Louisa Alcott's romantic period opened at fifteen, when she began to write poetry, keep a heart journal, and wander by moonlight, and wished to be the Bettine of Emerson, in whose library she foraged; wrote him letters which were never sent; sat in a tall tree at midnight; left wild flowers on the doorstep of her master; sang Mignon's song under his window; and was refined by her choice of an idol. Her diary was all about herself.
If she looked in the glass at her long hair and well-shaped head, she tried to keep down her vanity; her quick tongue, moodiness, poverty, impossible longings, made every day a battle until she hardly wished to live, only something must be done, and waiting is so hard. She imagined her mind a room in confusion which must be put in order; the useless thought swept out; foolish fancies dusted away; newly furnished with good resolutions. But she was not a good housekeeper; cobwebs got in, and it was hard to rule. She was smitten with a mania for the stage, and spent most of her leisure in writing and acting plays of melodramatic style ad high-strung sentiment, improbable incidents, with no touch of common life or sense of humor, full of concealments and surprises, bright dialogues, and lofty sentiments. She had much dramatic power and loved to transform herself into Hamlet and declaim in mock heroic style. From sixteen to twenty-three was her apprenticeship to life. She taught, wrote for the papers, did housework for pay as a servant, and found sewing a pleasant resource because it was tranquillizing, left her free, and set her thoughts going.
Mrs. Burnett,[23] like most women who record their childhood and adolescent memories, is far more subjective and interesting than most men. In early adolescence she was never alone when with flowers, but loved to "speak to them, to bend down and say caressing things, to stoop and kiss them, to praise them for their pretty ways of looking up at her as into the eyes of a friend and beloved. There were certain little blue violets which always seemed to lift their small faces childishly, as if they were saying, 'Kiss me; don't go by like that.'" She would sit on the porch, elbows on knees and chin on hands, staring upward, sometimes lying on the grass. Heaven was so high and yet she was a part of it and was something even among the stars. It was a weird, updrawn, overwhelming feeling as she stared so fixedly and intently that the earth seemed gone, left far behind. Every hour and moment was a wonderful and beautiful thing. She felt on speaking terms with the rabbits. Something was happening in the leaves which waved and rustled as she passed. Just to walk, sit, lie around out of doors, to loiter, gaze, watch with a heart fresh as a young dryad, following birds, playing hide-and-seek with the brook-these were her halcyon hours.