My Wars Are Laid Away in Books

by Alfred Habegger

  The print is a product of the albumen process, popular from the 1860s to the end of the century and often employed to make copies of earlier daguerreotypes (which, having no negatives, were necessarily unique). At the time the print was made, the preexisting daguerreotype may have been tarnished or otherwise damaged. Alternatively, the lack of detail at the bottom may be an effect of duplication, caused by reflected light.

  On the back of the print are several penciled marks and captions, none of which appears to be of recent origin. In the lower middle is a large penciled 4, suggesting, perhaps, that this was either the fourth attempt to make an adequate print or the fourth copy of a successful print. Also in pencil, across the bottom right-hand quadrant is a heavily obscured inscription consisting of a few cursive words beginning with a “Q” or “D” and a barely discernible date, 1886. The writing seems to have been overlaid with several swipes of glue. Perhaps the portrait was placed in an album.

  A third inscription has been penciled at the top. Obviously intending to record the sitter’s identity and year of death, an unknown scribe wrote:

  Emily Dickinson—

  died

  [D?]ec 1886

  Some have read the problematic letter as a lower-case “r,” thus making the word an abbreviation for “received.” Others have proposed that the three-letter word stands for “December,” which is of course not the right month for the poet, who died in May. Neither reading explains the odd placement of “died,” which, in the original, looks squeezed between the first and third lines. The correct account is probably as follows: immediately after setting down the name, the unknown writer, intending the standard abbreviation for “deceased,” wrote “Dec 1886.” Then, realizing either that the capital “D” was not well formed or that the letters could be construed as referring to a month, he or she tried to clear up the ambiguity by writing “died” in the space above and between the last two words—the spot where most people would insert a clarification. That the month of her death was not recorded suggests the writer did not know it or did not consider it important; years may have elapsed since she died. What was important was to note who this was.

  In the initial publicity concerning the image, it was dated about 1865 and the sitter was said to be carrying eyeglasses on a lanyard. In fact, the fashion elements date from twelve or fifteen years earlier, and what was conjectured to be glasses is probably a brooch. Joan Severa, author of Dressed for the Photographer, places the dress style in the late 1840s and the hair style as late as the early 1850s. In Nancy Rexford’s view, the jacket-style bodice, the collar of the chemisette, and the undersleeves are characteristic of the early 1850s. *181 If these dates are approximately right, and the daguerreotypist’s session took place in, say, 1853 at the latest, one may reasonably ask whether the sitter is too old for a woman in her early twenties. The question prompts another: is dress style a dependable clue for someone who conceived herself to be flagrantly behind the times? In 1854 Dickinson assured Abiah Root, “I’m so old fashioned, Darling, that all your friends would stare.” *182

  Another insistent question for those used to the familiar image of the poet is whether the new one looks like her. Two physical anthropologists consulted by Professor Gura, Nicholas P. Herrmann and Dr. Richard L. Jantz, have used digital scans to compare the morphological features of the two images. After rotating the new image, and scaling it to the same “inter-pupil distance,” they find a good match in mandibular height (chin to lips) and other features. Herrmann and Jantz conclude that the two photos “exhibit a consistent pattern and relationship between the identified cranial landmarks and gross morphological features.” *183 They are unable to prove that the two photos are not of the same person—something that in most cases is easy to demonstrate.

  As shown in Chapter 9, the familiar daguerreotype records the poet’s appearance soon after her sixteenth birthday and a long period of illness. She also seems to have undergone a spurt of growth, to judge from the tight and ill-fitting dress. Her sister and niece were so dissatisfied with this image they both tried to alter it. To their eyes, the picture that has come to stand for the poet conveyed a blatantly misleading idea of her.

  Following Emily’s trip to Boston in fall 1851, her sister, Lavinia, noted that her health and spirits were so improved she had grown “quite fat.” Equally concerned about her loss of weight, which could be seen as a symptom of consumption, the poet faithfully took Dr. James Jackson’s prescription and did her best to acquire and retain a healthy appearance. If she had a second daguerreotype made, we would expect it to date from a period of relative good health. A sleeker, plumper look would not be surprising. *184

  In July 1853, some time after Edward Dickinson had a studio portrait taken, Emily wrote her brother in Cambridge, “I hope to send father’s Daguerreotype before you come.” That fall, uneasy about her parent’s excessive solemnity, she confided to Austin her wish that Father “would ‘look more cheerful’ – I think the Artist was right.” This shared memory of a daguerrian artist’s remark suggests she could have been present at the session and thus have had her own image taken. The early photos of Austin that aren’t mentioned in the epistolary record remind us (once again) how sporadic and selective the surviving documentation is. Emily could easily have had a session with an “Artist” like Jeremiah D. Wells, Northampton’s leading daguerreotypist, *185 without the record ever mentioning it.

