t the poor little romance, like a picked robin, out into
the big, busy world to try its fate.

Well, it was printed, and she got three hundred dollars for it,
likewise plenty of praise and blame, both so much greater than she
expected that she was thrown into a state of bewilderment from which it
took her some time to recover.

"You said, Mother, that criticism would help me. But how can it, when
it's so contradictory that I don't know whether I've written a
promising book or broken all the ten commandments?" cried poor Jo,
turning over a heap of notices, the perusal of which filled her with
pride and joy one minute, wrath and dismay the next. "This man says,
'An exquisite book, full of truth, beauty, and earnestness.' 'All is
sweet, pure, and healthy.'" continued the perplexed authoress. "The
next, 'The theory of the book is bad, full of morbid fancies,
spiritualistic ideas, and unnatural characters.' Now, as I had no
theory of any kind, don't believe in Spiritualism, and copied my
characters from life, I don't see how this critic can be right.
Another says, 'It's one of the best American novels which has appeared
for years.' (I know better than that), and the next asserts that
'Though it is original, and written with great force and feeling, it is
a dangerous book.' 'Tisn't! Some make fun of it, some overpraise, and
nearly all insist that I had a deep theory to expound, when I only
wrote it for the pleasure and the money. I wish I'd printed the whole
or not at all, for I do hate to be so misjudged."

Her family and friends administered comfort and commendation liberally.
Yet it was a hard time for sensitive, high-spirited Jo, who meant so
well and had apparently done so ill. But it did her good, for those
whose opinion had real value gave her the criticism which is an
author's best education, and when the first soreness was over, she
could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel
herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received.

"Not being a genius, like Keats, it won't kill me," she said stoutly,
"and I've got the joke on my side, after all, for the parts that were
taken straight out of real life are denounced as impossible and absurd,
and the scenes that I made up out of my own silly head are pronounced
'charmingly natural, tender, and true'. So I'll comfort myself with
that, and when I'm ready, I'll up again and take another."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DOMEST