Little Women Letters

Chapter 8

Subscribe for ad free access & additional features for teachers. Authors: 267, Books: 3,607, Poems & Short Stories: 4,435, Forum Members: 71,154, Forum Posts: 1,238,602, Quizzes: 344

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, 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:

Came to occupy one wing of Hawthorne's house (once ours) while the new one was being repaired. Father, mother and I kept house together, May being in Boston, Anna at Pratt farm, & for the first time Lizzy absent. I don't miss her as I expected to do, for she seems nearer & dearer than before, & I am glad to know she is safe from pain & age in some world where her innocent soul must be happy.

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 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 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 glass, including a miniature portrait of a little girl, na**** 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 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 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.

I give you for your Birth Day Present this new Picture Book. It has plain words for you to pick out and read. The stories are short and about things that you know. Now, my little scholar, look among the leaves every day, and see how many words you can tell,-Very soon you will find you can read whole pages, spell the whole book through, and write the stories, word for word on your slate or in your little writing book. Then you will not be a little Dunce, and when Grandpa comes to see you, you will be glad to show him how well you can read.

If worms give us the silk thread-can't we find time enough to find out how the Fabric is made which dresses are formed of-minutes and days-ours. Days and Years are passing away-let us be busy-and I guess we will get to the Vienna Exposition-

Improve each shining hour-Be a Bee-and your hours will be too few for the Flowers of Science and the Wheels of Use. Grandma will help you with her one dim eye and Grandpa will explain a great deal to you with his Shining Light-Mama with your help will make you a true, good man.-

Who in his pocket keeps his hands

As round the house he "mooning" stands

Or reads the paper like the mans?

Our boy.

May angels guard him with their wings,

And all brave, good and happy things,

Make nobler thou than crowned kings.

Our boy.

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

Two pair of blue hose,

For Johnny's white toes,

So Jack Frost can't freeze em,

Nor darned stockings tease em,

So pretty and neat

I hope the small feet

Will never go wrong,

But walk straight and strong,

The way father went.

We shall all be content,

If the dear little son

Be a second good John.

Giving song, all day long,

Under the elm or willow;

With sunshine shed

On the little head

That rests on Grandma's pillow.

To and fro,

Let it go,

While inside piping cheery,

As he takes his rest

In his hang-bird's nest

Lies Grandma's little deary.

In these days of private secretaries, labor-saving devices, and specialization, 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:

My methods of work are very simple and soon told. My head is my study, and there I keep the various plans of stories for years sometimes, letting them grow as they will till I am ready to put them on paper. Then it is quick work, as chapters go down word for word as they stand in my mind, and need no alteration. I never copy, since I find by experience that the work I spend the least time upon is best liked by critics and speakers.

Any paper, any pen, any place that is quiet suit me, and I used to write from morning till night without fatigue when "the steam was up." Now, however, I am paying the penalty of twenty years of over work, and can write but two hours a day, doing about twenty pages, sometimes more, though my right thumb is useless from writer's cramp.

While a story is under way I live in it, see the people more plainly than real ones around me, hear them talk, and am much interested, surprised and provoked at their actions, for I seem to have no power to rule them, and can simply record their experiences and performances.

Materials for the children's tales I find in the lives of the little people about me, for no one can invent anything so droll, pretty or pathetic as the sayings and doings of these small actors, poets and martyrs. In the older books, the events are mostly from real life, the strongest the truest, and I yet hope to write a few of the novels which have been simmering in my brain while necessity and unexpected success have confined me to juvenile literature.

I gave Mrs. Moulton many facts for her article in "Famous Women," and there are many other sketches which will add more if they are wanted. The first edition of "Jo's Boys" was twenty thousand I believe, and over fifty thousand were soon gone. Since January I know little about the sales. People usually ask "How much have you made?" I am contented with a hundred thousand, and find my best success in the comfort my family enjoy; also a naughty satisfaction in proving that it was better not to "stick to teaching" as advised, but to write.

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:

A cloth on the table where dear Plato sits

By one of the Graces was spread

With the single request that he would not design

New patterns with black ink or red.

And when he is soaring away in the clouds

I beg he'll remember and think

Though the "blackbirds" are fair his cloth will be fairer

For not being deluged with ink.

May plenty of paper of pens and of quiet

To my dear pa forever be given

Till he has written such piles that when on the top

He can walk calmly on into Heaven.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.