  When Thomas Wentworth Higginson requested her portrait in 1862, she replied:

  Could you believe me – without? I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren. . . .

  It often alarms Father – He says Death might occur, and he has Molds of all the rest – but has no Mold of me, but I noticed the Quick wore off those things, in a few days, and forestall the dishonor. . . . *186

  Does the emphatic “now,” enclosed in commas, suggest that until recently she did have a photo? Could she have had one taken unknown to Edward, as when she visited Philadelphia in March 1855 (with a new outfit)? Tellingly, the phrase that follows “Mold of me” happens to be in the plural—“those things,” as if she had endured the photographic process more than once. As for “the Quick” wearing off, she could have been referring not only to the artificiality of a formal pose or the embarrassing immaturity of one’s earlier look, but to a daguerreotype’s tarnishing.

  Higginson’s request shows there was nothing improper in a married man’s asking for her portrait. If Dickinson had sent hers to Wadsworth a few months earlier—sent it through Samuel Bowles shortly before the minister left Philadelphia for San Francisco—that could elucidate both her emphatic “now” and the excruciating tone of her March 1862 letter to Mary Bowles. Realizing too late that Samuel had left for Washington, Emily was in agony lest Mary open the letter and find herself “troubled” by the solicited “errand.” *187

  Any plausible case for the authenticity of the albumen print must show how it could have failed to surface in the early 1890s, when Mabel Loomis Todd conducted a dogged search for letters and for a portrait suitable for reproduction. As it happens, the hypothesis that the original daguerreotype was sent to Wadsworth not only explains why the image vanished from sight but directs fresh attention to a relevant and arresting passage in the poet’s letters to his good friends, James D. and Charles H. Clark.

  Willis Buckingham’s collection of reviews of Dickinson’s first posthumous books reprints a pointed speculation from a Philadelphia newspaper about her unknown lover: “Mrs. Todd has told us that Miss Dickinson was not ‘disappointed in love,’ but these poems reveal that she thought much of love, and worshipped an ideal lover; some will think she loved a man.” *188 There were obvious reasons why first Wadsworth and then his survivors and friends had to be on guard against the inevitable gossip about him and Dickinson. This persisting caution can be felt in a letter of hers to James D. Clark following the minister’s death. After reflecting on Wadsworth’s “Grandeur” and gloom and quoting some of his darker remarks, she says: />
  Thank you for the Face – which I fear it fatigued you too much to seek – and for the monition, tho’ to disclose a grief of his I could not surmise –

  Your sweet attempt to repair the irreparable, I must also remember. *189

  The first paragraph tells us that Clark had secured a portrait of Wadsworth for the poet, and suggests that his family, in sending it, enjoined secrecy. The second can be read, quite thrillingly, as a reference to her own hard-to-copy photograph, recently dispatched from Philadelphia. It would make sense for the Wadsworths to send both portraits at the same time, and for Clark and then Dickinson to mention them together. Informed of Clark’s attempt to secure a passable reproduction, she “must also remember”—acknowledge—his “sweet” and flattering interest in preserving her own image.

  Of the two Clark brothers, it was Charles H., a bookkeeper, who seems to have been Wadsworth’s particular friend. After James died in 1883, Charles took over the task of corresponding with the poet, who sent him fifteen letters in her last three years. When her sister asked to have them returned years later, *190 he carefully keyed envelopes to letters and even made penciled transcripts of two of them. Never marrying, outliving all close relatives, Charles was in his seventies by the time he moved back to Massachusetts in the early twentieth century, residing first in Greenfield and then in Longmeadow, both of which, like Northampton, border the Connecticut River. At his death in New York’s McAlpin Hotel in 1915, he was eighty-two, with no one to leave his money to. “In excess of $30,000,” according to a story in The New York Times, the entire estate went to charities in Northampton, Brooklyn, and New York. *191

  The “4” on the back of the newly discovered print resembles the number as formed by James D. Clark, *192 but the hand that wrote the inscription at the top remains unidentified. It is not that of Charles H. Clark or Edith Wadsworth, the minister’s daughter.

