My Wars Are Laid Away in Books

by Alfred Habegger

  As preacher: CW, A Sermon Preached in the First Presbyterian Church, on the Occasion of the Installation (San Francisco: Sterett & Cubery, 1867) 20; Funeral 30; Charles Wadsworth, Jr., How to Get Muscular (New York: Randolph, 1891) dedication.

  to send the poet on January 4: Leyda 1:352.

  “reached out eagerly”: Home 375.

  In May 1853: Let 250, 118, 127; Sue, “Two Generations of Amherst Society,” Essays on Amherst’s History (Amherst: Vista Trust, 1978) 184. At Springfield’s Third National Exhibition of Horses, EdD entered his six-year-old Morgan gelding, Billy, in the class of “Family Horses, Roadsters” (SR 9-17-1858).

  Austin also presented himself: Louise Torrey Taft to Alphonso Taft, 7-20/21-1854, MTB Papers 104:630; SJL to MLB, 2-11-1854, SCB Papers 2:50; Sue to Frank Gilbert, 1-6-1854, H.

  footnote 1: Mrs. Edward Hitchcock, comp., The Genealogy of the Hitchcock Family (Amherst: Carpenter & Morehouse, 1894) 467–68; Let 311 (punctuated as in fMS Am 1118.4 [L6], H).

  After all, how manly: Sue to Frank Gilbert, 1-6-1854, H; WAD to MGS (draft, “If you’ll forgive”), [1-5-1854, “two weeks” before term’s end at Harvard 1-19-1854], H; Let 311, 315.

  John Cody has cogently argued: Cody 196, 207, 206; WAD to Sue (draft), Selected Papers of SHD (microfilm), Bianchi Coll. MDB gave a sanitized account of her parents’ courtship in FF, chap. 3.

  In religious matters: Cody 197; Peter Bayne, The Christian Life Social and Individual (Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1856) iii, Hampson B-6, Bianchi Coll; WAD to Sue, #34, Selected Papers of SHD (microfilm), Bianchi Coll.

  And thus it came: WAD, confession of faith (draft), H; First #3.

  footnote 2: Leyda 2:228–29.

  Betrayal had been: Let 502–503. Another of Park’s famous sermons (known by ED?) was “Peter’s Denials of His Lord.”

  Five years after Austin’s confession: Let 377.

  “The Babies we were”: “Root” 28.

  “come home as we used”: Let 134–35.

  In 1855, a year after: Henrietta Mack Eliot to Grace Eliot Scott, 1-15-1915, ED Collection 32:10, A; Hampshire Co. RP, Estate of David Mack, 93:1; Harriet P. Mack deed to Samuel E. Mack, 5-1-1855, Bianchi Coll; HFE 4-20-1855; Hannah Terry to Mary Shepard, 4-27-1855, Bolt 7:2; Hampshire Co. RD 160:446-47; 220:349.

  There is no mystery: HFE 5-18-1855; Leyda 1:339; HSR; Let 321.

  A couple of weeks: History of Floyd County, Iowa (Chicago: Inter–State, 1882) 902; Allen 23; Hist 58; Salem Hammond to Amherst Selectmen (EdD’s copy), 10-12-1858, Bianchi Coll; Let 195, 329; Revelation 3:12.

  Informing her brother: Sue to Frank Gilbert and TDG [mid-May? 1855 (Leyda’s date)], H; Leyda 1:305; WAD to Sue (draft, “And this week”), Monday [4-25-1853], H.

  The house was paid for: EdD paid for construction partly by selling the Nathan Dickinson place to the Newman estate in March 1856 (Hampshire Co. RD 166:584, 560). A 1-1-1868 bond for a deed (Bianchi Coll), apparently inoperative, committed EdD to sell the Evergreens to WAD for $3,000, due in two years; see Gregory Farmer, “Land Is the Only Thing That Lasts,” EDIS Bull 11.1 (May/June 1999) 7. For the Evergreens’ design, construction, and landscaping see WAD to TDG (Sue’s copy), n.d., H; Sue to TDG, [after Oct. 1855 Cattle Show], H; HFE 4-18-1856; Gregory Farmer, “Evergreens Update: Dreaming in Color,” Dickinson Homestead (newsletter) 3.2 (fall 1999); SB Let #53, 12-14-[1864] (“your rhododendron”), #59.3, 8-2-[1865] (“new shrub for Austin”). Native rhododendrons were seen as threatened (TWH, “The Procession of the Flowers,” Atlantic Monthly 10 [Dec. 1862] 654). WAD was active in the Amherst Ornamental Tree Association, organized 1857 (Allen 72; Carp 408–411).

  footnote 3: Clifford E. Clark, Jr., “Domestic Architecture as an Index to Social History: The Romantic Revival and the Cult of Domesticity in America, 1840–1870,” in Material Life in America, 1600–1860, Robert Blair St. George, ed. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988) 537.

