Trix Wilkins's Blog: Much ado about Little Women, page 10

The Palace Beautiful: The Little Women trail #5

By Trix Wilkins

There is something intriguing about the history of a home – who designed it and why, what accomplishments occurred under its refuge, who might have met within its walls and what precious moments might have consequently transpired? This trail follows the homes from the life of Louisa May Alcott that appear to make cameo appearances in Little Women – from their humble homes in Concord to the Hancock family manor in Boston.

The March sisters’ plays: Hillside House (now known as The Wayside)

“In a suburb of the city…an old brown house, looking rather bare and shabby, robbed in of the vines that in summer covered its walls, and the flowers which then surrounded it.”

According to Louisa’s teacher, Henry David Thoreau, Hillside was haunted by one of its previous owners. Despite this, Louisa spent happy early teenage years here and it became one of the homes that inspired the Marches’ abode.

Hillside features the staircase where the Alcott sisters played Pilgrim’s Progress, walking up and down carrying “burdens” representative of those the March sisters bemoan in the opening chapter of Little Women.

They staged performances at the Hillside barn, including “Roderigo,” the play the March sisters perform at Christmas for the neighborhood children.

Just as Jo wrote the plays performed by her sisters, so did Louisa – and just as the March sisters invited their neighbor Laurie into the PC&PO, the Alcotts too joined with their neighbors in forming a dramatic society.

It was also at Hillside that Louisa had, for the first time, a room to herself (very much akin to Jo’s garret, where she would escape to be alone and write). It was a room cherished by the thirteen year old Louisa, who credits her mother Abigail with having taken the time and care to make it “very pretty and neat for me.”

Just as Marmee encouraged Jo to write, so too did Abigail spur her daughter to write daily. Louisa did – and it was Hillside she began writing her first published book, Flower Fables.

The writings of Jo March: Orchard House

While Hillside might have inspired the scenes at the March family home, it is Orchard House that is most synonymous with the novel. Named after the abundant orchard of apple trees gracing the property, the house is alluded to in references to Jo’s genius burning – during these occasions, she would retreat to the garret armed with baskets of apples and her writing hat.

It became Louisa’s most permanent home, where she was said to finally feel comfortable enough to pursue creative interests. Today the house is a museum to the Alcott family – and remains fitted with the “shelf desk” at which Louisa wrote Little Women.

Jo and Laurie meet at the New Year’s Eve ball: Nichols House

Seeking the closer company of friends, relatives, and potential employment, Louisa’s mother Abigail advocated for moving to Boston. The Alcott family spent some years living in the prestigious Boston suburb of Beacon Hill – where Louisa’s great-aunt had lived.

An example of a Federal-style four-story brick townhouse, Nichols House may not have been historically connected with the Alcotts, but remains a prominent feature of Beacon Hill. It was built by Massachusetts state senator Jonathan Mason in the early 19th century.

Filled with 16th-19th-century furnishings and decorative arts, the house showcases how Beacon Hill’s residents lived – residents to whom the March sisters might have been connected closely enough to have been invited to events such as the Gardiners’ ball, likely held in such a home.

Jo works for Aunt March: Massachussetts State House & Hancock Manor

One of the oldest buildings in Beacon Hill, the Massachusetts State House is graced with marble floors, spacious rooms, and works of art.

The land on which it stands had originally been part of the estate surrounding Hancock Manor, utilized as John Hancock’s cow pasture.

Now John Hancock was not only the first governor of Massachusetts – he was also the husband of Louisa’s great-aunt Dorothy Quincy, on whom Little Women’s Aunt March is reputably modelled. Their home, Hancock Manor, was nothing short of opulent.

A three-story granite mansion, this home was ensconced in massive brown stone walls and graced with ornamental windows that opened into beautiful extensive views over a family estate including gardens, orchards, fruit-tree nurseries, coach house, stable, and pastures.

The manor might have easily inspired Louisa’s pictures of Plumfield, and perhaps even Laurie’s luxurious home next to the Marches. One would walk up granite steps paved with sandstone to enter the foyer, before moving leisurely through the carved broad staircase into the elaborately panelled wooden hall, great ballroom, or great dining room.

Hancock Manor’s staircase landing featured a window seat looking out upon the garden and the city – the sort of window Laurie might have stared forlornly out of until Jo threw the snowball up to him to inquire after his health. Unfortunately it is no longer possible to lounge on this sublime window seat – in 1863 the manor was sold at a public auction and promptly demolished.

Jo visits Laurie at “the Palace Beautiful”: The Old Manse

The Old Manse in Concord might also have informed the imagining of the Laurence estate. Home to Louisa’s distinguished neighbour Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Trustees of Reservations describes the Old Manse as “a handsome Georgian home…among rolling fields edged by centuries-old stone walls and graced by an orchard;” very much akin to the portrayal of Laurie’s house in Little Women: “a stately stone mansion, plainly betokening every sort of comfort and luxury, from the big coach-house and well-kept grounds to the conservatory.”

One can picture Laurie racing down the stairs back to his guest or playing the piano, Jo gazing at the countless library books and James Laurence’s portrait on the wall.

Jo is first published: 20 Pinckney St, Beacon Hill

After Laurie accidentally runs into Jo as she’s coming out of the newspaper offices after submitting her first story for publication, he shares her excitement and hope, exults that she is “the celebrated American authoress,” and they race down a hill on the way home.

It is at Beacon Hill where Louisa’s first story, The Rival Painters, was published in 1853 – and the first published story of her Little Women counterpart, Jo March, bore the same title.

The home of Mr March: James St, Syracuse, New York

A descendant of the Alcott family, Eve LaPlante, recently wrote Marmee & Louisa – a biography of mother-daughter duo Abigail and Louisa, in which she laid out the attributes and histories of Louisa’s father and that of her mother’s brother, Samuel Joseph May. She persuasively argued that the more likely model for Mr March was in fact the latter.

A dedicated and affectionate brother, Samuel May had taken time to tutor Louisa’s mother Abigail in philosophy and the humanities, multiplying the effects of his schooling in Harvard – similarly, Mrs March reveals to Jo that her husband had shared his learning with her, expanding her mind and capacity to innovate. He stepped in to help Louisa’s family in their most dire need; he was known to lavish practical kindness on the needy.

