Their bridge shall be a bridge of sighs, Their monuments of ruined books, Oh, chant for requiem: Concord has conquered them. From the time that the success of "Little Women" established her reputation as a writer, until the last day of her life, her absolute devotion to her family continued. Her mother's declining years were soothed with every care and comfort that filial love could bestow; she died in Louisa's arms, and for her she performed all the last offices of affection, no stranger hands touched the beloved form. The most beautiful of her poems was written at this time, in memory of her mother, and was called "Transfiguration." A short time after her mother's death, her sister May, who had married Mr. Ernest Nieriker, a Swiss gentleman, living in Paris, died after the birth of her child. Of this Louisa wrote me in reply to a letter of sympathy: "I mourn and mourn by day and night for May. Of all the griefs in my life, and I have had many, this is the bitterest. I try so hard to be brave, but the tears will come, and I go off and cry and cry; the dear little baby may comfort Ernest, but what can comfort us? May called her two years of marriage perfect happiness, and said: If I die when baby is born, don't mourn, for I have had in these two years more happiness than comes to many in a lifetime.' The baby is named for me, and is to be given to me as my very own. What a sad but precious legacy! The little golden-haired Lulu was brought to her by its aunt, Miss Sophie Nieriker, and she was indeed a great comfort to Miss Alcott for the remainder of her life. In 1885, Miss Alcott took a furnished house on Louisburg Square in Boston, and although her health was still very delicate she anticipated much quiet happiness in the family life. In the autumn and winter she suffered much from indigestion, sleeplessness, and general debility. Early in December she told me how very much she was suffering, and added: "I mean if possible to keep up until after Christmas, and then I am sure I shall break down." When I went to carry her a Christmas gift, she showed me the Christmas tree, and seemed so bright and happy that I was not prepared to hear soon after that she had gone out to the restful, quiet of a home in Dunreath Place, at the Highlands, where she could be tenderly cared for under the direction of her friend, Dr. Rhoda Lawrence, to whom she dedicated one of her books. She was too weak to bear even the pleasurable excitement of her own home, and called Dr. Lawrence's house, "Saint's Rest." The following summer she went with Dr. Lawrence to Princeton, but on her return in the autumn her illness took an alarming character, and she was unable to see her friends, and only occasionally the members of her family. On her last birthday, November 29th, she received many gifts, and as I had remembered her, the following characteristic letter came to me, the last but one that she sent me : "Thanks for the flowers and for the kind thought that sent them to the poor old exile. I had seven boxes of flowers, two baskets, and three plants, forty gifts in all, and at night I lay in a room that looked like a small fair, with its five tables covered with pretty things, borders of posies, and your noble roses towering in state over all the rest. That red one was so delicious that I revelled in it like a big bee, and felt it might almost do for a body—I am so thin now. Everybody was very kind, and my solitary day was made happy by so much love. Illness and exile have their bright side, I find, and I hope to come out in the spring a gay old butterfly. My rest-and-milk-cure is doing well, and I am an obedient oyster since I have learned that patience and time are my best helps." In February, 1887, Mr. Alcott was taken with what proved to be his last illness. Louisa knew that the end was near, and as often as she was able came into town to see him. On Thursday morning, March 2d, I chanced to be at the house, where I had gone to inquire for Mr. Alcott and Louisa. While talking with Mrs. Pratt, her sister, the door opened, and Louisa, who had come in from the Highlands to see her father, entered. I had not seen her for months, and the sight of her thin, wan face and sad look shocked me, and I felt for the first time that she was hopelessly ill. After a few affectionate words of greeting next room. she passed through the open doors of the you thinking of, dear?" He replied, "I hope you will be able to bear the impending event with the same brave philosophy that was yours when your dear mother died." She received my note on Saturday morning, together with one from her sister. Early in the morning she replied to her sister's note, telling of a dull pain and a weight like iron on her head. Later, she wrote me the last words she ever penned; and in the evening came the fatal stroke of apoplexy, followed by unconsciousness. Her letter to me was as follows: I am very glad to have it. No philosophy is Yours truly, L. M. A. "P. S. I have another year to stay in my 'Saint's Rest,' and then I am promised twenty years of health. I don't want so many, and I have no idea I shall see them. But as I don't live for myself, I hold on for others, and shall find time to die some day, I hope." It Mr. Alcott died on Sunday morning, March 4, and on Tuesday morning, March 6, death, "in the likeness of a friend," came to Louisa. Mr. Alcott's funeral took place on Tuesday morning, and many of the friends there assembled were there met with the tidings of Louisa's death. Miss Alcott had made every arrangement for her funeral. was her desire that only those near and dear to her should be present, that the service should be simple, and that only friends should take part. The services were indeed simple, but most impressive. Dr. Bartol, the lifelong friend of the family, paid a loving and simple tribute to her character, as did Mrs. Livermore. Mrs. Cheney read the sonnet written by Mr. Alcott, which refers to her as "Duty's faithful child," and Mrs. Harriet Winslow Sewall, a dear cousin, read tenderly the most beautiful of Louisa's own poems, "Transfiguration," written, as I have said, in memory "DEAR MRS. PORTER: - Thanks for the picture. of