White Heat Part 12

The timing was right. Mabel knew that Vinnie wanted above all else to see her sister's poems in print, and Vinnie, exasperated by Sue and aware of Mabel's d.i.c.kinson fixation, craftily showed her several of the poems. To be published, they would have to be copied, of course, the originals kept safe. Soon Mabel was transcribing them. Years later Vinnie would insist Mabel had begged for the privilege in order to enhance her own reputation, not Emily's, and Mabel would claim Vinnie had solicited her unpaid and loyal a.s.sistance, which she freely gave.

Vinnie also enlisted Higginson when he again stayed at the Evergreens during the summer of 1888, while attending a meeting of the American Philological Society. Agreeing that a private printing of Emily's poems would not circulate her work widely enough, he pledged his a.s.sistance-editing the poems, finding a publisher-even though he had recently been ill. And he promised to write a preface to the volume; his imprimatur would help get it noticed.

With Higginson on board and Vinnie an unrelenting overseer, Mabel worked harder and harder. Transcribing poems first by hand and then on her new Hammond typewriter, by the winter of 1889 Mabel was copying two or three a day out of the "wilderness" of them all: "they are almost endless in number," she moaned. By her own admission she was also altering a large number of the poems as she copied, subst.i.tuting words where she thought fit or choosing among the alternates d.i.c.kinson had written in the margins. "I felt their genius and I knew the book would succeed," she said. "At the same time, their carelessness of form exasperated me. I could always find the gist & meaning, and I admired her strange words and ways of using them, but the simplest laws of verse-making she ignored, and what she called rhymes grated on me." So she improved them.

And she continued to bang out her own compositions, articles for The Youth's Companion, Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, The Century, The Youth's Companion, Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, The Century, and the and the Christian Union Christian Union (mostly nonfiction), until, exhausted, she hired an a.s.sistant, Harriet Graves, to help her with the hundreds of poems still left. When Miss Graves proved a disappointment, Mabel copied more poems herself on her brand-new World typewriting machine before switching back to copying them by hand; it actually took less time and helped her commit the poems to memory, which she liked to do. Devoting three or four hours a day to the poems, she later remembered their mesmerizing effect. "They seemed to open the door into a wider universe than the little sphere surrounding me which so often hurt and compressed me," she said, "and they helped me n.o.bly through a very trying time." (mostly nonfiction), until, exhausted, she hired an a.s.sistant, Harriet Graves, to help her with the hundreds of poems still left. When Miss Graves proved a disappointment, Mabel copied more poems herself on her brand-new World typewriting machine before switching back to copying them by hand; it actually took less time and helped her commit the poems to memory, which she liked to do. Devoting three or four hours a day to the poems, she later remembered their mesmerizing effect. "They seemed to open the door into a wider universe than the little sphere surrounding me which so often hurt and compressed me," she said, "and they helped me n.o.bly through a very trying time."

Temporarily finished, in the fall of 1889 Mabel finally met Colonel Higginson. In Boston with her daughter (David was on another eclipse expedition, this time in Angola), the ardent Mrs. Todd greeted the courtly Colonel on November 6, 1889, at her cousin's Beacon Street home-far plusher than her own spa.r.s.e rooms-and the unlikely collaboration commenced. Together they sifted through the huge stash of poems Mabel had brought: 634 by Mabel's count, 600 copied personally by her.

"He staid an hour or more," Mabel recorded in her diary, "and we examined the poems and discussed the best way of editing them." Already writing for posterity in mythopoeic journal entries-these were distinct from her jottings in a daily diary-Mabel enhanced her role as d.i.c.kinson's perspicacious sponsor. According to her, Higginson fretted that the poems, despite their fine ideas, were rough, mystical, and far too difficult to elucidate. "But I read him nearly a dozen from my favorites," she claimed, "and he was greatly astonished."

Of course he had been astonished for more than twenty years, and he had already promised his support, which he never withdrew even after Vinnie and Mabel, jealous of each other, publicly vied for center stage, disputing who loved the poems better, who grasped them more, who flagged and who never faltered or whose motives were clear and clean-and why Mabel had copied them in the first place. Through all of this, Higginson said little. Steadfast and unflappable, this booster of women writers and envoi of the literary establishment (an epithet that made him grimace), despite all-despite aesthetic orthodoxies and the peculiar stock he placed in them-despite this, he believed, as he always had, in Emily d.i.c.kinson.

IN THE FALL OF 1889, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was sixty-five years old. Though his hair grew thinner still, and whiter, and his health was dicey, he had run for United States Congress the year before and had been defeated, he said, without regret. The equanimity was feigned. His platform of civil service reform may have seemed irrelevant to many voters-that much was understandable-but a substantial number in the black community, as it turned out, were against him, and his conciliatory att.i.tude toward the South inflamed Frederick Dougla.s.s, who accused Higginson and all the mugwumps of disloyalty "not only to that political organization [the Republican party], but to the cause of liberty itself." Thomas Wentworth Higginson was sixty-five years old. Though his hair grew thinner still, and whiter, and his health was dicey, he had run for United States Congress the year before and had been defeated, he said, without regret. The equanimity was feigned. His platform of civil service reform may have seemed irrelevant to many voters-that much was understandable-but a substantial number in the black community, as it turned out, were against him, and his conciliatory att.i.tude toward the South inflamed Frederick Dougla.s.s, who accused Higginson and all the mugwumps of disloyalty "not only to that political organization [the Republican party], but to the cause of liberty itself."

He did not ignore the criticism and, in his next collection of essays, Travellers and Outlaws: Episodes in American History, Travellers and Outlaws: Episodes in American History, issued an implicit rejoinder to his detractors, for though the book included an antiquarian article on Salem sea captains, it also featured Higginson's essays on Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, the Maroons of Jamaica, and the insurgent slave Gabriel, all reprinted as if to remind readers two decades after the Civil War that relations between black and white were as vexed, contradictory, and racked by prejudice as they'd been in 1831, when Turner's rebellion unleashed a white Reign of Terror (Higginson's term). The book didn't sell and received few reviews. issued an implicit rejoinder to his detractors, for though the book included an antiquarian article on Salem sea captains, it also featured Higginson's essays on Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, the Maroons of Jamaica, and the insurgent slave Gabriel, all reprinted as if to remind readers two decades after the Civil War that relations between black and white were as vexed, contradictory, and racked by prejudice as they'd been in 1831, when Turner's rebellion unleashed a white Reign of Terror (Higginson's term). The book didn't sell and received few reviews.

