Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-20
In DEBT TO NATURE.
The Tired Body Can Not Borrow
Without Paying Back Ten-FOld.
LESSON IN LOUISA ALCOTT'S LIFE.
Many Women Made Miserable by Fur
mace Air Drawn From Cellars.
GOOD FOOD AND CLOTHES AND BATHS
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH. i

w as Inere ever d LOOK ike tut Lille OF
Louisa Alcott," told in her letters and jour
mails this ye.r? Many will read the record
of family attachment, struggle and self-de-
votion fascinated by its piquant spirit, and
coveting like success. Many will long for
the SIS, 900 in six months paid for her literary
work, but few will read the unwritten
lesson which runs in largest print, inter-
lining the story, lesson repeated with
nearly every ambitious woman of the
century. Let us see if any will catch the
significance OF these extracts.
Miss Alcott writes, January, 1874: "When
I had the youth / had no money; now
have the money have no time; and when I
get the time, if ever do, 1 shall have no
health to enjoy life. Isuppose it's the dis
cipline need; but it's rather hard to love
the things do, and see them 60 by because
duty chains me to my galley"
Going back of this we read of her writing
IA hours day, $50 full of my work 1 can't
stop to eat or sleep or for anything but a
daily run. Paid up all the debts-thank
the Lord-and now feel as if could die in
peace" April-'Very poorly. Feel quite
used up. Don't care much for myself, as
rest is heavenly even without pain. But
the family seem SO helpless and panic
stricken when I break down that try to
keep the mill going"
HARDSHIP ALWAYS.
Still turning the leaves backward we
read: Home to shut up the house, as
father goes West. A cold, hard, dirty time;
but was so glad to be out of Concord that
worked like beaver and turned the kew
with joy. May and went to the new hotel
on Beacon street. and had a queer time eat
ing in a marble cafe, and sleeping on a sofa
bed that we might be genteel. 1t did not
suit me at all. A great gale nearly blew
the roof off. Steam pipes exploded, and we
were hungry. l was very tired with my
hard summr, with no rest for the brains
that earn the money" March-"Cold and
dull. Not able to write" June, 1871
Little Men was out the day I arrived
from Europe. Fifty thousand sold before il
was out" August-"Sick. Holiday soon
over. Too much company and care and
change of climate upset the nerves again"
October-"Deeidedt to 60 to Boston. Con-
cord is so hard for me with its dampness
and worry. Go to Beacon street to rest and
try to get we'll, that 1 may work. Bones
shine and air and quiet made sleep possible
without it,
If Louisa Alcott made her $500, 900 by
her pen, she earned it, and she wore q
martyrs crown to get it, too. Plenty Of
women have neuralgia and premature old
age without the money to soften suffering;
and they, too, write as she did that life is
mystery. There is no mystery about it.
The lesson of all this suffering begins to
dawn upon the race, that by no other disci-
pline, no less penalty, will obstinate, obtuse
human nature ever learn 10 obey the laws
of its own well being. One would think
that three days acute neuralgia would teach
any mortal the advantage of taking care of
ones self.
A HARD LESSON TO LEARN.
But ten, twenty years seems none TOO
much to teach this simple lesson, bright as
sunshine in the universe, the secret of all
loss and decay, that Gods will is that we
should take care of ourselves and our health
first of all. We presume to neglect this
first obvious duty, and soon there is no
grace nor usefulness left IN US. Let
no one presume to censure the Alcotts
for improvidence or failure more
family squander their lives and all that is
best in them the same way. The trouble be-
gan in Louisa Alcott's childhood, when "the
children wearied of their extremely simple
diet of plain boiled rice without sugar and
graham meal without butter or molasses."
Mr.. Alcott was visionary and vegetarian
of the strictest sort. One would think that
his family need not have run deeply into
debt on such fare; but somehow, good food
always pays itself back in keener foresight
and force. Carlyle ruined his health for lie
by living on oatmeal at college, and many
mothers bringing up their children on
stinted, overplain fare, are fitting them for
breakdown just when they want their
strength. Tea-and-toast invalids and women
turned 40 who need little food, and fancy no
one else needs more than themselves; who
insist on hearty younger people cutting off
suppers and doing without sugar or fresh
meat or deserts, all play the same foolish
part, and the whole family usually has to
pay for it.
UNFORTUNATE MARRIAGES.
Marriages without provision of either
money or practical sense are the
first step which 1 shall not hesitate to call
demoralizing they entail such loads of care
and suffering on the innocent for genera
tions. Ill-feeding follows overwork on the
part of the vigorous elder child or two, the
rest being sickly or having happy knack
Of shifting burdens to more willing shoul-
ders. This can hardly be helped by the
child who, like Louisa Alcott resolves "to
pay all the family debts, fix the house, send
sister to Italy and keep the old folks cozy."
Brave heart! But the time comes when we
have our lives in our own hands to guide,
and it belongs to no ones duty to work as
Miss Alcott worked at cold, weary house.
cleanings and closiDgs because others would
Of n haIr duty hat1
In the first place, nobody is compelled to
its dampness. did for this gifted woman what
Scotch mists and London fogs did ior Jane |
Carlyle, sowed the rack in every nerve and |
turned life into horror for years. Thousands |
Of women suffer from the same cause, lose |
bloom and beauty and all that makes life |
worth living, and go on suffering, when |
change of climate, perhaps to the other side |
Of the town or county, would set all right. |
have known the opening of window in /
cellar and wide easement above to turn a |
most unhealthy house into safe, delightful |
,ne. But the bane of woman's health and |
ooks in Northern towns Is the wretched |
practice of living ali winter in houses where |
Ill the air for the furnaces or heaters is |
lrawn
FROM CLOSE CELLARS,
)elnS the air lnat mas uttered tnrough SOIL |
'eeklng with the refuse of sewers and sour
With standing moisture, a double distillate
If putrescence and disease. During the last
winter nowhere have the cases of epidemic
been so disastrous as in close houses with
,ut fireplaces. where all the cellar air was
lrawn into each room from the heater, in
tead of through an air shaft opening out of
loors. The next worse conditions are those
If tightly calked country rooms heated bv !
common stoves or freplacss, draughty and
as those in the Concord house,
where Louisa Alcott took the neuralgia