her mother. That was all. O By Isaac Bassett Choate. UTSIDE that list of books which are properly classed as Americana, and any one who has had occasion to consult Sabin's "Dictionary of Books Relating to America" knows how extended a catalogue that is, there are numberless references, innuendoes, and hints to the early colonists, as well as instances of direct mention of this country, which cannot fail to arrest the attention of the reader of general literature. These casual words are of the nature of asides in the dramatic presentation of history. They are of all the greater interest and value for the reason that they are the artless, unpremeditated, unconscious expression of the sentiment which prevailed in their day. The perfect candor and unreserve with which the English spoke of these colonies, and of those who were coming over here to settle, is just what lends a charm to language that might otherwise seem discourteous. Not until after the independence of the Colonies do English writers seem to have realized that for the future, English literature was to be a possession held by the English people as co-parceners in common with ourselves. One notable exception to this rule is met in a poem published by Samuel Daniel in 1598. "And who knows whither we may vent The treasures of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory may be sent T'enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident May come refined with th' accents that are ours?" This was written after the failure of Gilbert and Raleigh to realize their dreams of empire on this continent. The poet kept his faith through every disaster, but it may fairly be questioned whether he was not looking for the civilization of the aborigines quite as much as for the settlement of the English here. Before the seventeenth century, England had very little interest in America, except as the waters along this continent were the favorite cruising grounds of her old sea-dogs who used to go hunting Spanish plate-ships for their prey. America contributed little material to the writers of the Elizabethan age, particularly to the poets, dramatists, and divineswho were the literary workers. The few instances of any mention of this part of the world in that day are of interest chiefly in contrasting the spirit of that time with the spirit of the present. In 1596, Thomas Lodge published "A Margarite of America." Lodge had accompanied Drake upon one of that admiral's freebooting expeditions to this continent. He was a writer of ability and taste, if not of genius; but his taste was that of his age. We naturally look to this performance for some new matter, as the author had chosen a new field. Anything more barren of interest, now and here, would be difficult to imagine, impossible to find. It is all as fanciful and unreal as the "Faery Queen" of Spenser, or the romances of "Amadis de Gaul." This shows under what a spell of romanticism that age was held. It helps us to understand the statesmanship, the diplomacy, and the enterprise of the time. It brings into contrast with the thought and temper of that age, the scientific spirit which rules the present. The reader wonders that a gifted author should so signally fail to make himself entertaining. No doubt he interested his own generation. The public of that day cared more for chivalry and gallantry than for information. The next year, 1597, Sir John Davis published his " Epigrams." One of these was written in praise of tobacco, and it is curious to see how high a regard for America the discovery of this plant awakened in the English mind. The poet still clings to the traditions of the Homeric age. "But this our age another world hath found, From whence an herb of heavenly power of cloud in that day to direct the Eng- Others do tell a long and serious tale Had the Castalian Muses known the place But our more glorious Nymph, our modern Which life and light doth to the North infuse, In whose respect the Muses barbarous are, Over Virginia and the New-found-land, It is not at all unlikely that King James's "Counter-blast to Tobacco " was called out chiefly by the fulsome praises of the Maiden Queen mixed up with the praises of the narcotic used. The allusion to Elizabeth as 66 our modern Muse Which life and light doth to the North infuse," would not be likely to prove soothing to one who was a Scotchman, at least by birth. Referring to the closing lines of the quotation from Beaumont, one cannot help wondering a little how far "the savage nations of the West" had been tamed in 1602. Feeble attempts had been made, under Raleigh and others, to colonize the country, but the colonists were all lost. Only a few hogs had been left on the Bermudas as the outcome of the enterprise. The mild manners of the numerous progeny of these represented the taming of the West achieved during the reign of Elizabeth. Michael Drayton makes mention of these hogs, and of their gentle nature, in some laudatory verses complimenting the vagrant Coryat upon his "Travels," in 1611. "Greatness to me seemed ever full of fear Which thou found'st false at thy arriving there; At the Bermudas, the example such, Where not a ship until this time durst touch Kept, as supposed, by Hell's infernal dogs, Our fleet found there most honest, courteous hogs." But Drayton had written, prior to 1605, one of his most spirited lyrics with the purpose of encouraging emigration to these shores. His language is so animated with the spirit of that age, that the piece deserves to be presented in full, but space will admit only the splendid opening. "You brave, heroic minds, Worthy your country's name, Whilst loitering hinds Lurk here at home with shame. "Britons, you stay too long, Quickly aboard bestow you, And with a merry gale Swell your stretched sail With vows as strong As the winds that blow you. "Your course securely steer, West and by south forth keep, Rocks, lee-shores and shoals, When Eolus scowls, You need not fear So absolute the deep. "And cheerfully at sea Success you still entice To get the pearl and gold, Virginia, Earth's only Paradise." In the "Political Satires" of Sir John Denham, belonging to the time of the |