As ever, though, his writing about politics reflected but one side of him. In the same year, 1889, that Travellers and Outlaws Travellers and Outlaws appeared, Higginson fulfilled a private dream, publis.h.i.+ng his very first book of verse, appeared, Higginson fulfilled a private dream, publis.h.i.+ng his very first book of verse, The Afternoon Landscape: Poems and Translations, The Afternoon Landscape: Poems and Translations, which he dedicated to his old schoolmate the poet James Russell Lowell. Before the Civil War and after, Higginson never stopped writing poetry, and while he recognized the boundaries of his talent, he nonetheless sought a form in which he could express "internal difference-/ ," as d.i.c.kinson had put it, "Where the Meanings, are." Such were the twin poles of his commitment to the life of the mind and the life of the activist, each tugging at the other. "No Man can be a Poet & a Book-Keeper at the same time," Nathaniel Hawthorne had cried while just a boy. This was not just the plaint of an adolescent fed on the Romantic poets; this had become the unwritten law of American culture. which he dedicated to his old schoolmate the poet James Russell Lowell. Before the Civil War and after, Higginson never stopped writing poetry, and while he recognized the boundaries of his talent, he nonetheless sought a form in which he could express "internal difference-/ ," as d.i.c.kinson had put it, "Where the Meanings, are." Such were the twin poles of his commitment to the life of the mind and the life of the activist, each tugging at the other. "No Man can be a Poet & a Book-Keeper at the same time," Nathaniel Hawthorne had cried while just a boy. This was not just the plaint of an adolescent fed on the Romantic poets; this had become the unwritten law of American culture.

Since Higginson's poetry was inhibited by its own kind of bookkeeping, particularly in its predictable prosody, it is hard to imagine him delighted by the heap of d.i.c.kinson verse delivered by Mrs. Todd. But he was. "There are many new to me which take my breath away," he exulted, "& which also have form form beyond most of those I have seen before." Form: its conventions were his nemesis, for in his own work he could not heed his Emerson and remember that poetry is not meters but a meter-making argument. beyond most of those I have seen before." Form: its conventions were his nemesis, for in his own work he could not heed his Emerson and remember that poetry is not meters but a meter-making argument.

Reviewers, generally as orthodox as he, found his work congenial. And much of it is; take the sonnet "The Snowing of the Pines," for example: Softer than silence, stiller than still air,Float down from high pine-boughs the slender leaves.The forest floor its annual boon receivesThat comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil, fair.Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bareOld rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle weavesOf paler yellow than autumnal sheavesOr those strange blossoms the witch-hazels wear.Athwart long aisles the sunbeams pierce their way;High up, the crows are gathering for the night;The delicate needles fill the air; the jayTakes through their golden mist his radiant flight;They fall and fall, till at November's closeThe snow-flakes drop as lightly-snows on snows.

Despite archaisms ("athwart") and the awkward inversions ("The forest floor its annual boon receives"), the poem's final sestet vividly re-creates the coming stillness (the descending alliteration of "fill," "flight," "fall, "fall," and "flakes"), and its last line recalls one of the very first poems d.i.c.kinson showed him, "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers-," with its striking "Soundless as Dots, / On a Disc of Snow."

But the comparison ends there. For if we put Higginson's poetry next to d.i.c.kinson's, we automatically traduce it and overlook the lyric poignancy of a poem like his "Sea-Gulls at Fresh Pond," which strikingly antic.i.p.ates Yeats's far grander "Wild Swans at Coole": O lake of boyish dreams! I linger roundThy calm, clear waters and thine altered sh.o.r.esTill thought brings back the plash of childhood's oars,-Long hid in memory's depths, a vanished sound.Alone unchanged, the sea-birds yet are foundFar floating on thy wave by threes and fours,Or grouped in hundreds, while a white gull soars,Safe, beyond gunshot of the hostile ground.I am no nearer to those joyous birdsThan when, long since, I watched them as a child;Nor am I nearer to that flock more wild,Most shy and vague of all elusive things,My unattainable thoughts, unreached by words.I see the flight, but never touch the wings.

To see the flight, but never touch the wings: Higginson could be writing of d.i.c.kinson, for he had in fact said almost that same thing to her when he admitted, as he said, that it would be so easy to miss her. "I cannot reach you," he had cried, "but only rejoice in the rare sparkles of light." And d.i.c.kinson hovers over his poems "The Dying House" and "Astra Castra," the latter dedicated to free spirit ironically held in check by the sonnet form itself-that is, by the conventional versifier, Colonel Higginson. Yet the nascent poet in him recognizes, without envy, that this spirit dwells "beyond all worlds, all s.p.a.ce, all thought, /...transformed."

Could we but reach and touch that wayward willOn earth so hard to touch, would she be foundControlled or yet impetuous, free or bound,Tameless as ocean, or serene and still?If in her heart one eager impulse stirs,Could heaven itself calm that wild mood of hers?

A man of limits, to be sure, Higginson was gifted enough to sense what lay beyond him.

The volume was handsome, its tan covers decorated with gilt lettering. Overall, though, the book spoke of resignation even in its t.i.tle, The Afternoon Landscape, The Afternoon Landscape, for the fresh morning of transcendentalism and abolition had yielded at last to that "certain Slant of light, / ," as d.i.c.kinson had written, of "Winter Afternoons-." for the fresh morning of transcendentalism and abolition had yielded at last to that "certain Slant of light, / ," as d.i.c.kinson had written, of "Winter Afternoons-."

BUSY WITH HIS VARIOUS PROJECTS and stricken by a stomach ailment of unknown origin, Higginson initially could not devote much time to the d.i.c.kinson poems. But he had promised Vinnie that once the poems were divided into three categories (A, B, and C), he would carefully look them over. Likely that task had fallen to Vinnie as well as Mrs. Todd, but Mabel remembered only her own work: "A contained those of most original thought expressed in as nearly good form as ED ever used," she explained. "B those of striking ideas, but showing too much of her peculiarities of construction to be used unaltered for the public; & C those impossible for such use, however brilliant & suggestive." and stricken by a stomach ailment of unknown origin, Higginson initially could not devote much time to the d.i.c.kinson poems. But he had promised Vinnie that once the poems were divided into three categories (A, B, and C), he would carefully look them over. Likely that task had fallen to Vinnie as well as Mrs. Todd, but Mabel remembered only her own work: "A contained those of most original thought expressed in as nearly good form as ED ever used," she explained. "B those of striking ideas, but showing too much of her peculiarities of construction to be used unaltered for the public; & C those impossible for such use, however brilliant & suggestive."

