These Fevered Days

by Martha Ackmann

  * The remark was a paraphrase from Robert Browning’s poem “Any Wife to Any Husband.” [Jane Donahue Eberwein, Dickinson: Strategies of Limitation (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 92.]

  † All but one of the letters from Otis Lord were burned after Dickinson’s death. Lord’s words to the poet are inferred from the drafts of letters she left behind that ended up in Austin’s possession, and eventually with Mabel Loomis Todd.

  ‡ Dickinson did not retain all of the poems she wrote. Some were sent to correspondents without an original kept in the poet’s possession. In the late twentieth century after all of the known poems were collected, most scholars believe Dickinson wrote just under 1,800 poems. That number fluctuates depending on how scholars define a poem. Some phrases embedded in letters are counted as poems by some scholars, and not by others.

  § Bright’s disease was a general term for kidney ailments. Given Dickinson’s headaches, fainting spell, and family history, it would appear she also suffered from hypertension.

  Illustrations Insert

  Fig. 1: Emily Dickinson at about age seventeen. “Small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur – and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves.”

  Fig. 2: Emily Norcross Dickinson. Portrait by Otis Allen Bullard. “Mines in the same Ground meet by tunneling and when she became our Child, the Affection came.”

  Fig. 3: Edward Dickinson. “His Heart was pure and terrible and I think no other like it exists.”

  Fig. 4: William Austin Dickinson. “There was always such a Hurrah wherever you was.”

  Fig. 5: Lavinia Dickinson. Emily’s bond with Vinnie was “early, earnest, indissoluble.”

  Fig. 6: Susan Gilbert Dickinson. “Where my Hands are cut, Her fingers will be found inside.”

  Fig. 7: Abiah Root. “Don’t let your free spirit be chained.”

  Fig. 8: Amherst Academy. “I am always in love with my teachers.”

  Fig. 9: Mary Lyon, principal of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. “Do something. Have a plan. Live for a purpose,” she told her students.

  Fig. 10: “My domestic work is not difficult & consists in carrying the Knives from the 1st tier of tables at morning & noon & at night.” Mount Holyoke Female Seminary domestic work “pie circle.”

  Fig. 11: Ebenezer Snell, Amherst College professor and meteorological record keeper.

  Fig. 12: Ebenezer Snell’s Meteorological Journal for August 3, 1845: “Parhelion at noon.”

  Fig. 13: The Dickinsons’ home from 1840–1855.

  Fig. 14: Amherst College student George Gould, responsible for publishing Emily’s prose valentine, her first publication.

  Fig. 15: Josiah Holland who, along with Samuel Bowles, published Dickinson’s first poem. “The hand that wrote the following amusing medley is capable of very fine things.”

  Fig. 16: Elizabeth Chapin Holland relayed Dickinson’s letters to Rev. Charles Wadsworth.

  Fig. 17: Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican. “The most triumphant Face out of Paradise.”

  Fig. 18: Author and friend Helen Hunt told Dickinson, “You are a great poet – and it is a wrong to the day you live in, that you will not sing aloud.”

  Fig. 19: Rev. Charles Wadsworth. “My closest earthly friend.”

  Fig. 20: Dickinson’s Amherst was a town of books, learning, and ideas. Its best women, one resident said, were free from “silly birdish airs.”

  Fig. 21: When writing at her desk, Dickinson looked out the window to the Evergreens, home of her brother, Austin, and sister-in-law, Sue.

  Fig. 22: Emily’s bedroom in the Dickinson Homestead was a sanctuary where her family did not intrude.

  Fig. 23: The Dickinson Homestead on Main Street in Amherst.

  Fig. 24: The Evergreens in winter.

  Fig. 25: Col. William Clark of the Massachusetts 21st Volunteer Infantry. “War feels to me an oblique place,” Dickinson wrote.

  Fig. 26: Frazar Stearns (right), lieutenant Massachusetts 21st Volunteer Infantry. “His big heart shot away by a ‘minie ball.’”

  Fig. 27: Johnson Chapel at Amherst College, site of the cannon dedication ceremony for Frazar Stearns and the Massachusetts 21st.

  Fig. 28: The Atlantic Monthly and Springfield Republican in the Dickinson family library. Both publications played significant roles in the publication of Emily’s poetry.

  Fig. 29: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dickinson’s literary mentor. “You were not aware that you saved my Life.”

  Fig. 30: The Dickinson family was immersed in politics, and owned cartes de visite of Union generals, senators, and this one of President Abraham Lincoln.

  Fig. 31: The Dickinsons often walked “up-street” to the center of town for books, gloves, French chocolate, or oysters at Frank P. Wood’s Dining Rooms.

  Fig. 32: Visitors to Amherst such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson stayed at the Amherst House Hotel.

  Fig. 33: Detail of Dickinson’s white dress.

  Fig. 34: The Dickinson Law Office was on the second floor, left corner of Amherst’s Palmer Block.

