Marmee & Louisa (62 page)

⁹¹⁵
“angel of light”: Tony Horwitz noted in his biography of John Brown that on October 30, 1859, Thoreau read aloud an oration, “A Plea for Captain John Brown,” calling Brown an “angel of light.” At the Music Hall, Emerson said Brown was like Christ, “the new saint awaiting his martyrdom” who will “make the gallows glorious like the cross.”

⁹¹⁶
begun to speak out: Ronald Bosco said at Orchard House School of Philosophy in summer 2009 that “Emerson moved toward the abolition movement kicking and screaming until the 1840s, and to the women’s movement until the 1850s. Until the 1860s he thought ‘better’ women wouldn’t want to vote.”

⁹¹⁷
“beatify”: Matteson, lecture at Orchard House School of Philosophy, July 2009. Ironically, according to Matteson, Brown’s raid effectively ended Transcendentalism.

⁹¹⁸
“entirely obliterated”:
Memoir of SES
, 103–4.

⁹¹⁹
“hero”: In Boston on the day of Brown’s execution, SES presided over a Tremont Temple meeting at which Garrison read aloud Brown’s “Address to the Court.”

⁹²⁰
“Saint John”: ABA wrote a sonnet and LMA wrote a poem to John Brown, according to LMA, 1859,
Journals
, 95.

⁹²¹
“beginning of sorrows”: SJM, Diary for 1859, MFPCL.

⁹²²
“usual vigor”: ABA to William Russell, December 31, 1859,
Letters
, 307.

⁹²³
“Anna’s expected marriage”: ABA to his mother, April 12, 1860,
Letters
, 310.

⁹²⁴
bringing in enough money: ABA to his mother, August 1861,
Letters
, 322. Bronson wrote to his mother that Louisa “has been waiting almost since the year came in for her money, that she might send some to you. I wish it were more . . .”

⁹²⁵
“Genius burned”: LMA, January 1861,
Journals
, 103.

⁹²⁶
“moral obligation to remain”: Elizabeth Lennox Keyser,
Little Women: A Family Romance
, 9.

⁹²⁷
“partakes largely in”: ABA to William Russell, December 31, 1859,
Letters
, 307.

⁹²⁸
“personal and family history”: ABA, February 25, 1861,
Journals
, 337.

⁹²⁹
annual salary was $100: ABA to his sister Betsey, June 5, 1860,
Letters
, 313.

⁹³⁰
“pink of a party”: ABA to AMA, October 29, 1860,
Letters
, 317.

⁹³¹
“many sweethearts”: Anna to Alfred Whitman, July 21, 1872, family letters, HAP.

⁹³²
“grub for my help”: LMA, December 1860,
Journals
, 100.

⁹³³
“someone to help her”: LMA, February 1864,
Journals
, 128.

⁹³⁴
“took dinner at Charlotte’s”: SJM, Diary for 1860, MFPCL.

⁹³⁵
“goes out like a taper”: James Russell Lowell,
A Fable for Critics
(1848), 43.

⁹³⁶
“fitness and beauty”: ABA, May 23, 1860,
Journals
, 326.

⁹³⁷
Anna and John crept up: Catherine Rivard, in conversation, 2010.

⁹³⁸
“Uncle S. J. May married them”: Although “Mr. Bull the magistrate” made the marriage legal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, SJM performed the ceremony.

⁹³⁹
Bridge and Pratt house: The wooden structure near the Chelsea River known as the “Old Pratt house” was torn down in 1953.

⁹⁴⁰
took a nap: ABA to AAP, May 23, 1660,
Letters
, 311.

⁹⁴¹
Sanborn’s students: Brooks,
Flowering of New England
, 432.

⁹⁴²
“I am desirous”: SJM, Diary for 1860, MFPCL. Later that year George E. May returned to the West Newton School.

⁹⁴³
“Mrs. John Brown”: Anne and Sarah Brown, two of John Brown’s older daughters, boarded with the Alcotts a few years later, according to Stern,
LMA
, 103.

⁹⁴⁴
“went and worshipped”: LMA to AAP, May 27, 1860,
Letters
, 54.

⁹⁴⁵
“earnest talk”: SJM, Diary for 1860, MFPCL.

⁹⁴⁶
“Samuel Jay May’s plea for peace”: Ednah Cheney, “Reminiscences of Ednah Dow Cheney,” 83, 118.

⁹⁴⁷
the newlywed Pratts: SJM diary for 1860, MFPCL.