It was hard work. "My brain fairly reels," she cried to Austin. But on November 18, not two weeks after meeting with Higginson, she dispatched the poems, all labeled, to the Colonel, who scrawled "Emily d.i.c.kinson's poems" in his diary in uncharacteristically bold letters. In less than a week he contacted Mrs. Todd. "My confidence in their availability availability is greatly increased. It is fortunate there are so many because it is obviously impossible to print all & this leaves the way open for careful selection." is greatly increased. It is fortunate there are so many because it is obviously impossible to print all & this leaves the way open for careful selection."

Reading through half of Mabel's A list, Higginson grouped the poems thematically under headings such as "Life," "Nature," and "Time / Death / Eternity." "Perhaps you can suggest more subdivisions," he proposed. "The plates will cost rather less than $1 per page and there can often be two poems on a page-rarely more than one; say $230 for 250 pp including 300 poems." Three weeks later he again reported that "I am at work with many interruptions on the poems; have gone through 'B' and transferred about twenty to 'A' (we must must have that burglar-the most nearly objective thing she wrote.) 'C' I have not touched." have that burglar-the most nearly objective thing she wrote.) 'C' I have not touched."

With Higginson so fully committed, Vinnie grew impatient with Mabel, who was heading for Chicago. Why hadn't she contacted Higginson again? "You are acting for me & not not yourself," Vinnie scolded. "I can't believe he has gotten any word from yourself," Vinnie scolded. "I can't believe he has gotten any word from you. you. I wrote him you would call upon him & maybe he expects you whenever you are ready to do so. It is a great disappointment & surprise that this I wrote him you would call upon him & maybe he expects you whenever you are ready to do so. It is a great disappointment & surprise that this delay delay must be. I must be. I now now regret the poems are in his hands." Mrs. Todd must see the Colonel immediately, Vinnie commanded, to urge him forward, and when Mabel did not comply, Vinnie picked up a pen and wrote him herself. He answered with good news: he had "selected and arranged" about two hundred of d.i.c.kinson's poems "to begin with. Then, if you wish, others may follow: regret the poems are in his hands." Mrs. Todd must see the Colonel immediately, Vinnie commanded, to urge him forward, and when Mabel did not comply, Vinnie picked up a pen and wrote him herself. He answered with good news: he had "selected and arranged" about two hundred of d.i.c.kinson's poems "to begin with. Then, if you wish, others may follow:

Life 44 Love 23 Nature 60 Time & Eternity 72 _____________________ 199

Vinnie liked the headings, and when Higginson recommended someone write an article about the poems to prepare the public-he seems to have forgotten that he had volunteered-Vinnie asked him to do it. Miffed, Mabel said nothing.

Aware of the exceptional character of d.i.c.kinson's genius, Higginson also suspected that readers and publishers might dismiss the poetry out of hand. Gingerly, he contacted acquaintances in the business. Houghton Mifflin thought he had lost his mind, and at Roberts Brothers, Thomas Niles stiffly reminded the Colonel that he always thought it "unwise to perpetuate Miss d.i.c.kinson's poems," which, as he pompously concluded, he regarded as notable chiefly for their defects.

Out of respect for Higginson, however, Niles took a slight risk. If Lavinia d.i.c.kinson would pay for the plates of a small edition-"which shall be exempt from copyright, all future issues to be subject to 15% copyright on the retail price of all sold"-he would print a limited run of the poems.

Vinnie accepted with pleasure.

NILES HANDED THE d.i.c.kINSON ma.n.u.script over to the writer Arlo Bates, his outside reader, and though Bates admitted that the author of this rude verse "came very near to that indefinable quality which we call genius," he recommended publis.h.i.+ng only half the poems, and those rigorously edited. Some of the ones Bates omitted-and we cannot be entirely sure which they were-Higginson regarded as d.i.c.kinson's finest, but Mabel began editing the selections, crossing out d.i.c.kinson's dashes, correcting her punctuation and spelling, omitting capitals, and regularizing rhyme at will. ma.n.u.script over to the writer Arlo Bates, his outside reader, and though Bates admitted that the author of this rude verse "came very near to that indefinable quality which we call genius," he recommended publis.h.i.+ng only half the poems, and those rigorously edited. Some of the ones Bates omitted-and we cannot be entirely sure which they were-Higginson regarded as d.i.c.kinson's finest, but Mabel began editing the selections, crossing out d.i.c.kinson's dashes, correcting her punctuation and spelling, omitting capitals, and regularizing rhyme at will.

Forever after, Higginson would be remembered as the graceless editor who shamelessly cut d.i.c.kinson down to Victorian size. But which editor, Todd or Higginson, changed what? Who was the more obtuse? Even Ralph Franklin, in an excellent study of extant d.i.c.kinson ma.n.u.scripts and their copies, cannot definitively say whether Higginson or Mabel Todd bore the chief responsibility for tailoring d.i.c.kinson to fit prevailing norms. Mrs. Todd, who cropped poems when first transcribing them, herself later conceded, "I changed words here and there in the two hundred to make them smoother-he changed a very few." But Higginson went along.

Enamored of d.i.c.kinson's poetry but convinced it contained faults, Mabel had decided to prepare the poet to meet the public in as respectable a garb as possible; her torrid affair with the poet's brother did not imply that she would throw all convention to the wind, far from it. Higginson, on the other hand, considered the poems a rarity but knew he had to spoon-feed a palatable version to that selfsame and ponderous public he had upbraided and cajoled and fought against for many years. He thus occasionally objected to Mabel's interference. "I find with dismay that the beautiful 'I shall know why, when time is over' has been left out," he protested in July of 1890, after he saw the completed ma.n.u.script and restored the poem from memory. And when Mrs. Todd wanted to correct d.i.c.kinson's grammar in the poem "I died for Beauty-," subst.i.tuting "laid" for the ungrammatical "lain" ("When One who died for Truth was lain"), he protested and won.

During the summer, Higginson and Mrs. Todd corresponded, making the final alterations for which they have been blamed ever after-as if any of us, had we lived over one hundred years ago, might not have floundered in similar ways. For language like this had never been seen before; nothing like it, really, ever appeared again. Still, both editors erred on the side of what they thought was caution. In the poem "These are the days when Birds come back-," Mabel wished to change the fourth line, "These are the days when skies resume," to the more prosaic, unlyrical "These are the days when skies put on." Higginson again went along. And over Mabel's own protest, he himself demanded that the last line of "The Gra.s.s so little has to do" be changed from "I wish I were a Hay-" to "I wish I were the hay." "It cannot go in so," he presumably said, "everybody would say that hay hay is a collective noun requiring the definite article. n.o.body can call it is a collective noun requiring the definite article. n.o.body can call it a a hay!" As a result the last lines were printed "And then to dwell in sovereign barns / And dream the days away,-/ The gra.s.s so little has to do, / I wish I were the hay!" Strict grammar here makes no sense. hay!" As a result the last lines were printed "And then to dwell in sovereign barns / And dream the days away,-/ The gra.s.s so little has to do, / I wish I were the hay!" Strict grammar here makes no sense.

