LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

“Housekeeping ain’t no joke.” —, Part I, 1868

“It takes two flints to make a fire.” —, Part II, 1868

NOTE: May = Maies = Mayes, probably of Portuguese Jewish origin. Louisa May Alcott inherited the dark eyes and hair, and swarthy vivacious Mediterranean look, of this branch of the family through her mother Abba Alcott, who was also dark complected:

Anna is an Alcott. Louisa is a true blue May, or rather brown.

• Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott born November 29, 1799 as Amos Bronson Alcox in Wolcott, Connecticut HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT married May 23, 1830 in Boston to Abigail May, daughter of Colonel Joseph May died March 4, 1888 in Boston

• Mrs. Abigail (May) “Abba” Alcott born October 8, 1800 in Boston, Massachusetts died November 25, 1877 in Concord, Massachusetts

• Miss Anna Bronson Alcott born March 16, 1831 in Germantown, Pennsylvania married May 23, 1860 in Concord to John Bridge Pratt of Concord, Massachusetts died July 17, 1893 in Concord

• Miss Louisa May Alcott born November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania died March 6, 1888 in Roxbury, Massachusetts

• Miss Elizabeth Sewall Alcott born June 24, 1835 in Boston, Massachusetts died March 14, 1858 in Concord, Massachusetts

• Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), born July 26, 1840 in Concord, married March 22, 1878 in London, England to Ernest Niericker, died December 29, 1879 in Paris

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Louisa May Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1684

The 9th edition of the Reverend John Bunyan’s THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS was available for purchase,

and in this year, a 2d part would first appear. The modified quotation placed at the start of LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott would be from this 2d part. We may note the emendations: Go then, my little Book, and shew to all “Go then, my little Book, and show to all That entertain, and bid thee welcome shall, That entertain, and bid thee welcome shall, What thou shalt keep close, shut up from the rest; What thou dost keep close shut up in thy breast; And wish what thou shalt shew them may be blest And wish that thou dost show them may be blest To them for good, may make them chuse to be To them for good, may make them choose to be Pilgrims, better by far, than thee or me. Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me. Go then, I say, tell all men who thou art, Tell them of mercy; she is one Say, I am Christiana, and my part Who early hath her pilgrimage begun. Is now with my four Sons, to tell you what Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize It is for men to take a Pilgrim’s lot; The world which is to come, and so be wise; Go also tell them who, and what they be, For little tripping maids may follow God That now do go on Pilgrimage with thee; Along the ways which saintly feet have trod.” Say, here’s my neighbour Mercy, she is one, That has long time with me a Pilgrim gone; ADAPTED FROM JOHN BUNYAN Come see in her Virgin Face, and learn Twixt Idle ones, and Pilgrims to discern. Yea, let young Damsels learn of her to prize, The World which is to come, in any wise; When little Tripping Maidens follow God And leave old doting Sinners to his Rod; ’Tis like those Days wherein the young ones cry’d Hosannah to whom old ones did deride. JOHN BUNYAN HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1778

June: Fanny Burney’s novel of manners, EVELINA, THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY’S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD, had at this point secured such worldly success, in that Edmund Burke had sat up all night reading it, in that Dr. Johnson had laughed uproariously over it, in that Sir Joshua Reynolds had made wild and favorable guesses as to its author, and in that her father Charles Burney, organist and music historian, had commented favorably upon it, that she was able to confess, to her father, that it has been she, his own ill-favored daughter, who had written it. And she was known to dance jigs, strictly in private you understand, jigs of glee, at the thought that she had become so publicly known.1 (Later, Louisa May Alcott would be intrigued by this novel of manners, and would feel there was some sort of submerged resemblance between Fanny’s experience in the Burney household with the Burney father figure she so needed to please and Lou’s experience in the Alcott household with the Alcott father figure she so needed to please.)

1.The term “celebrity” would not be invented for another half century (by Emerson in 1848). HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1795

During this year and the next, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe produced his WILHELM MEISTERS LEHRJAHRE, in which he has the mysterious child Mignon, whom the male lead has rescued from the circus troupe, sing as follows:

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn? Know’st thou the land where lemon-trees do bloom, Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn, And oranges like gold in leafy gloom; Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht, A gentle wind from deep blue Heaven blows, De Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht, The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows? Kennst du es wohl? Know’st thou it, then? Dahin! Dahin ’Tis there! ’tis there, Möcht ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn. O my belov’d one, I with thee would go. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT This would eventually appear in LITTLE WOMEN, in the introduction to the character known as Professor Bhaer (Louisa May Alcott’s impression of the stocky Cambridge teacher, Professor Louis Agassiz, Harvard’s racist biologist during that era):

I was thanking my stars that I’d learned to make nice buttonholes, when the parlor door opened and shut, and some one began to hum, — “Kennst du das Land,”

like a big bumblebee. It was dreadfully improper, I know, but I couldn’t resist the temptation, and lifting one end of the curtain before the glass door, I peeped in. Professor Bhaer was there, and while he arranged his books, I took a good look at him. A regular German — rather stout, with brown hair tumbled all over his head, a bushy beard, good nose, the kindest eyes I ever saw, and a splendid big voice that does one’s ears good, after our sharp or slipshod American gabble. His clothes were rusty, his hands were large, and he hadn’t a really handsome feature in his face, except his beautiful teeth, yet I liked him, for he had a fine head, his linen was very nice, and he looked like a gentleman, though two buttons were off his coat and there was a patch on one shoe. He looked sober in spite of his humming, till he went to the window to turn the hyacinth bulbs toward the sun, and stroke the cat, who received him like an old friend. Then he smiled, and when a tap came at the door, called out in a loud, brisk tone, — “Herein!” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1818

April 10, Friday: The head and torso of the Egyptian statue known then as “younger Memnon” arrived at the British customs office and was declared free from import duties.

The “Endymion: A Poetic Romance” of the beautiful young 5-foot poet John Keats –written in April through November of the previous year apparently while in a rural retirement, possibly waiting out the visible stages of VD– found a publisher and provided the British reader with a newer, happier ending for the old story of Circe, Scylla, and Glaucus. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

In this 4,000-line-plus novelty, Circe somehow only appeared to have converted Scylla into a horrible monster, and instead actually the lovely maid Scylla, instead of having lost her beauty, had merely drowned. Glaucus consented to Circe’s blandishments until he became aware of her treachery and her cruelty, and of her transactions with her beasts, and then in disgust attempted to escape. His punishment was that for one millennium, in decrepitude and pain, he would collect all bodies of drowned lovers. Returning to the seashore, the first body he discovered was that of his drowned sweetheart Scylla. At the end of this millennium, Endymion beloved of Selene the moon goddess (or Diana or Cynthia, as Keats has it) appeared to restore life to Scylla and all the other drowned lovers, and to restore to Glaucus his youth.

But who was this Endymion, the rescuer, of whom we have uncovered a reclining Parian marble in the ruins of Hadrian’s villa?2 He had allegedly been a noble shepherd on the Latmos range, inland from the coastal Greek colony of Miletos in Caria in Asia Minor, and at night while he slept his pulchritude or his Calvin Kleins or something had enticed Selene to come down and sneak a kissypoo or fifty kissypoos.3 (The Latmus  range of mountains, and Caria,4 the land around the Mæander River,5 are not on the map of Turkey

2. The villa of the Emperor Hadrian was at Tivoli on the River Tiber some 15 miles upstream from Rome. 3. Some of the Greek fables have Selene bearing a series of 50 children engendered by her sleeping Prince Charming, thus adding an extra-archaic authenticity to the cute phrase “kiss and swell.” 4. The site of one of the accredited “seven wonders” of the ancient world, the structure within which King Mausoleus was able to begin in pomp and ceremony to sleep his long sleep, in 353 BCE, quite as permanently secure from nocturnal emissions as from any nocturnal incursions of the moon goddess — the long vanished structure from which all the “mausoleums” of Sleepy Hollow derive their name. 5. From the oxbows of which, incidentally, the “meanders” of such lazy streams as the Sudbury River and the Concord River derive their name. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT anymore under such names, but Miletos  is a name that is still present although everybody now lives at Palatia or Akköy. –For this had been famous as the hometown of the great western “first natural philosopher” Thales  circa 624?-546? BCE.) This kissypooing, or something, was said to have reduced this goddess’s boy-toy to a charmed dormitive state in which he dreamed along pleasantly and indefinitely while his flocks, watched over by the gods, prospered: We see in Endymion the young poet, his fancy and his heart seeking in vain for that which can satisfy them, finding his favourite hour in the quiet moonlight, and nursing there beneath the beams of the bright and silent witness the melancholy and the ardour which consume him. The story suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams than in reality, and an early and welcome death. Well, so ’tis said. But I’ll have to add, it sounds more like a ’60s druggie story to me.6 Thus we get the “Faithful Shepherdess” of Fletcher telling: How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies; How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, His temples bound with poppy, to the steep Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, Gilding the mountain with her brother’s light, To kiss her sweetest. Whether this is more the young 19th-Century poetical type or more the young 19th-Century dormitive-virtue 6. In his essay on “Behavior” published as part of CONDUCT OF LIFE in 1860, Waldo Emerson would evidently be making reference to another tradition about this Endymion figure, for his drowsy shepherd would be not pulchritudinous and supremely kissable but, mysteriously, “much deceived”: Too weak to win, too fond to shun The tyrants of his doom, The much deceived Endymion Slips behind a tomb. –Which is of course in distinct opposition to the comment Henry Thoreau makes about dreaming in “Wednesday” of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS: GOD IN CONCORD by Jane Langton © 1992 Penguin Books USA Inc. 40 . . . in dreams we never deceive ourselves, nor are deceived. . . . Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers “Wednesday” Viking Penguin

Homer Kelly would have put it differently, but he might have come to a similar conclusion. Looking out at the shining ISBN 0-670-84260-5 — PS3562.A515G58 HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT type, “His temples bound with poppy,” evidently such a belonged effort of a poem was not well received, for in 1821 when Percy Bysshe Shelley issued his “Adonais, An Elegy on the Death of John Keats,” he would allude to the current myth of the delicacy of genius in this wise:7 “The genius of [Keats] was not less delicate and fragile than it was beautiful. … The savage criticism on his Endymion, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments from more candid critics of the true greatness of his powers were ineffectual to heal the wound wantonly inflicted.”8 In fact, this tale of Keats’s vulnerability to criticism would spread so far, perhaps through Lord Byron’s jibes as much as through the anecdotes of James Henry Leigh Hunt, as to find a place in Part I of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY in 1868:

Her family and friends administered comfort and commendation liberally. Yet it was a hard time for sensitive, high-spirited Jo, who meant so well and had apparently done so ill. But it did her good, for those whose opinion had real value gave her the criticism which is an author’s best education, and when the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received. “Not being a genius, like Keats, it won’t kill me,” she said stoutly, “and I’ve got the joke on my side, after all, for the parts that were taken straight out of real life are denounced as impossible and absurd, and the scenes that I made up out of my own silly head are pronounced ‘charmingly natural, tender, and true.’ So I’ll comfort myself with that, and when I’m ready, I’ll up again and take another.”

In “Sunday” of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, of course, Henry Thoreau would incidentally mention this figure as “representative of all promising youths who have died a premature death, and whose memory is melodiously prolonged to the latest morning,”

7. The poem was savaged not only in the Quarterly Review but also in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and in the British Critic, and it was clear that his critics supposed that this young poet was a doper since they were encouraging him to return to the apothecary shop from which he had derived inspiration: … so back to the shop, Mr. John. 8. Keats’s hemorrhage would occur on February 3, 1820 and his death, in Italy, on February 23, 1821 The “rapid consumption” mentioned here by Percy Bysshe Shelley was the last stages of phthisis, the 19th-Century term for TB, the disease John had caught from his brother Tom. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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A WEEK: We read that Aristeus “obtained of Jupiter and Neptune, PEOPLE OF that the pestilential heat of the dog-days, wherein was great A WEEK mortality, should be mitigated with wind.” This is one of those dateless benefits conferred on man, which have no record in our vulgar day, though we still find some similitude to them in our dreams, in which we have a more liberal and juster apprehension of things, unconstrained by habit, which is then in some measure put off, and divested of memory, which we call history. According to fable, when the island of Ægina was depopulated by sickness, at the instance of Æacus, Jupiter turned the ants into men, that is, as some think, he made men of the inhabitants who lived meanly like ants. This is perhaps the fullest history of those early days extant. The fable which is naturally and truly composed, so as to satisfy the imagination, ere it addresses the understanding, beautiful though strange as a wild-flower, is to the wise man an apothegm, and admits of his most generous interpretation. When we read that Bacchus made the Tyrrhenian mariners mad, so that they leapt into the sea, mistaking it for a meadow full of flowers, and so became dolphins, we are not concerned about the historical truth of this, but rather a higher poetical truth. We seem to hear the music of a thought, and care not if the understanding be not gratified. For their beauty, consider the fables of Narcissus, of Endymion, of Memnon son of Morning, the representative of all promising youths who have died a premature death, and whose memory is melodiously prolonged to the latest morning; the beautiful stories of Phaeton, and of the Sirens whose isle shone afar off white with the bones of unburied men; and the pregnant ones of Pan, Prometheus, and the Sphinx; and that long list of names which have already become part of the universal language of civilized men, and from proper are becoming common names or nouns, — the Sibyls, the Eumenides, the Parcae, the Graces, the Muses, Nemesis, &c. It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus.

ENDYMION JOHN KEATS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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and we don’t quite know here whether Thoreau is referring to Endymion’s long sleep, or to Keats’s early demise due to tuberculosis, or maybe to both Endymion’s long dream and Keats’s early death. At any rate, this first mention by Thoreau is utterly conventional. One might expect Thoreau to have seized upon such a figure from ancient mythology, later in his literary production, to counterpoise as the antithesis to all his WALDEN; 9 OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS tropes about morning work, waking, alertness, etc. –That will not, however, be a use to which Thoreau will ever put this figure, and instead we will see him developing the figure, in his journal for 1851, first in the direction of day sleep to make up for the weariness that “comes of obeying his Genius” while burning the midnight oil, and then in the direction of the poser about whether Zhuang Zi was a human being who had dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he had become a human being:10

September 12, Friday, 1851: … After I have spent the greater part of a night abroad in the moonlight I am obliged to sleep enough more the next night to make up for it–Endymionis somnum dormire–to sleep an Endymion sleep as the ancients expressed it. And there is something gained still by thus turning the day into night. Edymion is said to have obtained of Jupiter the privelege of sleeping as much as he would. Let no man be afraid of sleep–if his weariness comes of obeying his Genius. He who has spent the night with the gods sleeps more innocently by day than the sluggard who has spent the day with the satyrss sleeps by night. He who has travelled to fairy-land in the night–sleeps by day more innocently than he who is fatigued by the merely trivial labors of the day sleeps by night. That kind of life which sleeping we dream that we live awake–in our walks by night, we, waking, dream that we live, while our daily life appears as a dream. — and then in his journal for 1852 Henry Thoreau will develop this figure in the direction of his work on “Moonlight,” much of it still unpublished:11

July 15, Thursday, 1852: … Morton quotes Wafer as saying of some albinoes among the Indians of Darien that “They are quite white, but their whiteness is like that of a horse, quite different from the fair or pale European, as they have not the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion. They seldom go abroad in the day time, the sun being disagreeable to them, and causing their eyes, which are weak & poring, to water, especially if it shines towards them; yet they see very well by moon light, from which we call them moon-eyed’. In Drakes Col. of voyages”. Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight walks methinks is there “the least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion” –but we are perchance intellectually & morally albinoes –children of Endymion whose parents have walked much by moonlight. Walking much by moonlight –conversing with the moon –makes us then Albinoes. Methinks we should rather represent Endymion in colorless marble –or in the whiteness of marble –than painted of the ruddy color of ordinary youth.… This reference to Endymion as a blanched statue would of course be a reference to “The Sleeping Endymion,” the ancient Parian12 marble presently in the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm.

9. Reminding us of Thoreau’s narcolepsy, inherited from the Jones side of his family tree, “I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?” from Chapter 2 of WALDEN and “Only one in a hundred millions is awake to a poetic or divine life.” –A Buddha-movement toward the usage proposed by the young Simone Weil, “Sin is sleep.” 10. Here is a pre-1855 verse fragment of Walt Whitman’s, for a similar comparison with Zhuang Zi’s butterfly dream:

I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.

I would recommend Burton Watson’s “Qiwulun or A Treatise on Equalizing (with) All Things,” which you can find in his THE BASIC WRITINGS OF CHUANG TZU, New York: Columbia University Press, 1965, page 45. 11. It is interesting, is it not, that each time Thoreau mentions this Endymion figure, over an extended period of time, he makes no reference to his previous manner of use but instead uses it in a quite different way from before? 12. The island of Páros, or Paroikía, in the Aegean Sea, is composed largely of this white stone. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1824

13 James Buchanan, Esq. (British Consul to the State of New York). SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS, OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS WITH A PLAN FOR THEIR MELIORATION (New York: William Borradaile, two volumes in one). This work confessedly had based itself not upon any direct experience of the native American tribes but instead merely upon a reading of Moravian missionary John Gotlieb Ernestus Heckewelder’s AN ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS, OF THE INDIAN NATIONS, WHO ONCE INHABITED PENNSYLVANIA AND THE NEIGHBOURING STATES, which although published in 1819 had never been made extensively available (and Heckewelder had died in 1823). Buchanan had been

assisted in its preparation by Samuel Farmar Jarvis. Its material on Indian languages included a chapter by Peter Stephen DuPonceau. Henry David Thoreau would have a copy of this in his personal library. The Concord Free Public Library now has, under accession number 14003, a copy from Bronson Alcott’s library (rebound in green cloth), that was in 1878 presented to the library by Louisa May Alcott (raising a possibility that Thoreau’s volume had been inherited by Alcott in 1862). FOR THEIR MELIORATION

James Buchanan, H.B.M. Consul, was the long-term Elder of the New-York congregation of Scotch Baptists. The young Henry James, Sr., a follower of the thought of Sandeman, Walker, and Buchanan, had enlisted in this sect. To understand his faith, consult James Buchanan’s 1845 THE ORDER TO BE OBSERVED IN A CHURCH OF GOD (London: Jones and Dublin: Carson). Buchanan was a true believer in unrestrained capitalism: market regulation was always mistaken. Here is THE FATHER, by Alfred Habegger: James’s new congregation was headed by James Buchanan — not the future President but rather Her Majesty’s consul in New York. For two decades this man had not only represented the mother country in business and diplomatic affairs but also functioned as the crucial link between radical congregational separatists in Britain and America. If the tiny Anglo-American movement to restore the primitive church had a pope, it must have been Buchanan, who was nearing the end of a remarkable life by the time young James came within his reach. Starting out in northern Ireland thirty years earlier, he had established a pioneering breakaway congregation and a large nonsectarian school for both 13. It is clear that there was no close relation between this James Buchanan, Esq., a British official out of Ireland, and the future American president also named James Buchanan. He had been born on February 1, 1772 at Strathroy, Omagh, in County Tyrone of Ireland, had gotten married on December 24, 1798 with Elizabeth Clarke, served as the British Consul in New York from 1816 into 1844, and would die on October 10, 1851. Most of his children settled in Canada. In his will he would mention a “silver dirk, which it is alleged, has been about four hundred years in the family,” bequeathing this thingie that had been lying around to his son Robert Buchanan (perhaps so that it would be lying around in the family for yet another four hundred years). HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Protestant and Catholic children. In some respects, his vision was similar to that of the early Reformation Anabaptists and Mennonites: he advocated passive obedience of one’s king, adult baptism, and a believers’ church modeled on the New Testament reports of the earliest Christian gatherings. “I close my labors,” he wrote in old age, “by calling on all to come out from every system of worship in which the authority of Man in any manner, or way, has place.” He opposed all forms of coercion in religion, he favored Catholic emancipation in Britain, and he denounced the “separation of castes” in “the slave-holding states of America.” But Buchanan was no leveler: he aligned himself with big-money interests, extolled New York State’s liberal banking laws, and argued against every kind of restrictive governmental intervention in the economy. He was a free-market missionary who proclaimed “the principle of free agency and self-dependence,” and yet he was a Tory who spoke out against democracy, universal suffrage, education of the lower classes, the weakening of parental authority. Proud of his own virility, he boasted of having fathered seventeen children. He recommended that seduced women be transported to asylums in distant colonies. Self-taught, opinionated, and armed with a remedy for every evil, Her Majesty’s consul now took on the additional task of regulating young Henry James. Meeting at 183 Canal Street, Buchanan’s congregation sanctioned only those practices that were explicitly ordained by New Testament precedent. Every prayer had to be on those “subjects mentioned by the apostles.” Because Christ did not die for those who depend on their own good deeds, there were no rules requiring members “to believe they must abstain from Balls, Theatres, and gross violations of rules of morality” before taking Communion. (The Sandemanians’ tolerant view of the stage helps explain why James, breaking with the custom of his class, took his children to numerous plays in the late 1840s and early 1850s.) Every worship service included a collection designed to transfer money from rich to poor members. Instead of a sermon, there was an “exhortation and teaching.” Any brother who had a gift to speak was encouraged to do so, always remembering to be plain and simple and avoid “the sermonizing, logic, and display of learning, by which so many [clergymen] get their living.” An ordinary municipal guidebook from 1839, NEW-YORK A S I T I S, vividly captures the marginality of James’s new fellowship. In the long section that lists Manhattan’s many churches, the Presbyterians proudly lead off with thirty-four congregation. They are the dominant sect, followed by the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Baptists, and so forth. Finally, there is a catch-all category, “Miscellaneous,” which includes a New Jerusalem Church and a Floating Bethel. At the absolute end of the list of Gotham’s houses of worship comes James’s church — “Primitive Christians, 183 Canal, Mr. Buchanan.” Other congregations were led by a man with a “Rev.” in front of his name. The son of William and Catherine James had traveled very far from his childhood moorings. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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So, how did this British author recommend that the ascendant white man “meliorate” the lot of the remaining native American tribalists? His grand concept was that the crown should set aside a 4,000,000-acre tract of land in the Lake Huron/Lake Simcoe region as a single massive race-asylum for all redskins regardless of tribal affiliation, and grant to the firm but benign administrators of this Royal Asylum all funding already allocated for all such purposes. The charter of the white men in charge of this asylum was to emphasize that “It is above all things necessary to lead the Indians to a sense of Christianity.” Sarcastically, it would seem to me that if the motto of Auschwitz would be ARBEIT MACH FREI, the motto of this woodland concentration camp might parse as BE A CHRISTIAN BUT DON’T TRY TO LEAVE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1829

By this point Minot Pratt was at work as a printer in Boston. He and his bride were married by the Reverend Waldo Emerson at his 2d Unitarian Church on Hanover Street in the North End — quite possibly this was the first couple which Emerson united in matrimony.14

14. They would have three sons, one of whom, John Bridge Pratt, would become an insurance man and marry an Alcott daughter, Anna Bronson Alcott. Their two grandsons by John and Anna, or “Meg,” were thus the little men of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE MEN, named “John Brooke” and “Thomas Bangs” in the book [need to verify this] and Frederick Alcott Pratt and John Sewall Pratt in real life. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1830

Professor Robert Hamilton1 of Marischal College and University’s posthumous THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY analyzed economic principles by tracing their origin and position in the development of social life. TWO OR THREE ROBERT HAMILTONS

The 4th series of Sir Walter Scott’s TALES OF A GRANDFATHER and the 2d volume of his HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. In New-York, his LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT ADDRESSED TO J.G. [JOHN GIBSON] LOCKHART (Illustrated by George Cruikshank; Harper’s Family Library; J. & J. Harper). LETTERS ON DEMON...

In two years the author had paid off nearly £40,000 of his publisher’s debt. He had a fainting fit. By a couple of years after Scott’s death in 1832, nearly £90,000 had been paid off by income including that from a LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT written by his son-in-law Lockhart. The remainder would be paid off by copyright income over the next 14 years. In this year also, his play “The Doom of Devergoil.” ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE

From the 2nd act of this white delight, a snippet of tribalist tunefulness would eventually be added by Louisa HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT May Alcott which would prove useful to young folks tussling on the living-room couch:

“I’d rather stay here, thank you.” “Well, you can’t, there isn’t room. Go and make yourself useful, since you are too big to be ornamental. I thought you hated to be tied to a woman’s apron-string?” retorted Jo, quoting certain rebellious words of his own. “Ah, that depends on who wears the apron!” and Laurie gave an audacious tweak at the tassel. “Are you going?” demanded Jo, diving for the pillow. He fled at once, and the minute it was well ‘Up with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee,’ she slipped away to return no more till the young gentleman departed in high dudgeon.

In New England, Joseph Palmer, a bearded man who later in this chronology will show up as one of the steady mainstays of Fruitlands, spent a year in jail rather than pay a fine a Massachusetts judge had imposed. The

historical record has it that this fine was imposed because, as a bearded man, he had resisted when a group of outraged Massachusetts citizens who had lain in wait for him had begun forcibly to shave him. Palmer was being cursed by many of his contemporaries as “Old Jew.” This could in no way have been a compliment, for there must have been anti-Semitism about despite the fact that there were exceedingly few Jews in New England during this period of its history. The character that Louisa May Alcott would shape on the basis of Palmer (she actually wasn’t born yet, in this year), she would designate as Moses. Joseph Palmer would be buried in Leominster and his monument would bear the legend

Persecuted for Wearing the Beard

Do you believe the historical legend, or do you suspect as I do that there was something involved in Palmer’s harassment in addition to the way he chose to wear his hair, something that caused first a vigilante action by his neighbors and then the legal support of this vigilante action, imprisonment when he was unwilling to submit to the warning he had received? Could Palmer have been a “barbe”?15

15. And, is there any historical relationship between this Joseph Palmer and the Joseph Palmer who would in 1864 publish the book of Harvard alumni obituaries in which Thoreau’s obituary would appear as one entry? HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1832

November 29, Thursday: Adolf von Henselt made his official public debut in München, to great success.

Francisco Cea Bermudez replaced Jose Cafranga Costilla as First Secretary of State of Spain.

The 2d Alcott daughter, Louisa May Alcott, was born to Abba Alcott in the Germantown suburb of Philadelphia, on her father Bronson Alcott’s birthday.

NOTE: May = Maies = Mayes, probably of Portuguese Jewish origin. This infant inherited the dark eyes and hair, and swarthy vivacious Mediterranean look, of this branch of the family through her mother, who was also dark complected:

Anna is an Alcott. Louisa is a true blue May, or rather brown.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

At some point during this month, the father wrote into his journal some remarks on family: From the great experience of domestic life which has been mine, I have derived much enjoyment, finding in the ties thus originated the necessary connexions with sympathetic existence from which my abstract habits incline me too strongly, perhaps, to escape. A family, while it turns the mind toward the tangible and practical, supplies at the same time fresh stimulus for the social and spiritual principle; it brings around the soul those elements from whose presence and influence it is fitted to advance its onward progress, and opens within the sweetest affection and purest purposes. The human being isolates itself from the supplies of Providence for the happiness and renovation of its like, unless those ties which connect it with others are formed. The wants of the Soul become morbid, and all its truth and primal affections are dimmed and perverted. Nature becomes encrusted over with earth and surrounded by monotony and ennui. Few can be happy shut out from the Nursery of the Soul.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

Louisa May Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1833

April: The Alcott family moved from their Germantown suburb to central Philadelphia.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

December 4, Wednesday: The Calculational Engine project had soaked up to date some £17,000 in tax revenues, a truly enormous sum of money, and there was nothing whatever to show for it. Charles Babbage ordered his contractor Joseph Clement, as preparations for removal of the engine were completed: To move all parts of the engine except the large platform for the calculating end and the large columns; all the drawings, (the 27 still attached to drawing boards were not be taken off them, the contractor was to include cost of the boards if necessary); all the rough sketches, small notebook on contrivances determined upon and the several loose sheets of mechanical notations of the Calculational Engine; and all the patterns from which castings had been made and thus were no longer required. He was to oil and pack all steel parts to avoid rust, and list the parts remaining at his workshop that were the property of the Government (these materials would be removed in 1843 to King’s College, London).

In Philadelphia, a group of black and white male abolitionists organized the American Anti-Slavery Society and Arthur Tappan became its 1st president. The Reverend Samuel Joseph May attended, and William Lloyd Garrison, and also Friend John Greenleaf Whittier, Lewis Tappan and Arthur Tappan, Friends James and Lucretia Mott, etc. Of the about 60 people in attendance only 21 were members of the Religious Society of Friends, because conservative Quakers would have been keeping their distance from all involvement in outside organizations, even those such as this one whose aims they generally greatly respected. The Reverend Daniel Starr Southmayd, not of Concord but “of Lowell, Massachusetts,” was a delegate. On the last day of the meeting, the new society urged that white females should also set up their own auxiliary anti-slavery societies. In that period the claim was being made, that True Womanhood would restrict itself to the home, and this claim was being hotly contested by women who would insist that the True Woman was merely following her natural True Womanly inclination, in seeking to succor the defenseless in such institutions as the Samaritan Asylum for Indigent Colored Children in Boston.

As wives and mothers, as sisters and daughters, we are bound to urge men to cease to do evil.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Louisa May Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT There were three blacks present, including a Philadelphia barber and dentist named James McCrummill and the well-to-do Robert Purvis of Philadelphia — who although he appeared white:

was known locally to be actually not a white man at all.16 Purvis signed the Declaration of Sentiments.

(Notice that although white men of this period generally feared social contamination by inferior blacks, even an intimate touching, as by a barber, could be permissible, as depicted here in a Virginia barbershop — so long as the relationship was one clearly marked as an intransitive one, between a superior or customer and an inferior or servant.)

16. This would be by way of contrast with Senator Daniel Webster, who was so dark-complected that once he was actually turned away by a commercial establishment that imagined it was dealing with a black American, but who was generally known to be, actually, a white man through and through. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT There were two or three Unitarians. At one point during the convention a young man at the door was speaking of his desire to dip his hand in Garrison’s blood but the Philadelphia police, rather than take such a person into detention, warned the convention organizers that the path of discretion would be for them to meet only during hours of daylight.

Garrison authored the broadside “Declaration of Sentiments” of the meeting (Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention), which under an image of Samson strangling the lion included a renunciation of “the use of carnal weapons” and a declaration that “doing evil that good may come” represented the antithesis of Christian ethics. At one point Friend Lucretia Mott rose to suggest from the back of the room that in the draft of this resolution, the mention of God be placed before rather than after the mention of the Declaration of Independence. As a woman and a non-delegate she spoke with such diffidence that the chairman had to encourage her. This could very well have been the 1st time that many in the room had heard a woman speak in a public meeting.17

After silence in the Quaker manner, it was time for the actual delegates, that is, the menfolk, to file forward and affix their signatures to the declaration — this would be the signature that Whittier would later say he was more proud of, than of his signature on the title page of any of his books.

The broadside manifesto “Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention Assembled in Philadelphia, December 4, 1833,” as so nicely illustrated by Rueben S. Gilbert of Merrihew & Gunn (his work excerpted above), announced the reasons for formation of the society and enumerated its goals:

17. As a woman she would not of course have been officially a delegate to this convention, but a mere spectator accompanying her spouse. Of course no-one thought of the idea of having women as delegates, let alone to solicit the signatures of women, nor is it likely that any of the women even contemplated the possibility of a woman’s adding her own signature Such things were not just unheard-of, in this period, but also, very clearly, they went unthought as well. For a woman to have sported a signature would have been like for a woman to have sported a beard. During this month Abba Alcott, pregnant wife of Bronson Alcott and mother of an infant author-to-be Louisa May Alcott, was helping Lucretia Mott form the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society Whereas the Most High God “hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and hath commanded them to love their neighbors as themselves; and whereas, our National Existence is based upon this principle, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, “that all mankind are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and whereas, after the lapse of nearly sixty years, since the faith and honor of the American people were pledged to this avowal, before Almighty God and the World, nearly one-sixth part of the nation are held in bondage by their fellow-citizens; and whereas, Slavery is contrary to the principles of natural justice, of our republican form of government, and of the Christian religion, and is destructive of the prosperity of the country, while it is endangering the peace, union, and liberties of the States; and whereas, we believe it the duty and interest of the masters immediately to emancipate their slaves, and that no scheme of expatriation, either voluntary or by compulsion, can remove this great and increasing evil; and whereas, we believe that it is practicable, by appeals to the consciences, hearts, and interests of the people, to awaken a public sentiment throughout the nation that will be opposed to the continuance of Slavery in any part of the Republic, and by effecting the speedy abolition of Slavery, prevent a general convulsion; and whereas, we believe we owe it to the oppressed, to our fellow-citizens who hold slaves, to our whole country, to posterity, and to God, to do all that is lawfully in our power to bring about the extinction of Slavery, we do hereby agree, with a prayerful reliance on the Divine aid, to form ourselves into a society, to be governed by the following Constitution: — ARTICLE I. — This Society shall be called the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. ARTICLE II. — The objects of this Society are the entire abolition of Slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State, in which Slavery exists, has, by the Constitution of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition in said State, it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed to their understandings and consciences, that Slaveholding is a heinous crime in the sight of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interests of all concerned, require its immediate abandonment, without expatriation. The Society will also endeavor, in a constitutional way, to influence Congress to put an end to the domestic Slave trade, and to abolish Slavery in all those portions of our common country which come under its control, especially in the District of Columbia, -- and likewise to prevent the extension of it to any State that may be hereafter admitted to the Union. ARTICLE III. — This Society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice, that thus they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges; but this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. ARTICLE IV. — Any person who consents to the principles of this Constitution, who contributes to the funds of this Society, and is not a Slaveholder, may be a member of this Society, and shall be entitled to vote at the meetings.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1834

September: By this date Boston Common was completely ringed in with elms. The toddler Louisa May Alcott almost drowned in the frog pond.18 TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

18. Or did this happen in the summer of 1835? HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1838

Louisa May Alcott, about age 5, who had already while a toddler almost drowned in the Boston frogpond, wandered away from home and was found late in the evening by a town crier, huddled on a doorstep in Bedford Street. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

Fall: The Alcotts moved to Number 6, Beach Street in Boston and gave up renting the basement of the Masonic Temple for their schoolroom. The few remaining pupils, which of course included the Alcott girls, would now be educated in their home. There were still nearly 20 students, but they were paying only $6.00 to $12.00 per quarter. The family income had dropped to less than $500.00 per year. Abba Alcott was pregnant for the seventh time, with the baby due in the summertime. Bronson Alcott began to supplement his income by giving evening “conversations,” often for less than $1.00 per evening. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Louisa May Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1839

Louisa May Alcott, age 6 and all arms and legs in beautiful downtown Boston, was such an active child that she would roll her hoop all the way around the Boston Common (as a teenager she would be able to hike 20 miles in 5 hours and then party).

MAPS OF BOSTON George W. Boynton engraved, for Nathaniel Dearborn, an 18 inch by 17 inch plan of Boston similar to the Alonzo Lewis map of 1835.19

The Railway Express Company was founded in Boston.

The restaurant proprietor Harvey D. Parker got married. Just as we have no idea as to his middle name, we do not know the name or family of his bride (there would not be surviving children of this union, and in the obituary the wealthy widow would be identified merely as “Mrs. Harvey D. Parker”).

19. This would be annually reissued by E.P. Dutton & Co., with alterations, from 1860 to 1867. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT June: Bronson Alcott admitted the child Susan20 Robinson to the shrunken “School of Human Culture” in his home at 6 Beach Street in Boston, a school which since it had been forced to relocate to the basement no longer looked anything like this:

A few weeks afterward the school was visited by Dr. John Flint, as the representative of a group of parents.

My patrons, through Dr. John Flint, urge the dismissal of the Robinson Child. I decline....

Bronson had got his tit in the ringer and couldn’t get it out. Susan Robinson was black, or at least a very little bit black, and yet she had feelings, and this sensitive man simply could not steele himself to tell her she couldn’t come to school now, couldn’t learn any more, couldn’t associate with her schoolmates any more, because she was not as white — because her friends were really really white. This painfully honest man also couldn’t bear to leave it to another person to break the news to her. “You aren’t good to be with, because you are what you are.” It was the unthinkable crime.

Immediately almost all the children, except the Alcott girls and Susan Robinson and William Russell’s boy, were withdrawn by their parents, and the school Bronson had founded in 1834 became defunct. Sex education in the schools might be an idea whose time would come. Apostasy about the human origins of Christ might be winked at by the worldly wise. Amalgamation could not, however, be tolerated. To be a colored child was to be the bearer of manifold unnameable contaminations.

To help Bronson Alcott recover from the Temple School disaster, the Alcotts would visit the Mays in South Scituate.

20. Interestingly, the only way we know that the name of this child was Susan is, that 8-year-old Anna wrote it in her diary. She was not old enough to know that to history, a person who is not white is merely another nameless instance of the type “colored people.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT This experience would later show up in Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN, at the end of which Mrs. Jo

March Bhaer and Professor Fritz Bhaer are running a boarding school for boys in their large suburban home “Plumfield” and are including one token “small quadroon” child (who was musically inclined, we notice), in this melting pot.21 Here I suppose the author to be conflating her father Bronson’s upper room “Temple School” at the Tremont Temple in Boston with the school run by the Professor and Mrs. Agassiz in Cambridge, because I suppose that latter school would have been an unlikely venue for integration in the light of the manifest ingrained racism of the father of that family. It would be of great interest here, if anyone could turn up any evidence that any such gesture had been made toward integration of that later Cambridge school, of associating an unnamed small charge with the defect of having had a black grandparent with larger defective white charges described as “slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones” including a “pale lad, who sat adoring her with his little crutch beside him,” etc., for such evidence would generate the most serious scholarly reappraisal of the defective character of

21. A quadroon has three white grandparents and one black, that is, for the moment to tolerate this method of calculation, it is “one quarter black and three quarters white.” By way of contrast, in our modern era the modal person who self-identifies as black in the United States of America tests, genetically, roughly a third to a half similar to the general African genepool and roughly a half to two-thirds similar to the general European genepool. In this arena, cultural perceptions and self-identifications and genetic tests seldom match up with one another, and the general rule of accommodation seems to be that we should just ask people to self-identify as they please — and then align ourselves with whatever that happens to be. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Professor Louis Agassiz of Harvard College.

It never was a fashionable school, and the Professor did not lay up a fortune; but it was just what Jo intended it to be, — ‘a happy, home-like place for boys, who needed teaching, care, and kindness.’ Every room in the big house was soon full; every little plot in the garden soon had its owner; a regular menagerie appeared in barn and shed, — for pet animals were allowed, — and, three times a day, Jo smiled at her Fritz from the head of a long table lined on either side with rows of happy young faces, which all turned to her with affectionate eyes, confiding words, and grateful hearts, full of love for ‘Mother Bhaer.’ She had boys enough now, and did not tire of them, though they were not angels by any means, and some of them caused both Professor and Professorin much trouble and anxiety. But her faith in the good spot which exists in the heart of the naughtiest, sauciest, most tantalizing little ragamuffin gave her patience, skill, and, in time, success, — for no mortal boy could hold out long with Father Bhaer shining on him as benevolently as the sun, and Mother Bhaer forgiving him seventy times seven. Very precious to Jo was the friendship of the lads, their penitent sniffs and whispers after wrongdoing, their droll or touching little confidences, their pleasant enthusiasms, hopes, and plans; even their misfortunes, — for they only endeared them to her all the more. There were slow boys and bashful boys, feeble boys and riotous boys, boys that lisped and boys that stuttered, one or two lame ones, and a merry little quadroon, who could not be taken in elsewhere, but who was welcome to the Bhaer-garten, though some people predicted that his admission would ruin the school. … [T]he Professor suddenly began to sing. Then, from above him, voice after voice took up the words, and from tree to tree echoed the music of the unseen choir, as the boys sang, with all their hearts, the little song Jo had written, Laurie set to music, and the Professor trained his lads to give with the best effect. This was something altogether new, and it proved a grand success: for Mrs. March couldn’t get over her surprise, and insisted on shaking hands with every one of the featherless birds, from tall Franz and Emil to the little quadroon, who had the sweetest voice of all.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Louisa May Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1840

March: The Alcott family moved out of Boston after the collapse of Bronson Alcott’s Temple School, and Louisa May Alcott was enrolled in the Concord Academy of the Thoreau brothers.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

Louisa May Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April 1, Wednesday: The Liberty Party met in Albany to nominate James Gillespie Birney of New York and Thomas Earle of Pennsylvania for president and vice-president. Rochester’s Myron Holley was one of the party’s organizers.

With the encouragement of Waldo Emerson and with him at least initially paying the rent for them, the Alcotts moved into an unoccupied tenant cottage on the estate of Edmund Hosmer in Concord, in order to have the company of the Emersons and to try if they could not “dig Bread from the bosom of the earth” while Bronson Alcott went around offering his dollar evening conversations.

Dove Cottage was brown, was a warren of tiny rooms, one story in front and two in the rear, surrounded by sheds and barns (since this was before 1853, it would be #66 at G9 on the Gleason map, at the end of the green HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT arrow below):

3 It came with 1 /4 acres of land, enough for a large garden to feed a 9-year-old girl, Anna Alcott, a 7-year-old girl, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and an almost 5-year-old girl, Louisa May Alcott, and give them plenty of things to do even while their father was being too good for this world. The cottage would get even tighter when, in 1842, the two English mystics, Henry Gardiner Wright and Charles Lane, would move in, with Charles Lane’s son. This April 1st, Abba Alcott was five months pregnant and it was still winter:

The trees, encrusted with ice wore a most fantastic and fairy-like appearance; nothing has escaped their notice and admiration. the river, everything is an occasion of joy.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Abby May Alcott would be born there on July 26th. For the first time the girls would be attending a school not taught by their own father, for Bronson was working long days putting in a garden and otherwise fixing up this old tenant structure.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Louisa May Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April 1, Wednesday: For the first time the Alcott girls began to attend a school not taught by their own father. Anna Alcott was a student, probably a scholarship student, of John Thoreau, Jr. and Henry David Thoreau at Concord Academy, while Elizabeth Sewall Alcott and Louisa May Alcott were at the kinder-school run by Mary Russell in the Emerson home. We have a record of this period from a 10-year-old new student that summer who was John Junior’s student rather than Henry’s, Horace Rice Hosmer. Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson described Horace as a child who “craved affection.” As a grown-up, Horace would inform Dr. Emerson that

Henry was not loved in the school. He had his scholars upstairs. I was with John only. John was the more human, loving; understood and thought of others. Henry thought more about himself. He was a conscientious teacher, but rigid. He would not take a man’s money for nothing: if a boy were sent to him, he could make him do all he could. No, he was not disagreeable. I learned to understand him later. I think that he was then in the green-apple stage.

