PINK AND WHITE TYRANNY.

“Make their acquaintance; for Amy will be found delightful, Beth very lovely, Meg beautiful, and Jo splendid!”—The Catholic World.

LITTLE WOMEN. By Louisa M. Alcott. In Two Parts. Price of each $1.50.

“Simply one of the most charming little books that have fallen into our hands for many a day. There is just enough of sadness in it to make it true to life, while it is so full of honest work and whole-souled fun, paints so lively a picture of a home in which contentment, energy, high spirits, and real goodness make up for the lack of money, that it will do good wherever it finds its way. Few will read it without lasting profit.”—Hartford Courant.

“Little Women. By Louisa M. Alcott. We regard these volumes as two of the most fascinating that ever came into a household. Old and young read them with the same eagerness. Lifelike in all their delineations of time, place, and character, they are not only intensely interesting, but full of a cheerful morality, that makes them healthy reading for both fireside and the Sunday school. We think we love ”Jo“ a little better than all the rest, her genius is so happy tempered with affection.”—The Guiding Star.

The following verbatim copy of a letter from a “little woman” is a specimen of many which enthusiasm for her book has dictated to the author of “Little Women:”—

—— March 12, 1870. Dear Jo, or Miss Alcott,—We have all been reading “Little Women,” and we liked it so much I could not help wanting to write to you. We think you are perfectly splendid; I like you better every time I read it. We were all so disappointed about your not marrying Laurie; I cried over that part,—I could not help it. We all liked Laurie ever so much, and almost killed ourselves laughing over the funny things you and he said. We are six sisters and two brothers; and there were so many things in “Little Women” that seemed so natural, especially selling the rags. Eddie is the oldest; then there is Annie (our Meg), then Nelly (that’s me), May and Milly (our Beths), Rosie, Rollie, and dear little Carrie (the baby). Eddie goes away to school, and when he comes home for the holidays we have lots of fun, playing cricket, croquet, base ball, and every thing. If you ever want to play any of those games, just come to our house, and you will find plenty children to play with you. If you ever come to ——, I do wish you would come and see us,—we would

like it so much. I have named my doll after you, and I hope she will try and deserve it. I do wish you would send me a picture of you. I hope your health is better, and you are having a nice time. If you write to me, please direct —— Ill. All the children send their love. With ever so much love, from your affectionate friend, Nelly.

Mailed to any address, postpaid, on receipt of the advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston.

AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL. By Louisa M. Alcott. With Illustrations. Price $1.50.

“Miss Alcott has a faculty of entering into the lives and feelings of children that is conspicuously wanting in most writers who address them; and to this cause, to the consciousness among her readers that they are hearing about people like themselves, instead of abstract qualities labelled with names, the popularity of her books is due. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are friends in every nursery and schoolroom, and even in the parlor and office they are not unknown; for a good story is interesting to older folks as well, and Miss Alcott carries on her children to manhood and womanhood, and leaves them only on the wedding-day.”—Mrs. Sarah J. Hale in Godey’s Ladies’ Book.

“We are glad to see that Miss Alcott is becoming naturalized among us as a writer, and cannot help congratulating ourselves on having done something to bring about the result. The author of ‘Little Women’ is so manifestly on the side of all that is ‘lovely, pure, and of good report’ in the life of women, and writes with such genuine power and humor, and with such a tender charity and sympathy, that we hail her books with no common pleasure. ‘An Old-Fashioned Girl’ is a protest from the other side of the Atlantic against the manners of the creature which we know on this by the name of ‘the Girl of the Period;’ but the attack is delivered with delicacy as well as force.”—The London Spectator.

“A charming little book, brimful of the good qualities of intellect and heart which made ‘Little Women’ so successful. The ‘Old-Fashioned Girl’ carries with it a teaching specially needed at the present day, and we are glad to know it is even already a decided and great success.”—New York Independent.

“Miss Alcott’s new story deserves quite as great a success as her famous ”Little Women,“ and we dare say will secure it. She has written a book which child and parent alike ought to read, for it is neither above the comprehension of the one, nor below the taste of the other. Her boys and girls are so fresh, hearty, and natural, the incidents of her story are so true to life, and the tone is so thoroughly healthy, that a chapter of the ‘Old-Fashioned Girl’ wakes up the unartificial better life within us almost as effectually as an hour spent in the company of good, honest, sprightly children. The Old-Fashioned Girl, Polly Milton, is a delightful creature!”—New York Tribune.

