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Re: How Has Emily Dickinson Influenced You?
Hi, Dickinsonians:
Any Dickinsonian worth his/her salt knows that Emily Dickinson
wrote a letter to Samuel Bowles the year before she dressed in
white and went into seclusion: and signed it "Marchioness. "
Why, you ask?
Well, it referred to the Brits, of course. You see, Emily Dickinson
KNEW her classics as did ALL people of the nineteenth century:
before the advent of radio and TV. Back then, READING THE CLASSICS
was classic! Everybody did it. Too bad, some Dickinsonians think
Emily Dickinson was a dunce and read only the comics.
Recently, here in 2007, the future Queen of England jetted off to
southern Greece with the Marchioness of Lansdowne. Wow!
How is THAT related to Emily Dickinson? And WHY would she
sign herself: "Marchioness. "
Have you read the Dickens' tale Emily Dickinson refers to in that
sig file of the nineteenth century? Why not?
That Dickens' tale called *The Old Curiosity Shop* refers to a
*Master* who befriended a young lady and educated her until
she called that *Master* her Master and herself "your scholar."
Same thing happened with Dickinson. Now WHY would she refer
to the CLASSICS when at that time, Dickens was not even classic!
He is today. Maybe Emily Dickinson, when everybody READ the
CLASSICS and ENGLISH writers in America, was trying to tell us
something about her *life*!
WHY is it British scholars understand this about classics, and the
classic authors, including Emily Dickinson, but American scholars
schooled only in American literature haven't got a clue?
My cousin who is a professional genealogist and I are researching
our ancestors of the early 1800s, and he recently wrote me:
"There are lots of examples of simple farmers' children having presidential
names, as well as those of other well-known politicians. In the early
1800s, when our ancestor was born, it also was common, even among
tenant farmers, to give their children names derived from Greek and
Latin classics--Cassius and Plato, for example. Our ancestress Elizabeth,
also from an agricultrual family, had a brother and sister named Archimedes
and Artimesia."
So, WHY would anyone doubt that Emily Dickinson in relatively sophisticated
Amherst of the 1800s would be any less schooled in the classics and use
them in her writings: letters and poetry?
Thomas Bulfinch was a Boston writer who published his *The Age
of Fable* in 1855. His retelling of the ancient Roman secret love
story of Cupid and Psyche is in Chapter ll. It is noted that Emily
Dickinson began manufacturing her secret love poems shortly
thereafter in 1858.
Once understood as a unifying theme, it is more easily
understood why in 1862 Emily Dickinson made the ultimate act of
dressing in white as a statement of her belief that her Master and
her would achieve immortality for eternity.
The main Metaphors in the Allegory of Apulius in my post, as told by
Bulfinch in his 1855 version of the Fable, are capitalized to emphasize
her allegorical metaphors were *personified* in the same manner I
conclude Emily Dickinson *personified* her Metaphors! Dickinson
scholars not schooled in the world literature classics should take
heed of the important concept of *Personification* in the poetic
arts, as I allege it is central to analyzing her poems and writing
exegeses. I assume Bulfinch to have been her primary source of the
story of the myth, although her classical dictionaries and general
reading would have offered her ample fodder, as well.
Since writing this, I have consulted my library again, at
length: and I can report that neither Ruth Miller nor Jack Capps
refers to Bulfinch's *The Age of Fable* as being in the Dickinson
library. However, Carlton Lowenberg in his *Emily Dickinson's
Textbooks*, page 35, has this entry:
Bulfinch, Thomas. *The Age of Fable; or Beauties of
Mythology*.. .Boston: Sanborn, Carter & Bazin, 1855(n.c.d.) . DL:
Houghton #2133, a.s. "Edw. Dickinson 1856."