Louisa describes the father of Jo March as “a minister in nature as by grace. A quiet, studious man, rich in the wisdom that is better than learning…earnest young men found the gray-headed scholar as earnest and as young as heart as they; thoughtful or troubled women instinctively brought their doubts and sorrows to him, sure of finding the gentlest sympathy, the wisest counsel; sinners told their sins to the pure-hearted old man, and were both rebuked and saved; gifted men found a companion in him; ambitious men caught glimpses of nobler ambitions than their own.”

History has attributed Bronson Alcott with novel ideas and brilliant intellect, but such language as Louisa uses in Little Women more closely resembles the platitudes spoken of Samuel Joseph May, “the most truly Christian man I have ever known—the purest, the sweetest, the fullest of faith, hope, and charity, the most like the Master.”

Today, the Syracuse City Hall Common Council Chambers (pictured above) features a Little Women exhibit displaying the local connections of the Alcotts to Syracuse – including a photograph of Samuel Joseph May’s home, where he hosted Louisa and her family during the 1850s and 1860s (he served in Syracuse as a minister for about twenty years until 1862).

It is reputed to have been a modest home – much like that of the Marches, where daughters wife and neighbors rushed to welcome home the beloved father, husband and friend.

Pastimes in Paris: The Little Women trail #4

By Trix Wilkins

Photo of the Bibliothèque Mazarine Reading Room by Marie Lan-Nguyen, courtesy of Wikipedia

Questions are telling. They reveal nearly as much about the questioner as the one being asked. This trail is about the questions in Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic that inevitably lead to Paris, with its treasure trove of books and music that remain for the finding to this day.

“Did you go to Paris?”

“Did you go to Paris?”

“We spent last winter there.”

What a loaded question this is! From five words we can infer the following things about Jo: she considers Laurie a young man of fortune (only young men and women of fortune would have had the opportunity to travel to fashionable places such as Paris, purportedly brought by well-meaning and well-connected parents to round out their education), she is not daunted by the fact that he is wealthy and she is not (she pelts him with “eager questions” despite their difference in social status), and she wants to go to Paris (not explicitly stated, but most certainly implied!).

“Who are your heroes?”

“Who are your heroes?” asked Jo.

“Grandfather and Napoleon.”

… “Which [lady] do you like best?” from Fred.

“Jo, of course.”

If I had read only this exchange in all of Little Women, I would still count Jo and Laurie amongst my favorite literary characters. Jo’s is a brilliant question in any context, but especially during a game of Truth (a game in which all participants are obliged to answer any question). The others ask Laurie about women. (The fact that the woman Laurie likes best is not the woman he thinks prettiest had me shelve him with the likes of Darcy and Knightley, at this point in the narrative.) Not Jo. She asks Laurie of his heroes.

Essentially, what Jo is really asking of Laurie is: “What sort of person do you aspire to become? What are the qualities in a person you admire most? When you’re unsure over a decision, whose example do you think of first and foremost? Where do you wish to see yourself in ten years, in fifty years?” It’s a deeply probing yet also disarming question.

As for Laurie’s response, I admit this threw me at first. I could easily understand Laurie’s admiration for his grandfather (despite his reticence to inherit his grandfather’s business), but of all the notable figures throughout history, why Napoleon? I couldn’t imagine military conquest and empire creation drawing Laurie to the “Man of Destiny.”

I could however imagine the following reasons for his avowed admiration for a French emperor of relatively humble origins despite his own aristocratic half-English background: he wanted to rattle Fred Vaughn’s cage (Fred had after all just cheated Jo in croquet – what might irk an English patriot more than informing him one’s hero a) is French and b) attempted and arguably succeeded in challenging Britain’s supremacy in Europe?), he sympathized with Napoleon’s early loss of his father, he admired Napoleon for transferring ownership of and access to Paris’ greatest libraries and theatres to the public, his mother might have been involved in similarly revolutionary efforts towards Italian unification.

“Genius; don’t you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?”

“What do you most wish for?” said Laurie.

…“Genius; don’t you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?” and she slyly smiled in his disappointed face.

I laugh every time I read this exchange. By returning the question to the questioner, Jo informs Laurie, “I want the sort of learning and talent that is only possible to acquire on my own. Your wealth empowers you, and you are accustomed to being able to possess or bestow anything you wish, but all your money cannot buy genius. This is one thing that isn’t in your power to give.”

This is a long bow to Paris, but I’m going to do it anyway (for those who have a love of Paris and/or great libraries, you’ll soon understand why): “Genius” makes me think of talent honed over time through practice, discipline, and creativity; which requires learning from masters of the past; which implies research and study neither of which are as effective without books; which necessarily leads to: libraries. Libraries whose collections have been procured over a long period of time, from a vast variety of sources, and accessible to any with the heart and will to search.

Onward to Paris

“He loved books as much as she… [She] love[s] music dearly.” Of Jo and Laurie, Little Women

All these questions lead to Paris: the scene of Laurie’s last winter before the opening of Little Women, the object of Laurie’s hero’s projects of the arts, the seat of some of the world’s most extensive collections of books and music.

Which brings us to the grand libraries and theatres of Paris – and what Jo and Laurie might have loved about them.

Bibliothèque Mazarine: T he oldest public library in France

Jo – its history (its chief librarian, Abbé Gaspard Michel, channelled books confiscated during the French Revolution into the library, including several thousand volumes from aristocratic and monastic libraries as well as conquered territories), the Gutenberg Bible dating back to 1250, the historical focus of its collection such as religious history and the history of the printed book.

Laurie – the secret door hidden among the velvet-draped shelves towards the back of its grand reading room, the beauty of its architecture and design.

Bibliothèque Richelieu-Louvois: O pened to the public 1868, the year Little Women was first published

Jo – the collection bequeathed by author Victor Hugo in 1881.

Laurie – its history in relation to Napoleon: after four centuries under aristocratic and monastic control, Napoleon deemed the library “the property of the French people” and proceeded to add to its collection during the course of his conquests.

Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève: A regal library built in the style of the Eiffel tower

Jo – the stone facade engraved with the names of hundreds of thinkers and scholars including Galileo, Copernicus, and Shakespeare; the rare book and manuscript collection dating back to the 9th century.

Laurie – the beauty and novelty of its architecture – it was one of the first buildings to extensively use cast iron which allowed for a significantly greater and lighter space.

Bibliothèque Forney: One of three remaining medieval private residences in Paris

Jo – it was a library designed as a “popular library,” a legacy for the education of craftsmen who could work on site, borrow books and models, and improve their own documentation.

Laurie – its inclusion of foreign works including Italian; its turbulent history and eventual restoration.

Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne: The largest library in Paris today

Jo – its romantic location in the medieval Sorbonne building; its emphasis on history: the history of Europe, historiography and world history.

Laurie – its acquisitions in German, Spanish and Italian literature.

Médiathèque Musicale Mahler: The library dedicated to musical instruments

Jo – the violin and clarinet music being continuously played inside the library.

Laurie – its dedication to resource music professionals and students; its unique collection of books, recordings, periodicals, and personal archives relating to 19th century music; its location in an elegant private home.

Palais Garnier: The opulent Parisian Opera House

Jo – the opera library’s collection conserving three centuries of the theatre’s history; the massive stone blocks dating from 1870 that remain in the staircase leading to the exhibition hall; the persevering artistry involved in the ceiling painted by Marc Chagall.

Laurie – its construction in the tradition of Italian theatre; the adept engineering involved in the construction of its metallic structure covered by marble, velvet, gilding and crystal chandeliers; the permanent exhibition of paintings, drawings, photographs and set models.

Théâtre du Rond-Point: Commemorating Napeleon’s victories

Jo – the fact that it had been converted into an ice skating rink complete with a cafe, promenade and stage for an orchestra until the 1980s.

Laurie – decorations outside the building featuring panoramas of Napoleon’s great battles.

Théâtre National de l’Opéra Comique: A combination of loves

What Jo and Laurie would both have loved – its three centuries long “alternately turbulent and prestigious history;” its persistence until the present making it one of the oldest French dramatic and musical institutions; a joint dream of writing plays and musicals consequently performed here.

 

“I’m to be a famous musician myself, and all creation is to rush to hear me.”

… “I’d write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous as Laurie’s music.”

Jo and Laurie of their castles in the air, Little Women

 

More about the libraries of Paris…

Boswell, Paul (2007). The Quieter Attractions: Three Paris Libraries to Visit 

Lesnie, Melissa (2014). Secret Libraries of Paris

Miller-Bottome, Isobel (2016). The 10 most beautiful libraries in Paris

Hints of Heidelberg: The Little Women trail #3

By Trix Wilkins

Photo courtesy of Adventures of a Globe Trotter

“The hall was empty, and they had a grand polk, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, while delighted Jo, being full of swing and spring. When the music stopped they sat down on the stairs to get their breath, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a students’ festival in Heidelberg…”

This is one of my favorite scenes in Little Women. A nineteenth-century new year’s eve ball featuring gowns, gloves, and dancing, through which Jo and Laurie formally meet. After the initial awkwardness of running into each other behind a curtain, they connect immediately, exchanging stories of the past and opinions on present company. They laugh and dance. It is an idyllic circumstance hinting at new beginnings and hitherto unimagined possibilities.

Heidelberg is noted only once in the entire book: this one occasion following Jo and Laurie’s private dance. It then vanishes completely from the novel. Little Women glances over Heidelberg so briefly that I almost didn’t include it in this trail. After all, absolutely nothing occurs here. But as I read and re-read this passage, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this passing mention remains somehow significant.

At first, I couldn’t explain to myself why I felt so strongly about this. Later, I discovered Louisa May Alcott herself had visited Heidelberg in 1865, a few years prior to her writing Little Women. Her journals describe the city as “a charming old place surrounded by mountains…the moon rose while we were there and completed the enchantment of the scene.”

One of the endearing qualities of Little Women is the presence of such hints at lived experience. They point to a fullness of possibility. The hint of Heidelberg is significant not only because of the actual history Louisa herself lived, but the potential history that might have taken place within the narrative of Little Women. It is about the stories and ideas that were not explored, different pasts, different futures. And it is the nature of possibility to lend itself to exploration – almost to beg, really, for exploration.

Which brings us to this trail. This is a trail of possibility. These are the places in Heidelberg that might have featured in Little Women – and the stories that might have taken place within them.

A possible past: for love of music

At some point before the opening of Little Women, Laurie develops his love for and talent in music – at least well enough to play as impressively as he does when Jo visits him. Heidelberg in the 1860s had entered an era in which learning thrived. The nineteenth century saw Heidelberg University become renowned for its extensive research, democratic ethos, and openness to new ideas. Students the world over were welcomed and drawn to its halls.

Laurie would not have attended Heidelberg University, but perhaps the atmosphere of Germany’s oldest university and its stance towards learning might have been palpably felt at the student festival he mentioned to Jo. Heidelberg might have been the city where he met and received encouragement from others who shared his love for music, learned to embrace and hone his talents, and perhaps met his some of his closest friends, the Vaughns.

A possible present: adventures abroad

The possibility that intrigues me most in relation to Heidelberg is: what if Aunt March and Aunt Carrol had chosen Jo to accompany the latter abroad instead of Amy? Instead of Amy’s letters regarding Fred Vaughn’s courtship, we might have read Jo’s dispatches regarding European history interspersed with anecdotes consisting of shrewd observations and pranks on her travelling companions (I’m imagining Aunt Carrol similar to Aunt March in temperament…).

I cannot imagine Jo traipsing about too freely whilst in Aunt Carrol’s company, but she most certainly would have been exposed to at least the fashionable places to tour, such as the Schloss Heidelberg. As they walked across the red sandstone arches of the century-old bridge Karl Theodor over the Neckar River towards this impressive castle, Aunt Carrol might have talked of the significance of their present location to the Protestant Reformation (remember Aunt March’s proclivity for sermons? Aunt Carrol might have shared the same).

Meanwhile, Jo might have been gazing across the river wondering who might be strolling at that very same moment across its sister-bridge, the Brückentor, whilst imagining all sorts of stories and itching to record them.

