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 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT 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 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT LOUISA MAY ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX 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.