Another pupil was Thomas Hosmer of Bedford, who would grow up to be a dentist in Boston, but who at the time was walking to Concord for classes with another Bedford boy, B.W. Lee, who would later relocate to Newport, Vermont. Thomas Hosmer wrote Dr. Emerson to relate of Thoreau that:

I have seen children catch him by the hand, as he was going home from school, to walk with him and hear more.

One of the outings the class had this spring was a walk to Fairhaven Hill, where they did a survey of the hill and the adjacent shoreline of the river. A student’s comment on this field-work with surveying instruments was that of the brothers, Henry was the more active during the surveying. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT October 12, Tuesday: The combined British detachment that had ventured out from the relative safety of the metropolis, Cabul, Afghanistan, by this morning had become large enough to transit the pass of Khoord-Cabul, and this was effected with some loss due to long range sniper fire down from the rocks at the sides of the defile. The force then set up a defensive camp perimeter on the far side of the defile at Khoord-Cabul and the 13th light infantry again subjected itself to losses due to its exposure to this unrelenting rifle fire, by returning through the pass to its defensive camp perimeter at Bootkhak. For some nights the camps would repel attacks, “that on the 35th native infantry being peculiarly disastrous, from the treachery of the Affghan horse, who admitted the enemy within their lines, by which our troops were exposed to a fire from the least suspected quarter. Many of our gallant sepoys, and Lieutenant Jenkins, thus met their death.”22

Frederick Douglass addressed the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society at the Universalist meetinghouse in Concord.

We very much need to know who was in town at the time, and who did and who did not attend this meeting: • Bronson Alcott ? • Abba Alcott ? • Anna Bronson Alcott ? • Louisa May Alcott (8 years old)? • Phineas Allen ? • Perez Blood ? • Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks ? • Squire Nathan Brooks ? 22. Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). THE MILITARY OPERATIONS AT CABUL: WHICH ENDED IN THE RETREAT AND DESTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY, JANUARY 1842, WITH A JOURNAL OF IMPRISONMENT IN AFFGHANISTAN. Philadelphia PA: Carey and Hart, 1843; London: J. Murray, 1843 (three editions); Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). PRISON SKETCHES: COMPRISING PORTRAITS OF THE CABUL PRISONERS AND OTHER SUBJECTS; ADAPTED FOR BINDING UP WITH THE JOURNALS OF LIEUT. V. EYRE, AND LADY SALE; LITHOGRAPHED BY LOWES DICKINSON. London: Dickinson and Son, [1843?] HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT • Caroline Downes Brooks ? • George Merrick Brooks ? • Deacon Simon Brown ? •Mrs. Lidian Emerson ? • Waldo Emerson ? • Reverend Barzillai Frost ? • Margaret Fuller ? • William Lloyd Garrison ? • Nathaniel Hawthorne ? • Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar ? • Edward Sherman Hoar ? • Senator George Frisbie Hoar ? • Elizabeth Sherman Hoar ? • Squire Samuel Hoar ? •Dr. Edward Jarvis ? • Deacon Francis Jarvis ? • John Shepard Keyes, Judge John Shepard Keyes ? • John M. Keyes ? • Reverend George Ripley ? • Mrs. Sophia Dana Ripley ? • Reverend Samuel Ripley ? • Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley ? • Lemuel Shattuck ? • Daniel Shattuck ? • Sheriff Sam Staples ? • Henry David Thoreau ? • John Thoreau, Senior ? • Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau ? • John Thoreau, Jr. ? • Helen Louisa Thoreau ? • Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau ? • Aunt Maria Thoreau ? • Aunt Jane Thoreau ? • Alek Therien ? • Miss Prudence Ward ? HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1842

January 27, Thursday: Wallie Emerson, Waldo Jr., died at 8:15PM of scarlet fever.

When one of the girls of the Alcott family came to the door to ask how little Wallie was doing, his father faced her there.

Child, he is dead. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT The next day Waldo Emerson entered in his journal:

Yesterday night at 15 minutes after eight my little Waldo ended his life.

On Sunday I carried him to see the new church & organ. & on Sunday we shall lay his sweet body in the ground. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT And thus from the pages of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN:

… It was late when she came back, and no one saw her creep upstairs and shut herself into her mother’s room. Half an hour after, Jo went to ‘Mother’s closet’ for something, and there found little Beth sitting on the medicine chest, looking very grave, with red eyes and a camphor bottle in her hand. “Christopher Columbus! What’s the matter?” cried Jo, as Beth put out her hand as if to warn her off, and asked quickly,— “You’ve had scarlet fever, haven’t you?” “Years ago, when Meg did. Why?”

WALLIE “Then I’ll tell you — oh, Jo, the baby’s dead!”

It had been just prior to this difficult month of January 1842 that Emerson had read his lecture “THE TRANSCENDENTALIST” at the Masonic Hall in Boston: “The Transcendentalist”

Mind is the only reality, of which men and all other natures are better or worse reflectors.

Approaching a lamentable 20th anniversary that would fall due on January 17, 1862, Waldo Emerson would reminisce about a bluebird box that had been put up on his barn by John Thoreau, Jr. [Eastern Bluebird Sialia sialis], and a Daguerreotype that had been made of his son who would so soon be deceased:

Long ago I wrote of “Gifts,” & neglected a capital example. John Thoreau Jr. one day put up a bluebird’s box on my barn fifteen years ago, it must be — and there it is still with every summer a melodious family in it, adorning the place, & singing his praises. There’s a gift for you which cost the giver no money, but nothing he could have bought would be so good. I think of another quite inestimable. John Thoreau, Junior, knew how much I should value a head of little Waldo, then five years old. He came to me, & offered to carry him to a daguerreotypist who was then in town, & he, Thoreau, would see it well done. He did it, & brought me the daguerre which I thankfully paid for. In a few months after, my boy died, and I have ever since had deeply to thank John Thoreau for that wise & gentle piece of friendship. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Christmas Eve: Abba Alcott unexpectedly left her family, taking little Louisa May Alcott and little William Lane. She turned up at the home of her relatives in Boston:

Left Concord to try the influence of a short absence from home. My duties for the past three months have been arduous and involved. I hope the experiment will not bereave me of my mind. The enduring powers of the body have been well tried. The mind yields, falters and fails.... They all seem most stupidly obtuse on the causes of this occasional prostration of my judgement and faculties. I hope the solution of the problem will not be revealed to them too late for my recovery or their atonement of this invasion of my rights as a woman and a mother. Give me one day of practical philosophy. It is worth a century of speculation.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

Christmas Day: A battle in Mier between Texan raiders and Mexican defenders cost the lives of 600 Mexicans and 30 Texans. Unaware of these relative losses, the Texans surrendered.

That evening, in Boston, Abba Alcott took little Louisa May Alcott and little William Lane to see the lighting of the Christkindelbaum.

Louisa May Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1843

Volume I of John Ruskin’s MODERN PAINTERS defended the paintings of J.M.W. Turner (Thoreau would not read Ruskin’s MODERN PAINTERS until October 1857).

J.M.W. Turner’s “Approach to Venice” appeared.

Benjamin Robert Haydon’s “Curtius Leaping into the Gulf” depiction of the self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius,23 “Uriel and Satan,” and “Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society” (now in the National Portrait Gallery).

Thomas Cole’s second version of his “Voyage of Life” series of paintings depicting life as a journey through space was placed on display in Boston, in New-York, and in Philadelphia. (It would then be purchased by George K. Shoenberger of Cincinnati, Ohio. After his mansion would be converted into a sanitarium and become part of Bethesda Hospital, this series of paintings would be rediscovered hanging in the chapel of the hospital and would, in 1971, be transferred to the National Gallery of Art.)

The board game “The Mansion of Happiness” was developed by S.B. Ives of Salem, Massachusetts: landing on a space designated for “Charity,” “Industry,” or other desirable traits would speed players up a spiral track toward eternal happiness while landing on the spaces marked for vices such as “Sloth,” “Cruelty,” and ingratitude would send them tumbling backward.

This would be played by the girls of the Alcott family.

23. According to Titus Livius, in 362 BCE a chasm opened in Rome. After attempting to deal with this through the offering of various sort of votive sacrifices, the people came to suspect that the chasm would close only if they put into it their “most precious thing of all.” Marcus Curtius, a young eques, understanding correctly that this most precious thing could only be the courage and strength of the Roman soldier, mounted his horse and, wearing all his weapons, rode into the chasm — which obediently closed upon him. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT A convention on “free religions” was held at the Chardon Street Chapel in Boston. This series of meetings, The “Chardon Street Convention,” was attended by members of a “Providence Movement” of mystic anarchists led by the wealthy philanthropist Thomas Davis of Providence, Rhode Island among others. Bronson Alcott was one of the principal speakers. The Providence group invited him to come down and live at “Holly Home” and be their mentor — but he declined.

This Providence Movement was publishing a magazine called The Plain Speaker, and their principal writer, Christopher A. Greene, was declaring against the institution of private property:

Everything that is belongs to Humanity. What a man wants belongs to him to use.... And what I have in possession I hold not as mine, but as Man’s or God’s.... The noblest man is he who works and with his own hands ministers to his wants —the greatest he who discards wealth and aspires to poverty —the truest he who obeys the conviction of his soul.

One of this Providence Movement’s members, Samuel Larned, would be won away during this year by Bronson Alcott.

Alcott’s 2nd youthful convert at Fruitlands, after Larned, would be Wood Abram who preferred to be known as Abram Wood. This silent young man may have come to Fruitlands from Concord, and may have 24 been a friend of Henry Thoreau’s. He is described in Louisa May Alcott’s TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS

24. We know of a James Barrett Wood for whom Thoreau surveyed a woodlot near the copper mines in southern Carlisle on November 30, 1850 and of a James Wood, Jr. with whom Thoreau had a conversation on January 13, 1852 and of an Elijah Wood (“... Elijah Wood / I fear for no good ...”) who was the employer of Michael Flannery in 1853. Had this Abram Wood been the son or relative of one of these? HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT as being “dark and melancholy.”

Christopher A. Greene and Sarah Chace Greene left “Holly Home” north of Providence, Rhode Island to begin a school in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, where there would develop some sort of problem: “after a tedious 3 months of vexations thought and trial, we left them -- left them to enjoy their selfishness and their passion as best they might.”

Charles Lane’s THE LAW AND METHOD IN SPIRIT-CULTURE; AN INTERPRETATION OF A. BRONSON ALCOTT’S IDEA AND PRACTICE AT THE MASONIC TEMPLE, BOSTON (Boston MA: James Munroe and Company; London: J. Green, 1843).

January: Charles Dickens began to issue the serial episodes of MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, which has a midwife character with a lurid imagination (“Sairy Gamp,” the name assigned to this character, would become one of Louisa May Alcott’s family nicknames).

“I now propose a toast, as my ‘friend and pardner, Sairy Gamp,’ says. Fun forever, and no grubbage!” cried Jo, rising, glass in hand, as the lemonade went round. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT June 1 (Pentecost Thursday): Joseph Smith, Jr. “got married with” Elvira Anie Cowles.

Go East, 46-year-old black woman, go East: Isabella25 experienced a command to “go east” and testify, adopted the monicker Sojourner Truth, and departed New-York with but an hour’s notice, with two York shillings in her pocket, carrying her worldly belongings in a pillowcase, to move on foot through Long Island and Connecticut, testifying to whatever audiences she was able to attract. –It is the life of a wandering evangelist, is mine. In the course of attending Millerite meetings to testify, she would accommodate to a number of the apocalyptic tenets of that group.

As Louisa May Alcott has reported in later life, on this same day quite another journey was taking place:

On the first day of June, 1843, a large wagon, drawn by a small horse and containing a motley load, went lumbering over certain New England hills, with the pleasing accompaniments of wind, rain and hail. A serene man with a serene child upon his knee was driving, or rather being driven, for the small horse had it all his own way. Behind a small boy, embracing a bust of Socrates, was an energetic looking woman, with a benevolent brow, satirical mouth and eyes full of hope and courage. A baby reposed upon her lap, a mirror leaned against her knee, a basket of provisions danced about her feet, and she struggled with a large, unruly umbrella, with which she tried to cover every one but herself. Twilight began to fall, and the rain came down in a despondent drizzle, but the calm man gazed as tranquilly into the fog as if he beheld a radiant bow of promise spanning the gray sky.

The Consociate Family of Bronson Alcott was on its way from Concord to “Fruitlands” on Prospect Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts, in the district then known politely as “Still River North” and impolitely as “Hog

25. Isabella Bomefree van Wagenen, “Bomefree” being the name of her first husband which by virtue of enslavement she had been denied, and “van Wagenen” being the name of the white family which she assumed and used for a number of years. (“Wagener” was a consistent misspelling perpetrated by the printer of the first version of her NARRATIVE in 1850.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Street,” with its prospect of Wachusett and Mount Monadnock and its prospect of “ideals without feet or

hands” (an apt phrase said to have been created by Waldo Emerson,26 who himself, if anyone ever metaphorically lacked them, metaphorically lacked feet and hands and other essential body parts), ideals such as “a family in harmony with the primitive instincts of man.” In her fictional account of the journey, Louisa May Alcott invented an additional child and placed it on her father’s knee, obviously where she would have wanted to be, and made it a “serene” child, what she never was but longed to be. The bust of Socrates actually rode between the father Bronson, who was holding the reins, and Charles Lane, on the wagon’s bench. There was no room in this wagon for William Lane or for Anna Alcott, who for all 14 miles of the journey had to walk alongside it.

At this point the Association of Industry and Education had 113 members, a large proportion of whom were children:

26. But we may note that in Bronson Alcott’s journal for Week 45 in November 1837, Alcott had himself termed himself “an Idea without hands.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

COMMUNITARIANISM Membership

April 1842 41 May 1842 65 End of 1842 83 June 1843 113 Winter 1844 120 Spring 1845 120

Having had enough after less than two months of attempting to teach almost entirely without teaching supplies and without adequate classroom space, Sophia Foord threatened to resign as teacher at the Association. (Promises would be made that would keep her teaching while efforts were made to convert a barn into classrooms, but the problem eventually would be resolved by the need of the community to use its children as a cheap source of incessant factory labor. After Miss Foord left Northampton, she became tutor to the children of the Chase family (Elizabeth Buffum Chace) of Valley Falls, Rhode Island; “she taught botany; she walked with the children over the fields … and made her pupils observe the geographical features of the pond and its banks, and carefully taught them to estimate distances by sight.”)

Railroad service to Concord began. Preliminary earthmoving crews, and then crossties and rails crews, had reached Concord at the rate of 33 feet per day, filling in Walden Pond’s south-west arm to give it its present shape. 1,000 Irishmen were earning $0.50 or $0.60 for bonebreaking 16-hour days of labor. Waldo Emerson was elated because he much preferred riding in the railroad coach to riding in the stage coach which offered a “ludicrous pathetic tragical picture” (his comment from April 15, 1834; I don’t know whether he meant that he felt that he presented a ludicrous pathetic tragical appearance while riding on the stage coach or that the view from the stage coach window presented him with a ludicrous pathetic tragical perspective). He found, however, that when a philosopher rides the railroad “Ideal Philosophy takes place at once” as “men & trees & barns whiz by you as fast as the leaves of a dictionary” and this helps in grasping the real impermanence of matter: “hitherto esteemed symbols of stability do absolutely dance by you” and we experience “the sensations of a swallow who skims by trees & bushes with about the same speed” (June 10, 1834). By this time, with the railroad actually in Concord, Emerson had decided that “Machinery & Transcendentalism agree well.”27

“[The railroad will] only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.” — Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

27. EMERSON’S JOURNALS AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS 4: 277, 4:296, 8:397. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

September 1, Friday: Little Louisa May Alcott jotted in her diary:

I rose at five and had my bath. I love cold water! Then we had our singing-lesson with Mr. Lane. After breakfast I washed dishes, and ran on the hill till nine, and had some thoughts, — it was so beautiful up there. Did my lessons, — wrote and spelt and did sums; and Mr. Lane read a story, “The Judicious Father”: how a rich girl told a poor girl not to look over the fence at the flowers, and was cross to her because she was unhappy. The father heard her do it, and made the girls change clothes. The poor one was glad to do it, and he told her to keep them. But the rich one was very sad for she had to wear the old ones a week, and after that she was good to shabby girls. I liked it very much, and I shall be kind to poor people. Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are. We had a long talk, and I felt better after it, and cleared up. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT September 24, Sunday: Little Louisa May Alcott jotted in her diary:

Father and Mr. Lane have gone to N.H. to preach. It was very lovely.... Anna and I got supper. In the eve I read “Vicar of Wakefield.” I was cross today, and I cried when I went to bed. I made good resolutions, and felt better in my heart. If I only kept all I make, I should be the best girl in the world. But I don’t, and so am very bad.

In a considerably later timeframe, the author of this would review what she had written as a child, and annotate it with the following:

Poor little sinner! She says the same at fifty.

September 24, Sunday: I hate museums, there is nothing so weighs upon the spirits. They are catacombs of nature. They are preserved death. One green bud of Spring one willow catkin, one faint trill from some migrating sparrow, might set the world on its legs again. The life that is in a single green weed is of more worth than all this death. They are dead nature collected by dead men. I know not whether I muse most at the bodies stuffed with cotton and sawdust — or those stuffed with bowels and fleshy fibre outside the cases. .... They are very much like the written history of the world — and I read Rollin and Ferguson28 with the same feeling

Henry Thoreau also jotted a note in his journal about Thomas Carew and Sir William Drummond:

28. Professor Adam Ferguson’s THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRESS AND TERMINATION OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (1783, new edition, Edinburgh, 1813; 5 volumes), which Thoreau had consulted extensively in 1836.

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, I THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, II THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, III THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, IV THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, V HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT They say that Carew was a laborious writer but his poems do not show it— They are finished but do not show the marks of the chisel.29 Drummond was indeed a quiddler — with little fire and fibre Rather a taste for poetry — than a taste of it

At an unknown point in his journal for 1842-1844 (and we might as well consider this material here since it is indeed autumn, and just about time for the annual cattle show), Thoreau also employed s couplet from Sir William Drummond to embellish some ruminations about the cattle in the street:

The low of cattle in the street sounds like a low symphony or running base to the hurry scurry of the leaves. The wind goes hurrying down the country, gleaning every loose straw that is left in the fields — while every farmers lad too seems to scud before it — having donned his best pea-jacket and pepper and salt waistcoat his (as yet) unbent trowsers — outstanding rigging of duck or kersymere, or corduroy — and his furry hat withal — to county fairs and Cattle-shows — to this Rome amid the villages where the treasures of the year are gathered.— All the land over they go leaping the fences with their tough idle palms which have not yet learned to hang by their sides, amid the low of calves and the bleating of sheep.— Amos — abner — Elnathan Elbridge “From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain.” I love these sons of earth — every mother’s son of them — with their great heavy hearts rushing tumultuously in herds — from spectacle to spectacle, as if fearful that there should not be time between sun and sun to see them all.— And the sun does not wait more than in haying time. “wise Nature’s darlings, they live in the world Perplexing not themselves how it is hurl’d.” They may bring their fattest cattle and their fairest fruits — but they are all eclipsed by the show of men. These are stirring autumn days. When men sweep by in crowds amid the rustle of leaves, like migrating finches— This is the true harvest of the year when the air is but the breath of men — and the rustling of leaves is as the trampling of the crowd. We read nowadays of the ancient festivals games and processions of the Greeks and Etruscans with a little incredulity –or at least want of sympathy– but now childlike — how natural and irrepressible must be in all people some hearty palpable greeting of nature. The Corybantes the Bachannals — the rude primitive tragedians with their procession and goat song and the whole paraphernalia of the Panathenaea — which seems so antiquated and peculiar are easily parralleled now. The husbandman is always a better Greek than the scholar is prepared to understand — and the old custom still survives while antiquarians & sholars grow grey in commemmorating it The farmers crowd to the fair today — in obedience to the same ancient law of the race — which Solon or Lycurgus did not enact — as naturally as bees swarm and follow their queen.— I love to see the herd of men feeding heartily on coarse succulent pleasures — as cattle feed on the husk and stalks of vegetables Many of them it is true are crooked and crabbed specimens of humanity, run all to thorn and rind and crowded out of shape by adverse circumstances like the third chestnut in the bur — yet fear not that the race will fail or waver in them — like the crabs which grow in hedges they furnish the stocks of sweet and thrifty fruits still— Thus is nature recruited from age to age while the fair and palatable varieties are dying out and have their period. This is that mankind. How cheap must be the material of which so many men are made— And where is that quarry in the earth from which these thousands were dug up?

29. Did Thoreau read VOLUME THE THIRD DRAYTON CAREW & SUCKLING of A COMPLETE EDITION OF THE POETS OF GREAT BRITAIN (London: Printed for Iohn & Arthur Arch, 23 Gracechurch Street; Edinburgh: Bell & Bradfute and I. Mundell & Co., 1793)? –This reference, on page 674, contains the remark about Carew: “Lloyd also, in his Worthies, calls him ‘elaborate and accurate.’ However the fact may be, his poems contain no internal evidence of his having been a laborious writer.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT November 2, Thursday: Joseph Smith, Jr. officiated as Brigham Young “got married with” Augusta Adams, and with the sisters Cobb Cook and Hariett Cook (that day, also, he himself “got married with” Brigham’s married sister Fanny Young Murray).

Little Louisa May Alcott jotted in her diary:

Anna and I did the work. In the evening Mr. Lane asked us, “What is man?” These were our answers: A human being; an animal with a mind; a creature; a body; a soul and a mind. After a long talk we went to bed very tired.

In a considerably later timeframe, the author of this would review what she had written as a child, and annotate it with the following:

No wonder, after doing the work and worrying their little wits with such lessons!

November 5, Sunday: Becoming ill at dinner, Joseph Smith, Jr. accused his pregnant wife of many years Emma Hale Smith of slipping poison into his coffee (in the prayer circle, Brigham Young interpreted Emma’s silence as proof of her guilt; however, Joseph would so quickly recover that this had more probably been an attack of ulcers).

There was an insurrection on the island of Haiti. Blacks and mulattos killed six white men, women, and children in an effort to drive whites off the island.

When was it that Henry Thoreau commented that Mrs. Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley had “spent one whole season studying the lichens on a stick of wood they were about to put on the fire”? [JOURNAL 5:38] We should compare and contrast this with Waldo Emerson’s mean-spirited remark in a letter to Elizabeth Sherman Hoar in Liverpool on August 3,1859 while she was on the European grand tour, that “Henry T. occupies himself with the history of the river, measures it, weighs it, and strains it through a colander to all eternity.” It would have to be before November 5, 1843, because on that date Mrs. Ripley mentioned this stick in a letter HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT to the Reverend George F. Simmons:

You recollect that stick with the Graphia Hebraica so beautifully sketched upon it, that I laboured with my hand and you with my penknife to procure, alas, some vandal has given it to the flames. I have not met with another specimen before or since.

The primary intent of Emerson’s remark to Miss Hoar touring in Europe, I would suggest, was to remind her that for a personage of the stature of Emerson to “occupy himself” with such activities and concerns would be infra dig, and that therefore there was a class difference which needed to be pointed to, with he and the touring Miss Hoar on the near side of this class divide, as gentle folk, and with our good “Henry T.,” despite an education having been attempted upon him, decidedly beyond the pale as a mere crafts person without any really good money-earning craft. I find such a remark not humorous, nor in good humour, but quite offensively condescending and demeaning. Is this just me? I wonder what Elizabeth, knowing Henry as well as she knew Waldo, thought of this letter when she opened it in Europe. Presumably “Boys need to go after each other.” So the question I am raising here is, might Thoreau’s remark about Mrs. Ripley’s preoccupation with the Graphia Hebraica on the stick of firewood be likewise interpretable as not humorous, nor in good humour, but quite offensively condescending and demeaning? (Do I have a blind spot of affection for Thoreau which I quite lack for Emerson? –Well, probably I do.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT After having thought about this for some time, I am unable to construe Thoreau’s remark about spending one whole season studying the stick of firewood as condescending or demeaning. The one invidious thing that Thoreau might have been suggestion would have been “Look, it’s just a woman, what can you expect from a botanist that’s just a woman?” And I haven’t been able to grok sexism in the relationship between Thoreau and Mrs. Ripley.

There had been early snows, and all the recruits had deserted Fruitlands and its thin linen clothing and its vegetarian diet, leaving the Alcott family and the Charles Lanes to endure the harsh winter alone. It was shaping up to be the coldest winter of the decade. Between this day and Thursday the 8th, Waldo Emerson rather unsympathetically wrote in his journal:

The Reformers wrote very ill. They made it a rule not to bolt their flour & unfortunately neglected also to sift their thoughts.... Alcott & Lane want feet; they are always feeling of their shoulders to find if their wings are sprouting; but next best to wings are cowhide boots, which society is always advising them to put on. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT November 29, Wednesday: Henry Thoreau, unhappy on Staten Island, had been home to Concord from Castleton for Thanksgiving, perhaps as early as the 23d, and would return to the William Emerson home only to pick up his clothing. THOREAU RESIDENCES

At this point Abba Alcott formally notified everyone at “Fruitlands” that she was taking the children and leaving. Charles Lane sent off a letter to a friend in England saying that

Mr. Alcott’s constancy to his wife and family and his inconstancy to the Spirit have blurred his life forever.

Little Louisa May Alcott jotted in her diary:

Eleven years old. It was Father’s and my birthday. We had some nice presents. We played in the snow before school. Mother read “Rosamond” when we sewed. Father asked us in the eve what fault troubled us most. I said my bad temper. I told mother I liked to have her write in my book. She said she would put in more, and she wrote this to help me:— Dear Louy,— Your handwriting improves very fast. Take pains and do not be in a hurry. I like to have you make observations about our conversations and your own thoughts. It helps you to express them and to understand your little self. Remember, dear girl, that a diary should be the epitome of your life. May it be a record of pure thought and good actions, then you will indeed be the precious child of your loving mother.

Until December 16th, four United States vessels would be demonstrating (firing off cannon and generally looking fierce) and landing various parties (one party would be made up of 200 marines and sailors) in order to discourage piracy and the slave trade along the Ivory coast, and in order to punish attacks by the natives on American seamen and shipping. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

CHRISTMAS 1843

December 25, Monday: Benjamin Wiley, Jr. got married with Hannah P. Tufts.

This was the Christmas season on which Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN PROSE became available for purchase, at least in England.

http://www.stormfax.com/dickens.htm

According to the author, this was the boil-down of typical Christmas holiday festivities of the period: “Such HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blindman’s-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissing-in of new ones never too places in these parts before.... I broke out like a madman.” The Bronson Alcott /Abba Alcott family was among the 1st of New England families to celebrate the Christmas holiday in the “secular” manner, that is, by an exchange of presents — but we should not take that to mean that the father was present in the home at Fruitlands:

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Waldo Emerson to his journal, same date:

At the performing of Handel’s Messiah I heard some delicious strains & understood a very little of all that was told me. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1844

January 10, Sunday: In this exceedingly cold and biting winter, an exceedingly cold and biting law went into effect in the District of Columbia. The burden of proof was shifted entirely onto the shoulders of any Negro taken under arrest, to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the white authorities that he had in fact been born free.

At Fruitlands, during this exceedingly cold and biting winter, after interminable talk and too little work, “the chickens had come home to roost.” It was still midwinter and already there was nothing whatever in the pantry, nothing whatever in the root cellar, nothing whatever in the woodshed. Bronson Alcott had been attempting to atone by starving himself to death, but, as Louisa May Alcott put his spiritual situation in her autobiographical TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS,

When all other sentiments had faded into dimness, all other hopes died utterly; when the bitterness of death was nearly over, when body was past any pang of hunger or thirst, and soul stood ready to depart, the love that outlives all else refused to die.

Abba Alcott wrote her brother, the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, that

having ate our last bit and burnt our last chip, we sent for Mr. Lovejoy to come and get us out — which he did.... All Mr. Lane’s efforts have been to disunite us. But Mr. Alcott’s conjugal and paternal instincts were too strong for him.

Bronson has destroyed his journal of the last months at Fruitlands. It appears he also went through his daughter Anna’s diary, ripping out numerous pages. Eight pages of Louisa’s diary of that period have turned up, behind a partition in one of the houses the Alcott family subsequently inhabited, so it is remotely possible that more pages may someday appear. Of course, we do have her TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS, but it would be nice to have something less thoroughly sanitized by afterthoughts. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Richard Wagner wrote Felix Mendelssohn about their new relationship. “If I have come a little closer to you, that is the nicest thing about my whole Berlin expedition.”

Waldo Emerson lectured at the lyceum in Salem, likely on “The New England Man.” He would receive $20.

Sunday, January 10, 1844. I believe that no law of mechanics, which is observed and obeyed from day to day, is better established in the experience of men than this, —that love never fails to be repaid in its own coin; that just as high as the waters rise in one vessel just so high they will rise in every other into which there is communication, either direct or under ground or from above the stars. Our love is, besides, some such independent fluid element in respect to our vessels, which still obeys only its own, and not our laws, by any means, without regard to the narrow limits to which we would confine it. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Nor is the least object too small for the greatest love to be bestowed upon.

June 16, Sunday: The Mississippi River rose to 10-20 feet above the streets of the east side of a raw settlement then known as “Illinoistown” (now East St. Louis). Crowds gazed at the waterfront as houses and great trees were carried away. Steamboats were tying up in Cahokia.

In Washington DC, the aged and impoverished Dolley Payne Todd Madison (who had been reared as a Quaker) sold family slaves Tydal, Willoughby, John, Jerry, Matthew, Winny, Milly, Sarah, Caty and young children, Charlotte, Raif Junr, Joshua, Nicholas, Nicholas Junr, Gabriel, and Charles with Sylvia and four children to her son John Payne Todd (adopted son of President James Madison and an alcoholic ne’er-do-well), “To have and to hold the said negroes ... and their future increase.”

At the grove east of the Nauvoo temple grounds in Hancock County, Illinois at 4PM that afternoon, Joseph Smith delivered a sermon on “the doctrine of multiple gods and his authority as a latter-day prophet” and it was recorded by Thomas Bullock (this was to be his final public discourse).

On the island of Tubai, Addison Pratt baptized a white man, Ambrose Alexander, as the initial convert in that region of the earth to “Mormonism.”

In London, Felix Mendelssohn dined with Charles Dickens. The author has just completed MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, which has a midwife character with a lurid imagination (“Sairy Gamp,” the name assigned to this character, would become one of Louisa May Alcott’s family nicknames).

“I now propose a toast, as my ‘friend and pardner, Sairy Gamp,’ says. Fun forever, and no grubbage!” cried Jo, rising, glass in hand, as the lemonade went round. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Fall: After suggesting that the Alcott family build themselves a home on one of the tracts of land which he owned on Walden Pond, and after giving up on that idea as entirely impractical, Waldo Emerson, along with Abba Alcott’s brother the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, agreed to purchase the Horatio Cogswell place on

Lexington Road from the wheelwright of Concord, for $850.00, for the use of the Alcott family. The house and plot were to be held in the name of the May family in order that creditors of Bronson Alcott would not be able to attach it. Emerson agreed to the purchase of eight acres of the Concord meadow, across the road from this house, for an additional $500.00, so the Alcott family would be able to raise vegetables to feed themselves. The Alcotts would rename the place “Hillside” in honor of the grand estate of Benjamin Marston Watson, one of Alcott’s benefactors, in Plymouth MA, and would be living in this home for three years.

The basic house was one of those sound old structures built around a huge central chimney, with hand-hewn beams and wide floorboards.1 HILLSIDE THE WAYSIDE OLD HOUSES

1. This house had been erected in 1775 by one of the few families in Concord who had been rich enough to be able to afford slaves, but had fallen into considerable disrepair and may have been a real mess — a previous owner had been penning pigs in the ten-foot strip between house and road that passed for a front yard. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1845

During this year and the following two years, into 1847, Bronson Alcott would be terracing the wooded slope behind “Hillside” into a “shapely neatness” and constructing a “bower” or “conservatory” or “arbour” of twisted pine branches, osier, and clumps of hazel reed, carried up from the woods, at the top of the ridge behind their home in Concord. It had Gothic columns hung with moss and a thatch roof, and Nathaniel Hawthorne referred to it, hung with flowers and evergreen, as “a work of magic.”

Miss Sophia Foord collaborated with Bronson in the creation of a school for Concord children including his own girls. Here are a couple of jottings from Louisa May Alcott’s diary of the period:

—Read the “heart of Mid-Lothian,” and had a very happy day. Miss Ford gave us a botany lesson in the woods. I am always good there. In the evening Miss Ford told us about the bones in our bodies, and how they get out of order. I must be careful of mine, I climb and jump and run so much....

Concord, Thursday: I had an early run in the woods before the dew was off the grass. The moss was like velvet, and as I ran under the arches of yellow and red leaves I sang for joy, my heart was so bright and the world so beautiful. I stopped at the end of the walk and saw the sunshine out over the wide “Virginia meadows.” It seemed like going through a dark life or grave into heaven beyond. A very strange and solemn feeling came over me as I stood there, with no sound but the rustle of the pines, no one near me, and the sun so glorious, as for me alone. It seemed as if I felt God as I never did before, and I prayed in my heart that I might keep that happy sense of nearness all my life..

Unfortunately, this new school would succeed in attracting only a few additional children, not enough to make it a going concern, and Bronson’s application to teach at the Concord elementary school would be rejected by the local school board on or prior to September 17, 1848 on account of his not attending a church, and his attempt to speak at the state convention of the Teachers Institute would be intercepted and forbidden by Horace Mann, Sr., the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.30 It was during the period at “Hillside” that Louisa would be beginning to write in earnest. She had a room of her own. Her oeuvre was poems, plays, short stories, and journal, although unfortunately what remains for us of her detailed journal has been twice “edited,” first by herself and then by her sister Anna Alcott in conjunction with Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, her first biographer.

30. Horace Mann, Sr., an institutionalist and authoritarian, was ever zealous to protect the rights of the state against the importunities of the individual citizen, and had not failed to notice that Bronson’s opinions were, as he succinctly put the matter, “hostile to the existence of the State.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Early January: After suggesting that the Bronson Alcott / Abba Alcott family build a home on a tract of land which he owned on Walden Pond, and giving up that idea as impractical, Waldo Emerson and the Reverend Samuel Joseph May completed, early in January, their purchase in the name of the May family of the Cogswell place

on Lexington Road. This house would be renamed the Hillside in honor of Benjamin Marston Watson, one of Alcott’s benefactors, who had a much grander estate of that name in Plymouth MA, and would be for the use of the Alcott family. They paid $850.00.31 Emerson purchased eight acres of meadow across the road from this house for an additional $500.00 so the family could raise their own vegetables. The house and plot were registered in such manner that Alcott’s creditors would not be able to attach it. Bronson immediately added wings to the structure, and the family would live in this home for three years. Bronson would draw the sketch below after he had added wings. This is the home which the Alcotts would eventually be selling to the

31. The place was in considerable disrepair and may have been a real mess for a previous owner had kept pigs in the 10-foot strip between house and road that passed for a front yard — although the man from whom the house had been purchased, Horatio Cogswell, was a wheelwright by trade. However, the basic house was one of those sound old structures built around a huge central chimney, with hand-hewn beams and wide floorboards. (It had been erected in 1775 by one of the few families in Concord who had been rich enough to be able to afford slaves.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Hawthornes, who would rename it again, as “Wayside,” and add porches and a writerly tower:

THE WAYSIDE NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The Association of Masters of the Boston Public Schools released their counter-counter-counterpublication to Horace Mann, Sr.’s counter-counterpublication, titled REJOINDER TO THE “REPLY” OF THE HON. HORACE MAN; SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION, TO THE “REMARKS” OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BOSTON MASTERS, UPON HIS SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT, in more than 200 pages.

April: Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands experiment at Harvard, Massachusetts having collapsed, at this point the consociate family carried all their worldly possessions south to Concord on an ox-sled. It would be during this next period that a 13-year-old Louisa May Alcott would begin scribbling her many and assorted verses on Despondency. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April 1, Tuesday: The Alcott family’s “Hillside” that eventually would become the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside” had in January come to be owned by trustees for Mrs. Amos Bronson Alcott (until 1852). At this point the family moved in, and the house would provide a home for Mr. and Mrs. Alcott and their four daughters until, on November 17, 1848, they would relocate by train to a basement apartment on Dedham Street in the South End of Boston. OLD HOUSES

Bronson Alcott immediately proceeded to cut Horatio Cogswell’s wheelwright shop into two halves and tack these onto the main house as wings. He also combined several small rooms into a larger kitchen, built new stairs, cleaned out the well and installed a new pump, and constructed a shower stall apparatus in which buckets of water were raised overhead with pulleys and counterweights and dumped mechanically over the bather.

It rained and melted the remaining ice on Walden Pond, which had been dark-colored and saturated with water.

WALDEN: In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in ’46, the 25th of March; in ’47, the 8th of April; in ’51, the 28th of March; in ’52, the 18th of April; in ’53, the 23rd of March; in ’54, about the 7th of April. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Early in the day it was very foggy, and as Henry Thoreau chopped young pines into studs for his shanty, using his borrowed axe, he heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. (In the famous 1962 John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance advertisement illustration by Tom Covell, however, he is listening to the distant drumming of a Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus in the forest.) TIMELINE OF WALDEN

Incidentally, in case one wonders why Thoreau was not utilizing the construction technique known as balloon framing in the construction of his shanty, Professor Walter Roy Harding has asserted that the reason was that actually balloon framing is used only for houses of more than one story. This is inaccurate, and one wonders who might have told Harding such a fabulation. Houses of one story, and split-levels, equally with houses of multiple stories, get conventionally framed and braced in the balloon manner. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1846

March: Louisa May Alcott noted in her diary that finally she had obtained a room of her own:

I have at last got the little room I have wanted for so long, and am very happy about it. It does me good to be alone, and Mother has made it very pretty and neat for me. My workbasket and desk are by the window, and my closet is full of dried herbs that smell very nice. The door that opens into the garden will be very pretty in summer, and I can run off to the woods when I like. I have made a plan for my life, as I am in my teens, and no more a child. I am old for my age, and don’t care much for girl’s things. People think I’m wild and queer; but Mother understands and helps me. I have not told any one about my plan; but I’m going to be good. I’ve made so many resolutions, and written sad notes, and cried over my sins, and it doesn’t seem to do any good! Now I’m going to work really, for I feel a true desire to improve, and be a help and comfort, not a care and sorrow, to my dear mother. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT May 3, Sunday: The Mexican army surrounded a fort in Texas.

Governor Colonel Hamelin Trelawney, who established “The Market” on the bridge in Jamestown, St. Helena, died in office.

Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott sauntered to Walden Pond and stood on the higher hill on the opposite side of the pond from Henry Thoreau’s shanty, at the site which Emerson had set aside for his writerly tower, their magisterial gaze thus encompassing not only that little home but also Mount Monadnock and Mount Wachusett.

Monte Video, Seat of Daniel Wadsworth, Esq.

“HUCKLEBERRIES”: Botanists, on the look out for what they thought a respectable descent, have long been inclined to trace this family backward to Mount Ida. Tourneforte does not hesitate to give it the ancient name of Vine of Mount Ida. The common English Raspberry also is called Rubus Idaea or the Mount Ida bramble — from the old Greek name. The truth of it seems to be that blueberries and raspberries flourish best in cool and airy situations, on hills and mountains, and I can easily believe that something like these at least grows on Mount Ida. But Mount Monadnoc is as good as Mount Ida, and probably better for blueberries, though its name is said to mean Bad Rock. But the worst rocks are the best for poets’ uses. Let us then exchange that oriental uncertainty for this western certainty. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

At this point Giles Waldo, in the Hawaiian Islands, was negotiating with the King of the Sandwich Islands for a land grant to be awarded to Bronson Alcott, which –if such a deal had gone down– would have radically altered the context in which we now peruse Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN and its many sequels.

Sunday May 3d, 1856: I heard the whippoorwill last night for the first time. THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle’s books are not to be studied but ready with a swift satisfaction –rather– Their flavor & charm –their gust is like the froth of wine which can only be tasted once & that hastily. On a review I never can find the pages I had read– The book has done its work when once I have reached the conclusion, and will never inspire me again. They are calculated to make one strong and lively impression –and entertain us for the while more entirely than any –but that is the last we shall know of them They have not that stereotyped success & accomplishment which we name classic– It is an easy and inexpensive entertainment –and we are not pained by the author’s straining & impoverishing HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT himself to feed his readers. It is plain that the reviewers and politicians do not know how to dispose of him– They take it too easily & must try again a loftier pitch– They speak of him within the passing hour as if he too were one other ephemeral man of letters about town who lives under Mr. Somebody’s administration. Who will not vex the world after burial– But he does not depend on the favor of reviewers –nor the honesty of booksellers –nor on popularity– He has more to impart than to receive from his generation He is a strong & finished journeyman in his craft –& reminds us oftener of Samuel Johnsson than of any other. So few writers are respectable –ever get out of their apprenticeship– As the man said that as for composition it killed him he did’nt know which thought to put down first –that his hand writing was not a very good one –& then there was spelling to be attended to– So if our able stock writer can take care of his periods & spelling –and keep within the limits of a few proprieties –he forgets that there is still originality & wisdom to be attended to, and these would kill him. There is always a more impressive and simpler statement possible than consists with any victorious comparisons. We prize the good faith & valor of soberness & gravity when we are to have dealings with a man If this is his playful mood we desire so much the more to be admitted to his serious mood. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1848

In this year Pennsylvania declared it illegal for children under the age of 12 to work in its cotton, woolen, and silk mills.

