My Wars Are Laid Away in Books

by Alfred Habegger

  “a social partition line”: Mer 1:345

  Writing to a stranger: Let 282, 52. Others who studied law with EdD were Ithamar F. Conkey, James W. Boyden, Baalis and John E. Sanford (later speaker of the Massachusetts House), John Milton Emerson, William Howland, and WAD. Josiah G. Holland, History of Western Massachusetts (Springfield, Mass.: Bowles 1855) 2:173–74; Bench 2:373–74; Let 126, 134.

  “All can write autographs”: Tipped on endpaper of ED’s copy of Emerson’s Poems (Boston: Munroe, 1847), EDR 1.2.4. Facsimile in Leyda 1:158. ED’s album does not survive.

  “universally esteemed”: William Lincoln, History of Worcester (Worcester, Mass.: Charles Hersey, 1862) 386.

  Dickinson’s tribute to her friend: Let 282; Mercy Phil 88.

  It is thought: Let 404, 737.

  “Eternity,” “dreadful”: Let 28.

  familiar with “We Are Seven”: Let 215.

  The one book: Let 84. Newton’s “Miscellaneous Books” were appraised at only $20. The value of his law library dropped from $20 to $10 when it was discovered that his Kent’s Commentaries was borrowed (Schedule A). Worcester Co. RP, Papers of Administration for Benjamin F. Newton, #43070.

  a liberating effect: For Emerson’s influence on ED, see This Was a Poet 189–205; Gelpi, chap. 4; Karl Keller, The Only Kangaroo among the Beauty: Emily Dickinson and America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), chap. 6; Joanne Feit Diehl, Dickinson and the Romantic Imagination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), chap. 5; McIntosh 14–20.

  review of Representative Men: Indicator 2 (Feb. 1850) 214-20. The only evidence I find for Leyda’s attribution of this to George H. Gould (1:167) is in Indicator 2:283.

  “Ralph Waldo Emerson – whose name”: Let 727.

  “Your letter gave no Drunkenness”: Let 408.

  “My earliest friend wrote me”: Let 551.

  In summer 1849: Let 475; Rev. of Kavanagh, Indicator 2 (July 1849) 57 (I know of no basis for Leyda’s attribution to Gould [1:157]); Let 648. On ED and Kavanagh, see Sewall 683–88.

  The tiny but emphatic: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, A Tale (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1849), Za L860 849b, copy 3, Y-BRBL. Marks referred to are on pp. 39, between lines 9 and 10; 137, between lines 12 and 13; 129, line 22; 181, line 6.

  footnote 2: ED’s marks: Kavanagh, pp. 129, line 9; 138, between lines 22 and 23; 117, between lines 19 and 20, Y-BRBL.

  Was she thinking: Kavanagh 80; Let 264.

  Picciola: Let 75 (also 206–207). “X. B. Saintine” was the pseudonym of Joseph Xavier Boniface, whose Picciola, the Prisoner of Fenestrella was brought out in many editions from 1839 by Lea & Blanchard of Philadelphia. On prisons and ED, see Loeffelholz 106–111.

  A book that engaged: Littell’s Living Age 20 (3-17-1849) 505–507; [William G. Hammond], “Jane Eyre,” Indicator 1 (June 1848) 29 (attribution in copy at A); Delia Torrey to Eudocia Carter Converse (Flynt), 6-1-1848, CT Misc. 23:457, Y-MSSA.

  “If all these leaves were altars”: Let 77 (punctuated as in ED793 A).

  The tantalizing question: [Hammond], “Jane Eyre,” 30; SR 1-24-1851.

  Carlo: Allen 73; Leyda 2:21; Jane Eyre, chap. 30; Indicator 2 (Feb. 1850) 223. Another dog named Carlo is in [Donald Grant Mitchell], Reveries of a Bachelor (New York: Baker & Scribner, 1850) 29. Although this book appeared some months after ED’s dog was named, the original magazine essay had a Carlo (“A Bachelor’s Reverie,” Southern Literary Messenger 15 [Sept. 1849] 604). There’s a still earlier Carlo, a dancing dog, in chap. 18 of Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41), which ED read.

  In the copy: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (New York: Harper, 1864) 418, EDR 2.2.11; Passion 202–218; Let 562. Rochester’s exact words: “I feel your benefits no burden, Jane” (chap. 15).