Then there was the matter of t.i.tles. d.i.c.kinson did not use them. On occasion when writing to a correspondent, she might identify her poems with something like them; for instance, she had labeled the poems "Further in Summer than the Birds" and "It sifts from Leaden Sieves-" "My Cricket and the Snow" when writing to Thomas Niles. And when printed in newspapers, her poems were t.i.tled, but whether by her or an editor, we don't know. That's it. But Higginson wanted t.i.tles, and Mrs. Todd agreed, even though, as she said, she did "not believe, myself, in naming them; and although I admire Mr. Higginson very much, I do not think many of his t.i.tles good." In later years she again claimed Higginson had been more addicted to t.i.tles than she, or, as she defended herself, she "was exceedingly loath to a.s.sign t.i.tles to any of them which might not be unmistakably indicated in the poem itself."

Yet when editing Poems, Poems, Third Series, without Higginson, Mabel enc.u.mbered the poems with as many t.i.tles as she and Higginson together used previously. Both of them, then, were guilty of saddling d.i.c.kinson's complex, subtle, and tricky work with unwieldy headings that read like monosyllabic penny dreadfuls: "Almost!" "The Secret," "Dawn," "Real," "Setting Sail," "Too Late," "Why?" and "In Vain." Regardless, the editors left more than a quarter of the poems unt.i.tled, affording the room for interpretation that a d.i.c.kinson poem demands: "Presentiment-is that long shadow-on the Lawn-," "A Third Series, without Higginson, Mabel enc.u.mbered the poems with as many t.i.tles as she and Higginson together used previously. Both of them, then, were guilty of saddling d.i.c.kinson's complex, subtle, and tricky work with unwieldy headings that read like monosyllabic penny dreadfuls: "Almost!" "The Secret," "Dawn," "Real," "Setting Sail," "Too Late," "Why?" and "In Vain." Regardless, the editors left more than a quarter of the poems unt.i.tled, affording the room for interpretation that a d.i.c.kinson poem demands: "Presentiment-is that long shadow-on the Lawn-," "A wounded wounded deer leaps highest," "The Brain within its groove," "I've seen a Dying Eye," and "I reason, earth is short." deer leaps highest," "The Brain within its groove," "I've seen a Dying Eye," and "I reason, earth is short."

And sometimes they omitted whole stanzas, as is the case with "Because I could not stop for Death-," where they left out the lines "Or rather-He pa.s.sed Us-/ The Dews drew quivering and Chill-/ For only Gossamer, my Gown-/ My Tippet-only Tulle-." Other times they removed punctuation and in so doing cut terror from the heart of a poem. Compare, for instance, these two versions of "Two swimmers wrestled on the spar." The following is d.i.c.kinson's original: Two swimmers wrestled on the spar-Until the morning sun-When One-turned smiling to the land-Oh G.o.d! the Other One!The stray s.h.i.+ps-pa.s.sing-Spied a face-Opon the waters borne-With eyes in death-still begging raised-And hands-beseeching-thrown!

This is the handiwork of Higginson and Todd: Two swimmers wrestled on the sparUntil the morning sun,When one turned smiling to the land.O G.o.d, the other one!The stray s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing spied a faceUpon the waters borne,With eyes in death still begging raised,And hands beseeching thrown.

In each version the words are the same, but by omitting dashes and smoothing line breaks, the editors blunted the poem's edge with a quiet if disconsolate picture of prayer.

Despite the editorial heavy-footedness and in some instances outright butchery, d.i.c.kinson's poems remarkably retain their meaning, their power to reach beyond what can be seen, heard, or felt. Consider the poem ineptly t.i.tled "Death and Life." The dashes have been removed, the punctuation regularized, and yet the images of amputation, beheading, and a.s.sa.s.sination concoct a world-or a G.o.d-cruel in its murderous indifference to life: Apparently with no surpriseTo any happy flower,The frost beheads it at its playIn accidental power.The blond a.s.sa.s.sin pa.s.ses on,The sun proceeds unmovedTo measure off another dayFor an approving G.o.d.

If the strategies of Todd and Higginson differed slightly, the result was the same, and both editors were eventually pilloried for bowdlerizing the poet's work. But they did not suppress or occlude it; rather, they presented it to an audience like them that, after many years of saccharine poetasting and propaganda, hungrily devoured the fresh, intricate, and dramatically novel verse.

LAVINIA DID NOT WISH Mabel to receive any credit for the d.i.c.kinson book. None. "I dare say you are aware our 'co-worker' is to be 'sub rosa,'" Vinnie wrote to Higginson, "for reasons you may understand." Not only was he confused, but he was barely able to read Vinnie's swerving cursive, which he naively asked Mabel to decipher. "I have her letter to Mr. Higginson," Mabel seethed in her diary, "& I am trying not to be furious." Mabel to receive any credit for the d.i.c.kinson book. None. "I dare say you are aware our 'co-worker' is to be 'sub rosa,'" Vinnie wrote to Higginson, "for reasons you may understand." Not only was he confused, but he was barely able to read Vinnie's swerving cursive, which he naively asked Mabel to decipher. "I have her letter to Mr. Higginson," Mabel seethed in her diary, "& I am trying not to be furious."

Mabel a.s.sumed Vinnie wanted to avoid a fight with Sue, who, as it happened, by having submitted Emily's poems to magazines, made copyright a problem. Though Lavinia insisted the poems belonged entirely to her-that Emily had left them solely to her-Todd and Higginson now needed permission to use "There came a Day-at Summer's full" because Sue had sold it to Scribner's Magazine Scribner's Magazine three months before the book was scheduled to appear. Higginson thought Sue could be enlisted as part of the forthcoming volume; surely her tender obituary of Emily in the three months before the book was scheduled to appear. Higginson thought Sue could be enlisted as part of the forthcoming volume; surely her tender obituary of Emily in the Springfield Republican Springfield Republican would beautifully introduce the book. Lavinia-and Mabel of course-recoiled. Higginson's essay would preface the volume, as promised; discussion over. would beautifully introduce the book. Lavinia-and Mabel of course-recoiled. Higginson's essay would preface the volume, as promised; discussion over.

And there was, too, the issue of Mrs. Todd's name on the book's t.i.tle page. "Your name should appear somewhere": Higginson ignored Vinnie's objection, suggesting that the t.i.tle page contain both their names, if that did not seem too awkward for so small a book. When Mabel expressed delight, he placed hers prominently: "It is proper that yr name shld come first as you did the hardest part of the work."