The 16-year-old Louisa May Alcott began a school in the barn of her family’s “Hillside” home in Concord, for her younger sisters and for other neighborhood children such as 9-year-old Ellen Emerson. From the tales she told these children would eventually develop a set of handmade volumes she presented to Ellen, such as “The Frost King” in a green notebook, and “The Fairy Dell” inside gray marbled covers tied together with pink ribbons. These then would become the basis for her FLOWER FABLES publication of 1855, after she had found in Miss Wealthy Stevens of Boston a patron willing to subsidize the publication expenses.

Later in this year the Alcott family would move from their “Hillside” in Concord to Pinckney Street in Boston, where Abba Alcott would be able to support the family as a visitor to the poor. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT From this year into 1850 Waldo Emerson would be crafting his essay on “Religion,” that in 1856 he would publish as part of his ENGLISH TRAITS: England felt the full heat of the Christianity which fermented Europe, and drew, like the chemistry of fire, a firm line between barbarism and culture. The power of the religious sentiment put an end to human sacrifices, checked appetite, inspired the crusades, inspired resistance to tyrants, inspired self-respect, set bounds to serfdom and slavery, founded liberty, created the religious architecture, –York, Newstead, Westminster, Fountains Abbey, Ripon, Beverley, and Dundee,– works to which the key is lost, with the sentiment which created them; inspired the English Bible, the liturgy, the monkish histories, the chronicle of Richard of Devizes. The priest translated the Vulgate, and translated the sanctities of old hagiology into English virtues on English ground. It was a certain affirmative or aggressive state of the Caucasian races. Man awoke refreshed by the sleep of ages. The violence of the northern savages exasperated Christianity into power. It lived by the love of the people. Bishop Wilfrid manumitted two hundred and fifty serfs, whom he found attached to the soil. The clergy obtained respite from labor for the boor on the Sabbath, and on church festivals. “The lord who compelled his boor to labor between sunset on Saturday and sunset on Sunday, forfeited him altogether.” The priest came out of the people, and sympathized with his class. The church was the mediator, check, and democratic principle, in Europe. Latimer, Wicliffe, Arundel, Cobham, Antony Parsons, Sir Harry Vane, George Fox, William Penn, Bunyan are the democrats, as well as the saints of their times. The Catholic church, thrown on this toiling, serious people, has made in fourteen centuries a massive system, close fitted to the manners and genius of the country, at once domestical and stately. In the long time, it has blended with every thing in heaven above and the earth beneath. It moves through a zodiac of feasts and fasts, names every day of the year, every town and market and headland and monument, and has coupled itself with the almanac, that no court can be held, no field ploughed, no horse shod, without some leave from the church. All maxims of prudence or shop or farm are fixed and dated by the church. Hence, its strength in the agricultural districts. The distribution of land into parishes enforces a church sanction to every civil privilege; and the gradation of the clergy,– prelates for the rich, and curates for the poor,– with the fact that a classical education has been secured to the clergyman, makes them “the link which unites the sequestered peasantry with the intellectual advancement of the age” [Wordsworth].

According to one account (that of a tertiary historian named Daniel J. Boorstin, a personage not to be confused with the fine Thoreau scholar Daniel J. Bernstein), it was Waldo who, in constructing the phrase “the celebrities of wealth and fashion” upon the basis of the French import “Causes Célèbres” in his lecture “Natural Aristocracy” in this year, managed to originate our supremely functional modern concept of HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT “celebrity”:32 Our age has produced a new kind of eminence. This is as characteristic of our culture and our century as was the divinity of Greek gods in the sixth century B.C. or the chivalry of knights and courtly lovers in the middle ages. It has not yet driven heroism, sainthood, or martyrdom completely out of our consciousness. But with every decade it overshadows them more. All older forms of greatness now survive only in the shadow of this new form. This new kind of eminence is “celebrity.” The word “celebrity” (from the latin celebritas for “multitude” or “fame” and celeber meaning “frequented,” “populous,” or “famous”) originally meant not a person but a condition — as the Oxford English Dictionary says, “the condition of being much talked about; famousness, notoriety.” In this sense its use dates from at least the early seventeenth century. Even then it had a weaker meaning than “fame” or “renown.” Matthew Arnold, for example, remarked in the nineteenth century that while the philosopher Spinoza’s followers had “celebrity,” Spinoza himself had “fame.” For us, however, “celebrity” means primarily a person — “a person of celebrity.” This usage of the world significantly dates from the early years of the Graphic Revolution, the first example being about 1850. Emerson spoke of “the celebrities of wealth and fashion” (1848). Now American dictionaries define a celebrity as “a famous or well-publicized person.” The celebrity in the distinctive modern sense could not have existed in any earlier age, or in America before the Graphic Revolution. The celebrity is a person who is known for his well- knownness. His qualities –or rather his lack of qualities– illustrate our peculiar problems. He is neither good nor bad, great nor petty. He is the human pseudo-event. He has been fabricated on purpose to satisfy our exaggerated expectations of human greatness. He is morally neutral. The product of no conspiracy, of no group promoting vice or emptiness, he is made by honest, industrious men of high professional ethics doing their job, “informing” and educating us. He is made by all of us who willingly read about him, who like to see him on television, who buy recordings of his voice, and talk about him to our friends. His relation to morality and even to reality is highly ambiguous. He is like the woman in an Elinor Glyn novel who describes another by saying, “She is like a figure in an Elinor Glyn novel.”

32.This entry is being constructed on October 3, 1995, the day that we are all learning that OJ has been unjustly accused. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT This Emerson lecture would be published as the chapter “Aristocracy” in ENGLISH TRAITS in 1856: Under the present reign, the perfect decorum of the Court is thought to have put a check on the gross vices of the aristocracy; [page 871] yet gaming, racing, drinking, and mistresses, bring them down, and the democrat can still gather scandals, if he will. Dismal anecdotes abound, verifying the gossip of the last generation of dukes served by bailiffs, with all their plate in pawn; of great lords living by the showing of their houses; and of an old man wheeled in his chair from room to room, whilst his chambers are exhibited to the visitor for money; of ruined dukes and earls living in exile for debt. The historic names of the Buckinghams, Beauforts, Marlboroughs, and Hertfords, have gained no new lustre, and now and then darker scandals break out, ominous as the new chapters added under the Orleans dynasty to the “Causes Célèbres” in France. Even peers, who are men of worth and public spirit, are over-taken and embarrassed by their vast expense. The respectable Duke of Devonshire, willing to be the Mecaenas and Lucullus of his island, is reported to have said, that he cannot live at Chatsworth but one month in the year. Their many houses eat them up. They cannot sell them, because they are entailed. They will not let them, for pride’s sake, but keep them empty, aired, and the grounds mown and dressed, at a cost of four or five thousand pounds a year. The spending is for a great part in servants, in many houses exceeding a hundred. Most of them are only chargeable with idleness, which, because it squanders such vast power of benefit, has the mischief of crime. “They might be little Providences on earth,” said my friend, “and they are, for the most part, jockeys and fops.” Campbell says, “acquaintance with the nobility, I could never keep up. It requires a life of idleness, dressing, and attendance on their parties.” I suppose, too, that a feeling of self-respect is driving cultivated men out of this society, as if the noble were slow to receive the lessons of the times, and had not learned to disguise his pride of place. A man of wit, who is also one of the celebrities of wealth and fashion, confessed to his friend, that he could not enter their houses without being made to feel that they were great lords, and he a low plebeian. With the tribe of artistes, including the musical tribe, the patrician morgue keeps no terms, but excludes them. When Julia Grisi and Mario sang at the houses of the Duke of Wellington and other grandees, a cord was stretched between the singer and the company. [page 872]

Of course this is all contingent upon Boorstin’s rereading of citations in the OED, a rereading which ignores not only Miss Mulock’s use of the term as of some date in 1849 as coming months too late but also Hooker’s prior use (as of 1600), Johnson’s prior use (as of 1751), and Arnold’s prior use (as of 1838) as pertaining not to status of personages so much as to conditions of being.33

But even before Emerson would have this usage generally distributed as of 1856 this helpful little trope had entered the general lexicon, as in the following 1851 title: N. Parker Willis, HURRY-GRAPHS; OR, SKETCHES OF SCENERY, CELEBRITIES AND SOCIETY, TAKEN FROM LIFE (NT: Charles Scribner). In fact, by the year 1855 33.Here, per the OED, are these other uses: 1600: “The dignity and celebrity of mother cities should be respected” (condition rather than person). 1751: “I did not find myself yet enriched in proportion to my celebrity” (condition rather than person). 1838: “Recommended to public notice by the celebrity of their family” (condition rather than person). 1849: “Did you see any of those ‘celebrities,’ as you call them?” (person rather than condition — but published some months subsequent to the Emerson lecture in Edinburgh in November 1848). HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Emerson himself would be being rated as a celebrity (without credit being offered that it was he himself who had allegedly originated this usage), as witness the review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS by Evart A. and George L. Duyckinck titled “Henry David Thoreau,” in their CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (NY: Scribner, 1855), Volume II, pages 653-56:

Two of the most noticeable books in American literature on the score of a certain quaint study of natural history and scenery, are Mr. Thoreau’s volumes on the Concord and Merrimack rivers, and Life in the Woods. The author is a humorist in the old English sense of the word, a man of humors, of Concord, Mass., where, in the neighborhood of Emerson and Hawthorne, and in the enjoyment of their society, he leads, if we may take his books as the interpreter of his career, a meditative philosophic life. We find his name on the Harvard list of graduates of 1837. In 1849, having previously been a contributor to the Dial, and occupied himself in school-keeping and trade in an experimental way, he published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. … His next book was published with equal deliberation. It is the story of a humor of the author, which occupied him a term of two years and two months, commencing in March, 1845. Walden, or Life in the Woods, was published in Boston in 1854. The oddity of its record attracted universal attention. A gentleman and scholar retires one morning from the world, strips himself of all superfluities, and with a borrowed axe and minimum of pecuniary capital, settles himself as a squatter in the wood, on the edge of a New England pond near Concord. He did not own the land, but was permitted to enjoy it. He felled a few pines, hewed timbers, and for boards bought out the shanty of James Collins, an Irish laborer on the adjacent Fitchburg railroad, for the sum of four dollars twenty-five cents. He was assisted in the raising by Emerson, George W. Curtis, and other celebrities of Concord, whose presence gave the rafters an artistic flavor. Starting early in the spring, he secured long before winter by the labor of his hands “a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap-doors, one door at the end, and a brick fire-place opposite.” The exact cost of the house is given:— [Reprints “Economy,” page 49.3-25.]

The rest of the account from Mr. Thoreau’s ledger is curious, and will show “upon what meats this same Caesar fed,” that he came to interest the public so greatly in his housekeeping:— [Reprints “Economy,” pages 58.34-60.31.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

He had nothing further to do after his “family baking,” which, the family consisting of a unit, could not have been large or have come round very often, than to read, think, and observe. Homer appears to have been his favorite book. The thinking was unlimited, and the observation that of a man with an instinctive tact for the wonders of natural history. He sees and describes insects, birds, such “small deer” as approached him, with a felicity which would have gained him the heart of Izaak Walton and Alexander Wilson. A topographical and hydrographical survey of Walden Pond is as faithful, exact, and labored, as if it had employed a government or admiralty commission. As in the author’s previous work, the immediate incident is frequently only the introduction to higher themes. The realities around him are occasionally veiled by a hazy atmosphere of transcendental speculation, through which the essayist sometimes stumbles into abysmal depths of the bathetic. We have more pleasure, however, in dwelling upon the shrewd humors of this modern contemplative Jacques of the forest, and his fresh, nice observation of books and men, which has occasionally something of a poetic vein. He who would acquire a new sensation of the world about him, would do well to retire from cities to the banks of Walden pond; and he who would open his eyes to the opportunities of country life, in its associations of fields and men, may loiter with profit along the author’s journey on the Merrimack, where natural history, local antiquities, records, and tradition, are exhausted in vitalizing the scene. A CHARACTER—FROM WALDEN. [Reprints “Visitors,” pages 144.13-145.36.] A BATTLE OF ANTS—FROM WALDEN. [Reprints “Brute Neighbors,” pages 228.26-232.11.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT In 1869 Louisa May Alcott would make use of this “Emersonian” trope in Part II of LITTLE WOMEN: … a select symposium, held in honor of several celebrities. Jo went prepared to bow down and adore the mighty ones whom she had worshiped with youthful enthusiasm afar off. But her reverence for genius received a severe shock that night, and it took her some time to recover from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after all. Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on ‘spirit, fire, and dew,’ to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance. Turning as from a fallen idol, she made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions. The great novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum; the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staëls of the age, who looked daggers at another Corinne, who was amiably satirizing her, after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher, who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber, the loquacity of the lady rendering speech impossible. The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy; the young musician, who was charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses; and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party.

And by 1882 Walt Whitman would be treating the new term celebrity for the new phenomenon of the public HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT personality as a natural and intrinsic part of the English language: Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway — that noted avenue of New York’s crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew Jackson, Webster, Clay, William Henry Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case — (I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, (it must have been in 1845 or ’6,) in his office, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl street.) He was editor and owner or part owner of “the Broadway Journal.” [Page 702] The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish’d. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear’d well in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my reminiscences, here on the west side, just below Houston street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January day) a bent, feeble but stout-built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap on his head, led and assisted, almost carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck’d in a gorgeous sleigh, envelop’d in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You needn’t think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look’d for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp’d and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor.

In his novel OAK OPENINGS, James Fenimore Cooper inserted a character to spout the 10-lost-tribes-of-Israel doctrine of American Exceptionalism.

November 17, Friday: William Jackman and Jenett Nelson Scott Jackman produced a son William Thomas Jackman in Yates, New York.

That morning the Alcotts departed “Hillside” and Concord on the train, with their household articles to follow on the same day — by evening they would be in their new quarters, a three-rooms-and-a-kitchen basement apartment on Dedham Street in the South End of Boston, where Bronson Alcott would hopefully be able to offer his “conversations” for pay (you shouldn’t hold your breath). HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Christmas: While Louisa May Alcott was about 16, living at 12 West Street in Boston, she was writing tragedies which were being staged by her and her sisters. One of these was “Norna; or, The Witches’ Curse.” Anna Alcott Pratt would come to consider this piece to be her sister’s “masterpiece” in the “lurid drama” genre.

On Christmas night, a dozen girls piled onto the bed which was the dress circle, and sat before the blue and yellow chintz curtains in a most flattering state of expectancy. There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy, who was apt to get hysterical in the excitement of the moment. Presently a bell sounded, the curtains flew apart, and the OPERATIC TRAGEDY began. “A gloomy wood,” according to the one playbill, was represented by a few shrubs in pots, green baize on the floor, and a cave in the distance. This cave was made with a clothes horse for a roof, bureaus for walls, and in it was a small furnace in full blast, with a black pot on it and an old witch bending over it. The stage was dark and the glow of the furnace had a fine effect, especially as real steam issued from the kettle when the witch took off the cover. A moment was allowed for the first thrill to subside, then Hugo, the villain, stalked in with a clanking sword at his side, a slouching hat, black beard, mysterious cloak, and the boots. After pacing to and fro in much agitation, he struck his forehead, and burst out in a wild strain, singing of his hatred for Roderigo, his love for Zara, and his pleasing resolution to kill the one and win the other. The gruff tones of Hugo’s voice, with an occasional shout when his feelings overcame him, were very impressive, and the audience applauded the moment he paused for breath. Bowing with the air of one accustomed to public praise, he stole to the cavern and ordered Hagar to come forth with a commanding, “What ho, minion! I need thee!” Out came Meg, with gray horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would bring the love philter: — “Hither, hither, from thy home, Airy sprite, I bid thee come! Born of roses, fed on dew, Charms and potions canst thou brew? Bring me here, with elfin speed, The fragrant philter which I need. Make it sweet and swift and strong, Spirit, answer now my song!” A soft strain of music sounded, and then at the back of the cave appeared a little figure in cloudy white, with glittering wings, golden hair, and a garland of roses on its head. Waving a wand, it sang — “Hither I come, From my airy home, Afar in the silver moon. Take the magic spell, And use it well, Or its power will vanish soon!”

THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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And dropping a small, gilded bottle at the witch’s feet, the spirit vanished. Another chant from Hagar produced another apparition, not a lovely one, for with a bang an ugly black imp appeared and, having croaked a reply, tossed a dark bottle at Hugo and disappeared with a mocking laugh. Having warbled his thanks and put the potions in his boots, Hugo departed, and Hagar informed the audience that as he had killed a few of her friends in times past, she had cursed him, and intends to thwart his plans, and be revenged on him. Then the curtain fell, and the audience reposed and ate candy while discussing the merits of the play. A good deal of hammering went on before the curtain rose again, but when it became evident what a masterpiece of stage carpentering had been got up, no one murmured at the delay. It was truly superb. A tower rose to the ceiling, halfway up appeared a window with a lamp burning in it, and behind the white curtain appeared Zara in a lovely blue and silver dress, waiting for Roderigo. He came in gorgeous array, with plumed cap, red cloak, chestnut love-locks, a guitar, and the boots, of course. Kneeling at the foot of the tower, he sang a serenade in melting tones. Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented to fly. Then came the grand effect of the play. Roderigo produced a rope ladder, with five steps to it, threw up one end, and invited Zara to descend. Timidly she crept from her lattice, put her hand on Roderigo’s shoulder, and was about to leap gracefully down when “alas! alas for Zara!” she forgot her train. It caught in the window, the tower tottered, leaned forward, fell with a crash, and buried the unhappy lovers in the ruins. A universal shriek arose as the russet boots waved wildly from the wreck and a golden head emerged, exclaiming, “I told you so! I told you so!” With wonderful presence of mind, Don Pedro, the cruel sire, rushed in, dragged out his daughter, with a hasty aside — “Don’t laugh! Act as if it was all right!” and, ordering Roderigo up, banished him from the kingdom with wrath and scorn. Though decidedly shaken by the fall of the tower upon him, Roderigo defied the old gentleman and refused to stir. This dauntless example fired Zara. She also defied her sire, and he ordered them both to the deepest dungeons of the castle. A stout little retainer came in with chains and led them away, looking very much frightened and evidently forgetting the speech he ought to have made. Act third was the castle hall, and here Hagar appeared, having come to free the lovers and finish Hugo. She hears him coming and hides, sees him put the potions into two cups of wine and bid the timid little servant, “Bear them to the captives in their cells, and tell them I shall come anon.” The servant takes Hugo aside to tell him something, and Hagar changes the cups for two others which are harmless. Ferdinando, the ‘minion,’ carries them away, and Hagar puts back the cup which holds the poison meant for Roderigo. Hugo, getting thirsty after a long warble, drinks it, loses his wits, and after a good deal of clutching and stamping, falls flat and dies, while Hagar informs him what she has done in a song of exquisite power and melody. This was a truly thrilling scene; though some persons might have thought that the sudden tumbling down of a quantity of long red hair rather marred the effect of the villain’s death. He was called before the curtain, and with great propriety appeared, leading Hagar, whose singing was considered more wonderful than all the rest of the performance put together. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Act fourth displayed the despairing Roderigo on the point of stabbing himself because he has been told that Zara has deserted him. Just as the dagger is at his heart, a lovely song is sung under his window, informing him that Zara is true but in danger, and he can save her if he will. A key is thrown in, which unlocks the door, and in a spasm of rapture he tears off his chains and rushes away to find and rescue his lady love. Act fifth opened with a stormy scene between Zara and Don Pedro. He wishes her to go into a convent, but she won’t hear of it, and after a touching appeal, is about to faint when Roderigo dashes in and demands her hand. Don Pedro refuses, because he is not rich. They shout and gesticulate tremendously but cannot agree, and Rodrigo is about to bear away the exhausted Zara, when the timid servant enters with a letter and a bag from Hagar, who has mysteriously disappeared. The latter informs the party that she bequeaths untold wealth to the young pair and an awful doom to Don Pedro, if he doesn’t make them happy. The bag is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage till it is quite glorified with the glitter. This entirely softens the stern sire. He consents without a murmur, all join in a joyful chorus, and the curtain falls upon the lovers kneeling to receive Don Pedro’s blessing in attitudes of the most romantic grace. Tumultuous applause followed but received an unexpected check, for the cot-bed, on which the dress circle was built, suddenly shut up and extinguished the enthusiastic audience. Roderigo and Don Pedro flew to the rescue, and all were taken out unhurt, though many were speechless with laughter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1849

In “Main-Street” in this year, Nathaniel Hawthorne offered something true: “Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors; and let each successive generation thank him, not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages.”

Charles Dickens’s semi-autobiographical DAVID COPPERFIELD began in monthly parts during May and would continue through November 1850: HDT WHAT? INDEX

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He wrote letters to the Times of London during November, protesting public hangings. He wrote THE LIFE OF OUR LORD written for his children (this would lie unpublished until 1934). Toward the end of the year he began thinking again of putting out a weekly miscellany. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Readers of the next year’s THE SCARLET LETTER will recognize a reference made by Hawthorne to “Wapping” as a reference to the wharf area of London which Dickens used as the setting for the final act of Martha Endell the soiled dove, committing herself to the garbage-laden Thames. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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THE SCARLET LETTER: Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block- makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and – not to forget the library – on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of be edifice. And here, some six months ago – pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged tool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down the columns of the morning newspaper – you might have recognised, honoured reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the willow branches on the western side of the Old Manse. But now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Readers of LITTLE WOMEN will recognize a reference by Louisa May Alcott to a “Mrs. Gummidge,” likewise, as a deferral to the overwhelming popularity of this overwhelmingly popular English novelization,

“It’s a fast age, and I don’t know what we are coming to, ma’am. You are a mere infant, but you’ll go next, Jo, and we’ll be left lamenting,” said Laurie, shaking his head over the degeneracy of the times. “Don’t be alarmed. I’m not one of the agreeable sort. Nobody will want me, and it’s a mercy, for there should always be one old maid in a family.” “You won’t give any one a chance,” said Laurie, with a sidelong glance and a little more color than before in his sunburned face. “You won’t show the soft side of your character, and if a fellow gets a peep at it by accident and can’t help showing that he likes it, you treat him as Mrs. Gummidge did her sweetheart, throw cold water over him, and get so thorny no one dares touch or look at you.”

and a reference as well to Nurse Peggotty:

“As one of the children is older than yourself, you needn’t talk so like a grandma. I flatter myself I’m a ‘gentleman growed’ as Peggotty said of David, and when you see Amy, you’ll find her rather a precocious infant,” said Laurie, looking amused at her maternal air.

WOMEN HANGED IN ENGLAND DURING 1849

Date Name Age Place of execution Crime

21/03 Jane Scully Roscommon Murder

20/04 Sarah Thomas 17 Bristol Murder

09/08 Mary Ball 31 Coventry Murder of husband

11/08 Catherine Dillon Limerick Murder

21/08 Mary Ann Geering 49 Lewes Murder of husband

23/08 Rebecca Smith Devizes Murder of child

13/11 Maria Manning 28 Horsemonger Lane Murder (hanged with her husband) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT During this year Louisa May Alcott was hired out to an elderly lawyer of Dedham, James Richardson, to be a companion for his sister and his father. Later, when she wrote the story “How I Went out to Service,” she would imply that Richardson’s reading his poetry to her amounted to a solicitation of sex. During this year, possibly as this companion in the home of this lawyer, Louisa was writing on her manuscript THE INHERITANCE. In 1950 this ms must still have been among the collections at the Orchard House in Concord MA because Madeleine B. Stern in her biography of Alcott does make a brief mention of that work. But then there would not be any further mentions. When the collections would be transferred to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, this unpublished 150-page manuscript would apparently be miscatalogued. Sometime in the late

1980s or in 1990, Daniel Shealy and Joel Myerson would be going through these materials in the Houghton Library when “We looked at each other, and we said, have you heard of this? And each of us looked at the other and said no, and I think we smiled.” This THE INHERITANCE had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN and is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time. When the New York Times would make the announcement of this upon the occasion of the ms being turned over to a literary agent in early 1996, they would act like the discovery had just been made and hold to an inner page and to a side comment the fact that the discovery had actually occurred years earlier. To add to this up-to-the-minute egregiousness, the newsies twice in their one brief article would refer to Louisa’s father as having been one “Branson” Alcott. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December 4, Tuesday: The popular Swedish novelist Fredrika Bremer came to Concord on the train in a snowstorm to visit Waldo Emerson the fellow author. She was more impressed with Lidian Emerson, the author’s wife.

No one spoke of the great trouble, — not even Mrs. March, — for all had learned by experience that when Jo was in that mood words were wasted, and the wisest course was to wait till some little accident, or her own generous nature, softened Jo’s resentment and healed the breach. It was not a happy evening, for though they sewed as usual, while their mother read aloud from Bremer, Scott, or Edgeworth, something was wanting, and the sweet home- peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing-time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and all felt out of tune.

Bremer had been highly regarded by Abba Alcott but, when Anna Bronson Alcott and Louisa May Alcott met her, they were immensely disappointed and “went into the closet and cried.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

President Zachary Taylor sent a message to the US Congress. Guess what, we’re such a nation of go-getters that to some significant degree we’re doing this to ourselves! “Your attention is earnestly invited to an amendment of our existing laws relating to the African slave-trade, with a view to the effectual suppression of that barbarous traffic. It is not to be denied that this trade is still, in part, carried on by means of vessels built in the United States, and owned or navigated by some of our citizens.” HOUSE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Congress, 1st session, III. No. 5, pages 7-8. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1850

Fall: The Alcott family moved from Atkinson Street in Boston to 50 High Street on the edge in between the highfalutin’ neighborhoods of the family’s rich supporters and the utter slums of Fort Hill. During this period Bronson’s mother, Anna Alcox, stayed with them for several months and, although she was very intimate with rural poverty, was horrified at this urban squalor: “…you are so good to wate on them that neade.” Abba was musing in her journal:

It is more respectable to be in my family —than a Servant of the Public in any capacity— and to be used by it is ignoble.

At that time in Boston, for a family of four, unless you had an income of at least $550.00 per year, you would probably wind up being badly victimized by one or another of the “bottom-feeders” who abounded in the slums, and yet, for the years 1851, 1852, and 1853, Abba Alcott’s income varied, usually somewhere between $0.05 to $1.00 per day while Bronson Alcott brought in hardly anything at all, perhaps a dollar very occasionally.34 Meanwhile, however, Abba was organizing a petition that women should be allowed to vote on proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that were to be offered at the forthcoming Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention. According to Harriet Robinson’s 35 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE WOMAN SUFFERAGE MOVEMENT, this petition was signed not only by persons such as A. Bronson Alcott but also by the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the Reverend Theodore Parker, Samuel Eliot Sewall, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, and the Reverend Samuel Joseph May. The motion to allow women to vote on these proposed amendments to the state constitution, however, failed badly, 14 male delegates for to 108 male delegates against.

34. According to Leone Levi’s WAGES AND EARNINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES - REPORT TO SIR ARTHUR BASS (London: John Murray, 1885), the population of England was at this point divided into a laboring class of 19,300,000 persons, a lower middle class of 6,900,000, and an upper class of 1,500,000 “taxpayers” (we don’t know what tax is referred to here). In the laboring classes, spinners (in cotton factories) earned about £1 a week, which amounted to perhaps £50 a year. Skilled labourers were lucky to earn more than £1.25 a week, say £65 a year. Agricultural workers earned around half these amounts, though they usually received in addition their accommodation and some food. The average sort of earnings in 1851 for the English laboring class was £52 a year, and for the lower middle class £80 per year. To receive such wages people often worked 60 hours a week or more. The lower middle class were people like teachers who earned between £75 and £100 a year. What were regarded as “the middle classes” had family incomes of between £150 and £500 per annum -- there were just over 90,000 English households in that category. What were considered “the higher middles classes” had incomes between £500 and £3000, and in this category were situated 18,300 families. The “higher class” English, of which there were 1,889, had annual incomes of between £3000 and £50,000. (In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, therefore, Pip, since he had acquired a newfound income of £500 a year, was being described by Charles Dickens as having been propelled straight up all the way from having been the apprentice to a blacksmith, lowest of the low, into the higher end of the middle classes — with an income approximately one order of magnitude greater than Joe the blacksmith’s accompanied by no responsibilities whatever.) 35. Boston: Roberts, 1881, page 91 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1851

At just about this point in her life Louisa May Alcott would have been attaining her full adult height of five feet six inches, rather tall for a woman, as shown on the following screen.

[next screen] HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Table of Altitudes

Yoda 2 ' 0 '' Lavinia Warren 2 ' 8 '' Tom Thumb, Jr. 3 ' 4 '' Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) 3 ' 8 '' Hervé Villechaize (“Fantasy Island”) 3 ' 11'' Charles Proteus Steinmetz 4 ' 0 '' Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (1) 4 ' 3 '' Alexander Pope 4 ' 6 '' Benjamin Lay 4 ' 7 '' Dr. Ruth Westheimer 4 ' 7 '' Gary Coleman (“Arnold Jackson”) 4 ' 8 '' Edith Piaf 4 ' 8 '' Queen Victoria with osteoporosis 4 ' 8 '' Linda Hunt 4 ' 9 '' Queen Victoria as adult 4 ' 10 '' Mother Teresa 4 ' 10 '' Margaret Mitchell 4 ' 10 '' length of newer military musket 4 ' 10'' Charlotte Brontë 4 ' 10-11'' Tammy Faye Bakker 4 ' 11'' Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut 4 ' 11'' jockey Willie Shoemaker 4 ' 11'' Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 4 ' 11'' Joan of Arc 4 ' 11'' Bonnie Parker of “Bonnie & Clyde” 4 ' 11'' Harriet Beecher Stowe 4 ' 11'' Laura Ingalls Wilder 4 ' 11'' a rather tall adult Pygmy male 4 ' 11'' Gloria Swanson 4 ' 11''1/2 Clara Barton 5 ' 0 '' Isambard Kingdom Brunel 5 ' 0 '' Andrew Carnegie 5 ' 0 '' Thomas de Quincey 5 ' 0 '' Stephen A. Douglas 5 ' 0 '' Danny DeVito 5 ' 0 '' Immanuel Kant 5 ' 0 '' William Wilberforce 5 ' 0 '' Dollie Parton 5 ' 0 '' Mae West 5 ' 0 '' Pia Zadora 5 ' 0 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Deng Xiaoping 5 ' 0 '' Dred Scott 5 ' 0 '' (±) Captain William Bligh of HMS Bounty 5 ' 0 '' (±) Harriet Tubman 5 ' 0 '' (±) Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (2) 5 ' 0 '' (±) John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island 5 ' 0 '' (+) John Keats 5 ' 3/4 '' Debbie Reynolds (Carrie Fisher’s mother) 5 ' 1 '' Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) 5 ' 1 '' Bette Midler 5 ' 1 '' Dudley Moore 5 ' 2 '' Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel) 5 ' 2 '' Honore de Balzac 5 ' 2 '' Sally Field 5 ' 2 '' Jemmy Button 5 ' 2 '' Margaret Mead 5 ' 2 '' R. Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller 5 ' 2 '' Yuri Gagarin the astronaut 5 ' 2 '' William Walker 5 ' 2 '' Horatio Alger, Jr. 5 ' 2 '' length of older military musket 5 ' 2 '' 1 the artist formerly known as Prince 5 ' 2 /2'' 1 typical female of Thoreau's period 5 ' 2 /2'' Francis of Assisi 5 ' 3 '' Volt ai re 5 ' 3 '' Mohandas Gandhi 5 ' 3 '' Sammy Davis, Jr. 5 ' 3 '' Kahlil Gibran 5 ' 3 '' Friend Daniel Ricketson 5 ' 3 '' The Reverend Gilbert White 5 ' 3 '' Nikita Khrushchev 5 ' 3 '' Sammy Davis, Jr. 5 ' 3 '' Truman Capote 5 ' 3 '' Kim Jong Il (North Korea) 5 ' 3 '' Stephen A. “Little Giant” Douglas 5 ' 4 '' Francisco Franco 5 ' 4 '' President James Madison 5 ' 4 '' Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili “Stalin” 5 ' 4 '' Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 '' Pablo Picasso 5 ' 4 '' Truman Capote 5 ' 4 '' Queen Elizabeth 5 ' 4 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Ludwig van Beethoven 5 ' 4 '' Typical Homo Erectus 5 ' 4 '' 1 typical Neanderthal adult male 5 ' 4 /2'' 1 Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 /2'' comte de Buffon 5 ' 5 '' (-) Captain Nathaniel Gordon 5 ' 5 '' Charles Manson 5 ' 5 '' Audie Murphy 5 ' 5 '' Harry Houdini 5 ' 5 '' Hung Hsiu-ch'üan 5 ' 5 '' 1 Marilyn Monroe 5 ' 5 /2'' 1 T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia” 5 ' 5 /2'' average runaway male American slave 5 ' 5-6 '' Charles Dickens 5 ' 6? '' President Benjamin Harrison 5 ' 6 '' President Martin Van Buren 5 ' 6 '' James Smithson 5 ' 6 '' Louisa May Alcott 5 ' 6 '' 1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 5 ' 6 /2'' 1 Napoleon Bonaparte 5 ' 6 /2'' Emily Brontë 5 ' 6-7 '' Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 5 ' ? '' average height, seaman of 1812 5 ' 6.85 '' Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr. 5 ' 7 '' minimum height, British soldier 5 ' 7 '' President John Adams 5 ' 7 '' President John Quincy Adams 5 ' 7 '' President William McKinley 5 ' 7 '' “Charley” Parkhurst (a female) 5 ' 7 '' Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 7 '' Henry Thoreau 5 ' 7 '' 1 the average male of Thoreau's period 5 ' 7 /2 '' Edgar Allan Poe 5 ' 8 '' President Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 8 '' President William H. Harrison 5 ' 8 '' President James Polk 5 ' 8 '' President Zachary Taylor 5 ' 8 '' average height, soldier of 1812 5 ' 8.35 '' 1 President Rutherford B. Hayes 5 ' 8 /2'' President Millard Fillmore 5 ' 9 '' President Harry S Truman 5 ' 9 '' 1 President Jimmy Carter 5 ' 9 /2'' HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

3 Herman Melville 5 ' 9 /4'' Calvin Coolidge 5 ' 10'' Andrew Johnson 5 ' 10'' Theodore Roosevelt 5 ' 10'' Thomas Paine 5 ' 10'' Franklin Pierce 5 ' 10'' Abby May Alcott 5 ' 10'' Reverend Henry C. Wright 5 ' 10'' 1 Nathaniel Hawthorne 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 Louis “Deerfoot” Bennett 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 Friend John Greenleaf Whittier 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 President Dwight D. Eisenhower 5 ' 10 /2'' Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots 5 ' 11'' Sojourner Truth 5 ' 11'' President Grover Cleveland 5 ' 11'' President Herbert Hoover 5 ' 11'' President Woodrow Wilson 5 ' 11'' President Jefferson Davis 5 ' 11'' 1 President Richard Milhous Nixon 5 ' 11 /2'' Robert Voorhis the hermit of Rhode Island < 6 ' Frederick Douglass 6 ' (-) Anthony Burns 6 ' 0 '' Waldo Emerson 6 ' 0 '' Joseph Smith, Jr. 6 ' 0 '' David Walker 6 ' 0 '' Sarah F. Wakefield 6 ' 0 '' Thomas Wentworth Higginson 6 ' 0 '' President James Buchanan 6 ' 0 '' President Gerald R. Ford 6 ' 0 '' President James Garfield 6 ' 0 '' President Warren Harding 6 ' 0 '' President John F. Kennedy 6 ' 0 '' President James Monroe 6 ' 0 '' President William H. Taft 6 ' 0 '' President John Tyler 6 ' 0 '' John Brown 6 ' 0 (+)'' President Andrew Jackson 6 ' 1'' Alfred Russel Wallace 6 ' 1'' President Ronald Reagan 6 ' 1'' 1 Venture Smith 6 ' 1 /2'' John Camel Heenan 6 ' 2 '' Crispus Attucks 6 ' 2 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

President Chester A. Arthur 6 ' 2 '' President George Bush, Senior 6 ' 2 '' President Franklin D. Roosevelt 6 ' 2 '' President George Washington 6 ' 2 '' Gabriel Prosser 6 ' 2 '' Dangerfield Newby 6 ' 2 '' Charles Augustus Lindbergh 6 ' 2 '' 1 President Bill Clinton 6 ' 2 /2'' 1 President Thomas Jefferson 6 ' 2 /2'' President Lyndon B. Johnson 6 ' 3 '' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 6 ' 3 '' 1 Richard “King Dick” Seaver 6 ' 3 /4'' President Abraham Lincoln 6 ' 4 '' Marion Morrison (AKA John Wayne) 6 ' 4 '' Elisha Reynolds Potter, Senior 6 ' 4 '' Thomas Cholmondeley 6 ' 4 '' (?) William Buckley 6 ' 4-7” Franklin Benjamin Sanborn 6 ' 5 '' Peter the Great of Russia 6 ' 7 '' William “Dwarf Billy” Burley 6 ' 7 '' Giovanni Battista Belzoni 6 ' 7 '' Thomas Jefferson (the statue) 7 ' 6'' Jefferson Davis (the statue) 7 ' 7'' 1 Martin Van Buren Bates 7 ' 11 /2'' M. Bihin, a Belgian exhibited in Boston in 1840 8 ' Anna Haining Swan 8 ' 1'' HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT A Catskill farmer, Mark Carr, brought two ox-sleds of evergreen trees into New-York and managed to vend them all.

The Reverend Heinrich Christian Schwan, a recent immigrant from Hanover, Germany to Cleveland, Ohio (by way of Brazil in South America), set up a lighted and decorated Christmas tree in his Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. When someone denounced this as heathen idolatry he took it down (in the Christmas season of 1852 his church would be able to erect a similar display without serious objection).

Escapism was obviously going to do well. The books of escapist reading were going to just fly off the bookstore shelves. Therefore Susan B. Warner published a first fiction entitled THE WIDE WIDE WORLD, using the nom de plume “Elizabeth Wetherell” so as not to interfere with her haute social standing. This American novel would be exceeded in popularity during its time only by UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, which was being issued concurrently. The following commentary is from Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY, issued in 1868:

Jo spent the morning on the river with Laurie and the afternoon reading and crying over THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD, up in the apple tree.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

In this novel, we may well note, a copy of “Parson” Mason Locke Weems’s LIFE AND MEMORABLE ACTIONS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON is given as a Christmas present. GEORGE WASHINGTON

September: Louisa May Alcott got her first piece of poetry published, which was “Sunlight,” in Peterson’s Magazine, which at that time was the US’s most popular magazine for women, under the pseudonym “Flora Fairfield.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1852

May 8, Saturday: The Olive Branch was a weekly Methodist newspaper in Boston, edited by the Reverend Thomas F. Norris. As Thoreau would report in “Reading”:

WALDEN: We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and are making the PEOPLE OF most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village does WALDEN for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor to be flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us. We need to be provoked, – goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot. We have a comparatively decent system of common schools, schools for infants only; but excepting the half-starved Lyceum in the winter, and latterly the puny beginning of a library suggested by the state, no school for ourselves. We spend more on almost any article of bodily aliment or ailment than on our mental aliment. It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure – if they are indeed so well off-to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives. Shall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever? Cannot students be boarded here and get a liberal education under the skies of Concord? Can we not hire some Abélard to lecture to us? Alas! what with foddering the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from school too long, and our education is sadly neglected. In this country, the village should in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe. It should be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only the magnanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough on such things as farmers and traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose spending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of far more worth. This town has spent seventeen thousand dollars on a town-house, thank fortune or politics, but probably it will not spend so much on living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred years. The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually subscribed for a Lyceum in the winter is better spent than any other equal sum raised in the town. If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial? If we will read newspapers, why not skip the gossip of Boston and take the best newspaper in the world at once? –not be sucking the pap of “neutral family” papers, or browsing “Olive-Branches” here in New England. Let the reports of all the learned societies come to us, and we will see if they know any thing. Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his culture, –genius –learning –wit –books –paintings –statuary –music – philosophical instruments, and the like; so let the village do, –not stop short at a pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a parish library, and three selectmen, because our pilgrim forefathers got through a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these. To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions; and I am confident that, as our circumstances are more flourishing, our means are greater than the nobleman’s. New England can hire all the wise men in the world to come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not be provincial at all. That is the uncommon school we want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men. If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

PETER ABÉLARD HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Louisa May Alcott’s 1st publication, “The Rival Painters,” appeared in the Olive Branch for this date, Volume XVII, #19. In Louisa’s journal she remarked “My first story was printed and $5 paid for it. It was written in Concord when I was sixteen. Great rubbish! Read it aloud to sisters, and when they praised it, not knowing the author, I proudly announced her name.” Below is how this real-life episode was represented as part of Jo March’s publication triumph in Chapter 14 of Volume I of LITTLE WOMEN in 1869, complete with a most pertinent and appropriate reference to Miss Fanny Burney’s anonymous novel of manners EVELINA, 36 THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY’S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD:

“What’s the name?” asked Beth, wondering why Jo kept her face behind the sheet. “The Rival Painters.” “That sounds well. Read it,” said Meg. With a loud “hem!” and a long breath, Jo began to read very fast. The girls listened with interest, for the tale was romantic, and somewhat pathetic, as most of the characters died in the end. “I like that about the splendid picture,” was Amy’s approving remark, as Jo paused. “I prefer the lovering part. Viola and Angelo are two of our favorite names, isn’t that queer?” said Meg, wiping her eyes, for the ‘lovering part’ was tragical. “Who wrote it?” asked Beth, who had caught a glimpse of Jo’s face. The reader suddenly sat up, cast away the paper, displaying a flushed countenance, and with a funny mixture of solemnity and excitement replied in a loud voice, “Your sister.” “You?” cried Meg, dropping her work. “It’s very good,” said Amy critically. “I knew it! I knew it! oh, my Jo, I am so proud!” And Beth ran to hug her sister and exult over this splendid success. Dear me, how delighted they all were, to be sure! how Meg wouldn’t believe it till she saw the words. “Miss Josephine March,” actually printed in the paper; how graciously Amy criticized the artistic parts of the story, and offered hints for a sequel, which unfortunately couldn’t be carried out, as the hero and heroine were dead; how Beth got excited, and skipped and sang with joy; how Hannah came in to exclaim, “Sakes alive, well I never!” in great astonishment at ‘that Jo’s doin’s’; how proud Mrs. March was when she knew it; how Jo laughed, with tears in her eyes, as she declared she might as well be a peacock and done with it. and how the ‘Spread Eagle’ might be said to flap his wings triumphantly over the House of March, as the paper passed from hand to hand. “Tell us about it.” “When did it come?” “How much did you get for it?” “What will Father say?” “Won’t Laurie laugh?” cried the family, all in one breath as they clustered about Jo, for these foolish, affectionate people made a jubilee of every little household joy. “Stop jabbering, girls, and I’ll tell you everything,” said Jo, wondering if Miss Burney felt any grander over her EVELINA than she did over her ‘Rival Painters.’ Having told how she disposed of her tales, Jo added, — “And when I went to get my answer, the man said he liked them both, but didn’t pay beginners, only let them print in his paper, and noticed the stories. It was good practice, he said, and when the beginners improved, anyone would pay. So I let him have the two stories, and to-day this was sent to me, and Laurie caught me with it and insisted on seeing it, so I let him. And he said it was good, and I shall write more, and he’s going to get the next paid for, and oh — I am so happy, for in time I may be able to support myself and help the girls.” Jo’s breath gave out here, and wrapping her head in the paper, she bedewed her little story with a few natural tears, for to be independent and earn the praise of those she loved were the dearest wishes of her heart, and this seemed to be the first step toward that happy end.

