by Julie Dobrow
Austin, Millicent noted years later, “was oppressed by his family’s lack of serious interests.” He wrote of how Sue, Ned and Mattie were trying to find “something to interest them,” how Ned wasn’t thoughtful enough about his studies at Amherst College, how he was “sick to death” of his family’s pursuit of pleasure and their efforts to amuse themselves in ways he considered superficial. And Mabel once recalled Austin telling her that Ned and Mattie “never were my children,” and he feared that even little Gilbert, whom he loved dearly, was becoming more like his mother and siblings: “When he turned up his nose at his small friends Austin said, ‘Don’t talk like that, Gilbert,’ and he replied, ‘But that is what mamma says.’”41
Mabel was a woman who was bright, vivacious, beautiful and physically affectionate, in sharp contrast to Austin’s mother and his wife, and she shared his passions for nature and ideas. He was instantly attracted. He viewed Mabel as intellectually and artistically ambitious; he recognized that Mabel’s boundless spirit and aspirations set her apart as a woman who could be independent, even as her growing devotion meant she would also need him.
Mabel found in Austin some of the same qualities—a love for nature and a poetic soul—she so revered in her father. But Austin was highly educated, successful and socially prominent. As she wrote many years after his death in her introduction to the second edition of Emily Dickinson’s letters, Austin “was a poet too, only the poetry of his temperament did not flower in verse or rhyme, but in an intense and cultivated knowledge of nature, in a passionate joy in the landscapes seen from Amherst hill-tops.”42 She began to feel that Austin understood her true nature as no one else ever had and that she, in turn, understood his. They were powerfully and irrevocably pulled into each other’s orbits.
As the leaves began to turn and display their brilliant fall colors, Mabel’s relationship with Austin also deepened. Meanwhile, Ned openly declared his love for her in mid-September, and she knew that she needed to try to defuse his ardor. But rather than confront this directly with Ned, she chose, instead, to spend more time with his father.
Austin began to bring Mabel about town and out for drives in his fine carriage. (Millicent quipped, years later, “he lived in his buggy as much as modern people live in their automobiles.”)43 His diary from the time made more frequent mention of Mabel’s appearances at his home and at events around town.
Austin also began to bring Mabel more frequently to The Homestead. Mabel was pleased to go there and to play piano, though old Mrs. Dickinson was too ill to come downstairs and Austin’s mysterious sister Emily never appeared beyond her door, either. “It was odd to think, as my voice rang out through the big silent house that Miss Emily in her weird white dress was outside in the shadow hearing every word.” Mabel wrote several days after Austin first brought her there.44
Later Mabel wrote in her journal that Emily “is called in Amherst ‘the myth.’ She has not been out of her house for fifteen years. One inevitably thinks of Miss Havisham in speaking of her. She writes the strangest poems, and very remarkable ones. She is in many respects a genius. . . . She has frequently sent me flowers & poems, & we have a very pleasant friendship in that way.”45 Though Mabel’s writing is often filled with hyperbole, and although some biographers and scholars have suggested that in her later attempts to market Emily’s poetry Mabel might have purposively added to what might be called “the legend of Emily Dickinson” by suggesting that she had withdrawn from the world, most sources do, in fact, concur that starting in midlife, Emily lived a life of seclusion within the walls of The Homestead, only occasionally venturing outdoors or next door to The Evergreens.46
In early October, Mabel brought with her a painting of Indian pipe wildflowers, and had it dispatched upstairs to Emily. “I had pondered for a long time to send her a painting of something,” Mabel wrote in her journal, “but when I came back I looked over my studies and by a sudden inspiration I determined to paint the Indian pipes on a black panel for her.” Emily thanked her with a letter about which Mabel wrote, with a rare moment of thoughtful introspection, “It fairly thrilled me—which shows that my susceptibility to magnetic friendships is not entirely confined to men, as I have occasionally thought myself.” Though they’d still never met, Mabel suggested, “I may call her my dear friend, Miss Emily Dickinson.”47 Mabel was so thrilled by Emily’s letter that she rewrote it in its entirety into her journal:
Dear friend,
That without suspecting it you should send me the preferred flower of life, seems almost supernatural, and the sweet glee that I felt at meeting it, I could confide to none. I still cherish the clutch with which I bore it from the ground when a wandering child, an unearthly booty, and maturity only enhances mystery, never decreases it. To duplicate the vision is almost more amazing, for God’s unique capacity is too surprising to surprise. I know not how to thank you—We do not thank the rainbow, although its twoplay is a snare.