⁹⁴⁸
“A Modern Cinderella”: published in the
Atlantic
, October 1860.

⁹⁴⁹
“people wrote to me”: LMA, September and April 1860,
Journals
, 100 and 98.

⁹⁵⁰
“wife is very well”: ABA to his sister Betsey, June 5, 1860,
Letters
, 314.

⁹⁵¹
“lives in her family mostly”: ABA to his mother, June 24, 1863,
Letters
, 342.

⁹⁵²
“Louisa writes stories still”: ABA to his mother, November 1861,
Letters
, 324.

⁹⁵³
May moved to Syracuse: ABA to AMA, November 16, 1857,
Letters
, 260.

⁹⁵⁴
“More luck for May”: LMA, December 1860,
Journals
, 100.

⁹⁵⁵
“to vary a little”: ABA to AMAN, February 10, 1861,
Letters
, 320.

⁹⁵⁶
“very hopeful”: Ibid.

⁹⁵⁷
“I hope good things”: AMA, quoted in ABA to his mother, December 30, 1860,
Letters
, 318.

⁹⁵⁸
ear trumpet: Mentioned in several letters between the Alcotts. According to Catherine Rivard, in conversation in 2010, AAP was growing deaf by 1860.

⁹⁵⁹
“entertaining and witty”: ABA, February 25, 1861,
Journals
, 337.

⁹⁶⁰
“life, aspiration, tact”: AMA to SJM, March and September 8, 1858, family letters, HAP.

⁹⁶¹
“wit and go-ahead-ativeness”: AMA to SJM, December 8, 1860, family letters, HAP.

⁹⁶²
manacled slave: Yacovone,
SJM
, 139.

⁹⁶³
“beginning to reap in the storm”: AMA to SJM, April 13, 1861, family letters, HAP.

⁹⁶⁴
“longed to see a war”: LMA, April 1861,
Journals
, 105.

⁹⁶⁵
sewed: ABA, Note on 1861,
Journals
, 333.

⁹⁶⁶
“felt very martial”: LMA, May 1861,
Journals
, 105.

⁹⁶⁷
Civil War: Three million men fought in the war, and more than 600,0000 died.

⁹⁶⁸
opened a kindergarten: ABA, January 6, 1862,
Journals
, 345.

⁹⁶⁹
“Lu’s peculiar faculty”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, December 1861, family letters, HAP.

⁹⁷⁰
a distant cousin: Hernnstadt,
Letters ABA
, footnote, 326.

⁹⁷¹
“good fruits”: ABA to William Russell, January 20, 1862,
Letters
, 326.

⁹⁷²
“against my own wishes”: LMA, in
ABA Letters
, 326, footnote.

⁹⁷³
“I
can
write”: LMA, May 1862,
Journals
, 109.

⁹⁷⁴
“blood & thunder tale”: LMA to Alfred Whitman, June 1862,
Letters
, 79.

⁹⁷⁵
“I enjoy romancing”: LMA, June, July, August, 1862,
Journals
, 109.

⁹⁷⁶
“best of health”: ABA, September 1, 1862,
Letters
, 328.

⁹⁷⁷
“pathetic family”: LMA to her second cousin Adeline May, July 1860,
Letters
, 57; and to her grandmother Anna Alcox, December 1862, ibid., 80.

⁹⁷⁸
Emerson’s descriptions: Perry Miller,
Margaret Fuller, American Romantic
, xxv.

⁹⁷⁹
“I never began the year”: LMA, January 1, 1863,
Journals
, 113.

⁹⁸⁰
“feel helpless”: Sophia Hawthorne to her daughter Una, December 1862, in Ticknor,
May Alcott
, 53–54, quoting AMA.

⁹⁸¹
“big bee hive”: LMA to Hannah Stevenson, December 26, 1862, MHS Online Collections, accessed at
www.masshist.org
, March 2012. Union Hotel Hospital was an imposing three-story building on Georgetown’s main street.

⁹⁸²
“really good nurse”: Myerson and Shealy, eds.,
LMA Journals
, 112, footnote.

⁹⁸³
“When I peered”: LMA, “Hospital Sketches,” Ch. 3, in Elaine Showalter, ed.,
Alternative Alcott
, 21.

⁹⁸⁴
“a womanly man”: LMA to Hannah Stevenson, December 26, 1862. MHS Online Collections, accessed at
www.masshist.org
, March 2012.

