I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to…

The line comes from chapter 44 of Little Women, “My Lord and Lady”. Amy March has come home from Europe married to Laurie, the March sisters’ old friend and neighbour. The next day Laurie asks Mrs March to lend him his wife: he can’t get on without her any more than, as Jo suggests, a weathercock can without wind. He spins out the image: since his marriage, the weather has been “altogether salubrious and balmy,—hey, my lady?”

Amy replies that the weather has been lovely so far, though she doesn’t know how long it will last; then comes this line. At once she turns practical, offering to find his bootjack: “Men are so helpless, mother.”

Louisa May Alcott published the two parts of Little Women in 1868 and 1869. Many readers had hoped Laurie would marry Jo; Alcott wrote in her journal that she would not marry Jo to Laurie “to please any one”. Out of context, Amy’s image has become a motto of resilience.

Little Women, Part 2, chapter 44 (Amy), 1869

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