Felt very well, and began to hope I had outlived the neuralgic worries and nervous woes born of the hospital fever and the hard years following.
May living alone in Paris, while her mates go jaunting,–a solitary life; but she is so busy she is happy and safe. A good angel watches over her. Take pleasant drives early in the a.m. with Marmee. She takes her comfort in a basket wagon, and we drive to the woods, picking flowers and stopping where we like. It keeps her young, and rests her weary nerves.
July.–Got too tired, and was laid up for some weeks. A curious time, lying quite happily at rest, wondering what was to come next.
August.–As soon as able began "Under the Lilacs," but could not do much.
Mrs. Alcott grew rapidly worse, and her devoted daughter recognized that the final parting was near. As Louisa watched by the bedside she wrote "My Girls," and finished "Under the Lilacs."
The journal tells the story of the last days of watching, and of the peaceful close of the mother's self-sacrificing yet blessed life. Louisa was very brave in the presence of death. She had no dark thoughts connected with it; and in her mother's case, after her long, hard life, she recognized how "growing age longed for its peaceful sleep."
The tie between this mother and daughter was exceptionally strong and tender. The mother saw all her own fine powers reproduced and developed in her daughter; and if she also recognized the passionate energy which had been the strength and the bane of her own life, it gave her only a more constant watchfulness to save her child from the struggles and regrets from which she had suffered herself.
Journal.
September, 1877.–On the 7th Marmee had a very ill turn, and the doctor told me it was the beginning of the end. [Water on the chest.] She was so ill we sent for Father from Walcott; and I forgot myself in taking care of poor Marmee, who suffered much and longed to go.
As I watched with her I wrote "My Girls," to go with other tales in a new "Scrap Bag," and finished "Under the Lilacs." I foresaw a busy or a sick winter, and wanted to finish while I could, so keeping my promise and earning my $3,000.