IT takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women. Amy was learning this distinction through much tribulation; for, mistaking enthusiasm for inspiration, she attempted every branch of art with youthful audacity. For a long time there was a lull in the “mud-pie” business, and she devoted herself to the finest pen-and-ink drawing, in which she showed such taste and skill, that her graceful handiwork proved both pleasant and profitable. But overstrained eyes soon caused pen and ink to be laid aside for a bold attempt at poker-sketching. While this attack lasted, the family lived in constant fear of a conflagration, for the odor of burning wood pervaded the house at all hours; smoke issued from attic and shed with alarming frequency, red-hot pokers lay about promiscuously, and Hannah never went to bed without a pail of water and the dinner-bell at her door, in case of fire. Raphael’s face was found boldly executed on the under side of the moulding board,1 and Bacchus2 on the head of a beer barrel; a chanting cherub adorned the cover of the sugar bucket, and attempts to portray “Garrick buying gloves of the grisette,” supplied kindlings for some time.
Young May Alcott used almost every available surface for her artwork, including this breadboard. Emblazoned with the poker sketch of Raphael that Alcott mentions in the text, it can still be seen in the kitchen at Orchard House. (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association; photograph by James E. Coutré)
Alcott’s allusion to Garrick was long assumed to refer to the eighteenth-century British actor David Garrick (1717–1779), shown here above in the Sir Joshua Reynolds painting Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy. In fact, the reference is evidently a textual error. Intended was Yorick and the Grisette, an 1830 watercolor by the lesser-known artist Gilbert Stuart Newton (1799–1835), shown at left. (Above: [Reynolds] Somerset Maugham Theatre Collection, London, UK / Bridgeman Images; Left: Private Collection / © Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images)
From fire to oil was a natural transition for burnt fingers, and Amy fell to painting with undiminished ardor.3 An artist friend fitted her out with his cast-off palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views, such as were never seen on land or sea. Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair; and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced sea-sickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of ship building and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance. Swarthy boys and dark-eyed Madonnas staring at you from one corner of the studio, did not suggest Murillo;4 oily brown shadows of faces, with a lurid streak in the wrong place, meant Rembrandt; buxom ladies and dropsical infants, Rubens; and Turner5 appeared in tempests of blue thunder, orange lightning, brown rain, and purple clouds, with a tomato-colored splash in the middle, which might be the sun or a buoy, a sailor’s shirt or a king’s robe, as the spectator pleased.
In her thirties, May Alcott became known as a talented copyist, especially of the works of J. M. W. Turner. Observing her at work in London’s National Gallery, John Ruskin, the world’s preeminent authority on Turner, told her that she had “caught Turner’s spirit wonderfully.” One of May’s Turner copies appears here. (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association)
Charcoal portraits came next; and the entire family hung in a row, looking as wild and crocky as if just evoked from a coal-bin. Softened into crayon sketches, they did better; for the likenesses were good, and Amy’s hair, Jo’s nose, Meg’s mouth, and Laurie’s eyes were pronounced “wonderfully fine.” A return to clay and plaster followed, and ghostly casts of her acquaintances haunted corners of the house, or tumbled off closet shelves on to people’s heads. Children were enticed in as models, till their incoherent accounts of her mysterious doings caused Miss Amy to be regarded in the light of a young ogress. Her efforts in this line, however, were brought to an abrupt close by an untoward accident, which quenched her ardor. Other models failing her for a time, she undertook to cast her own pretty foot, and the family were one day alarmed by an unearthly bumping and screaming; and, running to the rescue, found the young enthusiast hopping wildly about the shed, with her foot held fast in a pan-full of plaster, which had hardened with unexpected rapidity. With much difficulty and some danger, she was dug out; for Jo was so overcome with laughter while she excavated, that her knife went too far, cut the poor foot, and left a lasting memorial of one artistic attempt, at least.