⁹⁸⁵
“prince of patients”: LMA, January 1,1863,
Journals
, 113.

⁹⁸⁶
“odd, sentimental”: LMA, January 4, 1863,
Journals
, 115.

⁹⁸⁷
“chief afflictions”: LMA to Hannah Stevenson, December 26, 1862, MHS Online Collections, accessed at
www.masshist.org
, March 2012.

⁹⁸⁸
“sharp pain”: LMA, January 1863,
Journals
, 115.

⁹⁸⁹
“ignominious to depart”: ABA to AAP, January 25, 1863,
Letters
, 333.

⁹⁹⁰
shaved her head: Ibid.

⁹⁹¹
“derivative”: Stern,
Plots and Counterplots
, Introduction, 16.

⁹⁹²
“went to heaven”: LMA, January 1863,
Journals
, 117.

⁹⁹³
opened her eyes: ABA, January 16, 1863,
Journals
, 353.

⁹⁹⁴
“Enfeebled”: ABA to AAP, January 25, 1863,
Letters
, 332.

⁹⁹⁵
“clash of arms”: Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 119.

⁹⁹⁶
“costly experience”: LMA to Mr. Rand, October 24, [n.y.],
Letters
, 339.

⁹⁹⁷
“men’s jobs”: O’Connor,
Civil War Boston
, 168.

⁹⁹⁸
“look unprofessional”: Ibid., quoting Ann Douglas, “The Literature of Impoverishment,”
Women’s Studies
I (1972), 6.

⁹⁹⁹
“pretty prattle”: Caroline Kirkland, “Literary Women,” in
Scribbling Women
, Elaine Showalter, ed., xxxvii.

¹⁰⁰⁰
“business potential”: Showalter, ibid., xxxix.

¹⁰⁰¹
except Marmee: ABA to AAP, January 25–February 4, 1863,
Letters
, 333–35.

¹⁰⁰²
anxious but hopeful: ABA, January 25, 1863,
Letters
, 354.

¹⁰⁰³
“nothing against”: ABA to AAP, January 25, 1863,
Letters
, 333.

¹⁰⁰⁴
part-time maid: ABA to AAP, February 4, 1863,
Letters
, 335.

¹⁰⁰⁵
“right mind”: ABA, February 6, 1863,
Journals
, 354.

¹⁰⁰⁶
“clothe herself with flesh”: ABA, March 22, 1863,
Journals
, 354.

¹⁰⁰⁷
“sitting deep in a novel”: LMA to AAP, March 28, 1863, quoted in
ABA Journals
, footnote, 355.

¹⁰⁰⁸
“little grandson”: ABA, October 15, 1863,
Journals
, 359.

¹⁰⁰⁹
“I have no child”: Margaret Fuller,
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli
, vol. 1, 293, quoted in Blanchard,
Margaret Fuller
, 173.

¹⁰¹⁰
“I sell
my
children”: LMA, January 18, 1868,
Journals
, 163.

¹⁰¹¹
“her boy”: LMA, June 1863,
Journals
, 119. CMW’s five-year-old boy, Alfred Wilkinson Jr., as an adult would have a celebrated love affair with Winifred Davis, daughter of the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Alfred and Winnie were engaged in the 1880s, but because of her parents’ objections to his family’s politics the engagement was broken. She died soon afterwards. Alfred, my Uncle Fred, lived until 1918 but never married.

¹⁰¹²
“satisfaction of seeing”: LMA to James Redpath, August 28, 1863,
Letters
, 88.

¹⁰¹³
“agreeable to us”: ABA, August 26, 1863,
Journals
, 357.

¹⁰¹⁴
“time & earnings”: LMA to James Redpath, July 1863,
Letters
, 87.

¹⁰¹⁵
a collection: Stern,
From Blood and Thunder
, 209.

¹⁰¹⁶
“My Contraband”: this story first appeared in the
Atlantic
in November 1863 under the title suggested by the editor, “The Brothers,” but LMA always called it “My Contraband.”

¹⁰¹⁷
Faith Dane: This character, an upright spinster, also appears in LMA’s
Moods
.

¹⁰¹⁸
“power struggle”: Stern,
LMA Unmasked
, xxvii.

¹⁰¹⁹
“my natural ambition”: LMA, quoted in LaSalle Corbell Pickett,
Across My Path: Memories of People I Have Known
, 107–8.

¹⁰²⁰
“I love nursing”: LMA to Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, November 12, 1863, in Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 188.