May 8, Saturday: 4.30. –The robin [American Robin Turdus migratorius] and the bluebird [Eastern Bluebird Sialia sialis] have sung for some time. The haziness is now like a sea-turn, through which the HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT sun, shorn of beams, looks claret, and at length, when half an hour high, scarlet. You thought it might become rain. Many swallows flying in flocks high over the river, –the chimney swallow for one. What is the other? They sustain themselves sometimes on quivering wings, making little progress, as if to catch insects.... A singular noise from a jay [Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata] this morning. Hear the yellow-bird [Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia], the creeper [Pine Warbler Dendroica pinus or Brown Creeper Certhia americana or Black-and-white Warbler Mniotilta varia], and the myrtle-bird [Yellow-rumped Warbler Dendroica coronata] this morning, all together; they are much alike. The creeper, a faint oven- bird [Seiurus aurocapillus] note; the myrtle-bird, a little more of the s or t in it than the yellowbird and more various. I hear the wit-er-che, Maryland yellow-throat [Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas]. Two gold robins [Northern Oriole Icterus galbula]; they chatter like black-birds: the fire bursts forth on their backs when they lift their wings. A fresh scent blows off from the meadow, the river rapidly going down.... The blackbirds [Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus] have a rich sprayey warble now, sitting on the top [of] a willow or an elm. They possess the river now, flying back and forth across it.... The blackbirds fly in flocks and sing in concert on the willows, –what a lively, chattering concert! a great deal of chattering with many liquid and rich warbling notes and clear whistles, –till now a hawk sails low, beating the bush; and they are silent or off, but soon begin again. Do any other birds sing in such deafening concert?

Winter: With the Alcott family moving to a basement apartment in Boston, the Hawthornes transferred to Samuel Eliot Sewall as trustee the agreed $1,500.00 purchase price for the frame home, painted a rusty olive, that the Alcotts had purchased in 1845 after the Consociate Family at Fruitlands near Harvard, Massachusetts had fallen apart, and paid $500.00 to Waldo Emerson, in addition, for eight acres of Concord meadow he had obtained to go with that house, across the road. The Alcotts had named their refuge Hillside because of its being situated at the foot of a glacial sand hill (esker??),37 and the Hawthornes would be renaming it “The Wayside” because, like the “Wayside Inn” tavern of renown, it was directly alongside a main post road, in this case the route through to Lexington. Nathaniel’s pacing back and forth along the top of this hill would soon be creating a distinct path in the thin soil. The family would be living in this house until going abroad in 1853, and then the house would be occupied by the family of Mrs. Hawthorne’s brother, Dr. Nathaniel Peabody. OLD HOUSES

36. Little known fact of history: Fanny Burney’s novel was published in January 1778 and yet she dared not inform her father that she was the author of this work until June 1778 — after it was known to be a commercial success and, also, after her father had praised it. (Have you come a long way, baby?) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

December 18, Saturday: Horatio Greenough died in asylum of some sort of brain problem.

Louisa May Alcott’s third publication of which we presently have any knowledge, titled “The Masked Marriage,” appeared in Dodge’s Literary Museum, Volume VI, #2. Below, how it would be represented as part of the March girls’ publication “The Pickwick Portfolio” enfolded into Chapter 10 of Volume I of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY in 1869:

THE MASKED MARRIAGE

(A Tale Of Venice)

Gondola after gondola swept up to the marble steps, and left its lovely load to swell the brilliant throng that filled the stately halls of Count Adelon. Knights and ladies, elves and pages, monks and flower girls, all mingled gaily in the dance. Sweet voices and rich melody filled the air, and so with mirth and music the masquerade went on. “Has your Highness seen the Lady Viola to-night?” asked a gallant troubadour of the fairy queen who floated down the hall upon his arm. “Yes, is she not lovely, though so sad! Her dress is well chosen, too, for in a week she weds Count Antonio, whom she passionately hates.”

37. As the geologist Jeff Unruh would comment in 1993, “Topography doesn’t happen for nothing.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1853

January: From this point until sometime in May, Louisa May Alcott would be offering home school in her parlor in Concord, for about a dozen pupils.

William Whiting became the president of the New-England Historic, Genealogical Society. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT May-October: During this period Louisa May Alcott was worked as a domestic in the family of an elderly lawyer of Dedham, Massachusetts, James Richardson, functioning as a companion for his sister and his father, for $2.00/ week plus room and board. It had been in this home in 1849 that Louisa had written her manuscript THE INHERITANCE. This had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY and is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time.

Presumably she was earning her pay, fending off the sexual advances of Mr. Richardson. Presumably she decided that she could not inform her parents in Concord of the demands being made of her by her employer, which offers us an interesting insight into 19th-Century sensitivities. Later, when she would write the story “How I Went out to Service,” she would imply that Richardson’s reading his poetry to her had amounted to a solicitation of sex. At any rate, when she would resign her post in October Richardson would pay her $4.00 as due wages and she would send the $4.00 back to him. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT October: Louisa May Alcott left the employ of the family of James Richardson in Dedham, Massachusetts. Presumably she had earned her $2.00 a week fending off the sexual advances of Mr. Richardson, and presumably she had not found her way clear to inform her parents in Concord of the demands made of her, which offers us an interesting insight into 19th-Century sensitivities. Later, when she would write a story entitled “How I Went out to Service,” she would imply that this elderly lawyer’s reading his poetry to her amounted to a solicitation of sex. At any rate, as she left Richardson paid due wages of $4.00 and she sent that $4.00 back to him. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

It was presumably during this month that Ellery Channing wrote to Henry Thoreau, as follows: Mr Thoreau If you are not engaged to-day I should like to make an excursion with you on the river. If you are [some] other day next week. WEC

the undersigned lend to Michael Flannery the following sums, till the 1st of amounting in all to 50- dollars

November, 1854. so to enable his family him to transport to this county ^ viz—

(We see that Thoreau has subsequently utilized this scrap as scratchpaper for the subscription he was getting together among Concord folk, that would enable local Irish laborer Michael Flannery to bring his wife and children over from Ireland.)

The Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward, although ill, toured and spoke in Scotland. Many of the most prominent members of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada are natives of Scotland. Knowing the very active part some of the very best of their countrymen took in the emancipation struggle, and knowing as well how warmly the Scottish heart beats for liberty, especially upon its native soil, they kindly gave me letters of introduction to many persons of great eminence there. After I arrived in England, the Committee of the Glasgow New Abolition Society very cordially invited me to visit the North. What I knew of Scotchmen whom I had met, what I had read, and the natural desire to see such a country and such a people, made me but too happy to accept their kind invitation. Accordingly, in October, 1853, I paid my first visit to the land of Bruce and Burns, of Campbell, Gordon, and Scott. I was invited to attend a bazaar, and to speak. Though very ill, I made the attempt. The Rev. Dr. Lorimer was in the chair, sustained by some of the most learned of the Glasgow clergy, and gentlemen of high standing in other professions. The kind and, I am sure, too partial manner, in which the excellent Dr. Roberton, of Manchester, had written and spoken of me, made me the welcome guest of Captain Hamilton,38 of Rutherglen — a fit representative of the Scottish laird and the British officer. William P. Paton, Esq., and Hugh Brown, Esq., laid me under obligations by kindly receiving me at their homes, 38. Captain Hamilton did me the honour to introduce me to Rev. Mr. Monro, of Rutherglen, whose kind people contributed most liberally to our cause. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT and by introducing me to some of the most eminent Scottish ministers. It was at the house of the former that I first had the gratification of meeting the Rev. Dr. Urwick, of Dublin, and the Rev. Noble Shepherd, of Sligo. At the house of Mr. Brown I had the pleasure of meeting the Rev. Dr. Arnot. At the hospitable board of the Rev. Dr. Lorimer I was honoured by an introduction to the Rev. Dr. Robson. Through the kindness of another friend, John Bain, Esq., I had the privilege of becoming acquainted with the Rev. Dr. Roxburgh.39 John Smith, Esq., treated me like a brother, and Mrs. Smith sustained him in it. David Smith, Esq., the elder brother of Mr. John Smith, conferred upon me one of the highest favours a Scotchman could confer or a Negro could appreciate — he gave me a copy of Burns’ poems, from his own library. That was almost equal to proffering me the freedom of Glasgow, or making me a Scotchman! Well did I use that volume, while sojourning in the country which gave birth to it and its immortal author! O that I liked oaten cakes, haggis, cockie-leekie, or BAGPIPES, as much as Burns! May my Scotch brethren forgive me for being so incorrigible a creature as to cling to old-fashioned likes and dislikes, acquired before I went to Scotland! ...It was a cold, damp, foggy winter — a winter of such “darkness as may be felt.” I had before heard that “a Scotch mist will wet an Irishman to the skin.” A Scotch fog went through my skin, and gave me a worse congestion of the lungs than I had before suffered from in twenty years. So severe was it, as to compel me to suspend labour, and return to England. I went to the coast of Kent, to recover; and while there, received an invitation from my honoured friend, William Crossfield, Esq., to spend some time at his very pleasant residence, near Liverpool. In the course of a month I was able to resume my labours. Thanks to my kind hostess, Miss Jurdison, of Ramsgate; to the very amiable family of Mr. Crossfield, and other numerous friends in Liverpool, including Rev. Dr. Raffles, J. Cropper, Esq., E. Cropper, Esq., Rev. Chas. Birrell, G. Wright, Esq., the Misses Wraith, and others! Their great kindness did more than medicine towards my restoration. I saw a good deal of Scotland, however, that winter, and became acquainted with some of the very best classes of Scotch gentry. I met, and worshipped with, and preached for, some of the best congregations — as Rev. Mr. Munro’s, of Rutherglen; Rev. Dr. Wardlaw’s, Rev. Dr. Roxburgh and others, in Glasgow; Rev. Mr. Campbell’s and Rev. Dr. Alexander’s, in Edinburgh; Rev. Mr. Gilfillan’s, Rev. Mr. Lang’s, and Rev. Mr. Borwick’s, of Dundee; Rev. Dr. Brown’s, of Dalkeith; &c. I was in Scotland, alas! too late to see the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw. I had received from him kind, loving messages of sympathy, fraternity, and encouragement. They came like the words of one just entering the world of love — were destitute of stiff formality, and fragrant with the spirit of heaven. On an appointed day, a party of us went to his residence, to see him. The carriage which conveyed me arrived just as others were leaving, and the fatigue of the interview could neither be prolonged nor repeated. Thus I lost the opportunity of seeing on earth one of the men to meet whom will be one of the attractions of heaven. I had been equally unsuccessful in seeing 39. Dr. Roxburgh invited me to preach for him, and kindly allowed me to plead the cause of the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society in his pulpit. The collection was the largest I ever received, £50. 1s. 4d. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Dr. Collyer, the first day I preached in his chapel. Before I was there again, he and the sainted Wardlaw were with Jesus. I had the melancholy pleasure of mingling my tears with the many who heard Rev. Dr. Alexander preach Dr. Wardlaw’s funeral sermon. I never before heard such a discourse. It was a noble tribute to the learning, piety, attainments and character, of the deceased, by one who intimately knew him and dearly loved him. The oration spoke wonders both for the dead and the living. It showed that the living speaker knew how to appreciate the great and shining qualities of the deceased. The sermon was delivered in the earnest impressive style of Scotch divines, tempered and chastened by the superior refinement of the respected preacher, who is, I think, one of the most finished — if not, indeed, the most finished — pulpit orator I heard in Scotland. The deep sensation felt all through the commercial metropolis of Scotland upon the death of Dr. Wardlaw, the words of praise which every lip gave him, the reverence with which his name was spoken, testified plainly, to the most casual observer, how deep and firm a hold he had upon all hearts while living. The same feeling pervaded all classes in the provinces. In his case was verified the scriptural expression, “The memory of the just is blessed.” Society in Scotland differs from that in England, as does the society of Boston and Massachusetts generally from that of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. I was struck with this while travelling northwards. The northern people are more familiar, more democratic. A Scotchman does not feel under the particular necessity of sitting next you all day in a railway carriage without saying a word, as an Englishman does. Betwixt different classes there is more familiarity, less distance, in Scotland, than in England. The different orders of society seem to approach more nearly to each other, without either losing or forgetting its place. There is less of the feeling, so prevalent in small towns in the South, that merchants and professional men must by all means avoid contact with shopkeepers. The chief order of nobility is the clergy, and all join to pay deference to them; but the general spread of religion, and the very upright and pious habits of the population — the familiarity of the ministers with people, join to produce a brotherly feeling of oneness, which is abundantly apparent in the national character and in the state of society. Besides, I do not think that mere ceremony is half so much studied by the Scotch. They are great believers in realities; they are a substantial people; and what is merely formal, unless it be formal after the Scottish mode, is not commendable to them, and it costs them but little to say, “I canna be fashed wi sic clishmaclaver.” Hence, you get at a Scotchman’s heart at once. He will not profess to be what he is not. When you go to his house, and he extends his hand and says, “Come away,” you may know you are welcome. I like this straightforward way of doing things: it is far more expressive of true generosity than the set courtly phrases of mere conventionalism. A sort of independence of character is far more prevalent and observable in the Scotch peasantry than in either the English, the Irish, or the Welsh. Everybody expects to find it so; if not he will find himself much mistaken. Several anecdotes have been given me illustrative of this; but as I am not at home in telling HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Scotch tales, I dare not insert any of them. The fact, however, is most palpable. Doubtless the universal diffusion of education has much to do with it. How readily, and how generously, did the Scottish people respond to the claims of the anti-slavery cause! Dr. Pennington found it so, when he was there; so did Mr. Garnet; so did Frederic Douglass. There is far more of active, organized, anti-slavery vitality, among the three millions of Scottish population, than among the seventeen millions of English people. There are classes in England which the anti-slavery cause never reaches — the classes who compose the multitude. It is not so in Scotland, because the whole population, high and low, attend divine service, and they naturally enough acquire the habit of attending the kirk on any subject for which it is open. In England, millions of the working classes (not to mention others) do not attend any place of worship, and therefore never hear, know, or care, about the moral movements of the age. The same result is seen in Ireland. There are multitudes there, to be seen in the streets, who never enter any other than a Roman Catholic place of worship, and who accordingly know literally nothing of what is going on in the great moral field. In Wales, on the other hand, religion is as universal as education is in Scotland. Hence the Welsh, like the Scotch, go en masse to the meetings for religious and benevolent purposes. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1854

At about the middle of this year Louisa May Alcott wrote to her older sister Anna Bronson Alcott about the stories which she had created while she was doing babysitting at the age of 16, for the amusement of little Ellen Emerson, the little volume which eventually would be entitled FLOWER FABLES: I’ve shed my quart [of tears] ... over the book not coming out, for that was a sad blow, and I waited so long it was dreadful when my castle in the air came tumbling about my ears. Pride made me laugh in public, but I wailed in private, and no one knew it. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

October: This month’s issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. CONSULT THIS ISSUE

Louisa May Alcott, back from maid job with $32.00 saved over the course of the summer, re-opened her home parlor school.

November: Bronson Alcott visited George Washington Briggs “concerning Louisa’s book of ‘Flower Fables’ which he is printing as a child’s Christmas gift.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

The type of photograph which became known as the carte-de-visite –because the same size as and often used 1 1 1 in a similar manner to a visiting card (2 ⁄2" x 4", on which the image is sized 2 ⁄4" x 3 ⁄2")– was introduced in Paris by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (1819-1890). In this albumen-prints-from-wet-collodion-negatives process, because of the lens that was used, eight to ten images could be made on one standard-size glass plate, so that the positive prints made from this plate could then be cut apart with scissors and presented on eight to ten different occasions to eight to ten different people. The exposures could be made either simultaneously, for identicality and convenience, or consecutively, to obtain different poses, at the customer’s choice.

November 11, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette,“The Rival Prima Donnas” by “Flora Fairfield.”

Henry Thoreau received the package of three books, and letter in French, that had been posted by the Abbé Adrien-Emmanuel Rouquette in New Orleans on the 1st of the month. Total travel time from the Louisiana port to the Massachusetts port, plus pickup and delivery in Boston to the publishing firm of Ticknor, and forwarding to Concord, had been a remarkably short ten days! The books in the package were, presumably:

• Rouquette’s LA THÉBIADE DE L’AMÉRIQUE • Rouquette’s WILD FLOWERS • Rouquette’s LES SAVANES, POESIES AMERICAINES HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT December 9, Saturday: Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,” to become incomparably more famous as a poem than his “Charge of the Heavy Brigade,” which of course you’ve not so much as heard of.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Also, on December 9th, Henry Thoreau surveyed a 7 1/2 acre woodlot, belonging to Tilly Holden, that was part of the property near the north part of Nut Meadow Brook (Gleason H4) on Sudbury Road (Gleason H5) and Old Marlborough Road (Gleason H3) which he had surveyed for Amos and Noah Wheeler in November of 1853.

Also, Louisa May Alcott published the stories she had originally created while caring for Ellen Emerson, as FLOWER FABLES, in time for the Christmas Book gift season, and took her essay “How I Went Out to Service” to James Thomas Fields, the Boston publisher — but was informed she could not write.40 “Pondering shadows, colors, clouds Grass-buds, and caterpillar shrouds Boughs on which the wild bees settle, Tints that spot the violet’s petal.” — Emerson’s WOOD-NOTES.

To Ellen Emerson, For whom they were fancied, These flower fables Are inscribed, By her friend, — The Author. Boston, Dec. 9, 1854.

Chapter I: The Frost King: or, The Power of Love Chapter II: Eva’s Visit to Fairy-Land Chapter III: The Flower’s Lesson Chapter IV: Lily-Bell and Thistledown Chapter V: Little Bud Chapter VI: Clover-Blossom Chapter VII: Little Annie’s Dream: or, The Fairy Flower Chapter VIII: Ripple, the Water-Spirit Chapter IX: Fairy Song THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT December 19, Tuesday: George Washington Briggs stocked Louisa May Alcott’s FLOWER FABLES on the shelves of his bookstore on Washington Street in Boston in time for the Christmas season, as a potential child’s Christmas gift item. He placed an advertisement for it in the Boston Evening Transcript:41 Flower Fables. this day published by Geo. W. Briggs & Co. the most beautiful Fairy book that has appeared for a long time, written when in her sixteenth year, by Louisa May Alcott, a young lady of Boston. It will be the most popular juvenile issued this season. THE ALCOTT FAMILY In approximately this year of 1854 the Children’s Aid Society was being founded and a Newsboy’s Lodging House was being created so that the abandoned boys who were forced to hawk newspapers on the streets, referred to at the time as “newsies,” would not have to find their night shelter on the street during the winters. This evidently began a tradition of treating newsboys with great kindness and consideration, as useful citizens of the commonwealth — as witness the following corporate communication from the pages of the Editor & Publisher:

Treat them well, that is, entertain them, give them help when they need it, and invite them to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and they will show their gratitude by selling your papers in preference of all others.

Henry Thoreau wrote to his new correspondent, Friend Daniel Ricketson to accept the hospitality of his home “Brooklawn” in New Bedford while lecturing there, and to ask his host to “warn Mr Mitchell that I accepted at once his invitation to lecture on the 26th of this month.”

Concord Mass. Dec 19th 1854. Dear Sir, I wish to thank you again for your sympathy. I had counted on seeing you when I came to New Bedford, though I did not know exactly how near to it you permanently dwelt; therefore I gladly accept your in- vitation to stop at your house. th I am going to lecture at Nantucket the 28 , and as I suppose I must NANTUCKET ISLAND improve the earliest opportunity to get there from New Bedford, I will endeavor to come on Monday that I may see yourself and New Bedford before my lecture. I should like right well to see your ponds, but that is hardly to be

40. That’s “could not” as in “should not,” you understand. Good thing Thoreau had been born a Henry and not a Henrietta! Good thing our Louisa was not one to be so easily turned aside!

As long as THE SPREAD EAGLE paid her a dollar a column for her ‘rubbish,’ as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of means, and spun her little romances diligently. But great plans fermented in her busy brain and ambitious mind, and the old tin kitchen in the garret held a slowly increasing pile of blotted manuscript, which was one day to place the name of March upon the roll of fame.

41. The young author would be rather disappointed with the cash proceeds of authorship: “I only got a very small sum for them owing to Mr Briggs’ dishonesty.” There seems to be no reason to suspect dishonesty, as the gross for the 550 copies that the book sold would have been approximately $340 and Louisa’s cut would have been 10% or $34, approximately what she did in fact receive from George Washington Briggs. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT thought of at present. I fear that it is impossible for me to combine such things with the business of lecturing. You cannot serve God and Mammon. However perhaps I shall have time to see something of your country. I am aware that you have not so much snow as we. There has been excellent sleighing here ever since the 5th ult. Mr Cholmondeley has left us; so that I shall come alone. Will you be so kind as to warn Mr Mitchell that I accepted at once his invitation to lecture on the 26th of this month, for I do not know that he has got my letter. Excuse this short note from Yours truly Henry D. Thoreau.

Thoreau also wrote a nice long letter to H.G.O. Blake: Concord Mass. Dec. 19th 1854. Mr. Blake, I suppose you have heard of my truly providential meeting with Mr Brown —providential because it saved me from the suspicion that my words had fallen altogther on stoney ground, when it turned out that there was some Worcester soil there. You will allow me to consider that I correspond with him thro you. I confess that I am a very bad cor- respondent, so far as promptness of reply is concerned, but then I am sure to answer sooner or later. The longer I have forgotten you, the more I re- member you. For the most part I have not been idle since I saw you. How does the world go with you? or rather, how do you get along without it? I have not yet learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon. I find however, that in the long run things correspond to my original idea—that they correspond to nothing else so much,—and thus a man may really be a true prophet

Page 2 without any great exertion. [The day] is never so dark, nor the night even, but that the laws, at least, of light still prevail, and so may make it light in our minds if they are open to the truth. There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

dinner and supper—but it will not directly answer any good purpose that I know of, & it is just as easy to be sane. We have got to know what both life and death are before we can begin to live after our own fashion. Let us be learning our a b c s as soon as possible. I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled thro' a [mud puddle]; he comes out honor bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun—seeing we have so much leisure[ ] [l]et us not put all we prize into a foot-ball to be kicked, when a bladder will do as well. When an Indian is burned, his body [may be] broiled, it may be no more than a beef- steak. What of that? They may broil his heart, but they do not therefore broil his courage,—his principles. Be of good courage! That is the main thing.

Page 3 this cold winter to pay for the fuel that will be required to warm them? I suppose I have burned up a pretty good sized tree to-night—& for what? I settled with Mr Tarbell for it the other day—but that was'nt the final settlement. I got off cheaply from him. At last, One will say— “Let us see, how much wood did you burn, Sir? And I shall shudder to think that the next question will be, “What did you do while you were warm?”— Do we think the ashes will pay for it?— that God is an ash-man? It is a fact that we have got to render [an] an account for the deeds done in the body. Who knows but we shall be better the next year than we have been the past? At any rate, I wish you a really new year—com- mencing from the instant you read HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT this,—and happy or u[n]happy ac- cording to your deserts. Henry D. Thoreau Dec. 19, 1854.

In the afternoon he enjoyed his “first tolerable skating” of the winter, going half a mile up the Assabet River past Clamshell Bank or Hill (Gleason 23/G5) and there walking to the foot of Fair Haven Hill (Gleason H7).

Off Clamshell I heard and saw a large flock of Fringilla linaria [Common Redpoll Carduelis flammea] over the meadow no doubt it as these I saw on the 9th. (But I saw then, and on the 10th, a larger and whiter bird also; may have been the bunting.) Suddenly they turn aside in their flight and dash across the river to a large white birch fifteen rods off, which plainly they had distinguished so far. I afterward saw many more in the Potter swamp up the river. They were commonly brown or dusky above, streaked with yellowish white or ash and more or less white or ash beneath. Most had a crimson crown or frontlet. and a few crimson neck and breast. very handsome. Some with a bright-crimson crow n and clear-white breasts. I suspect that these were young males. They keep up an incessant twittering, varied from time to time with some mewing notes and occasionally for some unknown reason, they will all suddenly dash away with that universal loud note (twitter) like a bag of nuts They are busily clustered in the tops of the birches picking the seeds out of the catkins! and sustain themselves in all kinds of attitudes, sometimes head downwards. while about this. Common as they are now, and were winter before last. I saw none last winter.

December 20, Wednesday: At 7 AM Henry Thoreau skated to Nawshawtuct or Lee’s Hill (Gleason F6). In the afternoon he and Ellery Channing skated to Fair Haven Pond or Bay (Gleason J7), and Thoreau noted that it was “killing work” for Channing not only because of his skates but also because he wasn’t using an “easy” skating technique.

The Boston Evening Transcript carried on its 1st page a notice: Messrs. George W. Briggs & Co. have published an illustrated work entitled Flower Fables, by Louisa May Alcott. It contains several agreeable sketches, in prose and verse, adapted to the capacity of intelligent young persons.42

Thoreau was being written to by Friend Daniel Ricketson in New Bedford. H. D. Thoreau Dear Sir, Yours of the 19th came to hand this evening. I shall therefore look for you on Monday next. My farm is 3 mi. north of New Bedford. Say to the conductor to leave you at the Tarkiln Hill station, where I or some of my folks will be in readiness for you

Page 2 on the arrival of the evening train. Should you intend coming earlier in the day

42. Louisa May Alcott. FLOWER FABLES. Boston MA: George W. Briggs & Co., 1855 HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT please inform me in time. I will get word to the Come of the N B Lyceum as you desire. If I do not hear from you again, I shall pre- pare for your arrival as before.

Page 3 In the meantime I remain Yours very truly Danl Ricketson Brooklawn near New Bedford Wednesday eveg. Dec 20. ’54

I am surprised to find how fast the dog can run in a straight line on the ice. I am not sure that I can beat DOG him on skates, but I can turn much shorter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1855

January 1, Monday: In the afternoon Henry Thoreau and Ellery Channing skated to Pantry Brook. The Nantucket Island Inquirer printed a long account of Thoreau’s lecture, which began:

“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” By Henry D. Thoreau, Esq. Notwithstanding the damp, uncomfortable weather of Thursday evening, and the muddy streets, a large audience assembled to listen to the man who has rendered himself notorious by living, as his book asserts, in the woods, at an expense of about sixty dollars per year, in order that he might there hold free communion with Nature, and test for himself the happiness of a life without manual labor or conventional restraints. His lecture may have been desultory and marked by simplicity of manner; but not by paucity of ideas.1

1. Nantucket Inquirer, January 1, 1855, page 2, columns 2-3; Don Jordan, “Thoreau’s Nantucket Lecture,” Thoreau Society Bulletin 166 (Winter 1984): 1-3. The reviewer went on for 128 sentences, the lengthiest contemporary newspaper summary of any of Thoreau’s lectures. Clearly, “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” had been well received.

Louisa May Alcott began her diary for the new year:

Twenty-two Years Old The principal event of the winter is the appearance of my book “Flower Fables.” An edition of sixteen hundred. It has sold very well, and people seem to like it. I feel quite proud that the little tales that I wrote for Ellen E. when I was sixteen should now bring money and fame. I will put in some of the notices as “varieties.” Mothers are always foolish over their first-born. Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book, and I received $32.

ELLEN EMERSON THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April: Waldo Emerson received a note from Professor Louis Agassiz:

It will give me great pleasure to have your daughter attend my school and I feel proud in the confidence you place in me in trusting to my care ... one who must be so dear to you. I trust this circumstance may lead to a personal acquaintance between us which I regret has not been brought about before.

Harvard College’s racist biologist during that era, and his wife, had set up their home in Cambridge as a racially and sexually segregated school, in order to educate Ellen Emerson and Louisa May Alcott among other toney white girls. We have, in the introduction to the character known as Professor Bhaer in LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY, an impression of the author’s regard for her stocky Cambridge professor:

I was thanking my stars that I’d learned to make nice buttonholes, when the parlor door opened and shut, and some one began to hum, — “Kennst du das Land,”

like a big bumblebee. It was dreadfully improper, I know, but I couldn’t resist the temptation, and lifting one end of the curtain before the glass door, I peeped in. Professor Bhaer was there, and while he arranged his books, I took a good look at him. A regular German — rather stout, with brown hair tumbled all over his head, a bushy beard, good nose, the kindest eyes I ever saw, and a splendid big voice that does one’s ears good, after our sharp or slipshod American gabble. His clothes were rusty, his hands were large, and he hadn’t a really handsome feature in his face, except his beautiful teeth, yet I liked him, for he had a fine head, his linen was very nice, and he looked like a gentleman, though two buttons were off his coat and there was a patch on one shoe. He looked sober in spite of his humming, till he went to the window to turn the hyacinth bulbs toward the sun, and stroke the cat, who received him like an old friend. Then he smiled, and when a tap came at the door, called out in a loud, brisk tone, — “Herein!” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1856

Louisa May Alcott, age 24, was living on her own in a rooming-house in Boston and, as one might well imagine, was enjoying her newfound ability to go for walks “to see pictures, get books, or eat goodies.”

Boston is nicer & noisier than ever.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

January 5, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “A New Year’s Blessing.”

In Waldo Emerson’s journal:

“Nature is so full of genius, full of the divinity; So that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”

January 26, Saturday: The Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway announced that on the following day, Sunday, January 27th, he intended to deliver a more important sermon than he had ever before attempted, and that this sermon would be entitled “The One Path, or, The Duties of the North and South.” He alerted Horace Greeley of the New- York Tribune to this intention, and asked Senator Charles Sumner to spread the word for him in the halls of the Congress of the United States.43 AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOLUME II

A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “The Sisters’ Trial.”

March 29, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Little Genevieve.”

April 19, Saturday: A poem by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Little Paul.” The publication began one of her stories, entitled “Bertha.”

43. Moncure Daniel Conway. THE ONE PATH: OR, THE DUTIES OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON DC, JANUARY 26, 1856, BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, MINISTER OF THE CHURCH. Pamphlet. Buell & Blanchard, Printers, Washington DC. READ THE FULL TEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April 26, Saturday: Henry Thoreau read in Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella’s DE RE RUSTICA. REI RUSTICAE AUCTORES...

Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette completed Louisa May Alcott’s story “Bertha.”

Waldo Emerson made an entry in his journal in regard to Walt Whitman and his outrageously sexual or at least 44 sensuous LEAVES OF GRASS:

Whipple said of the author of “Leaves of Grass,” that he had every leaf but the fig leaf.

The audience that assembled to hear my lectures in these six weeks was called, “the effete of Boston.”

44. Thoreau’s favorite among Walt Whitman’s poems was the one that in the 1856 edition was being entitled “Sun-Down Poem” — the one that we now know under the title “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” THE FERRY AT BROOKLYN PIER, NEW-YORK HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT May 24, Saturday: Henry Thoreau surveyed Mrs. Whitman’s Haverhill cemetery lots.

A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Mabel’s May Day.”

That night Captain John Brown and his men went to nearby Pottawatomie Creek and he directed his men in the murder of five proslavery settlers. One of the men that “St. John the Just”45 Brown had hacked to pieces with broadswords was an unarmed settler named James Doyle. This is his widow speaking: “When [we] went to Kansas,... it was to get to a free state where there would be no slave labor to hinder white men from making a fair day’s wages; [he] never owned any slaves, never expected to, nor did not want any.”

“BLEEDING KANSAS” What had been going around was coming around! –It appears that they considered that they were needing to

45. So denominated by Bronson Alcott. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT kill exactly five because their statistics were that a total of five free-state settlers had been killed since the outbreak of factional violence in Kansas in late 1855. In addition, it seems they felt that they were taking vengeance for the beating of Senator Charles Sumner, as well as for the burning of several buildings in Lawrence KA on May 21st by an armed band of pro-slavery Missourians. –An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that sort of thingie.

May 24. Pratt gave me the wing of a sparrow (?) hawk which he shot some months ago. He was coming from his house to his shop early in the morning when he saw this small hawk, which looked like a pigeon, fly past him over the Common with a sparrow in his clutches, and alight about six feet up the south buttonwood in front of Tolman’s. Having a small Maynard’s revolver in his pocket, loaded with a ball size of a pea, he followed, and, standing twenty-two paces from the tree in the road, aimed and brought down both hawk and sparrow at a distance of about six rods, cutting off the wing of the former with the ball. Thus he confessed he could not do again if he should try a hundred tunes. It must be a sparrow hawk, according to Wilson and Nuttall, for the inner vanes of the primaries and secondaries are thickly spotted with brownish white. Humphrey Buttrick says that he hears the note of the woodcock [American Woodcock Scolopax minor] from the village in April and early in May (too late now); that there were some this year breeding or singing; by the riverside in front of Abel Heywood’s. He says that when you see one spring right up straight into the air, you may go to the spot, and he will surely come down again after some minutes to within a few feet of the same spot and of you. Has known a partridge [Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus (Partridge)] to fly at once from one to two miles after being wounded (tracked them by the blood) without alighting. Says he has caught as many as a dozen partridges in his hands. He lies right down on them, or where he knows them to be, then passes his hands back and forth under his body till he feels them. You must not lift your body at all or they will surely squeeze out, and when you feel one must be sure you get hold of their legs or head, and not feathers merely. To-day is suddenly overpoweringly warm. Thermometer at 1 P.M., 94° in the shade! but in the afternoon it suddenly fell to 56, and it continued cold the next two days. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT June 21, Saturday: Friend Daniel Ricketson to his journal, in Concord:

Exceedingly warm at Concord. Thermometer at 93 in the shade north side Mr. Thoreau’s house, 12 M., rose to 97; spent the forenoon with Mr. Thoreau, Senr., walked down by the river and sat under the shade of the willows by the bank. I had a pleasant conversation with Miss Thoreau this P.M.; walked to Walden Pond with H.D.T. this P.M.; bathed, and crossed the pond with him in a boat we found upon the shore. Saw the Scarlet Tanager by the aid of Thoreau’s glass, a bird I had never seen before. He was perched upon the topmost bough of a pine, and chanted forth his simple song with considerable earnestness for some time. R.W. Emerson called upon me this evening; talked of Channing and the Kansas affairs. Walked home with him and with Thoreau. This has been extremely warm, thermometer at 99 at 5 P.M. north side shade of Mr. T.’s house.

ELLERY CHANNING JOHN THOREAU, SR. SOPHIA E. THOREAU WALDO EMERSON A series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” began in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

Henry Thoreau wrote to Calvin H. Greene of Rochester, Michigan.

Concord Saturday June 21st ’56 Dear Sir On the 12 ult I forwarded the two books to California, observing your directions in every particular, and I trust that Uncle Sam will discharge his duty faithfully. While in Worcester this week I ob- tained the accompanying daguerreotype — which my friends think is pretty good — though better looking than I. Books & postage — — — $2.64 Daguerreotype .50 Postage — — — .l6 3.30 5.00 3.30 You will accordingly find 1.70 enclosed with my shadow. Yrs Henry D. Thoreau HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT June 28, Saturday: Friend Daniel Ricketson to his journal, in New Bedford with Henry Thoreau:

Clear and fine. Thoreau and Arthur [??] went up the river botanizing.

The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” continued in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

Having abandoned his Oregon homestead, John Beeson placed an article in the Argus of Oregon City. The basis for dealing fairly with local Indians, he asserted, was that to do this was to “do good, love truth, be just and fair to ALL, exalt the RIGHT, though every ism fall.”

July 12, Saturday: The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” continued in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

Henry Thoreau was being written to by Mary Moody Emerson.

[Sat] Noon Will my young friend visit me tomorrow early as he can— This eve. My Sister Ripley sends word she will come & go to see Mrs William Emerson who is in Town. I wish for your writings — hoping they will give me a clearer clue to your faith — its nature its destination & Object! While excited by your original wit & thoughts, I lose sight, perhaps, of [the] motive & end & infinite responsibility of talent in any of its endless consequences. To enter the interior of a peculiar organisation of mind is desirable to all who think & read in intermited solitude. They believe when the novelty of genius opens on their unprac- tised eye that the spirit itself must own and feel its natural relations to their God of revelation where alone every talent can be perfected and bring it’s additions to the Owner — that faith in the discipline towards moral excellence can alone in- sure an immortal fame or even sucess & happiness here. God bles you & thus make you usefull to your Country & kind prays MME.

July 12. P. M. — Down Turnpike to Red Lily Meadow. Hear the plaintive note of young bluebirds, a reviving and gleaming of their blue ray. In Moore’s meadow by Turnpike, see the vetch in purple patches weighing down the grass, as if a purple tinge were reflected there. White vervain. Smooth sumach, apparently yesterday. Rue is beginning now to whiten the meadows on all hands. The Ranunculus aquatilis appears to be about done, though it may have been submerged by the rain of yesterday. I see hardly one freshly open, and it [is] quite moist and lowering yet. By the myosotis ditch there is an abundance of Galium trifidum (apparently obtusum or latifolium, in press). It is densely massed and quite prickly, with three corolla-lobes. As yet I think I have observed only two varieties of G. trifidum, smooth and rough. Lactuca sauguinea, some time, with dark-purple stem, widely branched. Pycnanthemum muticum and the narrow-leaved, not long. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT In the still wet road on the hill, just beyond Lincoln bound, a short-tailed shrew (Sorex brevicaudus of Say), dead after the rain. I have found them thus three or four times before. It is 4 1/2 inches long; tail 1+; head and snout, 1+. Roundish body. Lead-color above, somewhat lighter beneath, with a long snout, 3/8 inch beyond lower jaw, incisors black, delicate light-colored (almost silvery) mustachial bristles, and also from lower lip, nose emarginate; nails long and slender, a purple bar across each; cars white and concealed in the fur; the nostrils plainly perforated, though Emmons says that in the specimens of Sorex he had seen he could detect no perforations with a microscope. It has a peculiar but not very strong muskiness. There was an insect-wing in its mouth. Its numerous teeth distinct. Have I not commonly noticed them (lead after rain? I am surprised to read in Emmons that it was first observed in Missouri, and that he has “not been able to meet with it” and doubts its EMMONS existence in the State; retains it on the authority of former catalogues; says it nests on the surface and is familiar with water. In spirits. Red lilies in prime, single upright fiery flowers, their throats how splendidly and variously spotted, hardly two of quite the same hue and not two spotted alike, — leopard-spotted, — averaging a foot or more in height, amid the huckleberry and lambkill, etc., in the moist, meadowy pasture. Apparently a bluebird’s egg in a woodpecker’s hole in an apple tree, second brood, just laid. In collection. Parsnip at Bent’s orchard; how long? Also on July 5th, almost out. Agrimony well out. Chestnut in prime. See Lysimachia quadrifolia with from three to five (or six?) leaves in a whorl. Iberis umbellata, candytuft, roadside, Tuttle’s, naturalized; how long? New plant.

July 18, Friday: From the Rhode Island diary of John Hamlin Cady (1838-1914): “Day before yesterday there was a fugitive slave in Boston. Came secreted in a vessel. He is off for Canada.”

The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” continued in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

July 26, Saturday: George Bernard Shaw was born.

