Because Susan was only: Sue to TDG, Sunday [Sept. 1850], H; SB Let #114 [3-14-1864]; Sue to TDG, 10-22-[1851], Sue to Ned Dickinson, Grand Rapids, Wednesday [5-29-1878], H; George C. D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938) 10:398; “Annals” 24. Sue’s mother but not father joined Greenfield’s Second Congregational Church (Manual of the Second Congregational Church in Greenfield [Greenfield: Eastman, 1858] 4).
Fully orphaned by her father’s death: Vital Records of Greenfield (Boston, 1915); Amherst Academy catalog for 1846–1847, J (Geneva given as Sue’s home); Utica Female Academy catalogs for 1848–1849 (Oneida County Historical Soc.) and 1849–1850 (Utica Imprints Collection, Utica Public Lib.) (both give Amherst as Sue’s home); M. M. Bagg, ed., Memorial History of Utica (Syracuse: D. Mason, 1892) 464-65; S. E. Clarke, “An Old-Time School,” Town Topics and Current Events of the Mohawk Valley (Nov. 1928) 11, 26; Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism (New York: Huntington & Savage, 1847), back board, EDR 2.4.17. Also inscribed in this textbook is a list of the seven “Intellectual Gems,” Sue included, who were “Members of Miss Kelly’s class in Kames—July 13th. 1848.”
MDB’s obit of Sue says she was “so good in mathematics that Prof [James] Hadley of Yale . . . who for a time gave her instruction, told her that she ought to go to Yale college” (SR 5-13-1913). Two decades later, improving the story, MDB claimed she had been taught by Yale’s president (FF 144–45). In fact, Sue was taught botany and chemistry by another man, Professor James Hadley of Geneva College (Sue, “A Memoir of Dr Elizabeth Blackwell,” H; Archives, Hobart and William Smith Colleges).
when an important new book came out: For Sue’s interest in Titan, see SB Let #16 [1-5-1863], #33 [1-15-1863], #24 [1-16-1863], #18 [2-7-1863]. On Sue’s intellectual presence for ED, see Passion 114–115.
In 1848, the year: Alfred Tennyson, The Princess; a Medley (Boston: Ticknor, 1848) 11, 75, 89, 30, 94, 159, EDR 3.5.21.
Susan was in her teens: EH Jr, Notebook “A,” Doc Hitch 7:22; Diary 2-27 (also 7-17); Let 300; MGS to TDG, 3-12?,13-[1855], H. MGS’s mention of “Dwighty” (Dwight G. Cutler, b. 5-14-1852) and an essay on Mary Wortley Montagu (Littell’s Living Age 29 [6-14-1851] 481-96) rule out 1849 as the year (Leyda 1:156).
footnote 8: Mass. Vol. 46, p. 5, Dun.
In April 1849: Harriet M. Cutler, Mary Gilbert, MGS, and Sue to TDG and Frank Gilbert, April [1849], H. Dated by Kellogg robbery (HFE 4-20-1849) and George Cutler’s 5-23-1849 marriage.
Sister Martha, with her poor: MGS to EH Jr, [11-28-1850], H; Let 895; EH Jr, Notebook “B+,” [56], Doc Hitch 7:26; John E. Sanford to EH Jr, 9-4-1850, Doc Hitch 13:30.
The Smith family memorial, Glenwood Cemetery, Geneva, N.Y., has MGS born 4-13-1827. In federal and state censuses of 1860, 1865, and 1870, she gave her age as thirty-two, thirty-seven, and forty-two. The official census date falling in midsummer, these ages are consistent with a birth date in the second half of 1827 or first half of 1828.
The reason Sue was: Greenfield Gazette and Courier 8-5-1850; SCB to Joseph Bartlett, 7-24-1850, SCB Papers, box 9; Sue to TDG, Sunday [Sept. 1850], H. Mary had married SCB’s brother-in-law, SJL, Sept 1849.
It was in this time: Let 102; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, A Tale (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1849) 82; MGS to EH Jr, [11-28-1850], H; Sanford to EH Jr, 9-4-1850, Doc Hitch 13:30.
footnote 9: Let 101-2; Leyda 1:185; Open Me 7; MGS to EH Jr, [11-28-1850], Sue to TDG, 1-18-1851, H; Diary 2-27.
