White Heat Part 8

One of his biographers quipped of Higginson that "before the war he never missed a good fight; after it he never joined one." This is not quite fair. Distancing himself without acrimony from Stanton and Anthony's all-or-nothing position on woman suffrage, Higginson did not entirely disagree with it. "If the conservatives think that because it [our organization] is called the Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation it has no further object, they are greatly mistaken," he declared. "Its purpose and aim are to equalize the s.e.xes in all the relations of life; to reduce the inequities that now exist in matters of education, in social life and in the professions-to make them equal in all respects before the law, society, and the world."

He addressed the first convention of the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in November 1869-before he visited Amherst-and he planned to write an "Intellectual History of Women"-"my magnum opus, magnum opus, if I can really ever get to it." He praised women's colleges, women's athletics, and a woman's right to choose not to marry or bear children. He nominated women for membership in various bastions of male privilege, such as the National Inst.i.tute of Arts, Science and Letters, which admitted Julia Ward Howe as a result. By 1873, he was president of the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, and in his weekly editorials to if I can really ever get to it." He praised women's colleges, women's athletics, and a woman's right to choose not to marry or bear children. He nominated women for membership in various bastions of male privilege, such as the National Inst.i.tute of Arts, Science and Letters, which admitted Julia Ward Howe as a result. By 1873, he was president of the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, and in his weekly editorials to The Woman's Journal, The Woman's Journal, its organ, he wrote sleek essays putting forward its case: "If there is only one woman in the nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it." Wondering how and why so many women seemed to oppose suffrage, he continued, "I do not see how any woman can help a thrill of indignation, when she first opens her eyes to the fact that it is really contempt, not reverence, that has so long kept her s.e.x from an equal share of legal, political, and educational rights." its organ, he wrote sleek essays putting forward its case: "If there is only one woman in the nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it." Wondering how and why so many women seemed to oppose suffrage, he continued, "I do not see how any woman can help a thrill of indignation, when she first opens her eyes to the fact that it is really contempt, not reverence, that has so long kept her s.e.x from an equal share of legal, political, and educational rights."

Literary rights, too: "The yearning for a literary career is just now greater among women than among men," he observed. "Perhaps it is because of some literary successes lately achieved by women. Perhaps it is because they have fewer outlets for their energies." Both were true. Women writers had entered the exclusive precincts of the literary marketplace, which, though restricted, was more welcoming than other professional venues. Higginson said he liked ambitious women who strove to achieve something against all odds, and he remarked that their letters to him-d.i.c.kinson's included?-"reveal such intellectual ardor and imagination, such modesty, and such patience under difficulties, as to do good to the reader, whatever they may do to the writer." Paternalistic, he nonetheless told them to heed their internal compa.s.s and, as if echoing d.i.c.kinson, to determine-as he must-how they define success. Success is counted sweetest, she had said, by those who never succeed.

And Higginson, who yearned for literary fame and likewise condemned it, could understand the conflict in others: to publish or not to publish, to advance oneself or not. Though driven, he who castigated his own need for recognition could easily identify with women reluctant to a.s.sert themselves. Nudging open literary doors for Helen Hunt, he could have done the same for Emily d.i.c.kinson. One suspects he would have, were she tractable, which she was not. Her own ambivalence about publishing her work, her own tensile strength, and her choice of an alternative route of publication-circulating her poems among friends, nurturing her reputation by piquing curiosity-rendered moot what Higginson could offer in the way of conventional channels. And d.i.c.kinson would know she did not write for-nor would be appreciated by-humdrum editors and standard readers.

Accused by the cadres of scholars who wish she had contacted a more prescient correspondent, like one of them, Higginson was a vigorous, liberal advocate of women writing, women voting, women educated and free, self-respecting and strong. Of this d.i.c.kinson had been amply aware for a very long time. She took what she needed and discarded the rest.

IN THE SPRING OF 1872, Higginson went to Europe, which he had long wanted to do. Depressed by Mary's deteriorated condition, frightened by the sudden death of his brother Francis, disgusted by Newport's empty sparkle, flummoxed by Susan B. Anthony's arrest, and annoyed by the editorial change at Higginson went to Europe, which he had long wanted to do. Depressed by Mary's deteriorated condition, frightened by the sudden death of his brother Francis, disgusted by Newport's empty sparkle, flummoxed by Susan B. Anthony's arrest, and annoyed by the editorial change at The Atlantic, The Atlantic, where a callow William Dean Howells had replaced Fields as editor, Higginson accepted an offer to sail with his brother Waldo to England for a two-month visit. His sister Anna stayed with Mary; Mrs. Hunt went to California: time, all around, for a change of air. where a callow William Dean Howells had replaced Fields as editor, Higginson accepted an offer to sail with his brother Waldo to England for a two-month visit. His sister Anna stayed with Mary; Mrs. Hunt went to California: time, all around, for a change of air.

"I am happy you have the Travel you so long desire," Emily coolly noted on his return, "and chastened-that my Master met neither accident nor Death." Most of all, though, she wanted him to travel to her. "Could you come again that would be far better-," she observed, "though the finest wish is the futile one."

Resuming her role as Scholar, she again sent him poems. "To disappear enhances-The Man that runs away / Is tinctured for an instant with Immortality," one of them begins, her use of "runs away" rather than "goes away" suggesting that she knew how much she had drained his nerve power. She also included the pointed "He preached opon 'Breadth' till it argued him narrow-," about the churchly self-righteous, sure to please him. And then there were the riddles of "The Sea said 'Come' to the Brook."

