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

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СКАЧАТЬ has gone to Baden with Grandmamma.

      Finish "J. and J." The world goes on in spite of sorrow, and I must do my work. Both these last serials were written with a heavy heart,–"Under the Lilacs" when Marmee was failing, and "Jack and Jill" while May was dying. Hope the grief did not get into them.

      Hear R. W. E. lecture for his one hundredth time. Mary Clemmer writes for a sketch of my life for a book of "Famous Women." Don't belong there.

      Read "Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat." Not very interesting. Beauties seldom amount to much. Plain Margaret Fuller was worth a dozen of them. "Kings in Exile," a most interesting book, a very vivid and terrible picture of Parisian life and royal weakness and sorrow.

      Put papers, etc., in order. I feel as if one should be ready to go at any moment....

      March.–A box came from May, with pictures, clothes, vases, her ornaments, a little work-basket, and, in one of her own sepia boxes, her pretty hair tied with blue ribbon,–all that is now left us of this bright soul but the baby, soon to come. Treasures all.

      A sad day, and many tears dropped on the dear dress, the blue slippers she last wore, the bit of work she laid down when the call came the evening Lulu was born. The fur-lined sack feels like May's arms round me, and I shall wear it with pleasure. The pictures show us her great progress these last years.

      To Boston for a few days on business, and to try to forget. Got gifts for Anna's birthday on the 16th,–forty-nine years old. My only sister now, and the best God ever made. Repaired her house for her.

      Lulu is not to come till autumn. Great disappointment; but it is wiser to wait, as summer is bad for a young baby to begin here.

      29th.–Town meeting. Twenty women there, and voted first, thanks to Father. Polls closed,–in joke, we thought, as Judge Hoar proposed it; proved to be in earnest, and we elected a good school committee. Quiet time; no fuss.

      January 20, 1880.

      Dear Mrs. Dodge,–I have been so bowed down with grief at the loss of my dear sister just when our anxiety was over that I have not had a thought or care for anything else.

      The story is done; but the last chapters are not copied, and I thought it best to let them lie till I could give my mind to the work.

      I never get a good chance to do a story without interruption of some sort. "Under the Lilacs" was finished by my mother's bedside in her last illness, and this one when my heart was full of care and hope and then grief over poor May.

      I trust the misery did not get into the story; but I'm afraid it is not as gay as I meant most of it to be.

      I forgot to number the pages of the last two chapters, and so cannot number these. I usually keep the run, but this time sent off the parcel in a hurry. Can you send me the right number to go on with in chapter seventeen? I can send you four more as soon as I hear.

      I don't believe I shall come to New York this winter. May left me her little daughter for my own; and if she comes over soon, I shall be too busy singing lullabies to one child to write tales for others, or go anywhere, even to see my kind friends.

      A sweeter little romance has just ended in Paris than any I can ever make; and the sad facts of life leave me no heart for cheerful fiction.

      Yours truly,

      L. M. Alcott.

      CHAPTER XI.

       LAST YEARS.

       Table of Contents

      MY PRAYER.

      (Written October, 1886.)

      Courage and patience, these I ask,

       Dear Lord, in this my latest strait;

       For hard I find my ten years' task,

       Learning to suffer and to wait.

      Life seems so rich and grand a thing,

       So full of work for heart and brain,

       It is a cross that I can bring

       No help, no offering, but pain.

      The hard-earned harvest of these years

       I long to generously share;

       The lessons learned with bitter tears

       To teach again with tender care;

      To smooth the rough and thorny way

       Where other feet begin to tread;

       To feed some hungry soul each day

       With sympathy's sustaining bread.

      So beautiful such pleasures show,

       I long to make them mine;

       To love and labor and to know

       The joy such living makes divine.

      But if I may not, I will only ask

       Courage and patience for my fate,

       And learn, dear Lord, thy latest task,–

       To suffer patiently and wait.

      THE early part of the year 1880 was in the deep shadow of sadness, from the death of Louisa's sister. Boxes full of May's pictures, clothes, and books came home to call up anew all the memories of the bright spirit who had blossomed into such beautiful life so quickly to fade away.

      Miss Alcott tried to rise above her grief and busy herself with new interests. She took an active part in the voting of the women in Concord, and rejoiced in the election of a good school committee. In April she returned to her old rooms at the Bellevue, where she busied herself with dramatizing "Michael Strogoff," which she never completed. She kept up her interest in young girls, and received with pleasure a visit from thirty pupils of the Boston University, and she helped to give the children of the North End Mission a happy day at Walden Pond. She went to York for rest and refreshment during the summer. Her heart was filled with longing for the child, and everything was done with reference to its coming.

      As September brought cooler weather, over the sea came the little babe to the warm hearts that were longing to welcome her. No woman as true and loving as Louisa Alcott but has the mother-nature strong in her heart; and she could not help feeling a new spring of love and life when the child of one so dear was put into her arms to be her very own. Rosy and healthy, full of life and energy,–not a model of sainthood, but a real human nature, with a will to be regulated, not broken, with impulses to be trained, talents and tendencies to be studied, and a true, loving heart to be filled with joy,–Louisa found the child a constant source of interest and pleasure. She brought her up as she herself had been trained,–more by influences than by rules,–and sought to follow the leadings which she found in the young nature rather than to make it over after a plan of her own. This new care and joy helped to fill up the void in her life from the loss of the mother for СКАЧАТЬ