The sheltered Dickinson siblings: WAD to Sue (draft), 12-11-1850, WAD to Sue, (draft, “I have so much”), Sunday [Oct. 1851], H.
Before Martha left: Leyda 1:177; WAD to Sue (draft), 10-29-1850, H.
Meanwhile, Vinnie and Emily: Home 109; Let 100–101; HFE 7-19-, 8-2,23-1850.
footnote 10: EDC to WAD, postmarked 12-11-1850, ED946 A, and 6-30-1851, ED947 A.
In November the fall term: Leyda 1:183.
The romance was conducted: MGS to EH Jr, [11-28-1850], H; Leyda 1:192.
In good weather: Let 202, 194, 111, 114, 125. See Home 242 for an instance of WAD’s concealment of his relations with Sue.
Suddenly restless: Annual Circular and Catalogue of the Utica Female Academy for 1848–9 5; Sue to TDG, [between 6-19- and 7-14-1851], 9-17-[1851], H.
Mr. and Mrs. Archer’s: Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser 7-4-, 8-28-1851; Catalogs for Archer’s Academy for 1848–1849 and 1855–1856, Maryland Historical Soc.; 1850 federal census, Baltimore City, ward 10, dwelling 464.
The public institution: Boston School Committee Minutes, vol 6, 1-21-1851 and pp. 127–28, 157, 242–43, and printed report on attendance, loose papers, 1851–1852, Ms.Bos. SC, BPL, courtesy of the Trustees; typed notes, MTB Papers 102:573.
For Austin, classroom: Let 119; WAD to Sue (draft), [Oct. 13–15, 1851], H.
Writing home, the young man: Let 113, 119 (corrected against ED562 A); also 116, 124–25, 151. ED’s defective pen in L45 left her upper strokes mostly invisible, leading Johnson to read “darling” as “daring.”
This callous nativism: Let 148, 137, 152, 162, 170, 141, 146. Vin, too, missed WAD “dreadfully” (Home 268).
footnote 11: Betsy Erkkila, “Emily Dickinson and Class,” American Literary History 4 (spring 1992) 10.
footnote 12: Jackson, Letters to a Young Physician 87.
When she learned: Let 148–49 (ED573 A). Cf. Homans 195.
To focus on her invitation’s: Let 112, 116, 235; Home 206.
This captive fixation: Let 115 (corrected against ED561 A), 117.
footnote 13: Vin to WAD, 6-30-1851, ED562d-e A; Leyda 1:203.
Stung, Emily began: Let 117, 296; WAD to Sue (draft), [Oct. 13-15, 1851], H.
The great sensation: Hampshire Gazette 7-8-1851; Let 121.
In Sue’s absence: Let 205 (compared to ED591 A), 209.
The “childish fancies” passage: Reveries 54; Let 177, 208, 169.
Once, anticipating: Let 169; WAD to Sue (draft, Cambridge, after a Boston jubilee), H. Cody (191) speaks of Sue’s need to “moderate . . . the wooing that besieged her from both quarters.”
Ten years later: Let 737, 193, 201, 203.
When her friend’s return: Let 209–210. ED’s best readers recognize her hesitation between “the need for integration with something else and the assertion of self-contained individuality” (Gelpi 3), or alternatively, the “need to give herself up in ecstatic union and the desire to remain separate” (Miller 118).
Emily’s terror: Let 195; Craik, Head 23; Metamorphoses Book 4. These connections were first brought to light in Marianne Noble’s excellent The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) 147–51.
footnote 15: Craik, Olive 1:81.
Yet the confidante: Let 215. How little ED knew appears in her effort to stimulate Sue’s interest in Henry Root (Let 183).
Chapter 13
peaches, grapes: For the produce, see Let 137, 308; SR 10-20-1854, 9-12-1859; HFE 9-2-1853; Leyda 1:255. Bread: Let 153, 240; Leyda 2:232; Housekeeping 167.
The table itself: Let 268; Home 313.
Fall is Austin’s season: Quinquennial File (WAD), Joel Parker & Theophilus Parsons, Petition of 9-29-1854, Harvard Corp., “College Papers” (1854) 323, Harvard University Archives; Let 244, 231, 269; Home 312.