The Sea said "Come" to the Brook-The Brook said "Let me grow"-The Sea said "then you will be a Sea-I want a Brook-Come now"!The Sea said "Go" to the Sea-The Sea said "I am heYou cherished"-"Learned Waters-Wisdom is stale-to Me"- Is d.i.c.kinson the Brook, telling Higginson she wants to grow into a sea by herself? But the Sea wants to keep the Brook as she is, for in the second stanza, once she has swelled to a sea, the Sea turns away, disappointed: "'Learned Waters-/ Wisdom is stale-to Me'-." It was an impa.s.se.

Yet d.i.c.kinson coquettishly continued to ask for the advice he proffered, as was their ritual, and she continued to show him what she was writing. "Thank you for the 'Lesson,'" she customarily responded, probably in late 1872. "I will study it though hitherto." And when she mailed him poems or wrote to him, if he did not answer soon, she plaintively tried again. "Could you teach me now?" or "Will you instruct me then no more?"

Likely he recognized how little she needed from him, even technically. Her imagination was voracious, her images disquieting, her vision idiosyncratic, her language alive and gleaming. Yet she wanted to keep him close by and involved. "Longing is like the Seed / ," she wrote him in another poem, "That wrestles in the Ground, / Believing if it intercede / It shall at length be found."

Around this same time she also enclosed a leaf or a flower along with the poem "Dominion lasts until obtained-." It was a gift, an offering, mystical, seductive, brazen: "These are the Brides of permanence-/ Supplanting me and you." She also sent one of her most accessible poems, "The Wind begun to rock the Gra.s.s," its description keen, about the coming of a summer squall. As usual, she had revised the poem-an earlier version uses the verb "knead" instead of "rock" in the first line ("The Wind begun to knead the Gra.s.s-/ As Women do a Dough-")-but here is the copy she wanted Higginson to have: The Wind begun to rock the Gra.s.sWith threatening tunes and low-He flung a Menace at the Earth-A Menace at the Sky-The Leaves unhooked themselves from treesAnd started all abroad,The Dust did scoop itself like HandsAnd throw away the Road.The Wagons quickened on the Streets-The Thunder hurried slow-The Lightning showed a Yellow Beak,And then a livid Claw-The Birds put up the Bars to NestsThe Cattle fled to Barns-Then came one Drop of Giant RainAnd then as if the HandsThat held the Dams had parted holdThe Water Wrecked the SkyBut overlooked my Father's House,Just quartering a tree.

Strong, unpredictable verbs-wind rocking the gra.s.s, leaves unhooking themselves, dust scooping itself "like Hands"-combine to create the steady, inescapable onset of the storm-there is nothing we can do to forestall or prevent it-until the last stanza, when the "Water Wrecked the Sky": relief; then in an instant, horror.

She had asked if he could teach her now. "Your poem about the storm is fine," Higginson answered. "It gives the sudden transitions."

The sudden transitions: one can a.s.sume she was satisfied.

MOST OF ALL SHE WISHED he would come back to Amherst. he would come back to Amherst.

And he did.

He arrived in the sleepy town on December 3, 1873. Though wintry, the air was mild and melting, the village calm, the trees bare, the sky starched, the undergraduates polite and numerous and, as Higginson noticed, obliged to exercise (unlike Harvard boys) and to listen to him lecture on woman suffrage, for which he was paid one hundred dollars.

He also inspected their gymnasium, fidgeted through a rhetoric cla.s.s, chatted with President Stearns, and managed, as he had promised, to call on Miss d.i.c.kinson. Unfortunately for us, there is no transcript. If Higginson scribbled out his impressions for Mary, neither his notes nor the letters survive. Or, sensitive to the fact that Mary envied his freedom and distrusted his penchant for female companionship, particularly for women whose poetry he savored, he may have simply not recorded the visit.

Mary was ill disposed to his taste-she deplored Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh- Aurora Leigh-and surveyed his female friends with misgiving. "I don't dare die and leave the Colonel," she once snapped; "there are so many women waiting for him!" Nor was she particularly fond of Miss d.i.c.kinson, who had intrigued her husband with that aside of hers-"there is always one thing to be grateful for-that one is one's self & not somebody else"-which Mary thought "particularly absurd in E. D.'s case."

There is, though, a brief account of his visit in a letter to his sisters: "I saw my eccentric poetess Miss Emily d.i.c.kinson who never never goes outside her father's ground & sees only me & a few others," he reported. Promising to read d.i.c.kinson's poetry to them when they came to Newport, he told how she had greeted him, holding a flower, this time a Daphne odora. Again she had clad her diminutive frame in fresh white. But as if distancing himself, for the sake of his sisters or because, once again, Emily had exhausted him, he concluded, "I'm afraid Mary's other remark, 'Oh why do the insane so cling to you?' still holds." goes outside her father's ground & sees only me & a few others," he reported. Promising to read d.i.c.kinson's poetry to them when they came to Newport, he told how she had greeted him, holding a flower, this time a Daphne odora. Again she had clad her diminutive frame in fresh white. But as if distancing himself, for the sake of his sisters or because, once again, Emily had exhausted him, he concluded, "I'm afraid Mary's other remark, 'Oh why do the insane so cling to you?' still holds."

"How long are you going to stay," d.i.c.kinson had immediately asked, her voice barely audible. He couldn't stay long but did provide other a.s.surances, promising he would not forget her, and four weeks later he sent New Year's greetings to tell her that he well remembered his recent trip to Amherst "& especially the time spent with you. It seemed to give you some happiness, and I hope it did;-certainly I enjoyed being with you."

These are not the words of the condescending cavalier come to gape at the "eccentric poetess." "Each time we seem to come together as old & tried friends," he reminded her, "and I certainly feel that I have known you long & well, through the beautiful thoughts and words you have sent me. I hope you will not cease to trust me and turn to me; and I will try to speak the truth to you, and with love."

