can earn money in this way can understand how to take care of it by a proper knowledge of contracts, copyrights, and the duties of publisher and author toward one another. Then there will be less complaint on both sides, and fair play for those who win, not only admiration for their work, but respect for their wisdom in the affairs of their trade."
It is the earlier portion of her literary career that Miss Alcott describes so amusingly in "Little Women." I wish my own knowledge enabled me to say exactly what passages of that popular work may be accepted as accurate pictures of real events. I should deem it a privilege could I but vouch for the reality of the top-boots and tin money, those twin glories of the drama in the March household, or state upon good authority that Jo's first visit to the "Spread Eagle" office was Miss Alcott's own experience. It is not my fortune, however, to know just where fact ends and fiction begins, although I think that I could guess and come very near the mark. But, as most of Miss Alcott's readers have probably the same feeling, it is perhaps better that all should be left free to believe just what they prefer, and cherish undisturbed a harmless pride in their own discernment.
The amusing feminine Pickwick Club, at least, we are at liberty to believe in, since Miss Alcott herself, after giving at length the Pickwick Portfolio, says that it is "a bona-fide copy of one written by bona-fide girls once upon a time." The benevolent Pickwick, the accomplished Winkle, the plump Tupman, and the poetical Snodgrass were doubtless enacted with great spirit by the four merry sisters, and their paper, as given by its former editor, is certainly attractive reading.
The blast of war sounded in the ears of this young writer, the child of an enthusiast. She was one of the women in New England who volunteered for service in
