White Heat Part 22

"It makes me happy to send you the Book": ED to TWH, [February 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:548. 2:548.

The one they called "Immortality" "I believed it would": ED to TWH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:551. Thomas Johnson conjectures that the poem is "'Faithful to the end' amended." I have my doubts. 2:551. Thomas Johnson conjectures that the poem is "'Faithful to the end' amended." I have my doubts.

"You once told me": ED to TWH, [February 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:548. 2:548.

"I was lonely": ED to TWH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:551. 2:551.

"I sued the News-yet feared-the News": Fr 1391.

"The things we thought that we should do": Fr 1279.

"I wish your friend had my strength": ED to TWH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:551. 2:551.

"May I cherish it twice": ED to MCH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:554. 2:554.

"I am glad to have been": ED to TWH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:553. 2:553.

"a little Granite Book you can lean upon": ED to MCH, [December 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:569. 2:569.

"I am glad if I did not": ED to MCH, [August 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:558. 2:558.

"Your letters always surprise me": ED to TWH, [June 1869], Letters, Letters, 2:186. 2:186.

"I hoped you might show me something of your's": ED to TWH, [August 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:588. 2:588.

"Thank you for having written the 'Atlantic Essays'": ED to TWH, [November 1871], Letters, Letters, 2:491. 2:491.

"I was re-reading 'Oldport'": ED to TWH, [January 1874], Letters, Letters, 2:518. 2:518.

"A Wind that woke a lone Delight": Fr 1216D.

"Though inaudible": ED to TWH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:553. 2:553.

"Your thought is so serious": ED to TWH, [spring 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:552. 2:552.

"That it is true": ED to TWH, [January 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:546. 2:546.

"Candor-my Preceptor-is the only wile": ED to TWH, [February 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:548. She alludes to his paragraph in the prelude to 2:548. She alludes to his paragraph in the prelude to Malbone: Malbone: "One learns, in growing older, that no fiction can be so strange nor appear so improbable as would the simple truth; and that doubtless even Shakespeare did but timidly transcribe a few of the deeds and pa.s.sions he had personally known. For no man of middle age can dare trust himself to portray life in its full intensity, as he has studied or shared it; he must resolutely set aside as indescribable the things most worth describing, and must expect to be charged with exaggeration, even when he tells the rest." "One learns, in growing older, that no fiction can be so strange nor appear so improbable as would the simple truth; and that doubtless even Shakespeare did but timidly transcribe a few of the deeds and pa.s.sions he had personally known. For no man of middle age can dare trust himself to portray life in its full intensity, as he has studied or shared it; he must resolutely set aside as indescribable the things most worth describing, and must expect to be charged with exaggeration, even when he tells the rest."

"I almost inferred from your accent": ED to TWH, [August 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:559. 2:559.

"Surely, in the shelter of such double double anonymousness": HHJ to ED, [summer 1876], anonymousness": HHJ to ED, [summer 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:563. 2:563.

"I felt [li]ke a [gr]eat ox" "Let somebody somewhere": HHJ to ED, [fall 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:565. 2:565.

"I told her I was unwilling": ED to TWH, [October 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:563. 2:563.

"Often, when troubled by entreaty": ED to TWH, [early 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:573. 2:573.

Misunderstanding her request: Critics once read Mercy Philbrick's Choice Mercy Philbrick's Choice as based on Helen Hunt's and Higginson's unplighted friends.h.i.+p; other critics find Emily d.i.c.kinson in the figure of Mercy Philbrick, a woman devoted to her art. But this latter reading is strained. However, the male protagonist, Stephen White, bears some resemblance to Higginson in that he is preternaturally devoted to an ill, cranky mother who resembles Mary. And doubtless the novel contains Helen Hunt's evaluation of the Higginson marriage: "This tyrannical woman held him chained. His submission to her would have seemed abject, if it had not been based on a sentiment and grounded in a loyalty which compelled respect" (p. 71). as based on Helen Hunt's and Higginson's unplighted friends.h.i.+p; other critics find Emily d.i.c.kinson in the figure of Mercy Philbrick, a woman devoted to her art. But this latter reading is strained. However, the male protagonist, Stephen White, bears some resemblance to Higginson in that he is preternaturally devoted to an ill, cranky mother who resembles Mary. And doubtless the novel contains Helen Hunt's evaluation of the Higginson marriage: "This tyrannical woman held him chained. His submission to her would have seemed abject, if it had not been based on a sentiment and grounded in a loyalty which compelled respect" (p. 71).

"My dear friend": TWH to ED, [fall 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:564. 2:564.

"I thought your approbation": ED to TWH, [January 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:572. 2:572.

Friends of Vinnie's: See YH, YH, 2:253. 2:253.

It occupies a "special place": HHJ to ED, October 25, 1878, Letters, Letters, 2:626. 2:626.

"Though we know": ED to TWH, [June 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:583. 2:583.

"Lay this Laurel on the One": Fr 1428C.