"THANK YOU, DEAR FRIEND, for my 'New Year' but did you not confer it?" Emily wrote Wentworth in early 1874, just a few weeks after he left. "Had your scholar permission to fashion your's, it were perhaps too fair. I always ran Home to Awe when a child, if anything befell me. for my 'New Year' but did you not confer it?" Emily wrote Wentworth in early 1874, just a few weeks after he left. "Had your scholar permission to fashion your's, it were perhaps too fair. I always ran Home to Awe when a child, if anything befell me.

"He was an awful Mother," she continued, making the mother, "Awe," masculine, "but I liked him better than none. There remained this shelter after you left me the other Day."

Grateful for his recent visit, she continued, "Of your flitting Coming it is fair to think. Like the Bee's Coupe-vanishing in Music. Would you with the Bee return, what a firm of Noon!"

She was delighted to receive his recent letter, in which she still "heard him." "We hear after we see."

She then told him a story that reads like an allegory. "Meeting a Bird this Morning," she said, "I begun to flee. He saw it and sung." Did the Bird symbolize Wentworth, who, appreciating her shyness, sang to her-wrote to her-and offered his rea.s.surance?

Both she and Higginson considered writing another form of nature, a second nature, as Emerson had said of art, grown out of the first, as a leaf out of a tree; but less pastoral than the transcendentalist guru, they saw nature as also a haunted house, as d.i.c.kinson had said, art a house that tries to be haunted. "When the paths that we have personally traversed are exhausted," Higginson noted in one of the essays d.i.c.kinson liked best, "memory holds almost as clearly those which the poets have trodden for us, those innumerable by-ways of Shakespeare, each more real than any high-road in England; or Chaucer's 'Little path I found / Of mintes full and fennell greene.'"

Writing as memory-indeed, memory itself-had become his implicit subject, and seasoning his essays with a characteristic pinch of nostalgia-recall "all the best description is in memoriam in memoriam" from "Water-Lilies"-Higginson sidestepped the sudden transitions. "I have fineness," he said, evaluating himself candidly, "but some want of copiousness and fertility.... I wish I could, without sacrificing polish, write with that exuberance and hearty zeal." Grace and decency were his forte. "My gentility is chronic," he observed a little sadly shortly after his visit to Emily, recommending to her-to himself-cultivation of what he called the "ruddy hues of life."

"I wish you could see some field lilies, yellow & scarlet, painted in water colors that are just sent to us for Christmas," Wentworth wistfully wrote to her, knowing what she liked and what she didn't. "These are not your favorite colors, & perhaps I love the azure & gold myself." Then he added an afterthought directed at himself as well as her: "But perhaps we should learn to love & cultivate these ruddy hues."

He deferred to her. Though timorous, she was decisive. She spoke in aphorisms, her poetry and letters demanding that the reader meet her on her terms or not at all. She replied to Higginson by sending an atypically long poem (ten quatrains), carefully prepared, copied in ink, revised, and then recopied, as if to make it precise.

Because that you are goingAnd never coming backAnd I, however absoluteMay overlook your Track-Because that Death is final,However first it beThis instant be suspendedAbove Mortality.Significance that each has livedThe other to detectDiscovery not G.o.d himselfCould now annihilateEternity, PresumptionThe instant I perceiveThat you, who were ExistenceYourself forgot to live-The "Life that is" will then have beenA Thing I never knew-As Paradise fict.i.tiousUntil the Realm of you-The "Life that is to be," to me,A Residence too plainUnless in my Redeemer's FaceI recognize your own.Of Immortality who doubtsHe may exchange with meCurtailed by your obscuring FaceOf Everything but He-Of Heaven and h.e.l.l I also yieldThe Right to reprehendTo whoso would commute this FaceFor his less priceless Friend.If "G.o.d is Love" as he admitsWe think that he must beBecause he is a "jealous G.o.d"He tells us certainlyIf "All is possible with" himAs he besides concedesHe will refund us finallyOur confiscated G.o.ds- Entrancing but opaque, the poem hinges on love and loss; the speaker acknowledges the departure of someone, perhaps her beloved, certainly her friend, and the departure gives rise to an extended farewell-a requiem of sorts. Because Because he is going: this provides the reason for the poem; he is going: this provides the reason for the poem; that that he is going: the speaker acknowledges, without sentimentality, the departure about to take place. But despite distance, or death, the speaker suggests that a real intimacy cannot be destroyed, even by G.o.d. he is going: the speaker acknowledges, without sentimentality, the departure about to take place. But despite distance, or death, the speaker suggests that a real intimacy cannot be destroyed, even by G.o.d.

She is also aware that the beloved or friend "who were Existence / Yourself forgot to live-." To inhibit oneself is to forgo life's ruddy colors. This might have been what she detected in his hesitations: he, too, loved the azure and the gold but would have preferred something else. Yet the poem is also one of a.s.surance, for a "refund" awaits both the "I" and the "you" (speaker and listener): their friendship is a pearl of great price.

As if she trusted him to eke out what meaning he could, she mailed the poem to Higginson, who saved it, but when he edited her poems for publication, he excluded it from both volumes. Maybe he didn't think it good-it sustains too many referents, too many ideas, too much abstraction-or maybe he thought it much too personal to share.

ELEVEN

The Realm of You

The transition to civilian life had been difficult. Writing again for the Atlantic, Atlantic, Higginson had immediately knocked heads with the pudgy wunderkind Howells, who had the gall to edit his work, and though Higginson kept quiet for a while, in 1871, when Howells apathetically remarked that he liked one of Higginson's articles "'well enough,'" the insulted Colonel marched the piece over to the newly established Higginson had immediately knocked heads with the pudgy wunderkind Howells, who had the gall to edit his work, and though Higginson kept quiet for a while, in 1871, when Howells apathetically remarked that he liked one of Higginson's articles "'well enough,'" the insulted Colonel marched the piece over to the newly established Scribner's Monthly Scribner's Monthly (edited by, of all people, the d.i.c.kinson friend Dr. Josiah Holland). "I hate to write in anything but the Atlantic," he explained the change to his sisters, "but don't quite like the look of things under the new regime & prefer to have two strings to my bow." He wouldn't publish in that magazine for another six years. (edited by, of all people, the d.i.c.kinson friend Dr. Josiah Holland). "I hate to write in anything but the Atlantic," he explained the change to his sisters, "but don't quite like the look of things under the new regime & prefer to have two strings to my bow." He wouldn't publish in that magazine for another six years.

