“One of my old students is high up in the Sanitary Commission in Washington,” Father informed her, referring to the coordinating agency that oversaw the various women’s relief efforts across the Union. “He can tell you how to organize your ladies for the Union. There are a lot of Shilohs ahead of us, I’m afraid. There will be a tremendous need for bandages and dressings, and they’ll all have to be folded by hand.”
So Father wrote, and Aunt Helen made arrangements and lists — and in a very short time our house was transformed. Our elegant Hitchcock seats were stored in the stable until peacetime. Now there were backless benches and trestle tables in the temple, and bolts of gauze and cheesecloth crowding the stage. Long rows of capped ladies cut and folded and rolled mile after white mile of dressings and bandages. The temple had become a factory.
In our nearly five years here in Amherst, Father’s and Aunt Helen’s social lives had evolved quite differently. Father traveled around New England for various academic reasons and enjoyed the stylish alumni and the lecturers at Mrs. Austin Dickinson’s opulent soirees. He was much in demand in various circles. Aunt Helen was popular with the faculty families and was a Doric column of our First Congregational Church. Father was less devout. Once we were established in the village, he had dropped his Bible class. He attended church only on alternate Sundays. Now, with the war a year old, my father’s and my aunt’s circles overlapped.
In the temple Aunt Helen was a martinet; she demanded cleanliness and silence. Any lady was welcome any weekday, from two to five — but only to work and listen to a reading. We began every session with one or two newspapers so that each of us was as well informed as possible with the war’s course; then I presented a suitably serious novel, the weight of Dickens or Hugo. The ladies preferred having me read every day rather than taking turns among themselves.
“Everyone is very much calmer now that we have something useful to do,” Aunt Helen reported at supper. “But these women talk so foolishly! They all tell one another rumors, and they don’t have any notion what a newspaper story really means.”
So once a week Father joined us for an informal talk and to take questions about war news as gleaned from newspaper accounts. Armed with his big map and a blackboard and a pointer, he taught us by speaking simply and directly, and always with a clear progression. He never condescended, and answered our questions with patience and courtesy.
I was proud of him. When I praised him sincerely, he gave me a wry smile. “I’ve always wished you could know me as a teacher, Miranda. I’m much better as a teacher than as a parent.”
It was a poignant moment of soft regret. So we were both learning and adjusting.
At the end of the day, the workers packed and roped the dressings into bales. Every other day, our stableman, Sam, hauled a wagonload to the main rail line in Springfield. The quantity of dressings and bandages produced was staggering, but so was the thought of a million future wounds, pulsing and spilling and soaking our work. Davy might bleed into a dressing folded by our town’s hands.
Spring of 1862 was also an emotional time for Emily, only because of her own unique and personal causes. During the past year, I had become increasingly critical of her astounding detachment from the war. Until now, our national cataclysm had not interested her in the slightest — not even the great bloodstain of Shiloh. She continued with her confined miniature life and its tiny challenges — its birds and books and baking. She read; she corresponded; she wrote and rewrote, unaffected by her nation’s deadly division.
Now suddenly Emily was distraught, wringing her hands and her adjectives, totally obsessed with the death of a single Amherst boy. This was Frazar Stearns, the promising young son of President Stearns of the college. Frazar was well known to the Dickinsons and much beloved in the village.
Frazar enlisted early, like Davy. He served in the 21st Massachusetts Volunteers under Colonel William S. Clark, his former chemistry teacher at the college. He was killed in New Bern, North Carolina, only a few feet away from his mentor.
This was the first time I witnessed one of Emily’s manufactured passions from start to finish. She took what seemed to me an unhealthy interest in the physical facts of Frazar’s death: the details of his wound, the shipment of his poor body, the funeral procession through Amherst, and the service in the church, which of course she did not attend. She described all this to her Norcross cousins in a style just as maudlin as that of those lady poets Mr. Bowles encouraged. The Norcrosses were the family that mostly died of consumption when Emily was a very little girl. These two cousins were a bit older than I; they were the survivors of that winter.