To give delight is hallowed—perhaps the toil of angels whose avocations are concealed.
I trust that you are well, and the quaint little girl with the deep eyes, every day more fathomless.
With joy, E. Dickinson48
Mabel felt her bond with Emily increase each time Austin brought her to The Homestead. Emily’s thanks in the form of a glass of wine or a flower or a poem were signs, Mabel believed, of her growing connection to Austin’s sister. Since Austin and Emily had a close relationship, Mabel no doubt believed that Austin would approve of her making a deeper connection to his sister. And clearly this all was taking on increasing importance to her as her relationship with Austin continued to develop and intensify.
On September 11, 1882, Austin came to fetch Mabel to another social gathering at The Evergreens. But before they went into the house, they walked out into the meadow past it. Austin’s diary on that date simply lists what he did during the day, with the word “Rubicon” inexplicably written alongside. Mabel’s diary from that day also mostly focuses on the weather and what she did during the day. That same word, “Rubicon,” appears at the bottom of the page. Mabel would write Austin more than twenty letters about this shared moment.
“And we walked toward the sunset—and leaning on an old fence, began to reach each other a very, very little—It was very peaceful, and very bright—but it was the beginning, unmistakably. . . . You reached out your hand without knowing it, almost . . . and you met another—warm and tender. You clasped it, knowing it was your fate, and it staid with you. It will never be withdrawn.”49
CHAPTER 3
SOARING LOVE AND SEETHING TENSIONS (1883–1894)
“Where is the wrong in preferring sunshine to shadow!”
In the early 1880s, Amherst was still a town dominated by Calvinism, steeped in traditional values derived from a Puritan past. As historian Joseph Conforti suggests, the Puritan emphasis on literacy and on the importance of history, as well as the “sense of moral and intellectual superiority,” permeated different regions well into the nineteenth century. Religious revivals “seemed to reanimate the spirit of the Puritans.”1 This legacy of strict morality maintained a foothold in small-town Amherst life, Millicent noted: “In 1850 two centuries of Puritanism still shaped their behavior, their mode of living and their entire outlook.”2
And it was within this climate that Mabel and Austin began, developed and maintained their relationship. For the first time in her life, Mabel came to know a darkness of the soul spawned by both the real and perceived shaming she received for cultivating a love outside of her marriage. It was a turning point that deepened her insights, making her a woman who could understand and interpret both the light and darkness of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and setting up a toxic dynamic between the two families, the reverberations of which are arguably still felt today.
THE “RUBICON” MOMENT, A DAY OF NOTE INDICATED IN MABEL’S (TOP) AND AUSTIN’S (BOTTOM) DIARIES.
Shortly after the Rubicon moment, Mabel took a short trip to Washington. In a lette
r she thanked Austin for “what you did at the Trustee meeting.” Stating that she was “very, very grateful,” Mabel added, “I must write and thank you myself, although I think Mr. Todd is also writing you today.”3 Austin, it seemed, had used his political sway to help David’s career. Though it was customary at the time for a faculty member to remain at the instructor rank for a number of years before moving up the academic totem pole, after just one year at Amherst College, David was promoted to associate professor and given a significant salary increase. Austin’s ability to influence David and Mabel’s economic well-being was already obvious.