“Gladly we welcome the ‘Old-Fashioned Girl’ to heart and home! Joyfully we herald her progress over the land! Hopefully we look forward to the time when our young people, following her example, will also be old-fashioned in purity of heart and simplicity of life, thus brightening like a sunbeam the atmosphere around them.”—Providence Journal.

Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of the advertised price, by the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston

A VISIT TO MY DISCONTENTED COUSIN. Handy-Volume Series, No. 8. 16mo. $1.00.

BURNAND (F. C.). More Happy Thoughts. 16mo. $1.00.

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN. The Forest House and Catherine’s Lovers. 16mo. $1.50.

HELPS (Arthur). Essays Written in the Intervals of Business. 16mo. $1.50.

—— Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. 16mo. $1.50.

—— Conversations on War and General Culture. 16mo. $1.50.

HALE (Edward E.). Ten times One is Ten. 16mo. $0.88.

HAMERTON (Philip G.). Thoughts about Art. 16mo. $2.00.

INGELOW (Jean). The Monitions of the Unseen, and Poems of Love and Childhood. 12 Illustrations. 16mo. $1.50.

JUDD (Sylvester). Margaret: A Tale of the Real and the Ideal, of Blight and Bloom. 16mo. $1.50.

—— Richard Edney and the Governor’s Family. 16mo. $1.50.

KONEWKA (Paul). Silhouette Illustrations to Goethe’s Faust. Quarto. $4.00.

LOWELL (Mrs. A. C.). Posies for Children. 16mo. $0.75.

LANDOR (Walter Savage). Pericles and Aspasia. 16mo. $1.50.

MAX AND MAURICE. Translated by Charles T. Brooks. 12mo. $1.50.

MICHELET (M. Jules). France Before Europe. 16mo. $1.00.

PARKER (Joseph). Ad Clerum: Advices to a Young Preacher. 16mo. $1.50.

PRESTON (Harriet W.). Aspendale. 16mo. $1.50.

PUCK’S NIGHTLY PRANKS. Silhouette Illustrations by Paul Konewka. Paper Covers. $0.50

SEELEY (J. R.). Roman Imperialism and Other Lectures and Essays. 16mo. $1.50.

STOWE (Harriet Beecher). Pink and White Tyranny. 16mo. $1.50.

JOHN WHOPPER’S ADVENTURES. 16mo. $0.75.

“Miss Alcott is really a benefactor of House-holds.”—H. H.

LITTLE MEN: Life at Plumfield with Jo’s Boys. By Louisa M. Alcott. With Illustrations. Price $1.50.

“The gods are to be congratulated upon the success of the Alcott experiment, as well as all childhood, young and old, upon the singular charm of the little men and little women who have run forth from the Alcott cottage, children of a maiden whose genius is beautiful motherhood.”—The Examiner.

“No true-hearted boy or girl can read this book without deriving benefit from the perusal: nor, for that matter, will it the least injure children of a larger growth to endeavor to profit by the examples of gentleness and honesty set before them in its pages. What a delightful school ‘Jo’ did keep! Why, it makes us want to live our childhood’s days over again, in the hope that we might induce some kind-hearted female to establish just such a school, and might prevail upon our parents to send us, ‘because it was cheap.’ . . . We wish the genial authoress a long life in which to enjoy the fruits of her labor, and cordially thank her, in the name of our young people, for her efforts in their behalf.”—Waterbury American.

“Miss Alcott, whose name has already become a household word among little people, will gain a new hold upon their love and admiration by this little book. It forms a fitting sequel to ‘Little Women,’ and contains the same elements of popularity. . . . We expect to see it even more popular than its predecessor, and shall heartily rejoice at the success of an author whose works afford so much hearty and innocent enjoyment to the family circle, and teach such pleasant and wholesome lessons to old and young.”—N. Y. Times.

“Suggestive, truthful, amusing, and racy, in a certain simplicity of style which very few are capable of producing. It is the history of only six months’ school-life of a dozen boys, but is full of variety and vitality, and the having girls with the boys is a charming novelty, too. To be very candid, this book is so thoroughly good that we hope Miss Alcott will give us another in the same genial vein, for she understands children and their ways.”—Phil. Press.

A specimen letter from a little woman to the author of “Little Men.”

