but the beginning, is expressed in one of Louisa's most beautiful poems:

A visit to Sleepy Hollow suggests life, not death. Giant trees stretch their [Pg 191] branches over marble and granite monuments, as if in benediction. "There is no death, for God is life," they seem to say. For them there is no death. Emerson lives to-day, the great philosopher; so do Thoreau, Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, and others of that mighty company. And who shall say that Louisa Alcott is dead? She lives in the hearts of thousands, and will go on living through the love they bear her.

Bronson Alcott was a true disciple of Jesus Christ. He lived the example set by his Master not alone in words and thoughts, but in deeds. He lived through and beyond misunderstanding, ridicule, poverty, to see his teachings respected, his name honored, to see the [Pg 192] first glimmer of the new light which was beginning to break over the world, the sunrise at his own sunset.

This thought is embodied in the last poem Louisa Alcott ever wrote:

[Pg 195]

CHRONOLOGY

It has been particularly the aim of the editors to lift these Little Women Letters out of the biographical and into the narrative class. For this reason dates have not been used with any degree of liberality, and chronological facts have been minimized.

However, as this is a story of the Alcott family, and seekers for definite data will not be lacking, a chronological summary is herewith furnished:

Amos Bronson Alcott . . . . 1799-1888
married
Abby May . . . . . . . . . .1800-1877

Their Children
Anna Bronson . . . . . . . .1831-1893
[Pg 196] Louisa May . . . . . . . 1832-1888
Elizabeth . . . . . . . . . 1835-1858
Abby May . . . . . . . . . .1840-1879

Anna Bronson married John Bridge Pratt, 1860.

Their Children
Frederick Alcott . . . . . .1863-1910
John Sewall . . . . . . . . 1865

Abby May married Ernst Nieriker, March,
1878.

Children
Louisa May . . . . . . 1879

Frederick Alcott Pratt
married
Jessica Cate
February, 1888

Their Children
Bronson Alcott . . . . 1889
[Pg 197] Elizabeth Sewall . . . 1891
Louisa May . . . . . . 1900
Frederick Woolsey . . . 1902

Elizabeth Sewall married Alfred Redfield
June, 1913

[A] John Sewall Pratt
married
Eunie May Hunting
January, 1909

Children
Elverton Hunting

Louisa May Nieriker . . . 1878
married
Ernst Rasim

Children
Ernestine