After having discussed Martin Luther’s defense of the 95 theses at Heidelberg, Aunt Carrol might have tired – and been more amenable to allowing Jo to continue a walk on her own. Jo would have persuaded her that the Philosophenweg, along the side of the Heiligenberg, was a perfectly genteel and acceptable walk for a young lady. It was after all, where the university philosophers would reputably stroll to ruminate over their ideas.

When Aunt Carrol had become accustomed to Jo’s walks, I imagine Jo would have agitated for a visit to one of the oldest and largest botanical gardens in Germany (conveniently located adjacent to the university), the Botanischer Garten. In exchange, Aunt Carrol would have requested her company to the Heiliggeistkirche, a church with enviable views that had been unusually shared by the Catholics and Protestants for over a century.

A possible consequence: the question unasked

Had Aunt Carrol taken Jo to Europe, Laurie would have graduated from college while she was away – and the proposal in the grove would never have taken place. Instead, he might have travelled to meet Jo immediately after graduation. Together they might have explored the countryside of Heidelberg enroute to the summit of Königstuhl in the Odenwald forest.

Would he still have proposed? I believe so. The original storyline sees Laurie spend the last year of his studies “[digging] to some purpose;” Jo goes to New York to avoid him to temper his affection for her, only to find her absence and ambition merely increased his ardor. In this scenario, she would simply have been absent in a different place.

I imagine Jo would have written letters consisting of her travels, including places Laurie himself had visited in his youth, instead of her encounters with Professor Bhaer in New York (she would not have met the professor at all…unless he hailed from Heidelberg and been one of those philosophers who regularly frequented the Philosophenweg). She might even have written several manuscripts.

Would she still have refused him? I’m not so sure. If she had travelled abroad, it is unlikely Jo would have had the conversation with Mrs March during which the latter said she and Laurie did not suit as marriage partners; she would likely not have begun to imagine that Beth were in love with Laurie.

Instead of Amy, Jo would have been the one incredibly homesick for Beth and family, and longing for a familiar face during her extensive absence abroad. And she would have been Laurie’s principal company on the very adventure he had imagined taking with her following graduation…We can only imagine.

Vistas of Vevey: The Little Women trail #2

By Trix Wilkins

Photo of the Alps from the Lavaux vineyards courtesy of WikiMedia

There’s nothing like a literary trail of your favorite book to focus the wanders – Switzerland has been on my bucket list for almost two decades now, and a chance encounter with a second book from the 1860s has prompted me to look into Vevey more closely…

The first encounter

When I first read Little Women twenty years ago, I assumed Vevey was in France because of this exchange between Jo and Laurie at the new year’s ball:

“Can you talk French?”

“We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevey.”

Later that evening, Laurie told Jo about the walking trails in Switzerland he’d had the privilege of traversing during his time abroad, “where the boys never wore hats, and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers.”

I’d thought, “Brilliant, school excursions from France to Switzerland!” Such was my ignorance of European geography and history.

If I’d discussed this delightful finding with a certain friend at the time, he would have promptly informed me, “Vevey is in Switzerland.” I would have rewarded his kindly meant correction with a look that said, I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about. To which I’m certain he would have replied, with a smirk, “My mother was born there.”

Then I would have been so embarrassed that a copious amount of research on this subject would have followed. But no such conversation ever took place – hence the procrastination.

I wish I’d looked into this beautiful area of the world sooner – the vista of Vevey is a thing of beauty one can imagine looking at indefinitely.

The passing encounter

I tried to find a school in Vevey dating back to the 1850s-60s, the sort of school I could imagine Laurie might have attended – a grand, sandstone, centuries-old private institution still standing today as a sort of tourist attraction or perhaps the private residence of a foreign diplomat…rien.

The closest thing I could find was the Musée Historique de Vevey within the Chateau de l’Aile. Home to old weapons, manuscripts, engravings, paintings and collections of old medals, keys, locks and caskets, the museum is located in an otherwise private estate, a castle dating back to the sixteenth century.

The chance encounter

Then I came across a remarkable hardcover book with crumbling pages – a fifth edition published in 1900 of a book titled Scrambles amongst the Alps: in the years 1860s-69 by Edward Whymper, the first man to reach the peak of the Matterhorn, in 1865.

I’m sorry to say that this was not the result of some tenacious search in a rare book library, but rather a chance find at our local café whilst eating the coffee and cake special.

Nevertheless, a find is a find. Scrambles amongst the Alps is an eyewitness account replete with lyrical language describing the Alps, vibrantly visible from Vevey, in the 1860s. Whymper not only saw the beautiful peaks from a distance, but their minute detail during his own torturous ascents.

“…Rolling away to the east, one unknown range after another succeed in unveiled splendour; fainter and fainter in tone, though still perfectly defined, till at last the eye was unable to distinguish sky from mountain, and they died away in the far-off horizon.”

The encounters that were not to be

As stunning as the Alps are, such strenuous feats amongst rocky crags and glaciers are not trails students in the 1860s would have taken – though I suspect these slopes might have been precisely the sort of thing Jo and Laurie would have explored armed with little more than sheer will, had they travelled to Europe together “urged…by those mysterious impulses which cause men to peer into the unknown…looking at the sky spangled with its ten thousand brilliant lights.” (Whymper, 1900)

Nevertheless, Laurie might have been speaking to Jo of equally picturesque walks: along the terraced slopes of the Lavaux vineyards between Vevey and Lausanne, a stroll between Rivaz, St Saphorin and Chexbres with views across Lac Léman and those famed peaks – perhaps even the tree-lined jaunt by the lakeshore to the Château de Chillon, a castle located on an islet built by the Dukes of Savoy in the 11th century.

A place of tranquillity rather than activity, Vevey is, as Louisa May Alcott hinted in Little Women, a place to study. Not the sort of study that involves rapidly digesting information so as not to look like a dolt in front of a new friend, but the kind that involves simply walking, observing, thinking – and finding quiet scenic places for sitting, reading, and writing.