  Villette: Charlotte Brontë, Villette (New York: Harper, 1859), EDR 2.2.14.

  The pleasing stimulus: Mary Warner Crowell to Sue, 3-17-[1896], Bianchi Coll; Let 83–84.

  Yet, even as Emily launched: Let 83; Leyda 1:157.

  “Your first words”: Let 93.

  Joel Warren Norcross: Boston directories from 1849 to 1851; Joel W. Norcross, “The History and Genealogy of the Norcross Family,” 2:101–102, NEHGS; Leyda 1:156; Let 77–81.

  “uncontrolled,” “I have no Tribunal”: Let 409.

  Twelve days after writing Joel: Let 85, 83.

  On the whole, though: “Root” 13, 16–17; Let 83–84, 90.

  letter she sent Abiah: Let 86–90. For a technical psychoanalytic handling of L31, see Cody 174–77. Homans’s discussion of it and other spring 1850 letters seems more acute but doesn’t persuade me that the “long, big shining fibre” is the redeemed snake/phallus (166–74).

  “more affectionately than wont”: “Root” 32.

  Valentine season: HFE 1-30-1852; Let 63, 76.

  footnote 3: Let 110 (punctuated as in ED795 A); Hammond 59.

  “curling hair”: MDB noted that in middle age ED’s hair “retained its rather wavy, clustering tendency” and was “never flattened down or strained back” (FF 18). Maria Avery Howard remembered “red, short curls over a low brow” (quoted in Lydia Avery Coonley to MLT [copy], ED Tr65 A). But see Brocades 268.

  “full of ‘fun’”: Brocades 206. See also Let (1894) 125.

  On the problematic female subject in Fr1, see Margaret Homans, “‘Oh, Vision of Language!’ Dickinson’s Poems of Love and Death,” Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson, Suzanne Juhasz, ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983) 115–17.

  At some point: Let (1894) 130; “Root” 27.

  Her other Valentine: Indicator 2 (Feb. 1850) 223–24.

  footnote 4: Alice Eaton McBee II, From Utopia to Florence: The Story of a Transcendentalist Community in Northampton, Mass. 1830–1852 (Northampton: [Smith College,] 1947) 32–33, 49, 62–63; Obit Record 337.

  footnote 5: Hubbard Winslow, Woman As She Should Be (Boston: Carter, 1838) 24.

  Two months later Emily sent: Let 95.

  Looking back from the 1880s: [Edward Payson Crowell], Memorial of Professor Aaron Warner (Amherst, 1884) 49; Indicator 2:193, 211, 199, 223–24.

  Van Twiller/Henry Shipley: Indicator 2:31, 283; Hammond 133, 169, 211, 218, 228–29; San Francisco Alta California 7-11-1857; William S. Tyler to Joab Tyler, 4-17-1850, Tyler Papers 2:15. Though he didn’t name Shipley, Tyler went on to say he was “converted the day before the term ended.” One of three Seniors who joined the college church by profession on 6-23-1850 (Book No. 1, 1826–1849, Amh Coll Ch), Shipley alone was seen as brilliant.

  “roguish,” “stolen”: Let (1894) 129.

  In the April letter: Let 95, punctuated as in fMS Am 1118.4 (L65), H. The letter’s contents support Johnson’s date, 4-3-1850, but the ms. appears to read “April 30. 1850.”

  Who was the Valentine’s: “Memoranda relating to Beneficiaries of the Charity Fund,” Amherst College: Early History 3:9, A; Bio Rec 61–62; Brocades 254–55; Indicator 2:30, 283; C. M. Southgate, “A Prince . . . in Israel” (clipping), Gould ’50, Alumni/ae Biographical Files, A; Franklin P. Rice, The Worcester of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Eight (Worcester: Blanchard, 1899) 627–30; Ellery Bicknell Crane, Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County (New York: Lewis, 1907) 3:37; Leyda 1:206–207; WAD to ED and Vin (rough notes beginning “Girls—write often”) [Dec. 1853], H.

  Writing Abiah in early May: Let 98; Vryling Wilder Buffum to Genevieve Taggard, 3-6-, 3-25-1930, Mary Lee Hall to Taggard, 12-2-1929, 3-7-1930, Taggard Papers.