  In November 1855: Leyda 1:338. WAD’s grove of evergreens: Let 254, 256, 258, 296, 315.

  The poet’s one account: Let 323–24.

  That said, the determined gaiety: Let 324.

  Dickinson’s sketchy account: Let 337.

  “Our mother had”: Dall.

  “Eliza Coleman is visiting”: Jane Hitchcock to Ann Fiske Banfield, 9-24-1856, HHJ Papers 2:35.

  At the end of 1857: Samuel E. Mack to EdD, 12-28-1857, Bianchi Coll; Summit, 8-20-1859; Mary Shepard to LMB, 2-15-1860, Bolt 8:3; Mary Shepard to END, “Friday morning” [2-10-1860], H.

  In later years: AOT to John Tyler, 7-21-[1876], 11-6-[1877], Tyler Papers 3:15,16; Sue to MLB and SCB, [5-19-1856 (Leyda’s date)], SCB Papers 2:53; Sue to EFF [received 6-10-1856], EFF Papers.

  footnote 4: Let 380.

  “I do not go out”: LNN to END, 2-15-1836, H.

  Another event that: Boston School Committee Minutes, vol 6, Ms.Bos.SC, BPL; Israel Lombard, Diary, 12-31-1854, Israel Lombard Papers, AAS; Records for Cases 3867, Patterson et al. v. Norcross, and 4091, Winslow Whittemore et al. v. Norcross, Nov. 1855 term, Suffolk Co. Superior Court, MA Arch; 1855–1858 valuations, Ward 5, Boston, City Clerk, Archives & Records Management; 1856 Boston directory. Loring’s business address from 1857 on, 104 Federal, shows he was working for Holmes Ammidown, a large wholesaler of cottons and woollens. Eudocia Flynt’s 1854 diary reporting Loring’s failure (Leyda 1:315) has vanished.

  footnote 5: Let 260; Hampden Co. Probate Court, Estate of SVN, Case 8351.

  Capping that, however: Hampden Co. Probate Court, Estate of JN, Case 8347, will; Loring & Albert’s Petition to Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk Co., #672 Equity & Probate, 1849 March, MA Arch; Essex Co. (NJ) RD Z-6:329-30. EdD to Alfred Norcross, 11-22-1847, J, recommending generous treatment of the impecunious WON, throws a favorable light on EdD.

  It was Loring’s one smart: Essex Co. (NJ) RD, D9 204:30–31, 306–308; Charles Frederick Norcross et al. v. Loren Norcross et al., Supreme Judicial Court for Hampden Co., Record Book Sept. 1857–April 1859, case 46, p. 138, MA Arch. EdD’s argument was that since Loring and Albert had been enjoined from putting trust money in New Jersey, the investment must have been their own. I learned of the case from cryptic entries in Henry Fanning Norcross’s 1857 journal (3-17, 4-6, 5-29), kindly made available by Priscilla Chatfield.

  Loring’s sorry financial: Let 421 (punctuated as in FN/ED, 430 verso). Anna Mary Wells’s surmise that the destruction of letters was meant to conceal ED’s mental illness illustrates the common practice of converting missing documentation into positive evidence of what one suspects (“Was Emily Dickinson Psychotic?” American Imago 19 [winter 1962] 309–321).

  Does Edward’s defense: St. Armand 307–309. The argument is that EdD made two different inventories in 1857, owing to (and thus disclosing) his shifty finances. The mistake is that the last digit of 1851 for that year’s inventory was read as a 7 (Inventories, Bianchi Coll). The story has found wide acceptance among Dickinson scholars.

  It’s pointless to charge: SR 5-27-1859; New England Vol. 26, p. 240a, Dun.

