Louisa May Alcott

Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands Louisa May Alcott

INTRODUCTION Longfellow wrote: - "All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors. "We meet them at the doorway, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro. * * * * * "We have no title-deeds to house or lands; Owners and occupants of earlier dates From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands, And hold in mortmain still their old estates. "The spirit world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense A vital breath of more ethereal air." I found myself reciting these lines whenever my eyes rested upon the old house of Fruitlands. From my terrace on the hill I looked down upon it with mixed feelings of pity, awe, and affection. It seemed like a Presence, a ghost of the Past, that compelled the eyes to gaze at it persistently. In the warm joyousness of the spring sunshine, or when the cold mists of autumn crept across the valley, it conveyed to me the same sense of desolation, of mystery, of disillusionment. Its broken windows looked like hollow eyes sunken in an ashen and expressionless face. Within its walls life and death had come and gone;-laughter and the sound of weeping had echoed through the quaint, low-ceilinged rooms. It had been the sheltering home of British yeomen. Its heavy chestnut beams bore record of the virgin forests of the Colonies.