It is important to note that Edward Dickinson possessed a copy
of Bulfinch's *The Age of Fable* in the Homestead, autographed, and
it is cataloged as part of the Houghton Collection and it is number
2133 of the *Handlist of Books* acquisitioned from Emily Dickinson's
home. This 1856-autographed book is important to note because within
two years Emily Dickinson was manufacturing her booklets with poems
referencing the fuller version of the love story of Cupid and Psyche
as retold by Bulfinch. And, it is closer to the thematic threads of
Emily Dickinson's secret love poems than the abridged version in
Anthon's *Classical Dictionary*, which also was in the Dickinson
homestead library, but was one of the works rejected by Whicher and
Johnson. Ruth Miller pointed out that Whicher and Johnson, acting as
consultants for Houghton in the library's acquisition process,
rejected many *classical* works. Miller stated that scholars need to
consult the Houghton *Handlist*. I hereby suggest, also, Carlton
Lowenberg's *Emily Dickinson's Textbooks*.
As a result, I argue once again that Dickinson scholars will
need to carefully reassess Emily Dickinson's indebtedness to
classical world literature, and in particular the European troubadour
tradition of courtly love literature in order to fully analyze and
write exegeses of her writings and make proper sense of her life's
events. Biographers should also take note.
Emily Dickinson wrote she "craves him grace" within Poem 321
just as Sam Bowles was sailing across the Sea Blue and she feared he
would drown as she opined in Letter 249 with embedded Poem 226:
"Should you but fail at--Sea--... I'd *harass* God / Until he let you
in!"
An interested Dickinsonian wrote, in part: "To wit, 'Fame is a Bee' was
always an enigmatic poem to me, yet one of my favorites: I understand
it better now, especially the line referring to its sting, in the light of
your info about the Bees (newspapers) ."
Dickinsonians, probably, would like to take note that the "Bee" as name
for a newspaper is so popular as to defy logic as to why any
Dickinsonian, anywhere and any time, would ever question Emily
Dickinson's referent to Samuel Bowles as her "Bee" and herself as his
flower, whether Daisy or Rose or Lily, in Poem 3 sent to Samuel Bowles
when she was 21: "How doth the busy bee?"
And in Letter 229 of February 1861: "We offer you our
cups--stintless- -as
to the Bee--the Lily, her new Liquors--": then quotes him the poem
"Would you like Summer? Taste of our's--"
The "Bee" newspapers include: The Amherst Bee, Clarence Bee, Ken-Ton
Bee, Lancaster Bee, Depew Bee, Cheeklowga Bee, West Seneca Bee,
Orchard Park Bee, East Aurora Bee, Richmond Bee, Danville Bee,
Beeville Bee, Idaho Bee, Sellwood Bee, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee,
Sacramento Bee, Memphis Bee, Newtown Bee...truly
ad infinitum. The Newtown Bee is most interesting, having a Springfield
Republican editor leave and turn the Newtown Bee into one of the oldest
one hundred-year old Bee newspapers in America, right down the river
from Sam Bowles' old newspaper. As said, the historical tradition of
the
"Bee" as the honeyed-words of poets and editors--aka writers as in
"Bees buzzing in the Bonnets" of readers--goes back to Plato,
The Athenian Bee, Sophocles, The Attic Bee, as well as Xenophon,
The Athenian Bee, et al. Keep on buzzin 
Those of scientific mind, and those who appreciate mathematics, and
still are "Bee-Loved" of the writings of Emily Dickinson will probably find
the following facts from the primary documents of the biography of her
life of supreme interest--and importance when it comes to her concept
of "Bee" love:
Emily Dickinson as a matter of record wrote circa 130 "Bee" and "Bees"
and "Bee's" poems, mostly capitalized.
Emily Dickinson, beginning in 1845, when she was 14, wrote letters with
the "bee" mentioned, and in 1851, she wrote her first "Bee"--that is,
capitalized- -referent. We note in the following year, Samuel Bowles, her
busy "Bee" at the Springfield Republican, published her telling Poem 3
about the newspaper-Bee linkage with her line: "How doth the busy bee?"