After this Amy subsided, till a mania for sketching from nature set her to haunting river, field, and wood, for picturesque studies, and sighing for ruins to copy. She caught endless colds sitting on damp grass to book “a delicious bit,” composed of a stone, a stump, one mushroom, and a broken mullein stalk, or “a heavenly mass of clouds,” that looked like a choice display of feather-beds when done. She sacrificed her complexion floating on the river in the midsummer sun, to study light and shade, and got a wrinkle over her nose, trying after “points of sight,” or whatever the squint-and-string performance is called.
Unlike Amy’s attempt, May’s effort to make a cast of her foot succeeded. Her small artistic victory remains on display at Orchard House. (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association; photograph by James E. Coutré.)
If “genius is eternal patience,” as Michael Angelo affirms,6 Amy certainly had some claim to the divine attribute, for she persevered in spite of all obstacles, failures, and discouragements, firmly believing that in time she should do something worthy to be called “high art.”
She was learning, doing, and enjoying other things, meanwhile, for she had resolved to be an attractive and accomplished woman, even if she never became a great artist. Here she succeeded better; for she was one of those happily created beings who please without effort, make friends everywhere, and take life so gracefully and easily, that less fortunate souls are tempted to believe that such are born under a lucky star. Everybody liked her, for among her good gifts was tact. She had an instinctive sense of what was pleasing and proper, always said the right thing to the right person, did just what suited the time and place, and was so self-possessed that her sisters used to say, “If Amy went to court without any rehearsal beforehand, she’d know exactly what to do.”
While residing in Concord, a youthful Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) received art supplies and lessons from May Alcott, who encouraged him to pursue a career as a sculptor. Along with the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, one of his better-known achievements is the Minute Man at the Revolutionary War battlefield in Concord. (Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association)
One of her weaknesses was a desire to move in “our best society,” without being quite sure what the best really was. Money, position, fashionable accomplishments, and elegant manners, were most desirable things in her eyes, and she liked to associate with those who possessed them; often mistaking the false for the true, and admiring what was not admirable. Never forgetting that by birth she was a gentlewoman, she cultivated her aristocratic tastes and feelings, so that when the opportunity came, she might be ready to take the place from which poverty now excluded her.
In imagining this tableau of Amy March’s artwork, Frank Merrill incorporated a sketch of Abba Alcott (right).
“My lady,” as her friends called her, sincerely desired to be a genuine lady, and was so, at heart, but had yet to learn that money cannot buy refinement of nature, that rank does not always confer nobility, and that true breeding makes itself felt in spite of external drawbacks.
“I want to ask a favor of you, mamma,” Amy said, coming in with an important air, one day.
“Well, little girl, what is it?” replied her mother, in whose eyes the stately young lady still remained “the baby.”
“Our drawing class breaks up next week, and before the girls separate for the summer, I want to ask them out here for a day. They are wild to see the river, sketch the broken bridge, and copy some of the things they admire in my book. They have been very kind to me in many ways, and I am grateful; for they are all rich, and know I am poor, yet they never made any difference.”
“Why should they!” and Mrs. March put the question with what the girls called her “Maria Theresa air.”7
“You know as well as I that it does make a difference with nearly every one, so don’t ruffle up like a dear, motherly hen, when your chickens get pecked by smarter birds; the ugly duckling turned out a swan you know;”8 and Amy smiled without bitterness, for she possessed a happy temper and hopeful spirit.
Mrs. March laughed, and smoothed down her maternal pride, as she asked,—
“Well, my swan, what is your plan?”
“I should like to ask the girls out to lunch next week, to take them a drive to the places they want to see,—a row on the river, perhaps,—and make a little artistic fête for them.”
“That looks feasible. What do you want for lunch? Cake, sandwiches, fruit and coffee, will be all that is necessary, I suppose?”
“Oh dear, no! we must have cold tongue and chicken, French chocolate and ice-cream besides. The girls are used to such things, and I want my lunch to be proper and elegant, though I do work for my living.”