Louisa’s one small reference to Vevey is one of the things I’ve come to love about Little Women. This seemingly passing comment was a hint, an in-joke for a friend. It was not a literary device foreshadowing a return to Vevey for Laurie and Jo (unless Alcott had initially intended for her sequel to end differently…). The reference is simply an allusion to the fact that Louisa May Alcott (alter-ego Jo March) and Ladislas Wisniewski (alter-ego Theodore Laurence) met in Vevey – and thus a friendship was forged amidst lakes, mountains and old world charm.

“Don’t I wish I’d been there!” Jo had exclaimed to Laurie. I share her sentiments exactly.

Beginnings in Bologna: The Little Women trail #1

By Trix Wilkins

Photo of Teatro Communale courtesy of Wikipedia

The search for the birthplace of Theodore Laurence

“Laurie’s father married an Italian lady, a musician…The lady was good and lovely and accomplished, but he did not like her, and never saw his son after he married. They both died when Laurie was a little child, and then his grandfather took him home. I fancy the boy, who was born in Italy, is not very strong…Laurie comes naturally by his love of music, for he is like his mother.” Mrs March to Jo

It’s one of those details on which Little Women is sketchy – we are told simply that Laurie was born “in Italy” to a gifted Italian musician. The novel opens a few months before his sixteenth birthday, placing his birth around 1852 – a year when Italy was not officially unified, and agitations against Austrian rule would continue until full independence in 1870.

Where in pre-unification Italy might a woman have reached such levels of education, accomplishment, and recognition; where might the wealthy son of a British merchant have met such a woman; and what place might have sustained them in their lifestyle and passions during their early years of marriage and parenthood? Where, in short, might Laurie have been born?

And as I mused over these questions, I came across Bologna, Italy.

A city beyond its time

Can one fall in love with the mere idea of a city without beholding it? Florence is reputably elegant, Rome majestic, but Bologna – Bologna was innovative centuries beyond its time. Home to the first and oldest university in the world, the first major world city to formally abolish slavery in 1256, over five hundred years before Wilberforce’s tenaciously fought triumph in England…

The more I read of this millennium-old city and the more I uncovered of its grand history, the more I felt this is the one. The one city throughout the Italian states I could imagine Louisa May Alcott alluding to as the birthplace of Theodore Laurence.

Florence and Rome may have been home to the ruling elite in the 1850s, but Bologna drew intellectuals and egalitarians from around the globe. The alma mater of all universities, the University of Bologna was founded in 1088 by its own students, beginning as a place of free education independent from the ecclesiastical schools of its day.

Boasting alumni such as the artist Albrecht Dürer and scientist Nicolaus Copernicus, within its walls many ideas were fostered and practiced that would only be developed in other parts of the world centuries later.

It was the place to go for women to obtain high levels of education, to reach for opportunities that would have been unheard of anywhere else – as early as the 12th century, when the education of women was unthinkable or reviled, women teachers were admitted.

One such teacher, Bettisia Gozzadini, was said to be so popular that her lessons had to be held in the public squares as the classrooms could not hold all who came to hear her.

Not only did women teach during an era when it was a struggle elsewhere to simply gain admittance to study, some were granted leadership – Laura Bassi was given the chair in philosophy in 1732; in 1776 the chair in experimental physics including Logic, Metaphysics, Chemistry, Hydraulics, Mathematics, Mechanics, Algebra, and Geometry.

Bologna might have been the city where Laurie’s mother developed her love for and talent in music; the sort of place to where Laurie’s father might have run off to learn of a world beyond his father’s ships to India.

The Laurences in Bologna

“What do you like?”

“To live in Italy, and to enjoy myself in my own way.” Jo and Laurie, at the Gardiners’ new year’s ball

Known for its heart for the arts, Bologna is home to a plethora of monuments to culture, education, and faith. To this day, its historical center remains one of the largest in Italy. Churches, museums and towers replete with art and objects from centuries past have been preserved and restored – testaments to an age when historical study and musical skill were especially valued.

I can easily see why Laurie told Jo that he wanted to live in Italy, had he Bologna in mind.

Bologna simply makes me think of Jo – the city seems made for her. I can picture her immersed in research for a doctorate; her frustration that the abolition of slavery had been accomplished so long ago in Bologna compared to the United States; her wandering amongst old monuments, settling in dusty nooks to write epics spanning the centuries between the stone walls.

And the letters – what letters Jo might have written! To Amy of the intricate architecture, Beth of the divine music, Meg of the colorful cuisine, her mother of the local politics.

I can picture Laurie delighting in the idea of giving Jo a tour of this city, as he related to her what he could recall of his parents’ courtship and marriage. I imagine Laurie’s mother having performed at the first opera house constructed with public funds and owned by the municipality, the Teatro Communale. She might have played the works of Guiseppi Verdi, the music that played such an instrumental part in stirring ardor for Italian unification. Laurie’s father might have repeatedly dared her to climb the Torre degli Asinelli with him, the tallest leaning tower in Italy (one of the Due Torri, or Two Towers – it is open to the public to climb today).

I picture their having explored the labyrinth of churches in the Abbazia di Santo Stefano, and marvelled at the 16th-century frescoes by Lorenzo Costa depicting the life and death of St Cecilia and her husband Valeriano in the Oratorio di Santa Cecilia. They might have discussed life and faith as they frequented the Oratory of San Colombano with its frescoes of the resurrection and passion of Christ, the conversation deepened as they continued to the Oratorio di Santa Maria Della Vitta examining life-sized terracotta sculptures such as the Lamentation over the dead Christ.

If Laurie’s mother had been anything like his first love Jo, I have no trouble believing that she may have persuaded his father to sneak into the private residence Palazzo del Podestà to see the ‘whispering gallery.’ Beneath the palazzo, two passages intersect at a point which is said to produce amazing acoustics – perhaps the proposal might have happened here involving a serenade and a stringed instrument. (Or if Laurie’s father was anything like him, simply an appeal along the lines of, “We’ve got to have it out, and the sooner the better.”)

Before Little Women

Where might have Laurie’s mother taken him on walks to soothe him, as she tried to sustain him when he had been so “sickly,” that would have been more refreshing and inspiring than Bologna’s lengthy porticoes? Might she have walked that three kilometer stretch from Porta Saragozza to the Basilica san Luca atop a hill, sheltered from the sun whilst enjoying views of the city? Where else might she have read to him some of the deepest and most novel ideas of their time, than the University of Bologna’s centuries-old library, the Archiginnasio?