It was also the end of an era. Boston was no longer the self-proclaimed literary hub of the universe (Howells himself would eventually relocate to New York). Its Radical Club folded without a trace, detractors laughing in print over its anachronistic self-importance. Younger writers like Bret Harte (whom Higginson initially admired), Howells himself (whom Higginson eventually admired), and Henry James (whom Higginson mistrusted) had been nudging aside the fusty transcendentalists of yesteryear, mocked by a sardonic Henry Adams as poorly dressed hypocrites who gazed out of windows and declared, I am raining. Th.o.r.eau and Fuller were dead, Emerson would suffer from aphasia, Whitman remained unspeakable. d.i.c.kinson was unknown. Melville was in eclipse, and only the French cared about Poe. Everything was changing. In literature, realism, not romance, was the order of the day.

Spearheaded in America by Howells, realism meant, as Howells said, an accurate representation, not an idealization of reality: real people, their speech, their att.i.tudes, their habits, their everyday business. Though he temperamentally agreed, Higginson had modeled his Malbone Malbone after a Hawthornean romance, just the kind of writing currently out of fashion. But to Higginson, style, not school, was the sine qua non of literature. Circ.u.mventing the debate over realism, he declared French prose writers to be unrivaled (he was thinking of Flaubert), and if their subject matter seemed a bit dour for Americans, who, as Howells famously said, wanted their tragedies to have happy endings, Higginson explained in 1867 that "they rely for success upon perfection of style and the most subtile a.n.a.lysis of human character; and therefore they are often painful,-just as Thackeray is painful,-because they look at artificial society, and paint what they see." Valuing simplicity, structure, freshness, and a catholicity of subject matter, he would embrace Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Stephen Crane. after a Hawthornean romance, just the kind of writing currently out of fashion. But to Higginson, style, not school, was the sine qua non of literature. Circ.u.mventing the debate over realism, he declared French prose writers to be unrivaled (he was thinking of Flaubert), and if their subject matter seemed a bit dour for Americans, who, as Howells famously said, wanted their tragedies to have happy endings, Higginson explained in 1867 that "they rely for success upon perfection of style and the most subtile a.n.a.lysis of human character; and therefore they are often painful,-just as Thackeray is painful,-because they look at artificial society, and paint what they see." Valuing simplicity, structure, freshness, and a catholicity of subject matter, he would embrace Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Stephen Crane.

The world had also been changing physically. Fire had demolished a large chunk of downtown Boston, which, like so many other cities, teemed with immigrants. Fortunes ama.s.sed in real estate, banking, railroads, and coal ushered in an era of voluptuous consumption-and building-nowhere better seen than in Newport, where the wealthy erected "cottages" as large as railroad terminals. Though he remained unremittingly optimistic-his reformer's zeal depended on an unshakable faith in a brighter, better future-he despaired, too, that in America "everything which does not tend to money is thought to be wasted."

And at home he was miserable. He dabbled in poetry, puzzling over what he had sacrificed to his marriage-and his chronic gentility-and in 1870 anonymously published a poem, "The Things I Miss": For all young Fancy's early gleams,The dreamed-of joys that still are dreams,Hopes unfulfilled, and pleasures knownThrough others' fortunes, not my own,And blessings seen that are not given,And never will be, this side heaven.Had I too shared the joys I see,Would there have been a heaven for me?Could I have felt Thy presence near,Had I possessed what I held dear?My deepest fortune, highest bliss,Have grown perchance from things I miss.

But except in his journal, he dared not speak aloud the "dreamed-of joys" denied him: the children he never had. Instead he channeled his sorrow into writing of and for them, whether in his popular Young Folks' History of the United States Young Folks' History of the United States or his or his Atlantic Atlantic essay "A Shadow" or one of his Oldport sketches, "Madam Delia's Expectations," where his identification with them is touchingly clear. A twelve-year-old orphan who works in a traveling tent show is adopted by two maiden ladies and yet so loathes the round of "well-behaved mediocrity"-as did Higginson-that she hustles back to the circus. But with the war over, Mary ill, Boston pa.s.se, Newport confining, what could Higginson do? Helen Hunt, in Newport less and less, had married William Sharpless Jackson, a railroad tyc.o.o.n, and settled in Colorado; his sister Louisa had died; the circus was gone. essay "A Shadow" or one of his Oldport sketches, "Madam Delia's Expectations," where his identification with them is touchingly clear. A twelve-year-old orphan who works in a traveling tent show is adopted by two maiden ladies and yet so loathes the round of "well-behaved mediocrity"-as did Higginson-that she hustles back to the circus. But with the war over, Mary ill, Boston pa.s.se, Newport confining, what could Higginson do? Helen Hunt, in Newport less and less, had married William Sharpless Jackson, a railroad tyc.o.o.n, and settled in Colorado; his sister Louisa had died; the circus was gone.

