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(page 7)
 cannot explain this extraordinary
signature, substituted for the now customary
"Your Scholar," unless she imagined her friend to be in
some incredible and remote condition, imparting its
strangeness to her. Mr. Howells reminds me that Swedenborg somewhere
has an image akin to her "oblique
place," where he symbolizes evil as simply an oblique angle.
With this letter
came verses, most refreshing in that
clime of jasmines and mocking-birds,
on the familiar robin: --
THE ROBIN.
The robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.
The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
An April but begun.
The robin is the one
That, speechless from her nest,
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.
In the summer of 1863 I was wounded, and in hospital for a time, during
which came this letter in pencil, written from what was practically a hospital for
her, though only for weak eyes: --
DEAR FRIEND, -- Are you in danger?
I did not know that you were hurt.
Will you tell me more? Mr. Hawthorne died.
I was ill since September, and since
April in Boston for a physician's care.
He does not let me go, yet I work in
my prison, and make guests for myself.
Carlo did not come, because that he
would die in jail; and the mountains I
could not hold now, so I brought but
the Gods.
I wish to see you more than before I
failed. Will you tell me your health?
I am surprised and anxious since receiving your note.
The only news I know
Is bulletins all day
From Immortality.
Can you render my pencil? The
physician has taken away my pen.
I inclose the address from a letter,
lest my figures fail.
Knowledge of your recovery would
excel my own.
E. DICKINSON.
Later this arrived: --
DEAR FRIEND, -- I think of you so
wholly that I cannot resist to write
again, to ask if you are safe? Danger
is not at first, for then we are unconscious, but in the after, slower days.
Do not try to be saved, but let redemption find you, as it certainly will.
Love is its own rescue; for we, at our
supremest, are but its trembling emblems.
YOUR SCHOLAR.
These were my earliest letters from
Emily Dickinson, in their order. From
this time and up to her death (May 15,
1886) we corresponded at varying intervals, she always persistently keeping up
this attitude of "Scholar," and assuming
on my part a preceptorship which it is
almost needless to say did not exist.
Always glad to hear her "recite," as
she called it, I soon abandoned all attempt to
guide in the slightest degree
this extraordinary nature, and simply
accepted her confidences, giving as much
as I could of what might interest her
in return.
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