Lives Like Loaded Guns_ Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds - Lyndall Gordon [217]
22 ED’s voice: Elicited by MLT. In her TS essay, ‘ED: Poet and Woman’. Yale.
22 WAD’s similar interrogative lift: Evident in letters to MLT.
23 ‘Wild nights—Wild nights!’: (c. late 1861). J249/Fr269.
23 Aunt Elizabeth registered as male: Habegger, 129.
23 ‘only male relative on the female side’: ED to Mrs Holland (Aug 1876). L473.
23 Bennett’s advice book: EDR.
23 ‘letter to the World’: (c. spring 1863). J441/Fr519.
23 ‘for what is each instant . . .’: L656 (c. early Sept 1880).
23 ‘Oh! Caroline . . .’: Caroline Dutch, Habegger deduces. She later taught ED at Amherst Academy.
24 ‘I am sensible . . .’ and ‘I think . . .’: Cited in Habegger, 42, 43.
25 ‘kiss’ and ‘-s’: Cited in Habegger, 54.
25 ‘Requirement’; ‘unmentioned’; ‘Fathoms . . .’: (c. early 1864). J732/Fr857. Habegger, 56, speculates plausibly that the poem looks back to her parents’ union.
26 ‘I think you will learn . . .’: Jane Eyre, ch. 14.
26 ‘If you were God . . .’: To Elbridge Bowdoin. L28.
26 ‘Oh what an afternoon . . .’: (c. early 1860). J148/Fr146. Habegger, 226, notes how ED ‘made heaven the beneficiary’.
26 The Mother At Home: By John Stevens Cabot Abbott. Copies in EDR, Mudd Library, Yale, and Library of Congress.
26 ‘rigid discipline’; ‘unimpassioned’: Ibid, 63-4.
27 ‘perusing such papers only . . .’: L63. 2
8 ‘fire’: Reported by Lavinia Norcross to Emily’s mother. She had fetched little Emily at the time of Lavinia’s birth and was driving with her to Monson when a terrific storm broke. McCarthy discovered letters from Lavinia Norcross to her sister, and mentions this incident in his letter to Mary Landis Hampson (20 Sept 1949). Houghton: bMs Am 118.97-118.98 (123)
28 ‘cordiality’, etc: To Clara Newman Turner (c. 1884). L926. Cited by Sewall, i, 269.
28 ‘Born—Bridalled—Shrouded—’: ‘Title divine—is mine!’ (c. 1861). J1072/Fr194. See also ch. 4.
28 Mrs Dickinson’s ‘burning tear’: Verse by her sister Lavinia Norcross. Habegger, 67.
29 The Belle of Amherst: (1976) by William Luce.
30 language of her own: Cogently argued by Cristanne Miller, ED: A Poet’s Grammar.
30 ‘Father steps . . .’: Cited by Ward, ‘Secret’, 91.
30 WAD to boarding school: (1846) Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts.
30 ‘looking very stately’: L45.
31 genealogy and dates of the Dickinson family in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: < http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~marshall/esmd83.htm>
31 date of the voyage; sons killed: Ibid. The sons were killed in King Philip’s War.
32 ‘Cousin Zebina . . .’: L4.
32 fear of fits and croup: (16 Feb 1838). Houghton. Quoted in Habegger, 98.
32 ‘coming out’: MDB, FF, 87-8.
32 seat of the sciences and ‘It is still ours . . .’: Oration (1795) at Dartmouth. DFP. Houghton
32 ‘depression of spirits’: Catharine Dickinson Sweetser (29 Apr 1838), cited by Habegger, 106.
33 ‘Swelling of the Ground’: ‘Because I could not stop for Death—’ (c. 1862). J712/Fr479.
33 ED recalling Sophia: To Abiah Root (28 Mar 1846). L32.
34 Abiah Root: Attended the Academy c. 1843-4.
34 Mrs Fiske’s death: Habegger, 170-1.
34 ‘the early spiritual influences . . .’: To Maria Whitney (c. May 1883). L824, cited Fr1605.
34 ‘It was given to me . . .’: (c. late 1862). J454/Fr455.
35 ‘no verse . . .’: L751.
35 Amherst in ED’s girlhood, prayer meetings and ‘low sad tones’ etc: SHD, TS of ‘Amherst Half a Century Ago’. DFP. Houghton.
36 ED in the cellar: MLT’s notes on LD’s recollections. Yale: box 82, f.402.
36 ‘I miss you . . .’: L3.
36 ‘entertain . . .’: L5.
37 ‘letter to the World’: (c. 1863). J441/Fr519.
37 ‘I am always in love . . .’: to Abiah Root (14 Mar 1847). L45.
38 ‘press you to my arms’: L12.
38 mad letter; ‘God is sitting here’ etc: L31.
38 ‘I love to be surly . . .’: To Jane Humphrey in the same month (23 Jan 1850). L30.
2: A SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION
39 ED on the classics side: She returned to the English side in 1846-7 for her final