price named, nor indeed to any one at its proper value, so Miss Alcott returned it and sent the price asked for it by the next steamer. This is only one of the many generous acts of sympathy of which I knew.

The Aicotts were always Anti-Slavery people. Mrs. Alcott's brother, Samuel J. May, and her cousin, Samuel E. Sewall, were the staunchest supporters of Garrison in the early struggles. Mr. Alcott was the firm friend of that intrepid leader in the war against slavery. Nearly all the leading Abolitionists were their friends, Lucretia Mott, the Grimké sisters, Theodore Weld, Lydia Maria Child, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Miss Peabody, and others of that remarkable galaxy of men and women who in those benighted years were ranked as fanatics by the community at large. When the mob-spirit reigned in Boston and Garrison was taken to a jail in the city to protect him from its fury and save his life, Mr. and Mrs. Alcott were among

the first to call upon him to express their sympathy.

When the war came, the Alcotts were stirred to a white heat of patriotism. Louisa wrote:

"I am scraping lint and making blue jackets for our boys. My May blood is up. I must go to the front to nurse the poor helpless soldiers who are wounded and bleeding. I must go, and good-by if I never return."

She did go and came very near losing her life; for while in the hospital she contracted a typhoid fever, was very ill, and never recovered from its effects; it can be truly said of her she gave her life to her country. One of her father's most beautiful sonnets was written in reference to this experience. He refers to her in this as "duty's faithful child."

During her experience as a hospital nurse she wrote letters home and to the Commonwealth newspaper. From these letters a selection was made and published under the title of "Hospital Sketches." To me this is the most interesting and

pathetic of all of Miss

shattered health she returned to her writing and her home duties. Slowly but surely she won recognition; but it was not until she had written "Little Women," that full pecuniary success came.

Miss Alcott had the keenest insight into character. She was rarely mistaken in her judgment of people. She was intolerant of all shams, and despised pretentious persons. Often in her pleasant rooms at the Bellevue have I listened to her estimates of people whom we knew. She was sometimes almost ruthless in her denunciation of society, so-called. I remember what she said as we sat together at a private bill, where many of the butterflies of fashion and leaders of society were assembled. As with her clear, keen eyes she viewed the pageant, she exclaimed: "Society in New York and

in Boston, as we have seen it to-night, is corrupt. Such immodest dressing, such flirtations of some of these married women with young men whose mothers they might be, so far as age is concerned, such drinking of champagne I loathe it all! If I can only live long enough I mean to write a book whose characters will be drawn from life. Mrs.

(naming a person present) shall be prominent as the society leader, and the fidelity of the picture shall leave no one in doubt as to the original."

She always bitterly denounced all unwomanliness. Her standard of morality was a high one, and the same for men as

No. 10 Louisburg Square, Boston.

for women. She was an earnest advocate of woman suffrage and college education for girls, because she devoutly believed that woman should do whatever she could do well, in church or school or State. When I was elected a member of the school committee of Melrose in 1873, she wrote:

"I rejoice greatly thereat, and hope that the first thing that you and Mrs. Sewall propose in your first meeting will be to reduce the salary of the head master of the High School, and increase the salary of the first woman assistant, whose work is quite as good as his, and even harder; to make the pay equal. I believe in the same pay for the same good work. Don't you? In future let woman do whatever she can do; let men place no more impediments in the way; above all things

let's have fair play, let simple justice be done, say I. Let us hear no more of woman's sphere' either from our wise (?) legislators beneath the gilded dome, or from our clergymen in their pulpits. I am tired, year after year, of hearing such twaddle about sturdy oaks and clinging vines and man's chivalric protection of woman. Let woman find out her own limitations, and if, as is so confidently asserted, nature has defined her sphere, she will be guided accordingly-but in heaven's name give her a chance! Let the professions be open to her; let fifty years of college education be hers, and then we shall see what we shall see. Then, and not until then, shall we be able to say what woman can and what she cannot do, and

coming generations will know and be able to define more clearly what is a woman's sphere' than these benighted men who now try to do it." During Miss Alcott's last illness she

wrote:

"When I get upon my feet I am going (D. V.) to devote myself to settling poor souls who need a helping hand in hard times."