“How many young ladies are there?” asked her mother, beginning to look sober.
“Twelve or fourteen in the class, but I dare say they won’t all come.”
“Bless me, child, you will have to charter an omnibus to carry them about.”
“Why, mother, how can you think of such a thing; not more than six or eight will probably come, so I shall hire a beach-wagon and borrow Mr. Laurence’s cherry-bounce.” (Hannah’s pronunciation of char-a-banc.)9
“All this will be expensive, Amy.”
“Not very; I’ve calculated the cost, and I’ll pay for it myself.”
“Don’t you think, dear, that as these girls are used to such things, and the best we can do will be nothing new, that some simpler plan would be pleasanter to them, as a change, if nothing more, and much better for us than buying or borrowing what we don’t need, and attempting a style not in keeping with our circumstances?”
“If I can’t have it as I like I don’t care to have it at all. I know that I can carry it out perfectly well, if you and the girls will help a little; and I don’t see why I can’t, if I’m willing to pay for it,” said Amy, with the decision which opposition was apt to change into obstinacy.
Mrs. March knew that experience was an excellent teacher, and, when it was possible, she left her children to learn alone the lessons which she would gladly have made easier, if they had not objected to taking advice as much as they did salts and senna.10
“Very well, Amy; if your heart is set upon it, and you see your way through without too great an outlay of money, time, and temper, I’ll say no more. Talk it over with the girls, and whichever way you decide, I’ll do my best to help you.”
“Thanks, mother; you are always so kind,” and away went Amy to lay her plan before her sisters.
Meg agreed at once, and promised her aid,—gladly offering anything she possessed, from her little house itself to her very best salt-spoons. But Jo frowned upon the whole project, and would have nothing to do with it at first.
“Why in the world should you spend your money, worry your family, and turn the house upside down for a parcel of girls who don’t care a sixpence for you? I thought you had too much pride and sense to truckle to any mortal woman just because she wears French boots and rides in a coupé,” said Jo, who, being called from the tragical climax of her novel, was not in the best mood for social enterprises.
“I don’t truckle, and I hate being patronized as much as you do!” returned Amy, indignantly, for the two still jangled when such questions arose. “The girls do care for me, and I for them, and there’s a great deal of kindness, and sense, and talent among them, in spite of what you call fashionable nonsense. You don’t care to make people like you, to go into good society, and cultivate your manners and tastes. I do, and I mean to make the most of every chance that comes. You can go through the world with your elbows out and your nose in the air, and call it independence, if you like. That’s not my way.”
When Amy whetted her tongue and freed her mind she usually got the best of it, for she seldom failed to have common sense on her side, while Jo carried her love of liberty and hate of conventionalities to such an unlimited extent, that she naturally found herself worsted in an argument. Amy’s definition of Jo’s idea of independence was such a good hit, that both burst out laughing, and the discussion took a more amiable turn. Much against her will, Jo at length consented to sacrifice a day to Mrs. Grundy,11 and help her sister through what she regarded as “a nonsensical business.”
The invitations were sent, most all accepted, and the following Monday was set apart for the grand event. Hannah was out of humor because her week’s work was deranged, and prophesied that “ef the washin’ and ironin’ warn’t done reg’lar nothin’ would go well anywheres.” This hitch in the main-spring of the domestic machinery had a bad effect upon the whole concern; but Amy’s motto was “Nil desperandum,”12 and having made up her mind what to do, she proceeded to do it in spite of all obstacles. To begin with: Hannah’s cooking didn’t turn out well; the chicken was tough, the tongue too salt, and the chocolate wouldn’t froth properly. Then the cake and ice cost more than Amy expected, so did the wagon; and various other expenses, which seemed trifling at the outset, counted up rather alarmingly afterward. Beth got cold and took to her bed; Meg had an unusual number of callers to keep her at home, and Jo was in such a divided state of mind that her breakages, accidents, and mistakes were uncommonly numerous, serious, and trying.