June 17, 1871. Dear Miss Alcott,—We have just finished “Little Men,” and like it so much that we thought we would write and ask you to write another book sequel to “Little Men,” and have more about Laurie and Amy, as we like them the best. We are the Literary Club, and we got the idea from “Little Women.” We have a paper two sheets of foolscap and a half. There are four of us, two cousins and my sister and myself. Our assumed names are: Horace Greeley, President; Susan B. Anthony, Editor; Harriet B. Stowe, Vice-President; and myself, Anna C. Ritchie, Secretary. We call our paper the “Saturday Night,” and we all write stories and have reports of sermons and of our meetings, and write about the queens of England. We did not know but you would like to hear this, as the idea sprang from your book; and we thought we would write, as we liked your book so much. And now, if it is not too much to ask of you, I wish you would answer this, as we are very impatient to know if you will write another book; and

please answer soon, as Miss Anthony is going away, and she wishes very much to hear from you before she does. If you write, please direct to —— Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. Yours truly, Alice ——.

Mailed to any address, postpaid, on receipt of the advertised price, by the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1871.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. CAMBRIDGE: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

[v]

PREFACE.

MY Dear Reader,—This story is not to be a novel, as the world understands the word; and we tell you so beforehand, lest you be in ill-humor by not finding what you expected. For if you have been told that your dinner is to be salmon and green peas, and made up your mind to that bill of fare, and then, on coming to the table, find that it is beefsteak and tomatoes, you may be out of sorts; not because beefsteak and tomatoes are not respectable viands, but because they are not what you have made up your mind to enjoy.

Now, a novel, in our days, is a three-story affair,—a complicated, complex, multiform composition, requiring no end of scenery and dramatis personæ, and plot and plan, together with trap-doors, pit-falls, wonderful escapes and thrilling dangers; and the scenes transport one all over the earth,—to England, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and Kamtschatka. But this is a little commonplace[vi] history, all about one man and one woman, living straight along in one little prosaic town in New England. It is, moreover, a story with a moral; and for fear that you shouldn’t find out exactly what the moral is, we shall adopt the plan of the painter who wrote under his pictures, “This is a bear,” and “This is a turtle-dove.” We shall tell you in the proper time succinctly just what the moral is, and send you off edified as if you had been hearing a sermon. So please to call this little sketch a parable, and wait for the exposition thereof.

[vii]

CONTENTS.

[1]

CHAPTER I. FALLING IN LOVE.

“WHO is that beautiful creature?” said John Seymour, as a light, sylph-like form tripped[2] up the steps of the veranda of the hotel where he was lounging away his summer vacation.

“That! Why, don’t you know, man? That is the celebrated, the divine Lillie Ellis, the most adroit ‘fisher of men’ that has been seen in our days.”

“By George, but she’s pretty, though!” said John, following with enchanted eyes the distant motions of the sylphide.

The vision that he saw was of a delicate little fairy form; a complexion of pearly white, with a cheek of the hue of a pink shell; a fair, sweet, infantine face surrounded by a fleecy radiance of soft golden hair. The vision appeared to float in some white gauzy robes; and, when she spoke or smiled, what an innocent, fresh, untouched, unspoiled look there was upon the face! John gazed, and thought of all sorts of poetical similes: of a “daisy just wet with morning dew;” of a “violet by a mossy stone;” in short, of all the things that poets have made and provided for the use of young gentlemen in the way of falling in love.

This John Seymour was about as good and honest a man as there is going in this world of ours. He was a generous, just, manly, religious young fellow. He was heir to a large, solid property; he was a well-read lawyer, established in a flourishing business; he was a man that all the world spoke well of, and had cause to speak well of. The only duty to society which John had left as yet unperformed was that of matrimony. Three and thirty years had passed; and, with every advantage for supporting a wife, with a charming home[3] all ready for a mistress, John, as yet, had not proposed to be the defender and provider for any of the more helpless portion of creation. The cause of this was, in the first place, that John was very happy in the society of a sister, a little older than himself, who managed his house admirably, and was a charming companion to his leisure hours; and, in the second place, that he had a secret, bashful self-depreciation in regard to his power of pleasing women, which made him ill at ease in their society. Not that he did not mean to marry. He

certainly did. But the fair being that he was to marry was a distant ideal, a certain undefined and cloudlike creature; and, up to this time, he had been waiting to meet her, without taking any definite steps towards that end. To say the truth, John Seymour, like many other outwardly solid, sober-minded, respectable citizens, had deep within himself a little private bit of romance. He could not utter it, he never talked it; he would have blushed and stammered and stuttered wofully, and made a very poor figure, in trying to tell any one about it; but nevertheless it was there, a secluded chamber of imagery, and the future Mrs. John Seymour formed its principal ornament.