Emily Dickinson, between 1845 and 1860, in letters alone, wrote 15 "bee"
or "Bee" referents. Then, suddenly, in 1861 [Dickinsonians should
*wonder* why?] she began to *capitalize* her "Bee" referent for the most
part, with a few exceptions: thusly, 19 times up until 1864, when all the
"Bee" referents stopped, altogether, which just happened to coincide with
the time her relationship with Samuel Bowles ceased, on a passionate, and
highly-emotional level; and her manufactured booklets ceased; in fact, the
secret love poems were basically committed to booklet form, the
autobiographical thread was accomplished, and any further committment
to poetic form was less regularly done and seemed to take on a different
tone and serve a different "Bee" Master.
Emily Dickinson, between 1860 and 1883, wrote letters with "Bees" and
"Bee's" 18 times.
Certainly, Dickinsonians can draw their own conclusions about these
matters. Some Dickinsonians will find of interest the connection between
newsapaper Bees, and famed poetic Bees--those writers of words with
honeyed expressions, beginning with Plato, Socrates, et al., and ending
with modern newspaper "Bee" editors with their hidden sting! Other
Dickinsonians will find of interest Dickinson's "Bee" letters and her "Bee"
biography! For all Dickinsonians interested in "Bee" matters, I take note
of Emily Dickinson's 1862 letter, of the year she became so upset over
the departure of Samuel Bowles, *her "Bee"* who "went to sea:" in reaction,
she dressed "in white" and went into seclusion. Indeed, this letter was
written *to* Samuel Bowles, her "Bee," while he was across the sea and
she clearly asked him ironically, her "Bee," if he can remember her name,
from among the other ladies, as flowers, he the "Bee" left behind in
America: Letter 272, circa August 1862, quoted in part:
"Dear Mr Bowles...I tell you, Mr Bowles, it is a Suffering, to have a
sea--no care how Blue--between your Soul, and you [remember,
Dickinsonians, the story of Cupid-Bowles and Psyche-Soul- Dickinson
which she referenced in myriad poems]. The Hills you used to love when
you were in Northampton, miss their old lover, could they speak--and the
puzzed look--deepens in Carlo's forehead, as Days go by, and you never
come [remember Dickinsonians, that Samuel Bowles nearly died and
recuperated in nearby Northampton the previous summer of 1861
and Emily Dickinson like the Marchioness nursed him back to health and
cited the Dickens' tale in a letter of last summer: and she referred to this
linkage of Master, herself, and Carlo in Master letter 233]. I've learned to
read the Steamer place--in Newspapers-- now. It's 'most like shaking hands,
with you--or more like your ringing at the door...How sweet it must be to
one to come Home--whose Home is in so many Houses--and every Heart
a 'Best Room.' I mean you, Mr Bowles...for have not the Clovers, *names*,
to the Bees? Emily." [The manuscript, in ink, is part of the Samuel Bowles
collection at Amherst College Library]
All for the love of the "Bee" !
Emily Dickinson wrote Letter 446 to Samuel Bowles, the "Bee" editor of
the Springfield Daily Republican, circa 1875, during his final illness: he
took to his death bed in 1877, and died January 16, 1878:
Sweet is it as Life, with it's enhancing Shadow of Death.
A Bee his burnished Carriage
Drove boldly to a Rose--
Combinedly alighting--
Himself--his Carriage was--
The Rose received his visit
With frank tranquility
Witholding not a Crescent
To his Cupidity--
Their Moment consummated- -
Remained for him--to flee--
Remained for her--of rapture
But the humility.
--Emily Dickinson
There should be no doubt that in *fact* Emily Dickinson understood the
classical mythology of ancient Greece about the relationship of the "Bee" to
the Soul, to the mythology of Cupid and Psyche, Love and Soul, the
flitting Butterflies who feast on the honeyed love of flowers, and all her
literary allusions and metaphors owe their substance to her reading in the
classical books in her Homestead library. [This letter, elsewhere listed without
the prose as Poem 1339 (Johnson), is in ink and the manuscript is housed in
the Amherst College Library, its provenance part of the Samuel Bowles
collection catalogued by Jay Leyda.]
