Little Women Letters

Chapter 5

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, 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.

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 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 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 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 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. 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:

For Anna

1837

To my Daughter Anna.

A longer time ago than you can understand, a beautiful Babe was born. Angels sang at his birth. And stars shone brightly. Shepherds watched their flocks by their light. The Babe was laid in his Manger-cradle. And harmless oxen fed by his side. There was no room for him nor his mother in the Inn, as she journeyed from her own home.

This Babe was born at this time of the year. His name was Jesus. And he is also called Christ. This is his birth night. And we call it Christ-mas, after him.

I write you this little note as a Christmas Gift, and hope my little girl will remember the birth night of Jesus. Think how beautiful he was, and try to shine in lovely actions as he did. God never had a child that pleased him so well. Be like a kind sister of his, and so please your Father, who loves you very much.

Christmas Eve,

December 24th, 1837.

From your

Father.

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.

For Anna

1839

You were once pleased, my daughter, with a little note which I wrote you on Christmas Eve, concerning the birth of Jesus. I am now going to write a few words about your own Birth. Mother and I had no child. We wanted one-a little girl just like you; and we thought how you would look, and waited a good while for you to come, so that we might see you and have you for our own. At last you came. We felt so happy that joy stood in our eyes. You looked just as we wanted to have you. You were draped in a pretty little white frock, and father took you in his arms every day, and we loved you very much. Your large bright eyes looked lovingly into ours, and you soon learned to love and know us. When you were a few weeks old, you smiled on us. We lived then in Germantown. It is now more than eight years since this happened, but I sometimes see the same look and the same smile on your face, and feel that my daughter is yet good and pure. O keep it there, my daughter, and never lose it.

Your Father,

Christmas Eve,

Beach Street,

Dec. 24, 1839.

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

March 16, 1840.

My dear Daughter,

With this morning's dawn opens a new year of your Life on Earth. Nine years ago you were sent, a sweet Babe into this world, a joy and hope to your father and mother. After a while, through many smiles and some few tears, you learned to lisp the names of father and mother, and to make them feel once more how near and dear you were to their hearts whenever you named their names. Now you are a still dearer object of Love and hope to them as your love buds and blossoms under their eye. They watch this flower as it grows in the Garden of Life, and scents the air with its fragrance, and delights the eye by its colours. Soon they will look not for Beauty and fragrance alone, but for the ripening and ripe fruit. May it be the Spirit of Goodness; may its leaves never wither, its flowers never fade; its fragrance never cease; but may it flourish in perpetual youth and beauty, and be transplanted in its time, into the Garden of God, whose plants are ever green, ever fresh, and bloom alway, the amaranth of Heaven, the pride and joy of angels. Thus writes your Father to you on this your birth morn.

Monday, 16 March, 1840.

Beach Street,

Boston

For

Anna,

In the Garden of Life.

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 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.

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.

For the baby of the household, the father's love message took poetic form:

For Abba

1840

For Abba

Babe fair,

Pretty hair,

Bright eye,

Deep sigh,

Sweet lip,

Feet slip,

Handsome hand,

Stout grand,

Happy smile,

Time beguile,

All I ween,

Concordia's Queen.

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:

For Anna

1842

A Father's Gift

to his

Daughter

on her

Eleventh Birthday.

Concordia

16th March

1842

My dear daughter,

This is your eleventh birthday, and as I have heretofore addressed a few words to you on these interesting occasions, I will not depart from my former custom now.

And my daughter, what shall I say to you? Shall I say something to please or to instruct you-to flatter or benefit you? I know you dislike being pleased unless the pleasure make you better, and you dislike all flattery. And you know too, that your father never gave you a word of flattery in his life. So there remains for you the true and purest pleasure of being instructed and benefited by words of love and the deepest regard for your improvement in all that shall make you more happy in yourself and beautiful to others. And so I shall speak plainly to you of yourself, and of my desire for your improvement in several important things.

First-Your Manners. Try to be more gentle. You like gentle people and every one is more agreeable as he cultivates this habit. None can be agreeable who are destitute of it and how shall you become more gentle? Only by governing your passions, and cherishing your love to everyone who is near you. Love is gentle: Hate is violent. Love is well-mannered; Selfishness is rude, vulgar. Love gives sweet tone to the voice, and makes the countenance lovely. Love then, and grow fair and agreeable.