Sometimes Emily is the first: Let 204, 276, 286.
In December 1852: The New York Times 12-23-1852; Newman family data, MTB Papers 84:258a; Archive of Mary Pearl; Hampshire Co. RP, Estate of Mark H. Newman, 230:65; Let 227, 245, 269. The Irish maid may have been Mary [F?]awk, age twenty-seven in 1850 federal census, Brooklyn, ward 11, dwelling 1153. No published account of the Newman orphans can be relied on, least of all EDE 207, which installs the two youngest girls “at the Homestead . . . from 1853 to 1858.”
The Dickinson children did not: Let 227; Home 268, 318; Let 245. The Sweetser children came to Amherst for the summer when their parents, CDS and JAS, sailed for Liverpool
on the Arctic on 4-30-1853 (New York Tribune 5-2-1853).
Inevitably, Mrs. Fay detected: Home 358–59.
For Edward, the real problem: Kings Co. (NY) Surrogate’s Court, Will of Mark H. Newman, 14:273; Brooklyn RD 357:215, 494:514, 497:156, 503:493; Supreme Court, County of Kings. Edward Dickinson, as Sole Executor and Trustee . . . Plaintiff, against Mark Haskell Newman . . . and Others, Defendants. Summons and Complaint (New York: Bryant, 1858), Mary Pearl; [Clara Newman (Carleton) Pearl], brief untitled memoir, Mary Pearl. The case papers cannot be found in the Kings County Supreme Court records.
In 1854, when the Newman estate was worth $68,000, EdD’s net worth was $21,500. The latter figure excludes his $4,000 life insurance policy, which he counted as an asset, but allows his optimistic valuation of Michigan land and railroad bonds. Kings County (NY) Surrogate’s Court, Room 109, Decrees on Final Accounting 2:257–59; EdD’s 1854 inventory, Bianchi Coll.
When EdD was belatedly advised of Newman’s debts to his alma mater, his response was fair and expeditious: see EdD to Joseph McKeen, 2-11-1853, “Letters re the will . . . of Mark H. Newman,” Administrative Papers of Leonard Woods, Bowdoin College Archives.
A very different set: First #1, 8-19-1852; EdD to SCB, 9-27-1852, SCB Papers 4:98; Let 120.
Meanwhile, the performances: Cooke 24; Smith 144–45; E. S. Wright, A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Late Rev. Phinehas Cooke (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1855); Phinehas Cooke, A Discourse Delivered in Saxton’s Village (Bellows Falls, Vt.: Blake, Cutler, 1824); Cooke, A Farewell Sermon, Delivered at Acworth (Windsor, N.H.: Chronicle Press, 1829) 27; Lucius Boltwood to FHB, 3-30-1853, Bolt 6:7; MVR-Deaths 76:1; HFE 5-6-1853; Home 268. Cf. Diary 2-9.
footnote 1: Home 267; MS:Amherst–First Church–Treasurer–Records 1839–1862 [parish audit], J; MS:Amherst–First Church–Ministers–Misc., folder 1, J.
Another supply preacher: Andover Alumni; Let 251–52.
footnote 2: Speech of Hon. George T. Davis, of Massachusetts, in Reply to Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr. (Washington, D.C.: Gideon, 1852) 4.
Such outbursts: “Amherst College. Prize Declamation. Aug. 6th, 1850,” General Files–Student Parody and Satire–Mock Programs, A.
Edward headed the search: First #4, 4-6-, 5-24-1853; Leyda 1:281; Let 258, 291.
Although Dickinson often turned: Let 291, 284, 229. EdD owned pews 60, 62, 64, 66: EdD’s inventories for 1850, 1851, Bianchi Coll; Hampshire Co. RD 148:120; First #4, 12-21-1860; Hist 58.
footnote 3: Let 229.
By 1860 the Reverend Dwight: George C. Shepard, Diary, 8-20-1854, Bolt 36:4; Hist Amh Coll 509.
Emily eventually lost: Edward S. Dwight, A Teaching Ministry the Conservators of the Social Welfare (Augusta, Me.: Johnson, 1852) 14.