Emily Dickinson sent Letter 227 in 1860 to girlfriend Elizabeth Holland,
wife of Josiah, associate editor to the Springfield Daily Republican,
about their little boy who was operated on for a foot problem: this will
explain, among other things, Emily Dickinson's *cryptic* referents to feet and
ankles, linking them to poets, when she wrote, in part: "How is your little
Byron? Hope he gains his foot without losing his genius. Have heard it ably
argued that the poet's genius lay in his foot--as the bee's prong and his song
are concomitant. ..Blossoms belong to the bee, if needs be by *habeas
corpus*. Emily."
There should be no doubt that in *fact* Emily Dickinson understood the
classical mythology of ancient Greece about the relationship of the
"Bee" to the Soul, to the "poet's genius lay in his [her] foot," to the body
[corpus] of the "Blossoms belong[ing] to the bee," to the honeyed words left on
poet's lips, to the similarity of the poet's and/or newspaper editor's tart
words as the "sting" in the "bee's prong."
In early 1878, Emily Dickinson wrote Letter 542 to girlfriend Elizabeth,
wife of Josiah Holland, former associate editor of the Springfield Republican
with editor Samuel Bowles, and she *noted* that they were both "Bee"
members of the press, involved with the honeyed-stinging words. Her remarks
clearly note that the business of newsapers was *buzzing busy-ness* as the
bees in the bee hive make, and that hum round a newsroom is _why_ the busy
bee is associated with press rooms. Here is what Emily Dickinson wrote, about
the ill health of Elizabeth's husband right after the death of Samuel Bowles,
and
the vitality-robbing busy work of 18-hour days doing deadline writer's work
at newspapers, or magazines where her husband now worked as editor of
Scribner's, in part: "Thank you for Dr Gray's Opinion--that is peace--to us. I
am
sorry your Doctor [Josiah held the title of Dr. Holland] is not well...Give
my love to him, and tell him the 'Bee' is a reckless Guide. Dear Mr Bowles
found out too late, that Vitality costs itself."
Now that Dickinsonians clearly understand that "Fame is a bee" by Emily
Dickinson is rooted in her referent to the "Bee" as a famed poet or
famed newspaper editor who "has a sting," we can look at one of her most
illuminating poems. Poem 366 was manufactured into booklet 13 in 1862,
that fateful year she broke with her Master, her "Bee," who travelled to Europe
and in reaction she dressed in white and went into seclusion. Poem 366, as
autobiographical as any of her poems, clearly *explains* why in 1862 she did
*in fact* dress in white, for Eternity, and separated herself from the man who
recognized her poetic "Hand" in his published introduction to Poem 3 in his
Springfield Daily Republican, ten years earlier:
Although I put away his life--
An Ornament too grand
For Forehead low as mine, to wear,
This might have been the Hand
That sowed the flower, he preferred--
Or smoothed a homely pain,
Or pushed the pebble from his path--
Or played his chosen tune--
On Lute the least--the latest--
But just his Ear could know
That whatsoe'er delighted it,
I never would let go--
The foot to bear his errand--
A little Boot I know--
Would leap abroad like Antelope
With just the grant to do--
His weariest Commandment- -
A sweeter to obey,
Than "Hide and Seek"--
Or skip to Flutes--
Or All Day, chase the Bee--
Your Servant, Sir, will weary--
The Surgeon, will not come--
The World, will have it's own--to do--
The Dust, will vex your Fame--
The Cold will force your tightest door
Some Febuary Day,
But say my apron bring the stocks
To make your Cottage gay--
That I may take that promise
To Paradise, with me--
To teach the Angels, avarice,
You, Sir, taught first--to me.
variant: last line
Your kiss first taught to me.
