Louisa Alcott - The Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott - Novels, Short Stories, Plays & Poems (Illustrated Edition)

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This unique illustrated collection of «THE COMPLETE WORKS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT» has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices.
Content:
Biography
Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals
Novels
Little Women
Good Wives
Little Men
Jo's Boys
Moods
The Mysterious Key and What It Opened
An Old Fashioned Girl
Work: A Story of Experience
Eight Cousins; or, The Aunt-Hill
Rose in Bloom: A Sequel to Eight Cousins
Under the Lilacs
Jack and Jill: A Village Story
Behind a Mask, or a Woman's Power
The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation
A Modern Mephistopheles
Pauline's Passion and Punishment
Short Story Collections
Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag
Shawl-Straps
Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore
An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving
Lulu's Library
Flower Fables
On Picket Duty, and other tales
Spinning-Wheel Stories
A Garland for Girls
Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love Story
A Merry Christmas & Other Christmas Stories
Other Short Stories and Novelettes
Hospital Sketches
Marjorie's Three Gifts
Perilous Play
A Whisper in the Dark
Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy's Curse
A Modern Cinderella
A Country Christmas
Aunt Kipp
Debby's Debut
My Red Cap
Nelly's Hospital
Psyche's Art
The Brothers
Poetry
A.B.A
A Little Grey Curl
To Papa
In Memoriam
Plays
Bianca
Captive of Castile
Ion
Norna; or, The Witch's Curse
The Greek Slave
The Unloved Wife
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the classic Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist.
"Little Women" is a semi-autobiographical account of the author's childhood with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. «Good Wives» followed the March sisters into adulthood and marriage. «Little Men» detailed Jo's life at the Plumfield School that she founded with her husband Professor Bhaer. «Jo's Boys» completed the «March Family Saga».

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On her fourteenth birthday her mother wrote her the following poem, with a present of a pen. It was a prophetic gift, and well used by the receiver.

Oh, may this pen your muse inspire,

When wrapt in pure poetic fire,

To write some sweet, some thrilling verse;

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.

[Original, I think. I have tried to obey.–L. M. A., 1885.]

In a sketch written for a friend, Louisa gives this account of the parents' influence on the children:–

When cautious friends asked mother how she dared to have such outcasts among her girls, she always answered, with an expression of confidence which did much to keep us safe, "I can trust my daughters, and this is the best way to teach them how to shun these sins and comfort these sorrows. They cannot escape the knowledge of them; better gain this under their father's roof and their mother's care, and so be protected by these experiences when their turn comes to face the world and its temptations." Once we carried our breakfast to a starving family; once lent our whole dinner to a neighbor suddenly taken unprepared by distinguished guests. Another time, one snowy Saturday night, when our wood was very low, a poor child came to beg a little, as the baby was sick and the father on a spree with all his wages. My mother hesitated at first, as we also had a baby. Very cold weather was upon us, and a Sunday to be got through before more wood could be had. My father said, "Give half our stock, and trust in Providence; the weather will moderate, or wood will come." Mother laughed, and answered in her cheery way, "Well, their need is greater than ours, and if our half gives out we can go to bed and tell stories." So a generous half went to the poor neighbor, and a little later in the eve, while the storm still raged and we were about to cover our fire to keep it, a knock came, and a farmer who usually supplied us appeared, saying anxiously, "I started for Boston with a load of wood, but it drifts so I want to go home. Wouldn't you like to have me drop the wood here; it would accommodate me, and you needn't hurry about paying for it." "Yes," said Father; and as the man went off he turned to Mother with a look that much impressed us children with his gifts as a seer, "Didn't I tell you wood would come if the weather did not moderate?" Mother's motto was "Hope, and keep busy," and one of her sayings, "Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will come back buttered."

CHAPTER IV.

THE SENTIMENTAL PERIOD.

Table of Contents

A SONG FROM THE SUDS.

Queen of my tub, I merrily sing,

While the white foam rises high,

And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring,

And fasten the clothes to dry;

Then out in the free fresh air they swing,

Under the sunny sky.