Little Women relates that Laurie’s parents both died when he was a child. Bologna had been a seat of political agitation and unrest – the fervor for independence ran hot, and many fought and died for it. Might Laurie’s parents have been amongst those who had done so, having faced similar dangers to Margaret Fuller and Giovanni Angelo Ossoli with direr consequences? Might James Laurence’s dislike of his daughter-in-law have been rooted in her exposing his son to such ideas?

To consider Bologna the place of Laurie’s birth, I can more readily sympathize with his grandfather, and feel greater conviction that his affection for Jo ran deep. Bologna, with its pulse for history, learning, and innovation – perhaps Laurie simply recognized a woman in Jo who embodied the essence of a time and a place he already held dear to his heart.

Other places of interest

Piazza del Cestini – Houses the original law text of the Liber Paradisus or Paradisum Voluptatis, also known as the Heaven Book, abolishing slavery in Bologna.

Oratory of San Colombano – Hosts a collection of over 80 musical instruments dating from the 1500s, the musical library of Oscar Mischiati, and free concerts

Museo della Storia di Bologna – An interactive museum of 35 chronologically themed rooms of Bologna’s 2500-year history.

Basilica of St Francis – A center of musical performance and study in the 18th century; utilized as a military storehouse during the Italian war of independence.

Collezioni Comunali d’Arte – On the 2nd floor of Palazzo Comunale, this art gallery holds a collection of 13th- to 19th-century paintings, sculpture and furniture.

Pinacoteca Nazionale – Hosts a collection of works by Bolognese artists from the 14th century.

Blogging on Bologna

The Heaven Book that abolished slavery
A day full of Bologna 
Seduced by Bologna: Interview with Writer Mary Tolaro Noyes 
Bologna Travel Tips: Interview with Local Tour Guide Micol Mazzeo
Top romantic places in Bologna
Bologna: the Chronicles of Carlo

The best of times on the best of budgets

In the footsteps of the Little Women March sisters

By Trix Wilkins

One of the things I’ve learned from Little Women is the right company and a bit of innovation go a long way! These are my favorite ideas from Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic – fun for anyone, anytime, on a “Little Women” budget…

Set up a “refuge”

And just like Jo, make your own writing hat while you’re at it, so that your family and friends know just when your genius is burning and you’re not to be disturbed. Write a book, poetry about your favorite sister, tales of “high adventure.” Fit it out to be a place for any endeavour of your passion and choosing whether music, woodwork, painting, etc.

Run a secret acting society

Perform the classics or your own plays (or your variation of the classics ;)), go ‘hunting for treasure,’ and make your own costumes from said treasure. Between rehearsals practice sword fighting with your closest friend dressed in boots and a doublet you fashioned yourself a la Jo March.

Start your own secret newspaper named after your favorite author, and adopt pseudonyms just like “real writers”

The March sisters wrote stories, recipes, and short notices for their family newspaper The Pickwick Portfolio. Pepper your paper with outlandish stories, lavish art and creative classifieds.

Take your indoor hobbies/chores outside

Find somewhere with a view and recruit your nearest and dearest into what you call a “secret busy bee society” to lend the venture an air of mystery. Whether it’s pairing socks or doing taxes (or the ultimate luxury – a hobby you actually enjoy!), it’s less tedious in lovely surroundings and friendly company.

Set up a secret post box through which anything goes

Yes, there is a theme: Little Women was big on secrets! As a gesture of appreciation for being admitted into the Pickwick Club, Laurie gifted the Marches with a post box through which passed, amongst love letters, “tragedies and cravats, music and gingerbread, scoldings and puppies.”

Host a dinner party with an adventurous menu

By adventurous, I mean like Jo: cook dishes you’ve never made before (maybe even some you have never seen prepared before by anyone eg: lobster salad). All passion, instinct and thrill at the prospect of serving who-knows-what to your family and closest friends.

Make a habit of doing something to benefit others

Send flowers to deserving women who love them but can’t afford them (Laurie), visit sick neighbors (Jo), bring food and gifts to poorer families (Beth), write notes of encouragement to those you know who have been working and striving tirelessly with little praise (Mrs March).

What are some fun ideas you’ve picked up (and/or ever taken on!) from reading Little Women?

Who was the real Theodore Laurence?

By Trix Wilkins

We write best about what we know – with Louisa May Alcott herself being Jo March’s alter ego, who might have been the model(s) for the man who was to be Jo’s best friend for life?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph was Louisa’s generous next door neighbour in Concord – as was Laurie to Jo. A friend in deed as well as name, Ralph would provide for Louisa’s entire family in several instances of dire financial need, as the Laurences would for the Marches (though Louisa’s personal experience was more extreme – poverty and want were the norm, her family at times teetered on the edge of homelessness).

Like Laurie, Ralph possessed an astonishing library, and allowed Louisa to borrow as many books as she chose. His grounds were full of flowers – as was the Laurences’ conservatory, from which Laurie cut a bunch for Jo upon her visit when he fell ill. The Emersons were known to give liberally of their beautiful flowers; Laurie would regularly gift Mrs March with bouquets.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry was Louisa’s schoolteacher and shared Laurie’s penchant for music. He reportedly serenaded Louisa on his flute – and upon his death, Louisa wrote a poem of his life, Thoreau’s Flute. He gave her lessons in nature, including boat trips down the Sudbury and Assabet rivers; Laurie and Jo would go boating down river in the chapter Camp Laurence.

Like Laurie, Henry became involved in the family business as it was financially more lucrative, even though he would have preferred a career in the arts – Laurie longed to play music, Henry loved to write. Nothing is explicitly said of Laurie’s political leanings – it is merely hinted that he was compassionate towards the poor, as he replaced the sisters’ gift to the Hummels and helped a poorer student at college with money. I can imagine however that he, like Henry, might have been an abolitionist.