  Still, the man was: Hampshire Co. RD 166:584, 560; Town of Amherst, valuations for taxes, year ending June 1855, J. In 1856 the Dickinson meadow and remodeled Homestead were together valued at $6,900. The Newman house remained at $3,200 through 1859.

  An even more ambiguous: SR 1-18, 26-, 10-15-1858; 1-12-, 12-16-1859; Sargent 29-30. The cover-up is evident in HFE 1-22-, 2-5-, 10-15-, 11-12-1858.

  footnote 6: Endow 54–56.

  Because there seem to be: JL to Laura Baker, 5-24-1857, Lyman Papers 2:28. The envelope, a photo of which is in Lyman Let 26–27, invalidates Franklin’s statement that “there is no document by Dickinson of any kind” from 1857 (Var 10). On 3-6-1857 JL wrote his mother, “the Dickinson people still remember me and write me letters” (Lyman Papers 2:26).

  Which is not to say: Let 323, 327–28; JL to Laura Baker, 2-27-1858, Lyman Papers 2:36.

  This, the one contemporary: Remin 186; SR 4-22-1858; Anon., Memorial of the Revival in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, d
uring the Early Part of the Year 1858 (New York: Clark, Austin & Smith, 1859) 41, 59; CW, “The Feast of Harvest,” Sermons (San Francisco: A. Roman, 1869) 298; H.J. [Henry James, Sr.], “American Revivals and European Torpor,” New-York Tribune, 5-1-1858. Edward S. Dwight surmised the 1857 panic helped bring on the revival (Hist 81).

  In Amherst, the excitement: SR 4-22-, 5-4-, 6-5-1858; First #3; Let 346. L185, hard to date, could have been prompted by the 1858 revival. The second paragraph is close to L190 [summer 1858] but also to L184 [April 1856].

  It may have been: Leyda 1:lxxvii; [CW] to “Miss Dickenson,” n.d., ED1012 A. Facsimile in Home 370–71.

  Although scholars have varied: Leyda 2:283; CW to [?], 12-19-?, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  “Much has occurred”: Let 335.

  footnote 7: “Root” 26.

  The note to Master: Master Let 5–19. Scholars concur in assigning the script to 1858. This and the Sweetser letter (J) are on the same paper: no boss, 123 × 187 mm, blue rules on pp. 2–3 with 8 mm spacing.

  In the draft Dickinson says: Master Let 14–15.

  The other letter, to Sweetser: Let 335–36, corrected against holograph (J). Sweetser’s address: Trow’s New York City directories for 1857–1858, 1858–1859.

  Letters that fall: Let 340, 341; ED to [EFF?], tipped in EFF’s copy of ED’s 1890 Poems, Thomas Cooper Lib., University of South Carolina.

  Why did the poet’s: Hist Am Coll 396; SR 2-3-1855, 7-1-, 8-13-1858. I can’t substantiate Leyda’s plausible claim (1:357) that abolitionist Wendell Phillips’s speech on 8-11-1858 (HFE 8-13-1858) caused Sweetser to withdraw his support. In August 1859 the trustees thanked him for his contributions (Trustees Min 3:651).

  In 1858, apparently in summer: Var 11, passim.

  Although Dickinson sent hundreds: Let 408; Brocades 166. See also Imagery 5; Karen Dandurand, “Why Dickinson Did Not Publish” (Ph.D. dissertation: University of Massachusetts–Amherst, 1984); Dobson 128–30.

  footnote 8: SR 4-16-1859. Cf. Leyda 2:88.

  seven seem designed to introduce gifts: Fr7, Fr8, Fr9, Fr10, Fr11, Fr15, Fr17. Other poems transcribed before “about late summer” were Fr3, Fr6, Fr12, Fr13, Fr14, Fr16, Fr18, Fr19, Fr20.

  “If those I loved were lost”: Poems 27–28; Var 11 (facsimile on 10).

  Chapter 16

  As if the Boston Norcrosses: Let 346. Vin left before Christmas 1858 (Let 354); L202, L204, L206 refer to her absence. L199, dated 1-4-1859 by Johnson, places her, confusingly, at home. In fact, this letter was written the following winter (see below, pp. 388, 712).

  The older sister had become: JL/ED.