  Fig. 35: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emily said he seemed to “come from where dreams were born.”

  Fig. 36: Upon returning home from treatment in Boston for an eye disorder, Dickinson climbed the stairs to the family attic where, alone, she recited Shakespeare.

  Fig. 37: Nephew Edward “Ned” Dickinson wanted a house where his mother could live in peace. “No fame, no brains, no family, no scholarship, No Anything.”

  Fig. 38: Niece Martha “Mattie” Dickinson. “Don’t cut all the blossoms,” Emily told her.

  Fig. 39: Nephew Gilbert “Gib” Dickinson at around six years old. He died two years later. “I see him in the Star, and meet his sweet velocity in everything that flies.”

  Fig. 40: Mabel Loomis Todd. An alternate signature to her name underscores her affair with Dickinson’s brother, Austin.

  Fig. 41: Before animosities over Austin’s affair, Mabel Loomis Todd and Susan Dickinson enjoyed outings with friends. They jokingly called their group the Shutesbury School of Philosophy. Mabel Loomis Todd (standing in white dress), Susan Dickinson (holding son Gib), Martha Dickinson (in straw hat), Ned Dickinson (with tennis racket), and David Peck Todd (behind Ned in dark suit).

  Fig. 42: Judge Otis P. Lord. “My Church,” Dickinson called him.

  Fig. 43: Helen Hunt Jackson with unidentified woman at her home in Colorado Springs. Jackson was relentless in urging Dickinson to publish.

  Fig, 44: After young Gib’s death, Austin and Susan left their son’s bedroom untouched.

  Fig. 45: Marsh Undertaking in Amherst took Dickinson’s final measure: “Death: May 15. Funeral to take place: May 19. Place of Funeral: House. Length to Heel: 5 feet 6 inches.”

  Fig. 46: Homestead’s back door through which workmen carried Dickinson’s coffin. “Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.”

  Fig. 47: Emily Dickinson’s grave, and two of the last words she ever wrote. West Cemetery, Amherst, Massachusetts.

  Fig. 48: Dickinson never lost her fascination for plants. Her conservatory, adjacent to the family library, was both a laboratory and refuge for her.

  Fig. 49: “I see – New Englandly.” The cupola atop the Homestead offered Dickinson a panoramic view.

  Fig. 50: The “Pony Express” path between the Dickinson Homestead and the Evergreens.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “My friends are my ‘estate’,” Emily Dickinson wrote, and I have many to thank.

  I am grateful to Dickinson biographers and critics who have come before me, especially Ralph Franklin, Lyndall Gordon, Alfred Habegger, Thomas Johnson, Jay Leyda, David Porter, Adrienne Rich, and Richard Sewall. Current scholars have generously shared their time and expertise, among them Christopher Benfey, the late Jed Deppman, Julie Dobrow, Jane Eberwein, Suzanne Juhasz, Cynthia MacKenzie, Cristanne Miller, Aife Murray, Emily Seelbinder, and Susan Snively. The entire Emily Dickinson International Society community ha
s shaped my thinking, and I am indebted to them for their insights and fellowship. I would also like to thank Kate Phillips, whose work on Helen Hunt Jackson has been particularly helpful.

  Countless archivists have made my work more precise, and a lot more fun. For answering questions with patience and good humor, I would like to thank Margaret Dakin and Mike Kelly at Amherst College, Cynthia Harbeson at the Jones Library, Leslie Fields and Deborah Richards at Mount Holyoke College Archives, Jessy Randall at Colorado College, and Dan Lombardo.

  Over many decades, I have relied on the kindness and hard work of the Emily Dickinson Museum staff. Every time I walk through the Museum door, I find laughter, imagination, and good will. I would like to express my appreciation to Lucy Abbott, Brooke Steinhauser, and Michael Medeiros. Cynthia Dickinson and Jane Wald deserve a special thank you. Not only have they helped me each time I called but also they have enriched my life with their long friendship.

  The conceit of this book began in an upstairs room at the Dickinson Museum, where for nearly two decades I taught an Emily Dickinson seminar. My Mount Holyoke College students brought me joy every Tuesday afternoon, and they challenged me in ways that happily complicated my understanding. I am grateful for those moments when Dickinson’s words grabbed my students on a personal level. At times they were stunned into silence or deeply unsettled when the world suddenly seemed to shift under their feet. Watching them grapple with Dickinson’s genius reminded me of what is at the heart of literature, and teaching.

  Many friends have read these chapters. First and foremost, I would like to thank Joanne Dobson for her dedicated and meticulous read. When it comes to All-Things-Dickinson, I trust no one more. I met Joanne and Karen Dandurand years ago when we were graduate students at the University of Massachusetts. Our boundless conversations during those years and the years that followed provided the bedrock for my study of Dickinson. In Karen and Joanne, I found my tribe—and this book is dedicated to them.

