White Heat
Page 39
“The only News I know”: Fr 820B.
“a Calamity” “I had a woe”: LL, p. 76.
“Further in Summer than the Birds”: Fr 895D.
But in them we can hear “August burning low”: Alfred Habegger interprets the poem similarly. See My Wars Are Laid Away in Books, pp. 492–493; see also Charles Anderson’s fine reading in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry, pp. 169–175.
“Would you instruct me now?”: ED to TWH, [January 1866], Letters, 2:449.
CHAPTER NINE: NO OTHER WAY
It struck him: TWH, journal, August 16, 1870, Houghton.
that “inward darkness”: TWH, quoted in Strange Enthusiasm, p. 99.
“a man among men”: See Henry James, “The Works of Epictetus” (originally published as “Higginson’s Works of Epictetus” in the North American Review, April 1866, pp. 599–606), review of The Works of Epictetus, trans. TWH, in Henry James, Literary Criticism, 1:12.
“When you do anything from a clear judgment”: TWH, trans., The Works of Epictetus, p. 392.
“I seem to find her now”: TWH, “Sunshine and Petrarch,” p. 308.
“nobody comprehends Petrarch”: Malbone, p. 150.
His home had become a hospital: See TWH, journal, December 23, 1866, Houghton, and TWH, pp. 276–277.
“On the whole”: HHJ to Kate Field, March 7, 1866, BPL.
“All ladies do”: TWH to ED, [late winter 1869], Houghton.
“I had promised to visit my Physician”: ED to TWH, [1866], Letters, 2:450.
“I must omit Boston”: ED to TWH, June 9, 1866, Letters, 2:453.
“I do not cross my Father’s ground”: ED to TWH, [June 1869], Letters, 2:460. Given the date of Higginson’s letter, which I can ascertain by reference to his papers and meetings, the Dickinson letters dated by Johnson (in brackets) may be in error: they may have been written two years later. Of course, Johnson may be correct if ED was responding to a series of requests from TWH.
“Thin dry & speechless”: TWH to MCH, August 16, 1870, Houghton.
“there is always one thing to be grateful for”: quoted in TWH to AH, December 9, 1873, Houghton.
“Sometimes I take out your letters & verses”: TWH to ED, Letters 2:461.
“I am always the same toward you”: TWH to ED, [late winter 1869], Letters, 2:461–462.
“Of ‘shunning Men and Women’—”: ED to TWH, [August 1862], Letters, 2:415.
“It isolates one anywhere”: TWH to ED, May 11, 1869, Houghton.
“I will be at Home”: ED to TWH, August 16, 1870, Letters, 2:472.
“These are my introduction”: ED, quoted in TWH to MCH, August 16, 1870, BPL.
“A narrow Fellow in the Grass”: Fr 1096.
It first surfaced: It was subsequently reprinted in The Weekly Republican.
“lest you meet my Snake”: ED to TWH, [1866], Letters, 2:450.
“defeated too of the third line by the punctuation”: ED to TWH, [March 1866], Letters, 2:450.
“If I still entreat you to teach me”: ED to TWH, [March 1866], Letters, 2:450.
“A Death blow is a Life blow to Some”: Fr 966.
“Still, you see, I try”: TWH to ED, May 11, 1869, Houghton.
“I would like to be what you deem me”: ED to TWH, [June 9, 1866], Letters, 2:453.
“It is hard [for me] to understand”: TWH to ED, May 11, 1869, Houghton.
“To undertake is to achieve”: Fr 991.
“You mention Immortality” “The ‘infinite Beauty’—” “To escape enchantment”: ED to TWH, June 8, 1866, Letters, 2:454.
“Time is a test of trouble”: ED to TWH, June 8, 1866, Letters, 2:454.
“Ample make this Bed—,”: Fr 804C; “As imperceptibly as Grief”: Fr 935D.
“Is it more far to Amherst?”: ED to TWH, [early 1866], Letters, 2:450.
“Bringing still my ‘plea for culture’”: ED to TWH, [July 1867], Letters 2:457.
“The Luxury to apprehend”: Fr 819.
“write & tell me something”: TWH to ED, May 11, 1869, Houghton.
“I would like to thank you for your great kindness”: ED to TWH, [June 1869], Letters, 2:460.
“Why do the insane cling to you so?”: MCH, quoted in TWH to AH, December 9, 1873, Houghton.
“The great reason why the real apostles of truth”: TWH, p. 68.
“If every man who is accused”: TWH, “Divergent Reformers,” Independent, March 26, 1868, p. 4.