  Austin seemed in no doubt: [Coventry Patmore], The Angel in the House: The Betrothal (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857) 108, 33, EDR 4.4.20; ED’s obituary, SR 5-18-1886.

  Keenly aware of the risks SB Let #1 [5-15-1859], #2, 1-2-[1859]. Date of stillbirth from MVR-Deaths 129:240.

  footnote 1: MLT Papers 103:259.

  By now, Austin’s feelings: Edward Hitchcock and Jane E. Hitchcock to EH Jr, 12-7-1860, Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Papers, Ser. 2, 4:43, A.

  A further irony: FHB to Thomas K. Boltwood, 10-24-1858, Bolt 8:1; Brooklyn RD 497:156-58. Catharine Newman was gone from Amherst by February 1859, when Asa Bullard witnessed her signature in Boston (Ibid). On 12-30-1859 she transferred from Amherst’s First Church to the Bullards’ Prospect Street Church in Cambridgeport (First #2).

  What evidence there is: Let 358, 340. After 1854, there are only three extant letters from ED to WAD.

  A month later: FHB to Thomas H. Boltwood, 10-24-1858, Bolt 8:1; Let 341; SB Let #2.1, 1-16-[1859]. Harriet and an eight-year-old boy died 11-1-1858 (Amherst Vital Records, J). From July 31 to year’s end, the town had twelve deaths from scarlet fever, with several more the next year (SR 1-8-, 2-14,25-1859).

  footnote 2: Let 422, 724.

  If Emily depended: Let 339; Martha Nell Smith, “‘Open Me Carefully’: Emily’s Book for Susan,” EDIS Bull 10.1 (May/June 1998) 12–13, 22; Open Me xii–xiv, passim.

  footnote 3: MB 1:28.

  This pledge of allegiance: Sullivan proposes that “Sue’s name begins to stand for an abstract idea of friendship rather than a particular friend” (45).

  “we will lie side by side”: Let 201.

  by Franklin’s count: Var 1550.

  “poetry workshop” theory: Rowing chap. 5.

  The reverse of Emily Norcross: “Annals”; Sue, untitled fragment, “I shall never forget,” H. Kingsley date from Mer 2:336–37.

  Of course, the Evergreens: Allen 73 (Mary Adelia James married Moses Adams Allen 8-31-1858 and joined Amherst’s First Church January[?] 1859 [International Genealogical Index; First #5, 51]); Let 347, 345 (for date, see p. 388); “Annals”; Leyda 1:350–51; WAD to Sue, “What larks!” 10-31-[1865], H; HFE 10-19,26-1865.

  One of the few: Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism (New York: Huntington & Savage, 1847), EDR 2.4.17; Margaret C. Haynes, comp., “Christ Episcopal Church, Cooperstown, New York, Volume I of Parish Register,” 10-29-1855, 3:8, New York State Historical Assoc.; Cherry Valley Gazette 11-7-1855; [Cooperstown] Republican and Democrat 5-30-1857; [Cooperstown] Freeman’s Journal 6-5-1857; Jane Averell, diary, 6-11,13-, 11-27-1855, New York State Historical Assoc. Dr. Campbell L. Turner died in Boston 5-26-1857.

  In January 1859: Catharine Scott Turner Anthon to Sue, 9-6-[?], Anthon to MDB, 10-8-[postmarked 1914], H; LL 64; Let 359–360. Facsimile of woodcut and note in LL, facing 156. Anthon’s three visits can be dated by SB Let. First visit: #2.1, 1-16-[1859], #5.1 [2-4-1859], #3 [2-16-1859]. Second: #15 [10-17-1861], #15.1 [late Oct. or early Nov. 1861]. Third: #16.1 [1-9-1863], #33 [1-15-1863], #23.2 [1-29-1863], #18 [2-7-1863].

  Far more humiliating: S. G. Buckingham, Discourse at the Funeral of Reuben Atwater Chapman (Springfield, Mass.: Bryan, 1874); Let 348. Chapman’s law partner was George Ashmun (Bench 1:245).

  After Kate was back in: Let 349–50, corrected against Anthon’s tr, H. Her other copy (Tr60 A) has “like” instead of “take.” The inconsistencies in Anthon’s copies of L222 (rend/send) show that ED’s hand sometimes defeated her. That Anthon was ED’s one great passion is the thesis of Riddle.