The brief interlude in D.C. was to resettle Grandma Wilder and Millicent back into life with Molly and Eben. As Mabel suggested in her diary entries, their several-month sojourn in Amherst had proven inconvenient for Mabel, and it was clear to the whole family that it might be better for all concerned if Grandma Wilder and Millicent were to return to Washington. In “Millicent’s Life,” Mabel noted that her daughter was “saying many quaint & brilliant things all the time—I wish I could record even half of them,” but she devoted more of her entries to discussing how she tried to prepare Millicent for the eventuality of leaving her behind. When it came time to say good-bye, Mabel wrote that the little girl waved and, “she called out ‘Mabel!’ in her strong clear voice.”4
In the weeks after her return to Amherst, Mabel’s diaries were filled with entries about her time spent with “dear Mr. Dickinson.” In one such typically rapturous entry she wrote, “What a soul-stirring morning this was! . . . Mr. D. and I had a long, long ride in the buggy, to Pelham, thence across to Shutesbury, and to home,” and in another, “I went for a drive with dear Mr. Dickinson senior. We did not come back until six o’clock. Among other lovely places we went to visit a little old house that stands high on the Pelham hills. We stopped beside it for ten or fifteen minutes for the wonderful views—the kingdoms of the earth and their glory lay spread out below.”5
This time must have felt relatively unencumbered for Mabel and Austin. On October 19, 1882, Sue and Mattie departed Amherst to attend the wedding of a relative in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and were gone three weeks. Shortly after that, David departed for San Jose, California, where he’d agreed to be the primary photographer at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton for the upcoming Transit of Venus, an extremely rare astronomical occurrence that happens only twice each century. This was David’s chance to see and photograph the event during his lifetime, and he left Amherst for two months in its pursuit.6 Mabel and Austin took advantage of their respective spouses’ absence and spent as much time together as possible. “It feels very odd and very much like my early girlish days to be all alone so much, with time to write in a journal during the day,” Mabel reflected. “I rather enjoy the freedom, and I am going to make the most of it for a while. To be sure, I am not alone very much, for everyone is very kind to me, especially the Dickinsons, and of them especially Mr. Dickinson.”7
During this time the relationship between Mabel and Austin deepened significantly. “Mr. Dickinson is the most true and satisfying friend I ever had,” she mused. “I respect and admire him boundlessly. I wish I could write of it, but it is beyond writing. I say little about it, but it is the rarest and truest friendship I have ever had.”8
Mabel’s claim that what was developing with Austin was “beyond writing” is found throughout their many letters, journal and diary entries. They believed what they felt about each other was unique, so great and so powerful that it could never adequately be captured in words—and yet they generated thousands of words to define, articulate and preserve a record of their love. So it is relatively easy to chart the trajectories of their relationship, even though they made some efforts to disguise and conceal it as their situation became increasingly complicated.
Once Mabel began spending time with Austin, the presence of Ned Dickinson meant little to her: “I really did care for him a great deal, in one way, some time ago, but have not a particle of that romantic interest in him left. . . . I am delighted to see how so entirely he has passed out of my life,” she wrote. She went on to discuss how when she “put him out . . . his father and I began to discover that we had a great many things in common and from that began a friendship which is the most true and satisfying I ever had.”9
In addition to spending time together carriage riding throughout the Pelham hills, Austin and Mabel explored their emerging feelings through a series of written exchanges. Historian Polly Longsworth notes, “Austin and Mabel at first destroyed all tangible evidence of their liaison, burning many, many notes and letters soon after receiving them, until Austin began copying Mabel’s precious messages in his own hand before disposing of the originals, and slipped the copies into an outsize envelope that he gave to Lavinia. Across the envelope was scrawled this directive: “Vin—if anything happens to me, Burn this package at once—without opening. Do this as you love me.” Mabel, for her part, also copied many passages of his early letters.