  “Our father”: Dall; Brocades 319.

  footnote 6: Dall; Harriet Jameson to JFJ, 5-16-[1886], Container 7, Jameson Papers.

  There was definitely something: Let 95, 99, 282.

  Some believe her visionary: Favoring poetic vocation are Imagery 6 and Sewall 391–98.

  Vinnie’s change of heart: Home 86, 90, 96.

  Before this surrender: Home 88; HFE 1-10-1851; Hist 77.

  With that, a revival began: Hist Amh Coll 341; Tyler
to Tyler, 4-17-1850, A; Book No. 1, 1826–1849, Amh Coll Ch.

  footnote 7: [Sacramento] Themis 12-6-1890; HFE 12-16-1859.

  By then the fervor: Let 94; Allen 22; HFE 1-10-1851; FHB to LMB, 5-30-1850 (cf. Jeremiah Taylor to LMB, 11-18-1850, Bolt 6:4).

  footnote 8: Leyda 1:178; Nellie M. Gould to George F. Whicher, 2-19-1930, Taggard Papers.

  As was always the case: Let 94, 99.

  In March or April: Home 98.

  newly found . . . letter from Austin: WAD to EFF, [March or April 1850], Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina; Ezra Greenspan, “More New Dickinson Family Letters,” EDIS Bull 8.2 (1996) 9, 23. Vin was home for spring recess March 20–April 17 (Home 97).

  Austin’s description of his sister: Let 90. The handwriting (ms. at NYPL) is earlier than that in ED’s other letters to EFF. The “g” and “y” have a deep and relatively unslanted descender, rising in an unbroken loop to the right; by 1851 ED formed these letters differently. Snow fell in Springfield early on March 1, on the nights of March 6 and 11, and on March 18 (SR 3-2,8,13,19-1850).

  “How lonely this world”: Let 94.

  Chapter 12

  As the product of a: Lyman Let 34; Cody 220; Let 241, also 211.

  footnote 1: Var 53–55.

  In her reading, Dickinson tended: Let 111, 126, 155.

  quoted no poem more often: To Abiah, WAD, Sue, and EFF (Let 100).

  But it is hard: Light in the Valley (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Soc., 1852); [Matilda Anne MacKarness], “Only” (Boston: Munroe, 1850); MacKarness, The House on the Rock (Boston: Munroe, 1852) 156; Let 195.

  footnote 2: Georgiana Fullerton, Lady-Bird: A Tale (London: Moxon, 1852); WAD to Sue (draft, #42, “I’ve just come in”), H.

  Dickinson is not known: Let 212, also 205.

  Another and more appealing: Craik, Head 19; Sally Mitchell, Dinah Mulock Craik (Boston: Twayne, 1983) 31–34.

  In April 1852: Let 195; Craik, Olive 1:113, 196–97; 2:52, 55. See the excellent discussion in Dinah Mulock Craik 29–31. The novelist’s father, an unhinged evangelical fanatic, had deserted his family (Aleyn Lyell Reade, The Mellards [London: Arden Press, 1915]).

  The most immediately inspiring: Diary 2–22; Ik. Marvel [Donald Grant Mitchell], Reveries of a Bachelor: or a Book of the Heart (New York: Baker & Scribner, 1850) 15–49.

  “thought and passion”: Reveries 56.

  “Bachelor’s Reveries” headed: WAD to Sue (draft), [Oct 13–15, 1851], H. Dated by EdD’s visit to WAD “last Wednesday” (cf. Let 142) and in conjunction with Home 186, 188.

  Those made by Emily: Reveries 224, 240, 85, Za M692 850rb, copy 1, Y-BRBL. Similar marks are on 18, 74, 77, 85, 174, 245.

  “exquisite writing”: Let 178.

  The young woman’s enjoyment: Let 144.

  One reason Emily turned: “Root” 29; Let 130, 129; “Root” 31.

  A year or two after: Let 178, 237–38, 161. WAD’s 1851 Dream Life, signed by him, is otherwise unmarked (EDR 4.4.8).

  When Edward was in: Diary 3-27, 3-25, 12-16 (on 3-28 Beecher was to give “his celebrated lecture on Character” in Northampton [Northampton Gazette 3-25-1851]); Home 238–39; Let 136, 150–51.

  On the whole: Let 128, 139, 148.