“If it hadn’t been for mother I never should have got through,” as Amy declared afterward, and gratefully remembered, when “the best joke of the season” was entirely forgotten by everybody else.
If it was not fair on Monday, the young ladies were to come on Tuesday, an arrangement which aggravated Jo and Hannah to the last degree. On Monday morning the weather was in that undecided state which is more exasperating than a steady pour. It drizzled a little, shone a little, blew a little, and didn’t make up its mind till it was too late for any one else to make up theirs. Amy was up at dawn, hustling people out of their beds and through their breakfasts, that the house might be got in order. The parlor struck her as looking uncommonly shabby, but without stopping to sigh for what she had not, she skilfully made the best of what she had, arranging chairs over the worn places in the carpet, covering stains on the walls with pictures framed in ivy, and filling up empty corners with home-made statuary, which gave an artistic air to the room, as did the lovely vases of flowers Jo scattered about.
The lunch looked charmingly; and, as she surveyed it, she sincerely hoped it would taste good, and that the borrowed glass, china, and silver would get safely home again. The carriages were promised, Meg and mother were all ready to do the honors, Beth was able to help Hannah behind the scenes, Jo had engaged to be as lively and amiable as an absent mind, an aching head, and a very decided disapproval of everybody and everything would allow, and, as she wearily dressed, Amy cheered herself with anticipations of the happy moment when, lunch safely over, she should drive away with her friends for an afternoon of artistic delights; for the “cherry-bounce” and the broken bridge were her strong points.
Then came two hours of suspense, during which she vibrated from parlor to porch, while public opinion varied like the weathercock. A smart shower, at eleven, had evidently quenched the enthusiasm of the young ladies who were to arrive at twelve, for nobody came; and, at two, the exhausted family sat down in a blaze of sunshine to consume the perishable portions of the feast, that nothing might be lost.
“No doubt about the weather to-day; they will certainly come, so we must fly round and be ready for them,” said Amy, as the sun woke her next morning. She spoke briskly, but in her secret soul she wished she had said nothing about Tuesday, for her interest, like her cake, was getting a little stale.
“I can’t get any lobsters, so you will have to do without salad to-day,” said Mr. March, coming in half an hour later, with an expression of placid despair.
“Use the chicken then, the toughness won’t matter in a salad,” advised his wife.
“Hannah left it on the kitchen table a minute, and the kittens got at it. I’m very sorry, Amy,” added Beth, who was still a patroness of cats.
Then, I must have a lobster, for tongue alone won’t do,” said Amy, decidedly.
“Shall I rush into town and demand one?” asked Jo, with the magnanimity of a martyr.
“You’d come bringing it home under your arm, without any paper, just to try me. I’ll go myself,” answered Amy, whose temper was beginning to fail.
Shrouded in a thick veil, and armed with a genteel travelling-basket, she departed, feeling that a cool drive would soothe her ruffled spirit, and fit her for the labors of the day. After some delay, the object of her desire was procured, likewise a bottle of dressing, to prevent further loss of time at home, and off she drove again, well pleased with her own forethought.
As the omnibus contained only one other passenger, a sleepy old lady, Amy pocketed her veil, and beguiled the tedium of the way by trying to find out where all her money had gone to. So busy was she with her card full of refractory figures that she did not observe a newcomer, who entered without stopping the vehicle, till a masculine voice said, “Good morning, Miss March,” and looking up she beheld one of Laurie’s most elegant college friends. Fervently hoping that he would get out before she did, Amy utterly ignored the basket at her feet, and congratulating herself that she had on her new travelling dress, returned the young man’s greeting with her usual suavity and spirit.
They got on excellently; for Amy’s chief care was soon set at rest, by learning that the gentleman would leave first, and she was chatting away in a peculiarly lofty strain, when the old lady got out. In stumbling to the door, she upset the basket, and oh, horror! the lobster, in all its vulgar size and brilliancy, was revealed to the high-born eyes of a Tudor!