“I feel this strangely”: TWH to AH and LH, December 30, 1864, Houghton. However, Higginson published these accounts at regular intervals from September 1864 until August 1867, and they became the basis for Army Life in a Black Regiment.
“That I was in it [the war] myself”: TWH to AH and LH, April 9, 1865, Houghton.
“Until it is done”: TWH, p. 252.
the “one right residence”: Henry James, Notes of a Son and Brother, p. 67.
Higginson borrowed it too: See Malbone, p. 93: “‘Good Americans when they die go to Paris,’ said Philip.”
he called this part of town Oldport: See “Oldport in Winter,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1867, pp. 612–618, and “Oldport Wharves,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1868, pp. 61–68.
“When the freedmen are lost in the mass of freemen” “Fail in this result”: TWH, “Fair Play the Best Policy,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1865, pp. 623, 625.
“I do not want to give any more years of my life”: TWH to AH and LH, October 8, 1865, Houghton.
“If it had been left to him”: TWH, “The South Victorious in Georgia,” Independent, May 24, 1866, p. 4.
“what most men mean to-day”: TWH, “Too Many Compliments,” Independent, October 26, 1865, p. 4.
“Do you suppose that black men are born”: TWH, “Political Notes,” Springfield Republican, May 9, 1867, p. 1.
“Galloping through green lanes”: Army Life, p. 106.
Howard Mumford Jones: See Howard Mumford Jones, introduction to Army Life in a Black Regiment, by TWH (Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1960), pp. vii–xvii.
“Doubts trembled in my mind”: Army Life, pp. 123–124. Contemporary academic critics read Higginson’s book and, in particular, this chapter as deflected homoeroticism and cross-racial identity. See Christopher Looby, “‘As Thoroughly Black as the Most Faithful Philanthropist Could Desire’: Erotics of Race in Higginson’s Army Life in a Black Regiment,” in Stecopoulos and Uebel, Race and the Subject of Masculinities, pp. 71–115, and Looby, “Flowers of Manhood.”
“All Southern white men”: TWH, “The Logic of Must,” Independent, September 7, 1865, p. 4.
“It is we who are permitting black loyalists to be disarmed”: TWH, “Too Many Compliments,” Independent, October 26, 1865, p. 4.
“It is not that politics are so unworthy”: TWH, “A Plea for Culture,” pp. 34, 36.
“A precious—mouldering pleasure—’tis—”: Fr 569.
“In these later years, the arduous reforms”: TWH, “Literature as an Art,” p. 754.
“I don’t believe there is a man here”: TWH, journal, May 16, 1876, Houghton.
“Nobody has any weight in America”: Malbone, p. 99.
“except to secure the ballot for woman”: TWH, “Literature as an Art,” p. 745.
“My nature seems to be rather that of an artist”: TWH to Ralph Waldo Emerson, July 4, 1864, Houghton.
“Is it…a great consecration”: TWH, “An Artist’s Dream,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1867, p. 103.
“the artist had attained his dream”: TWH, “An Artist’s Dream,” p. 108.
he had modeled Malbone: The name Malbone also refers to the late-eighteenth-century miniaturist Edward Malbone, born in Newport.
“a certain wild, entangled look”: Malbone, p. 8.
“Every one must have something”: Malbone, p. 150.
“Forgive me if I am frightened” “Manner between Angie Tilton & Mr. Alcott” and subsequent quotations: TWH to MCH, [August 16, 17, 1870], BPL.
anyone “who dra
ined my nerve power” “I am glad not to live”: TWH to MCH, notes, [August 1870], BPL.
“Say in a long time”: TWH to MCH, notes, [August 1870], BPL.
CHAPTER TEN: HER DEATHLESS SYLLABLE
“the Vein cannot thank the Artery”: ED to TWH, [c. October 1870], Letters, 2:479.
“the most eminent poetess in the world”: TWH, “Sappho,” p. 83.
“unapproached among women”: TWH, “Sappho,” p. 86.
“Could you not come without the Lecture”: ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters, 2:482. This letter exists in pencil draft only at Amherst; there is no copy among TWH’s papers at BPL. We therefore do not know if it was sent to Higginson, though I suspect it was.
“When I hoped I feared—”: Fr 594; the poem had evidently been composed five years earlier.
“Remembrance has a Rear and Front”: Fr 1234.
“I remember your coming”: ED to TWH, September 26, 1870, Letters, 2:479–80.
“Trust adjusts her ‘Peradventure’—”: Fr 1177.
“You told me Mrs Lowell was Mr Lowell’s ‘inspiration’”: ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters 2:481.
no wonder her brother: MLT, journal, October 18, 1891, Yale.