The wife that John had imaged, his dream-wife, was not at all like his sister; though he loved his sister heartily, and thought her one of the best and noblest women that could possibly be.

But his sister was all plain prose,—good, strong, earnest, respectable prose, it is true, but yet prose. He could read English history with her, talk accounts and[4] business with her, discuss politics with her, and valued her opinions on all these topics as much as that of any man of his acquaintance. But, with the visionary Mrs. John Seymour aforesaid, he never seemed to himself to be either reading history or settling accounts, or talking politics; he was off with her in some sort of enchanted cloudland of happiness, where she was all to him, and he to her,—a sort of rapture of protective love on one side, and of confiding devotion on the other, quite inexpressible, and that John would not have talked of for the world.

So when he saw this distant vision of airy gauzes, of pearly whiteness, of sea-shell pink, of infantine smiles, and waving, golden curls, he stood up with a shy desire to approach the wonderful creature, and yet with a sort of embarrassed feeling of being very awkward and clumsy. He felt, somehow, as if he were a great, coarse behemoth; his arms seemed to him awkward appendages; his hands suddenly appeared to him rough, and his fingers swelled and stumpy. When he thought of asking an introduction, he felt himself growing very hot, and blushing to the roots of his hair.

“Want to be introduced to her, Seymour?” said Carryl Ethridge. “I’ll trot you up. I know her.”

“No, thank you,” said John, stiffly. In his heart, he felt an absurd anger at Carryl for the easy, assured way in which he spoke of the sacred creature who seemed to him something too divine to be lightly talked of. And then he saw Carryl marching up to her with his air of easy assurance. He saw the bewitching[5] smile come over that fair, flowery face; he saw Carryl, with unabashed familiarity, take her fan out of her hand, look at it as if it were a mere common, earthly fan, toss it about, and pretend to fan himself with it.

[6]

“I didn’t know he was such a puppy!” said John to himself, as he stood in a sort of angry bashfulness, envying the man that was so familiar with that loveliness.

Ah! John, John! You wouldn’t, for the world, have told to man or woman what a fool you were at that moment.

“What a fool I am!” was his mental commentary: “just as if it was any thing to me.” And he turned, and walked to the other end of the veranda.

“I think you’ve hooked another fish, Lillie,” said Belle Trevors in the ear of the little divinity.

“Who. . . ?”

“Why! that Seymour there, at the end of the veranda. He is looking at you, do you know? He is rich, very rich, and of an old family. Didn’t you see how he started and looked after you when you came up on the veranda?”

“Oh! I saw plain enough,” said the divinity, with one of her unconscious, baby-like smiles.

“What are you ladies talking?” said Carryl Ethridge.

“Oh, secrets!” said Belle Trevors. “You are very presuming, sir, to inquire.”

“Mr. Ethridge,” said Lillie Ellis, “don’t you think it would be nice to promenade?”

This was said with such a pretty coolness, such a quiet composure, as showed Miss Lillie to be quite mistress of the situation; there was, of course, no sort of design in it.

[7]

Ethridge offered his arm at once; and the two sauntered to the end of the veranda, where John Seymour was standing.

The blood rushed in hot currents over him, and he could hear the beating of his heart: he felt somehow as if the hour of his fate was coming. He had a wild desire to retreat, and put it off. He looked over the end of the veranda, with some vague idea of leaping it; but alas! it was ten feet above ground, and a lover’s leap would have only ticketed him as out of his head. There was nothing for it but to meet his destiny like a man.

Carryl came up with the lady on his arm; and as he stood there for a moment, in the coolest, most indifferent tone in the world, said, “Oh! by the by, Miss Ellis, let me present my friend Mr. Seymour.”

[8]

The die was cast.

John’s face burned like fire: he muttered something about “being happy to make Miss Ellis’s acquaintance,” looking all the time as if he would be glad to jump over the railing, or take wings and fly, to get rid of the happiness.