  Appendix 2

  Standing Buildings Associated with Emily Dickinson

  Massachusetts

  AMHERST

  280 Main Street. Dickinson Homestead. The poet’s home, 1830–1840 and 1855–1886.

  214 Main Street. “The Evergreens,” home of Austin and Susan Dickinson, built 1856.

  165 Main Street. First Congregational Church, built 1868.

  17 Seelye Street. Parsonage, first occupied by Reverend Jonathan and Sarah Jenkins.

  229 Main Street. House of Professor Richard H. and Lizzie Mather.

  360 Main Street. Leonard M. Hills house.

  390 Main Street. Henry M. and Adelaide Hills house.

  81 Lessey Street. Luke and Abby Sweetser house.

  Railroad Street. Train station, built about 1853.

  90 Spring Street. “The Dell,” Mabel Loomis Todd house, originally located south of the street and facing the opposite direction.

  East side of the Common. Grace Episcopal Church. The first window on the south is a memorial to Susan D. Phelps.

  Corner of South Pleasant Street and Routes 9 and 16. First Congregational Church, 1828–1868. Now College Hall.

  Building immediately south of College Hall. Morgan Hall, dedicated as college library, 1853.

  175 South Pleasant Street. College president’s house, built 1834.

  227 South Pleasant Street. Nelson sisters’ house and school (probably not attended by Dickinson).

  249 South Pleasant Street. Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson’s childhood home.

  271 South Pleasant Street. Edward Hitchcock house.

  North College, Amherst College. Erected 1822–1823.

  Johnson Chapel, Amherst College. Erected 1826–1827.

  College Admissions Office. Judge John Dickinson house.

  58 Woodside Street. James W. Boyden house, moved in 1937 from original site south of John Dickinson house. *193

  67 Amity Street. Strong family house, now Amherst Historical Museum, containing the Mabel Loomis Todd Room.

  BOSTON

  35 Bowdoin Street. Formerly the church of Loring and Lavinia Norcross, now St. John the Evangelist.

  CAMBRIDGE

  99 Prospect Street. Formerly the Congregational Church Louisa and Frances Norcross joined in 1865, now Igreja Presbiteriana Cristo Rei.

  CONCORD

  92 Sudbury Road. The Edward Bulkeley House, built in the seventeenth century. Bought by Louisa and Frances Norcross in 1888 and occupied until 1908. *194

  MONSON

  15 Mechanic Street. Phoebe Hinsdale Brown house.

  12 Cushman Street. William Norcross Cottage, built about 1773. Original Norcross family home.

  14 Cushman Street. Norcross Tavern, built 1780–1785. Later Joel and Betsey Fay Norcross’s first house. The poet’s mother grew up here.

  125 Main Street. Joel and Sarah Vaill Norcross’s house from 1837.

  NORTHAMPTON

  50 Elm Street. Clark House, Smith College. Homestead of Charles Clark, kept after he moved to Brooklyn and used as a summer home by his sons, Charles H. and James D. *195

  New York

  GENEVA

  512 South Main Street. Home of Martha Gilbert Smith and John Williams Smith.

  108 William Street. Sophia and William Van Vranken house, where Austin Dickinson and Susan Gilbert were married.

  Appendix 3

  Deaths from Consumption (Tuberculosis)

  In 1850, according to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (later the New England Journal of Medicine), 22 percent of the deaths in Massachusetts were caused by consumption. An 1854 article in this journal admitted that “not a single advance, of real value,” had been made in the treatment of this disease, “beyond the employment of cod-liver oil.” *196

  The following lists some of the people in Dickinson’s world whose death was attributed to this insidious scourge. AVR stands for Amherst Vital Records, on microfilm at the Jones Library.