  I also would like to thank friends who read these pages or who put up with me talking endlessly about them. They are: Christina and Sara Barber-Just, Jane Crosthwaite, James Fitzgerald, Julia Hendrix, and Mary Young. Kathy Dempsey Zimmerman read with enthusiasm and curiosity, and helped me anticipate readers’ questions. James Gehrt deserves special thanks. James is my neighbor and former colleague at Mount Holyoke College. He brought his artistic eye to the project, providing many photographs for the book. I always have fun when I’m on a photography adventure with James, and I always learn from what he sees.

  I have been a lucky duck to land at W. W. Norton. I’d like to thank my editor, Jill Bialosky, for believing in this project and for her astute ear for poetry. Jill’s comments pushed me in ways that deepened this work and opened new doors in my thinking. Drew Elizabeth Weitman provided a steady hand with everything from deadlines to sizing photos. I appreciate her know-how and attention to detail. Sarahmay Wilkinson designed the cover, a strikingly beautiful concept based on the poet’s bedroom wallpaper. Rachelle Mandik’s careful copyediting made this book tighter, clearer, and saved me from more than one goof. Rose Sheehan and Rachel Salzman steered promotion with vigor and enthusiasm. And what good fortune to have Lauren Abbate guiding this book through production. Lauren is a former Mount Holyoke College student of mine who years ago took my Dickinson seminar. I was in good hands with Lauren as production manager, and it brings me a particular pleasure to see her doing the job so well.

  Ellen Geiger has been my literary agent for over twenty years, and always knew this Dickinson book was in me. Thank you, Ellen, for being the best champion These Fevered Days could have. It was a stroke of luck that brought me into your orbit years ago. I’m grateful for your good advice, and all the good times we have shared.

  Finally, my deepest thanks go to my wife, Ann Romberger. Ann has always said she doesn’t “really understand poetry”—and that makes convincing her to give Emily Dickinson a whirl all the more challenging—delightfully so. Ann has read every one of these words three, four, five times or more—through all the multiple drafts, even the really rotten ones. By now, she’s earned her poetry stripes. But you know what? I think she always knew more than she let on. All along she realized I had to find Dickinson for myself. Thank you, Ann, for knowing what matters most.

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Fig. 1:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 2:[Dickinson Room]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 3:[MS Am 1118.99b 18]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 4:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 5:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 6:Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 7:Todd-Bingham picture collection [MS 496E]. Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University.

  Fig. 8:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 9:Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 10:Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 11:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 12:James Gehrt

  Fig. 13:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 14:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 15:Private Collection

  Fig. 16:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 17:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 18:[MS Am 1118.99b 49]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 19:Presbyterian Historical Society

  Fig. 20:Jones Library, Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 21:James Gehrt

  Fig. 22:James Gehrt

  Fig. 23:James Gehrt

  Fig. 24:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 25:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 26:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 27:Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

  Fig. 28:James Gehrt

  Fig. 29:[MS Am 1118.9b 45]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 30:[MS AM 1118.99b 54]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 31:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 32:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 33:James Gehrt, from the collection of the Amherst Historical Society, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 34:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 35:From the collection of the Amherst Historical Society, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 36:James Gehrt

  Fig. 37:[MS Am 1118.99b 19]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 38:[MS Am 1118.99b 2]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 39:[MS 496E Series 1 Box 16 Folder 172]. Todd-Bingham picture collection. Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.

  Fig. 40:Mabel Loomis Todd papers [MS 496C]. Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.

  Fig. 41:Todd-Bingham picture collection [MS 496E]. Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.

  Fig. 42:[MS Am 1118.99b 55]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Fig. 43:Helen Hunt Jackson Papers [Part 1, Ms 0020, Box 6, Folder 3], Colorado College Special Collections

  Fig. 44:James Gehrt

  Fig. 45:Jones Library Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts

  Fig. 46:James Gehrt

  Fig. 47:James Gehrt

  Fig. 48:James Gehrt

  Fig. 49:James Gehrt

  Fig. 50:James Gehrt

  PERMISSIONS CREDITS

  Excerpts from The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Edition, R. W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1981 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1978, 1979, 1980 by the President and Fellows of Harv
ard College. Copyright © 1914, 1924, 1929, 1932, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi.

  Excerpts from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.

  Excerpts from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.

  Excerpts from The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Associate Editor, Theodora Ward, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1958 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1924, 1932, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952 by Alfred Leete Hampson. Copyright © 1960 by Mary L. Hampson.

  NOTES

  Emily Dickinson’s poems are identified by their Franklin number (F), the number assigned by R. W. Franklin in his The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Variorum edition. (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998). The numbers reflect Franklin’s estimate of the poems’ chronological order in Dickinson’s oeuvre. Dickinson’s letters are identified by the number assigned by editor Thomas H. Johnson in his The Letters of Emily Dickinson (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958). The Johnson number (L) reflects his estimate of the letters’ chronological order.