“the finest Lawyer,” “the apex”: Let 270.
On one intriguing: Supreme Judicial Court for Franklin County, Deposition of Deborah Weston (questions 33, 29, 30), docket no. 13, 1853 Sept., Prudence W. Eastman v. John Eastman, Divorce, MA Arch; SR 9-19-1853. The Amherst-born minister was father by a previous marriage of Julia and Sarah Eastman, founders of Dana Hall School, Wellesley. ED’s interest in SR was stimulated by a visit to the Hollands (Let 264), which Eudocia Flynt’s diary places in mid-September 1853 (Leyda 1:282–83)—just before the trial.
After earlier failures: Sargent; Trustees–Prudential Committee–transcript of minutes, 11-14-1851, A; Endow 54–56.
footnote 4: Supreme Judicial Court for Hampshire County, Record Book No. 6, 75–82, MA Arch; Mass Reports 63:596–603. For other suits against the A&B that EdD helped defeat, see Mass Reports 70:61, 74:529.
In February 1852: HFE 2-6-1852; Home 219.
“Every body is wide awake”: Let 173–74. Colonel Horace Smith, in his seventies, lived across the street.
“Father was as usual”: Let 254.
The original idea: Sargent 22–23; Home 307; SR 5-15-1858, p. 8; Mass. Vol. 46, p. 12, Dun; EdD, 1855 inventory, Bianchi Coll. The A&B was later acquired by the New London line for a fraction of its original cost (SR 12-17-1863). The president of the engulfing company was Gordon L. Ford, Emily Fowler’s husband.
In Dickinson’s well-known: Charles R. Anderson, Emily Dickinson’s Poetry: Stairway to Surprise (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960) 16; Mitchell 41.
“to connect with”: Mercy Phil 40–41. The river road went through Northampton, seven miles distant by stage.
“my dearest earthly friend”: Let 764.
Not being a career politician: EdD, “Umpireship” (?), college papers, H; James Avery Smith, The History of the Black Population of Amherst (Boston: NEHGS, 1999) 29. All his life EdD kept the Greenfield Gazette and Mercury for 1-10-1838, which printed the first of six anti-abolitionist and antislavery essays by “M”; above the masthead he wrote “Maj. Dickinson” (box labeled “Dickinson Library. Misc. Pamphlets, Articles, & Lists,” H).
Straddling the difficulty: Leyda 1:225, 335; Mer 1:93; William Chauncey Fowler, The Sectional Controversy (New York: Scribner, 1862); Hinton R. Helper, Impending Crisis of the South (New York: Burdick, 1857) 240–41, Dickinson books, box 98, Bianchi Coll. For background, see Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).
When Edward went to Baltimore: Let 213.
footnote 5: Let 287, 218, 277, 337.
won by a plurality: Leyda 1:255; HFE 12-17-1852; SR 12-9,10,14,15-1852; Boston Daily Evening Traveller 12-14-1852.
Emily apparently got word: Let 216–17, corrected against MS Am 1118.5 (B176), H; Leyda 1:259.
Edward left for Washington: Home 323; Let 275 (caption as in ED167 A); William A. Craigie and James R. Hulbert, A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944) 4:2485. For a good facsimile and unlikely interpretation of ED’s drawing, see Comic Power 74–76.
She was also caricaturing: Home 329, 385; Hampshire County Court of Common Pleas, February term 1854, Record Book No. 1, Blanchard v. Kingsbury, pp. 6–7, MA Arch. The referees’ 1-6-1854 meeting in South Hadley figures in ED’s 1–5 letter: “Father and mother are going to South Hadley tomorrow, to be gone all day” (Let 281). The next meeting was in EdD’s office on 2-17.
It was perhaps during: SJL to MLB, 2-11-1854, SCB Papers 2:50; Home 339.
This journey, the longest: Let 288–92; Home 344.
Seventy-five years later: Graves; Let 328 (punctuated as in MS Am 1118.1 [4], H).
Sue’s report of the nights: Sue to MLB, Tues, postmarked April 24 [1854], SCB Papers 2:53. ED’s fear of dark: Let 351, 354, 404, 424, 537.
footnote 6: Sue, fragments of compositions, H.