I had never understood Emily’s connection with the Norcrosses. She wrote them constantly in a very superior fashion, as if they were toddlers and her responsibility. She instructed them in health and weather; she advised them on morals and preserves. She read these letters to me proudly. She seemed to enjoy pretending a maternal role and ordinary friendship. She proudly showed me this latest letter, which I could only skim:
. . . Just as he fell, in his soldier’s cap, with his sword at his side, Frazer rode through Amherst. Classmates to the right of him, and classmates to the left of him, to guard his narrow face! He fell by the side of Professor Clark, his superior officer — lived ten minutes in a soldier’s arms, asked twice for water — murmured just, “My God!” and passed! Sanderson, his classmate, made a box of boards in the night, put the brave boy in, covered with a blanket, rowed six miles to reach the boat, — so poor Frazer came. They tell that Colonel Clark cried like a little child when he missed his pet, and could hardly resume his post. They loved each other very much. Nobody here could look on Frazer — not even his father . . . .
The bed on which he came was enclosed in a large casket shut entirely, and covered from head to foot with the sweetest flowers. He went to sleep from the village church. Crowds came to tell him goodnight, choirs sang to him, pastors told how brave he was — early soldier heart. And the family bowed their heads, as the reeds the wind shakes. . . .
It was hard to believe this fulsome sentimentality could come from the very same pen that created the light, delicious image of Emily as the bear “handled with a Chain.” And I was uncomfortable with Emily’s strange possessiveness about the dead, which I had noticed before. Even before a body cooled, it became her property! Her connection with the dead, however slight, turned instantly into an important and exclusive bond. She did not even know Frazar Stearns well enough to spell his name accurately! I had never heard her mention him until now — when his death in battle suddenly established their extreme intimacy. And Emily further exhorted her cousins to believe that Austin’s grief over his friend (“I think he may die too!”) was as tragic as Frazar’s death.
I was deeply offended by all this forced and self-indulgent emotion. After a week of considering the tasteless “soldier heart” letter, I confronted Emily with my feelings on my next visit. I had never before been so openly critical of her attitudes and affectations, but I was driven by the terrible verities of Davy’s letters.
The moment we were in her room, I stood to face her squarely. “I have always admired you for not being swept along by the current modes of thought,” I told her. “You write your own truths, and they are yours — even if they go against the popular grain. But what you wrote about Frazar was in another voice. You were conforming to fashion, you were imitating popular feeling — which you have never attempted before. Those weren’t your own emotions, Emily — and they do you no honor with me.”
She gazed up at me, seeming very small, but I detected nothing false or defensive.
“I DESERVE your contempt,” she said calmly. “The little cousins won’t know the difference, but you do. How can I explain to you what I feel may have happened?” She began to pace a bit. I waited for her to collect her thoughts. Having expressed myself clearly, I could feel my agitation dissipating.
Emily stopped and looked me straight in the eye. “When I was still out
and about in the world, I sometimes bought dresses.”
I knew that she had her wardrobe made at home now and that since she didn’t like being touched, Lavinia served as a fittings model. I wondered where this example would lead. I nodded to indicate that she had my attention and should continue.
“Well, when I used to shop, I’d try on a dress in a store — and it just wouldn’t suit! That letter to the little cousins was just Emily trying on and trying out what a woman was MEANT TO FEEL in wartime — and it didn’t fit her. You were entirely right to say so.”
As always, Emily surprised me. She had allowed me my own opinions, as she did so rarely, and, even more unusual, admitted her own failing.
A few weeks later, Emily and I shared some genuine elation. At long last, after my years of urging, Emily had actually consulted her “surgeon of choice,” Mr. Thomas Higginson — the Unitarian minister and liberal thinker whose Atlantic article about women’s intellectual gifts attracted her back in 1859. I was first incredulous, then full of joyful congratulations.
