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Page 57
When she was almost sixteen, the family returned to Boston, and there
Miss Alcott began to teach boys and girls their lessons. She had not
been at school much herself, but she had been instructed by her father
and mother. She had seen so much that was generous and good done by
them that she had learned it is far better to have a kind heart and to
do unselfish acts than to have riches or learning or fine clothes. So,
mothers were glad to send her their children to be taught, and she
earned money in this way for her own support.
But she did not like to teach so well as her father did, and thought
that perhaps she could write stories and be paid for them, and earn
more money in that way. So she began to write stories. At first nobody
would pay her any money for them, but she kept patiently at work,
making better and better what she wrote, until in a few years she could
earn a good sum by her pen. Then the great civil war came on, and Miss
Alcott, like the rest of the people, wished to do something for her
country. So she went to Washington as a nurse, and for some time she
took care of the poor soldiers who came into the hospital wounded or
sick, and she has written a little book about these soldiers which you
may have read. But soon she grew ill herself from the labor and anxiety
she had in the hospital, and almost died of typhoid fever; since when
she has never been the robust, healthy young lady she was before, but
was more or less an invalid while writing all those cheerful and
entertaining books. And yet to that illness all her success as an
author might perhaps be traced. Her "Hospital Sketches," first
published in a Boston newspaper, became very popular, and made her name
known all over the North. Then she wrote other books, encouraged by the
reception given to this, and finally, in 1868, five years after she
left the hospital in Washington, she published the first volume of
"Little Women." From that day to this she has been constantly gaining
in the public esteem, and now perhaps no lady in all the land stands
higher. Several hundred thousand volumes of her books have been sold in
this country, and probably as many more in England and other European
countries.
Twenty years ago, Miss Alcott returned to Concord with her family, who
have ever since resided there. It was there that most of her books were
written, and many of her stories take that town for their
starting-point. It was in Concord that "Beth" died, and there the
"Little Men" now live. Miss Alcott herself has been two or three years
in Europe since 1865, and has spent several winters in Boston or New
York, but her summers are usually passed in Concord, where she lives
with her father and mother in a picturesque old house, under a warm
hill-side, with an orchard around it and a pine-wood on the hill-top
behind. Two aged trees stand in front of the house, and in the rear is
the studio of Miss May Alcott ("Amy"), who has become an artist of
renown, and had a painting exhibited last spring in the great
exhibition of pictures at Paris. Close by is another house, under the
same hill-side, where Mr. Hawthorne lived and wrote several of his
famous books, and it was along the old Lexington road in front of
these ancient houses that the British Grenadiers marched and retreated
on the day of the battle of Concord in April, 1775. Instead of soldiers
marching with their plumed hats, you might have seen there last summer
great plumes of asparagus waving in the field; instead of bayonets, the
poles of grape-vines in ranks upon the hill; while loads of hay, of
strawberries, pears and apples went jolting along the highway between
hill and meadow.
The engraving shows you how Miss Alcott looks,--only you must recollect
that it does not flatter her; and if you should see her, you would like
her face much better than the picture of it. She has large, dark-blue
eyes, brown clustering hair, a firm but smiling mouth, a noble head,
and a tall and stately presence, as becomes one who is descended from
the Mays, Quincys and Sewalls, of Massachusetts, and the Alcotts and
Bronsons of Connecticut. From them she has inherited the best New
England traits,--courage and independence without pride, a just and
compassionate spirit, strongly domestic habits, good sense, and a warm
heart. In her books you perceive these qualities, do you not? and
notice, too, the vigor of her fancy, the flowing humor that makes her
stories now droll and now pathetic, a keen eye for character, and the
most cheerful tone of mind. From the hard experiences of life she has
drawn lessons of patience and love, and now with her, as the apostle
says, "abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of
these is charity." There have been men, and some women too, who could
practice well the heavenly virtue of charity toward the world at large,
and with a general atmospheric effect, but could not always bring it
down to earth, and train it in the homely, crooked paths of household
care. But those who have seen Miss Alcott at home know that such is not
her practice. In the last summer, as for years before, the citizen or
the visitor who walked the Concord streets might have seen this admired
woman doing errands for her father, mother, sister, or nephews, and as
attentive to the comfort of her family as if she were only their
housekeeper. In the sick-room she has been their nurse, in the
excursion their guide, in the evening amusements their companion and
entertainer. Her good fortune has been theirs, and she has denied
herself other pleasures for the satisfaction of giving comfort and
pleasure to them.
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