Though paid one thousand dollars in advance for his Young Folks' History, Young Folks' History, which would eventually sell far better than any of his other books, he worked round the clock to keep his pockets full. Lee and Shepard, publishers of the which would eventually sell far better than any of his other books, he worked round the clock to keep his pockets full. Lee and Shepard, publishers of the History, History, declared bankruptcy. Higginson felt faint, complained of weakness, feared the stroke that had paralyzed his brother Waldo and killed his brother Stephen. "In spite of my fine physique this life of confinement & anxiety is telling on me," he fretted. Mary was worse. "The walls seem only to draw closer around me year by year," he groaned. He did not know how to escape or where to go. His trip to England had boosted his morale-he had met Browning and Trollope, Darwin, and Carlyle-but that had lasted only two months. He wondered if he was a failure after all. declared bankruptcy. Higginson felt faint, complained of weakness, feared the stroke that had paralyzed his brother Waldo and killed his brother Stephen. "In spite of my fine physique this life of confinement & anxiety is telling on me," he fretted. Mary was worse. "The walls seem only to draw closer around me year by year," he groaned. He did not know how to escape or where to go. His trip to England had boosted his morale-he had met Browning and Trollope, Darwin, and Carlyle-but that had lasted only two months. He wondered if he was a failure after all.

"My life indeed has disappointed me in the tenderest places and I have not had what I needed most-children and freedom. But how few lives succeed!" he tried to console himself. He went back to his writing. "The truth is," he wrote in "Childhood's Fancies," an essay for Scribner's, Scribner's, "that the child does not trouble himself to discriminate between the real and ideal worlds at all, but simply goes his way, accepts as valid whatever appeals to his imagination, and meanwhile lives out the day and makes sure of his dinner." It was an enviable life. "The easy faith of children," he concluded, "strengthens our own." "that the child does not trouble himself to discriminate between the real and ideal worlds at all, but simply goes his way, accepts as valid whatever appeals to his imagination, and meanwhile lives out the day and makes sure of his dinner." It was an enviable life. "The easy faith of children," he concluded, "strengthens our own."

So, too, did faith in friendship.

THE SUDDEN TRANSITIONS came in blows for Emily d.i.c.kinson, starting with the death of her father. came in blows for Emily d.i.c.kinson, starting with the death of her father.

A pillar of village affairs, as predictable as the church spire and utterly plainspoken-even his auburn hair shot bolt upright-over the years Edward d.i.c.kinson had remained a mirthless man, currying neither favor nor friendship. Without fail he walked the short distance between his home and his office and worked late into the night, when pa.s.sersby could see the sole flicker of his lamp from the dark street. Conscientious and civic-minded and intending to put his beloved town on the BostonAlbany rail line and, having resigned his position as treasurer of Amherst College-Austin would replace him-in 1873 the seventy-year-old country lawyer decided to run again for a seat in the Ma.s.sachusetts House. Never a Republican, he offered himself as an Independent in order to separate himself from the issues that he deplored and Republicans seemed to support, like woman suffrage (those women fist-shakers, he fumed, perennially in search of a weak legislature). One suspects he also detested Black Republicans, like Higginson, with their brash insistence on equality and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

d.i.c.kinson won the seat, and in January 1874, as representative of the Fourth District of Hampshire County, he rode to Boston, took a room in the Tremont House, and joined his fellow representatives at the domed State House, where he was appointed to the Special Committee of the Senate and House on the Hoosac Tunnel Line of Railroads. The costly tunnel, essential to the success of the railroad project, had been underwritten by the Commonwealth and needed more appropriations. But democracy moves slowly, and the legislative sessions dragged on until June. The thermometer inched up, nothing was settled, and the State House glistened in the white sun of an early heat wave.

On Tuesday morning, June 16, d.i.c.kinson rose to his feet to argue on behalf of appropriations for the Troy and Greenfield Railroad. His head felt light, but he managed to finish the speech and at one o'clock walked back to the Tremont House to eat dinner before packing his bag for home. He still felt ill. The physician he called diagnosed apoplexy and, according to Austin, idiotically administered opium or morphine, drugs that "had always been poison to him. Of course it killed him." Edward d.i.c.kinson was dead by six o'clock.

Emily, Lavinia, and their mother had been seated in the s.p.a.cious dining room at the Homestead when Austin entered, a telegram clutched in his fist. "We were all lost, though I didn't know how," Emily recalled. Their father was very sick, said Austin, and he and Vinnie must go to Boston right away. The last train had already left. They would take the carriage. But before the harnesses were slung over the horses, another telegram carried word of Edward's death. Alone in a hotel room: it was too horrible.

Austin was particularly distraught. His tie to his father had not been warm, but it was deep, and when Edward's body lay in the Homestead parlor, Austin bent down over the open coffin and kissed his cold face, murmuring, "There, father, I never dared do that while you were living." This was a family that expressed itself in gesture: every morning Lavinia brushed her father's white beaver hat, and Emily, as we know, stood long hours in the hot kitchen kneading dough for the brown bread her father preferred. d.i.c.kinson remembered her father's last afternoon at home as special because when she sat with him, the two of them alone-Vinnie was asleep, Mother busy-"he seemed peculiarly pleased, as I oftenest stayed with myself," she informed Higginson, and actually "he 'would like it to not end.'" But the words had made her feel uncomfortable. She told her father he ought to go out and walk with Austin.

The funeral took place on Friday. "Mr. Bowles was with us-With that exception I saw none," she told Higginson. The shops of Amherst had closed, business was suspended, and neighbors and friends, spilling out from the large rooms of the Homestead, settled themselves on chairs dragged from College Hall to the d.i.c.kinson lawn. At the Homestead, Austin and Sue's daughter, Mattie, scattered pale white flowers near where Edward d.i.c.kinson lay. Gazing down at him, Sam Bowles commented that he "seemed as self-reliant and unsubdued as in life." Emily was nowhere to be seen; she stayed upstairs and wept and, according to her niece, for many weeks afterward wandered about the house, asking in a hollow voice where her father had gone.