--Emily Dickinson
Of supreme interest, to some Dickinsonians, would be the referents to the
"Bee" as the last word of stanza five placed so that the word "Fame" in
the next stanza, also capitalized and placed last, cannot escape the
linkage to Poem 1763's "Fame is a bee." This *same* Bee had stung her in
1862 as well, and as the variant line indicates, with his *first* kiss and what
it
"taught" her! Of course, history records that her biography is filled with
referents to the *fact* Emily Dickinson "played his chosen tune" on the piano
for
Samuel Bowles many times--on his many visits to Amherst over 3 decades!!!
Ironically, it is noted that Samuel Bowles--the man she addressed as "Sir" so
many times in these years between 1858 and 1862--found "The Cold" force his
"tightest door / Some Febuary Day" in 1878, and shows Emily Dickinson to have
been quite *psychic*!! Indeed, "The Dust [does] vex [his] Fame--" even as this
message is written. Her "promise / To Paradise" is *so* noted!
Now that Dickinsonians clearly understand that "Fame is a bee" by Emily
Dickinson is rooted in her referent to the "Bee" as a famed poet or
famed newspaper editor who "has a sting," we can look at another of her most
illuminating poems. Poem 211 (Johnson) was manufactured into booklet 37
circa 1860, clearly two years earlier than her famous break with the
newspaper "Bee," Samuel Bowles, and two years earlier than she communicated
with T. W. Higginson:
Come slowly--Eden!
Lips unused to Thee--
Bashful--sip thy Jessamines--
As the fainting Bee--
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums--
Counts his nectars--
Enters--and is lost in Balms.
--Emily Dickinson
Indeed, as has been pointed out often enough and understood by those
who accept the secret code of the European troubadours dating back to the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the word "Eden" was Emily Dickinson's
oft-used code word for her Master, the "Bee" himself, Samuel Bowles. And
to reinforce her code words, she included the word "Balms"--which was a
perfect anagram of his signature: Saml B! This highly erotic poem, dating
from the mid-point between the beginning of the manufacturing of the
poem booklets, 1858, and her dressing in white and going into seclusion,
1862, matched her passionate period with her Master, the newspaper "Bee"
--who's sting was *not* so obvious in this early period in their relationship.
A well-known Dickinson scholar has pointed out that Samuel Bowles gifted
Emily Dickinson with a *Jasmine* plant! Indeed, his *name* is embedded
within her variant spelling, obviously taken from *Oliver Twist* by Dickens,
a work often referenced between Samuel Bowles and Emily Dickinson in their
correspondences over the decades.
Emily Dickinson wrote 3 Phoebe, "Phebe," poems: Poems (Johnson) 403,
1009,
and 1690. Her "phebe" spelling is *highly* significant inasmuch as it
emphasizes the pronunciation as "Phe-be," or ""Fee-Bee," and more anon
in this
message, below. Phoebe was according to ancient Greek mythology one of
the
female Titans, daughter of Heaven and Earth aka Gaea, of which
Dickinson has
created cryptographically in capital letters in the left-hand margin of
the
first stanza of a poem much discussed on these message boards: G-A-E-A.
Phoebe, in Greek, means *the bright one* or "to shine." An apt metaphor
for
the poet to so name herself, seeing as she was so well read in the
ancient
classics.
In Poem 1009, which she manufactured into booklet 90 circa 1865, she
wrote: "I was a Phebe...Upon the Floors of Fame--" This is important to
note,
inasmuch as Dickinson associated the Edenic "Bee" with "Fame" and the
meaning
of "Phoebe"--as she well understood-- meant *the bright one* or "to
shine." All
of this is part and parcel of the mythological- meaning of Edenic "Bees"
out of
Paradise, with honeyed words invoking poets to speak, and the
bright-shining
goddess oft associated in Roman times with Diana.