The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” continued in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

July 26. Saturday. 5 A.M. — Up Assabet. The sun's disk is seen round and red for a long distance above the horizon, through the thick but cloudless atmosphere, threatening heat, — hot, dry weather. At five the lilies had not opened, but began about 5.15 and were abundantly out at six. Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening. The II. angulosum (?) has a pod one-celled (with three parietal placentæ), conical, oblong, acute, at length longer than the sepals, purple. (The Canadense has from three to five (!) placentæ and the mutilum three to four (!), as I find, notwithstanding Gray.) Styles three, short, distinct, and spreading; stamens twenty, more or less, obscurely clustered. Petals oblong. (Do not see the single lateral tooth mentioned by Eaton.) Corolla twelve to fourteen fortieths of an inch in diameter. It is strict, slender, ten to twenty inches high; stem sharply four-angled, like Canadense, and cyme as naked or more so. The large ones make a singularly compact (flat-topped) corymb, of many narrow pods at last. Leaves oblong-lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, commonly blunt, but often gradually tapering and acute, broadest near the base and clasping, one to one and a half inches long by one eighth to three eighths wide, black-dotted beneath. Ground neither very dry nor very moist. It differs from Canadense, which it resembles, in being a larger plant every way, narrower in proportion to height, having more stamens, and in the form of its leaves. Corolla of mutilum nine to eleven fortieths of an inch in diameter; Canadense, twelve to thirteen fortieths; corymbosum eighteen fortieths. The corymbosum in chamber shut up at night. All but Sarothra, which may not be advanced enough, (I have no elodea), opened by 5 A.M., corymbosum and angulosum very fairly; but mutilum, Canadense, and angulosum curled and shut up by 9 A.M.!! The corymbosum shut up in afternoon. The perforatum and ellipticum alone were open all day. The four lesser ones are very shy to open and remain open very little while, this weather at least. I suspect that in the fields, also, they are open only very early or on cloudy days. H. Canadense and mutilum are often fifteen inches high. The largest and most conspicuous purple pods are those of the ellipticum. Those of the angulosum and Canadense are smaller and more pointed; are also purple, and the mutilum perhaps duller purple and less conspicuous. The pod of the ellipticum, when cut, smells like a bee. The united styles arm it like a beak or spine. This appears to be the most nearly out of bloom of all. I am surprised that Cray says it is somewhat four-angled. It is distinctly HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT two-angled and round between. The Hubbard aster may be the A. Tradescanti. The large potamogeton off Dodd’s seems to be the natans, from size of nutlets, etc. Then there is the second, off Clamshell, a long time out. And the third, heterophyllus (?), or what I have called hybridus, also long out. Drank up the last of my birch wine. It is an exceedingly grateful drink now, especially the aromatic, meadlike, apparently checkerberry-flavored one, which on the whole I think must be the black birch. It is a surprisingly high-flavored drink, thus easily obtained, and considering that it had so little taste at first. Perhaps it would have continued to improve.

P.M. — To Poorhouse Pasture. Nettle, some time. Ambrosia botrys, apparently a few days. A. Radula, ditch by pasture, several days apparently. Lycopus sinuatus, some time. I sec young larks fly pretty well before me. Smaller bur-reed (Sparganium Americanum), judging from form of stigma (ovate and oblique), yet the leaves are almost entirely concave (!), Stow's ditch. Is this the same with that in river? How long? It is very still and sultry this afternoon, at 6 P.M. even. I cannot even sit down in the pasture for want of air, but must keep up and moving, else I should suffocate. Thermometer ninety-seven and ninety-eight to-day. The pig pants and melts in his pen, and water must be cast on him. Agassiz says he has discovered that the haddock, a deep-sea fish, is viviparous. LOUIS AGASSIZ

August 2, Saturday: The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” continued in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

August 2: To Hill. A green bittern [Green-backed Heron Butorides striatus] comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water. This antediluvian bird, creature of the night, is a fit emblem of a dead stream like this Musketicook. This especially is the bird of the river. There is a sympathy between its sluggish flight and the sluggish flow of the stream – its slowly lapsing flight, even like the rills of Musketicook and my own pulse sometimes.

August 16, Saturday: The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott, entitled “Beach Bubbles,” continued in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette.

August 19: Gail Borden, Jr. patented condensed milk.

August 23, Saturday: The series of poems by Louisa May Alcott entitled “Beach Bubbles” concluded in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette with her poem “The Mother-Moon” (this would become one of the “Beach Bubbles” series which would be reprinted in THE LITTLE PILGRIM, 1, #1 of January 1858).

October 4, Saturday: The Sheriff of Stockton was approaching Nevada City to take the outlaw “Tom Bell” into custody, when he came upon his hanged body. The outlaw had been, to appearances, a victim of vigilante justice. Bell’s Valley in Yuba County, California is allegedly named after this outlaw (or perhaps after the Bell family with which he was hiding). MUMPERY

A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “The Lady and the Woman.”

Oct. 4. Helianthus tuberosus, apparently several days, in Reynolds’s yard (the butcher’s).

P.M. — Down river. Wind from northeast. Some water milkweed flying. Its pods small, slender, straight, and pointed perfectly upright; seeds large with much wing. The hibiscus gone to seed, and pods opened showing the seed, opposite HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Ostrya Island or Rock below Battle-Ground. Ira an article on the alligator in Harper’s Magazine for December, 1854, it is said that mosquitoes “surround its head in clouds; and we have heard the ncgroes assert that the reptile opened its mouth until its interior was fully lined, and suddenly closing it up, would swallow the accumulated marauders, and then set its huge jaws as a trap for more.” This reminds me of the swarms of mosquitos about frogs and, I think, turtles.46 In another article, of May, 1855, on “The Lion and his Kind,” the animals are placed in this order: the domestic CAT cat, wildcat, the ocelot or tiger-cat of Peru and Mexico, the caracal of Asia and Africa, the lynx of North America, the chetah of India and Africa, the ounce of India (perhaps a rough variety of the leopard), the leopard, the jaguar, the cougar, the tiger, the lion. “The Cougar is the American lion — at least it bears a closer resemblance to that noble brute than any other of the feline family, for it is destitute of the stripes of the tiger, the spots of the leopard, and the rosettes of the jaguar; but when full-grown possesses a tawny-red color, almost uniform over tile whole body, and hence the inference that it is like the lion.” “Cougar is a corruption of the Mexican name.” Ranges between Paraguay and the Great Lakes of North America. “In form it is less attractive than the generality of its species, there being an apparent want of symmetry; for it is observable that its back is hollow, its legs short and thick, and its tail does not gracefully taper; yet nature has invested the cougar with other qualities as a compensation, the most remarkable of which is an apparent power to render itself quite invisible; for so cunningly tinged is its fur, that it perfectly mingles with the bark of trees — in fact, with all subdued tints — and stretched upon a limb, or even extended upon the floor of its dimly lighted cage, you must prepare your eye by considerable mental resolution to be assured of its positive presence.” Its flesh is eaten by some. Mrs. Jane Swisshelm kept one which grew to be nine feet long, and, according to her, in this writer’s words, “If in exceeding good-humor he would purr; but if he wished to intimidate, he would raise his back, erect his hair, and spit like a cat. In the twilight of the evening the animal was accustomed to pace back and forth to tile full extent of his limits, ever and anon uttering a short, piercing shriek, which made the valley reverberate for half a mile or more in every direction. Mrs. Swisshelm says these sounds were the shrillest, and at the same time the most mournful she ever heard. They might, perhaps, be likened to the scream of a woman in an agony of terror.” He once sprang at her, but was brought up by his chain. When preparing to spring, his eyes were “green and blazing, and the tip of his tail moving from side to side.” This paper describes “a full-grown royal tiger, measuring four feet seven inches from the nose to the insertion of the tail.... Unlike the miserable wretches we see in our menageries, etc.” The Brattleboro paper makes the panther four feet eleven inches, so measured!! I hear that a Captain Hurd, of Wayland or Sudbury, estimates the loss of river meadow-hay this season in those two towns on account of the freshet at twelve hundred tons.

46. You may inspect this article, but only by subscribing to Harper’s Magazine online, at . HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT December 6, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Ruth’s Secret.”

After making his way back home to Concord and spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his family, Henry Thoreau wrote to his friend H.G.O. BlakeH.G.O. BLAKE in Worcester about the overwhelming feeling of gratitude which he was experiencing:

I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence —

In this letter he also attempted to describe the experiences he had had in the train depot in Blake’s town in the cold before-dawn hours of Tuesday, November 25th while on his way home from Eagleswood, New Jersey. He had taken a walk up to Theophilus Brown’s tailor shop, which at the time was in Butman Row (on the site of the present Slater Building), and peered within, deciding not to attempt to return Brown’s Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art by leaving it in the door handle: Concord Dec 6 ’56

Mr Blake, What is wanting above is merely an engraving of Eagleswood, which I have used. I trust that you got a note from me at Eagleswood about a fortnight ago. I passed thro’ [W]orcester on the morning of the 25th of November, and spent several hours (from 3.30 to 6.20) in the travellers’ room at the Depot, HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT as in a dream, it now seems. As the first Nashua train unexpectedly connected with the first from Fitchburg, I did not spend the forenoon with you, as I had anticipated, on account of baggage &c — If it had been a reasonable hour I should have seen you, i.e. if you had not been gone to a horse-race. But think of making a call at half past

Page 2 three in the morning! (Would it not have implied a 3 o clock in the morning courage in both you & me?) As it were ignoring the fact that mankind are really not at home — are not out, but so deeply in that they cannot be seen — nearly half their hours at this season of the year. I walked up & down the Main Street at half past 5 in the dark, and paused long in front of Brown’s store trying to distinguish its features; considering whether I might safely leave his “Putnam” in the door handle, but concluded not to risk it. Meanwhile a watchman ? seemed to be watching me, & I moved off. Took another turn round there, had a little later — , and the very earliest ^ offer of the Transcript from an urchin behind, whom I actually could not see, it was so dark. — So I withdrew,

Page 3 wondering if you & B. would know that I had been there. You little dream who is occupying Worcester when you are all asleep. Several things occurred then that night, which I will venture to say were not put into the Transcript. A CAT cat caught a mouse at the Depot, & gave it to her kitten to play with. So that world-famous tragedy goes on by night as well as by day, & nature is emphat- ically wrong. Also I saw a young Irish- man kneel before his mother, as if in prayer, while she wiped a cinder out of his eye with her tongue; and I found that it was never too late (or early?) to learn some- thing. — These things transpired HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT while you & B. were, to all practical purposes, [nowhere], & good for nothing — not even for society, — not for horse-races, — nor the taking back of a P[utnam’s] Mag[azine]. It is true, I might have recalled you to life, but it would have been a cruel act, considering the kind of life you would have come back to. However, I would fain write to you now by broad [daylight], and report to you some of my life, such as it is, and recall you to your life, {written vertically through top of letter: Left on the stove too long.}

Page 4 which is not always lived by you, even by day light. Blake! Blake! are you awake? Are you aware what an ever-glorious morning this is? — What long expected never to be repeated opportunity is now offered to get life & knowledge? For my part I am trying to wake up, — to wring slumber out of my pores; — For, generally, I take events as unconcernedly as a fence post, — absorb wet & cold like it, and am pleasantly tickled with lichens slowly spreading over me. Could I not be content then to be a cedar post, which lasts 25 years? Would I not rather be that than the farmer that set it? or he that preaches to that farmer — ? — & go to the heaven of posts at last? I think I should like to be that as well as any would like it. But I should not care if I sprouted into a living tree, put forth leaves & flowers, & bore fruit. I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of

Page 5

existence — Well anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT 10000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! [M]y extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches — No run on my bank can drain it — for my wealth is not possession but en- joyment. What are all these years made for? And how another winter [come], so much like the last? Cant we satisfy the beggars once for all? Have you got in your wood

Page 6 for this winter? What else have you got in? Of what use a great fire on the hearth & a confounded little fire in the heart? Are you pre- pared to make a decisive campaign — to pay for your costly tuition — to pay for the suns of past summers — for happi- ness & unhappiness lavished upon you? Does not Time go by swifter than the swiftest equine trotter or racker? Stir up Brown — [R]emind him of his duties, which outrun the date & span of Worceste[r’s] years past & to come. Tell him to be sure that he is on the Main Street, however narrow it may be — & to have a lit sign, visible by night as well as by day. Are they not patient waiters — they who wait for us? But even they shall

Page 7 not be losers. Dec. 7th That Walt Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most interesting fact to me at present. I have just read his 2nd edition (which he gave me) and it has done me more good than any reading for a long time. Perhaps I remember best the poem of Walt Whitman An American & the Sun Down Poem — There are 2 or 3 pieces HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT in the book which are disagreeable to say the least, simply sensual. He does not celebrate love at all — It is as if the beasts spoke. I think that men have not been ashamed of themselves without reason. No doubt, there have always been dens where such deeds were unblushingly recited, and it is no merit to compete with their inhabitants. But even on this side, he has spoken more truth than any American or modern that I know. I have found his poem exhilirating — encouraging. As for its sensuality, — & it may turn out to be less sensual than it appears — I do not so much wish that those parts were not written, as that men & women were so pure that they could read

Page 8 them without harm, that is without understanding them. One woman told me that no woman could read it — as if a man could read what a woman could not. Of course Walt Whitman can communicate to us no ex- perience, and if we are shocked, and if we are shocked whose experience is it that we are reminded of? On the whole it sounds to me very brave & American, after whatever deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons so called that have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for preaching — We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He occasionally suggests something a little more than human. You cant confound him with the other inhabitants of Brook- lyn or New York. How they must shudder when they read him! He is awefully good. To be sure I am sometimes feel a little imposed on — By his heartiness & broad general- ities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind prepared to see wonders — as it were sets me upon a hill or in the midst of a plain — stirs me well up, and then[ — ]throws in a thousand of brick. Though rude & sometimes ineffectual, it is HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Page 9 a great primitive poem — an alarum or trumpet note ringing through the American Camp. Wonderfully like the orientals too, considering that when I asked him if he had read them he answered “No! tell me about them.” I did not get far in conversation with him — two more being present, and among the few things which I chanced to say, I remember that one was, in answer to him as representing America, that I did not think much of America or of politics & so on — Which may have been some- what of a damper to him. Since I have seen him I find that I am not disturbed by any brag or egoism in his book. He may turn out the least of a braggart of all, having a better right to be confident. He is a great fellow — H. D. T. One might wonder, on reading this analysis of Walt Whitman’s poems, whether Thoreau might have been a closet Puritan. This passage in WALDEN is often considered to be dyed-in-the-wool Puritanism:

WALDEN: All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity. When the reptile is attacked at one mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at another. If you would be chaste, you must be temperate. What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is. We speak conformably to the rumor which we have heard. From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality.

It is, however, not. You will note that this passage is bracketed in WALDEN with a troubling pithy remark above it and another troubling pithy remark below it. Above this passage we find “He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established.” Below it we find “Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome.”

Recognizing the fact that this sort of talk gives a lot of folks nowadays the heartburn — I need to say that I personally agree with Thoreau’s analysis of Walt Whitman’s poetry, and with everything he wrote at this point in WALDEN. The reason is simple: this world we live in is by nature indecent, uncaring, unkind, and unforgiving. The only decency, the only caring, the only kindness, the only forgiveness that we will ever discover in this world, must be the decency, the caring, the kindness, the forgiveness that we ourselves can find it in ourselves to import into it. We are the source of this, we are the donors. If decency cannot come from us -- it cannot be here at all. (That’s why it’s termed human decency.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

You little dream who is occupying Worcester when you are all asleep. Several things occurred CAT there that night which I will venture to say were not put into the Transcript. A cat caught a mouse at the depôt, and gave it to her kitten to play with. So that world-famous tragedy goes on by night as well as by day, and nature is emphatically wrong. Also I saw a young Irishman kneel before his mother, as if in prayer, while she wiped a cinder out of his eye with her tongue; and I found that it was never too late (or early?) to learn something…. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Our Henry was awake, for he had finally had his full tiandi bu ren, yi wanwu wei chugou experience:

“The natural realm is without/outside human benevolence; it treats everything as mere straw dogs.”

If, that is, we desire this to be a world which includes benevolence, we must ourselves create benevolence within our own human47 realm — for this is not to be found unless it is created and is not to be created unless it is we who create it.

47. And this is the man whose most recent biographer insists is “probably the greatest spokesman of the last two hundred years for the view that we must turn … to nature for our morality” (ROBERT D. RICHARDSON, JR. , page 191), whose “life was far

more an imitation of Apollo than of Christ” and who was “not interested in a religion that strove to redeem man from this world, or to raise him above it” (192), a man who sought “knowledge, not grace” (193). This biographer has only one word for the above incident, and that a derogatory dismissive word: “astonishing” (357). Clearly, Richardson, thinking he is writing biography, has instead been writing autobiography (or, supposing that he had a seance with Thoreau’s soul, he has instead been listening to a rapping from Emerson), for this incident bore directly on a disagreement between Friend Lucretia Mott and Waldo Emerson in regard to his “The Law of Success” essay –the one that claimed that nature utilized not only the good but also the bad– for Lucretia’s reaction to that Emersonian lecture was “human wickedness works only evil, and that continually.” Clearly, also, Richardson’s got aholt of Thoreau’s corpus by a leg and I’ve got aholt by an arm, and we’re going to tug until we see whose piece includes the head and heart of Thoreau.

Emphatically Wrong HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT 48 In his A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, page 362, our Henry had asserted that

A WEEK: We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we. The most distinct and beautiful statement of any truth must take at last the mathematical form. We might so simplify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of arithmetic, that one formula would express them both. All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of the words by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy. The whole body of what is now called moral or ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract science. Or, if we prefer, we may say that the laws of Nature are the purest morality. The Tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics, that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devotee, and he professes another religion than it teaches, and worships at a foreign shrine. Anciently the faith of a philosopher was identical with his system, or, in other words, his view of the universe. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

And in his Journal for June 30, 1852, our Henry had asserted that

Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one’s native place, for instance. She is most significant to a lover. A lover of Nature is pre-eminently a lover of man. If I have no friend, what is Nature to me? She ceases to be morally significant.

In a contrast between William Wordsworth’s poetry and William Wordsworth’s philosophizing or

48.The poet W.H. Auden has in 1962 brought forward part of this from A WEEK as:

THE VIKING BOOK OF APHORISMS, A PERSONAL SELECTION BY W.H. AUDEN…

Pg Topic Aphorism Selected by Auden out of Thoreau

He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle 259 Science exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT philosophastering, C.S. Lewis has offered:

Nor have many people been taught moral philosophy by an “impulse from a vernal wood.” If they were, it would not necessarily be the sort of moral philosophy Wordsworth would have approved. It might be that of ruthless competition. For some moderns I think it is. They love nature in so far as, for them, she calls to “the dark gods in the blood”; not although, but because, sex and hunger and sheer power there operate without pity or shame. If you take nature as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you have already decided to learn; this is only another way of saying that nature does not teach. The tendency to take her as a teacher is obviously very easily grafted on to the experience we call “love of nature.” But it is only a graft. While we are actually subjected to them, the “moods” and “spirits” of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, “Look. Listen. Attend.” The fact that this imperative is so often misinterpreted and sets people making theologies and pantheologies and antitheologies –all of which can be debunked– does not really touch the central experience itself. What nature-lovers –whether they are Wordsworthians or people with “dark gods in their blood”– get from nature is an iconography, a language of images. I do not mean simply visual images; it is the “moods” or “spirits” themselves –the powerful expositions of terror, gloom, jocundity, cruelty, lust, innocence, purity– that are the images. In them each man can clothe his own belief. We must learn our theology or philosophy elsewhere (not surprisingly, we often learn them from theologians and philosophers). But when I speak of “clothing” our belief in such images I do not mean anything like using nature for similes or metaphors in the manner of the poets. Indeed I might have said “filling” or “incarnating” rather than clothing. Many people –I am one myself– would never, but for what nature does to us, have had any content to put into the words we must use in confessing our faith. Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one. I do not see how the “fear” of God could have ever meant to me anything but the lowest prudential efforts to be safe, if I had never seen certain ominous ravines and unapproachable crags. And if nature had never awakened certain longings in me, huge areas of what I can now mean by the “love” of God would never, so far as I can see, have existed.

Now, C.S. Lewis might be classed as a person who evidently had never been exposed to the geist of Thoreau. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT For I think he never refers to Thoreau in his writings on religion, even in the most appropriate locations. The moral conclusion I derive from the above quotation is that –since even non-Thoreauvian popular writers can “get it,” we should speak firmly, even harshly, to “Thoreauvians” who refuse to “get it” on this point of nature and morality, and continue to credit their Thoreau with some simpleminded nature-worship or with some ethic derived from naturalness or whatever, some shallow belief system derived not from Thoreau’s materials but from their own lack of thoughtfulness.

While Thoreau was undergoing this spiritual upheaval, John Brown was indulging in unlimited revolutionary scheming with Frederick Douglass at the Douglass home outside Rochester NY. How could the black people of the South be induced to rise up in a suicidal violent attempt to produce a circulation of the elites, a replacement of a repressive white ruling caste with a progressive black ruling caste? (—Or die in the attempt—) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1857

January 24, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “The Cross on the Church Tower.” This is what Lou looked like in about this year:

Waldo Emerson was staying at the Tremont House while lecturing in Chicago when he met an admirer of Henry Thoreau, Benjamin B. Wiley, who informed him that he intended to invite Thoreau to adventure with him to the Yellowstone River.

Thoreau went in the 14-degree-below-zero winter to see Boston Harbor frozen over, and icemen hard at work cutting a 14-mile channel all the way out to open sailing water.

January 24. Thermometer about 6.30 A. M. in the bulb!! but Smith’s on the same nail, -30°; Wilds’, early, -16°; Emerson’s, the same; at 9.15 A.M., ours, -18°; Smith’s, -22°; which would indicate that ours would have stood at -26° at 6.30, if the thermometer had been long enough. At 11.30 A.M. ours was -1°, at 4 P.M., + 12°. So the cold spell that began the evening of the 22d ended to-day noon. [No. Vide below.]

March 14, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Agatha’s Confession.”

April 4, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Little Sunbeam.”

April 4. Saturday. Walk down the shore of the river. A Dutchman pushes out in his skiff after quahogs. He also took his eel-spear, thinking to try for eels if he could not get quahogs, for, owing to the late cold weather, they might still be buried in the mud. I saw him raking up the quahogs on the flats at high (?) tide, in two or three feet of water. lie used a sort of coarse, long-pronged hoe. Keeps anchoring on the flats and searches for a clam on the bottom with his eye, then rakes it up and picks it off his rake. Am not sure what kind of large gulls I see there, some more white, some darker, methinks, than the herring gull. R. tells me that he found dead in his piazza the south side of his house, the 23d of last January, the snow being very deep and the thermometer -12° at sunrise, a warbler, which he sent to Brewer. I read Brewer’s note to him, in which he said that he took it to be the Sylvicola coronata and would give it to the Natural History Society, thinking it remarkable that it was found at that time. R. says that he discovered “for the first time its nest in the heart of Nova Scotia near Parrsboro mountains [I think last season]. It was the only new egg of that trip. Yet I felt well repaid, for ‘no other white man lead ever before seen that egg to know it,’ as Audubon says of another species.” Caught a croaking frog in some smooth water in the railroad gutter. Above it was a uniform (perhaps olive?) brown, without green, and a yellowish line along the edge of the lower jaws. It was, methinks, larger than a common Rana palustris. Near by was its spawn, in very handsome spherical masses of transparent jelly, two and a half to three inches in diameter, suspended near the surface of some weed, as goldenrod or aster, and consisting of globules about a third of an inch in diameter, with a black or dark centre as big as a large shot. Only these black centres were visible at a little distance in the water, and so much the more surprising and interesting is the translucent jelly when you lift it to the light. It even suggested the addition of cream and sugar, HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT for the table. Yet this pool must have been frozen over last night! What frog can it be? NEW BEDFORD MA FRIEND DANIEL RICKETSON

December 19, Saturday: Friend Daniel Ricketson in Concord, to his journal:

PARKER PILLSBURY Clear and colder; accompanied Thoreau on a survey of WALDO EMERSON woodland near Walden Pond this forenoon, dined with him ABBA ALCOTT at his father’s, afternoon at my lodgings with Thoreau and Parker Pillsbury. R.W. Emerson also joined us at LOUISA MAY ALCOTT the close of the P.M. Took tea with Mr. Emerson, called on Mrs. Alcott and her daughters, whom I found very ELIZABETH ALCOTT agreeable and intelligent people; one daughter I did MAY ALCOTT not see, being quite ill, probably not to recover. Mr. Sanborn called there, with whom I returned to my room, he occupied with a sister Channing’s house. ELLERY CHANNING HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1858

January: This month’s issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. CONSULT THIS ISSUE

A poem by Louisa May Alcott which had appeared in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “The Mother-Moon,” was reprocessed as one of the “Beach Bubbles” series of poems in THE LITTLE PILGRIM, 1, #1.

March 12, Friday: Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, age 23, died of the aftereffects of scarlet fever.

The girls never forgot that night, for no sleep came to them as they kept their watch, with that dreadful sense of powerlessness which comes to us in hours like those. “If God spares Beth, I never will complain again,” whispered Meg earnestly. “If God spares Beth, I’ll try to love and serve Him all my life,” answered Jo, with equal fervor. “I wish I had no heart, it aches so,” sighed Meg, after a pause. “If life is often as hard as this, I don’t see how we ever shall get through it,” added her sister despondently. Here the clock struck twelve, and both forgot themselves in watching Beth, for they fancied a change passed over her wan face. The house was still as death, and nothing but the wailing of the wind broke the deep hush. Weary Hannah slept on, and no one but the sisters saw the pale shadow which seemed to fall upon the little bed. An hour went by, and nothing happened except Laurie’s quiet departure for the station. Another hour, — still no one came; and anxious fears of delay in the storm, or accidents by the way, or, worst of all, a great grief at Washington, haunted the girls. It was past two, when Jo, who stood at the window thinking how dreary the world looked in its winding-sheet of snow, heard a movement by the bed, and turning quickly, saw Meg kneeling before their mother’s easy-chair with her face hidden. A dreadful fear passed coldly over Jo, as she thought, “Beth is dead, and Meg is afraid to tell me.” She was back at her post in an instant, and to her excited eyes a great change seemed to have taken place. The fever flush and the look of pain were gone, and the beloved little face looked so pale and peaceful in its utter repose that Jo felt no desire to weep or to lament. Leaning low over this dearest of her sisters, she kissed the damp forehead with her heart on her lips, and softly whispered, “Good-by, my Beth. Good-by!” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT March 14, Sunday: We learn, from Bronson Alcott’s journal, that this was the day on which offices were said for the departed Elizabeth Sewall Alcott. Lizzie had asked for ether, to help her be “forgetful of this death I feel.” During the day Alcott visited Waldo Emerson at his home, and in the evening Henry Thoreau and Waldo and Mrs. Lidian Emerson visited the Alcotts at their home. The father entered in his journal:

She lived a short, innocent, and diligent life with us, and has an early translation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT March 15, Monday: At 3PM, Dr. Huntington arrived at the Alcott home and the family held final rites over the body of Elizabeth Sewall Alcott.

At Abba Alcott’s urgent request, the Reverend Dr. Frederic Huntington read the King’s Chapel Burial Service. After the closing prayer, “Mr. and Mrs. Emerson and Ellen Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, John Bridge Pratt, his sister [Caroline Pratt] and mother, and others,” (such as Dr. Josiah Bartlett, and since it would be he who would tend Louisa May Alcott in 1863 during her mercury-induced delusions, we may infer that it was he who had been looking in on Elizabeth during her final illness) helped deposit the remains in the Alcott family’s new plot at Sleepy Hollow. BRONSON ALCOTT LIDIAN EMERSON WALDO EMERSON

Amy Belding Brown has been told that she was one of the first people to be buried in this new cemetery. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT March 19, Friday: Henry Thomas Buckle’s lecture at the Royal Institution, “Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge.”

In her journal for this month, Louisa May Alcott referred to having purchased the Alcott family plot in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. (Knowing that Lizzie was dying, the family would have made arrangements, most likely with Emerson’s help. The only one who’s not there in the family plot now is Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), who would die abroad and whose body would be placed in a rented grave in Paris. Although Louisa would arrange for a stone in the family plot in Sleepy Hollow and make plans to have her body brought home, with her death the rental payments would lapse and May’s remains would be moved to a mass grave.) Louisa’s letter to Eliza Wells on this day indicated that her sister Elizabeth Sewall Alcott had been buried there after her funeral service had been read by the Reverend Dr. Frederic Huntington. Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn had been among the pallbearers.

March 19. P.M. —To Hill and Grackle Swamp. Another pleasant and warm day. Painted my boat this afternoon. These spring impressions (as of the apparent waking up of the meadow described day before yesterday) are not repeated the same year, at least not with the same force, for the next day the same phenomenon does not surprise us. Our appetite has lost its edge. The other day the face of the meadow wore a peculiar appearance, as if it were beginning to wake up under the influence of the southwest wind and the warm sun, but it cannot again this year present precisely that appearance to me. I have taken a step forward to a new position and must see something else. You perceive, and are affected by, changes too subtle to be described. I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats in the air. I am behind the Hemlocks. It is their wings which are most conspicuous, when they are in the sun. Their bodies are comparatively small and black, and they have two mourning plumes in their fronts. Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water- bugs on the water. They people a portion of the otherwise vacant air, being apparently fond of the sunshine, in which they are most conspicuous. Sometimes a globular swarm two feet or more in diameter, suggesting how genial and habitable the air is become. I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound. I hear a steady sigh of the wind, rising and swelling into a roar, in the pines, which seems to tell of a long, warm rain to come. I see a white pine which has borne fruit in its ninth year. The cones, four in number, which are seven eighths of an inch long, have stems about two and a half inches long! — not yet curving down; so the stem probably does not grow any more. Met Channing and walked on with him to what we will call Grackle Swamp, admiring the mosses; those bright- yellow hypnums (?), like sunlight on decaying logs, and jungermannia, like sea-mosses ready spread. Hear the phebe note of a chickadee. In the swamp, see grackles, four or five, with the light ring about eye, —their bead eyes. They utter only those ineffectual split notes, no conqueree. Might I not call that Hemlock Brook? and the source of it Horse-Skull meadow? Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time I have heard this note. This, too, suggests pleasant associations. By the river, see distinctly red-wings [Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus] and hear their conqueree. They are not associated with grackles. They are an age before their cousins, have attained to clearness and liquidity. They are officers, epauletted; the others are rank and file. I distinguish one even by its flight, hovering slowly from tree-top to tree-top, as if ready to utter its liquid notes. Their whistle is very clear and sharp, while the grackle’s is ragged and split. It is a fine evening, as I stand on the bridge. The waters are quite smooth; very little ice to be seen. The red-wing and song sparrow are singing, and a flock of tree sparrows is pleasantly warbling. A new era has come. The red- wing’s gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin; they come together. One or two boys are out trying their skiffs, even like the fuzzy gnats in the sun, and as often as one turns his boat round on the smooth surface, the setting sun is reflected from its side. I feel reproach when I have spoken with levity, when I have made a jest, of my own existence. The makers have thus secured seriousness and respect for their work in our very organization. The most serious events have their ludicrous aspect, such as death; but we cannot excuse ourselves when we have taken this view of them only. It is pardonable when we spurn the proprieties, even the sanctities, making them stepping-stones to something higher. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Fall: While searching for employment in Boston, staying with the Sewalls on Beacon Hill, Louisa May Alcott took a walk on the dam which then connected Boston to the mainland. This dam had been built in 1821 and was 50 1 feet wide and 1 /2 miles long. She watched the sluices emptying water from the Great Bay of the Charles River on her right into the Back Bay receiving area on her left, to keep the Back Bay from drying and releasing clouds of dust, and contemplated suicide. “[I]t seemed so cowardly to run away before the battle was over.” The following Sunday she heard the Reverend Theodore Parker giving advice to “Laborious Young Women” from the pulpit: “[A]ccept the humblest work you can find.” Then Mrs. Parker helped Louisa obtain a position at $250.00 per year, caring for a wealthy invalid.49 Eventually this bleak Back Bay region in which despairing Louisa had almost committed suicide would acquire streets and housing and trees and patina, and begin to look like this:

49. Louisa May Alcott evidently felt greatly threatened by the Women’s Libbers of her day. In fact she elaborated a comic persona which she denominated “Miss Oranthy Bluggage” , and used this scathing comic persona, more or less like the “Ernestine” persona developed by a humorist of our own day, to hold women concerned for women’s liberation up to general ridicule:

ADVERTISEMENTS ______

MISS ORANTHY BLUGGAGE, the accomplished strong-minded lecturer, will deliver her famous lecture on “WOMAN AND HER POSITION” at Pickwick Hall, next Saturday Evening, after the usual performances. ______HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1859

January 8, Saturday evening: Henry Thoreau again met John Brown, who was again staying with Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, after hearing Brown lecture at the Concord Town Hall. Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott were also in that audience. In the course of this trip Brown would raise a total of about $2,000.00 in Concord and Boston. Sanborn would report later, on this period of his life, for the benefit of his former Harvard College classmates, that:

There are several events in my life since graduating, which are “worthy of record,” because they have brought me in contact with the great political revolution which has taken place since 1855. I was actively engaged in the effort to make Kansas a free State in 1856-7-8, which finally succeeded in 1861. I was a friend and supporter of Captain John Brown in his expedition into Virginia in 1859, and became publicly known in that connection.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

March 12, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Mark Field’s Mistake.”

March 12. Saturday. P.M. – Walk in rain to Ministerial Swamp. Going up the railroad in this rain, with a south wind, I see a pretty thick low fog extending across the railroad only against Dennis’s Swamp. There being much more ice and snow within the swamp, the vapor is condensed and is blown northward over the railroad. I see these local fogs with always the same origin, i. e., large masses of snow or ice, in swamps or woods, perhaps the north sides of hills, in several places afterward. The air is warm. As often as we came to a particularly icy or snowy place, as Harrington’s road in woods, we found ourselves in a fog. It is a regular spring rain, such as I remember walking in, – windy but warm. It alternately rains hard and then holds up a little. A similar alternation we see in the waves of water and all undulating surfaces, – in snow and sand and the clouds (the mackerel sky). Now you walk in a comparative lull, anticipating fair weather, with but a slight drizzling, and anon the wind blows and the rain drives down harder than ever. In one of these lulls, as I passed the Joe Hosmer (rough-cast) house, I thought I never saw any bank so handsome as the russet hillside behind it. It is a very barren, exhausted soil, where the cladonia lichens abound, and the lower side is a flowing sand, but this russet grass with its weeds, being saturated with moisture, was in this light the richest brown, methought, that I ever saw. There was the pale brown of the grass, red browns of some weeds (sarothra and pinweed probably), dark browns of huckleberry and sweet-fern stems, and the very visible green of the cladonias thirty rods off, and the rich brown fringes where the broken sod hung over the edge of the sand-bank. I did not see the browns of withered vegetation so rich last fall, and methinks these terrestrial lichens were never more fair and prominent. On some knolls these vivid and rampant lichens as it were dwarf the oaks. A peculiar and unaccountable light seemed to fall on that bank or hillside, though it was thick storm all around. A sort of Newfoundland sun seemed to be shining on it. It was such a light that you looked around for the sun that might be shining on it. Both the common largest and the very smallest hypericums (Sarothra) and the pinweeds were very rich browns at a little distance, coloring whole fields, and also withered and fallen ferns, reeking wet. It was a prospect to excite a reindeer. These tints of brown were as softly and richly fair and sufficing as the most brilliant autumnal tints.1 In fair and dry weather these spots may be commonplace, but now they are worthy to tempt the painter’s brush. The picture should be the side of a barren lichen-clad hill with a flowing sand-bank beneath, a few blackish huckleberry bushes here and there, and bright white patches of snow here and there in the ravines, the hill running east and west and seen through the storm from a point twenty or thirty rods south. This kind of light, the air being full of rain and all vegetation dripping with it, brings out the browns wonderfully. [Vide (FOUR PAGES BELOW).] I notice now particularly the sallows by the railroad, full of dark cones, as a fruit. The broad radical leaves of HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

(apparently) water dock are very fresh and conspicuous. See two ducks flying over Ministerial Swamp. In one place in the meadow southeast of Tarbell’s, I find on the ice, about a couple of holes an inch across where a little stubble shows itself, a great many small ants dead, – say a thousand. They are strewn about the holes for six or eight inches, and are collected in a dense heap about the base of the stubble. I take up a mass of them on my knife, each one entire, but now, of course, all wet and adhering together. It looks as if they had been tempted out by the warmth of the sun and had been frozen or drowned; or is it possible that they were killed by the frost last fall and now washed up through the ice? I think, from their position around the base of the stubble in that little hole in the ice, that they came out of the earth and clustered there since the ice melted to that extent. There are many other insects and worms and caterpillars (and especially spiders, dead) on the ice, there as well as elsewhere. I perceive that a freshet which washes the earth bare in the winter and causes a great flow of water over it in that state –when it is not soaked up– must destroy a great many insects and worms. I find a great many that appear to have been drowned rather than frozen. May not this have tempted the bluebirds on early this year?

April 16, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Mark Field’s Success.”

Charles Chauncy Shackford replied from Lynn, Massachusetts to Henry Thoreau’s concerned letters of April 6th and 13th, letting him know that the date on which he was being expected to deliver his lecture in Lynn was the first Tuesday in May, May 3rd. (Evidently there had been one or another misunderstanding as to the exact date on the schedule.)

Henry Thoreau wrote to the aged Jonathan Buffum of Lynn, Massachusetts, asking him to communicate with Shackford, whom he was supposing he had been unable to reach, in regard to the date on which he was being invited to lecture in Lynn.

(The Lynn lecture eventually would be delivered on April 26th.)

April 16. Sheldrakes yet on Walden, but I have not identified a whistler for several weeks, – three or more.

September 3, Friday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “The Monk’s Island: A Legend of the Rhine.”

The 20th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s freedom, which we may well elect to celebrate in lieu of an unknown slave birthday.

In this year Frederick reached 39 years of age.50 Here is a Daguerreotype, by an unidentified photographer in the 1850-1855 timeframe.

50. Both the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X have been assassinated at the age of 39. Here’s an interesting poser: why was it, do you suppose, that the Southern slavemasters did not ever take up a collection, during all these years while Douglass was a thorn in their side (going around orating for instance about how slaveholders did not deserve to live), and send north a squad of their poor white trash armed to the teeth, to off him? We do not suppose that they were such stupid people that this idea would never have occurred to them, or that they were such nice people that they would have repudiated such a tactic. Why is it that in the case of David Walker, we have been left to wonder whether his night death on the Boston waterfront might not have been the result of such foul play, but in the case of Frederick Douglass, very much to the contrary, we seem to be living in a conceptual universe in which such possibilities of political execution are simply never part of our frame of reference? –We can presume that Douglass was always heavily armed, and we can presume that he had traveling companions and home guards who also were heavily armed, but we know perfectly well that however well guarded he may have been, it would always have been possible for some peckerwood or other to have taken a shot at him for pay, at any one of his many public meetings. Why was it only the throwing of rocks, such as in Northampton MA, and, in Indiana, a chasing by a mob? –Clearly, this is an aspect of the antebellum situation which I have not yet grasped. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

“It has been a source of great annoyance to me, never to have a birthday.”

September 3: P.M.–Up Assabet a-hazelnutting. I see a small striped snake, some fifteen or eighteen inches long, swallowing a toad, all but the head and one fore leg taken in. It is a singular sight, that of the little head of the snake directly above the great, solemn, granitic head of the toad, whose eyes are open, though I have reason to think that he is not alive, for when I return some hours after I find that the snake has disgorged the toad and departed. The toad had been swallowed with the hind legs stretched out and close together, and its body is compressed and elongated to twice its length, while the head, which had not been taken in, is of the original size and full of blood. The toad is quite dead, apparently killed by being so far crushed; and its eyes are still open. The body of the snake was enlarged regularly from near the middle to its jaws. It appeared to have given up this attempt at the eleventh hour. Probably the toad is very much more elongated when perfectly swallowed by a small snake. It would seem, then, that snakes undertake to swallow toads which are too big for them. I see where the bank by the Pokelogan is whitewashed, i. e. the grass, for a yard or two square, by the thin droppings of some bird which has roosted on a dead limb above. It was probably a blue heron, for I find some slate-blue feathers dropped, apparently curving breast feathers, broadly shafted with white. I hear a faint warble from time to time from some young or old birds, from my window these days. Is it the purple finch again,–young birds practicing? Zizania still. The hazelnut bushes up this way are chiefly confined to the drier river-bank. At least they do not extend into the lower, somewhat meadowy land further inland. They appear to be mostly stripped. The most I get are left hanging over the water at the swimming-ford. How important the hazelnut to the ground squirrel! They grow along the walls where the squirrels have their homes. They are the oaks that grow before their doors. They have not far to go to their harvesting. These bushes are generally strippeds but isolated ones in the middle of fields, away from the squirrel-walks, are still full of burs. The wall is highway and rampart to these little beasts. They are almost inaccessible in their holes beneath it, and on either side of it spring up, also defended by the wall, the hazel bushes on whose fruit the squirrels in a great measure depend. Notwithstanding the abundance of hazelnuts here, very little account is made of them, and I think it is because pains is not taken to collect them before the squirrels have done so. Many of the burs are perfectly green yet, though others are brightly red-edged. The squirrel lives in a hazel grove. There is not a HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT hazel bush but some squirrel has his eye on its fruit, and he will be pretty sure to anticipate you. As we say, “The tools to those who can use them,” so we may say, “The nuts to those who can get them.” That floating grass by the riverside whose lower leaves, so flat and linear, float on the surface of the water, though they are not now, at least, lake-colored, is apparently the Glyceria ~:uitan~, floating fescue grass, still blooming and for a good while. I got it yesterday at Merrick’s shore. At the sand-bar by the swimming-ford, I collect two small juncuses, not knowing but I have pressed them before. One appears to be Juncus sci~poides (?), small as it is; the other, Juncu~ articulatu~ (??). At Prichard’s shore I see where they have plowed up and cast into the river a pile of elm roots, which interfered with their laying down the adjacent field. One which I picked up I at first thought was a small lead pipe, partly coiled up and muddy in the water, it being apparently of uniform size. It was just nineteen feet and eight inches long; the biggest end was twenty-one fortieths of an inch in diameter, and the smallest nineteen fortieths. This difference was scarcely obvious to the eye. No doubt it might have been taken up very much longer. It looked as if, when green and flexible, it might answer the purpose of a rope,–of a cable, for instance, when you wish to anchor in deep water. The wood is very porous. The narrow brown sheaths from the base of white pine leaves now strew the ground and are washed up on the edge of puddles after the rain. Vide September 6th. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1859

November 23, Wednesday: In Friend Daniel Ricketson’s journal:

Walked after breakfast to Edmund Hosmer’s farm, spent EDMUND HOSMER an hour with him and his youngest daughter, an BRONSON ALCOTT intelligent and well educated young woman. Called at Mr. Alcott’s and dined with him in his library on LOUISA MAY ALCOTT boiled rice, grated cheese, cider, and apples. Walked ABBY MAY ALCOTT this P.M. with Thoreau to the Hallowell farm; returned ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT to Thoreau’s room; plain talk, perhaps too much so. Called at Mr. Alcott’s this evening; he was at Mr. Emerson’s. Sat till nearly 9 with the two young ladies; introduced to Mr. Pratt, engaged to Miss Anna Alcott, who was also in the room a short time. Spent the night at the Middlesex House, kept by a Mr. Newton, formerly a stage-driver between Taunton and Boston. Retired at 10. Talk in the barroom with several persons.