By then he had finished a long essay on d.i.c.kinson, introducing her and her strange verse to the public. Published in the Christian Union Christian Union in September 1890-slated for the in September 1890-slated for the Century, Century, it would appear there too late-the essay is the longer, more relaxed form of what would become Higginson's preface to the poems. Far less defensive than the brief preface, the essay begins in Higginson's conversational style: it would appear there too late-the essay is the longer, more relaxed form of what would become Higginson's preface to the poems. Far less defensive than the brief preface, the essay begins in Higginson's conversational style: Emerson said, many years since, in the "Dial," that the most interesting department of poetry would hereafter be found in what might be called "The Poetry of the Portfolio," the work, that is, of persons who wrote for the relief of their own minds, and without thought of publication. Such poetry, when acc.u.mulated for years, will have at least the merit of perfect freedom; accompanied, of course, by whatever drawback follows from the habitual absence of criticism. Thought will have its full strength and uplifting, but without the proper control and chastening of literary expression; there will be wonderful strokes and felicities, and yet an incomplete and unsatisfactory whole. If we believe, with Ruskin, that "no beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought," then we may often gain by the seclusion of the portfolio, which rests content with a first stroke and does not over-refine and prune away afterwards.

With the metaphor of "Poetry of the Portfolio," Higginson intended to nip in the bud any criticism of d.i.c.kinson's unusual form, for the Higginson who had been d.i.c.kinson's ally-sometime muse, sometime guardian, sometime epistolary inamorato-had always insisted that form serves thought, and d.i.c.kinson's poems wonderfully "delineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mental struggle."

He went on to praise enthusiastically such poems as "Glee-The great storm is over," "I never saw a moor," and "Soul, wilt thou toss again?": Soul, wilt thou toss again?By just such a hazardHundreds have lost, indeed,But tens have won an all.Angels' breathless ballotLingers to record thee;Imps in eager caucusRaffle for my soul!

"Was ever the concentrated contest of a lifetime, the very issue between good and evil, put into few words?" he marveled. And when reproducing "I died for beauty," he compared it for weirdness-a good quality-with the work of William Blake, and no one, he cagily added, would dare criticize Blake for defects in draftsmans.h.i.+p. "When a thought takes one's breath away, who cares to count the syllables?" With a courage that shrank from nothing, d.i.c.kinson looked straight into the heart of darkness, he concluded, again recalling the unforgettable stanzas of "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers-" sent him so many years ago, those daringly condensed lines that, he said, struck a note much too fine to be lost or excised: Grand go the years in the crescent above them;Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,Diadems drop and Doges surrender,Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

THE BOOK WAS DONE. Bound in white, framed in gold and stamped in the same color, it was slim, handsome, understated. On the front was a picture of silver Indian pipes. Its t.i.tle was simply Bound in white, framed in gold and stamped in the same color, it was slim, handsome, understated. On the front was a picture of silver Indian pipes. Its t.i.tle was simply Poems. Poems.

"I am astounded, astounded," Higginson cried, holding the book in his hands. "How could we ever have doubted about these?"

How could he have doubted anything? He suddenly realized, in dismay, that d.i.c.kinson's letters to him had contained poems as good as the ones just printed: "No Brigadier throughout the Year," for instance, and "A Route of Evanescence" and "Dare you see a Soul at the 'White Heat'?" and "The nearest Dream recedes-unrealized-" and "When I hoped I feared-" and "Before I got my eye put out-" and "It sifts from Leaden Sieves" and "A Bird, came down the Walk"-so many of the poems she had sent to him over the years.

Your riches taught me poverty.

"This shows we must must have another volume by and by," he cried, "& this must include prose from her letters, often quite as marvellous as her poetry." have another volume by and by," he cried, "& this must include prose from her letters, often quite as marvellous as her poetry."

The floodgates were open. Higginson turned in relief to the cunning and unsinkable Mrs. Todd, "the only person who can feel as I do about this extraordinary thing we have done in recording this rare genius."

"I feel," he burst out, "as if we had climbed to a cloud, pulled it away, and revealed a new star behind it."

EIGHTEEN

Me-Come! My Dazzled Face

The first edition of Poems Poems by Emily d.i.c.kinson sold out, the second edition was snapped up by Christmas, and Niles released a third and then a fourth in January. In all, the book would go through eleven printings in 1891 and sell almost eleven thousand copies. Higginson was astounded. by Emily d.i.c.kinson sold out, the second edition was snapped up by Christmas, and Niles released a third and then a fourth in January. In all, the book would go through eleven printings in 1891 and sell almost eleven thousand copies. Higginson was astounded.

The poems humbled critics, even those who carped about faulty rhymes or poor poetic technique (vide Arlo Bates), and it delighted readers. Fed for years on Tennyson, Patmore, and Longfellow or, more recently, on the folksy verse of James Whitcomb Riley and the jingles of Rudyard Kipling, to say nothing of the verse of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, they were evidently tired of the didacticism and overrefinement of poetry without heat. Edmund Clarence Stedman, no radical, suggested as much in the introduction to his popular Poets of America, Poets of America, published the year before d.i.c.kinson died. "A poet, most of all, should not believe in limitations," he wrote, "and so, if poetry has lost its hold, it is in some degree because no brilliant leader compels attention to it, devoting himself to the hazard of arduous and bravely ventured song." Fifteen years later, when he published his published the year before d.i.c.kinson died. "A poet, most of all, should not believe in limitations," he wrote, "and so, if poetry has lost its hold, it is in some degree because no brilliant leader compels attention to it, devoting himself to the hazard of arduous and bravely ventured song." Fifteen years later, when he published his American Anthology, American Anthology, Stedman included twenty-one selections by Emily d.i.c.kinson. Stedman included twenty-one selections by Emily d.i.c.kinson.

Looking backward, we can say that 1890 ushered in a new period of Newness, to rephrase Higginson. Telephone lines would soon link New York and Chicago; Thomas Edison was about to patent his motion picture camera, the Kinetoscope; and William K. Vanderbilt had already erected a birthday present for his wife at Newport in the form of a marble palace that cost eleven million dollars. In New York Harbor a former munitions dump on Ellis Island would serve as a processing center for as many as eight thousand immigrants a day; in Chicago Jane Addams opened Hull House. The Populist party was about to be formed, and armed Pinkerton guards would soon fire on the striking Homestead steelworkers. More than two hundred Lakota Sioux were ma.s.sacred at Wounded Knee, and in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court would uphold the "separate but equal" doctrine that legitimized Jim Crow. Only Justice Harlan dissented, declaring the Const.i.tution color-blind. the Supreme Court would uphold the "separate but equal" doctrine that legitimized Jim Crow. Only Justice Harlan dissented, declaring the Const.i.tution color-blind.