I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls

The stains of the week away,

And let water and air by their magic make

Ourselves as pure as they;

Then on the earth there would be indeed

A glorious washing-day!

Along the path of a useful life

Will heart's-ease ever bloom;

The busy mind has no time to think

Of sorrow, or care, or gloom;

And anxious thoughts may be swept away

As we busily wield a broom.

I am glad a task to me is given

To labor at day by day;

For it brings me health, and strength, and hope,

And I cheerfully learn to say,–

"Head, you may think; heart, you may feel;

But hand, you shall work alway!"

THE period of free, happy childhood was necessarily short, and at about the age of fifteen Louisa Alcott began to feel the pressure of thoughts and duties which made life a more solemn matter. In spite of the overflowing fun which appears in her books, her nature was very serious, and she could not cast aside care lightly. So many varying tendencies existed in her character that she must have struggled with many doubts and questions before finding the true path. But she always kept the pole-star of right strictly in view, and never failed in truth to that duty which seemed to her nearest and most imperative. If she erred in judgment, she did not err in conscientious fidelity.

Her mother's rules for her guidance were–

Rule yourself.

Love your neighbor.

Do the duty which lies nearest you.

She never lost sight of these instructions.

I will introduce this period in her own words, as written later for the use of a friend.

My romantic period began at fifteen, when I fell to writing poetry, keeping a heart-journal, and wandering by moonlight instead of sleeping quietly. About that time, in browsing over Mr. Emerson's library, I found Goethe's "Correspondence with a Child," and at once was fired with a desire to be a Bettine, making my father's friend my Goethe. So I wrote letters to him, but never sent them; sat in a tall cherry-tree at midnight, singing to the moon till the owls scared me to bed; left wild flowers on the doorstep of my "Master," and sung Mignon's song under his window in very bad German.

Not till many years later did I tell my Goethe of this early romance and the part he played in it. He was much amused, and begged for his letters, kindly saying he felt honored to be so worshipped. The letters were burnt long ago, but Emerson remained my "Master" while he lived, doing more for me,–as for many another,–than he knew, by the simple beauty of his life, the truth and wisdom of his books, the example of a great, good man, untempted and unspoiled by the world which he made better while in it, and left richer and nobler when he went.

The trials of life began about this time, and happy childhood ended. One of the most memorable days of my life is a certain gloomy November afternoon, when we had been holding a family council as to ways and means. In summer we lived much as the birds did, on our fruit and bread and milk; the sun was our fire, the sky our roof, and Nature's plenty made us forget that such a thing as poverty existed.

In 1850 she heads her diary "The Sentimental Period." She was then seventeen years old, but her diary gives no hint of the sentimental notions that often fill the heads of young girls at that period. The experiences of Jo with her charming young neighbor in "Little Women" do not represent hers at all.

One bit of romance was suggested by Goethe's "Correspondence with a Child." It may be difficult for readers of to-day to understand the fascination which this book exercised upon young minds of the last generation, yet it is certain that it led more than one young girl to form an ideal attachment to a man far older than herself, but full of nobility and intellectual greatness. Theodore Parker said of letters addressed to him by a young New Hampshire girl, "They are as good as Bettine's without the lies." This mingling of idealism and hero-worship was strongly characteristic of that transcendental period when women, having little solid education and less industrial employment, were full of noble aspirations and longings for fuller and freer life, which must find expression in some way.

The young woman of to-day, wearing waterproof and india-rubber boots, skating, driving, and bicycling, studying chemistry in the laboratory, exhibiting her pictures in open competition, adopting a profession without opposition, and living single without fear of reproach, has less time for fancies and more regard for facts.

Miss Alcott was safe in choosing her idol. Worship of Emerson could only refine and elevate her thoughts, and her intimate acquaintance with his beautiful home chastened her idolatry into pure reverent friendship which never failed her. She kept her worship to herself, and never sent him the letters in which she poured out the longings and raptures which filled her girlish heart.

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