Chapter IX: Europe (3)

Heard lectures,--Higginson, Bartol, Frothingham, and Rabbi
Lilienthal. Much talk about religion. I'd like to see a little
more really _lived_.

_April and May._--Wrote another sketch for the "Independent,"--"A
French Wedding;" and the events of my travels paid my winter's
expenses. All is fish that comes to the literary net. Goethe puts
his joys and sorrows into poems; I turn my adventures into bread
and butter.

* * * * *

_June_, 1872.--Home, and begin a new task. Twenty years ago I
resolved to make the family independent if I could. At forty that
is done. Debts all paid, even the outlawed ones, and we have
enough to be comfortable. It has cost me my health, perhaps; but
as I still live, there is more for me to do, I suppose.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Betsey Prig was a pet name for her sister, as she herself was Sairey Gamp.

[9] This was a family joke as Mrs. Alcott always ended her instructions to her children "in case of fire."

[10] This is the poem prefixed to the chapter.

[11] See Shawl Straps, p. 179.