To prove that Emily Dickinson was into encipherment and encoding, one
only
need consult the biographical record of her youth and her involvment
with the
club called the "UT's" or the "Unseen Trap." In my book EDSL, I pointed
out
that this club of her youth was designed to _trap_ the boys into
relationships,
and ultimately marriage, and the name was garnered from the songs of
the
European troubadours. She refers to her girlfriends, including herself,
by
their secret names in Letter 5 when she was fourteen, using ancient
classical
poets, writers and philosophers: Plato, Socrates and Virgil.
Late in life, in the spring of 1883, Emily Dickinson wrote girlfriend
Elizabeth Holland Letter 820, in part: The Birds are very bold this
Morning,
and sing without a Crumb. 'Meat that we know not of,' perhaps, slily
handed
them--I used to spell the one by that name *'Fee Bee'* when a Child,
and have
seen no need to improve! [Indeed, Dickinson is clearly demonsrating
her
long-held tradition of encoding words according to the rules of Cipher
Code:
and such usage of "Fee Bee" for "Phoebe" would be called a "flat" in
which
buried words are plainly in sight when so noted ] Should I spell
all the
things as they sounded to me, and say all the facts as I saw them, it
would
send consternation among more than the *'Fee Bees'*! [Indeed: Elizabeth
Holland, a girlfriend who was privy to the code-making, knew how this
would
expose the ultimate "Bee" of Sam [B]owles!] Vinnie picked the Sub
rosas, and
handed them to me, in your wily Note." [Again, indeed, it was not
real sub
rosas from the garden Vinnie picked, but the encoded words within the
letter
girlfriend Elizabeth sent Emily Dickinson]
No doubt: all of the girlfriends were privy to this encoding within
their letters and Emily Dickinson's poems. Obviously, by now,
Dickinsonians
understand the concept of "Sub Rosa" translates from the Latin into the
English
*under the Rose* aka *to keep secret* and clearly is in keeping with
the broad
"Rose" Secret Love metaphor: as well as "Daisy" and "Lily" from the
writings
of our poet.
Ancient Greek poets wrote that bees were in Paradise and came into this
world as spirits from that nether realm. Their mythology posited that
Edenic
bees brought the power of words to poets when they slumbered in the
daytime in
the meadow under the tree of knowledge and the bees which lighted on
their lips
deposited honey there and gave them the honeyed words of the great
poets after
they awoke and had been visited of the holy spirit. The natural
extension of
the myth to newspaper editors and hence to editors naming their papers
in their
banners the "Bee" came about as a natural reflection of this historical
mythology--coupled with the stinging power of op-ed words [opinionated
editorials].
Emily Dickinson's extensive reading in the classics, and the classical
manuals, several of which were in her personal family library--indeed,
one
written by the father of Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson, a classics'
professor at
Amherst College--account for her many literary allusions to the
classical myths
in her letters and in her poems.
In Letter 567, of late summer 1878, after the February death of Samuel
Bowles, Emily Dickinson wrote his widow Mary and used her code word
"Eden" for
the departed Samuel "B" bee who had come from Eden aka Paradise and
entered her
life and now departed left a void: "To forget you would be
impossible.. .for you
were his for whom we moan while consciousness remains. As he was
himself Eden,
he is with Eden, for we cannot become what we were not...I hope your
boys and
girls assist his dreadful absence...How fondly we hope they look like
him--that
his beautiful face may be abroad. Was not his countenance on earth
graphic as
a spirit's? The time will be long till you see him, dear, but it will
be
short, for have we not each our heart to dress--heavenly as his?" [It
is
*noted* that in 1862 Emily Dickinson dressed "in white" and this
statement
clearly confirms her *Eternity* intent of 16 years previously to dress
like the *spirit* "Bees" from Paradise!]
In Letter 489, circa 1877, Emily Dickinson wrote to Samuel Bowles, the
"Bee" from Paradise: "You have the most triumphant Face out of
Paradise--probably because you are there constantly, instead of
ultimately.. .."