  The worst thing Father did: Home 239, 235; Let 194, 147, 198.

  jotted on her program: “Exhibition of the Eclectic Society,” 11-26-1850, ED60 A. Leyda found the program in the Alpha Delta Phi files in the old Memorabilia Room at A (Leyda to MTB, 10-25-1951, MTB Papers 84:236). Perhaps the erasure was made when the program was given to college archives. The first two quotes appear in [John E. Sanford], “Aaron Burr,” Indicator 3 (Feb. 1851) 200, 201, which has “villain,” not “rascal.”

  A contemporaneous letter: “Root” 28, 33; Leyda 1:226. By May 1852 the friendship had “freshened” again (“Root” 33).

  Vinnie was given a diary: Jane Hitchcock to Vin, n.d. [1-1-1851], H.

  The one organized group: Diary 6-10, 13; Let (1894) 129–30. Vin attended 3-11; 4-11; 5-30; 6-3,10,20,24; 7-8,11,15,25 (Diary).

  Dickinson would not be: Let 114, 116; Diary 6-20; Home 149.

  A kind of daily telegraph: Let 127; Diary 9-26 (Ware), 11-7 (quarrel). Vin saw Sue 1-9,17,22,25; 2-1,13,19,22,28; 3-11,13,27; 4-3,16,17,19,24,25; 5-1,3,6,13; 6-11,19,24; 7-8,12,31; 8-5,6,9,12,15,20,26; 9-1,2,4 (Diary).

  Omitting a trip to Boston: Diary 2-20,27; 3-5,24,25; 5-8,15; 6-5,23; 8-2,12,13,25; 9-8; 10-10; 11-1; 12-16,25; Home 174; Lyman Let 18; Let 129–30; HFE 8-15-1851. ED’s account of a gathering at the Havens’ looks secondhand, relying on Vin’s report (Let 116; Diary 6-17). I also exclude a family trip to Northampton and Easthampton 9-25.

  footnote 3: 1850 federal census, Suffolk Co., ward 5, dwelling 833; 1851 Boston directory; “Memoranda” ledger, Bowd St Ch; Let 80.

  The pressure to stay: Let 111, 197; EdD to END, 1-21-1838, H.

  Staying home from group: Home 239; Let 122, 200, 181, 140 (also “Root” 29),187.

  Emily’s view: Let 141, 632 (punctuated as in Za Dickinson, folder 1, Y-BRBL), 160, 151; Home 186.

  Dickinson could not always: Let 185–86.

  footnote 4: House Keeping 399.

  Such considerations: Mary Adèle Allen, “The First President’s House—A Reminiscence,” Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (Feb. 1937) 97; Harriet W. Fowler to Worthington G. Chauncey, 2-11-1840, EFF to J. W. Hand, 2-16-1840, FF Papers, box 8; Lyman Coleman to EFF, 9-15-, 9-18-1847, EFF Papers; William C. Fowler to EFF, 9-29-, 10-12-1847, EFF Papers, box 4; EFF to George Eliot (draft), 1873, EFF Papers, box 3. No extant Dickinson family letter speaks of ED’s school triumphs.

  “seemed more sincere”: Let 151. Leonard Humphrey thought EFF a hypocrite (Leyda 1:106).

  Emily Fowler and Francis March: M.E.B. [Mary E. Blake] to EFF, 11-13-1850, “Aunt Laura” [Flynt] to EFF, 2-19-1852, EFF Papers, box 1; W. W. Fowler to Gordon L. Ford, 1-4-1852, Ford to Francis A. March, 3-15-1853, GLF Papers, box 1; Mary H. Jones to Emma Willard, 3-31-1852, 12-[19]-1853, Willard Papers; Leyda 1:296; Addresses Delivered at a Celebration in Honor of Prof. Francis A. March (Easton, Pa.: Lafayette Press, 1895) 16. Doggett & Rode’s 1851–1852 New York directory has March and Ford sharing an office at 7 Broad St.

  “Havana – and writes encouragingly”: ED585 A (“Havana” misread as “Harvard” in Let 180).

  “very much to hear how Mr M”: ED to EFF, Sunday [May 1852], ED72 A.

  footnote 5: Let (1894) 144; Let 293–94; ED72 A; Home 239; John Lancaster, “An Emily Dickinson Discrepancy,” Newsletter of the Friends of the Amherst College Library 11 (1983) 13.