“I might have waited forever. I know you believed I would!” Emily smiled at herself. “Then he wrote another article in the latest Atlantic. It is just as fine; he is advising young writers to keep working.” She sat up very straight as she quoted, “ ‘A book is the only immortality!’
“This seemed like a message aimed directly at me. When I read it, I RECOGNIZED the tutor I had awaited. I sent him three poems and a letter; I asked his frank opinion. Here is what I said to him. I kept the draft for you.”
Emily was radiant as she handed me her letter to Higginson.
Mr Higginson,
Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?
The Mind is so near itself — it cannot see, distinctly — and I have none to ask —
Should you think it breathed — and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude —
If I make the mistake — that you dared to tell me — would give me sincerer honor — toward you —
I enclose my name — asking you, if you please — Sir — to tell me what is true?
That you will not betray me — it is needless to ask — since Honor is it’s own pawn —
I was very relieved. Remembering Emily’s embarrassing “Master” letters, I had feared she would address Mr. Higginson in the same vein. But this note had an appealing sincerity and dignity. Surely a kindly writer and editor would feel obligated to answer this request.
“That’s really lovely, Emily — it’s just right. And has he written back?”
“Indeed he has — several times. But they are not the sort of letters one SHARES. Shall I tell you what he said to me, more or less?”
“I wish you would.”
“Well, Miranda, he was really very INTERESTED, not just in my poems, in my SELF — as a WOMAN. He asked me a lot of PERSONAL questions. He wanted to know all about me; he was very specific. Here is a copy of what I replied.” She handed me the paper.
Mr Higginson,
Your kindness claimed earlier gratitude — but I was ill — and write today, from my pillow.
Thank you for the surgery — it was not so painful as I supposed. I bring you others — as you ask — though they might not differ —
While my thought is undressed — I can make the distinction, but when I put them in the Gown — they look alike, and numb.
You asked how old I was? I made no verse — but one or two — until this winter — Sir —
I had a terror — since September — I could tell to none — and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground — because I am afraid — You inquire my Books — For Poets — I have Keats — and Mr and Mrs Browning. For Prose — Mr Ruskin — Sir Thomas Browne — and the Revelations. I went to school — but in your manner of the phrase — had no education. When a little Girl, I had a friend, who taught me Immortality — but venturing too near, himself — he never returned — Soon after, my Tutor, died — and for several years, my Lexicon — was my only companion — Then I found one more — but he was not contented I be his scholar — so he left the Land.
You ask of my Companions Hills — Sir — and the Sundown — and a Dog — large as myself, that my Father bought me. . . . I have a Brother and Sister — My Mother does not care for thought — and Father, too busy with his Briefs — to notice what we do — He buys me many Books — but begs me not to read them — because he fears they joggle the Mind. . . .
Two Editors of Journals came to my Father’s House, this winter — and asked me for my Mind — and when I asked them “Why,” they said I was penurious — and they, would use it for the World —
I could not weigh myself — Myself —
My size felt small — to me — I read your Chapters in the Atlantic — and experienced honor for you — I was sure you would not reject a confiding question —
Is this — Sir — what you asked me to tell you?
Your friend,
E — Dickinson.
This was exactly the sort of reply I had feared: Emily at her mannered worst, coy and oblique, hinting and evading and name-dropping. It was evident the distinguished, busy man had asked her serious professional questions, and she had replied in playful peekaboo. I could not approve this grotesque letter; it reeked of bad taste and bad manners. I took up the smallest flaw among many, thinking it the most prudent approach. From there I could determine her sensitivity to criticism today.
“Emily, are you actually telling Mr. Higginson that the big wheezing old dog who sleeps in the barn is your ‘companion’? I’ve never even seen him inside the house. Mr. Higginson wanted to know about your friends! ”
As I spoke, I grew angry and disgusted. If I was not her friend after nearly five years, then who was?