“The Riddle that we guess”: Fr 1180A, in ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters, 2:480.
“You ask great questions accidentally”: ED to TWH, September 26, 1870, Letters, 2:479.
“Too happy Time dissolves itself”: Fr 1182.
“I was refreshed by your strong Letter”: ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters, 2:481.
“Thank you for Greatness”: ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters, 2:481.
“You place the truth in opposite—”: ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters, 2:481.
“Step lightly on this narrow Spot—”: Fr 1227.
if it belonged to her: ED to TWH, June 7, 1862, Letters, 2:408.
“I thank these Kinsmen of the Shelf—”: Fr 512.
“Stronger than any written”: ED to TWH, November 1871, Letters, 2:491.
“I thought I spoke to you of the shadow”: ED to TWH, [October 1870], Letters, 2:481.
“Amherst must be a nest of poetesses” “letters from Emily Dickinson”: TWH, quoted in Lydia B. Torrey to Emily Fowler Ford, November 16, 1872, NYPL.
“I do think Amherst girls turn out (excuse me—) horridly!”: HHJ to Henry Root, March 1854, Colorado.
“if I say a shorter time it will be longer”: TWH, notes, [August 16, 17, 1870], BPL.
“Her friendships with men had the frankness”: TWH, “Mrs. Helen Jackson (H. H.),” p. 256.
“the one great duty”: HHJ, Mercy Philbrick’s Choice, p. 71.
“knocks like a baby at the door”: HHJ to Kate Field, March 7, 1866, BPL.
“I shall never write a sentence”: Contemp., p. 156.
He praised her novels: See Contemp., p. 163.
“perfection in every sentence”: TWH, “Charlotte Prince Hawes,” Radical, January 1867, p. 283.
“In almost any town in New England”: TWH, “The Higher Education of Woman: A Paper Read before the Social Science Convention, May 1, 1873,” in Journal of Social Science (1873): 38.
Everyone walks through the door: See Gornick, The Solitude of Self, for a particularly illuminating analysis of the radical and liberal feminism created at this juncture.
“Without deprecating the value”: Circular letter signed by Lucy Stone, Caroline M. Severance, Julia Ward Howe, TWH, and George H. Vibbert, August 6, 1869, Stowe Center.
“No! my dear friend”: Elizabeth Cady Stanton to TWH, June 13, 1868, BPL.
“The world has always more respect”: TWH to Harriet Beecher Stowe, October 11, 1868, Stowe Center.
“before the war he never missed a good fight”: Dear Preceptor, p. 248.
“If the conservatives think”: TWH, quoted in Stanton, Anthony, and Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, 2:803.
an “Intellectual History of Women”—“my magnum opus”: TWH, p. 284.
“If there is only one woman in the nation”: TWH, Common Sense about Women, pp. 397–398. This volume collects most of Higginson’s writings from The Woman’s Journal. 189 “The yearning for a literary career” “reveal such intellectual ardor”: TWH, Common Sense about Women, pp. 259–260.
“I am happy you have the Travel” “Could you come again”: ED to TWH, [1872], Letters, 2:500.
“To disappear enhances—The Man that runs away”: Fr 1239C.
“He preached opon ‘Breadth’ till it argued him narrow—”: Fr 1266.
“The Sea said ‘Come’ to the Brook—”: Fr 1275.
“Thank you for the ‘Lesson’”: ED to TWH, [late 1872], Letters, 2:501.
“Could you teach me now?” or “Will you instruct me then no more?”: ED to TWH, [1873], Letters, 2:511. These are from two different letters.
“Longing is like the Seed”: Fr 1298A.
“Dominion lasts until obtained—”: Fr 1299.
“The Wind begun to knead the Grass—/ As Women do a Dough—”: 796A; “The Wind begun to rock the Grass / With threatening tunes and low—”: Fr 796D.
“Your poem about the storm is fine”: TWH to ED, December 31, 1873, Houghton.
“I don’t dare die”: MCH, quoted in Elliott, This Was My Newport, p. 84.
“particularly absurd in E. D.’s case”: MCH quoted in TWH to AH, December 9, 1873, Houghton.
“I saw my eccentric poetess” “How long are you going to stay”: TWH to AH, December 9, 1873, Houghton.
“& especially the time spent with you”: TWH to ED, December 31, 1873, Houghton.
“Thank you, dear friend, for my ‘New Year’”: ED to TWH, [January 1874], Letters, 2:518.
“When the paths that we have personally traversed”: TWH, Oldport Days (Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1873), p. 266.
“I have fineness”: TWH, journal, February 20, 1869, Houghton.