  “dont weep, for you will”: Let 218.

  What Dickinson didn’t know: William C. Fowler to Gordon L. Ford, 3-12-1852, GLF Papers, box 1; Let 193; Home 298; Let 254.

  footnote 6: Addresses Delivered 15–22, 69–73.

  eighteen times: Diary 1-23; 2-13,25; 3-6,31; 4-4,7,12; 6-13,27,30; 7-15; 8-20,21; 11-16; 12-4,6?,23,31.

  “stay a long while”: Let 273 (ms. at Za Dickinson, Y-BRBL). Written before Thanksgiving, L143 must be from 1852: ED would not have offered “comfort” just prior to EFF’s 12-16-1853 wedding.

  The most interesting: Let 184 (corrected against holograph at NYPL). The sheet is 65 mm wide and 100 mm high.

  “was exquisitely neat”: Let (1894) 131.

  Vinnie’s diary and Emily’s letters: Diary 2-20; 3-13,17; 4-16, 7-22; Let 122, 123, 127, 118.

  The trip finally: 1846 trip: Let 36–37; Thomas Bender, “The ‘Rural’ Cemetery Movement,” in Material Life in America, 1600–1860, Robert Blair St. George, ed. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 505–518. 1851 trip: Let 132, 135–36, 141; Diary, Sept. 4-22; ad for Othello at Boston Museum, Boston Daily Advertiser 9-9-1851; WAD to Sue (draft, “Sue I am perfectly disappointed”), Thursday [9-25-1851], H; Let 407. Particularly useful is Uno 17–57.

  Wesselhoeft was consulted: Diary 9-18,21,23; 10-27; 11-1; 12-17,23; Home 175; Let 171–72; Norbert Hirschhorn, “Was It Tuberculosis? Another Glimpse
at Emily Dickinson’s Health,” New England Quarterly 72 (March 1999) 102–118; DWVF to HHF (transcript), Wednesday [10-20-1841], HHJ Papers 2:1; James Jackson, Letters to a Young Physician (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1856) 175–76. In spite of his age, Jackson was still practicing in 1851; see James Jackson Putnam, A Memoir of Dr. James Jackson (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1905) 371–73.

  As for glycerine: “Glycerine” and “Glycerine Internally,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 41 (8-29-1849) 86, and 53 (1-24-1856) 536; Hirschhorn 109. ED’s fine skin: Let (1931) xix, 130; Leyda 2:475. Johnson flatly declared for dry skin (Let 279).

  That fall, Edward informed: WAD to Sue (draft), [Oct. 13–15, 1851], H; Home 174; Let 143, 159, 174, 179, 192, 200, 259, 263, 271, 278–79, 281.

  “try to get stout”: “Root” 31.

  Loring’s bankruptcy: Insolvency papers for Norcross & Wood are in Suffolk County Insolvency Records, docket 1708, box 3924. The present shelf location at the State Records Center is T203G02. Access is through Archives and Records Preservation, Supreme Judicial Court, 1300 New Court House, Boston.

  As the assessed valuation: 1839–1846 valuations of Norcross & Wood, 22 Kilby St., Ward 8, Boston, City Clerk, Archives and Records Management; Norcross & Wood insolvency papers; An Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors (1838); Boston Daily Advertiser 7-8,15,22-1851; Diary 7-10; Let 123–24.

  Because of the trust: Norcross & Wood insolvency papers; Suffolk County Probate, Estate of LNN, Case 43154; Boston Daily Advertiser 1-9-1852.

  Did anyone talk: Let 139; Home 168, 214, 261, 313.

  “Affection her strength”: Sue, notes on ED, H. Martha Nell Smith calls this document “Notes toward a Volume of Emily Dickinson’s Writings” at jefferson.village.virginia.edu/dickinson/susan/.

  Susan Gilbert was born: Smith 309; Francis M. Thompson, History of Greenfield (Greenfield, 1904) 2:777, 1169; Austin & Mabel 70. MLT and MTB made much of Sue’s “lordly bearing and obscure parentage to which she never referred” (Brocades 6).

  footnote 7: Obit Record, Class of 1828; Allyn S. Kellogg, Memorials of Elder John White and His Descendants (Hartford: Case, Lockwood, 1860) 100; 1870 federal census, Mich., Grand Rapids, ward 3, family 143.