"I have no other Playmate": ED to TWH, [August 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:588; "It sounded as if the streets were running": Fr 1454C; "She laid her docile Crescent down": Fr 1453C; "I have no Life but this-": Fr 1432C; "After all Birds have been investigated and laid aside": Fr 1383. 2:588; "It sounded as if the streets were running": Fr 1454C; "She laid her docile Crescent down": Fr 1453C; "I have no Life but this-": Fr 1432C; "After all Birds have been investigated and laid aside": Fr 1383.

"the loving you" and "the love of you": See Fr, 3:12511253.

"The Wilderness is new-": ED to TWH, [September 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:590. 2:590.

CHAPTER TWELVE: MOMENTS OF PREFACE "Your Face is more joyful": ED to TWH, [October 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:566. 2:566.

"How little there seems left to be done": TWH, journal, September 2, 1877, Houghton.

"With sorrow": ED to TWH, [September 1877], BPL.

"Perhaps she does not go so far": Fr 1455C; "If I could help you?": ED to TWH, [September 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:590. 2:590.

"Danger is not at first": ED to TWH, [autumn 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:594. 2:594.

"To be human": ED to TWH, [September 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:592. 2:592.

At least one d.i.c.kinson biographer: See Taggard, The Life and Mind of Emily d.i.c.kinson, The Life and Mind of Emily d.i.c.kinson, p. 318. p. 318.

"I remember nothing so strong": ED to TWH, [September 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:592. 2:592.

"Dear Mr Bowles found out too late": ED to Elizabeth Holland, [early 1878], Letters, Letters, 2:604. 2:604.

"I felt it shelter to speak with you": ED to TWH, January 19, 1878, Letters, Letters, 2:599. 2:599.

"When you have lost a friend": ED to TWH, [early June 1878], Letters, Letters, 2:611. 2:611.

A military Rip Van Winkle: See TWH to AH, February 28, 1878, Houghton.

"inalienable muttonchop whiskers": Wilson, Patriotic Gore, Patriotic Gore, p. 488. p. 488.

"I began to feel fearfully bewildered": TWH to AH, February 22, 1878, Houghton.

"An individual seems so insignificant": TWH, journal, February 2125, 1878, Houghton.

"The same sky was above her" "I hold it utterly ungenerous": See TWH, "Some War Scenes Revisited."

Incensed, Higginson had denounced the...ma.s.sacre: TWH, "Border Ruffianism in South Carolina," p. 1.

"The Hope of seeing you was so sweet and serious-": ED to TWH, [March 1878], Letters, Letters, 2:607. 2:607.

"Is this the Hope that opens and shuts": ED to TWH, [June 1878], Letters, Letters, 2:611. 2:611.

"How brittle are the Piers": Fr 1459.

"I have felt like a troubled Top": ED to Elizabeth Holland, [December 1877], Letters, Letters, 2:596. 2:596.

Darwin looked older: See TWH, "Carlyle's Laugh," p. 465; for his travels, see also TWH, "The Road to England" and "Literary Paris Twenty Years Ago." 219 "There is no one so happy": ED to TWH, [December 1878], Letters, Letters, 2:627. 2:627.

"known little of Literature": ED to TWH, [February 1879], Letters, Letters, 2:635. 2:635.

she responded with typical humor: ED to TWH, [December 1879], Letters, Letters, 2:649. 2:649.

"Must I lose the Friend": ED to TWH, [1879], Letters, Letters, 2:649. 2:649.

Such coincident occasions: Though we don't know when d.i.c.kinson began her romance with Judge Lord, I suspect that, had she been in love with him at the time of Higginson's marriage, she would have mailed him a poem slightly less reserved than the one she did send, reiterating themes haunting her work since her father's death (I have copied the poem with the breaks that appeared in the letter to Higginson, BPL (1093): We knew not thatWe were to liveNor when-we areto die-Our ignorance ourCuira.s.s is-We wear MortalityAs lightly as anOption Gowntill asked to take itoff.By his intrusion, G.o.dis known-It is the samewith Life- "Judge Lord never seemed to coalesce": SGD, "Annals of the Evergreens," typed ms., n.d., Houghton.

"strong in his intellect": "Otis Phillips Lord," in Hurd, History of Ess.e.x County, Ma.s.sachusetts, History of Ess.e.x County, Ma.s.sachusetts, p. xliv. p. xliv.

"Calvary and May": ED to Benjamin Kimball, [1885], Letters, Letters, 3:861. 3:861.

And he and she exchanged vows: Lord's letters to d.i.c.kinson were burned by the vigilant Vinnie, so we cannot be sure when the romance began. Biographers like Richard Sewall and Cynthia Wolff, following MTB, who first published evidence of the relations.h.i.+p, posit 1878 as the date of the earliest of these pa.s.sionate fragments, but more recently-and more persuasively-Alfred Habegger has suggested that the romance began at a later time, particularly since Elizabeth Lord died only the year before. Similarly, I tend to think that the romance did not begin to flower until early 1880, though this, too, is a guess.