In literature, Jacob Riis exposed the squalid conditions of urban life in How the Other Half Lives. How the Other Half Lives. William Dean Howells published his novel William Dean Howells published his novel A Hazard of New Fortunes, A Hazard of New Fortunes, whose subjects were capitalism, social conscience, and socialism, and George Was.h.i.+ngton Cable brought out a collection of essays, whose subjects were capitalism, social conscience, and socialism, and George Was.h.i.+ngton Cable brought out a collection of essays, The Negro Question, The Negro Question, rejecting the myth of African American inferiority. William James's long-awaited rejecting the myth of African American inferiority. William James's long-awaited Principles of Psychology, Principles of Psychology, soon a standard college text, refreshed the vernacular with phrases like "stream of consciousness" and "b.i.t.c.h-G.o.ddess success." But the b.i.t.c.h-G.o.ddess continued to possess the soul of a conspicuously consuming America. This and American indifference to art had long been Henry James's theme and was, in part, dominant in the work of a young Edith Wharton, who in 1891 published her first story, "Mrs. Manstey's View," about an elderly woman whose garden view will be blocked by a new high-rise next door. (In 1905, Higginson ranked her novel soon a standard college text, refreshed the vernacular with phrases like "stream of consciousness" and "b.i.t.c.h-G.o.ddess success." But the b.i.t.c.h-G.o.ddess continued to possess the soul of a conspicuously consuming America. This and American indifference to art had long been Henry James's theme and was, in part, dominant in the work of a young Edith Wharton, who in 1891 published her first story, "Mrs. Manstey's View," about an elderly woman whose garden view will be blocked by a new high-rise next door. (In 1905, Higginson ranked her novel The House of Mirth The House of Mirth "at the head of all American fiction, save Hawthorne alone.") "at the head of all American fiction, save Hawthorne alone.") To Higginson-as to James and, later, to Wharton-the scramble for cash, splash, and speed in postwar America had elbowed out any concern for art or style. "n.o.body reads Th.o.r.eau; only an insignificant fraction read Emerson, or even Hawthorne," he had complained in his diary. But when incorporating this pa.s.sage into his novel Malbone, Malbone, he then remonstrated with himself by taking up the position of the reformer, not the aesthete: "If you begin with high art, you begin at the wrong end," he admonished. "The first essential for any nation is to put the ma.s.s of the people above the reach of want." he then remonstrated with himself by taking up the position of the reformer, not the aesthete: "If you begin with high art, you begin at the wrong end," he admonished. "The first essential for any nation is to put the ma.s.s of the people above the reach of want."

That was all well and good, but Higginson also knew the reading public to be recalcitrant and stodgy, far stodgier than he was, even in his most conservative, Whitman-a.s.sailing moments. And since he still believed in a democratic art-an art of open arms-Higginson welcomed d.i.c.kinson to the public stage; she could touch anyone, as he explained in The Nation The Nation in 1890, because her thrilling poems, with their "irresistible needle-touch," pierce directly into the heart of things. Each fragment encompa.s.ses an emotional whole, self-contained and complete, and its exterior austerity is no harsher than the New England landscape she represents and celebrates. To Higginson, d.i.c.kinson pushed back against America's cra.s.s materialism, a point William Dean Howells also made, with Higginson's approval, when he reviewed her book of poems in in 1890, because her thrilling poems, with their "irresistible needle-touch," pierce directly into the heart of things. Each fragment encompa.s.ses an emotional whole, self-contained and complete, and its exterior austerity is no harsher than the New England landscape she represents and celebrates. To Higginson, d.i.c.kinson pushed back against America's cra.s.s materialism, a point William Dean Howells also made, with Higginson's approval, when he reviewed her book of poems in Harper's: Harper's: if "nothing else had come out of our life but this strange poetry we should feel that in the work of Emily d.i.c.kinson, America, or New England rather, had made a distinctive addition to the literature of the world, and could not be left out of any record of it." if "nothing else had come out of our life but this strange poetry we should feel that in the work of Emily d.i.c.kinson, America, or New England rather, had made a distinctive addition to the literature of the world, and could not be left out of any record of it."

Austin d.i.c.kinson, 61 years old, 1890.

Yet the book's wild success had not altered Mabel's personal situation, for Austin had not broken with Sue. "I have hoped and hoped and expected, and I have nothing more to say," she declared, not meaning what she said. Apprised of some internecine warfare-it's not clear if he knew the cause-Higginson grumbled that it was hard to steer among d.i.c.kinsons. Sue had not replied to his letter asking how she liked the volume and, worried that he had unwittingly offended her, he confided his concern to Mabel, who swore Sue had no reason to be angry. But Higginson suspected otherwise. As for Lavinia, even though Sue and Mattie refused to talk to her, she cared only about the success of her sister's poems-and she wanted another volume of them published as soon as possible.

Mabel was by now d.i.c.kinson obsessed. She kept a sc.r.a.pbook of reviews, she composed an article on d.i.c.kinson's poetry (rejected by several magazines), she peddled her father's essay on d.i.c.kinson (also rejected), she wrote an encyclopedia entry on d.i.c.kinson, and in Springfield she lectured on the poet's life and work, which she would continue to do at various literary events, charging ten dollars per talk, plus expenses. She virtually performed Emily, effortlessly a.s.suming center stage as the poet's shepherd and spokesperson. And to her great satisfaction, she was much more successful than Sue at selling Emily's poems to magazines and newspapers; The Independent The Independent bought three in the first month of 1891. bought three in the first month of 1891.

Higginson, too, partic.i.p.ated in the d.i.c.kinson boomlet, which he helped to create by inviting Boston literati-Howells, Samuel Longfellow, the historian William Roscoe Thayer, and a young Harvard philosophy instructor, George Santayana, who could not attend-to his comfortable parlor. Just a few feet away from the regimental sword hanging in a hallway crowded with family portraits, Higginson recited a selection of his d.i.c.kinson letters. "I think there is in literary history no more interesting self-revelation," he afterward told the drama critic Brander Matthews. Higginson then called d.i.c.kinson a genius-a word he used sparingly-when lecturing to New York's Nineteenth Century Club, and to explain her unusual style, he fell back on his beloved Th.o.r.eau, who had said in "The Last Days of John Brown" that "the art art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle." d.i.c.kinson seldom missed the mark. of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle." d.i.c.kinson seldom missed the mark.

