him, is one of the Concord philosophers, and has his 'ism,' of course. Vegetables and conversation are his forte, and he reared his family on a diet of both, apparently with great success, judging from appearances. He ate weeds and talked and built summer-houses, whose chief use was to be targets for George William Curtis' wit. Once he kept a young ladies' school in Boston, where books were discarded and teaching done entirely by conversation.* He was also a member of those extraordinary assemblages, practicable in Boston alone, over which Margaret Fuller presided, and it must have been a rare sight to see how these two inexhaustible talkers managed to tolerate each other. For it is said that Mr. Alcott's conversations are very much like the Irishman's treaty-the reciprocity is all on one side; or, as a Western host described him once in his invitations to some friends, Come up this evening. I have a philosopher on tap.'

"It is all well enough to joke about Mr. Alcott till you see him. Then to come face to face with this white-haired, benign, gracious old man, makes levity seem irreverent.

a good deal stooped.

scantily around a face

He is over six feet tall, but

His long, grey hair falls beautified by the placidity

* The school was a mixed one, for young scholars.—A. I.

and dignity of old age; he is a perfect counterpart of the pictures of venerable curés one sees in French story books. His manners are very simple and unaffected, and it is his great delight to gather some of his daughters' young friends in his cosy, crimsonlined study and chat with them. Mr. Emerson esteems him highly, but his books seem to be less appreciated by his own people than they are abroad, a fate common to prophets if not philosophers. His most valuable work is a journal faithfully kept for fifty years, carefully bound, indexed, and with letters and other valuable papers ranged on his library shelves. This taste for minute detail, his orderly arrangement, his distinguished associates, and the number of years covered by the record will make these volumes priceless to historians or biographers. If in Emerson's study perpetual twilight reigns, in Alcott's it is always noon. The sun shines in it all day long, the great fireplace roars, and the warm crimson hangings temper the sunlight and reflect the firelight. Quaint mottoes and pictures hang on the walls. The most noticeable picture is a photograph of Carlyle. It is what is called a 'Cameron photograph.' An English woman of rank takes these photographs of distinguished men just for her own amusement. The camera is set out of focus, the

heads nearly life-size, and the general effect is singular interesting, if nothing else. All you can see against a black background is the indistinct outlines of a shaggy white head and beard and sharp features. With all deference to Mr. Carlyle, we must say that he looks like an old beggar.

"Miss May Alcott, a fine-looking, stylish woman, is an artist whom the critic of critics, Ruskin, has declared to be the only successful copyist of Turner. She surely has one attribute not usually allied to her profession-the most generous interest in other artists-not only by word of mouth, but with substantial endeavour. She brought home with her several English water colours, for whose artists she is trying to find American patrons. She herself paints in oil and water colours, and sketches in crayons, charcoal, sepia, ink, and pencil, and is one of the most popular Boston teachers. Her studio at home, a most cobwebby, disorderly, fascinating little den, is frescoed with profiles of her acquaintances—that is the toll cheerfully paid by her visitors-they must be drawn on the wall. She is known to the general reading public through her illustrations of 'Little Women,' in which she fell far short of her usual ability. She and Louisa planned subsequently a charming little book called

'Concord Sketches,' which it is a great pity was never made public. Beside painting, Miss May models in clay sometimes. A head of Mercury and all sorts of pretty little sketches from her hands adorn her home, which is made a still sunnier remembrance to all visitors by her brightness and cordiality.*

"Louisa Alcott, the elder of the two, the darling of all American nurseries, is something of an invalid. She is amiable and interesting, and, like her sister, sociable, unless you unluckily approach her in her character of author, and then the porcupine bristles. There is no favour to be curried with her or Gail Hamilton by talking 'shop.' 'Little Women' is drawn chiefly from Miss Alcott's own home life. Amy the golden-haired, is May, Hemmie and Demmie are her two little nephews, Mr. and Mrs. Marsh her father and mother; she herself is Jo, of course. When the book was first published, children used to come by the dozen from all parts of the country to see 'Jo.' To the calls of these little pilgrims she always presented herself cheerfully, though she used to be infinitely amused at the unmistakable disappointment of her young admirers when they

* This lady married a French nobleman, named Nierecker. She died in January, 1880.-A. I.

saw this delicate, practical-looking lady, slightly stooped, for their rollicking, romping, nimble Jo. Miss Alcott struck a rich vein of popularity and more substantial reward in her juvenile books, though she herself considers 'Hospital Sketches' the best of her writings.

"Some four or five years ago she went into a Boston book-store to leave an order, which the clerk told her could not be attended to, 'because,' said he, not knowing to whom he spoke, 'we shall be busy all day packing books for a Western firm. Two weeks ago we sent ten thousand copies of "Little Women" out there, and to-day comes an order for twenty thousand more.' As soon as they got out of the store her companion turned to her with some congratulatory expression.

"Ah!' said Miss Alcott, drawing a long breath, 'I have waited fifteen years for this day.'

"Mrs. Alcott is a beautiful old lady, herself something of a writer, or, as one of her daughters lovingly says, 'the brightest one of the family.""

EMERSON AND HIS DAUGHTER.

A correspondent of the "Cincinnati Commercial," giving an account of a lecture delivered at Washington, in July, 1876, thus speaks of the beautiful