LOUISA M. ALCOTT
During my first visit to Boston in 1862, I saw at an evening reception a tall, thin young woman standing alone in a corner. She was plainly dressed, and had that watchful, defiant air with which the woman whose youth is slipping away is apt to face the world which has offered no place to her. Presently she came up to me.
“These people may say pleasant things to you,” she said abruptly; “but not one of them would have gone to Concord and back to see you, as I did today. I went for this gown. It’s the only decent one I have. I’m very poor”; and in the next breath she contrived to tell me that she had once taken a place as “second girl.” “My name,” she added, “is Louisa Alcott.”
Before I met her I had known many women and girls who were fighting with poverty and loneliness, wondering why God had sent them into a life where apparently there was no place for them, but never one so big and generous in soul as this one in her “claret-colored merino,” which she tells of with such triumph in her diary. Amid her grim surroundings, she had the gracious instincts of a queen. It was her delight to give, to feed living creatures, to make them happy in body and soul. She would welcome you in her home to a butterless baked potato and a glass of milk, and you would never forget the delicious feast. Or, if she had no potato or milk to offer, she would take you through the woods to the river, and tell you old legends of colony times, and be so witty and kind in the doing of it that the day would stand out in your memory ever after, differing from all other days, brimful of pleasure and comfort.—Rebecca Harding Davis.
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Thirty years ago and more my children were delighted with Little Women, Little Men, Old-Fashioned Girls, etc., and now, in the beginning of the twentieth century, their children are equally fascinated by them. Children all the world over are the best judges of children’s books, and Miss Alcott’s have as much vitality in them as ever: they bid fair to stand in the same rank as Robinson Crusoe, or The Vicar of Wakefield. Books that have stood the test of two generations will not be allowed to be forgotten by generations to come.
I think it must have been about the time of the first publication of Little Men, in 1871, that Miss Alcott came to England with her sister, Miss May Alcott, who was an artist of considerable repute. They also made a long stay on the Continent. During their stay in London they frequently called upon us in Fleet Street. I have a clear remembrance of them both, for it was a great pleasure to have a chat with them. They were very bright and cheerful, and with good reason, for just at that time Miss Alcott was at the height of prosperity, and the artist had been highly complemented by Ruskin on her reproductions of some Turner pictures.
Little Women was first published by Messrs. Roberts Brothers, in October, 1868. She said of this book, “We really lived most of it, and if it succeeds that will be the reason.” Its success was prompt, and was not confined to America and England; it was translated into French, German and Dutch. In June, 1872, the author wrote in her diary, “Twenty years ago I resolved to make the family independent if I could. At forty that is done. It has cost me my health, perhaps, but, as I still live, there is more for me to do, I suppose.” She did not regain her health, but neither did she relinquish her work. She died March 6th, 1888, in her 56th year.—Edward Marston.