"Miss Vinnie told me that she and Emily feared feared their father as long as he lived," reminisced a friend, "and loved him after his death." their father as long as he lived," reminisced a friend, "and loved him after his death."

The Reverend Jonathan Jenkins conducted the simple service, and then several college professors and businessmen from the town bore the coffin-no hea.r.s.e-to the graveyard. They were followed by the officers of the college, Amherst's leading citizens, and a delegation of d.i.c.kinson's colleagues in the legislature. At the grave site the Reverend Jenkins read the Lord's Prayer. "His Heart was pure and terrible," Emily afterward wrote to Wentworth, "and I think no other like it exists."

"Though it is many nights," she explained to her Norcross cousins later that summer, "my mind never comes home." She dreamed of her father-never the same dream-and in daylight wondered where he had gone, "without any body, I keep thinking." His absence was deafening. Austin stayed at the Homestead while Sue and the children visited Sue's relatives, but that did not dispel his father's ghost. "Home is so far from Home," she wrote to Higginson, "since my Father died."

"I have wished for you, since my Father died," she again turned to him, "and had you an Hour unengrossed, it would be almost priceless." She wanted him to come to Amherst; he could not now but, naturally, offered condolences to her and the family-"thank you for each kindness," she replied-but as far as she was concerned, she continued, he had actually given her something more precious. He had once written a poem that she recalled. "Your beautiful Hymn," she reminded him, "was it not prophetic?" In the spring of 1873, Wentworth had mailed Emily "Decoration," the poem that he'd just read at the Decoration Day ceremonies in Newport.

It opens with a drowsy conceit: its speaker stands "mid the flower-wreath'd tombs" of fallen Northern soldiers, bearing lilies in his hand. "Comrades!" he cries, ...in what soldier-graveSleeps the bravest of the brave?Is it he who sank to restWith his colors round his breast?Friendship makes his tomb a shrine;Garlands veil it; ask not mine.

As if struck by the ba.n.a.lity of his questions, the speaker then turns in a different direction: One low grave, yon trees beneath,Bears no roses, wears no wreath;Yet no heart more high and warmEver dared the battle-storm.

The ungarlanded grave is that of a woman, herself an unknown soldier, and the protofeminist speaker, now "Kneeling where a woman lies," strews "lilies on the grave / Of the bravest of the brave."

At first, d.i.c.kinson's response to the poem was mixed. "I thought that being a Poem one's self precluded the writing of Poems," she had teased, "but perceive the Mistake." The Master, as she called Higginson more and more, had entered her realm unbidden. Yet she obviously appreciated his salute to the nameless woman whose work is unsung, whose battles are unheralded, and whose life unfolds in private s.p.a.ces.

And when "Decoration" appeared in Scribner's Monthly Scribner's Monthly the same month her father died, d.i.c.kinson's hesitation about it vanished. "It has a.s.sisted that Pause of s.p.a.ce," she told Higginson, "which I call 'Father.'" The poem comforted her; that her "Master" wrote it comforted her; and the notion that someone could see what most people ignored-someone, like her father, alone, intrepid, isolated-that, too, comforted her. Perhaps she even imagined the poem to be about herself; why not? "The broadest words are so narrow we can easily cross them,-but there is water deeper than those which has no Bridge," she wrote to Higginson after rereading it. the same month her father died, d.i.c.kinson's hesitation about it vanished. "It has a.s.sisted that Pause of s.p.a.ce," she told Higginson, "which I call 'Father.'" The poem comforted her; that her "Master" wrote it comforted her; and the notion that someone could see what most people ignored-someone, like her father, alone, intrepid, isolated-that, too, comforted her. Perhaps she even imagined the poem to be about herself; why not? "The broadest words are so narrow we can easily cross them,-but there is water deeper than those which has no Bridge," she wrote to Higginson after rereading it.

Wanting to thank him but not knowing exactly how, she would give him the books, one of poetry, one about action, that her father, before his death, had brought her: George Eliot's Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems and Octavius Frothingham's and Octavius Frothingham's Theodore Parker, Theodore Parker, in which "kind-hearted Higginson," as Parker had dubbed him, was mentioned no fewer than eighteen times. She would send these, she said, if he wanted them-and because her father "had twice seen you." d.i.c.kinson, too, expressed herself in gesture. in which "kind-hearted Higginson," as Parker had dubbed him, was mentioned no fewer than eighteen times. She would send these, she said, if he wanted them-and because her father "had twice seen you." d.i.c.kinson, too, expressed herself in gesture.

"MOTHER WAS PARALYZED TUESDAY," Emily penciled a quick note on dark paper to Wentworth in the summer of 1875. "A year from the evening father died. I thought perhaps you would care." Emily penciled a quick note on dark paper to Wentworth in the summer of 1875. "A year from the evening father died. I thought perhaps you would care."

In Mrs. d.i.c.kinson's bedroom the shades were half-drawn, and the place smelled of camphor and roses. Over and over she kept asking for Edward, wondering why he did not come. "I am glad of what grieves ourself so much-," Emily wrote Wentworth, "can no more grieve him."

Though feeble, Mrs. d.i.c.kinson was alert enough to draw up her will. Her husband had died intestate, and she wanted to make sure her estate went to her daughters. Emily, too, decided to do the same thing, bequeathing everything to Lavinia. Austin could take care of himself and his family, she reasoned. "Knowing that his fraternal love towards me is undiminished, I am sure that his judgment concurs with mine in the disposition of my estate; and my beloved and honored mother also will feel that such disposal, while it is less onerous to her, will be as beneficial, as if I had given all to her." Emily named Vinnie her executrix.

In the meantime, Austin's control of their father's estate left the d.i.c.kinson women dependent, for the moment, on the residents of the Evergreens. Vinnie's resentment of this situation, long smoldering, would ultimately result both in the publication and the eventual suppression of her sister's poems.

