"Who has not found the Heaven below will fail of it
above. For Angels rent the house next ours, wherever we remove.” Lovingly
Emily (Included in a letter from Emily Dickinson to her niece, Martha Dickinson
and friend Sally Jenkins, 1883).
Family meant everything to Emily Dickinson as evidenced
through her surviving correspondence hanging on the pink floral wallpaper in
the replica period rooms of The Morgan Library exhibition. Included on the wall, was a small framed
engraving of poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning which turned out to be one of
Dickinson’s favorite poets. Framed under glass was the 1848 edition of Currer
Bell’s, Jane Eyre. Dickinson borrowed this copy from her father’s
business partner, Elbridge Bowdoin. She returned it to him with this note,
“If all the leaves were altars, and on every one a
prayer that Currer Bell might be saved and you were God would you answer it?”
Bowdoin did not reply to Dickinson, instead noted, “the leaves mentioned
were Box leaves sent to me in a little bouquet.” These are just some of
the aspects of the woman behind this fascinating poet.
Emily Dickinson's brother, William Austin Dickinson
I found myself standing in front of numerous framed
Dickinson correspondence written to her family members: her handsome brother,
William Austin Dickinson, her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson, her
sister, Lavinia Dickinson as well as other personal friends throughout her life.
As I read through her letters on exhibit, I couldn’t help but giggle to myself
because of her wry and warm sense of humour. For instance, when her sister
Lavinia, returned home on the evening of June 27, 1873, from an organ concert
by Howard Parkhurst, Emily penciled the lines of her poem, A Little Madness
in the Spring, on the concert program:
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King
But God be with the clown
Who ponders this Tremendous scence
This sudden legacy of Green
As if it were his own-
She included such adjectives: gay/bright/quick/whole,
swift/fleet.
Handwritten copies of her most well-known poem which the
exhibition is named for, I’m Nobody! Who are you?, can be read in two
framed handwritten pages. For instance,
in one version written around six months after the outbreak of the Civil War,
she penciled in the word banish along the upper margin. Also the word advertise
is penciled in the other handwritten version.
I was absolutely thrilled to be able to leaf through her
private copy of her gardening book called, Herbarium. Her passion for flowers,
herbs, and gardening was evident in her poetry and life as well as her bond of
friendship and family which always seeped into her poems.
I urge everyone to visit The Morgan Library & Museum;
especially for an unforgettable glimpse into the private world of this
enigmatic woman and poet, Emily
Dickinson.
