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From Sketches from Concord and Appledore (1895) Frank Preston Stearns Frank Preston Stearns was the son of Major George Luther Stearns and Mary Preston Stearns, who had long been friends with Bronson Alcott. Stearns was a student at Frank Sanborn’s academy in Concord during the early 1860s. After graduation from Harvard, he became an authority on Italian art, publishing several books on the subject. Many of the students at Sanborn’s school were near contemporaries with May Alcott and thus often discussed in the sisters’ letters. In March 1860, Sanborn’s students presented a masquerade ball at the Concord Town Hall, and Louisa, after sewing May’s first ball dress, reported to her friend Alf Whitman: “Frank Stearns was Alcibiades in a real Greek dress gorgeous to behold” (Selected Letters, 50). Since his parents were longtime friends of the family (both were staunch abolitionists), Stearns offers an insider’s view of the Alcotts, especially Louisa, often giving intimate scenes with the vividness of a polished writer. His accounts of the entertaining nights in the Alcott home when the school boys would “talk with the ladies” and his recollection of the plays Louisa acted in reveal Alcott before the fame of Little Women and give rare insight into the personal Louisa. Stearns goes far to demythologize the famous author, who, in his words, “had no proclivity for paddling up and down Concord River in search of ideas.” Mr. Alcott’s house in Concord was situated on the Lexington road about three-quarters of a mile from the village centre. It was the best-looking house almost in the town, being of simple but faultless architecture, while the others were mostly either too thin or too thick, or out of proportion in some way. It lacked a coat of fresh paint sometimes, but this was to its advantage from an artistic point of view. Fine old elm-trees shaded the path in front of it, and across the road a broad level meadow stretched away to Walden woods. In the rear it was half surrounded by low pine-wooded hills, which protected it from the north-easterly storms and the cold draughts of winter. Mr. Alcott had quite a genius for rustic architecture, as is proved by the summer-house [78] * which he and Thoreau built for Emerson, and the fences, seats and arbors with which he adorned his little place added a final charm to the rural picture . In summer nights the droning of the bittern could be heard across the meadows, and woodcock came down familiarly from the hills to look for worms in the vegetable-garden. The snow melted here in Spring and the grass grew green earlier than in other places. It was the fitting abode and haven of rest for a family that had found the conflict of life too hard for them. Within the house was as pleasant as without. There is no better decoration for a room than a good library, and though Mr. Alcott’s books were not handsomely bound one could see at a glance they were not of a common sort. They gave his study an air of distinction, which was well carried out by the refined look and calm demeanor of its occupant. The room opposite, which was both parlor and living-room, always had a cheerful homelike appearance ; and after the youngest daughter May entered on her profession as a painter, it soon became an interesting museum of sketches, water-colors and photographs. I remember an engraving of Murillo’s Virgin, with the moon under her feet, hanging on the wall, and some excellent copies of Turner’s water-color studies. The Alcotts were a hospitable family, not easily disturbed by callers, and ready to share what they had with others. The house had a style of its own. How Emerson accomplished what he did, with his slight physique and slender strength, will always be one of the marvels of biography. His is the only instance, I believe, on record of a man who was able to support a family by writing and talking on abstract subjects. It is true he inherited a small property, enough to support a single man in a modest way, and without this his career would not have been possible; but the main source of his income was winter lecturing—a practice which evidently killed Theodore Parker, naturally a strong and powerful man. Yet he was not satisfied with this, but...

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