In Washington, Edward was: Home 529; Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (Boston: NEHGS, 1885) 4:55–68; [Charles Stearns], Report of the Case of Charles Stearns against J. W. Ripley (Springfield, Mass.: Wilson, 1851); [Stearns], The National Armories, A Review of the System of Superintendency (Springfield, Mass.: Wilson, 1852); [Stearns], Letter to Samuel Bowles. Second Edition (Springfield, Mass.: Wilson, 1854); SR 11-3-1854.
As a young man: EdD, “Militia Law,” “Are military academies beneficial to this country?” Yale compositions and disputes, H; Solomon Warriner, Jr., to EdD, 2-7-, 3-27-1827, H; Home 552.
Edward made these statements: Home 542-45, 548. The most adequate account of EdD’s term in the House remains Home, chapters 20, 25, 26, appendices 3, 4.
But we must not forget: Home 387, 561–63; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989) 957. EdD and Hoar had served together on the Governor’s Council in 1845 and 1846.
The morning after: Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1874) 2:411; Mer 1:117; SR 10-17,21,25,30-; 11-1-1854.
In his reelection bid: SR 11-8,9,13,14,15-1854; HFE 11-10-1854; Albert Bushnell Hart, ed., Commonwealth History of Massachusetts (New York: Russell & Russell, 1966) 4:490.
The 10th’s defeated: EdD to Salmon P. Chase, 7-23-1855, 1-23-1860, Ser. 1, 10:683, 13:443, Salmon P. Chase Papers, LC; Home 568–69; SB Let no. 59.3, 8-2-[1865] (“forgetfulness” misread as “fruitfulness” in FF 150 and Leyda 2:101); EdD to Alexander H. Bullock, 2-6-1869, Bullock Papers.
“high, strong ground”: Home 385.
In July 1852: MGS to TDG, 7-16-[1852], H; Let 195.
Technically mistaken: Sue to EH Jr, 1-13-1853, Doc Hitch 8:10; WAD to Sue (draft, “I will state”), H; Jane Hitchcock to Ann Fiske, 11-7-1852, HHJ Papers 2:35; WAD to Sue (draft, “Your own heart tells”), H. WAD to MGS (draft, lightly cross-ruled in blue, with small paste-on), H, tells how the couple reached an understanding and refers to the “long winter” as still ahead.
Becoming more confidential: WAD to Sue (draft, “Your own heart tells”), H; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Prometheus Bound, and Other Poems (New York: Francis, 1851), EDR 3.2.2. Quotations from Complete Poetical Works (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900) 215, 222.
Although the couple’s: WAD to Sue (draft on ruled blue paper), WAD to MGS (draft), Sunday 3-27-[1853], H. In this last, firmly dated draft, WAD apologizes for “my so long silence” in answering two congratulatory letters from MGS—“words that told me you were glad I loved Sue, & she loves me.” This document implies the couple became engaged well before their rendezvous at the Revere Hotel on 3-23-1853, the date usually given (Imagery 91; Open Me xxxii).
In addition to surrendering: WAD to MGS (draft), 3-27-[1853], WAD to Sue (draft), [4-2-1853, dated by Fast Day, 4-7-1853], WAD to Sue (draft, “Again, my own darling”), H.
In February 1853: Let 221–22. As in Let 118, the “Youth” is not ED but WAD, then in Amherst.
footnote 7: ED607 A; Let 254; Home 295; Let (1931) 62–63. The first strong presentation of the case for ED’s homoerotic love of Sue was Lilian Faderman’s “Emily Dickinson’s Letters to Sue,” Massachusetts Review 18 (summer 1977) 197–225. In arguing for ED’s “lesbian passion,” Martha Nell Smith has given wide currency to her suspicion that seven obliterated lines in L116, which speaks of “a dreadful feeling,” expressed the poet’s uncensored reaction to the engagement: the erased segment “might be a witness to the passion she had for Susan. It might be angry.” A glance at the letter, written a few months after the poet learned of the engagement, suggests the “dreadful feeling” concerned her fear that Father might see Austin’s remarks about her and wildflowers. Philip Weiss, “Beethoven’s Hair Tells All!” The New York Times Magazine 11-29-1998, 113; ED601 A; Let 243; Home 279.
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