“Carlo was my friend, in his SALAD days, before we moved back to The Homestead. Father gave him to me years ago, for my PROTECTION.”
“Protection from what?”
“Protection from tramps and robbers on those country walks I never take!”
“Well, I think Mr. Higginson was asking about your livelier companions — livelier than the mountains and a dog who can’t breathe.”
The conversation ended there, Emily making an abrupt change of subject. And despite Emily’s affected letter, Mr. Higginson wrote again. The editor and the poet maneuvered a little, and I followed their letters back and forth. By June they had a working arrangement. Emily was to continue to send Higginson poems, and he agreed to comment on them. Meanwhile, he asked her “to delay in publishing.”
“As if I would want to publish!” she scoffed. “I told him that publishing was as foreign to me ‘as Firmament to Fin.’ ”
But Mr. Higginson had agreed to be her official “Preceptor,” which seemed to rank just below “Master” in her hierarchy. Emily with an actual Mentor by correspondence — Emily with a real author as her tutor — seemed truly wonderful to me. Perhaps her “golden thread” of fame had become a gleaming possibility.
I completed my course in medieval life and was given high marks for my research paper. For my next course, I chose history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I wanted to discover why the Puritans, those defenders of spiritual freedom, fought their way to the New World — and then promptly established moral jails as schools for their children. I found a passionate interest growing inside me for all those unknown children — past and future.
With my classes, visits to Kate, occasional afternoons with Emily, and reading to Aunt Helen’s snipping and folding ladies, the spring and summer of 1862 passed in an almost cheerful green-and-golden blur.
Davy was not in immediate danger, except from boredom. After Shiloh, his battery besieged and overran Corinth, Mississippi. Then they marched to Memphis, where they seemed to have settled in permanently. Davy was not fighting; he was waiting for the war to join him.
This is our fourth month of drilling and target practice and painting the guns. I have made my tent so elaborate and comfortable it lacks only a
portico, like Amity Street! Here in camp we have a glee club, a Shakespeare study group, and a Bible class for every religion, old and new. We eat our own vegetables from our own garden. Every single man in my company is thinking, What in — am I doing here? but no one speaks the heresy aloud.
A later letter was more serious:
At least this lull between battles gives me a chance to visit with my old Lake Forest friends in camp. I don’t mean to sound pompous, hauling in Achilles and Patroclus, or Alexander and Hephaestion — but it is a strange and wonderful thing that men’s friendships are sweeter and keener in wartime, where Death is always on our minds. I would give my life for any one of these dear fellows, because I know he would do as much for me. We all recognize this new bond between us.
And what of us? I wondered. While the war was bringing Davy closer together with his company, I feared it was drawing him farther from me. And for the first time, I held my feelings away from Davy in our letters. I was wearing a mask of sorts with him, something I had vowed never to do. The war was changing us both.
Davy said there were always traders and peddlers hanging around idle armies in camp. He had sent me several portraits taken by wandering photographers. One was of the battery officers, his boyhood friends from Lake Forest, looking like the young knights at Camelot — intent and dedicated. Then there were two of Davy alone: one three-quarters, looking away, and one gazing straight into my eyes. This Union captain was young, handsome, and earnest — and I did not know him. There was no trace of the open heart, the fanciful spirit, the profound sweetness, I had loved.
Even President Lincoln’s recent Emancipation Proclamation was treated by Davy with a measure of cynicism:
Yes, my dear Miranda, the president’s words were stirring. But don’t believe he acts for the most humanitarian of reasons. There is no humanity anymore. No. By setting emancipation as the price the South will pay for continued insurgency (for emancipation applies only to territory outside Union lines), the president ransoms the black man but does the Moral Righteousness of freedom no Honor. And Lincoln threatens to topple the South’s entire economy when he confiscates the slave owners’ investments in black capital. By a stroke then our president has turned this war to preserve the Union into a War of Conquest. The South will not soon surrender now.
Afternoons with Emily Page 29