“My gentility is chronic”: TWH to unknown recipient, December 26, 1873, Houghton.
“I wish you could see some field lilies”: TWH to ED, December 31, 1873, Houghton.
She replied to Higginson: For an account of the revisions, see Fr, 3:1135–1139.
“Because that you are going”: Fr 1314.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE REALM OF YOU
“‘well enough’”: Walter Dean Howells, quoted in TWH to William Dean Howells, September 30, 1871, Houghton.
“I hate to write in anything but the Atlantic”: TWH to LH and AH, [1871], Houghton. The piece in question is “A Day of Scottish Games,” published in the January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly (pp. 329–336).
Henry Adams: See [Adams], “Frothingham’s Transcendentalism,” p. 470.
“they rely for success”: TWH, “Literature as an Art,” p. 747.
“everything which does not tend to money”: Malbone, p. 98.
“For all young Fancy’s”: See Afternoon Landscape, p. 88.
“In spite of my fine physique”: TWH, journal, April 18, 1873, Houghton.
“The walls seem only to draw closer”: TWH, journal, September 25, 1875, Houghton.
“My life indeed has disappointed me”: TWH, journal, December 22, 1876, Houghton.
“The truth is…that the child does not trouble himself”: TWH, “Childhood’s Fancies,” Scribner’s Monthly, January 1876, p. 362.
Never a Republican: See EdD to WAD, February 18, 1874, quoted in Home, p. 451.
His head felt light: For the account of Dickinson’s death, see MLT to TWH, July 9, 1891, Yale, p. 224.
“We were all lost, though I didn’t know how”: ED to Louise and Frances Norcross, [summer 1874], Letters, 2:526.
“There, father, I never dared do that while you were living”: WAD, quoted in Mary Lee Hall to MTB, August 5, 1933, Yale.
“he seemed peculiarly pleased”: ED to TWH, [July 1874], Letters, 2:528.
“Mr. Bowles was with us”: ED to TWH, [July 1874], Letters, 2:528.
The shops of Amherst had closed: Information about the funeral is from the Spring
field Republican, June 20, 1874, and MDB, Emily Dickinson Face to Face, p. 13.
“Miss Vinnie told me”: Mary Lee Hall to MTB, December 29, 1939, Yale.
“His Heart was pure and terrible”: ED to TWH, [July 1874], Letters, 2:528.
“Though it is many nights”: ED to Louise and Frances Norcross, [summer 1874], Letters, 2:526.
“without any body”: ED to Louise and Frances Norcross, [August 1876], Letters, 2:559.
“Home is so far from Home”: ED to TWH, July 1875, Letters, 2:542.
“I have wished for you” “Your beautiful Hymn”: ED to TWH, [July 1874], Letters, 2:528.
the protofeminist speaker: As Mary Loeffelholz points out in her fine article “Dickinson’s ‘Decoration,’” the poem was reprinted in The Woman’s Journal just after it appeared in Scribner’s Monthly. She also conjectures the identity of the woman as Margaret Elliott Hazard.
“I thought that being a Poem one’s self”: ED to TWH, [May 1874], Letters, 2:525.
And when “Decoration” appeared in Scribner’s Monthly: See TWH, “Decoration,” p. 234.
“It has assisted that Pause of Space”: ED to TWH, July 1874, Letters, 2:528.
“The broadest words”: ED to TWH, [late May 1874], Letters, 2:525.
“had twice seen you”: ED to TWH, January 1876, Letters, 2:547.
“Mother was paralyzed Tuesday”: ED to TWH, [mid-June 1875], Letters, 2:542.
“I am glad”: ED to TWH, [July 1875], Letters, 2:542.
“Knowing that his fraternal love towards me”: ED, quoted in YH, 2:237.
Emily named Vinnie: See YH, 2:261.
“weird & strange power”: TWH to AH, November 30, 1875, Houghton.
“I have a little manuscript volume”: HHJ to ED, March 20, 1876, Houghton.
“asked me for my Mind”: ED to TWH, April 25, 1862, Letters, 2:405.
“My Brother and Sisters would love to see you”: ED to TWH, [May 1874], Letters, 2:525.
“The last of Summer is Delight—”: Fr 1380; “The Heart is the Capital of the Mind”: Fr 1381C; “The Mind lives on the Heart”: Fr 1384; “The Rat is the concisest Tenant”: Fr 1369; “‘Faithful to the end’ amended”: Fr 1386.
or, in an earlier version, “be lean”: “The Mind lives on the Heart”: Fr 1384A.
“the writer, when he adopts a high aim”: TWH, “Literature as an Art,” p. 753.