Second: Be Patient. This is one of the most difficult things to everyone, old or young. But it is also one of the greatest things. And this comes of Love too. Love is Patient: it bears; it suffers long; it is kind; it is beautiful; it makes us like angels. Patience is, indeed, angelic; it is the Gate that opens into the House of Happiness. Open it, my daughter, and enter in and take all your sisters in with you.

Third: Be Resolute. Shake off all Sluggishness, and follow your Confidence as fast as your feelings, your thoughts, your eye, your hand, your foot, will carry you. Hate all excuses: almost always, these are lies. Be quick in your obedience: delay is a laggard, who never gets up with himself, and loses the company of confidence always. Resolution is the ladder to Happiness. Resolve and be a wise and happy girl.

Fourth: Be Diligent. Put your heart into all you do: and fix your thoughts on your doings. Halfness is almost as bad as nothing: be whole then in all you do and say.

But I am saying a great deal and will stop now with the hope of meeting you on the 16th March, 1843 (the good God sparing us till then) a gentler, a meeker, more determined and obligent girl.

Your friend

and Father

Concordia

16 March

1842

For

Anna Bronson Alcott.

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 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:

For Louisa.

1839

My dear Little Girl.

Father hopes you are well and happy. Mother will soon be well enough we hope for you to come home. You want to see us all I know. And we want to see you very much. Be a good girl and try to do as they tell you. You shall see us all in a few days.

You were never away from home so long before. It has given you some new feelings.

I have printed this note. I hope you can read it all yourself.

"Good Bye

From Father.

Saturday

11 o'clock in the School Room.

1839

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:

For Louisa

1839

My Daughter,

You are Seven years old to-day and your Father is forty. You have learned a great many things, since you have lived in a Body, about things going on around you and within you. You know how to think, how to resolve, how to love, and how to obey. You feel your Conscience, and have no real pleasure unless you obey it. You cannot love yourself, or anyone else, when you do not mind its commandments. It asks you always to BE GOOD, and bears, O how gently! how patiently! with all endeavors to hate, and treat it cruelly. How kindly it bears with you all the while. How sweetly it whispers Happiness in your HEART when you Obey its soft words. How it smiles upon you, and makes you Glad when you Resolve to Obey it! How terrible its punishments. It is GOD trying in your soul to keep you always Good.

You begin, my dear daughter, another year this morning. Your Father, your Mother, and Sisters, with your little friends, show their love on this your Birthday, by giving you this BOX. Open it, and take what is in it, and the best wishes of

Your Father.

Beach Street,

Friday morning, Nov. 29, 1839.

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 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:

Cottage, Sunday June 21st,

1840.

We all miss the noisy little girl who used to make house and garden, barn and field, ring with her footsteps, and even the hens and chickens seem to miss her too. Right glad would father and mother, Anna and Elizabeth, and all the little mates at School, and Miss Russell, the House Playroom, Dolls, Hoop, Garden, Flowers, Fields, Woods and Brooks, all be to see and answer the voice and footsteps, the eye and hand of their little companion. But yet all make themselves happy and beautiful without her; all seem to say, "Be Good, little Miss, while away from us, and when we meet again we shall love and please one another all the more; we find how much we love now we are separated."

I wished you here very much on the morning when the Hen left her nest and came proudly down with six little chickens, everyone knowing how to walk, fly, eat and drink almost as well as its own mother; to-day (Sunday) they all came to see the house and took their breakfast from their nice little feeding trough; you would have enjoyed the sight very much. But this and many other pleasures all wait for you when you return. Be good, kind, gentle, while you are away, step lightly, and speak soft about the house;

Grandpa loves quiet, as well as your sober father and other grown people.

Elizabeth says often, "Oh I wish I could see Louisa, when will she come home, Mother?" And another feels so too; who is it?

Your Father.

I forgot to write how much Kit missed you.

On her eighth birthday, her father writes:

For Louisa

1840

Two Passions strong divide our Life,

Meek gentle Love, or boisterous Strife.

Love-Music

Anger-Arrow

Concord Discord

From her Father

On her eighth birthday Nov. 29th.

