Your mother. Beach St., Boston, 1839. Louisa was ten when this birthday letter was sent: Cottage in Concord. Dear Daughter, Your 10th birthday has arrived, may it be a happy one, & on each returning birthday may you feel new strength and resolution to be gentle with sisters, obedient to parents, loving to everyone & happy in yourself. I give you the pencil case I promised, for I have observed that you are fond of writing & wish to encourage the habit. Go on trying, dear, & each day it will be easier to be & do good. You must help yourself, for the cause of your little troubles is in yourself, & patience & courage only will make you what mother prays to see you her good and happy girl. During the Fruitlands period, when Louisa was eleven, she found this little note tucked carefully away in a spot where only she would find and read it: Fruitlands. My dear, Thank you for your sweet note and sweeter poetry. The second verse is very good. Your love of nature is pure and true. It is a lovely school in which good lessons may be learned. The happy industry of birds, the beautiful lives of flowers, the music of brooks all help-- "The little fountain flows So noiseless thro the wood, The wanderer tastes repose, And from the silent flood Learns meekly to do good." In the following letter, a pretty little deference to the child's own personality is shown by the mother, in that way bringing out in the child respect and deference for others: Dear Daughter, I hope you will not consider me an intruder for stopping a moment in your "poet's corner" to admire the neatness of your desk, the sweetness of your poetry, the beauty of the prospect from your window. Cherish this love of nature, dear, enjoy all it gives you, for God made these helps to charm contemplation, and they strengthen the noble desire to be or to do all that is sent for our training & our good. Heaven be about you my child, is mother's Sunday prayer. Louisa Alcott filled her diary with letters from her mother, occasionally adding in later life annotations of her own. This letter from her mother when Louisa was eleven is an example: (From Louisa Alcott's Diary.) Concord, 1843. Dear Louy, I enclose a picture for you which I always liked very much, for I have imagined that you might be just such an industrious daughter & I such a feeble but loving mother, looking to your labor for my daily bread. Keep it for my sake, & your own, for you and I always like to be grouped together. Mother.