mountain tops and shady vales,
The rugged cliffs and hollow glens;
The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea,
The countless finny race and monster brood
Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee
Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood
No more with noisy hum of insect rings;
And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued,
Roost in the glade, and hang their drooping wings.

Translation by Colonel Mure.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

(1832-1888)

[Illustration: Louisa M. Alcott]

Louisa May Alcott, daughter of Amos Bronson and Abigail (May) Alcott,
and the second of the four sisters whom she was afterward to make famous
in 'Little Women,' was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 29th,
1832, her father's thirty-third birthday. On his side, she was descended
from good Connecticut stock; and on her mother's, from the Mays and
Quincys of Massachusetts, and from Judge Samuel Sewall, who has left in
his diary as graphic a picture of the New England home-life of two
hundred years ago, as his granddaughter of the fifth generation did of
that of her own time.

At the time of Louisa Alcott's birth her father had charge of a school
in Germantown; but within two years he moved to Boston with his family,
and put into practice methods of teaching so far in advance of his time
that they were unsuccessful. From 1840, the home of the Alcott family
was in Concord, Massachusetts, with the exception of a short time spent
in a community on a farm in a neighboring town, and the years from 1848
to 1857 in Boston. At seventeen, Louisa's struggle with life began. She
wrote a play, contributed sensational stories to weekly papers, tried
teaching, sewing,--even going out to service,--and would have become an
actress but for an accident. What she wrote of her mother is as true of
herself, "She always did what came to her in the way of duty or charity,
and let pride, taste, and comfort suffer for love's sake." Her first
book, 'Flower Fables,' a collection of fairy tales which she had written
at sixteen for the children of Ralph Waldo Emerson, some other little
friends, and her younger sisters, was printed in 1855 and was well
received. From this time until 1863 she wrote many stories, but few that
she afterward thought worthy of being reprinted. Her best work from 1860
to 1863 is in the Atlantic Monthly, indexed under her name; and the most
carefully finished of her