William H. Bonney (Billy the Kid) was born.

Henry Thoreau responded to the Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway’s letter of November 19th, that he was already fully committed but did hope for the success of the new Cincinnati reincarnation of THE DIAL.

[NO ENTRIES IN THOREAU’S JOURNAL FOR 23 NOVEMBER] November 29, Tuesday: Henry Thoreau handed Waldo Emerson $10.00 toward the John Brown Relief Fund and Emerson noted this amount in his account book. (This amount of money would have represented, for Thoreau, approximately eight or nine full days of his surveying work.)

Miss Louisa May Alcott received $50.00 for her “Love and Self-Love,” accepted by The Atlantic Monthly — although this magazine’s insouciant editor, Mr. James Russell Lowell, felt so poorly of the authorial abilities of females in general, that he was supposing that she must’ve merely translated this piece from some other language (such as German).

November 29. P. M.–To Copan. There is a white birch on Copan which has many of the common birch fungus of a very peculiar and remarkable form, not flat thus:

but shaped like a bell or short horn, thus: HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT as if composed of a more flowing material which had settled downward like a drop. As C. said, they were shaped like icicles, especially those short and spreading ones about bridges. Saw quite a flock of snow buntings not yet very white. They rose from the midst of a stubble-field unexpectedly. The moment they settled after wheeling around, they were perfectly concealed, though quite near, and I could only hear their rippling note from the earth from time to time. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT December: An anonymous missive to Governor Henry A. Wise of Virginia, undated, presumably sometime during December: Gov. Wise Hon Sir As Virginia has received from her Sister State Pennsylvania a peace offering flag, it is no more than fair that another sister should be presented in her peculiar way, please therefore accept the accompanying appropriate design. The flag pictured here is the “New England Black Republican, Abolition Rule or Ruin, Disunion Flag” destined to take the place of the present Glorious Eagle, Stars & Stripes Flag of this Great Republic and that no mistake may occur as to the Emblems a description is added. In lieu of the usual spear on the head of the flag & staff (which is in form of a cross) a Gallows with a John Brown embelishment is substituted. A wooden Ham & 32 wooden Nutmegs on a Blood red field take the place of the Eagle and stars. The ballance of the flag being black is quite suggestive of the general intention of the Party of which this is the Standard

In this timeframe Mrs. Rebecca B. Spring not only wrote to but, twice, with her son, visited Captain John Brown in prison. Her expenses to provide Captain Brown and Aaron D. Stevens with flowers, books, clothing, medicine, and food during their incarceration prior to execution amounted to some $400, approximately one year’s income for a day laborer. She even sent them music. She would inform a newspaper reporter that what he had said to her was “I do not think I can better serve the cause I love so much, than to die for it!”

The Republicans were being referred to as the Black Republicans, in order to indicate the general sense of the HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT country, that these were people who harbored an unsavory prejudice in favor of the unworthy, blacks and Irish:

The long autobiographical letter which John Brown had written on July 15, 1857 to George Luther Stearns was made available to Waldo Emerson, who would use the allegations and much of their phrasing in HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT his speech of January 6, 1860 in Salem on the history of Brown’s abolitionism. AUTOBIOGRAPHY

According to Seymour Drescher’s “Servile Insurrection and John Brown’s Body in Europe”: The most famous and graphic European image to appear in the wake of the raid on Harper’s Ferry was an engraving, entitled John Brown. Against a dark landscape and a dull, cloudy sky a small human figure hangs from a gallows. The body’s features are almost completely blanketed in shadow. From the heavens alone come shafts of light, breaking through the dreary obscurity to fall upon the gallows and the figure. Beneath this bleak illustration initially appeared the words: “Pro Christo-Sicut Christus, John Brown, — Charleston. Designed by Victor Hugo.”

The engraving was the frontispiece to the most widely publicized commentary on John Brown to reach America from across the Atlantic. Victor Hugo’s letter on John Brown, originally written in early December 1859, was reprinted in newspapers and pamphlets on both sides of the Atlantic and was viewed by American abolitionists as a document that “will be read by millions with thrilling emotions.” In it, France’s most famous contemporary writer declared in exclamatory prose that the whole civilized world (namely, England, France, and Germany) was witnessing with horror a travesty of justice — “not in Turkey, but in America!” “The champion of Christ ... slaughtered by the American Republic,” “the assassination of Emancipation by Liberty,” ... “something more terrible than Cain slaying Abel ... Washington slaying Spartacus!” Hugo had written the letter as an impassioned public plea to save Brown from execution. The engraving was appended to later publications of the letter to portray Brown as a crucified Christian martyr and slave emancipator, with the gibbet as his cross. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

I don’t know when he wrote this, but Bronson Alcott would write a “Sonnet XXIV, Addressed to John Brown, Harper’s Ferry”: Bold Saint, thou firm believer in the Cross, Again made glorious by self-sacrifice,— Love’s free atonement given without love’s loss,— That martyrdom to thee was lighter pain, Since thus a race its liberties should gain; Flash its sure consequence in Slavery’s eyes When, `scaping sabre’s clash and battle’s smoke, She felt the justice of thy master-stroke: Peaceful prosperity around us lies, Freedom with loyalty thy valor gave; Whilst thou, no felon doomed, for gallows fit, O Patriot true! O Christian meek and brave! Throned in the martyrs’ seat henceforth shalt sit; Prophet of God! Messias of the Slave!

I don’t know when she wrote this, but Louisa May Alcott would write a poem “With a Rose, That Bloomed on the Day of John Brown’s Martyrdom”: In the long silence of the night, Nature’s benignant power Woke aspirations for the light Within the folded flower. Its presence and the gracious day Made summer in the room. But woman’s eyes shed tender dew On the little rose in bloom. Then blossomed forth a grander flower, In the wilderness of wrong. Untouched by Slavery’s bitter frost, A soul devout and strong. God-watched, that century plant uprose, Far shining through the gloom. Filling a nation with the breath Of a noble life in bloom. A life so powerful in its truth, A nature so complete; It conquered ruler, judge and priest, And held them at its feet. Death seemed proud to take a soul So beautifully given, And the gallows only proved to him A stepping-stone to heaven. Each cheerful word, each valiant act, So simple, so sublime, Spoke to us through the reverent hush Which sanctified that time. That moment when the brave old man Went so serenely forth With footsteps whose unfaltering tread Reëchoed through the North. The sword he wielded for the right Turns to a victor’s palm; His memory sounds forever more, A spirit-stirring psalm. No breath of shame can touch his shield, Nor ages dim its shine; Living, he made life beautiful,— Dying, made death divine. No monument of quarried stone, No eloquence of speech HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Can grave the lessons on the land His martyrdom will teach. No eulogy like his own words, With hero-spirit rife, “I truly serve the cause I love, By yielding up my life.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1860

Louisa May Alcott’s farce “Nat Bachelor’s Pleasure Trip” was performed at Howard Athenæum in Boston.

March: Franklin Benjamin Sanborn fled to Canada.

To the dismay of the selectmen a spring festival sprang spontaneously to life at Sanborn’s school in Concord (I don’t know whether this occurred before or after his flight). Louisa May Alcott would report: Emerson spoke, and my song was sung. My song had a verse in it about John Brown, Wendell Phillips, and company, and some of the old fogies thought it better left out. But Mr. Emerson said, No, no, that is the best. It must be sung, and not only sung but read. He then read it right out loud, to my great surprise and pride. The narrow-minded of Concord will never dare say a word against it now. It was a lovely occasion, and has stirred up the stupid town immensely.

April 3, Tuesday: Frederik van Eeden was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands.

On assurances by Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar that the John Brown flap was over and that he was no longer in danger of arrest by Senator James Mason’s special investigatory committee of the US Senate, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn of the Secret “Six” conspiracy had returned to Concord, Massachusetts. Hoar proved to be quite mistaken as on this day US marshals appeared in Concord with a warrant for this conspirator’s arrest. As Sanborn would later recount the incident, a police sergeant who knew that he had come back home from exile in Canada took four men and went that night to his home in Concord:51

An attempt was made to drag me in irons from my house here to Washington. This was on the night of 3 April 1860. On the next day, having been released from these wretches by my neighbors who acted under the laws of Massachusetts as a sheriff’s posse to enforce a writ of habeas corpus issued by Judge Hoar, I appeared before the Supreme Court of this Commonwealth, and was declared at liberty to go where I pleased. I went home to my ordinary way of life, and was not further molested by Mason or Davis.

51. This illustration “Arrest and Rescue of Frank B. Sanborn, Esq., at Concord, Massachusetts, on the Night of April 3, 1860” is courtesy of the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Senator James Mason would comment in regard to this altercation that Sanborn, already in handcuffs, had been rescued by “a tumultuous body of people, whom I call a mob.” Anna Maria Whiting in particular, bless her, got really physical during the struggle, fending off the deputies with a cane: Annie Whiting got into the kidnapper’s carriage so that they could not put Sanborn in. One grabbed her and said, Get out. I won’t, said Annie. I’ll tear your clothes. Tear away, they said. We’ll whip up the horses and make them run away if you don’t get out. So let them run to the devil, I won’t stir. She didn’t budge until it was all over. Sanborn’s schoolboys rushed about like heroes. After so long an interval, with no effort at arresting me, I had fairly concluded the Senate officials had given up their idea of taking me to Washington. This they would have done, had they been wise. But on the evening of April 3rd, after I had been out making calls in the village of Concord, and was sitting quietly in my study on the first floor, after nine o’clock, my door-bell rang. Julia had gone to bed. Sarah was in her room. Without anticipating any harm, I went down into the front hall in my robe and answered the bell. A young man presented himself, and handed me a note, which I stepped back to read by the light of the hall lamp. It said the bearer was a person deserving charity. When I looked up from reading the note, four men had entered my hall. One of them came forward and layed his hand on me, saying, I arrest you. I said, By what authority? If you have a warrant read it, for I will not go with you unless you show your warrant. He began to read the order of the Senate for my arrest. Sarah, who had feared, as I did not, what this visit meant, now rushed down the stairs, opened the other door of the hall, and began to cry out to the neighbors. Seeing they were likely to be interrupted in their mission, my five callers slipped a pair of handcuffs on my wrists and forced me from the house. I was young and strong and I resented this indignity. They had to lift me and carry me to the door, where my sister stood, screaming. I braced my feet against the doorposts and delayed them. I did the same at the posts of the veranda. The church bells were ringing a fire alarm, the people were gathering by tens. I braced my feet against the stone posts of the gateway, checking their progress once more. When the four rascals lifted me to insert me, feet foremost, in their covered hack, an anxious driver on the box, I braced myself against the sides of the carriage door and broke them in. They then realized it was my unfettered feet that made all this trouble, so one of the four grasped my feet and brought them together, so that I could no longer use them in resistance. They got me into the hack only as far as my knees, when my sister, darting forward, grasped the long beard of my footman and pulled with so much force he lost his grasp. My feet felt the ground again, outside the carriage. A great crowd had collected, among them Colonel Whiting and his daughter Annie. With his stout cane, the Colonel began to beat the horses. My bearers were left a rod or two behind the hack into which they had not been able to force me. Still they held me, hatless and in my evening slippers, in the street in front of my house. At that moment, my counsel, J.S. Keyes, appeared by my side, asking if I petitioned for a writ of Habeas Corpus. By all means, I told him. Keyes hurried over to Judge Hoar’s house. Hearing the tumult, and suspecting what it was, he had already begun filling out a writ of personal replevin. In less than ten minutes, the writ was in the hands HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT of Concord’s deputy sheriff, John Moore, who made the formal demand on my captors to surrender their prisoner. Stupidly, they refused. So the sheriff called on the 150 men and women present to act as his posse comitatus, which some twenty of the men gladly did, and I was forcibly snatched from senatorial custody. At the same time, my Irish neighbors rushed upon them and forced them to take to their broken carriage, and make off toward Lexington, the way they had come. They were pursued by twenty or thirty of my townsmen, some of them as far as Lexington. I was committed to the custody of Captain George L. Prescott, and spent the night in his house, armed, for my better defense, with a six-shooter, which Mr. Bull, the inventor of the Concord grape and then chairman of the Selectmen, had insisted I should take. I slept peacefully all the rest of that night.

After Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar had issued his writ and the marshals had gone away, arrangements were made for Sanborn to hide for the rest of the night with a pistol at Captain George L. Prescott’s home, while Henry Thoreau spent the rest of the night at Sanborn’s home so his sister Sarah E. Sanborn would not be alone.

Louisa May Alcott would record: “Sanborn was nearly kidnapped for being a friend of John Brown; but his sister rescued him when he was handcuffed, and the scamps drove off. A meeting and general flurry.”

Here is John Shepard Keyes’s account of the incident: Sanborn had I never doubted full knowledge of his plans, and Concord subscriptions had helped his cause without however knowing its purpose. So that when Mason of Virginia began in the HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT U.S. Senate the investigation Sanborn was summoned to testify. He was afraid and unwilling to trust himself in Washington and refused to attend. He consulted with me, and I had a correspondence with Mason on the subject endeavoring to induce the comtee to take his deposition here. I think that was one object I had in going to Washington myself but do not recall any interview with Mason. At length the U.S. Marshal made the attempt to take Sanborn and carry him off as a witness. I was sitting quietly in my house of a moonlight evening when Grace Mitchell one of Sanborns scholars came wildly rushing in with the news that they were carrying him off. I ran to his house next to the high school house to find him handcuffed in the carry all with the 3 depy marshals holding him, and an excited crowd of 30 men & women holding the horse and stopping the road in front. Sanborn terribly excited, and waving frantically his manacles and calling for help and rescue I enquired of the officers who recognized me their purpose and authority which they gave and then telling the crowd to detain them till I got back, rushed off to Judge Hoar’s house where I found him quietly smoking in his library to which the cries and shouts of the scene almost penetrated. I applied to him for a writ of Habeas Corpus for Sanborn and as soon as he understood the matter he granted it. I writing the petition therefore while he filled out the writ. Armed with this I hastened back to find the crowd swelled to a mob of hundreds, in which some Democrats had mingled trying to take the part of the officers, and getting roughly handled for so doing. Shouting for my old deputy Capt Moore, the crowd gave way he came forward served the writ by taking Sanborn from the wagon and releasing him from the officers and the handcuffs. They who were thoroughly alarmed for their safety, gladly drove off after hearing the writ saluted with a parting volley of stones & groans and when the town clerk had shoved the collector Col Holbrook into the gutter as the fit place for his pro slavery remarks, the women helped Sanborn to his house, the men walked off and when I got through a short consultation with him, and turned homeward Concord street were quiet and the excitement over save that Rufus Hosmer had fallen dead of heart disease in the tumult that had been going on there. My coolness and legal instinct alone prevented a dreadful row. Carleton & Freeman & Coolidge the officers were armed, and but for my prompt interference would have made sad work and a terrible result, instead of the quiet surrender I brought about by means of the writ. It was the best instance of presence of mind I can recall in my whole experience! Byron like, I woke the next morning to find the newspapers full of the encoutre and myself famous for my interposition. In the excited state of feeling over slavery and the John Brown invasion, it was almost a declaration of war. I appeared before the Supreme Court hastily collected in full bench with Gov. Andrew as senior counsel for Sanborn while the Marshal with the U.S. District Atty was on the other side. The Court House was crammed the excitement red hot, I suggested the point when the warrant was produced under which the officers were acting that as it was addressed only to the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, he could not deputize his authority to a bailiff for want of any such direction in the warrant and therefore the service by such bailiff was utterly void and nugatory, and cited the decision of our Supreme Court to that effect in the case of a writ directed to a sheriff and served HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT by a constable. Charley Woodbury the Dist Atty, replied. Andrew closed and the court after consultation sustained the point and discharged Sanborn. The crowd cheered Sanborn was the hero of the hour, and though for a month he had been hiding in Concord garrets and writing to me from Patinas, he must make the most of his notoriety by the aid of newspapers, interviews, and cards of thanks. I came home at night to find Concord stirred to its depths, with reporters and emissaries of all kinds, and more foolish stories in circulation of attacks, and captures, than could be imagined— The papers here and in N.Y. Washington were filled with it. Congress got excited, Mason threatened and it seemed as if war might actually begin. Sanborn was carefully guarded, and the story that the Marines were to be sent out in the night to take him, came so straight from Mrs Jackson who was connected with the Emerson & Bartlett family that videlles [?] were sent out mounted to watch and give the alarm. Altogether it was another 19th of April and I sat on horseback for hours on the Lincoln hill watching. I had the officers arrested brought to Concord tried before Ball Justice for assault & battery, & bound over to criminal term. Brought a suit for Sanborn in the Supreme Court for $10000 damages, and with the Atty. Gen appeared in the U.S. Court where the comtees case was carried by Woodbury & in short had lots of business growing out of the affair. The Legislature took it up, and Congress got excited over it, and it was a great row! Meantime politics must be attended to and I went to the State Convention at Worcester where I helped elect the Andrew ticket for delegates to Chicago, and was chosen the member of the State Convention from the Midx Senatorial District, also was chosen with Sweetzer at the District Convention in Concord a district delegate to Chicago after a hard fight, in which my friends rallied to pay me for my defeat as sheriff, and thus I was busy again in political HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT movements.

J.S. KEYES AUTOBIOGRAPHY

May 27, Sunday: Giuseppe Garibaldi’s army entered Palermo.

Kibrisli Mehmed Pasha replaced Mütercim Mehmed Rüstü Pasha as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.

Professor Henri-Frédéric Amiel, who would be referred to as the “Swiss Thoreau,” wrote in his JOURNAL INTIME: “I heard this morning a sermon on the Holy Spirit — good but insufficient. Why was I not edified? Because there was no unction. Why was there no unction? Because Christianity from this rationalistic point of view is a Christianity of dignity, not of humility. Penitence, the struggles of weakness, austerity, find no place in it. The law is effaced, holiness and mysticism evaporate; the specifically Christian accent is wanting. My impression is always the same — faith is made a dull poor thing by these attempts to reduce it to simple moral psychology. I am oppressed by a feeling of inappropriateness and malaise at the sight of philosophy in the pulpit. “They have taken away my Saviour, and I know not where they have laid him;” so the simple folk have a right to say, and I repeat it with them. Thus, while some shock me by their sacerdotal dogmatism, others repel me by their rationalizing laicism. It seems to me that good preaching ought to combine, as Schleiermacher did, HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT perfect moral humility with energetic independence of thought, a profound sense of sin with respect for criticism and a passion for truth. The free being who abandons the conduct of himself, yields himself to Satan; in the moral world there is no ground without a master, and the waste lands belong to the Evil One. The poetry of childhood consists in simulating and forestalling the future, just as the poetry of mature life consists often in going backward to some golden age. Poetry is always in the distance. The whole art of moral government lies in gaining a directing and shaping hold over the poetical ideals of an age.”

In a letter to her sister Anna “Meg” Alcott Pratt, Louisa May Alcott described the family’s reception for the Browns: Thursday we set our house [Orchard House] in order, and at two the rush began. It had gone abroad that Mr. M [the Reverend Samuel Joseph May] and Mrs. Captain Brown [Mary Ann Day Brown] were to adorn the scene, so many people coolly came who were not invited, and who had no business there. People sewed and jabbered till Mrs. Brown, with Watson Brown’s widow [Isabella Thompson Brown] and baby came; then a levee took place. The two pale women sat silent and serene through the chatter; and the bright-eyed handsome baby received the homage of the multitude like a little kind, bearing the kisses and praises with the utmost dignity. He is named Frederick Watson Brown, after his murdered uncle and father [Frederick Brown was killed in 1856 in “Bleeding Kansas”, Watson Brown at Harpers Ferry], and is a fair, heroic looking baby with a fine head, and serious eyes that look about him as if saying, “I am a Brown! Are these friends or enemies?” I wanted to cry once at the little scene the unconscious baby made. Some one caught and kissed him rudely; he didn’t cry, but looked troubled, and rolled his great eyes anxiously around for some familiar face to reassure him with its smile. His mother was not there; but though many hands were stretched to him, he turned to Grandma Bridge, and putting out his little arms to her as if she was a refuge, laughed and crowed as he had not done before when she danced him on her knee. The old lady looked delighted, and Freddy patted the kind face, and cooed like a lawful descendant of that pair of ancient turtle doves. When he was safe back in the study, playing alone at his mother’s feet, C. and I went and worshipped in our own way at the shrine of John Brown’s grandson, kissing him as if he were a little saint, and feeling highly honored when he sucked our fingers, or walked on us with his honest little red shoes, much the worse for wear. Well, the baby fascinated me so that I forgot a raging headache and forty gabbling women all in full clack. Mrs. Brown, Sen., is a tall stout woman, plain but with a strong, good face, and a natural dignity that showed she was something better than a “lady” though she did drink out of her saucer and used the plainest speech. The younger woman [Isabella Thompson Brown] had such a patient, heart-broken face, it was a whole Harpers Ferry tragedy in a look. When we got your letter, Mother [Abba Alcott] and I ran into the study to read it. Mother read aloud, for there were only C, A, I and Mrs. Brown Jr. in the room. As she read the words that were a poem in their simplicity and happiness, the poor young widow sat with tears rolling down her face; for I suppose it brought back her own wedding-day, not two years ago, and all the while she cried the baby laughed and crowed at her HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT feet as if there was no trouble in the world. The preparations had been made for twenty at the utmost; so when forty souls with the usual complement of bodies appeared, we grew desperate, and our neat little supper turned out a regular “tea fight”. A., C, B, and I rushed like comets to and fro trying to fill the multitude that would eat fast and drink like sponges. I filled a big plate with all I could lay hands on, and with two cups of tea, strong enough for a dozen, charged upon Mr. E [Waldo Emerson] and Uncle S [the Reverend Samuel Joseph May] telling them to eat, drink, and be merry, for a famine was at hand. They cuddled into a corner and, feeling that my mission was accomplished, I let the hungry wait and the thirsty moan for tea while I picked out and helped the regularly Antislavery set. We got through it but it was an awful hour; and Mother wandered in her mind, utterly lost in a grove of teapots, while B. pervaded the neighborhood demanding hot water, and we girls sowed cake broadcast through the land. When the plates were empty and the teapots dry, people wiped their mouths and confessed at last that they had done. A conversation followed, in which Grandpa B. and EPP [Elizabeth Palmer Peabody] held forth, and Uncle and Father [Bronson Alcott] mildly upset the world, and made a new one in which every one desired to take a place. Dr. Bartlett [Dr. Josiah Bartlett], Mr. B., Thoreau [Henry Thoreau], etc, appeared and the rattle continued till nine, when some Solomon suggested that the Alcotts must be tired, and everyone departed by C. and S. We had a polka by Mother and Uncle, the lancers by C. and B. and an etude by S., after which scrabblings of feast appeared and we drained the dregs of every cup, all cakes and pies we gobbled up, etc., then peace fell upon us, and our remains were interred decently. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 27. Fire in house again. The Sylvia striata are the commonest bird in the street, as I go to the post-office, for several days past. I see six (four males, two females) on one of our little fir trees; are apparently as many more on another close by. The white bars on the wings of both sexes are almost horizontal. I see them thus early and late on the trees about our houses and other houses the 27th and 28th and 29th also,—peach trees, etc., but especially on the firs. They are quite tame. I stand within seven or eight feet while they are busily pecking at the freshly bursting or extending glaucous fir twigs, deliberately examining them on all sides, and from time to time one utters a very fine and sharp, but faint tse tse, tse tse, tse tse, with more or less of these notes. I hear the same in the woods. Examining the freshly starting fir twigs, I find that there are a great many lice or aphides amid the still appressed leafets or leaves of the buds, and no doubt they are after these. Occasionally a summer yellowbird is in company with them, about the same business. They, the black-polls, are very numerous all over the town this spring. The female has not a black, but rather, methinks, a slate-colored crown, and is a very different bird,—more of a yellowish brown. Eleocharis acicularis, not long, on the low exposed bank of the river; if [?] it is that that greens the very low muddy banks. J. Farmer found a marsh hawk’s nest on the 16th,—near the Cooper’s hawk nest,—with three fresh eggs. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

June 28, Thursday: At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, August Bondi married Henrietta Einstein. She had been born in Germany on October 15, 1833, and was a daughter of Israel and Sophia Kettner Einstein. The couple would have ten children, eight daughters and two sons. Henrietta Einstein Bondi would die at Salina on August 24, 1900.

The Hawthorne family’s ship docked in Boston. As soon as the family was ensconced in “The Wayside” again, the Emersons threw a strawberry party for them which the Alcott family and Thoreau family attended.

June 28.—Assabet Bath and Sunset Interval. On the 25th I first noticed that the black willows—the sterile ones, not whitened with down—were just begun to be handsome, with their light ethereal green against other trees. They are now getting to be sufficiently thick. This month, it must be 85° at 2 P. M. and still to make hot weather. 80° with wind is quite comfortable. June-grass is now generally browned atop, its spikes being out of bloom and old. Herd’s-grass out, two or three days. I now see and hear many young birds about; young barn swallows on telegraph-wire, etc. Farmer said yesterday that he thought foxes did not live so much in the depth of the woods as on open hillsides, where they lay out and overlooked the operations of men,—studied their ways,—which made them so cunning. The 21st I began to notice the Festuca ovina in dry pastures, prevailing and so marking a season. Fowl-meadow grass, though not quite in bloom, has now begun to make an impression on the inlands and in the meadows, with its dense-growing recurved or drooping green tops. Panicum latifolium, how long? I see no tortoises laying nowadays, but I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla, and, soon after, another in Hosmer’s sandy bank field north of Assabet Bridge, deliberately eating sorrel. It was evidently quite an old one, its back being worn quite smooth, and its motions peculiarly sluggish. It continued to eat when I was within a few feet, holding its head high and biting down at it, each time bringing away a piece of a leaf. It made you think of an old and sick tortoise eating some salutary herb to cure itself with, and reminded me of the stories of the ancients, who, I think, made the tortoises thus cure themselves with dittany or origanum when bitten by a venomous snake. That is, it impressed me as if it must know the virtues of herbs well and could select the one best suited [to] its condition of body. When I came nearer, it at once drew in its head. Its back was smooth and yellowish,—a venerable tortoise. When I moved off, it at once withdrew into the woods. See two of those remarkably brilliant beetles near the caving edge here, with copper and green reflections (head green), and blue ones. They are sluggish and can be transported on a leaf. On the alder leaves by the riverside in Sunset Interval, I see countless small black miller-like insects three eighths of an inch and of this form:

but all of them had not feelers. I think they were the same that hover in a swarm over the water at evening. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT August: This month’s issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. CONSULT THIS ISSUE

Louisa May Alcott put in a solid month’s work on a 1st draft of her novel MOODS,

“Moods.” Genius burned so fiercely that for four weeks I wrote all day and planned nearly all night, being quite possessed by my work. I was perfectly happy, and seemed to have no wants. Finished my book, or a rough draft of it, and put it away to settle. Mr. Emerson offered to read it when Mother told him it was “moods” and had one of his sayings for motto.1 Daresay nothing will ever come of it; but it had to be done, and I’m the richer for a new experience.

1. Alcott’s epigraph in MOODS: “Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus. — Emerson” What Emerson had written in the essay “Experience” published in ESSAYS, 2D SERIES: “Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and giggle? or if he apologize? or is affected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? ...”

which her biographer refers to as “a love story about Henry Thoreau” and as “a stormy, triangular love story based on her long-term, secret infatuation with Henry Thoreau.52 It was a story from the heart, lingering over passionate possibilities and displaying Louisa’s unrequited desire for an absorbing, erotic love.”53 52. The novel would need to be cut almost in half so it could be published as a saleable single volume rather than as an unsalable double volume on October 8, 1864, Abba’s 64th birthday. The sanctimonious publisher, A.K. Loring, insisted that a reference to a character as perusing Walt Whitman’s LEAVES OF GRASS volume be elided. 53. In an undated letter to Louisa, this Loring unashamedly exposed the American businessman’s poverty of mind and arrogance: I judge a book by the impression it makes and leaves in my mind, by the feelings solely as I am no scholar. —A story that touches and moves me, I can make others read and believe in. —What I like is conciseness in introducing the characters, getting them upon the stage and into action as quickly as possible. —Then I like a story of constant action, bustle and motion, —Conversations and descriptive scenes are delightful reading when well drawn but are too often skipped by the reader who is anxious to see what they will do next, and it’s folly to write what will be skipped in reading.... I like a story that starts to teach some lesson of life (and) goes steadily on increasing in interest till it culminates with the closing chapter leaving you spell bound, enchanted and exhausted with the intensity with which it is written, the lesson forcibly told, and a yearning desire to turn right back to the beginning and enjoy it over again.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

MOODS presents an American Rochester modeled on Henry David Thoreau, in the character of Adam Warwick. He is a very tempting mate to Sylvia. Warwick has no house to keep but rather claims the world at large and nature in particular as his domain. Moreover, he offers to share nature with Sylvia and to teach her its secrets. Somewhat like Rochester, he does have a sexual secret as well in the first MOODS; he is betrothed to Ottila. Thoreau’s influence on the character of Warwick is twofold: both natural and sexual. Thoreau’s “prejudice for Adamhood” became well known, establishing a direct relationship with nature as one American model of manhood. He was the Alcott girls’ favorite companion on cross-country nature rambles. Charming birds and chipmunks, telling stories of Indian history and natural geography, he attracted Louisa May Alcott as well. She recalled trailing behind Thoreau and her father as they discussed Thoreau’s essays. In addition Thoreau provides a possible source for the fictional rivalry between Warwick and Moor; there were rumors of an attraction between Lidian Emerson and Thoreau. Even though critics found the triangles in MOODS “impossible,” Alcott confided to her JOURNALS, in a postscript to the 1865 pages, that a case of the sort exists in Concord and the woman came and asked me how I knew it. I did not know or guess, but perhaps felt it without any other guide, and unconsciously put the thing into my book, for I changed the ending about that time. It was meant to show a life affected by Moods, not a discussion of marriage which I knew so little about, except to observe that very few were happy ones. ...[Warwick is] “restless, brilliant and violently virtuous.” Like Thoreau, who supported John Brown’s Harper Ferry raid, denounced the Mexican War, and defended the cause of American Indians, Warwick is a masterful soul, bent on living out his beliefs and aspirations at any cost, much given to denunciation of wrong-doing everywhere, and eager to execute justice upon all offenders high or low.

Meanwhile, the love object was taking a train to Troy, New Hampshire and walking to Mt. Monadnock with Ellery Channing, camping out for five nights. The love object was working on his natural history materials. [SEE “MOODS” ON NEXT SCREEN]

Needless to say, if this character “Mr. Adam Warwick” in MOODS was indeed modeled by Louisa upon her “impressions of Thoreau,” then the author’s creation informs us far more about her own soul and the impressions which it insisted upon manufacturing than about the soul of the person to whom she was seeming to relate. But perhaps these easy identifiers (the analysts quoted above) were quite mistaken. Perhaps this character “Mr. Adam Warwick” was indeed modeled upon a historical person, but not upon anyone so famous as Thoreau with whom we are so well acquainted. Please note that Louisa May Alcott was a little girl growing up with three other little girls in a family which attracted adult males to reside with it, at Fruitlands and HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Little notice was taken of her stories, but they found a market; and encouraged by this fact, she resolved to make a bold stroke for fame and fortune. Having copied her novel for the fourth time, read it to all her confidential friends, and submitted it with fear and trembling to three publishers, she at last disposed of it, on condition that she would cut it down one-third, and omit all the parts which she particularly admired. “Now I must either bundle it back in to my tin-kitchen to mold, pay for printing it myself, or chop it up to suit purchasers and get what I can for it. Fame is a very good thing to have in the house, but cash is more convenient; so I wish to take the sense of the meeting on this important subject,” said Jo, calling a family council. “Don’t spoil your book, my girl, for there is more in it than you know, and the idea is well worked out. Let it wait and ripen,” was her father’s advice; and he practiced what he preached, having waited patiently thirty years for fruit of his own to ripen, and being in no haste to gather it even now when it was sweet and mellow. “It seems to me that Jo will profit more by taking the trial than by waiting,” said Mrs. March. “Criticism is the best test of such work, for it will show her both unsuspected merits and faults, and help her to do better next time. We are too partial, but the praise and blame of outsiders will prove useful, even if she gets but little money.” “Yes,” said Jo, knitting her brows, “that’s just it. I’ve been fussing over the thing so long, I really don’t know whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent. It will be a great help to have cool, impartial persons take a look at it, and tell me what they think of it.” “I wouldn’t leave a word out of it. You’ll spoil it if you do, for the interest of the story is more in the minds than in the actions of the people, and it will be all a muddle if you don’t explain as you go on,” said Meg, who firmly believed that this book was the most remarkable novel ever written. “But Mr. Allen says, ‘Leave out the explanations, make it brief and dramatic, and let the characters tell the story,’” interrupted Jo, turning to the publisher’s note. “Do as he tells you. He knows what will sale, and we don’t. Make a good, popular book, and get as much money as you can. By and by, when you’ve got a name, you can afford to digress, and have philosophical and metaphysical people in your novels,” said Amy, who took a strictly practical view of the subject. “Well,” said Jo, laughing, “if my people are ‘philosophical and metaphysical,’ it isn’t my fault, for I know nothing about such things, except what I hear father say, sometimes. If I’ve got some of his wise ideas jumbled up with my romance, so much the better for me. Now, Beth, what do you say?” “I should so like to see it printed soon,” was all Beth said, and smiled in saying it. But there was an unconscious emphasis on the last word, and a wistful look in the eyes that never lost their childlike candor, which chilled Jo’s heart for a minute with a forboding fear, and decided her to make her little venture ‘soon.’ So, with Spartan firmness, the young authoress laid her firstborn on her table, and chopped it up as ruthlessly as any ogre. In the hope of pleasing every one, she took every one’s advice, and like the old man and his donkey in the fable, suited nobody. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT elsewhere, drifting characters of means such as the English metaphysical chap Charles Lane.

For the remainder of this exceedingly nasty suggestion, I will decline to carry the freight myself but instead will allow Henry James, Sr., who personally had an opportunity to observe this situation in the Alcott household over a period of years, to carry that freight for me. What he had to say in the period in which this novel first saw the light of day was as follows — and it strikes me that for 1865, the year in which it was written, this is strong meat indeed:

... Mr. Adam Warwick, is one of our oldest and most inveterate foes. he is the inevitable cavaliere servente of the precocious little girl; the laconical, satirical, dogmatical lover, of about thirty-five, with the “brown mane,” the “quiet smile,” the “masterful soul,” and the “commanding eye.” Do not all novel-readers remember a figure, a hundred figures, analogous to this? Can they not, one of his properties being given, — the “quiet smile” for instance, — reconstruct the whole monstrous shape? When the “quiet smile” is suggested, we know what is coming: we foresee the cynical bachelor or widower, the amateur of human nature, “Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the part,” who has travelled all over the world, lives on a mysterious patrimony, and spends his time in breaking the hearts and the wills of demure little school-girls, who answer him with “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.” Mr. Warwick is plainly a great favorite with the author. She has for him that affection which writers entertain, not for those figures whom they have well known, but for such as they have much pondered....

I take it that this “whole monstrous shape” who “spends his time in breaking the hearts and wills of demure little school-girls” amounts to about as close as one might come in the literary world of the 19th Century to a suggestion that there had been pederasts, either active or latent, in the vicinity during the childhood formation of the author (if you have some easier interpretation of his concern, please do share this easier interpretation with us). HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT October 18, Thursday: “Dirty Bertie” the Prince of Wales visited Boston and rode the length of the Beacon Street mall atop the biggest black horse they could find, in a colonel’s uniform. Among the people introduced to him on this visit would be Waldo Emerson. Louisa May Alcott found all this so appealing that she would craft a reference to the “Prince of Whales.”54

October 18: P.M. – To Merriam’s white pine grove. I often see amid or beside a pitch or white pine grove, though thirty years old, a few yet larger and older trees, from which they came, rising above them, like patriarchs surrounded by their children. Early cinquefoil again. I find fair-looking white oak acorns, which abound on the trees near Beck Stow’s, to be decayed on the tree. Wishing to see what proportion were decayed I pull down a bough, and pluck forty-one acorns, which I cut open successively with my knife. Every one is soft and spoiled, turned black or dark-brown within, though there is not a single worm in them. Indeed, abundant and beautiful as the crop is, they are all decayed on that and the neighboring trees, and I only find one sound one after long search. This is probably the reason why they hold on still so numerously, and beside the squirrels do not disturb them. I suspect that they were killed by the severe frost of about October 1st. Abundant as the crop is, perhaps half of them have already been destroyed thus. Those that were touched first and most severely are paler-brown on one or both sides. Here, or on these trees, is a whole crop destroyed before it fell, though remarkably abundant. How many thousand bushels there must be in this state in this town! See how an acorn is planted by a squirrel, just under a loose covering of moist leaves where it is shaded and concealed, and lies on its side on the soil, ready to send down its radicle next year. If there are not so many oak seedlings in a deciduous wood as in a pine one, it may be because both oaks (and acorns) and squirrels love warmth. The ground does not freeze nearly so hard under dense pines as in a deciduous wood. Look through an oak wood, say twenty-five or thirty years old, north of the Sherman grove on the road. It appeared to me that there were fewer seedling oaks under this than under pines, and the roots of the other little ones that looked like seedlings were old and decaying, and the shoots slender, feeble, and more or less prostrate under the leaves. You will find seedling oaks under oaks, it is true, but I think that you will not find a great many of them. You will not find, as under pines, a great many of these little oaks one to eight or ten years old, with great fat, or fusiform, roots, all ready to spring up when the pines are cut. If it were true that the little oaks under oaks steadily grew and came to trees there, then even that would be a reason why the soil would not be so well stocked with them when the wood was cut as when a pine wood is cut, for there would be only ten trees in the first case to one hundred in the last (according to our calculation before). Most of the little oaks here were little or dwarfed, apparently because they were shoots from poor and diseased rootstocks, which were common in the ground. But I think that neither pines nor oaks do well under older trees. Methinks you do not see numerous oaks of all ages and sizes in an old oak wood, but commonly large trees of about the same age and little ones like huckleberry bushes under your feet; and so commonly with pine woods. In either case, if the woods are well grown and dense, all the trees in them appear to have been planted at the same time. For aught that I know, I would much rather have a young oak wood which has succeeded to pines than one that has succeeded to oaks, for they will make better trees, not only because the soil is new to them, but because they are all seedlings, while in the other case far the greater part are sprouts; just as I would prefer apple trees five or six years from the seed for my orchard to suckers from those which have come to maturity or decayed. Otherwise your young oaks will soon, when half grown, have the diseases of old trees, – warts and decay. I find that Merriam’s white pine grove is on the site of an oak wood, the old oak stumps being still very common. The pines appear to be some forty years old. The soil of pine leaves is an inch to an inch and a half thick. The oldest little oaks here are five years old and six inches high. Am surprised to see that the pasture west of this, where the little pitch pines were cut down last year, is now even more generally green with pines than two years ago. What shall we say to that management that halts between two courses, – does neither this nor that, but botches both? I see many a pasture on which the pitch or white pines are spreading, where the bush-whack is from time to time used with a show of vigor, and I despair of my trees, –I say mine, for the farmer evidently does not mean they shall be his,– and yet this questionable work is so poorly done that those very fields grow steadily greener and more forest-like from year to year in spite of cows £md bush-whack, till at length the farmer gives up the contest from sheer weariness, and finds himself the owner of a wood-lot. Now whether wood-lots or pastures are most profitable for him I will not undertake to say, but I am certain that a wood-lot and pasture combined is not profitable. I see spatter-dock pads and pontederia in that little pool at south end of Beck Stow’s. How did they get there? There is no stream in this case? It was perhaps rather reptiles and birds than fishes, then. Indeed we might as well ask how they got anywhere, for all the pools and fields have been stocked thus, and we are not to suppose 54. He was already huge but his special sex stool had yet to be created in Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT as many new creations as pools. This suggests to inquire how any plant came where it is, – how, for instance, the pools which were stocked with lilies before we were born or this town was settled, and ages ago, were so stocked, as well as those which we dug. I think that we are warranted only in supposing that the former was stocked in the same way as the latter, and that there was not a sudden new creation, – at least since the first; yet I have no doubt that peculiarities more or less considerable have thus been gradually produced in the lilies thus planted in various pools, in consequence of their various conditions, though they all came originally from one seed. We find ourselves in a world that is already planted, but is also still being planted as at first. We say of some plants that they grow in wet places and of others that they grow in desert places. The truth is that their seeds are scattered almost everywhere, but here only do they succeed. Unless you can show me the pool where the lily was created, I shall believe that the oldest fossil lilies which the geologist has detected (if this is found fossil) originated in that locality in a similar manner to these of Beck Stow-’s. We see thus how the fossil lilies which the geologist has detected are dispersed, as well as these which we carry in our hands to church. The development theory implies a greater vital force in nature, because it is more flexible and accommodating, and equivalent to a sort of constant new creation. Mr. Alcott tells me that the red squirrels which live in his elms go off to the woods (pitch pines behind his house) about June, and return in September, when the butternuts, etc., are ripe. Do they not go off for hazel-nuts and pine seed? No doubt they are to be found where their food is. Young oaks, especially white oaks, in open woodland hollows and on plains [ARE] almost annually killed down by frost, they are so tender. Large tracts in this town are bare for this reason. Hence it is very important that the little oaks, when they are tenderest, should have the shelter of pines and other trees as long as they can bear it, or perhaps till they get above the level of the frosts. I know of extensive open areas in the woods where it would be of no use to sow acorns or to set seedling oaks, for every one would be killed by the frost, as they have already been; but if you were to plant pines thinly there, or thickly at first and then thin them out, you could easily raise oaks, for often you have only got to protect them till they are five or six feet high, that they may be out of the way of ordinary frosts, whose surface is as level as that of a lake. According to Loudon (vide Emerson on oaks), the best authorities say plant some two hundred and fifty acorns to an acre (i.e. some from three hundred to five hundred, others from sixty to one hundred), or about one and one half acorns to a rod, or two hundred and forty to an acre. In my walk in Walden Woods yesterday I found that the seedling oaks and chestnuts were most common under the fullest and densest white pines, as that of Brister Spring. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1861

January: This month’s issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. CONSULT THIS ISSUE

Louisa May Alcott worked on revising her 1st draft of MOODS.

