Louisa had won a glorious victory, and the laurel
wreath was on her brow.
The style of "Little Women" is not classic; but as Goldsmith says in his
preface to the "Vicar of Wakefield," "It matters not." It filled a
vacant place in American and perhaps also in English literature, and
must continue to fill it. Novelists usually take up their characters at
the age of twenty-one, or somewhere in the twenties, and there have also
been many excellent books written for children; but to describe the
transition period between fifteen and twenty there had not as yet been
anything adequate--if we partially except Thomas Hughes' sketches of
life at Rugby and Oxford. It is a period of life which deserves much
more consideration than it often receives. It is the integrating period,
during which we make our characters and form those habits of thought and
action which mainly determine our destiny. The bloom of youth may
conceal this internal conflict, but it is there none the less, and
frequently a very severe one. "You have no idea how many trials I have,"
I once heard a schoolgirl of sixteen say, the perfect picture of health
and happiness; and those who remember well their own youth will not be
inclined to laugh at this. The tragedy of childhood is the commonest
form of tragedy; and youth is a melodrama in which pathos and humor are
equally mingled. Those who by some chance have escaped this experience
and have had the path of early life made smooth for them, may grow to be
thrifty trees but are not likely to bear much fruit.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87