Alfred “Alf” Whitman

Louisa met Alf whilst performing together in a Charles Dickens’ play (remember when Jo invited Laurie to become part of the March sisters’ secret drama society, and they talked of the joy of pretend sword fights?). Like Laurie, Alf didn’t have a mother. They became friends quickly, and the childhood friendship would grow and deepen into adulthood. Louisa wrote Alf letters, and as Jo did with Laurie, would come to openly tell him about her writing sensational stories.

Perhaps the most compelling proof of his being a model for Laurie was Louisa’s explicitly telling him so, “I put you into my story as one of the best and dearest lads I ever knew! ‘Laurie’ is you and my Polish boy [jointly].” (The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy; cited by Susan Bailey in Louisa May Alcott is my passion).

Ladislas “Laddie” Wisniewski

The “Polish boy” referred to in her letters, Laddie met Louisa in Vevey, Switzerland – the very same town where Laurie had attended school before he came to live next door to the Marches. Mrs March told her daughters that James Laurence’s protectiveness was in part due to Laurie’s being “sickly;” Laddie suffered from respiratory illness. Both Laddie and Laurie were gifted pianists. Laurie and Jo were known for their pranks (Mrs March sternly questioned Jo about her involvement in the prank on Meg and John alongside her recalcitrant friend), as were Laddie and Louisa.

Laurie once invited Jo to run off with him on one of his ships to India to have adventures – Jo refused, but Louisa spent two unchaperoned weeks with Laddie in Paris. The account of this time is scratched out in her diary, the simple note left in the margins, “Couldn’t be.” Of their parting, Louisa wrote, “I drew down his tall head and kissed him tenderly, feeling that in this world there were no more meetings for us.” Of Laurie and Jo’s parting following her rejection of his proposal, Louisa wrote, “She felt as if she had stabbed her dearest friend; and when he left her, without a look behind him, she knew that the boy Laurie never would come again.”

(I’ve often wondered what might have become of Laurie had he not taken on his grandfather’s ships – and under what circumstances it might have been acceptable for Jo to be in Europe with him…Hence the writing of The Courtship of Jo March.)

The Little Women Hen’s Down Under

By Trix Wilkins

Been helping to organize a hen’s, and in the midst of all that my mind started to wander into the land of “what if…” – what if Jo and Laurie had at some point gotten engaged, and Jo had enlisted the advice of her sisters as to what to do for her hen’s? And what if they had been in Sydney, Australia? What might Meg, Beth, and Amy have suggested – and how might things have worked out in the end?

Meg: The quintessential luxurious day out in the city

I think Meg’s imagination would have gone a bit wild at the thought of planning a day for all her sisters in beautiful Sydney, backed by the finance of the Laurences! She might have suggested a 2 course lunch at the picturesque Botanic Garden Restaurant, followed by a wander (or a run, in Jo’s case) about the Royal Botanic Gardens while she gazed in wonder at the unfamiliar flowers and foliage of the southern hemisphere.

Recalling their days as amateur performers, Meg might have arranged a viewing of a matinee at the Sydney Opera House (whilst fondly reminiscing with Jo over how Laurie had invited them to the theatre all those years ago) – and being of a diplomatic bent, appeased their grand Aunt March by finishing the day with a formal dinner overlooking Sydney Harbor at Bennelong.

Beth: A serene retreat to the beautiful Blue Mountains

Being the most in tune with her beloved sister Jo, Beth would have looked for a place full of the wonders of books, nature, adventures – and music. Though she was considered “the musical one,” she would have thoughtfully remembered that Jo too loved music dearly.

Thus I suspect Beth would have suggested a day out at the Blue Mountains – climbing the thousand steps, beholding the Three Sisters, wandering down to the Empress Falls (and being severely tempted to join Jo in jumping through waterfalls).

When Jo had tired herself out, a myriad of second hand book stores in Leura would beckon – and armed with newly acquired treasures, she might not have been able to resist a “rest” at that secret understated café with the surprisingly majestic valley view.

Beth might have conspired with Mr Laurence to arrange a special musical performance at Pins on Lurline – finishing the day with a dinner set in a historic house, the ambience beautiful without pretension, a restaurant right up Jo’s alley.

Amy: Books and tea with a twist

Of all her sisters, Amy would have been the one to take Jo to the Mitchell wing of the State Library of NSW, set in a sandstone building with its old world feel of rare, ageing books and centuries of accumulated knowledge and ideas. Partly because she might have wanted to affirm her support of her sister’s writing (after having burned Jo’s manuscript as a child), but also because only a few blocks away is one of Sydney’s oldest and grandest hotels, the Westin: host of the Mad Hatter Tea Party as well as Endota, reputably one of the most luxurious day spas in Sydney.

After taking Jo on a tour about the library, Amy might have persuaded her sister to a visit at the Westin – citing unusual and seemingly other worldly confections, and a spa pedicure so relaxing Jo might feel utterly inspired to write her next novel afterwards, perhaps even her magna opus.

What Jo might have gotten up to in the end…

An early morning kayak, bushwalk and swim at Pittwater followed by a picnic lunch on the Palm Beach peninsula. The afternoon might have been spent playing croquet and taking long walks on the beach and headland.

In the midst of the croquet game, Jo’s hen’s might have officially ended with an unexpected gate crash by Laurie and his boys – who would have chartered a boat for all to Watson’s Bay, where they would have eaten lobster for dinner at Doyle’s (with Jo still blushing over the memory of that dinner party with the lobster salad, and Laurie looking at her mischievously).

The exceptional choice: Why some of us still wish it had been Jo and Laurie…

By Trix Wilkins

Photo of 1870s printing of Little Women courtesy of Wikipedia

Louisa May Alcott chose Friedrich Bhaer for Jo March in Little Women, and for many readers he is the perfect fit – a learned, mature professor who spurs her to write from the heart. Then why do some wish Alcott had written a marriage between Jo and her best friend Laurie instead? Surely it’s got to be more than the fact Christian Bale played Laurie in 1994…I suspect it’s to do with the stories we grew up with and learned to love.

We love the Cinderella concept

Jo is the girl next door who is not really recognized for her full worth and potential by wider society in general. She has the love and appreciation of her family, but not that of anyone else; she’s awkward and has no close female friends apart from her sisters. She is poor, it is implied she is largely unschooled though she is a voracious reader, and we are told she has no outward beauty to speak of (apart from her hair).