However, as the relationship wore on, neither Austin nor Mabel could bear to destroy each other’s letters and they each lovingly retained them, so that a considerable written record of more than a thousand letters exchanged over the duration of their relationship exists. Austin kept his letters from Mabel in his law office; when a fire destroyed some of his papers he gave the rest of Mabel’s letters back to her to hold. And as Longsworth points out, Austin apparently urged Mabel to preserve their letters in the belief that should he die, they would in some way “protect her.”10 These are probably the only reasons that they still exist.
Among the fragments of early notes that Mabel and Austin recopied were indications of the recognition that their feelings for each other ran deep and permeated their everyday lives. “I am glad beyond expression to see you. I have an accumulation of things in my mind for you,” wrote Mabel to Austin. “Just a word my beloved before I harness to work, to tell you that my love is only stronger & richer this morning than ever,” Austin responded. “Is this not a royal morning! I recognize you in the beautiful day somehow.”
Even at this early point in their relationship, Austin and Mabel were finding ways to justify and rationalize it. “Why should I! and why shouldn’t I! Who made & who rules the human heart! Where is the wrong in preferring sunshine to shadow! Does not the unconscious plant lean toward light?” Austin wrote passionately. Mabel responded in kind: “I am not sorry—or otherwise—but it is all very strange. You too may be sure of me, of just what & how I am thinking of you and how infinitely I am trusting you. Through and above every other feeling, is this wonderful restfulness, expressed by nothing so nearly as complete trust. And I love you—I cannot say how much.”11
Even after the beginning of Mabel’s and Austin’s admission of love for each other, Mabel continued to be an extremely frequent guest at The Evergreens. For a time, while their budding relationship remained secret, she seemed an erstwhile member of the family. Mabel’s diaries from late fall 1882 contain almost daily mentions of horseback rides with Ned, Mattie stopping by her rooms, dinners and musical soirees or going places with some combination of Dickinsons. Eventually, she’d become such a fixture at the Dickinson household that on the rare occasion she was not there, it was noticed. Mattie and Ned reportedly recounted to Mabel, who went on to tell David, “at supper Mr. Dickinson looked around & said ‘Where’s Mrs. Todd?’ & they said I had gone home. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it’s very empty and unnatural without her. I don’t like it at all.’”12 Between the private joy of her mutual discovery with Austin and her more public acceptance at a seemingly endless merry-go-round of social activities at The Evergreens, Mabel’s life could not have been more full.
“My life is positively the most brilliant one I know of,” Mabel noted in her journal in early December in her characteristically self-congratulatory and overly effusive fashion. “I mean in its continual succession of delightful things, with almost never a second to dim the brightness of my sun. I am a great favorite here in Amher
st. I have many callers every day. I have many letters every day. I practice and paint a great deal. . . . Millicent is superbly well and radiantly happy. David has had exceptional success . . . and my admirable, noble, strong, true Mr. Dickinson is entirely devoted to me.”13
In the early days of December 1882, Mabel and Austin were all but consumed by the ecstasy of a new and profound love. For the moment, their secret was intact. But the notes and letters they exchanged, sometimes handed to each other inside of folded newspapers on the street or written alongside a “cover” letter about some innocuous issue or often revealing a pin mark suggesting Mabel wore them inside her dress until they could be exchanged or read privately, tell a story of increasing pent-up passion.
“Dearer, nearer, sweeter every time,” wrote Austin in late 1882. “Those forty minutes last night, the happiest fullest most joyous yet. It seemed to me we touched bottom in that walk and talk so far as words can do it. I have been happier in the hours since than ever before. I do believe you, my darling, and believe you love me as I love you.” And Mabel reported to Austin when he went on a brief excursion to Boston that “the town is empty and desolate & cold & dreary to me, & why? I walk the streets apparently as usual, but the spirit & joy of my life are gone. . . . It seems as if I cannot possibly bear it until you come. . . . I want you—I long for you—I need you in every way, at this moment.”14