THE COMPLETE WORKS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT: Novels, Short Stories, Plays & Poems (Illustrated Edition). Louisa May Alcott

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER VIII.

       EUROPE AND LITTLE WOMEN.

       Table of Contents

      LITTLE WOMEN.

      Four little chests all in a row,

       Dim with dust and worn by time,

       All fashioned and filled long ago

       By children now in their prime.

       Four little keys hung side by side,

       With faded ribbons, brave and gay

       When fastened there with childish pride

       Long ago on a rainy day.

       Four little names, one on each lid,

       Carved out by a boyish hand;

       And underneath there lieth hid

       Histories of the happy band

       Once playing here, and pausing oft

       To hear the sweet refrain

       That came and went on the roof aloft

       In the falling summer rain.

      Four little chests all in a row,

       Dim with dust and worn by time:

       Four women, taught by weal and woe

       To love and labor in their prime;

       Four sisters parted for an hour,–

       None lost, one only gone before,

       Made by love's immortal power

       Nearest and dearest evermore.

       Oh! when these hidden stores of ours

       Lie open to the Father's sight,

       May they be rich in golden hours,–

       Deeds that show fairer for the light,

       Deeds whose brave music long shall ring

       Like a spirit-stirring strain,

       Souls that shall gladly soar and sing

       In the long sunshine, after rain.

      THE years which followed the war and Miss Alcott's experience as a hospital nurse were rather sad and anxious from many causes. Louisa felt deeply the loss of one sister by death and the separation from another by marriage. The success of "Hospital Sketches" and a few other stories published about the same time had given her confidence in her powers and hopes of a successful future. But for nearly five years she accomplished nothing which met with equal favor. The reception of the novel "Moods," in which she thought she had expressed her best life, was not cheering to her; and she had become wholly dissatisfied with the sensational stories, which formed the most ready resource for earning money. Her health was seriously injured by the fever from which she suffered in the hospital, and she had no longer the physical energy to sustain the unceasing activity of her brain.

      Under these difficulties she naturally desired a change of circumstances; and the old longing for a journey to Europe–which she had felt strongly in her youth, and which, like all Americans of culture, she felt more and more as time passed on–became her ruling desire. She was very fond of new scenes and variety of people, and she often expressed a wish to live many years in Europe.

      The circumstances of the family were not yet such as to justify Louisa, in her own eyes, in taking her earnings for the desired trip. But in 1865 an opportunity was offered her to go to Europe as companion to an invalid lady. From her experience in nursing–for which she had a natural gift–she and her friends thought her suited to the position, and advised her acceptance of the offer.

      Although devotedly kind, unselfish, and generous, Louisa had not the temperament suited to the needs of a nervous invalid. She was impetuous and impatient, and her own life was too strong within her and too earnest in its cravings, for her to restrain her moods and actions within the narrow limits of a companion's service. She found even what she recognized as fair services wearisome and distasteful, and sometimes chafed severely under what seemed unnecessary demands on her time, strength, and patience. Looking back on this experience in later years, she recognized these facts, and wrote in 1885: "Now, being a nervous invalid myself, I understand what seemed whims, selfishness, and folly in others."

      Louisa finally decided to leave her companions and go on alone to Paris and England, where she would find many of her own and her father's friends. At Vevay she had made the acquaintance of a young Polish lad, whom she found very interesting, and who was the original of the charming Laurie in "Little Women." He met her again in Paris, and contributed greatly to the pleasure of her stay there. He afterwards came to America, and visited her; but finally returned to his own country.

      The journal gives a sufficient account of her life while on this journey. I have no letters written at this time, as she wished all her family letters destroyed. Her few weeks in London passed very happily. Her wide reading in English history and in contemporary fiction, especially the works of Dickens and Thackeray, filled London with interesting associations, and she enjoyed thoroughly her free rambles through the old city, as well as the interesting people, who received her with great kindness.

      That СКАЧАТЬ