February: This month’s issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. CONSULT THIS ISSUE

Louisa May Alcott continued to work over her 1st draft of MOODS:

Another turn at “Moods,” which I remodelled. From the 2d to the 25th I sat writing, with a run at dusk; could not sleep, and for three days was so full of it I could not stop to get up. Mother made me a green silk cap with a red bow, to match the old green and red party wrap, which I wore as a “glory cloak.” Thus arrayed I sat in groves of manuscripts, “living for immortality,” as May said. Mother wandered in and out with cordial cups of tea, worried because I couldn’t eat. Father thought it fine, and brought his reddest apples and hardest cider for my Pegasus to feed upon. All sorts of fun was going on; but I didn’t care if the world returned to chaos if I and my inkstand only “lit” in the same place. It was very pleasant and queer while it lasted; but after three weeks of it I found that my mind was too rampant for my body, as my head was dizzy, legs shaky, and no sleep would come. So I dropped the pen, and took long walks, cold baths, and had Nan up to frolic with me. Read all I had done to my family; and Father said: “Emerson must see this, Where did you get your metaphysics?” Mother pronounced it wonderful, and Anna laughed and cried, as she always does, over my works, saying, “My dear, I’m proud of you.” So I had a good time, even if it never comes to anything; for it was worth something to have my three dearest sit up till midnight listening with wide-open eyes to Lu’s first novel. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT March 18, Monday: At the invitation of the government of Santo Domingo, Spain re-annexed its former colony. Spanish troops from Cuba entered the country.

A state convention in Arkansas turned down secession 39-35 but allowed for a plebiscite.

Governor Sam Houston of Texas, having declined to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America, was deposed and retired.

Concord’s annual exhibition was held in the new town hall. An announcement was made that Mr. Thoreau could not be present due to illness, but was still at work, hopefully, on the natural history of Concord that was to be used in the public schools there. Since the celebration that year was honoring Bronson Alcott as the Concord superintendent of schools, Louisa May Alcott had written a poem which, in the 2d verse, mentioned HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT John Brown. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

An attempt was made to have this reference suppressed but the attempt was defeated, largely through the intervention of Waldo Emerson. We have a letter briefly and unenthusiastically mentioning the program, from the 23-year-old daughter of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, Annie Bartlett, to her soldier brother Edward Jarvis “Ned” Bartlett to whom she was writing religiously every Sunday:

Mr. Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Franklin B. Sanborn spoke in the Hall about education, but I did not trouble them.

FRANKLIN B. SANBORN

In about this timeframe Thoreau was copying from HERODOTUS. A NEW AND LITERAL VERSION FROM THE TEXT OF BAEHR. WITH A GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INDEX. BY HENRY CARY, M.A., WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD (London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1845) into his Indian Notebook #12 and Commonplace Book #2. HERODOTUS’ HISTORIES HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

March 18. Tree sparrows have warbled faintly for a week. When I pass by a twig of willow, though of the slenderest kind, rising above the sedge in some dry hollow early in December, or in midwinter above the snow, my spirits rise as if it were an oasis in the desert. The very name “sallow” (salix, from the Celtic sal-lis, near water) suggests that there is some natural sap or blood flowing there. It is a divining wand that has not failed, but stands with its root in the fountain. The fertile willow catkins are those green caterpillar-like ones, commonly an inch or more in length, which develop themselves rapidly after the sterile yellow ones which we had so admired are fallen or effete. Arranged around the bare twigs, they often form green wands eight to eighteen inches long. A single catkin consists of from twenty-five to a hundred little pods, more or less ovate and beaked, each of which is closely packed with cotton, in which are numerous seeds so small that they are scarcely discernible by ordinary eyes. I do not know what they mean who call this the emblem of despairing love! “The willow, worn by forlorn paramour!” It is rather the emblem of love and sympathy with all nature. It may droop, –it is so lithe, supple, and pliant,– but it never weeps. The willow of Babylon blooms not the less hopefully with us, though its other half is not in the New World at all, and never has been. It droops, not to represent David’s tears, but rather to snatch the crown from Alexander’s head. (Nor were poplars ever the weeping sisters of Phaëton, for nothing rejoices them more than the sight of the Sun’s chariot, and little reck they who drives it.) Ah, willow! willow! Would that I always possessed thy good spirits. No wonder its wood was anciently in demand for bucklers, for, take the whole tree, it is not only soft and pliant but tough and resilient (as Pliny says?), not splitting at the first blow, but closing its wounds at once and refusing HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT to transmit its hurts. I know of one foreign species which introduced itself into Concord as [a] withe used to tie up a bundle of trees. A gardener stuck it in the ground, and it lived, and has its descendants. Herodotus says that the Scythians divined by the help of willow rods. I do not know any better twigs for this purpose. How various are the habits of men! Mother says that her father-in-law, Captain Minott, not only used to roast and eat a long row of little wild apples, reaching in a semicircle from jamb to jamb under the andirons on the reddened hearth (I used to buy many a pound of Spanish brown at the stores for mother to redden the jambs and hearth with), but he had a quart of new milk regularly placed at the head of his bed, which he drank at many draughts in the course of the night. It was so the night he died, and my grandmother discovered that he was dying, by his not turning over to reach his milk. I asked what he died of, and mother answered apoplexy! at which I did not wonder. Still this habit may not have caused it. I have a cousin, also, who regularly eats his bowl of bread and milk just before going to bed, however late. He is a very stirring man. You can’t read any genuine history –as that of Herodotus or the Venerable Bede– without perceiving that our interest depends not on the subject but on the man, — on the manner in which he treats the subject and the importance he gives it. A feeble writer and without genius must have what he thinks a great theme, which we are already interested in through the accounts of others, but a genius –a Shakespeare, for instance– would make the history of his parish more interesting than another’s history of the world. Wherever men have lived there is a story to be told, and it depends chiefly on the story-teller or historian whether that is interesting or not. You are simply a witness on the stand to tell what you know about your neighbors and neighborhood. Your account of foreign parts which you have never seen should by good rights be less interesting. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April 19, Friday: President Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Blockade against Southern ports, and the first blood of civil warfare was shed.

On this “sacred date” of American independence, couriers rode along the route followed by Paul Revere in 1775 calling out regiments for a new war, and there was “the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon and the assembling of soldiers, as brave, true and prompt as those of olden times.”55

Meanwhile, attempting to march through Baltimore en route to Fort Monroe in Virginia, the 6th Massachusetts 55. Pullen, Doris L. and Donald B. Cobb. THE CELEBRATION OF APRIL THE NINETEENTH FROM 1776 TO 1960 IN LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS. Lexington MA: Town Celebrations Committee, 1960, page 9. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT in their new blue uniforms was being savaged by a mob of indignant citizens.56

Meanwhile an even fresher company of Concord volunteers “marched off for the Civil War.” They marched to the depot, that is, and took a train to Washington DC. Louisa May Alcott, watching this brave display, wrote:

I’ve often longed to see a war, and now I have my wish. I long to be a man; but as I can’t fight, I will content myself with working for those who can.

–You will pardon me if, in my inimitable manner, I become disgusted and insist on translating this as a masturbation fantasy which in the vernacular of the 20th Century would be something like “If I can’t fuck you, I need to kill you, and if I can’t kill you, I want you to kill somebody while I watch, and if I can’t watch, I want to fantasize about your killing somebody while you’re off doing it. (If you get wounded, that’ll work for me too.)” Is it any wonder that Henry Thoreau never wanted to get romantically involved with such a person as Louisa?

As the American Civil War began, Kit Carson would resign as federal Indian agent for northern New Mexico and join the New Mexico volunteer infantry that were being organized by Ceran St. Verain. Although the territory of New Mexico officially allowed slavery, this region’s geography and economics made the peculiar institution so peculiar that there were in fact very few slaves anywhere to be found. The territorial government and the leaders of opinion would therefore all throw their support to the Union. Carson would occupy himself during the civil war in organizing a New Mexico volunteer infantry on behalf of the Union. Overall command of Union forces in the Department of New Mexico would fall to Colonel Edward R.S. Canby of the Regular Army’s 19th Infantry, headquartered at Ft. Marcy in Santa Fe. Carson, provided with the rank of Colonel of Volunteers, would be in command of the 3d of Canby’s five columns. Carson would divide his 500 soldiers into two battalions, each consisting of four companies of the 1st New Mexico Volunteers. When the Navajo would attempt to take advantage of the military slack caused by the hostilities among the white people, the US federal government would delegate Colonel of Volunteers Carson to take care of the matter one way or another. His mission as the government understood it would be to get these native hostiles into a clump and sequester them at Fort Sumner in Reservation Bosque Redondo. When some of the natives hid in the Canyon de Chelly, Carson would begin a merciless scorched-earth campaign of burning fields and villages and killing livestock plus any Navajo he could locate. Once their fields of crops had been laid waste and their herds were rotting on the ground, the Navajos would realize that being shepherded onto a reservation in this manner was the sole manner in which they might hope to avoid starvation.

56. When the Concord Soldiers’ Monument recording that “The Sons Defended What the Fathers Won” would be established in Monument Square upon a pedestal made of a stone from the abutment of the washed-away Old North Bridge six years later, an orator would remind the citizenry to be indignant at this Southern outrage, since when “our 6th Regiment was attacked in the streets of Baltimore, and the first blood was shed in defense of the American Union as it was, on the same day, in 1775,” that had been an injustice for “our boys were good boys” who had not been coming “with their hearts full of hatred.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT [THOREAU MADE NO ENTRY IN HIS JOURNAL FOR 19 APRIL]

–You will pardon me again, if again in my inimitable manner, I do not neglect to point out that this demonstration of Concordians marching off to war on April 19th demonstrated that the Concordians had utterly forgotten the lesson of April 19th, which had been that one ought not attack other people with harmful weapons in order to force them to behave as one believes they ought to behave? “Specimen Days”

CONTEMPTUOUS FEELING Even after the bombardment of Sumter, however, the gravity of the revolt, and the power and will of the slave States for a strong and continued military resistance to national authority, were not at all realized at the North, except by a few. Nine-tenths of the people of the free States look’d upon the rebellion, as started in South Carolina, from a feeling one-half of contempt, and the other half composed of anger and incredulity. It was not thought it would be join’d in by Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia. A great and cautious national official predicted that it would blow over “in sixty days,” and folks generally believ’d the prediction. I remember talking about it on a Fulton ferry-boat with the Brooklyn mayor, who said he only “hoped the Southern fire-eaters would commit some overt act of resistance, as they would then be at once so effectually squelch’d, we would never hear of secession again — but he was afraid they never would have the pluck to really do anything.” I remember, too, that a couple of companies of the Thirteenth Brooklyn, who rendezvou’d [Page 708] at the city armory, and started thence as thirty days’ men, were all provided with pieces of rope, conspicuously tied to their musket-barrels, with which to bring back each man a prisoner from the audacious South, to be led in a noose, on our men’s early and triumphant return!

PATRIOTS’ DAY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT This article appeared in the Goodhue County Republican of Red Wing, Minnesota:

THE WAR’S BEGUN! –––– Maj. Anderson Summoned and Refuses to Surrender! –––– CHARLESTON BATTERIES OPEN THE FIRE! –––– Fort Sumter Reported on Fire! –––– REPORT OF ITS SURRENDER! –––– WASHINGTON IN DANGER! –––– Pennsylvania in the Field with Men and Money! HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT ––––

CHARLESTON, APRIL 11 — Beauregard at two o’clock to- day demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter which Anderson declined. It is currently reported that the negotiation relative to the surrender will be opened to-morrow between Anderson and Beauregard. Special dispatches received at Washington to-day, assert that both Pickens and Sumter will be attacked, but they doubt if war follows. A Montgomery dispatch to-day says it has been resolved to attack the two forts immediately. Three steamers were seen off the coast yesterday for a long time. Anderson fired a signal gun this morning. The attack on Fort Sumter is momentarily expected. Business is suspended. No work is being done. It is rumored that the fight will commence at eight o’-clock this evening, unless Anderson surrender. The steamer Harriet Lane is off the bar. Thousands of persons line the shores to witness the attack. CHARLESTON, APRIL 12 — The ball has opened. War is inaugurated. The batteries of Sullivan's Island, Morris Island and other points were opened on Fort Sumter at four o’clock this morning. Fort Sumter has returned the fire and a brisk cannonading has been kept up. No information has been received from the seaboard yet. The military are under arms, and the whole of our population are in the streets, and every available space facing the harbor is filled with anxious spectators. The firing has continued all day without intermission. Two of Fort Sumter’s guns have been silenced, and it is reported that a breach has been made in the southeast ward. The answer to Gen. Beauregard’s demand by Major Anderson was, that he would surrender when his supplies were exhausted; provided he was not reinforced. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT September 3, Tuesday: The 23rd anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s freedom, which we may well elect to celebrate in lieu of an unknown slave birthday.

Here is a Daguerreotype, by an unidentified photographer in the 1850-1855 timeframe.

“It has been a source of great annoyance to me, never to have a birthday.”

Per Friend Daniel Ricketson’s journal:57By this point Abby May, the youngest of the Alcott daughters, would

BRONSON ALCOTT Weather warm and cloudy. Spent forenoon with Mr. Alcott in his study, Thoreau there part of the time. On our ABBA ALCOTT way visited an antiquarian collection of a Mr. Davis LOUISA MAY ALCOTT in company with Miss Sophia Thoreau and Mr. Thoreau. Dined with Mr. Alcott, his wife, and daughters Louisa SOPHIA E. THOREAU and Abby. Returned to Thoreau’s to tea, walked this evening in the dark, got lost for a time, but by retracing my steps found my way again. Dark cloudy evening, warm. Talked with T. till ten.

have reached her full adult stature of five feet ten inches, so she must have made quite a contrast with the five foot three inch Ricketson! “How’s the weather down there?” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

57. Would this Mr. Davis be the wealthy philanthropist who in 1843 was leading the “Providence Movement” of mystic anarchists in Providence RI? Or the owner of “Eleazer Davis’s Hill” near Carlisle Bridge? Would he be a descendant of the Davis who stood and delivered among the Concord minutemen on the Lexington battleground? HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1862

Louisa May Alcott placed a short story in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, “Pauline’s Passion and Punishment,” which prefigured her first novel MOODS and its heroine who would dare to contemplate divorcing her husband and remarrying — and would pay with her life.

Louisa’s “The King of Clubs and the Queen of Hearts” was appearing, between April 19th and June 7th, in 7 weekly installments in the Monitor published briefly in Concord by Samuel Ripley Bartlett. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT May 11, Sunday: Louisa May Alcott sent Sophia Foord a keepsake snippet from the wreath of andromeda they had placed on Henry’s coffin. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Concord May 11th Dear Miss Ford As I promised to write you when Henry died I send these few lines to fulfil that promise though I suppose you have seen notices of the event in the papers. Father saw him the day before he died lying patiently & cheerfully on the bed he would never leave again alive. He was very weak but suffered nothing & talked in his old pleasant way saying “it took Nature a long time to do her work but he was most out of the world”. On Tuesday at eight in the morning he asked to be lifted, tried to help do it but was too weak & lying down again passed quietly & painlessly out the old world into the new. On Friday at Mr. Emerson’s desire he was publicly buried from the church, a thing Henry would not have liked but Emerson said his sorrow was so great he wanted all the world to mourn with him. Many friends came from Boston & Worcester, Emerson read an address good in itself but not appropriate to the time or place, the last few sentences were these & very true. “In the Tyrol there grows a flower on the most inaccessible peaks of the mountains, called ‘Adelvezia’ or ‘noble purity,’ it is so much loved by the maidens that their lovers risk their lives in seeking it & are often found dead at the foot of precipices with the flower in their hands. I think our friend’s life was a search for this rare flower, & I know that could we see him now we should find him adorned with profuse garlands of it for none could more fitly wear them”. Mr. Channing wrote the Stanzas & they were very sweetly sung. Father read selections from Henry’s own books, for many people said he was an infidel & as he never went to church when living he ought not to be carried there dead. If ever a man was a real Christian it was Henry, & I think his own wise & pious thoughts read by one who loved him & whose own life was a beautiful example of religious faith, convinced many & touched the hearts of all. It was a lovely day clear, & calm, & spring like, & as we all walked after Henry’s coffin with its pall of flowers, carried by six of his townsmen who had grown up with him, it seemed as if Nature wore her most benignant aspect to welcome her dutiful & loving son to his long sleep in her arms. As we entered the churchyard birds were singing, early violets blooming in the grass & the pines singing their softest lullaby, & there between his father & his brother we left him, feeling that though his life seemed too short, it would blossom & bear fruit for us long after he was gone, & that perhaps we should know a closer friendship now than even while he lived. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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I never can mourn for such men because they never seem lost to me but nearer & dearer for the solemn change. I hope you have this consolation, & if these few words of mine can give you anything you have not already learned I am very glad, & can only add much love from us all & a heart full from your

Lou.

Come & see us when you can, after this week we shall be clean & in order, & always ready. I enclose a little sprig of “andromeda” his favourite plant a wreath of which we put on his coffin.

The above does not do complete justice to the letter. Louisa was using two sheets of paper, front and back for a total of four pages, to write to her former teacher, and when she got to “I hope you have this consolation, & if these few words” she had run out of space at the bottom of the back of her second sheet. To have added a third sheet would have increased the postage, so she therefore went back to the top of the front side of the first sheet, above the salutation, to continue in the blank space there with “of mine can give you anything you have not already learned ... we shall be clean & in good order, & always ready,” whereupon she again ran out of blank space, and so she turned the sheets over, and at the top margin of the front of the second sheet, upside down, she wrote “I enclose a little sprig of ‘andromeda’” and at the top margin of the back of the first sheet, upside down, she wrote “his favorite plant — a wreath of which we put on his coffin.” (In the 1962 publication, a photograph of the actual letter has been presented.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau evidently posted on this day a letter that she had begun to write to Friend Daniel Ricketson on April 7th: CONCORD, April 7, 1862. MR. RICKETSON: DEAR SIR, — I feel moved to acknowledge the pleasant letters which Henry has lately received from you. It is really refreshing to hear of the flight of the wild geese and the singing of birds. There is a good deal of snow still whitening our fields. I am almost impatient to see the ground bare again. My dear brother has survived the winter, and we should be most thankful if he might linger to welcome the green grass and the flowers once more. Believing as I do in the sincerity of your friendship for Henry, I feel anxious that you should know how ill he is. Since the autumn he has been gradually failing, and is now the embodiment of weakness; still, he enjoys seeing his friends, and every bright hour he devotes to his manuscripts which he is preparing for publication. For many weeks he has spoken only in a faint whisper. Henry accepts this dispensation with such childlike trust and is so happy that I feel as if he were being translated, rather than dying in the ordinary way of most mortals. I hope you will come and see him soon, and be cheered. He has often expressed pleasure at the prospect of seeing you. I asked Mr. Alcott to write to you some weeks since; but I do not think that he impressed you with Henry’s true condition. Few of his friends realize how sick he is, his spirits are always so good. In much haste, believe me, yours truly,

S.E. THOREAU. P.S. Henry sends kind regards to you and your family, and desires me to tell you that he cannot rise to greet a guest, and has not been out for three months.

SUNDAY May 11th ’62. Mottoes placed in Henry’s coffin by his friend W.E.C.:— “Hail to thee, 0 man, who art come from the transitory place to the imperishable.” “Gazed on the heavens for what he missed on earth.” “I think for to touche also The world whiche neweth everie daie, So as I can, so as I maie.” Dear friend, you will not forget the bereaved mother and sister. Yours truly,

S.E. THOREAU. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT June 29, Tuesday: There was fighting at Savage’s Station. Waldo Emerson repeated his funeral oration on Henry David Thoreau for the benefit of the Reverend Theodore Parker’s “Fraternity” in Boston.

After Thoreau’s death, Louisa May Alcott wrote a poem “Thoreau’s Flute” for The Atlantic Monthly. According to Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson she wrote the poem while she was nursing in the military hospital in Washington DC where she had received the news of Henry Thoreau’s death:

We sighing said, “Our Pan is dead— His pipe hangs mute beside the river, Around it friendly moonbeams quiver, But music’s airy voice is fled. Spring comes to us in guise forlorn, The blue-bird chants a requiem, The willow-blossom waits for him, The genius of the wood is gone”

Then from the flute, untouched by hands, There came a low, harmonious breath: For such as he there is no death. His life the eternal life commands. Above men’s aims his nature rose. The wisdom of a just content Make one small spot a continent, And turned to poetry life’s prose Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild, Swallow and aster, lake and pine To him seemed human or divine, Fit mates for this large-hearted child. Such homage nature ne’er forgets; And yearly on the coverlid ’Neath which her darling lieth hid Will write his name in violets. To him no vain regrets belong Whose soul, that finer instrument, Gave to the world no poor lament, But wood-notes ever sweet and strong. Oh lonely friend, He still will be A potent presence, though unseen, Steadfast, sagacious and serene. Seek not for him: he is with Thee.

At that time the magazine was withholding the names of contributors, and Louisa was informed by her father Bronson Alcott that one day while he was visiting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet had picked up the The Atlantic Monthly and had read aloud a few lines from her poem, and had asked her father whether he had read “Emerson’s fine poem on Thoreau’s Flute?” THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Whittier-Holmes-Emerson-Motley-Alcott-Hawthorne-Lowell-Agassiz-Longfellow HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In “Chiefly about War Matters,” edited and expurgated by Ticknor & Fields, Nathaniel Hawthorne revealed that he had been utterly at odds with Emerson’s and Thoreau’s attitude toward John Brown while Brown was awaiting execution in 1859.

I shall not pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy with Whittier’s excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose happy lips have uttered a hundred gold sentences, as from that saying (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source), that the death of this blood-stained HANGING fanatic has “made the Gallows as venerable as the Cross!” Nobody was ever more justly hanged.

August 30, Saturday: The whaler Alert sailed from the port of New London, Connecticut under the command of Captain Edwin Church, in search of sperm oil off Hurd’s Island, the newly discovered land south of Kerguelen’s.

People were still killing each other at Richmond, Virginia. People were still killing each other at Bull Run Creek near Sudley Springs and Manassas Junction, Virginia. There would be some 24,000 casualties, in round numbers, produced near the Bull Run. Defeated Union troops from Centreville, frightened out of their wits, were fortifying the District of Columbia. Any port in a storm. Louisa May Alcott volunteered as an Army nurse and was sent to Union Hospital in Georgetown. Among the 40 soldiers for whom she would care in her ward in the hospital in Washington DC, one had been a 12-year- old drummer. Here is the iniquitous manner in which she cleaned up her encounter with this wounded soldier/ boy for her story LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY:

“I think it was so splendid in Father to go as chaplain when he was too old to be drafted, and not strong enough for a soldier,” said Meg warmly. “Don’t I wish I could go as a drummer, a vivan — what’s its name? Or a nurse, so I could be near him and help him,” exclaimed Jo, with a groan.

(To my way of thinking, this is in a no-class class with offering unsuspecting children Halloween treats, with razor blades buried inside them.)58 While all this was going down on the surface of the planet, up in the heavens the comet Swift-Tuttle had been brightening and brightening, and at this point its tail was spanning 25 to 30 degrees of the sky — possibly spelling out the advice “Now you all behave yourselves.” A few Americans were watching it, sighting along the black barrels of telescopes up into the starry skies rather than sighting at each other’s chests along the black barrels of rifles. These people are to be congratulated. They were behaving themselves. ASTRONOMY

Comet Swift-Tuttle, not a small body at all, and with a potential impact speed of 60 kilometers per second, and with a generally intersecting trajectory, repeatedly whipping by us, has been described as the single most dangerous object known to humankind — somewhat more deadly even that your proverbial speeding bullet. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT September 6, Saturday: 1st issue of the Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway’s and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn’s anti- slavery Commonwealth. This paper would publish works by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Lydia Maria Child, Julia Ward Howe, the Reverend David Wasson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott.

On some date subsequent to Miss Mary Moody Emerson’s death, I haven’t established exactly when, Sanborn would provide a savage “obituary” in which he would declare that this little lady while still among the living had been capable of “saying more disagreeable things in a half-hour than any person living.”

November 20, Thursday: The date of November 20, 1861 specified in Chapter XIX of Part I of LITTLE WOMEN, OR,MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY was a blunder. Louisa May Alcott was trying to write as if the described events had begun during the Christmas season of 1861 and were continuing into that of 1862 — so this should have been November 20, 1862:

MY LAST WILL AND TESTIMENT …

And now having disposed of my most valuable property I hope all will be satisfied and not blame the dead. I forgive every one, and trust we may all meet when the trump shall sound. Amen. To this will and testiment I set my hand and seal on this 20th day of Nov. Anni Domino 1861.

AMY CURTIS MARCH

58. During the US civil war, the conscription law of the North made no provision for religious objectors except by providing a way for people of means to buy their way out of the draft. Those who refused such an option or could not afford it would be treated harshly. There would be 4,000 who would serve as unarmed legal conscientious objectors (COs). Of the first 292,441 American citizens drafted to serve in the Union armies, a total of 52,288 would be financially (and morally) able to hire a substitute soldier, to go do their killing and/or dying for them. Although the official cost of such a release from the draft was $300 payable directly to our government, for some reason a significant number of wealthy men would be directly paying others as much as $2,000 each to take their places. (Only in a nation whose legal principles and practice are based firmly upon a bedrock of human slavery law can such events have transpired.)

! OHNE MICH HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Plan of Fort Ridgely as it was in 1862 during the race war HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT November 20, Thursday: The date of November 20, 1861 specified in Chapter XIX of Part I of LITTLE WOMEN, OR,MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY was a blunder. Louisa May Alcott was trying to write as if the described events had begun during the Christmas season of 1861 and were continuing into that of 1862 — so this should have been November 20, 1862:

MY LAST WILL AND TESTIMENT …

And now having disposed of my most valuable property I hope all will be satisfied and not blame the dead. I forgive every one, and trust we may all meet when the trump shall sound. Amen. To this will and testiment I set my hand and seal on this 20th day of Nov. Anni Domino 1861.

AMY CURTIS MARCH HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1863

January: Louisa May Alcott contracted the cholera at Army Hospital and was administered massive doses of calomel, a mercury-based emetic.59 While lying desperately ill, Louisa May Alcott received $100.00 for her first “lurid” piece for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, a piece titled “Pauline’s Passion and Punishment” published under the pseudonym “A.M. Barnard.” But she was thinking of Henry Thoreau, and writing a poem about him. The poem would be published in The Atlantic Monthly, in the summer of 1863, as “Thoreau’s flute.”

59. She would suffer for the remainder of her life from this systemic poisoning. Under such a regimen it was common for the hair and teeth of the patient to fall out, and for their tongues to protrude until they lost their voices and could scarcely swallow. In fact, if the patient’s reaction were not sufficiently severe, the physician of that era was likely to increase the dosage. (In May 1863, too late for Louisa May, the Surgeon General of the United States would proscribe this use of the calomel emetic.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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As I shall forget the strange fancies that haunted me I shall amuse myself with recording some of them. The most vivid & enduring was a conviction that I had married a stout, handsome Spaniard dressed in black velvet with very soft hands & a voice that was continually saying, “Lie still, my dear.” This was mother, I suspect, but with all the comfort I often found in her presence there was blended an awful fear of the Spanish spouse who was always coming after me, appearing out of closets, in at windows, or threatening me dreadfully all night long. I appealed to the Pope & really got up & made a touching plea in something I meant for Latin they tell me. Once I went to heaven & found it a twilight place with people darting thro the air in a queer way. All very busy & dismal & ordinary. Miss Dix, W.H. Channig [sic] & other people were there but I thought it dark & “slow” & wished I hadn’t come. A mob at Baltimore breaking down the door to get me; being hung for a witch, burned, stoned & otherwise maltreated were some of my fancies. Also being tempted to join Dr. W. & two of the nurses in worshipping the Devil. Also tended millions of sick men who never died or got well.

January 23, Friday: Louisa May Alcott returned to Concord from war nursing, a casualty of typhoid. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT February: Back home in Concord from her service in Washington DC, Louisa May Alcott was wearing a lace cap to cover the baldness caused by the doses of calomel that had been prescribed for her at the Army hospital.

“For 2400 years patients have believed that doctors were doing them good; for 2300 years they were wrong.”

— David Wootton, BAD MEDICINE: DOCTORS DOING HARM SINCE HIPPOCRATES, Oxford, June 2006

She was troubled by repeated mercury-poisoning delusions in which Spanish grandees leaped out of closets at her, etc. Dr. Josiah Bartlett visited her every day, and in all probability this is the point at which she began her use of opium.

WALDEN: The old and infirm and the timid, of whatever age or sex, PEOPLE OF thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death; to them WALDEN life seemed full of danger, –what danger is there if you don’t think of any?– and they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moment’s warning. To them the village was literally a com-munity, a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they would not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

DR. JOSIAH BARTLETT

ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT September 3, Thursday: On this day, and on the following two, people would be killing each other at Whitestone Hill.

Calvin H. Greene visited the Alcott family’s home in Concord and was able to see Bronson Alcott, but Louisa May Alcott did not come down because at the army hospital in Washington DC, under treatment with calomel (a mercury concoction), she “had lost a part of her hair (which she claimed she laid upon the altar of her country) & so was unpresentable.”

(Actually, the probable reason why Louisa –whom Greene referred to as “Louise”– did not put on her lace cap and come downstairs would be that in this period she was coping with her illness by the use of opium.)

This day marked the 25th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s freedom, which we may well elect to celebrate in lieu of an unknown slave birthday.

Here is a Daguerreotype, by an unidentified photographer in the 1850-1855 timeframe.

“It has been a source of great annoyance to me, never to have a birthday.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1864

January 29, Friday: Samuel Ripley Bartlett had protested Louisa May Alcott’s reprinting the story “The King of Clubs and the Queen of Hearts,” claiming that he owned the copyright. Louisa would write James Redpath that although Bartlett had published the story in his Monitor, the story “was never wholly paid for” because that Concord magazine “died in a little while & was not much known nor read while it lasted.” Summing up, she wrote that it “seems neither neighborly nor necessary to make objections now, & it does not appear to me that we have either of us done anything unlawful or unjust.”

February: Louisa May Alcott recorded in her journal that she “Had a little skirmish with Ripley Bartlett about “King of Clubs & Queen of Hearts” one of the tales in the Camp Fire book. I did not know that it was copyrighted so gave it to Redpath, & his Highness Rip made a great stir about it. Demanded money, threatened law wrote insulting letters & behaved in such a manner that my doubts as to sanity were set at rest forever. He finally gave us the right of publishing our own story & I am done with the dog in the manger. Shall look well after my copyrights in future.”

May 28, Saturday: There was fighting at Haw’s Shop / Enon Church. Fighting began at Totopotomoy Creek / Shady Grove Road that would continue into the 30th.

James Thomas Fields had given Louisa May Alcott a copy of Henry Thoreau’s THE MAINE WOODS, and she wrote to him on this day that it was as if he “were walking with me again.”60 TIMELINE OF THE MAINE WOODS ALCOTT FAMILY

60. This is one of the few indications we have that Louisa ever glanced at anything Henry wrote. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT October: Louisa May Alcott explained, in her journal, the process which had resulted in the 2d draft of the manuscript of her 1st novel, MOODS. She commented that when “the whole plan laid itself smoothly out before me,” she had picked up her old manuscript and begun to “write it all over again.”

The fit was on strong & for a fortnight I hardly ate, slept or stirred but wrote, wrote like a thinking machine in full operation. When it was all rewritten, without copying, I found it much improved though I’d taken out ten chapters & sacrificed many of my favorite things, but being resolved to make it simple, strong & short I let every thing else go & hoped the book would be better for it. Sent to Loring & a week after as I sat hammering away at the parlor carpet, dusty, dismal & tired a letter came from Loring praising the story more enthusiastically than ever, thanking me for the improvements, & proposing to bring out the book at once. Of course we all had a rapture & I finished my work “double quick” regardless of weariness, toothache or blue devils. Next day I went to Boston & saw Loring. A brisk, business-like man who seemed in earnest & said many complimentary things about Hospital Sketches & its author. It was agreed to bring out the book immediately & Mrs. Dall offered to read the proof with me, Loring to give me ten cents copyright on all copies sold, I forfeiting the copyright on such as are given to newspapers. Settlements to be made once in three months from the time of its publication. Was glad to have the old thing under way again but didn’t quite believe it would ever come out after so many delays & disappointments.

October 8, Saturday: Louisa May Alcott contracted to publish, through the firm of A.K. Loring, her most serious novel, her favorite novel, MOODS, in which her memories of Henry Thoreau were the basis for one character. Although this was her most serious novel, her favorite novel, it had had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two. It would appear on Abba Alcott’s 64th birthday, Christmas Eve. ALCOTT FAMILY

Lawrence Buell would comment, in particular about this book and in general about the relation of women writers to Thoreau, cherchezing for the femme dryly and –one trusts– in good humor, that: The first fictional recreation of Thoreau was by a woman, Louisa May Alcott (MOODS). The first book, to my knowledge, published by an outsider to the transcendentalist circle that celebrates nature as a refuge from hypercivilization with explicit invocation of Thoreau as model and precursor was written by a woman: Elizabeth Wright’s LICHEN TUFTS, FROM THE ALLEGHANIES (1860). The first Thoreau Society was founded by a group of young women (1891).... HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT December 24, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Mrs. Podgers’ Teapot, a Christmas Story.”

The first ten copies of Louisa’s MOODS were delivered hot off the press of the firm of A.K. Loring to her and she inscribed the first one for her mother Abba Alcott’s 64th birthday on this day, Christmas Eve. This was Louisa’s favorite novel, in which her memories of Henry Thoreau were the basis for one character. Although this was her most serious work, it had had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two. The “happy, very happy” dutiful daughter wrote: Now if it makes a little money and opens the way for more, I shall be satisfied, and you in some measure repaid for all the sympathy, help, and love that have done so much for me in these hard years. I hope Success will sweeten me and make me what I long to become more than a great writer — a good daughter. ALCOTT FAMILY The sanctimonious publisher had insisted on the omission of a reference to a character reading Walt Whitman’s LEAVES OF GRASS. Her biographer refers to this novel as “a love story about Henry Thoreau” and as a stormy, triangular love story based on her long-term, secret infatuation with Henry Thoreau. It was a story from the heart, lingering over passionate possibilities and displaying Louisa’s desire for an absorbing, erotic love. Was it possible that Louisa was in love with Henry Thoreau? I, for one, would need to know whether she ever had even the faintest inkling of who this man had been, would need to discover that for instance she had studied WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS and A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS with sufficient perception over the years to have benefited from some of the spiritual material that is present in those books at a deep level, rather than merely utilizing the trip framework of WEEK for the framing of the romantic dialogues of one chapter in her romance! And I simply have not yet been able to see that in her.

James Thomson, an upstate New York farmer, had made no mention of any Christmas gifts in a diary which he had been keeping 1838-1840 and 1857-1864, but then we see this single entry in 1864: 26 Monday- This was a warm day thawed the snow some Snowed a little while in the morning. I went to Delhi with Bob and the Cutter. took the wool for flannel in exchange for it left 8 yards to be dressed into womans ware- paid for dressing it. it was noon when I got to Delhi. got home a little before 8 o’clock P. M. it was foggy- the Snow was drifted on the mountain- I got a Bonet for Jane Since in many years he made no mention of the Christmas holiday or celebration, it is likely that for the Thomson family this was not a significant tradition. This should not be seen as unusual, as there are other 19th- Century diaries and very few make any mention of any gift exchange at Christmas. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1865

July: Henry James, Sr. panned Louisa May Alcott and her MOODS in the North American. Miss Alcott’s “decided cleverness” mixed with “ignorance of human nature, and her self-confidence in spite of this ignorance” but the publication itself, although “very seldom puerile,” seemed “innocent of any doctrine whatever.” The main male heart-throb, Mr. Adam Warwick, seemed according to James’s intuition to be a literary portrait of the predatory child seducer, and he concludes with an ironic delivery of the Official Truth of the matter:

There are, thank Heaven, no such men at large in society.

Yeah, right, that is in fact what we are supposed to pretend, don’t you know? Miss Alcott, if you have any information about the practices of predatory child seducers, our polite society, as represented by Mr. James, desires that you to have the sense to in the future keep your fucking mouth shut about it. You might, little girl, sometime in the future write a very good novel –per Mr. James– provided you will be satisfied to describe only what you have seen, wink wink, nudge nudge.

An article on Henry Thoreau by the Reverend John Weiss (one of the ringleaders of the student-protest rioting of that period, in which Thoreau had neglected to participate) appeared on pages 96-117 of The Christian Examiner LXXIX:

We could sympathize with his tranquil indifference to college honors.... He was cold and unimpressible.... He did not care for people; his classmates seemed very remote.... This revery hung always about him, and not so loosely as the odd garments which the pious household care furnished.... He went about like a priest of Buddha who expects to arrive at the summit of a life of contemplation, where the divine absorbs the human.... Now it is no wonder that he kept himself aloof from us in college; for he was already living on some Walden Pond, where he had run up a temporary shanty in the depths of his reserve.... But he had no animal spirits for our sport or mischief. He passed for nothing, it is suspected, with most of us [his college classmates]; for he was cold and unimpressible. The touch of his hand was moist and indifferent, as if he had taken up something when he saw your hand coming, and caught your grasp upon it. How the prominent, grey-blue eyes seemed to rove down the path, just in advance of his feet, as his grave Indian stride carried him down to University Hall! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In regard to those grey-blue eyes, we can inspect a recent colorized image of Thoreau prepared by Ron Koster:

http://www.psymon.com/art/#new

Professor Walter Roy Harding has taken this inventive article from 1865 to be the original source for the various fables that have been created over the years, and retold and retold, about a jail encounter between Thoreau and Emerson: “Why are you in jail?” “Why are you not?” Weiss continued, however: What an easy task it would be for a lively and not entirely scrupulous pen to ridicule his notions, and raise such a cloud of ink in the clear medium as entirely to obscure his true and noble traits! It now appears that Weiss’s speculation about the harm that might be done to Thoreau’s reputation through easy ridicule from “a lively and not entirely scrupulous pen” — was all too accurate. For in October of this year 1865, in the North American Review, James Russell Lowell’s gratuitously derogatory and mocking article “Thoreau’s Letters” would be appearing. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1867

December 21, Saturday: A constitution for Austria-Hungary was promulgated, embodying the concept of dual monarchy.

Sadko op.5 for orchestra by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was performed for the initial time, by the Russian Musical Society, St. Petersburg, conducted by Mily Balakirev.

Wehe, so willst du mich wieder op.32/5, a song by Johannes Brahms to words of Platen, was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.

A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in Boston’s Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “What the Bells Saw and Said.”

A review of Henry Thoreau’s A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, presumably by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, appeared in Boston’s Commonwealth. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1868

October 1, Thursday, 1868: Part I of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Early during this month a telegram from General Lersundi to Colonel Udaeta, governor of Bayamo, would be intercepted by a telegrapher friendly to the revolutionaries. This telegram read: “Cuba belongs to Spain and for Spain she must be kept no matter who is governing. Send to prison D. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Francisco Vicente Aguilera, Pedro Figueredo, Francis Maceo Osorio, Bartolomé Masó, Francisco Javier de Céspedes....” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1869

Louisa May Alcott’s PERILOUS PLAY.

http://www.balaams-ass.com/journal/homemake/peril.htm

March: Louisa May Alcott, in “Merry’s Monthly Chat with His Friends” in MERRY’S MUSEUM, page 147: Thoreau, the Concord hermit, who lived by himself in the woods, used to come smiling up to his neighbors, to announce that the bluebirds had arrived, with as much interest in the fact as other men take in messages by the Atlantic cable. On certain days, he made long pilgrimages to find “The sweet rhodora in the wood,” welcoming the lonely flower like a long-absent friend. He gravely informed us once, that frogs were much more confiding in the spring, than later in the season; for then, it only took an hour to get well acquainted with one of the speckled swimmers, who liked to be tickled with a blade of grass, and would feed from his hand in the most sociable manner. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT April: Volume II of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. Submitting to the judgment of her publishers, the author allowed the “amateurish” sketches made by her sister Abby May Alcott (the “Amy March” character) to be replaced by the work of the

then well-known illustrator Hammatt Billings:

If ‘genius is eternal patience,’ as Michael Angelo affirms, Amy certainly had some claim to the divine attribute, for she persevered in spite of all obstacles, failures, and discouragements, firmly believing that in time she should do something worthy to be called ‘high art.’