“By Jove, she’s forgot her dinner!” cried the unconscious youth, poking the scarlet monster into its place with his cane, and preparing to hand out the basket after the old lady.
“Please don’t—it’s—it’s mine,” murmured Amy, with a face nearly as red as her fish.
“Oh, really, I beg pardon; it’s an uncommonly fine one, isn’t it?” said Tudor, with great presence of mind, and an air of sober interest that did credit to his breeding.
Amy recovered herself in a breath, set her basket boldly on the seat, and said, laughing,—
“Don’t you wish you were to have some of the salad he’s to make, and to see the charming young ladies who are to eat it?”
Now that was tact, for two of the ruling foibles of the masculine mind were touched; the lobster was instantly surrounded by a halo of pleasing reminiscences, and curiosity about “the charming young ladies” diverted his mind from the comical mishap.
“I suppose he’ll laugh and joke over it with Laurie, but I shan’t see them; that’s a comfort,” thought Amy, as Tudor bowed and departed.
She did not mention this meeting at home (though she discovered that, thanks to the upset, her new dress was much damaged by the rivulets of dressing that meandered down the skirt), but went through with the preparations which now seemed more irksome than before; and at twelve o’clock all was ready again. Feeling that the neighbors were interested in her movements, she wished to efface the memory of yesterday’s failure by a grand success to-day; so she ordered the “cherry-bounce,” and drove away in state to meet and escort her guests to the banquet.
“There’s the rumble, they’re coming! I’ll go into the porch to meet them; it looks hospitable, and I want the poor child to have a good time after all her trouble,” said Mrs. March, suiting the action to the word. But after one glance, she retired with an indescribable expression, for, looking quite lost in the big carriage, sat Amy and one young lady.
“Run, Beth, and help Hannah clear half the things off the table; it will be too absurd to put a luncheon for twelve before a single girl,” cried Jo, hurrying away to the lower regions, too excited to stop even for a laugh.
In came Amy, quite calm, and delightfully cordial to the one guest who had kept her promise; the rest of the family, being of a dramatic turn, played their parts equally well, and Miss Eliott found them a most hilarious set; for it was impossible to entirely control the merriment which possessed them. The remodelled lunch being gaily partaken of, the studio and garden visited, and art discussed with enthusiasm, Amy ordered a buggy (alas for the elegant cherry-bounce!) and drove her friend quietly about the neighborhood till sunset, when “the party went out.”
As she came walking in, looking very tired, but as composed as ever, she observed that every vestige of the unfortunate fête had disappeared, except a suspicious pucker about the corners of Jo’s mouth.
“You’ve had a lovely afternoon for your drive, dear,” said her mother, as respectfully as if the whole twelve had come.
“Miss Eliott is a very sweet girl, and seemed to enjoy herself, I thought,” observed Beth, with unusual warmth.
“Could you spare me some of your cake? I really need some, I have so much company, and I can’t make such delicious stuff as yours,” asked Meg, soberly.
“Take it all; I’m the only one here who likes sweet things, and it will mould before I can dispose of it,” answered Amy, thinking with a sigh of the generous store she had laid in for such an end as this!
“It’s a pity Laurie isn’t here to help us,” began Jo, as they sat down to ice-cream and salad for the fourth time in two days.
A warning look from her mother checked any further remarks, and the whole family ate in heroic silence, till Mr. March mildly observed, “Salad was one of the favorite dishes of the ancients, and Evelyn”—here a general explosion of laughter cut short the “history of sallets,”13 to the great surprise of the learned gentleman.
“Bundle everything into a basket, and send it to the Hummels—Germans like messes. I’m sick of the sight of this; and there’s no reason you should all die of a surfeit because I’ve been a fool,” cried Amy, wiping her eyes.
“I thought I should have died when I saw you two girls rattling about in the what-you-call-it, like two little kernels in a very big nutshell, and mother waiting in state to receive the throng,” sighed Jo, quite spent with laughter.