IN BOSTON IN THE FALL OF 1875, Higginson recited several poems d.i.c.kinson had sent him, along with his sister Louisa's, to the a.s.sembled ladies of the Boston Woman's Club as they sat expectantly in a large parlor, their feet crossed over Aubusson carpets, their silence rising to the high ceilings. Loyal, he would not divulge d.i.c.kinson's ident.i.ty even though, as he acknowledged, her poems' "weird & strange power excited much interest." Higginson recited several poems d.i.c.kinson had sent him, along with his sister Louisa's, to the a.s.sembled ladies of the Boston Woman's Club as they sat expectantly in a large parlor, their feet crossed over Aubusson carpets, their silence rising to the high ceilings. Loyal, he would not divulge d.i.c.kinson's ident.i.ty even though, as he acknowledged, her poems' "weird & strange power excited much interest."

He had also recited d.i.c.kinson's poems in Newport, his literary friends arranged expectantly on the couches at Mrs. Dame's, shaded gas lamps warming the room with spectral brightness. Enthusiastic, bighearted, brisk, and a little pushy, Helen Hunt Jackson was thrilled. "I have a little ma.n.u.script volume with a few of your verses in it-and I read them very often-," she wrote to her old playmate. "You are a great poet-and it is a wrong to deny to the day you live in, that you will not sing aloud. When you are what men call dead, you will be sorry you were so stingy."

But d.i.c.kinson was not stingy with Higginson. (She had been called stingy before, as she had told Higginson in 1862, when editors "asked me for my Mind-and when I asked them 'Why,' they said I was penurious-and they, would use it for the World-." She did not want her mind used for the World.) Likely she granted Higginson permission to read the poems she kept sending him; one doubts he would have done so without it. And again she had drawn closer to him. Their intimacy sustained by distance and a vague rea.s.surance, often repeated, of another visit at some unspecified time, she invited him to Amherst again and again. "My Brother and Sisters would love to see you. Twice you have gone-Master-Would you but once come-." She then mailed him as many as thirteen poems, much as she had when they first began corresponding. Five were sent in January: "The last of Summer is Delight-," "The Heart is the Capital of the Mind," "The Mind lives on the Heart," "The Rat is the concisest Tenant," and "'Faithful to the end' amended."

Though she was no longer sewing groups of poems into packets-the forty booklets of earlier years-she occasionally gathered several together, intending no doubt to put them in a booklet at a later time. This is the case with three of the poems she recently mailed to Higginson. Part of a larger set, they speak to one another as they speak to him: the last days of summer are a delight, though during them we look back, she suggests in another poem, because the heart is capital of the mind. But the mind also feeds on the heart "Like any Parasite-," hungry, needy, in search of nourishment, and "if the Heart omit"-or, in an earlier version, "be lean"-it will "Emaciate the Wit-." And the rat, who is the "concisest Tenant": "Balking our Wit," it shows that our conscious selves-our minds, our wisdom-have limits.

Central to these poems is the image of the heart, and it's even part of "'Faithful to the end' amended," where d.i.c.kinson replies to Christ's injunction in Revelation, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

"Faithful to the end" amendedFrom the Heavenly clause-Constancy with a ProvisoConstancy abhors-"Crowns of Life" are servile PrizesTo the stately Heart,Given for the Giving, solely,No Emolument.

Faith, constancy, loyalty, poetry-all ends in themselves, given freely without recompense or the slightest expectation of it. "The stately Heart"-capital of the mind-loves what or whom it pleases. Sovereign, independent, brave-it is in its own way immortal: it exists in poetry.

The poem was also one of grat.i.tude. d.i.c.kinson recognized that Higginson generously gave what he had to give, and she appreciated his constancy, his commitment, his articulation, at least, of the values she held dear. Particularly vis-a-vis her chosen vocation: "the writer, when he adopts a high aim, must be a law to himself, bide his time, and take the risk of discovering, at last, that his life has been a failure," he had said.

They were writing each other frequently. "I often go Home in thought to you," she admitted. She wanted to send him a copy of George Eliot's new novel, Daniel Deronda. Daniel Deronda. "It makes me happy to send you the Book," she told him; he promised not to read it beforehand in its serialized version. "To abstain from 'Daniel Deronda' is hard-you are very kind to be willing," she replied. And they discussed her poems. The one they called "Immortality" ("'Faithful to the end' amended"?) had pleased him, he told her. "I believed it would," she answered. She also asked to see some of his verse. "You once told me of 'printing but a few Poems.' I hoped it implied you possessed more-Would you show me-one?" He mentioned he would come to Amherst-the constant theme-but could not just yet. "I was lonely there was an 'Or' in that beautiful 'I would go to Amherst,' though grieved for it's cause," she answered. Mary was ill. "It makes me happy to send you the Book," she told him; he promised not to read it beforehand in its serialized version. "To abstain from 'Daniel Deronda' is hard-you are very kind to be willing," she replied. And they discussed her poems. The one they called "Immortality" ("'Faithful to the end' amended"?) had pleased him, he told her. "I believed it would," she answered. She also asked to see some of his verse. "You once told me of 'printing but a few Poems.' I hoped it implied you possessed more-Would you show me-one?" He mentioned he would come to Amherst-the constant theme-but could not just yet. "I was lonely there was an 'Or' in that beautiful 'I would go to Amherst,' though grieved for it's cause," she answered. Mary was ill.

She showered him with compliments. She reread his work.

I sued the News-yet feared-the NewsThat such a Realm could be-"The House not made with Hands" it was-Thrown open wide-to me- What better praise?

Yet Higginson did not come. She wrote again. It was the spring of 1876.

The things we thought that we should doWe other things have doneBut those peculiar industriesHave never been begun.

