This was taken from Daily Celebrations - Hope you enjoy it.
"Resolve to take Fate by the throat and shake a living out of her." ~ Louisa May Alcott
Helping to support her family for most of her life, novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was born on this day in Germantown, Pennsylvania and raised in Massachusetts, the second of four daughters.
"It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women," she wrote.
Tutored by her father's transcendentalist friends Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Alcott was a nurse in a Union hospital during the Civil War. She is best known for Little Women (1868), the autobiographical and heartwarming story of Jo March and her family.
"Paid up all the debts . . . thank the Lord!" young Miss Alcott wrote in her journal about the novel's success.
"Stories of the heart are what live in the memory and when...you move the reader to tears you have won them to you forever."
She created other similar stories,with rich imagination and sentimentality-- An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870); Little Men (1871); Jo's Boys (1886) and others.
Alcott was an advocate for women's suffrage and other reforms. She once said, "Make each day useful and cheerful and prove that you know the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be happy, old age without regret, and life a beautiful success."
~~Shake it up.
Love,
chatty
12 comments:
The things about Alcott are interesting, but I must tell you that The Cars ROCK! I still have their albums, and Rick Ocaseck's first solo album. Play it and shake it up!!
Beautifully stated - I always loved the Little Women books!
Jane
I like what Louisa Alcott wrote in her journal when her debts were paid, glad she gave honor to God!
hope you had a great Saturday, Sandie!
betty
Lovely. I'm a big fan of Louisa May Alcott and her books. It's nice to learn a little more about her. Thanks for sharing.
Oh Sandie, I loved Little Women...both book and movie(s). Of course, I love the dolls, too! Thanks for the memories of that wonderful author. Susan
Oh, to have been tutored by the likes of Emerson and Thoreau...
I love to learn new things. This was very interesting. Love the Little Women story!
I feel guilty for enjoying not doing anything - well, nothing earthshakingly important anyway! I did and did and did and now I enjoy not doing for a change!
Loved the book and the movie of Little Women!
Can you imagine being directly influenced by Thoreau and Emerson? It is intersting to read facts like these about famous authors.
Love Alcott and loved introducing my daughters to her works.
I read those books when I was a kid and really liked them. From her quotes, I'd say she learned to be a wise woman!
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