Louisa May Alcott

1. A true Utopian community of Transcendentalists was probably a rare thing even then. I was intrigued by the information regarding Timon Lion intending to found a colony of Latter Day Saints. Latter Day Saints(Mormons) are not and were never Transcendentalists in any sense of the word, in my opinion. How the two males, Lion and Lamb, ever thought they could take off into new territory, leasing? someone’s property, unskilled in farming, per se, and also uninitiated in hard manual labor, and succeed at an enterprise such as they had intended. I suppose Louisa May felt somewhat bitter about her experience, and I don’t blame her. But, I am unsure in that regard as I don’t know enough yet about her’s or other’s experiences to judge. Interesting how the mother was able to “hang in” there in spite of the conduct of the males in the company that found rather convenient times to be absent when important manual labor needed to be performed. And then at last, after the bottom had fallen out of the whole scheme and Abel is bent on seeing the adventure through to the end, including the extreme measure of committing suicide through starvation. He is able to see what in his world was truly most important: his wife and little girls. I have to hand it to his wife who prayed for him to live and shed honest tears over his rapturous decision to exit this world through his self-imposed starvation and just giving up. Perhaps it was her good natured commitment and her instinct to provide for family, and in this case, husband, that kept her going. Such pluck. I like the line: “Cheer up, dear heart, for while there is work and love in the world we shall not suffer.” Then, as the frostbitten apple falls to the earth after his comment on the failure of Fruitlands, “Don’t you think Apple Slump would be a better name for it, dear?” Alcott’s wisdom and humor in the story probably also helped her to survive as well as her own mother, through the “ordeal”, as it were, that they lived under themselves. The hand that rocks the cradle......women. Angels among us actually. I know from experience that I married an angel myself, but not before having been previously married to two devils. I’ve written a tune, and had intended it to be humorous, but it turned out quite serious, actually. The title: “When I Die, I’ll Go to Heaven (Cause I’ve Already Lived Through Hell), sums it up for me. Maybe Alcott's story is her way of dealing with the "Hell" she'd been through and was trying to just poke fun. "Crisis plus time equals humor." Sorry to get personal; hope no one is offended. Oh well.