Many pictures and some busts have been made of Miss Alcott, but very few of them are satisfactory. The portrait painted in Rome by Healy is, I think, a

very good one. The bas-relief by Walton Ricketson, her dear sculptor friend, is most interesting and has many admirers. Ricketson has also made a bust of Mr. Alcott for the Concord Library, which is exceedingly good, much liked by the family, and so far as I know, by all who have seen it. Of the photographs of Miss Alcott only two or three are in the least satisfactory, notably the full length one made by Warren many years ago, and also one by Allen and Rowell. In speaking of her pictures she once said: "When I don't look like the tragic muse, I look like a smoky relic of the Boston fire." Mr. Ricketson is now at work upon a bust of her, a photograph of which, from the clay, accompanies this article. In a letter to me in reply to one written after I had seen the bust in his studio at Concord, Mr. Ricketson writes:

"I feel deeply the important task I have to do in making this portrait, since it is to give form and expression to the broad love of humanity, the fixed purpose to fulfil her mission, the womanly dignity, physical beauty, and queenly presence which were so perfectly combined in our late friend, and all so dominated by a fine intellectuality. To do this and satisfy a public that has formed somewhat an idea of her personal appearance is indeed a task worthy of the best effort. I certainly have some advantages to start with. The medallion from life modelled at Nonquitt in 1886, and at that time considered the best likeness of her, is invaluable, as the measurements are all accurate. I also have access to all the photographs, etc., of the family, and the criticisms of her sister, nephews, and friends, and my long and intimate acquaintance. I feel this to be the most important work I have as yet attempted. I intend to give unlimited time to it, and shall not consider it completed until the family and friends are fully satis fied. The success of the bust of the father leads me to hope for the same result in the one of his beloved daughter."

Miss Alcott always took a warm interest in Mr. Elwell, and assisted

him towards his education in art in early life.

Miss Alcott had a keen sense of humor, and her friends recall with delight her sallies of wit and caustic descriptions of the School of Philosophy, the "unfathomable wisdom," the "metaphysical pyrotechnics," the strange vagaries of some of the devotees. She would sometimes enclose such nonsense rhymes as these to her intimate friends:

"Philosophers sit in their sylvan hall
And talk of the duties of man,
Of Chaos and Cosmos, Hegel and Kant,
With the Oversoul well in the van;
All on their hobbies they amble away,
And a terrible dust they make;
Disciples devout both gaze and adore,

As daily they listen, and bake!

The "sylvan hall" was, as I know from bitter experience while attending the sessions of the School of Philosophy, the hottest place in historic old Concord.

Sometimes Miss Alcott would bring her nonsense rhymes or "jingles," as she called them, to the club, and read at our pleasant club-teas, amid shouts of merriment followed by heartiest applause, such clever bits as the following:

A WAIL UTTERED IN THE WOMAN'S CLUB.

God bless you, merry ladies,
May nothing you dismay,
As you sit here at ease and hark
Unto my dismal lay.

Get out your pocket-handkerchiefs,
Give o'er your jokes and songs,
Forget awhile your Woman's Rights,
And pity author's wrongs.

There is a town of high repute,

Where saints and sages dwell,
Who in these latter days are forced
To bid sweet peace farewell;

For all their men are demigods, -
So rumor doth declare, -

And all the women are De Staels,
And genius fills the air.

So eager pilgrims penetrate

To their most private nooks,

Storm their back doors in search of news
And interview their cooks,
Worship at every victim's shrine,

See haloes round their hats,
Embalm the chickweed from their yards
And photograph their cats.

There's Emerson, the poet wise,
That much-enduring man,
Sees Jenkinses from every clime,
But dodges when he can.
Chaos and Cosmos down below

Their waves of trouble roll,
While safely in his attic locked,
He woos the Oversoul.

And Hawthorne, shy as any maid,
From these invaders fled
Out of the window like a wraith,
Or to his tower sped-

Till vanishing from this rude world,
He left behind no clue,
Except along the hillside path

The violet's tender blue.

Channing scarce dares at eventide
To leave his lonely lair;
Reporters lurk on every side

And hunt him like a bear.

Quaint Thoreau sought the wilderness,
But callers by the score

Scared the poor hermit from his cell,
The woodchuck from his door.

There's Alcott, the philosopher,
Who labored long and well
Plato's Republic to restore,
Now keeps a free hotel;

Whole boarding-schools of gushing girls
That hapless mansion throng,
And Young Men's Christian U-ni-ons,

Full five-and-seventy strong.

Alas! what can the poor souls do?
Their homes are homes no more;
No washing-day is sacred now;

Spring cleaning's never o'er.
Their doorsteps are the stranger's camp,
Their trees bear many a name,
Artists their very nightcaps sketch;
And this- and this, is fame!

Deluded world! your Mecca is
A sand-bank glorified;
The river that you seek and sing
Has "skeeters," but no tide.

The gods raise "garden-sarse" and milk,
And in these classic shades
Dwell nineteen chronic invalids
And forty-two old maids.

Some April shall the world behold
Embattled authors stand,
With steel-pens of the sharpest tip
In every inky hand.