The audience having been adequately prepared, Higginson believed d.i.c.kinson could now appear as herself-without editorial mangling-but Mabel continued to rework the Poems Poems for the new editions, tweaking rhymes and adjusting grammar. Higginson protested. Such changes must stop. "Let us alter as little as possible, now that the public's ear is opened," he would tell her as they began selecting poems for the second volume. He meant it. Mabel did not listen. for the new editions, tweaking rhymes and adjusting grammar. Higginson protested. Such changes must stop. "Let us alter as little as possible, now that the public's ear is opened," he would tell her as they began selecting poems for the second volume. He meant it. Mabel did not listen.

In their cordial way, the editors had grown apart. Giddy with success and convinced of her own wisdom, Todd still wished to regularize d.i.c.kinson-"put so in order to have the rhyme perfect," as she told Higginson, so when, for example, she mailed "Whose are the little beds-I asked" to St. Nicholas St. Nicholas magazine, she took the following lines- magazine, she took the following lines- Her busy foot she plied-Humming the quaintest lullabyThat ever rocked a child.

and replaced them with the nursery-rhymish She rocked and gently smiledHumming the quaintest lullabyThat ever soothed a child.

Vehemently objecting, Higginson restored the lines when working on the second volume of poems. Similarly, when Todd wanted to replace the last lines of "Dare you see a Soul at the 'White Heat'?," Higginson put his foot down. Let us alter as little as possible.

And as he continued to read d.i.c.kinson, we can watch Higginson overcome his squeamishness. "One poem only I dread a little to print-that wonderful 'Wild Nights,'-lest the malignant read into it more than that virgin recluse ever dreamed of putting there," he wrote to Mrs. Todd. "Has Miss Lavinia any shrinking about it? You will understand & pardon my solicitude. Yet what a loss to omit it! Indeed it is not to be omitted." And it was not.

Regardless, the editors snipped this, sorted that, with Mabel perpetually inclined to alter d.i.c.kinson's subjunctives. And they also "corrected" grammar, changing, for instance, "Further in Summer than the Birds-" to "Farther in summer," spoiling the internal rhyme (further / birds) and tampering with the meaning. In "They dropped like Flakes-," they converted the first five-line stanza into a quatrain and changed the poem's last two lines to regularize the rhyme. Yet even when tucked under their reductive t.i.tles, the poems were not entirely defanged. Take, for instance, the quietly ferocious (and unt.i.tled) "It was not Death, for I stood up." In spite of the editors' subst.i.tution of commas for dashes and their lowering the cases of the nouns, the funereal images-simultaneously concrete and abstract-pa.r.s.e that inchoate feeling that is despair: It was not death, for I stood up,And all the dead lie down;It was not night, for all the bellsPut out their tongues, for noon.It was not frost, for on my fles.h.i.+ felt siroccos crawl,-Nor fire, for just my marble feetCould keep a chancel cool.And yet it tasted like them all;The figures I have seenSet orderly, for burial,Reminded me of mine,As if my life were shavenAnd fitted to a frame,And could not breathe without a key;And 't was like midnight, some,When everything that ticked has stopped,And s.p.a.ce stares, all around,Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,Repeal the beating ground.But most like chaos,-stopless, cool,-Without a chance or spar,Or even a report of landTo justify despair.

Bells put out their tongues, siroccos crawl on the flesh, feet are by contrast cold and stiff, and yet "It was not night," or "frost" or "fire," and "yet it tasted like them all." And what is "it"? Not death, but something a.n.a.logous, something that occurs when "everything that ticked has stopped," and "grisly frosts.../ Repeal the beating ground": motion is stilled, the clocks are irrelevant when living earth accedes to immobile winter, and we exist "Without a chance or spar" to help us. There's no overrefinement or plat.i.tude here.

PERHAPS HIGGINSON ACQUIESCED to Todd's unwarranted liberties or insisted on his awful t.i.tles because he never did quite suppress his ambivalence about some of d.i.c.kinson's poems. At once declaring their genius and then, sometimes, deploring their immature form, he handled them as he treated current affairs, with an odd amalgam of conservatism and radicalism. The man who recommended that abolitionists secede from the Union, the man who bore arms against the South in the name of liberty, the man who loved Th.o.r.eau and Margaret Fuller and African spirituals and then peddled moderation, conciliation, and the verse of Helen Jackson knew that no one had ever seen poetry like this. And yet despite dedication, appreciation, and loyalty, he suggested she would have wanted to improve her work had she lived to publish it. School-marmish, he reminded Mrs. Todd that "it might do well for you to suggest in your preface [to the second volume] that we never can tell to what rigorous revision these poems might have been subjected, had the author printed them herself. They are to be regarded in many cases as the mere unfinished sketches or first studies of an artist, preserved for their intrinsic value, not presented as being in final form." to Todd's unwarranted liberties or insisted on his awful t.i.tles because he never did quite suppress his ambivalence about some of d.i.c.kinson's poems. At once declaring their genius and then, sometimes, deploring their immature form, he handled them as he treated current affairs, with an odd amalgam of conservatism and radicalism. The man who recommended that abolitionists secede from the Union, the man who bore arms against the South in the name of liberty, the man who loved Th.o.r.eau and Margaret Fuller and African spirituals and then peddled moderation, conciliation, and the verse of Helen Jackson knew that no one had ever seen poetry like this. And yet despite dedication, appreciation, and loyalty, he suggested she would have wanted to improve her work had she lived to publish it. School-marmish, he reminded Mrs. Todd that "it might do well for you to suggest in your preface [to the second volume] that we never can tell to what rigorous revision these poems might have been subjected, had the author printed them herself. They are to be regarded in many cases as the mere unfinished sketches or first studies of an artist, preserved for their intrinsic value, not presented as being in final form."

In her preface to Poems, Poems, Second Series, Todd obligingly apologized for the ragged quality of the poems, though she did say, likely also at Higginson's prompting, that "all interference not absolutely inevitable has been avoided. The very roughness of her own rendering is part of herself, and not lightly to be touched; for it seems in many cases that she intentionally avoided the smoother and more usual rhymes." Determined to rebut whatever jibes the first volume had suffered, Todd also squashed rumors about d.i.c.kinson as a lovelorn invalid wrapped in seclusion and nursing a broken heart. Austin, for one, would have none of it. "She had tried society and the world, and found them lacking," Mabel wrote with clenched teeth. "She was not an invalid, and she lived in seclusion from no love-disappointment. Her life was the normal blossoming of a nature introspective to a high degree, whose best thought could not exist in pretence." Second Series, Todd obligingly apologized for the ragged quality of the poems, though she did say, likely also at Higginson's prompting, that "all interference not absolutely inevitable has been avoided. The very roughness of her own rendering is part of herself, and not lightly to be touched; for it seems in many cases that she intentionally avoided the smoother and more usual rhymes." Determined to rebut whatever jibes the first volume had suffered, Todd also squashed rumors about d.i.c.kinson as a lovelorn invalid wrapped in seclusion and nursing a broken heart. Austin, for one, would have none of it. "She had tried society and the world, and found them lacking," Mabel wrote with clenched teeth. "She was not an invalid, and she lived in seclusion from no love-disappointment. Her life was the normal blossoming of a nature introspective to a high degree, whose best thought could not exist in pretence."