Mary was sicker than ever, he explained. "I wish your friend had my strength for I don't care for roving-," d.i.c.kinson answered. "She perhaps might, though to remain with you is Journey." Though she now frequently asked after Mary's health, she calmly referred to her as Higginson's "friend," not his wife.

As if she worried that his friendship depended in part on Mary's approval, d.i.c.kinson reached out to this "friend," dispatching notes and rosebuds and an occasional poem. Softening, Mary responded to the poet's attentions with her own gift. "May I cherish it twice, for itself, and for you?" d.i.c.kinson replied, and to the Colonel she said, "I am glad to have been of joy to your friend, even incidentally." At Christmas, Emily reciprocated, sending Emerson's Representative Men, Representative Men, "a little Granite Book you can lean upon," as she aptly called it-Emerson tried-and-true-and when Mary's father died, in August, she tenderly commiserated. Wentworth thanked her. "I am glad if I did not disturb her," Emily answered him. "Loneliness for my own Father made me think of her." "a little Granite Book you can lean upon," as she aptly called it-Emerson tried-and-true-and when Mary's father died, in August, she tenderly commiserated. Wentworth thanked her. "I am glad if I did not disturb her," Emily answered him. "Loneliness for my own Father made me think of her."

Totemic a.s.sumptions about Emily d.i.c.kinson and Thomas Higginson do not for a moment let us suppose that she, proffering flowers and poems, and he, the courtly feminist, very much married, were testing the waters of romance. But about their correspondence is its faint hint or, if not of that, then of a flirtation buoyed by compa.s.sion, consideration, and affection. Surely neither of them expected or wanted their dalliance-if that is the word-to lead anywhere specific. Yet each of her notes bursts with innuendo, attachment, warmth, flattery. She startled him-made him self-conscious-and that startled her in return. "Your letters always surprise me," she had told him. "My life has been too simple and stern to embarra.s.s any," she declared, dismissing with obvious pleasure, his shyness. He recommended Turgenev to her; she still wanted to read Higginson's poetry. "I hoped you might show me something of your's-one of the 'few Verses'-the 'scarcely any,' you called them. Could you be willing now?" she asked in 1877.

She said she consumed everything he wrote: if true, it was no small feat. "Thank you for having written the 'Atlantic Essays,'" she once told him. "They are a fine Joy-though to possess the ingredient for Congratulation renders congratulation superfluous." She beguiled him. She took Oldport Days Oldport Days off the shelf. "I was re-reading 'Oldport,'" she said. She liked the final chapter, "Footpaths," best. "Largest last, like Nature." Then she added a poem, signing it "Your Scholar-." off the shelf. "I was re-reading 'Oldport,'" she said. She liked the final chapter, "Footpaths," best. "Largest last, like Nature." Then she added a poem, signing it "Your Scholar-."

A Wind that woke a lone DelightLike Separation's Swell-Restored in Arctic confidenceTo the Invisible.

The tributes did not stop. "Though inaudible to you, I have long thanked you." She admired his gravitas. "Your thought is so serious and captivating, that it leaves one stronger and weaker too, the Fine of Delight." She admired his probity. "That it is true, Master," she wrote him in January 1876, "is the Power of all you write." And wittily she admired his candor. "Candor-my Preceptor-is the only wile," she reminded him. "Did you not teach me that yourself, in the 'Prelude' to 'Malbone'?"

She again broached the possibility of his visiting Amherst. "I almost inferred from your accent you might come to Amherst," she exclaimed. "I would like to make no mistake in a presumption so precious-but a Pen has so many inflections and a Voice but one, will you think it obtuse, if I ask if I quite understood you?" She had not understood; he did not come, and likely that was better for both of them. Imagination kept them strong and constant and truthful, after d.i.c.kinson's fashion. They spoke to each other without bounds, or at least that's what they aimed for; letters drew them together as solid flesh could not.

And she trusted him, or she counted on him enough to use him as a ruse when Helen Hunt Jackson requested that she contribute a poem to the "No Name" volume of contemporary writing soon to be published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. The contributors would be anonymous, Jackson reminded her, and if d.i.c.kinson wished, she would write out d.i.c.kinson's poetry in her own hand. "Surely, in the shelter of such double double anonymousness as that will be, you need not shrink." d.i.c.kinson was silent. Visiting Amherst, Jackson again importuned the poet, this time in person; Emily must submit her poems. "I felt [li]ke a [gr]eat ox [tal]king to a wh[ite] moth," Jackson afterward apologized, "and beg[ging] it to come and [eat] gra.s.s with me [to] see if it could not turn itself into beef! How stupid." d.i.c.kinson didn't budge. Jackson lobbied harder. "Let somebody somewhere whom you do not know have the same pleasure in reading yours," she begged. anonymousness as that will be, you need not shrink." d.i.c.kinson was silent. Visiting Amherst, Jackson again importuned the poet, this time in person; Emily must submit her poems. "I felt [li]ke a [gr]eat ox [tal]king to a wh[ite] moth," Jackson afterward apologized, "and beg[ging] it to come and [eat] gra.s.s with me [to] see if it could not turn itself into beef! How stupid." d.i.c.kinson didn't budge. Jackson lobbied harder. "Let somebody somewhere whom you do not know have the same pleasure in reading yours," she begged.

Not wanting to offend the well-meaning and effusive Mrs. Jackson, Emily asked Wentworth for his help. "I told her I was unwilling," she wrote him, and she asked me why?-I said I was incapable and she seemed not to believe me and asked me not to decide for a few Days-meantime, she would write me-She was so sweetly n.o.ble, I would regret to estrange her, and if you would be willing to give me a note saying you disapproved it, and thought me unfit, she would believe you-I am sorry to flee so often to my safest friend, but hope he permits me-.