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From Louisa May Alcott: A Souvenir (1888) Lurabel Harlow Harlow’s privately printed Louisa May Alcott: A Souvenir was issued to commemorate Alcott’s death in March 1888. Although Harlow never identifies her connection to the author, one can assume from the following passage that she did indeed meet her—perhaps more than once. Harlow presents what many writers of recollections about Alcott often omit—a physical description and the manner of her speech. The twenty-eight-page volume, with illustrations, also testifies to how affected much of Alcott’s reading public was by the news of her sudden death. Miss Alcott was a much more beautiful woman, before her illness, than one would perhaps judge from any portrait of her. These have not been notable successes, and once caused her to remark, “When I don’t look like the tragic muse, I look like a smoky relic of the great Boston fire.” Her face, with its strong, firm forehead, crowned with a wealth of beautiful chestnut hair, the hazel eyes, merry and keen, and cheeks glowing with the flush that amusement or vexation brought to them, was a most pleasing one to look upon. Her conversation was just as we might imagine it from her books,—racy, pungent, and quaint. She was quick to feel, and keen to criticise , but never in a scathing way; and it need hardly be said that she never descended to invidious comparisons or petty fault-finding. On the contrary, her enthusiasm over the good works of any new author was delightful to witness , so full was it of interest and good-will. Her sympathy was always given wholly and unreservedly to every cause of philanthropy, and all that tended to the higher education and greater development of women could be sure of the ready enlistment of her tongue and pen. Her character was noble, her disposition sweet; and we learn from reminiscences of her, and also from the lips of one who was a personal friend, that the principle of right-doing she so strongly advocated found no truer adherent than herself, and, as one has [40] * said, “She lived a life sweeter, nobler, wholesomer, and more inspiring, than the best chapters of her best books.” From Louisa May Alcott: A Souvenir (Boston: Samuel E. Cassino, 1888), pp. 26–27. Lurabel Harlow [41] ...

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