  Dickinson’s three later letters: Let 365. In interpreting the Daisy mounds passage, I have adapted the reading in Pollak 87–88.

  Who could keep pace: Let 355, 365.

  Emily-the-lynx’s: Katharine [sic] Mary Anthon, travel diaries, 12-20-1872, 3-30-, 6-8-1873, New York State Historical Assoc.

  Another person who entered: Mer 2:79; Let 662. Capsule 150–69 remains one of the soundest treatments of ED’s relations with SB. Less reliable are the accounts in Passion and EDE.

  Sue’s draft essay: “Annals” (“lady” dropped in revision); SR 6-29-, 7-1-1858; HFE 7-2-1858. There is no other possible occasion for SB’s first visit. The first year mowing machines were tried out in Amherst (HFE 7-18-1856), SR did not cover the event. In summer 1857 SB was in Boston running the Traveller (Mer 1:181–83).

  Two years earlier: HFE 8-1-, 9-5-1856; First #4, 2-2-, 4-14-, 7-28-1856; Let 339. As Himelhoch and Patterson first realized, L189 and L193 were written after the Bowleses’ summer 1859 visit (Him 2). If that visit took place in June during the first haying, we would have a motive for ED’s abrupt mention of the second haying.

  Both Samuel and his wife: Unity Church Manual (Springfield, Mass., 1886) 103–104; Let 339, 335, 358; Theodore Parker, The Two Christmas Celebrations (Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr., 1859) 18, 15. On Unitarianism and ED, see Rowena Revis Jones, “A Taste for ‘Poison’: Dickinson’s Departure from Orthodoxy,” EDJ 2.1 (1993) 47–64. On the complexities of ED’s religious views, see McIntosh 41–71.

  “that rare type”: John J. Scanlon, The Passing of the Springfield Republican (Amherst: Amherst College, 1950) 17.

  But the man was canny: SR 8-13-1861; Ashmun to Banks, 8-14-1861, Nathaniel P. Banks Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Lib., Duke Univ.; M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Later Years of the Saturd
ay Club 1870–1920 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927) 202.

  The editor could not: Westfield News Letter 5-26-1858 (slang); MW to WDW, 2-22-1872, WDW Papers 17:431; Let 367; SR 8-10-1860.

  The 163 letters: SB Let #61.1, 6-27-1866, #90 [6]-7-[1863]; Sewall 469; SB Let #86 [3-28-1862] (first-naming), #44, 2-26-[1864] (temptation), #18 [2-7-1863] (aristocrats), #80.2 [5?-26?-1876?] (Queen). #90 is dated by Summit 6-9-1863. #80.2 is dated in conjunction with #80.1 [Nov. 1876] (identical paper type), #71.2 [6-3-1876], and MW’s return from Paris ca. 5-10-1876.

  spoken of only eleven times: omitting vague references to “the girls,” etc., we have the following in SB Let:

  #5.1 [2-4-1859] “never forgets my spiritual longings”

  #1.16-1-[1859] “Emily’s beautiful thought”

  #13 [10-12?-1861] “Thank Emily & Vinnie”

  #19.1 [4-9-1862] “kind & rich note, & Emily’s”

  #21, 21.1 [5]-12-[1862] regards to ED among others

  #22 7-13-[1862] “one of her little gems”

  #16.1 [1-9-1863] “Queen Recluse”

  #26 [5-2-1863] “savage, turbulent . . . as Emily”

  #59 [2]-12-[1864] “love to Emily & Vinnie”

  #51 [12-3-1864] “gems for the ‘Springfield Musket’”

  #59.3 8-2-[1865] “eyes for Emily”

  Accompanied by Mary: SB Let #2, 1-2-[1859]. SB’s sign-off—“Let Mrs Bowles & myself be warmly remembered to father & mother & sisters; and for yourself & wife receive new assurances of our joint regard & affection” [italics added]—invalidates the view that Mary’s first visit was in summer 1859 (Riddle 123, 131; Him 2; Var 40, 127). This mistake undergirds Franklin’s chronology of ED’s 1858–1859 poems.

  The poet’s connection: Let 342, 358. Johnson’s date for L196, December 1858, should be corrected to ca. December 1859 (Him 9; Var 1575).