Louisa Alcott: Little Women

Burning designs on wood with a heated implement.

Greek god of wine.

Tall flowering herb.

The point of sight is the line of sight an artist chooses when drawing in perspective; it is sometimes determined by squinting along the length of a string.

Seminal Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564).

That is, a queenly air, referring to the powerful Austrian queen of Hungary and Bohemia (1717-1780) and mother of Marie-Antoinette (queen of Louis XVI of France).

Coach with benches for sightseeing.

Medicine derived from the dried pods of the senna plant, used to induce vomiting and loosen the bowels.

Submit.

Closed, horse-drawn carriage.

Victorian name for a conventional, prudish person.

Never despair (Latin).

Unaware.

Mr. March is probably beginning a discussion of John Evelyn (1620-1706), English diarist and author of works on varied topics, including one on salads titled Aceteria, a Discourse of Sallets (1699).

Dishes that are a mixture of ingredients eaten together.

Inspiration.

Delicate handmade lace.

Parody of the prolific best-selling American sensational novelist E. D. E. N. Southworth (1819-1899).

capital of Portugal, largely destroyed by an earthquake in 1755.

Brave and self-disciplined; the Spartans of ancient Greece were renowned for their courage and austerity.

Movement espousing communication between the living and the spirits of the dead.

English Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) was mockingly said to have been killed at a young age by his bad reviews.

In the Bible (Luke 10:38-42) Martha opens her home to Jesus and serves him; her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet, leaving Martha to do all the work.

Thin white linen fabric.

Reference to a popular mid-nineteenth-century cookbook, The Young Housekeeper’s Friend, by Mrs. Mary Hooker Cornelius.

Ruddy- or sturdy-looking.

Germanic.

Tragic mother of Greek myth who mourns her slain children until she dies and is turned into a weeping stone.

Putter; move about aimlessly.

Trimming stitched along a clothing seam or edge.

Woman’s short, close-fitting sleeveless jacket.

In Dickens’s novel Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), a selfish, foppish character who bankrupts his wife’s dressmaking business.

Flounces.

Heavy overcoat.

Quakers were said to be somber.

Large, heavy breed of dog.

Pump handle.

Half (French).

A bond is a binding agreement; in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a greedy Jewish moneylender who demands a pound of a debtor’s flesh for failure to repay a loan.

That is, a dressmaker; a mantua is an old-fashioned, loose-fitting gown.

Fine, transparent muslin fabric.

Cloak.

Jo is referencing the opening lines of Keats’s lengthy 1818 poetic romance Endymion: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness.”

Quotation from English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s long 1855 poem Maud, describing the tragic heroine’s face, which is “dead perfection, no more.”

Possible reference to the protagonist of English writer Thomas Hughes’s moral novel Tom Brown’s School Days (1857), set in an English public school; a brick is a kind person.

Possible reference to Albert Edward (1841-1910), prince of Wales and heir to the throne in 1860, when he became the first member of the British royal family to visit the United States and Canada.

Insults.

Freed slaves.

Grouchy person.

That is, the part of a wealthy great lady in a neighborhood; from a character in Irish Restoration dramatist George Farquhar’s comedy The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707).

Port city and capital of the southeastern Canadian province Nova Scotia.

Now Cobh, a port town in southwestern Ireland.

From a popular ballad by Irish writer Lady (Sydney Owenson) Morgan (1776-1859); the scenic Lakes of Killarney are in southwestem Ireland.

Popular broad, full style of sideburn.

Hens.

Town in central England, the site of revels held for Elizabeth I in Sir Walter Scott’s 1821 novel of the same name.

Coalmine.

Weekly London comic newspaper founded in 1841.

Footmen.

Soft goatskin gloves.

Charles Fechter (1824-1879), Anglo-French actor known for his Shakespearean and romantic roles.

Hampton Court Palace, once inhabited by Henry VIII, and Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum, are popular destinations in Greater London.

French-speaking.

Jewelry (French).

Very splendid (French); the park west of Paris called the Bois de Boulogne, the Palais-Royale, and the Champs Elysees, famous for its shops, are fashionable areas in and around Paris.

Good-bye . . . your friend (French); Amie is a visual pun on Amy’s name.

Capital city of Switzerland.

River of western Europe running through the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland; Coblenz and Bonn are German cities on the Rhine.

City in southwestern Germany known for its thermal baths.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), revered German poet, dramatist, and novelist.

A beautiful little blonde (German).

Part of the post office where letters are held for pickup by the addressee.