At ten, her birthday greeting from her father is this:

For Louisa

1842

My Daughter,

This is your birthday: you are ten years of age to-day. I sought amidst my papers for some pretty picture to place at the top of this note, but I did not find anything that seemed at all expressive of my interest in your well-being, or well-doing, and so this note comes to you without any such emblem. Let me say, my honest little girl, that I have had you often in my mind during my separation from you and your devoted mother, and well-meaning sisters, while on the sea or the land, and now that I have returned to be with you and them again, meeting you daily at fireside, at table, at study, and in your walk, and amusements, in conversation and in silence, being daily with you, I would have you feel my presence and be the happier, and better that I am here. I want, most of all things, to be a kindly influence on you, helping you to guide and govern your heart, keeping it in a state of sweet and loving peacefulness, so that you may feel how good and kind is that Love which lives always in our breasts, and which we may always feel, if we will keep the passions all in stillness and give up ourselves entirely to its soft desires. I live, my dear daughter, to be good and to do good to all, and especially to you and your mother and sisters. Will you not let me do you all the good that I would? And do you not know that I can do you little or none, unless you give me your affections, incline your ears, and earnestly desire to become daily better and wiser, more kind, gentle, loving, diligent, heedful, serene. The good Spirit comes into the Breast of the meek and loveful to abide long; anger, discontent, impatience, evil appetites, greedy wants, complainings, ill-speakings, idlenesses, heedlessness, rude behaviour and all such, these drive it away, or grieve it so that it leaves the poor misguided soul to live in its own obstinate, perverse, proud discomfort, which is the very Pain of Sin, and is in the Bible called the worm that never dies, the gnawing worm, the sting of conscience: while the pleasures of love and goodness are beyond all description-a peacefulness that passes all understanding. I pray that my daughter may know much of the last, and little of the first of these feelings. I shall try every day to help her to the knowledge and love of this good Spirit. I shall be with her, and as she and her sisters come more and more into the presence of this Spirit, shall we become a family more closely united in loves that can never sunder us from each other.

This your Father

in Hope and Love

on your

Birthday

Concordia,

Nov. 29, 1842.

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 birthday, her father carefully printed this letter:

For Elizabeth

1840

Years

one two three four five

birth-day

in the

cottage

My very dear little girl,

You make me very happy every time I look at your smiling pleasant face-and you make me very sorry every time I see your face look cross and unpleasant. You are now five years old. You can keep your little face pleasant all the time, if you will try, and be happy yourself, and make everybody else happy too. Father wants to have his little girl happy all the time. He hopes her little friends and her presents and plays will make her happy to-day; and this little note too. Last birthday you were in Beach Street, in the great City, now you are at your little cottage in the country where all is pretty and pleasant, and you have fields and woods, and brooks and flowers to please my little Queen, and keep her eyes, and ears, and hands and tongue and feet, all busy. This little note is from

FATHER,

who loves his little girl very much, and knows that she loves him very dearly.

Play, play,

All the day,

Jump and run

Every one,

Full of fun,

All take

A piece of cake,

For my sake.

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:

Concord, Cottage,

February 2nd, 1842.

My dear Elizabeth,

You give me much pleasure by your still, quiet manners, and your desire to do things, without asking impatiently and selfishly for others to help you without trying first to help yourself. Trying is doing; doing is but trying; try then always and you will do; and every one loves to help those who try. I will print a little sentence for you in large letters and you who have already found it so easy to do things for yourself will, I dare say, remember it, and follow it too-This is it-

try first: and

then ask: and

patiently till

you have tried

your best: and

you will not need

to ask at all.

Trying is the only

Schoolmaster

whose

Scholars

always

Succeed.

Your Father.

Cottage,

Feb. 2nd.

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:

Gift of Junius S. Alcott

to

Abby.

A

Little Face

once smiling

woke

to

greet, the day,

with sport and play,

Hands) on her Birthday, in shaking (Hands

with her sisters,

and, her visitors,

that, came, to, chime,

a, happy, time, with, Lizzy,

To, give, you, pleasure, uncle,

gives, this, treasure, to you, so, sweet,

So, keep, it, neat, and please, my,

Brother, & your Mother, by always,

finding that, by, minding, you

are, the kindest, little girl, that,

that, ever

stood d, in,

(Shoes) (Shoes)