"the trespa.s.s of my rustic Love": ED to Otis Lord, [April 1882], Werner A 742e. I have followed the corrective numbering-chronology offered in Marta Werner's diligent Emily d.i.c.kinson's Open Folios. Emily d.i.c.kinson's Open Folios. Those interested in d.i.c.kinson's letters to Lord should begin with this volume despite its occasional mistakes in transcription; it does offer a more convincing array of letters and suggests a better chronology than that offered by Johnson. Those interested in d.i.c.kinson's letters to Lord should begin with this volume despite its occasional mistakes in transcription; it does offer a more convincing array of letters and suggests a better chronology than that offered by Johnson.

"Yet Tenderness has not a Date": ED to Otis Lord, [April 30, 1882?], Werner A 742f.

"Judge Lord was with us": ED to TWH, [October 1876], Letters, Letters, 2:566. 2:566.

"Sweetest Name": ED to Otis Lord, n.d., Werner A 748b.

"You said with loved timidity": ED to Otis Lord, [December 3, 1882], Werner 749d.

"That was a big-sweet Story-": ED to Otis Lord, [April 30, 1882?], Werner A 742.

"My lovely Salem smiles at me" "I confess that I love him-": ED to Otis Lord, n.d., Werner A 734, 735.

In another draft of a letter: ED to Otis Lord, n.d., Werner A 736.

"To lie so near your longing-": ED to Otis Lord, [18781879], Werner A 740.

"Dont you know you are happiest": ED to Otis Lord, n.d., Werner A 739.

"Tuesday is a deeply depressed Day": ED to Otis Lord, n.d., Werner A 757, 757a.

"Were Departure Separation": [ED to Otis Lord?]; see Revelation, Revelation, p. 94, and Werner, p. 275n: the original ma.n.u.script is missing. p. 94, and Werner, p. 275n: the original ma.n.u.script is missing.

In the summer of 1878: See "'Saxe Holm' Evolved," the Springfield Republican, Springfield Republican, July 25, 1878, pp. 34. July 25, 1878, pp. 34.

"We can only say that we happen to know": Springfield Republican, Springfield Republican, August 3, 1878, p. 3. August 3, 1878, p. 3.

"an old-fas.h.i.+oned girl" "exquisitely refined & dainty in all her ways": TWH to Ellen Conway, November 4, 1878, Butler.

his "only safety" "I'm adrift in the universe without it": TWH to Ellen Conway, December 6, 1878, Butler.

"clear good-sense and...modest faithfulness": TWH, "Seaside and Prairie," p. 3.

"I shall pick 'May flowers' more furtively": ED to TWH, [spring 1880], Letters, Letters, 3:661. Interestingly, he waited over a year before he shared the compliments with d.i.c.kinson, or she waited to answer him. 3:661. Interestingly, he waited over a year before he shared the compliments with d.i.c.kinson, or she waited to answer him.

"I shall no doubt": TWH to Ellen Conway, October 20, 1879, Butler.

"The Face in Evanescence lain": Fr 1521.

"Most of our Moments": ED to TWH, [spring 1880], Letters, Letters, 3:660. 3:660.

"dazzling Baby": ED to TWH, [August 1880], Letters, Letters, 3:668. 3:668.

"I know but little of Little Ones": ED to TWH, [summer 1881], Letters, Letters, 3:711. 3:711.

"'Go traveling with us'!": Fr 1561.

"It is such inexpressible happiness": TWH to AH, December 22, 1880, Houghton.

"The responsibility of Pathos": ED to Elizabeth Holland, [fall 1880], Letters, Letters, 3:675. 3:675.

"very improper": ED to Elizabeth Holland, July 1889, Letters, Letters, 3:667. 3:667.

"I have promised three Hymns": ED to TWH, [November 1880], Letters, Letters, 3:680. 3:680.

"The thoughtfulness I may not accept": ED to TWH, [November 1880], Letters, Letters, 3:681. 3:681.

"A Route of Evanescence": Fr 1489E.

"My Country's Wardrobe": "My country need not change her gown," Fr 1540; "The Savior must have been": Fr 1538.

"Mine Enemy is growing old-": Fr 1539B.

Cotton Mather would have burned her as a witch: Allen Tate, "Emily d.i.c.kinson," in Sewall, Emily d.i.c.kinson, Emily d.i.c.kinson, p. 27. p. 27.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THINGS THAT NEVER CAN COME BACK Hearing him scream: See MLT, journal, October 18, 1891, Yale.

"'Aunt Emily, speaking of someone'": Edward (Ned) d.i.c.kinson, quoted in MDB, Emily d.i.c.kinson Face to Face, Emily d.i.c.kinson Face to Face, p. 169. p. 169.

"had gone back and become a young brother again": MDB, Emily d.i.c.kinson Face to Face, Emily d.i.c.kinson Face to Face, p. 171. p. 171.