Then she meets Laurie, the boy next door – not only is he incomparably wealthy (think Prince Charming, with the added romance of his being an orphan born of parents who married and died sort of Romeo-Juliet style), he is also thoughtful, generous, and immediately befriends Jo, instantly preferring her company to any other. He doesn’t see her as a “diamond in the rough” whose rough edges need polishing – he sees her as a diamond.

We love the idea of “it just so happened…”

Best friends marrying is a bit of an irresistible combination. There’s innocence underpinning the relationship. There’s no set up. There’s no motive to become rich through marriage (a thing Alcott implies was more the norm than the exception, in those days), no exploiting for personal gain. Though both had been curious about the other by virtue of their being neighbors, Jo and Laurie didn’t intend to become such good friends.

It just so happened that Beth’s cat ran away next door. And Jo could hardly help who the Gardiners invited to their New Year’s Eve party – nor could she have known that Meg’s instruction to hide her burned dress would end up with her running into Laurie behind a curtain. The friendship started without any thought of ‘sentimental nonsense’ – they simply spent time together, got to know each other, and were there for each other during both the hard and the joyful times.

We love the “girl fixes guy” routine

When Laurie realizes he loves Jo and that he’s “not half good enough,” he studies hard and graduates with honors. He pulled up his socks for his girl, and we expect Jo will love him for it. She does, but not in the way he wants. So she refuses him. At this point, we are expecting Fitzwilliam Darcy (maybe that’s just because I read Austen first, but yes. I expected Darcy), that Laurie will think, “OK, she doesn’t love me now in that way, but I’ll do something that will make me absolutely irresistible to her.”

We like the idea of a guy chasing a girl and becoming a better man in the process. That’s why when Laurie doesn’t – in fact his character takes a dive, he runs off to fritter away his talent and money, before marrying Jo’s beautiful younger sister Amy – it’s such a bitter pill to swallow.

We love the “one in a million”

If we wanted to know about a relationship that consisted of a talented rich good looking guy with a flirtatious young beautiful girl, we’d just step outside the door, go to school/uni/work/the local restaurant, and see it. We probably have friends in this sort of relationship. We might even be in this sort of relationship.

But our favorite stories aren’t about the things we see every day everywhere – they’re about the things that are one in a million. They’re about people who don’t do what is easy or convenient, “the way things have always been,” “the way everyone does it.” They’re about bucking the odds, the smallest chance of success yet the determination to try anyway (eg: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Marvel franchise…). They’re about the exception – exceptional character, exceptional circumstances, exceptional choices.

And for many readers – Theodore Laurence patiently and persistently courting Jo March until she came to love him would have been the exceptional choice.

The exceptional choice

Why some of us still wish it had been Jo and Laurie…

By Trix Wilkins

Louisa May Alcott chose Friedrich Bhaer for Jo March in Little Women, and for many readers he is the perfect fit – a learned, mature professor who spurs her to write from the heart. Then why do some wish Alcott had written a marriage between Jo and her best friend Laurie instead? Surely it’s got to be more than the fact Christian Bale played Laurie in 1994…I suspect it’s to do with the stories we grew up with and learned to love.

We love the Cinderella concept

Jo is the girl next door who is not really recognized for her full worth and potential by wider society in general. She has the love and appreciation of her family, but not that of anyone else; she’s awkward and has no close female friends apart from her sisters. She is poor, it is implied she is largely unschooled though she is a voracious reader, and we are told she has no outward beauty to speak of (apart from her hair).

Then she meets Laurie, the boy next door – not only is he incomparably wealthy (think Prince Charming, with the added romance of his being an orphan born of parents who married and died sort of Romeo-Juliet style), he is also thoughtful, generous, and immediately befriends Jo, instantly preferring her company to any other. He doesn’t see her as a “diamond in the rough” whose rough edges need polishing – he sees her as a diamond.

We love the idea of “it just so happened…”

Best friends marrying is a bit of an irresistible combination. There’s innocence underpinning the relationship. There’s no set up. There’s no motive to become rich through marriage (a thing Alcott implies was more the norm than the exception, in those days), no exploiting for personal gain. Though both had been curious about the other by virtue of their being neighbors, Jo and Laurie didn’t intend to become such good friends.

It just so happened that Beth’s cat ran away next door. And Jo could hardly help who the Gardiners invited to their New Year’s Eve party – nor could she have known that Meg’s instruction to hide her burned dress would end up with her running into Laurie behind a curtain. The friendship started without any thought of ‘sentimental nonsense’ – they simply spent time together, got to know each other, and were there for each other during both the hard and the joyful times.

We love the “girl fixes guy” routine

When Laurie realizes he loves Jo and that he’s “not half good enough,” he studies hard and graduates with honors. He pulled up his socks for his girl, and we expect Jo will love him for it. She does, but not in the way he wants. So she refuses him. At this point, we are expecting Fitzwilliam Darcy (maybe that’s just because I read Austen first, but yes. I expected Darcy), that Laurie will think, “OK, she doesn’t love me now in that way, but I’ll do something that will make me absolutely irresistible to her.”

We like the idea of a guy chasing a girl and becoming a better man in the process. That’s why when Laurie doesn’t – in fact his character takes a dive, he runs off to fritter away his talent and money, before marrying Jo’s beautiful younger sister Amy – it’s such a bitter pill to swallow.

We love the “one in a million”

If we wanted to know about a relationship that consisted of a talented rich good looking guy with a flirtatious young beautiful girl, we’d just step outside the door, go to school/uni/work/the local restaurant, and see it. We probably have friends in this sort of relationship. We might even be in this sort of relationship.

But our favorite stories aren’t about the things we see every day everywhere – they’re about the things that are one in a million. They’re about people who don’t do what is easy or convenient, “the way things have always been,” “the way everyone does it.” They’re about bucking the odds, the smallest chance of success yet the determination to try anyway (eg: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Marvel franchise…). They’re about the exception – exceptional character, exceptional circumstances, exceptional choices.

And for many readers – Theodore Laurence patiently and persistently courting Jo March until she came to love him would have been the exceptional choice.