THE ALCOTT FAMILY MICHELANGELO HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Alcott cited her hero Wendell Phillips the anti-slavery orator full of grace:61

HATEVER his motive might have been, Laurie studied to some purpose that year, for he W graduated with honor, and gave the Latin oration with the grace of a Phillips and the eloquence of a Demosthenes, so his friends said. They were all there, his grandfather — oh, so proud — Mr. and Mrs. March, John and Meg, Jo and Beth, and all exulted over him with the sincere admiration which boys make light of at the time, but fail to win from the world by any after-triumphs.

Note that Alcott described a particular one of Amy’s painting pigments as being tomato-colored: From fire to oil was a natural transition for burnt fingers, and Amy fell to painting with undiminished ardor. An artist friend fitted her out with his cast-off palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea. Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced sea-sickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of ship building and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance. Swarthy boys and dark-eyed Madonnas, staring at you from one corner of the studio, did not suggest Murillo; oily brown shadows of faces with a lurid streak in the wrong place, meant Rembrandt; buxom ladies and dropiscal infants, Rubens; and Turner appeared in tempests of blue thunder, orange lightning, brown rain, and purple clouds, with a tomato-colored splash in the middle, which might be the sun or a bouy, a sailor’s shirt or a king’s robe, as the spectator pleased. 61. We may note in passing that Louisa’s character “Laurie” was not a depiction of Wendell Phillips. He was not a depiction of Waldo Emerson either, although the author had suffered a rather serious crush on Emerson in her teen years, writing him love letters which, she would later acknowledge, she’d had the good judgment not to post. Perhaps Louisa didn’t allow Jo to marry because she so closely modeled this point-of-view character on herself — and as a young woman she had averred that she’d “rather be a literary spinster and paddle my own canoe.” Though many men have stepped forward to claim that they were “Laurie,” when the author was asked about this she replied that the character had been a composite of two young men she had known. One of these, Alfred Whitman, had been a member of the Concord Dramatic Union founded by Louisa and others in the mid-1850s with whom she had continued to correspond long term, and the other had been Ladislas Wisniewski, a young Polish man with whom she had shared a brief romance while she had been on tour in Europe as companion to an invalid woman. (In “My Boys,” a sketch published late in her life, Louisa would identify only Wisniewski.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT The name deployed in Chapter 27 of LITTLE WOMEN, “Mrs. S.L.A.N.G. Northbury,” was modeled by Louisa HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT on the name of the serial novelist of the 1850s, Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth:

… Pausing to turn a page, the lad saw her looking and, with boyish good- nature offered half his paper, saying bluntly, “Want to read it? That’s a first- rate story.” Jo accepted it with a smile, for she had never outgrown her liking for lads, and soon found herself involved in the usual labyrinth of love, mystery, and murder, — for the story belonged to that class of light literature in which the passions have a holiday, and when the author’s invention fails, a grand catastrophe clears the stage of one-half the dramatis personæ, leaving the other half to exult over their downfall. “Prime, isn’t it?” asked the boy, as her eye went down the last paragraph of her portion. “I think you and I could do most as well as that if we tried,” returned Jo, amused at his admiration of the trash. “I should think I was a pretty lucky chap if I could. She makes a good living out of such stories, they say;” and he pointed to the name of Mrs. S.L.A.N.G. Northbury, under the title of the tale. “Do you know her?” asked Jo, with sudden interest. “No, but I read all her pieces, and I know a fellow who works in the office where this paper is printed.” “Do you say she makes a good living out of stories like this?” And Jo looked more respectfully at the agitated group and thickly-sprinkled exclamation points that adorned the page. “Guess she does! She knows just what folks like, and gets paid well for writing it.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1870

May 30: Louisa May Alcott wrote about her health condition: Dr. Kane who was army surgeon in India, and Dr in England for forty years, says, my leg trouble and many of my other woes, come from the calomel they gave me in Washington. He has been through the same thing with an Indian-jungle-fever, and has never got the calomel out of him. The bunches on my leg are owing to that, for the mercury lies round in a body and don’t do much harm till a weak spot appears when it goes there and makes trouble. I don’t know anything about it, only [my] leg is the curse of my life. But I think Dr. K’s Iodine of Potash will cure it in the end as it did his arms, after taking it for three months. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1871

Publication of LITTLE MEN: LIFE AT PLUMFIELD WITH JO’S BOYS. Simultaneously, the publishing firm of A.K. Loring, which owned the copyright for the 1st novel MOODS, reprinted it to capitalize on the author’s growing fame, apparently without feeling there was any need to make any coordination with its author Louisa May Alcott. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1873

In Concord, Abby Gray sold “The Wayside” to her renter, Miss Mary C. Pratt, who was using the place as a successful boarding school known as The Wayside Family School for Girls. OLD HOUSES

Louisa May Alcott’s WORK, with a character alleged by some to have been based on Thoreau. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Mark Twain patented a self-pasting scrapbook, to be manufactured by Slote, Woodman & Company and sold by J.B. Lippincott & Company.

The freestyle swim stroke was invented (which means that Thoreau hadn’t swum freestyle).

Harriet Beecher Stowe had been born in Litchfield CT, and so after her Florida sojourn she purchased a classic 19th-Century gray wood and brick home at 77 Forest Avenue in Hartford. At this “Nook Farm” she would entertain fellow literary lights, paint watercolors and oils, work in her garden, and, in the small sitting room near her 10-sided bedroom, write several more novels, until she would die simpleminded in 1896. Mark Twain would record that when he visited, she was wandering around, popping up behind visitors and going “boo.” This home is now open to the public and houses the drop-leaf mahogany table at which in her heyday she had written portions of UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. While you are in Hartford, you might also stop by Gallaudet Square at Farmington and Asylum avenues to see the statue to Alice Cogswell, first pupil of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (the deaf school has removed, as of 1921, to West Hartford). Also, you might visit Christ Church at 45 Church Street, on the north wall of which is a tablet in honor of Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, one of the first American “scribbling women” to make a substantial sum of money by writing. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1874

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s RECORD OF MR. ALCOTT’S SCHOOL, EXEMPLIFYING THE PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF MORAL CULTURE, 3d Edition, Revised. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 297 pages (This edition was prepared because the school kept by Bronson Alcott had become of popular interest after being described in the writings of Louisa May Alcott.) MAKING OF AMERICA HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1875

May 1, Saturday: A piece by Louisa May Alcott appeared in the The Woman’s Journal, entitled “Woman’s Part in the Concord Celebration.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1877

May 28, Monday: Louisa May Alcott purchased, for $4,500, the Yellow House at 73 Main Street in Concord, in the attic of which Henry Thoreau had had his room from 1850 to 1862, as a residence for her widowed sister Anna Alcott Pratt and her two young sons Frederick and John Pratt. ALCOTT FAMILY THOREAU RESIDENCES

“Is a house but a gall on the face of the earth, a nidus which some insect has provided for its young?” –JOURNAL May 1, 1857

July: The widowed Anna Alcott Pratt and her two young sons Frederick and John Pratt moved into the Yellow House at 73 Main Street in Concord; soon they would be followed by Bronson Alcott, the dying Abba Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott. ALCOTT FAMILY THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1878

The abundant lilacs of Walpole, New Hampshire inspired Louisa May Alcott, who was summering there, to entitle a book UNDER THE LILACS.

The Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge’s WAYS OF THE SPIRIT AND OTHER ESSAYS (Boston: Roberts Brothers). WAYS OF THE SPIRIT, ETC. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1879

With the coming of partial suffrage, Louisa May Alcott became the 1st woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts.

April 7, Monday: Late in the oat-planting season Waldo Emerson read Louisa May Alcott’s TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS.

July 15, Tuesday: In Concord, Massachusetts, with the financial support of William Torrey Harris and of Louisa May Alcott, Bronson Alcott opened his School of Philosophy, with its initial meetings held in the study of Orchard House. This amounted to a series of summer lectures and discussions, somewhat like an alternate lyceum. The school’s secretary was Franklin Benjamin Sanborn. Many of the programs would celebrate the Transcendentalists. In addition there would be a whole lot of the Hegelianism favored by Harris, and of the Neoplatonism favored by Alcott. Waldo Emerson, in his late 70s and decidedly in decline, would “lecture” there (surely with his daughter Ellen making sure he didn’t lose his place in his notes), and after his death would be commemorated. There would be readings from Henry Thoreau’s as-yet-unpublished journals. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1880

The two parts of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY were republished together as one volume entitled LITTLE WOMEN, with all the chapters numbered consecutively.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

March 29, Monday: Louisa May Alcott recorded in her journal: Town Meeting. 20 women there & voted first thanks to father. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Polls closed, in joke we thought as Judge Hoar proposed it. Proved to be in earnest & WE elected a good school committee. Per biographer Madeleine B. Stern: Of all the causes for which mankind crusaded, peace or dress reform, homeopathy or healthful food, woman suffrage seemed at the moment to offer most to Louisa and to need her most. In a town meeting, Mr. Emerson believed, the great secret of political science has been uncovered and the problem solved how to give every individual his fair weight in the government. In a town meeting the roots of society were reached, where the rich gave counsel and the poor also. On March 29, Louisa attended Concord’s town meeting, where, for the first time, women would cast their votes for the school committee. She sat with Father and with the nineteen other women who had met to exercise their newest privilege, eager to share in the historic moment. In a private interview with the Moderator, Father proposed that the women be allowed to cast their ballots before the men as a token of respect, and Louisa filed out with the ladies, dropping her vote and passing back to her seat while the assembled gentlemen looked on in solemn silence. Scarcely had the ladies returned to their seats when Judge Hoar rose and proposed that the polls be closed. The motion was carried before the laugh subsided, and the vote taken without the ballot of a single man.

March 30, Tuesday: Louisa May Alcott submitted an article to The Woman’s Journal: Editors Journal: As other towns report their first experience of women at the polls, Concord should be heard from, especially as she has distinguished herself by an unusually well conducted and successful town meeting. Twenty-eight women intended to vote, but owing to the omission of some formality several names could not be put upon the lists. Three or four were detained at home by family cares and did not neglect their domestic duties to rush to the polls as has been predicted. Twenty, however, were there, some few coming alone, but mostly with husbands, fathers or brothers as they should, all in good spirits and not in the least daunted by the awful deed about to be done. Our town meetings I am told are always orderly and decent, this one certainly was; and we found it very like a lyceum only rather more tedious than most, except when gentlemen disagreed and enlivened the scene with occasional lapses into bad temper or manners, which amused but did not dismay the women-folk, while it initiated them into the forms and courtesies of parliamentary debate. Voting for school committee did not come till about three, and as the meeting began at one, we had ample time to learn how the mystic rite was performed, so, when at last our tickets were passed to us we were quite prepared to follow our leader without fear. Mr. Alcott with a fatherly desire to make the new step as easy as possible for us, privately asked the moderator when the women were to vote, and on being told that they could take their chance with the men or come later, proposed that they should come first as a proper token of respect and for the credit of the town. One of the selectmen said By all means, and proved himself a tower of strength by seconding the philosopher on this momentous occasion. The moderator (who is also the registrar and has most kindly and faithfully done his duty to the women in spite of his own difference of opinion) then announced that the ladies would prepare their votes HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT and deposit them before the men did. No one objected; we were ready, and filed out in good order, dropping our votes and passing back to our seats as quickly and quietly as possible, while the assembled gentlemen watched us in solemn silence. No bolt fell on our audacious heads, no earthquake shook the town, but a pleasing surprise created a general outbreak of laughter and applause, for, scarcely were we seated when Judge Hoar rose and proposed that the polls be closed. The motion was carried before the laugh subsided, and the polls were closed without a man’s voting, a perfectly fair proceeding we thought since we were allowed no voice on any other question. The superintendent of schools expressed a hope that the whole town would vote; but was gracefully informed that it made no difference as the women had all voted as the men would. Not quite a correct statement by the way, as many men would probably have voted for other candidates, as tickets were prepared and some persons looked disturbed at being deprived of their rights. It was too late, however, for the joke became sober earnest, and the women elected the school committee for the coming year, feeling satisfied, with one or two exceptions, that they had secured persons whose past services proved their fitness for the office. The business of the meeting went on, and the women remained to hear the discussion of ways and means, and see officers elected with neatness and dispatch by the few who appeared to run the town pretty much as they pleased. At five the housewives retired to get tea for the exhausted gentlemen, some of whom certainly looked as if they would need refreshment of some sort after their labors. It was curious to observe as the women went out how the faces which had regarded them with disapproval, derision or doubt when they went in now smiled affably, while several men hoped the ladies would come again, asked how they liked it, and assured them that there had not been so orderly a meeting for years. One of the pleasant sights to my eyes was a flock of school-boys watching with great interest their mothers, aunts and sisters, who were showing them how to vote when their own emancipation day came. Another was the spectacle of women sitting beside their husbands, who greatly enjoyed the affair though many of them differed in opinion and had their doubts about the suffrage question. Among the new voters were descendants of Major Buttrick of Concord fight renown, two of Hancock and Quincy, and others whose grandfathers or great grandfathers had been among the first settlers of the town. A goodly array of dignified and earnest women, though some of the first families of the historic town were conspicuous by their absence. But the ice is broken, and I predict that next year our ranks will be fuller, for it is the first step that counts, and when the timid or indifferent, several of whom came to look on, see that we still live, they will venture to express publicly the opinions they held or have lately learned to respect and believe.

April 1, Thursday: The Concord Freeman reported: [The announcement to begin voting] caused many a feminine heart to palpitate with excitement and many a hand to unconsciously glide to a bow or bonnet string, or some like feminine fancy, in preparation for the trying ordeal of HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT passing up in front of ... nearly 200 great horrid men & boys to deposit their maiden vote. The look of eager expectancy ... was not unlike that seen upon the face of a person who is about to have a tooth extracted. After the twenty women voted and George Hoar closed the polls, the clerk created considerable amusement by the remark that it would make no difference, the ladies have all voted just as the gentlemen would vote. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1881

The bankruptcy of the publishing firm of A.K. Loring made it possible for Louisa May Alcott to recover, for 00 the nominal sum of $1. , the copyright to her first novel MOODS, so it could be republished. Republication would not mean restoration, however, for –although this was her most serious novel, her favorite novel, which had had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two– what republication would mean would be that the novel would need to be pared down still further. (That’s now been corrected, of course.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1882

On September 24, 1843, little Louisa May Alcott had jotted in her diary:

Father and Mr. Lane have gone to N.H. to preach. It was very lovely.... Anna and I got supper. In the eve I read “Vicar of Wakefield.” I was cross today, and I cried when I went to bed. I made good resolutions, and felt better in my heart. If I only kept all I make, I should be the best girl in the world. But I don’t, and so am very bad.

In this considerably later timeframe she reviewed what she had written as a child, annotating it with the following:

Poor little sinner! She says the same at fifty.

At this point she republished, through the firm of Roberts Brothers, her most serious novel, her favorite novel, MOODS, in which her memories of Henry Thoreau were the basis for one character. Although this was her most serious novel, her favorite novel, it had originally had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two in 1865, and now it would be pared down still further. To my knowledge the original full manuscript has not until recently so much as received study — let alone HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT publication. But now:

December 18, Monday: Henry James, Sr. died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this year Louisa May Alcott republished, through the firm of Roberts Brothers, her most serious novel, her favorite novel, MOODS, the one which James had so thoroughly savaged when it was originally published, in which her memories of Thoreau were the basis for one character. Although this was her most serious novel, her favorite novel, it had originally had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two in 1865, and now it would be pared down still further. To my knowledge the original full manuscript has never so much as received study — let alone publication. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1885

January 11, Sunday: Louisa May Alcott reported to Mary E. Edie that the Alcotts had left Concord: “We do not live in the old house. It is sold. We live in Boston.” Louisa had begun living in rented rooms on Chestnut Street in Boston. That spring she would make a couple of day trips to Concord. Then she would be in Concord from April 11th to June 20th, when she would go to Nonquitt near New Bedford for the summer. She would purchase her place at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston in September and move in on September 30th. ALCOTT FAMILY

February 18, Wednesday: ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, which some take to be the great American indictment against slavery, was first published in the USA during this year in which the practice of human enslavement was being defended in America by no one at all. The Irish were, however, still in considerable general disrepute — for instance, during this year the Irish were being characterized by John Beddoe, in THE RACES OF BRITAIN, as “Africanoid.”62 Samuel Langhorn Clemens therefore told his illustrator to be careful not to make Huck “Irishy.” He did not want his book to be confrontational or socially helpful; to the contrary, he needed for it to sell. The author needed to and he desired to pander rather than attempt any sort of social corrective.

According to Noel Ignatiev’s HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE, “To be acknowledged as white, it was not enough for the Irish to have a competitive advantage over Afro- Americans in the labor market; in order for them to avoid the taint of blackness it was necessary that no Negro be allowed to work in occupations where Irish were to be found.”

According to the jokes that were going the rounds in those days among non-Irish white racists (the bulk of the population, actually), the Irish were “Negroes turned inside out” while the American free blacks were “smoked Irish.”

It has been well said, that inside the charmed Caucasian chalk circle it is the sum of what you are not –not Indian, not Negro, not a Jew, not Irish, etc.– that make you what you are. And, that’s as true now as it was then.

62. THE RACES OF BRITAIN: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF WESTERN EUROPE. Bristol, England: Arrowsmith, 1885, page 11. Bear in mind that the description “Nigger Jim” does not appear in this book — it was not Mark Twain but his first biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, who initiated all our references to the Jim character of this novel as “Nigger Jim.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT The Concord Free Public Library nevertheless immediately banned this new fiction from its shelves as “the veriest trash.” Louisa May Alcott, in particular (if we can believe a popular writer, Thomas Beer, who claimed to have found this in an unprinted letter from Miss Alcott to Frances Hedges Butler –whoever she was– but who has been caught red-handed at inventing other stuff of that nature in his earlier biography of Stephen Crane), possibly was outraged by the temerity of this author:

If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.

— From Nat Hentoff’s FREE SPEECH FOR ME – BUT NOT FOR THEE: HOW THE AMERICAN LEFT AND RIGHT RELENTLESSLY CENSOR EACH OTHER (HarperCollins/Harry Asher Books)

RACISM MARK TWAIN

(There is no indication, however, that the Concord Free Public Library ever removed from its shelves another famous boy’s story which has buried in it a the-black-man-and-the-pig story worthy to be told at a Ku Klux Klan rally. The censorious do tend to be unconscious!)

March 17, Tuesday: Newspapers across the US reported that the Concord Free Public Library had banned Mark Twain’s ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN for “being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT March 18, Wednesday: The Hartford Courant for this date editorialized that it was a favorable development, that the Concord Free Public Library had banned ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN:

The public library committee of Concord, Mass., have given Mark Twain’s new book, “Huckleberry Finn,” a wide advertisement by refusing to allow it to be put on their shelves. The result will be that people in Concord will buy the book instead of drawing it from the library, and those who do will smile not only at the book but at the idea that it is not for respectable people.

Samuel Langhorn Clemens predicted, to Charles L. Webster, manager of his publishing firm, that this would increase sales:

Mch 18, ’85. Dear Charley,— The Committee of the Public Library of Concord, Mass., have given us a rattling tip-top puff which will go into every paper in the country. They have expelled Huck from their library as “trash and suitable only for the slums.” That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure. S.L.C.

Amy Belding Brown has been tracking the movements of Louisa May Alcott with great care. She points out that on January 11th she wrote to Mary E. Edie: “We do not live in the old house. It is sold. We live in Boston.” Louisa had been living in rented rooms on Chestnut Street in Boston since January, with the exception of a couple of day trips to Concord. If this thing with the public library committee of Concord actually did happen as reported in the Hartford Courant, then, it would have needed to have happened on one of those day trips. Louisa’s journal indicates that she was in Concord on February 27th and returned to Boston on the 28th. She would be in Concord again from April 11th to June 20th, when she would go to Nonquitt near New Bedford for the summer. She would purchase her place at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston in September and move in on September 30th.

April 1, Wednesday: Sophia Foord died in Dedham, Massachusetts at age 82; Louisa May Alcott would pay tribute to her in the Woman’s Journal.

April 11, Saturday: Louisa May Alcott had begun living in rented rooms on Chestnut Street in Boston. During the spring she had made a couple of day trips to Concord. She would be in Concord from this day until June 20th, when she would go to Nonquitt near New Bedford for the summer. She would purchase her place at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston in September and move in on September 30th.

June 20, Saturday: Louisa May Alcott had come back to the Yellow House in Concord from her rented rooms in Boston on April 11th, and on this day went on to Nonquitt near New Bedford for the summer. She would purchase her place at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in September and move in on September 30th, and then her father and sister and nephews would move in with her on October 10th. THOREAU RESIDENCES ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT October 10, Saturday: Bronson Alcott, Anna Alcott Pratt, and her two sons moved from the Yellow House in Concord to Louisa May Alcott’s new digs at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston. ALCOTT FAMILY THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1888

January 23, Monday: Louisa May Alcott noted that WINTER, a book recently collected from Thoreau’s journals, was a “Nice book.”63 ALCOTT FAMILY

February 24, Friday: Louisa May Alcott wrote: “Lonely day. Go in to 10 [Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston] & see A[Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt]. Papa very much changed. So old & wasted & weak. A mere wreck of the beautiful old man. Sorry he did not slip away sooner. Hate to have him linger so.” BRONSON ALCOTT ALCOTT FAMILY

March 6: Louisa May Alcott died two days after her father but unaware of his death, in Roxbury.

ALCOTT FAMILY Famous Last Words:

“What school is more profitably instructive than the death-bed of the righteous, impressing the understanding with a convincing evidence, that they have not followed cunningly devised fables, but solid substantial truth.” — A COLLECTION OF MEMORIALS CONCERNING DIVERS DECEASED MINISTERS, Philadelphia, 1787 63. This is one of the few indications we have that Louisa ever glanced at anything that Thoreau wrote. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT “The death bed scenes & observations even of the best & wisest afford but a sorry picture of our humanity. Some men endeavor to live a constrained life — to subject their whole lives to their will as he who said he might give a sign if he were conscious after his head was cut off — but he gave no sign Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.” —Thoreau’s JOURNAL, March 12, 1853

1883 Karl Marx his housekeeper asked him whether he “Last words are for fools who haven’t said had any last words enough.”

1887 Henry Ward Beecher unsolicited comment “Now comes the mystery.”

1888 Louisa May Alcott unsolicited comment “Thus far the Lord has led me on.”

1890 Joseph Cary Merrick the actor John Hurt, pretending to be “Nothing ever dies.” The Elephant Man in a movie

1891 Phineas Taylor Barnum inquiry “How were the circus receipts today at Madison Square Garden?” ... other famous last words ... HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1933

The George Cukor movie version of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was released.64

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker.

64. There had been two silent-movie versions of “Little Women” already, that are now lost. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT In addition to Katherine Hepburn as Jo, Mrs. Kirke was portrayed by Marion Ballou, Hannah by Mabel Colcord, Mr. Lawrence by Henry Stephenson, Professor Fritz Bhaer by Paul Lukas, Laurie by Douglass Montgomery, and Aunt March by Edna May Oliver. The story was adapted to the Hollywood conventions of the time by Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Sunspots

Min/Max

1901-1905

1913-1917

1924-1928

1933-1938

1944-1948

1954-1958

1965-1970

1976-1980

1986-1989

199?-19?? HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1938

Yvor Winters, in MAULE’S CURSE; SEVEN STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN OBSCURANTISM: HAWTHORNE, COOPER, MELVILLE, POE, EMERSON, JONES VERY, EMILY DICKINSON, HENRY JAMES (Norfolk CT: New Directions).

In a similar genre, the widowed Edith Garrigues Hawthorne generated THE MEMOIRS OF JULIAN HAWTHORNE for Macmillan. In this book Son-Of-Hawthorne is made to iterate yet again for our benefit from beyond the grave, various of his intrepid confabulations: Once, when I was nearly seven years old [Thoreau’s survey book indicates that this survey took place while Julian was 16], Thoreau came to the Wayside to make a survey of our land, bringing his surveying apparatus on his shoulder. I watched the short, dark, unbeautiful man with interest and followed him about, all over the place, never losing sight of a movement and never asking a question or uttering a word. The thing must have lasted a couple of hours; when we got back, Thoreau remarked to my father: “Good boy! Sharp eyes, and no tongue!” On that basis I was admitted to his friendship; a friendship or comradeship which began in 1852 and was to last until his death in 1862 [we know of no other day on which Julian came within eyesight of Thoreau]. In our walks about the country, Thoreau saw everything, and would indicate the invisible to me with a silent nod of the head. The brook that skirted the foot of our meadow was another treasure-house which he discovered to me, though he was too shy to companion me there; when he had given me a glimpse of Nature in her privacy, he left me alone with her ... on a hot August day, I would often sit, hidden from the world, thinking boy thoughts. I learned how to snare chub, and even pickerel, with a loop made of a long-stemmed grass; dragon-flies poised like humming-birds, and insects skated zigzag on the surface, casting odd shadows on the bottom.... Yes, Thoreau showed me things, and though it didn’t aid me in the Harvard curriculum [Julian studied civil engineering until he had to leave sans diploma], it helped me through life. Truly, Nature absorbed his attention, but I don’t think he cared much for what is called the beauties of nature; it was her way of working, her mystery, her economy in extravagance; he delighted to trace her footsteps toward their source.... He liked to feel that the pursuit was endless, with mystery at both ends of it.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Louisa May Alcott had been nursing at a military hospital in Washington DC when Henry David Thoreau died. Julian’s posthumous memoir tells an interesting story about the provenance of her poem “Thoreau’s Flute.” Allegedly, when Louisa got back to Concord, one night she snuck up to the Wayside home of the Hawthornes and left a copy on the steps “held in place by a pebble.” Hawthorne then forwarded the poem to James T. Fields in Boston so it could be published anonymously in The Atlantic Monthly.

We sighing said, “Our Pan is dead— His pipe hangs mute beside the river, Around it friendly moonbeams quiver, But music’s airy voice is fled. Spring comes to us in guise forlorn, The blue-bird chants a requiem, The willow-blossom waits for him, The genius of the wood is gone” Then from the flute, untouched by hands, There came a low, harmonious breath: For such as he there is no death. His life the eternal life commands. Above men’s aims his nature rose. The wisdom of a just content Make one small spot a continent, And turned to poetry life’s prose Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild, Swallow and aster, lake and pine To him seemed human or divine, Fit mates for this large-hearted child. Such homage nature ne’er forgets; And yearly on the coverlid ’Neath which her darling lieth hid Will write his name in violets. To him no vain regrets belong Whose soul, that finer instrument, Gave to the world no poor lament, But wood-notes ever sweet and strong. Oh lonely friend, He still will be A potent presence, though unseen, Steadfast, sagacious and serene. Seek not for him: he is with Thee.

And gosh, for some reason Julian had kept this a secret all his life only to allow it to be revealed after everyone involved was dead! HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1947

Frank Luther Mott’s GOLDEN MULTITUDES (NY: MacMillan) retailed a story about Louisa May Alcott’s reaction to ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, a story which seems to be otherwise undocumented (Mott had won the Pulitzer for American History in 1939; his unpublished materials are at the U of Missouri and U of Iowa):

Why TOM SAWYER should outsell HUCKLEBERRY FINN is hard to explain. For the latter, Mark Twain organized his own publishing company, retaining the subscription method which had been so successful in the distribution of his earlier books. Bliss was dead, and Mark was dissatisfied with the way the half-profit royalty system was working. Eventually the new company was to bring disaster upon him, but it did well with HUCKLEBERRY FINN, building up an advance sale of 40,000 copies as a starter. Interest was stimulated by the action of the Concord, Massachusetts, Library in barring the book as unfit for the young readers for whom it was designed. “That will sell 25,000 copies of our book for sure,” chortled Mark in a letter to his nephew-publisher, Charles L. Webster. Where the later book about Tom and Huck fell behind the earlier one was in sales after the turn of the century; then TOM SAWYER forged far ahead. Both felt the stimulus of movie production: Jackie Coogan played Tom in film versions of both stories, in 1930 and 1931; and David Selznick made a million-dollar film of TOM SAWYER in 1938, with Tommy Kelly as star.... Meantime American writers, high and low, were defying Mrs. Grundy and losing nothing by their boldness. How large a part the interest in the sex passages in LEAVES OF GRASS played in Whitman’s slowly won popularity is hard to say: possibly a genuinely important part, though, on the other hand, they retarded the early acceptance of that great work. Mark Twain was regarded by many as improper, though scarcely indecent. Said Louisa Alcott of HUCKLEBERRY FINN: “If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1949

Another filming of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was attempted, this time by Mervyn LeRoy. (You were aware of course that the key rôle of Jo March had been portrayed in the George Kukor movie of 1933 by an ingenue name of Katherine Hepburn.) This being a Hollywood effort, demanding the Unities which placate the local deities of Hollywoodland such as a central male point of view, the character of Laurie Laurence, walked through this time by one Peter Lawford, was brought toward the center of the story.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT This remake of the 1933 movie relied upon the film company’s resident stable of stars: June Allyson, Leon Ames, Mary Astor, Peter Lawford, Janet Leigh, Margaret O’Brien, Elizabeth Patterson, and Elizabeth Taylor. The story would again be recreated in 1978 as a movie-for-TV directed by David Lowell Rich followed in 1979 by a spinoff TV series, and in 1994 it would be filmed again, this time by Gillian Armstrong. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1950

During 1849 when Louisa May Alcott had been hired out to an elderly lawyer of Dedham MA, James Richardson, to be a companion for his sister and his father, she had been working on a ms “The Inheritance.” As of this year this must still have been among the collections at the Orchard House in Concord MA because Madeleine B. Stern in her biography of Alcott does make a brief mention of the work. But then there would be no further mentions. When the collections were transferred to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, it would appear this unpublished 150-page manuscript would be miscataloged. Sometime in the late 1980s or in 1990, Daniel Shealy and Joel Myerson would be going through these materials in the Houghton Library when “We looked at each other, and we said, have you heard of this? And each of us looked at the other and said no, and I think we smiled.” This THE INHERITANCE had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY. It is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time. When the New York Times would make the announcement of this upon the occasion of the ms being turned over to a literary agent in early 1996, they would act like the discovery had just been made and hold to an inner page and to a side comment the fact that the discovery had actually occurred years earlier. To add to this up-to-the-minute egregiousness, the newsies twice in their one brief article would refer to Louisa’s father as having been one HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT “Branson” Alcott.

The student editor of the campus literary magazine of the University of New Mexico, the Thunderbird, took a bit of a risk. In an educational setting which relied for a great deal of its funding upon Catholic-sensitive state legislators, that student editor fashioned a cover for that literary magazine which featured a prominent quotation, “Man will never be free until the last judge is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

That prominent quotation the student editor ascribed to: Louisa May Alcott. The name of the student editor was: HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Edward Abbey.

[For another current misuse of the dowdy image ascribed to Louisa May, click on this paragraph.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1978

Another filming of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was attempted, this time as a made-for-TV movie, by David Lowell Rich. You were aware of course that the key rôle of Jo March had been portrayed in the George Kukor movie of 1933 by an ingenue name of Katherine Hepburn.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT This remake utilized Meredith Baxter, Greer Garson, William Shatner, and Robert Young. The script was by Suzanne Clauser. It would be followed in 1979 by a spinoff TV series, and in 1994 it would be filmed again, this time by Gillian Armstrong.65

65. Madonna informed Jay Leno on late-nite TV that this book was her favorite book and that she wanted to play the rôles of all four of the March sisters. –Then, fully clothed, she curtseyed to the studio audience. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1979

The 1978 made-for-TV movie of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott by David Lowell Rich was followed by a TV series starring David Ackroyd, Phyllis Calvert, Ann Dusenberg, Jessica Harper, William Shallert, and –of course– Robert Young. (You were aware that the key rôle of Jo March had been portrayed in the George Kukor movie of 1933 by an ingenue name of Katherine Hepburn.)

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

(In 1994 this movie is being filmed again, this time by Gillian Armstrong. Madonna has recently informed Jay Leno on late-nite TV that this book was her favorite book and that she wanted to play the rôles of all four of the March sisters. –Then she curtseyed to the studio audience, fully clothed.)

From Scott McLean’s introduction to THE REAL WORK: INTERVIEWS & TALKS 1964-1979 with Gary Snyder: Gary Snyder’s poetry has continued a tradition first pursued in late eighteenth-century Romantic thought and carried on in American literature most notably by Thoreau: a belief that the “outer and inner life correspond” and that poetry is “the self-consciousness of the universe,” the voice of the universe reflecting on itself and on the interdependence of outer and inner nature. Poetry as “the seat of the soul” — the area where the inner world and the outer world touch, where they “interpenetrate” each other. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1990

DOUGLAS R. ANDERSON . A HOUSE UNDIVIDED: DOMESTICITY AND COMMUNITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990 HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT During 1849 when Louisa May Alcott had been hired out to an elderly lawyer of Dedham MA, James Richardson, to be a companion for his sister and his father, she had been working on a ms THE INHERITANCE.

As of 1950 this must still have been among the collections at the Orchard House in Concord MA because Madeleine B. Stern in her biography of Alcott does make a brief mention of the work. Sometime by this year of 1990 Daniel Shealy and Joel Myerson would be going through donated materials in the Houghton Library when “We looked at each other, and we said, have you heard of this? And each of us looked at the other and said no, and I think we smiled.” This THE INHERITANCE had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY. It is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time. When the New York Times would make the announcement of this upon the occasion of the ms being turned over to a literary agent in early 1996, they would act like the discovery had just been made and hold to an inner page and to a side comment the fact that the discovery had actually occurred years earlier. To add to this up-to-the-minute egregiousness, the newsies twice in their one brief article would HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT refer to Louisa’s father as having been one “Branson” Alcott.

Douglas R. Anderson, in A HOUSE UNDIVIDED, termed WALDEN, and not in any disparaging sense, “a researched book as much as an experienced one.”66

66. Douglas R. Anderson. A HOUSE UNDIVIDED: DOMESTICITY AND COMMUNITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990 HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1994

LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was being re-shot by Gillian Armstrong as rewritten by Robin Swicord. You were aware of course that the key rôle of Jo March had been portrayed in the George Kukor movie of 1933 by an ingenue name of Katherine Hepburn.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled LITTLE WOMEN.

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Madonna has recently informed Jay Leno on late-nite TV that this book was her favorite book and that she wanted to play the rôles of all four of the March sisters. –Then she curtseyed to the studio audience, fully clothed.–

However, if my eyes do not deceive me reading off the billboard, the casting script does not include a Cicchione. It consists instead of: • Trini Alvaredo • Christian Bale • Gabriel Byrne • Claire Danes •Kirsten Dunst • Samatha Mathis • Winona Rider • Susan Sarandon •Eric Stoltz • Mary Wickes HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1996

During 1849 when Louisa May Alcott had been hired out to be a companion to the sister and father of James Richardson in Dedham MA, she had been working on THE INHERITANCE. As of 1950 this ms must still have been among the collections at the Orchard House in Concord because Madeleine B. Stern in her biography of Alcott does make a brief mention of the work. But then there had been no further mentions. When the collections were transferred to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, it would appear this unpublished 150-page manuscript was miscataloged. Sometime by the late 1980s or in 1990 Daniel Shealy and Professor Joel Myerson had been going through these materials in the Houghton Library when “We looked at each other, and we said, have you heard of this? And each of us looked at the other and said no, and I think we smiled.” This had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her

corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY. It is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time. The New York Times in making the announcement of this while the ms was being turned over to a literary agent early in this year tried to carry on as if the discovery had just been made and held to an inner page and to a side comment the fact that the discovery they so breathlessly reported had actually occurred years before. To add to this up-to-the-minute HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT egregiousness, the newsies twice in their one brief article referred to Louisa’s father as one “Branson” Alcott. HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

1997

April: During 1849 when Louisa May Alcott had been hired out to an elderly lawyer of Dedham MA, James Richardson, to be a companion for his sister and his father, she had been working on a ms THE INHERITANCE. As of 1950 this must still have been among the collections at the Orchard House because Madeleine B. Stern in her biography of Alcott does make a brief mention of the work. But then there would be no further mentions. When the collections were transferred to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, it would

appear this unpublished 150-page manuscript had been miscataloged. Sometime by the late 1980s or in 1990 Daniel Shealy and Professor Joel Myerson were going through these materials in the Houghton Library when “We looked at each other, and we said, have you heard of this? And each of us looked at the other and said no, and I think we smiled.” This THE INHERITANCE had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY. It is patterned closely on the popular HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT literature of the time. In this month it was published, and televised by CBS.

In the Los Angeles Times, Susan King’s review of this made-for-TV version by Cosgrove-Meurer Productions HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT and by TeleVest categorized it as “National Velvet meets Cinderella”: Adapting the old-fashioned romance for television was a bit of a challenge for screenwriter Maria Nation because of its drawing room setting and the lack of action. “The things that happen aren’t that interesting as far as a screenplay,” Nation explains. “I had to find a way to externalize what is going on and set up, in a way, who this character is so that we can see it and feel it.” Edith, says Nation, is so kind and uncomplaining in the novel that she needed to be fleshed out for the movie. “The other task was setting up stronger, dramatic dynamics that weren’t [in the book]. I think Louisa May Alcott didn’t want to write anybody that bad.”... The setting of the story was moved from England to Concord, Mass., where Alcott lived, and an exciting horse race involving Edith was added. “There were horses in the book, but we built that up quite a bit,” Nation says. “The sponsor, Kraft, wanted a horse race in it. So I put in the horse race and made it affect the plot.” “The book is more about class and this is less about class,” [executive producer Terry Dunn Meurer of Cosgrove-Meurer Productions] adds. “It’s a very sweet and innocent story. We have made some changes, but we feel like they are for the better. We are hoping that Louisa will be pleased with what we’ve done.”

My sense of it is that the pretense, above, that they had relocated this story “from England to Concord, Mass., where Alcott lived” was merely to enable the lead characters to comment to one another that they had read and appreciated “all of Thor-O.” Staging the drama at the time period which marked the end of Alcott’s life, the latter years of the 19th Century, rather than as of the 1849 creation of the manuscript, not only allowed the heroine to appear in riding breeches and allowed the couple to pair off and face one another and touch one another’s bods during a waltz, but also allowed the characters to engage in their banter about having read and appreciated “all of Thor-O.”

We note that in the rolling script at the end, the hero and heroine abandon their mansion and its servant staff and go off to live their domestic bliss in a cottage by the sea. (This Thoreauvian choice seems to have been an appropriate one, as they live happily ever after.)

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[Cast: Cari Shayne, Brigitta Dau, Paul Anthony Stewart, Brigid Brannagh, Max Gail, Thomas Gibson, Tom Conti, Meredith Baxter, Alicia Bergman, Michelle Davison, Henry Sanders, Paul Bartel, Rob Nilsson. A covey of producers have turned a teenage novel by reportedly 17-year-old Louisa May Alcott into a potentially pleasant, period romp, though Jane Austen’s popularity is scarcely threatened. Maria Nation’s script, game though missing too much in the charm department, suffers from Bobby Roth’s uneven direction; how much viewers will buy into it is another matter. Cosgrove/Meurer and Alliance Communications acquired the lost novel, found nine years ago in manuscript form, in open bidding. Scripter Nation builds on Alcott’s novel about an 1850s orphan, 19-year-old Edith (Cari Shayne), raised by the wealthy New England Hamiltons and now companion to their pretty teenager Amy (Brigitta Dau). Edith finds herself in a sad spot: She’s drawn to handsome, wealthy James Percy (Thomas Gibson), romantic visitor at the Hamiltons’ estate. James Percy shows every sign of caring for Edith. Of course she’s beneath his social station, as lovely, serpentish Ida (Brigid Brannagh) maliciously reminds her. Husband-hunting Ida’s after James, or after blueblood Frederick Arlington (Paul Anthony Stewart), who loiters around the fringes of the plot. Ida’s sorely tried by the men’s attraction to, of all people, Edith, whom the Hamiltons treat as if she were their equal. Mr. Hamilton (Tom Conti) unknowingly holds a secret that would change Edith’s life. For the time being, though, he and wife Beatrice (Meredith Baxter) simply enfold Edith into the family circle. Director Bobby Roth stumbles between depicting onscreen naturalism and uncovering some, if not much, charm or mannered stylishness among the characters. But the dialogue and the soap-opera characters fail Roth and most of the actors — particularly HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Conti, who attempts to make something substantial out of Mr. Hamilton. Cari Shayne’s Edith, a bit of a stick, works up little sympathy or concern. Brigitta Dau’s just fine as the sheltered daughter Amy. Baxter plays Mrs. Hamilton on a single, uninteresting level. Michael Gallagher’s thief Louis admirably sticks to the period; Gibson’s James Percy, who could use some elegance, only looks the part. Stewart’s Frederick offers few shadings. Max Gail, playing ill-mannered manor-owning Arliss Johnson to the hilt, displays how successful a farfetched Victorian meller can stretch when played straight; the former Detective Stanley (Wojo) Wojohowicz is a pleasure. Production, filmed entirely on locations around Southern California, is smart-looking, with Mary Malin’s mid-19th century costumes handsome and credible. Resourceful production designer Glenda Ganis and staff chose terrific location spots for the action, and lenser Shelly Johnson does a neat job with what’s at hand. The BevHills Doheny mansion, whose exterior was used extensively, also furnished the dazzling ballroom with its glass ceilings. Horse scenes, expertly filmed at the Disney Ranch, fill the bill with its helpful New England flavor. Smart-looking telefilm pitches a strong argument in favor of local filming, even if the production doesn’t come off. Some of “The Inheritance” does manage to sing: James Percy teaching Edith to dance, Conti’s final scene with Edith, and Edith and Percy finally facing facts give the telepic a necessary lift, but they aren’t enough. Editing by Henk Van Eeghen is solid, and Christopher Franke’s accommodating score fills out the moods. But it looks like Alcott’s pre-”Little Women” and “Little Men” romance needs character as well as stronger characters; trouble is, “The Inheritance” isn’t dated --- it just looks like it is. ]

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Louisa May Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: April 12, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in HDT WHAT? INDEX

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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