Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1888-04-07
TWO POINTS OF WARNING
SUGGESTED IN CONNECTION WITH
LOUISA M. ALCoTT'S CAREER.

ISSiOrt SNISot y SfNrCCrs
why Was So Valuable n Life Cut on So
EarIy?-Excess Of To,i--Espenditures
and Income-The Periis OF Abundant
Work.
It IL rare to see woman who, IL tried
by her own standard and that OF those
Immediately around her, has led nobler
or more completely satisfactory life than
Louisa Alcott. But since we ought never
TO be satisfied either with ourselves or
with anybody else, and since one OF the
chief uses Of the study OF fine character
is to discover wherein IL could be yet
finer, there is always lesson to
be drawn from the very limitations
Of each career. The finest thought
ever expressed by IIowells, think, is
where he suggests that success itself may
perhaps seem very much like failure, seen
from the inside; and there are few emf
nent persons, probably, SO sunk I'm conceit
that they could not afford to others GER
tain warnings as well as examples from
their own achievements. The obituaries
usually miss such warnings; indeed, they
are apt to turn expressly away from them
and think 1t little ungenerous to draw
them, the consequence being that such
obituaries are as yalueless as an inscrip-
tion on monument and, like that, re-
duce all character to level Of common
place and conventional virtue. There are,
perhaps, but two points Of warning, or
even of limitation, that need to be sug-
gested In connection with Miss Alcott's
brilliant career, but each of these is Of
some weight
First it is fair to ask why this valuable
life was cut Off so early-at 55 instead of
80, this last being her fathers term of
years. Was 1t not because she burned the
candle too desperately, while his burned
calmly and Mt times even feeblyp OF late
years she has suffered repeatedly, 1t is
stated, from nervous prostration and other
disorders coming from excess of work.
She never had any leisure; she was always
overworked. Grant that this evil came
largelyfrom those cxacting demands OF
admirers and correspondents which have
been more than once pointed out in these
columns, and which make 1t often hard
for a really useful life to prolong itself
But ! suspect there was another reason,
which seldom fails to tell upon successful
authors. The late Mr.. James Il. Fields
once told me that he asked Charles Reade,
when at the height of his fame, "Why do
you give us no more of those delightful
shorter tales like Peg Wellington and
Christie Johnstone,' Oh which your fame
was first foundedf' "Because," said
Reade, simply, 81 cannot now afford it."
When he was comparatively poor and un-
known he could write masterpieces; when
he had achieved fame and fortune, and
| acquired the habits that come with these,
he no longer had the leisure to write them.
| 1t is the same with health, time, and life
| itself. The young girl who earns So by
her first published story has an immense
sense of wealth; let her cherish IL, for she
| will probably never feel so rich again. AS
rule, II you earn $500 year, you spend
it; II you earn $1,000 year, your stand
ard OF expenditures almost invariably ex-
pands to match it; and for the most part,
| the more money one earns, the harder it
Is to take vacation. This applies to
those who spend money seliishly, but it
applies with tenfold force to those who
are generous.
When the writer was planning in the
autumn OF 1861 to enlist regiment for
the civil war; it occurred to him to invite
the celebrated John B. Cough to go as
chaplain, since his personal magnetism
and cloquence, although he was not a
clergyman, would hc felt through the
whole Union army. On inquiryit turned
| out that Mr. Cough was absolutely fet-
II
fuse charities, he could easily earn $50 or
800 n day the year round by lecturing;
| but all this large income was mortgaged
! In advance to young men whom he was
] educating and poor families whom he was
supporting, so that he absolutely could
not afford to stop work for moment.
Had he been poorer, he could have gone.
So when one reads Of Miss Alcott's coming
| into the Office of The Woman's Journal,
and bringing 800 that she had earned
before breakfast, lone is led to ask whether
| it would not have been better not to have
earned 1t than to give 1t away so lavishly
as TO have to go TO work after breakfast
for another 800, instead OF taking a day
Off and letting the tired brain rest. 1t is
the last lesson ever learned by writers
and artists to be wisely economical of
| themselves and To spare the sources from
which prosperity and usefulness too easily
flow.
The other lesson goes deeper. Miss Al
colts intellectual work itself found q
| limitation in its grade by reason of its
ready abundance. She had the ear of hel
| public; she was, as was said of her, 80
benefactor of Households and perhaps
she did-it is impossible to prove the con
trary-the very highest work of whicl
She was capable. But it was not yer,
| HlBn or very peTluantnti sle neNe
equaled her first successful work of fic
J ton, and for the rest Of her life, as in tn,
case OF Bret IIarte, she simply repeate,
the same few deliueations. They We're, o
course, more innocent and healthful thai
llarte's, but they were rs monotonous
children, doubtless, continued to cry TO
, them, but no maturer reader-at leas
, | none familiar with Northumberland L
keep the run of them. Her muse was do
, mestic, simple and sociabe; the instinc
! Of art she never had. 1t is difficult t
, imagine her as pondering a situation
deeply, still less as concerning hersel
, about phrase or diction. In this she wa
curiously unlike Helen Jackson, who wa
an artist by nature and by habit, and VIII
, was able to write Ramona" SO rapid
that it seemed an improvisation, becaus
she had learned the use of her tools "
, fore.-T. w. Iigginsou in IIarper's BE-
Ear
, Land Good for Oranges.