At Higginson's urging, this time Mabel signed the preface and she placed his name ahead of hers on the flyleaf. In the meantime, he had been busy with his own introductory essay, the delightful "Emily d.i.c.kinson's Letters," which publicized the second book of poems by gently narrating the course of his relations.h.i.+p with its author, beginning with the day he encountered her query "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?"

Today Higginson's essay is often denigrated both by Higginson detractors and d.i.c.kinson enthusiasts (usually they are of the same party). Yet it's a trove of firsthand facts and insights about the poet who defied the protocols to which he, as her editor and friend, admitted he often fell prey. "It would seem that at first I tried a little,-a very little-to lead her in the direction of rules and traditions," he observed, not quite remembering, "but I fear it was only perfunctory, and that she interested me more in her-so to speak-unregenerate condition."

Though acquiescing to the charade of preceptor and student, he knew he could teach her little, and humble before her, or so he recollected, "I soon abandoned all attempt to guide in the slightest degree this extraordinary nature, and simply accepted her confidences, giving as much as I could of what might interest her in return."

Writing for the public, he does not tell us what d.i.c.kinson gave him; perhaps he never knew himself. But he does recall wanting to see more, do more, know more, and be more to her. "Perhaps in time I could have got beyond that somewhat overstrained relation which not my will, but her needs, had forced upon us," he reminisced as honestly as he could. "Certainly I should have been most glad to bring it down to the level of simple truth and every-day comrades.h.i.+p; but it was not altogether easy."

Dictating the terms of their relations.h.i.+p, d.i.c.kinson demanded more than ordinary companions.h.i.+p, if indeed she knew what shape that might take. And she admired the outdoors that Higginson represented and his perpetual defiance of social pieties even while he seemed to uphold them. Hers was an inward life; his outward. But he moved her. She saw beyond the mottled air of Boston, its benignities and reverent causes, and would not come to his Radical Club, knowing that radicalism is not clubbable. Neither is art. But she sensed the art in Higginson.

If his strength lay in action, hers lay in words, which she would never subordinate to rule. Nor did he, though over time he considered compromise necessary for success in a fallen world. And yet he had staked so much of his life on finding the right word to inspire and inflame and liberate, quite literally, those who needed it. So what had happened to him? This blackest of all Black Republicans had become disillusioned. The livid pulpit orator of Worcester witnessed not just the breakdown of racial barriers, long overdue, but the breakdown of linguistic promise. Emanc.i.p.ation when? And for whom? The questions still hung in the air, unanswered and, it seemed, unheard in the scramble for celebrity riches.

Yet if no longer spouting revolution, Higginson stayed a reformer, and in later years the elegance of his prose well served his charming reminiscences not because it emptied the past of meaning but because it firmly and without apology affirmed his earlier radicalism. He had been a champion of the tough-minded, the far-flung, the sovereign, and the crack'd, and of Emily d.i.c.kinson, whose words were, all in all, a form of action too.

SWATHED IN WHITE, like its author, like its author, Poems, Poems, Second Series was released on November 9, 1891. It sold posthaste. Second Series was released on November 9, 1891. It sold posthaste.

Again the emblem on the cover was d.i.c.kinson's Indian pipes. Again the editors placed her poems, 166 of them in this volume, into broad categories: "Life," "Love," "Nature," and "Time and Eternity." But this time the editors included poems about poetry ("Essential oils are wrung") and pa.s.sion ("Wild nights! Wild nights!" and "Going to him! Happy letter!") and doubt ("Their height in heaven comforts not"). Reviewers fidgeted. The more the poetry moved them, it seemed, the more they balked. The New York World World haughtily asked if the "admirers" of d.i.c.kinson's "experimental vagaries" do her any service by printing more of her "crudities," and haughtily asked if the "admirers" of d.i.c.kinson's "experimental vagaries" do her any service by printing more of her "crudities," and The Critic The Critic groused about "too much of the same thing," namely, "jerky and disjointed writing, and occasional faults of grammar." groused about "too much of the same thing," namely, "jerky and disjointed writing, and occasional faults of grammar." The Literary World The Literary World dubbed the poems "neuralgic darts of feeling." And when Thomas Bailey Aldrich read Howells's review of d.i.c.kinson, he cringed. "I honestly think his mind unbalanced," he said. Aldrich, Howells's successor at dubbed the poems "neuralgic darts of feeling." And when Thomas Bailey Aldrich read Howells's review of d.i.c.kinson, he cringed. "I honestly think his mind unbalanced," he said. Aldrich, Howells's successor at The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly who ushered it into a period of decline, then trounced d.i.c.kinson's poems as well as Higginson himself. "I fail to detect in her work any of that profound thought which her editor professes to discover in it," he concluded his review. "The phenomenal insight, I am inclined to believe, exists only in his partiality; for whenever a woman poet is in question Mr. Higginson always puts on his rose-colored spectacles." who ushered it into a period of decline, then trounced d.i.c.kinson's poems as well as Higginson himself. "I fail to detect in her work any of that profound thought which her editor professes to discover in it," he concluded his review. "The phenomenal insight, I am inclined to believe, exists only in his partiality; for whenever a woman poet is in question Mr. Higginson always puts on his rose-colored spectacles."

The condescension of Aldrich was nothing compared with the consternation of the British press, which denounced d.i.c.kinson's crude American infraction of poetic form. That amused Alice James, the sister of William and Henry. "It is rea.s.suring to hear the English p.r.o.nouncement that Emily d.i.c.kinson is fifth-rate, they have such a capacity for missing quality; the robust evades them equally with the subtle," she snickered. But the book sold, and Mabel, delirious with yet another victory over Sue, busied herself with more d.i.c.kinson projects: a yearbook of d.i.c.kinson's epigrams and poetic fragments and a set of new lectures throughout New England that would attract as many as two hundred expectant listeners in auditoriums, drawing rooms, churches, and town halls. She had a mission.