  YEAR OF DEATH AGE

  1829 Hiram Norcross 28 *197

  1836 Amanda Brown Norcross Stearns 33 *198

  1837 Harriet Arms Gilbert (Sue’s mother) 44 or 45 *199

  1840 Lucretia Gunn Dickinson 64 *200

  1844 Deborah W. V. Fiske 38 AVR

  1844 Harriet Webster Fowler 46 AVR

  1844 Fanny D. Holland (Sophia Holland’s mother) 50 AVR

  1844 Elizabeth W. Parsons (wife of Rev. David) 55 AVR

  1847 Olivia M. Coleman 19

  1848 Jacob Holt 26 AVR

  1851 Abby Haskell (Let 189, 197) 19 AVR

  1852 Emily Lavinia Norcross 24

  1852 Mary Dickinson Newman 43

  1852 Mark Haskell Newman 46

  1853 Benjamin Franklin Newton 32

  1857 Eliza O. T. Boyden 36 *201

  1857 Dr. Campbell Ladd Turner 26

  1860 Martha P. Snell 24 AVR

  1860 Lavinia Norcross Norcross 48

  1861 (Sept. 8) Caroline P. Dutch Hunt 61 or 62 AVR

  1861 (Sept. 11) Lucy Waterman Dwight (Rev. Dwight’s wife) *202

  1862 Lamira Jones Norcross 29 *203

  1863 William O. Norcross 56 *204

  1866 Chester E. Dickinson (Bela’s son: Let 509) 17 *205

  1869 Sarah D. Hunt (Caroline Hunt’s daughter) 32 AVR

  1871 Maria Flynt Coleman 69 *206

  1871 Eliza Coleman Dudley 39

  1871 Mary Maher 20 AVR

  1877 Lizzie Carmichael Mather 41

  1882 Ethel Stearns (Let 742) 17 *207

  1882 Mary E. Donohue (Let 753) 16 *208

  Appendix 4

  Emily Dickinson’s Legal Signatures

  This list identifies the known legal instruments signed by the poet, invariably with her middle initial, E. Except for items seven, twenty, and twenty-one, the instruments convey property from her parents to a buyer, with the poet signing as a witness to the transaction. Most of these conveyances survive only as official copies by a county register of deeds (RD) in Michigan and Massachusetts, and thus do not show actual signatures. The six original documents are marked with an asterisk. The dates are those on which the instru
ments were signed.

  The “signature” on the only known copy of Dickinson’s will, deposited at the Houghton Library (fms Am 1118.4 [L32]), does not include her middle initial and is not in her handwriting. Like the rest of the document, it seems to be in the hand of her aging neighbor Luke Sweetser. For a facsimile, see World 112. I have found no evidence the will went through probate.

  1. 9-1-1843 Lapeer Co., MI, RD E:509

  2. 8-24-1848 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 126:59

  3. 4-16-1851 Ottawa Co., MI, RD E:21 (Austin also a witness)

  4. 6-13-1851 Sale of church pew, Hampshire Co., MA, RD 139:431.

  5. 12-8-1851 Ottawa Co., MI, RD E:537–58 (Lavinia also a witness)

  6. *1-12-1852 Sale of land in Watertown, MA, Bianchi Coll.

  7. *7-1-1853 Will of Sarah Vaill Norcross, Hampden Co., MA, Probate Court, Case 8351 (Edward and Lavinia also witnesses)

  8. 8-1-1853 Ottawa Co., MI, RD G:182–83

  9. 11-1-1855 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 239:119

  10. 4-5-1859 Lapeer Co., MI, RD P:578

  11. 6-3-1859 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 187:254 (Austin also a witness)

  12. 4-13-1860 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 247:31 (Austin also a witness)

  13. 5-1-1860 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 194:353

  14. *7-1-1861 Sale of farm in Pelham to Austin, Bianchi Coll.

  15. *11-22-1862 Sale of one acre of Dickinson meadow to Mary L. Hitchcock, Doc Hitch, oversize 5:11

  16. 2-18-1863 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 210:155 (Austin also a witness)

  17. 6-25-1863 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 214:221 (Austin also a witness)

  18. 8-15-1863 Hampshire Co., MA, RD 214:130

  19. 12-3-1863 Lapeer Co., MI, RD U:387

  20. *8-3-1874 Austin’s petition to be appointed administrator of Edward’s estate (photocopy), Hampshire Co., MA, Registry of Probate 192:6.

  21. *5-1-1875 Sale by Emily Norcross Dickinson and her children of a strip of the Dickinson meadow adjoining the Hitchcock place to Mary L. Hitchcock, Doc Hitch, oversize 5:11. This was the only deed the poet signed as a principal rather than as a witness.