“I’m very sorry you were disappointed, dear, but we all did our best to satisfy you,” said Mrs. March, in a tone full of motherly regret.
“I am satisfied; I’ve done what I undertook, and it’s not my fault that it failed; I comfort myself with that,” said Amy, with a little quiver in her voice. “I thank you all very much for helping me, and I’ll thank you still more, if you won’t allude to it for a month, at least.”
No one did for several months; but the word “fête” always produced a general smile, and Laurie’s birthday gift to Amy was a tiny coral lobster in the shape of a charm for her watch-guard.
1. moulding board. A breadboard.
2. Bacchus. Bacchus, the Roman equivalent of Dionysus, the god of wine and drunkenness, is an apt decoration for a beer barrel.
3. Amy fell to painting with undiminished ardor. May Alcott filled Orchard House with her artwork, even drawing and painting on the walls. Author and family friend Lydia Maria Child observed, “Gradually the artist-daughter filled up all the nooks and corners with panels on which she had painted birds, or flowers; and over the open fire-places she painted mottoes in ancient English characters. Owls blink at you, and faces peep from the most unexpected places. . . . The walls are covered with choice engravings, and paintings by the artist-daughter” (Shealy, ed., Alcott in Her Own Time, p. 22).
4. Murillo. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–82) was a Spanish Baroque painter, much admired for his religious canvases.
5. Rembrandt . . . Rubens; and Turner. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) was the foremost Dutch painter of the seventeenth century. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) was a great Flemish painter perhaps best known for his fleshy, voluptuous nudes. The English Romantic landscape painter J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) was to have special significance in the artistic career of May Alcott. While studying art in Europe, May executed a number of excellent copies of Turner paintings. According to the famous sculptor Daniel Chester French, the renowned English art critic John Ruskin, whose monumental study Modern Painters was largely devoted to Turner, declared May Alcott’s copies “the best reproductions of Turner’s works that had ever been done” (Caroline Ticknor, May Alcott, p. xxi).
6. as Michael Angelo affirms. Although the quotation “Genius is eternal patience” is widely attributed to Michelangelo, its actual source has proven elusive.
7. “Maria Theresa air.” The Empress Maria Theresa (1717–80) ruled over Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and numerous other domains from the 1740s until her death. In comparing Marmee to the empress, the March sisters both emphasize and poke gentle fun at their mother’s regal dignity.
8. “the ugly duckling turned out a swan you know.” The modern fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” was written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) and first appeared in 1843.
9. “cherry-bounce.” (Hannah’s pronunciation of char-a-banc.) Deriving from a French phrase meaning “carriage with wooden benches,” the charabanc was a horse-drawn vehicle, often though not always open-topped. It was a popular conveyance for sightseeing excursions. The fact that the malapropism “cherry-bounce” is ascribed to Hannah, not Amy, subtly suggests that the latter is becoming more mature and precise in her language.
10. salts and senna. Epsom salts and senna leaves were administered as a laxative. Their taste is bitter, unpleasant, and capable of inducing nausea.
11. Mrs. Grundy. Mrs. Grundy appears in English playwright Thomas Morton’s 1798 comedy Speed the Plough. Her name has become a synonym for prudishness and excessive propriety.
12. “Nil desperandum.” A Latin phrase meaning, “Don’t despair.”
13. “history of sallets.” The same month that saw the publication of Little Women, Part First, Bronson Alcott published a book he called Tablets. In it, Bronson makes historical and philosophical observations about the nature of various plants, including the curious assertion, “Lettuce has always been loyal” (A. Bronson Alcott, Tablets, p. 33). Mr. March’s abortive lecture on salads is very much in the spirit of Tablets. British diarist and gardener John Evelyn (1620–1706), whom Bronson cites in Tablets, wrote a book titled Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, which prescribes uses for seventy-three different kinds of salad herbs.