Note in Poem 226 (Johnson) she feared Samuel Bowles would die at
"Sea." The poem is "absolutely biography" inasmuch as it is encased
within Letter 249 to Samuel Bowles, her "Master." The poem only
"EXISTS" as part of a letter to Samuel Bowles, written in 1862 as he
was ready to travel across the "Sea Blue." Therein, she wrote to her
"Master:" "If I amazed your kindness--My Love is my only
apology...Would you--ask less for your *Queen*--Mr Bowles?"
Now, "CLEARLY" she "IDENTIFIES" herself as Sam's "Queen" and
therefore he is the "King" and "Master." And "NO DOUBT" you can
understand all her "wife" and "Queen" poems fit the scenario she
lived in with Samuel Bowles--in her "letters"--and her "biography."
Oh, by the way, let's also not forget Samuel Bowles called her "his
Queen Recluse"!
REMEMBER THIS: Miss Emily called "HERSELF" "your Queen" to her
"Master" Samuel Bowles! Do not doubt Letter 249! Go ahead:
"MEMORIZE" it !!!!!!!!!!!! !!!! Dickinson scholars have memorized it!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Miss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
MMiss Emily wrote "your Queen" to "Master" Samuel Bowles!
Ad infinitum!!! !!!!
Now, look at Letter 252, also written to "PERSUADE" Samuel
Bowles to "VISIT" her in Amherst before travelling abroad for "SIX
LONG MONTHS." She wrote therein: "When you come to Amherst, please
God it *were Today* [sic!!!!!!! her own "ITALICS!!!! !!!]. History
"records" Samuel Bowles "DID visit her "BEFORE" he went across the
"Sea Blue." "PLEASE GOD IT *WERE TODAY*!!!!!! ! Doesn't that sound
like a woman in "NEED" to see "HER" own "Master" and "NOT" tomorrow
but "TODAY"????? ?? Sounds like she is RAMMING IT DOWN OUR THROATS!
So, now we jump back a few months, while Samuel Bowles "WAS IN
NEW YORK state, outside of New England, and Miss Emily was "BEGGING"
him to "VISIT" her in Amherst, and we "DISCOVER" her mind and
thoughts, her love and pain, her need and desire, in her "poetic"
letter to her "Master," Letter 233 (Johnson):
"Master.
If you saw a bullet hit a Bird--and he told you he
was'nt shot--you might weep at his courtesy, but you would certainly
doubt his word.
One drop more from the gash that stains your Daisy's
bosom--then would you _believe_? Thomas' faith in Anatomy, was
stronger than his faith in faith. God made me--Sir--Master- -I
didn't be--myself.. .He built the heart in me...I heard of a thing
called 'Redemption' ...You remember I asked you for it--you gave me
something else...I knew you had altered me...I am older--tonight,
Master--but the love is the same--so are the moon and the crescent.
If it had been God's will that I might breathe where you
breathed--and find the place--myself- -at night...if I wish with a
might I cannot repress--that mine were the Queen's place--the love of
the Plantagenet is my only apology...Have you the Heart in your
breast--Sir- -is it set like mine--a little to the left--has it
misgiving--if it wake in the night....
These things are reverent--holy, Sir...You say I do not tell
you all--Daisy confessed--and denied not.
Vesuvius dont talk--Etna-- dont--Thy- -one of them...and
Pompeii heard it, and hid forever--She couldn't look the world in the
face, afterward--I suppose--Bashful Pompeii! "Tell you of the
want"--you know what a leech is, dont you--and remember that Daisy's
arm is small--and you have felt the horizon hav'nt you--and did the
sea--never come so close as to make you dance?
I dont know what you can do for it--thank you--Master- -but
if I had the Beard on my cheek--like you--and you--had Daisy's
petals--and you cared so for me--what would become of you? Could you
forget me...Could'nt Carlo, and you and I walk in the meadows an
hour--and nobody care but the Bobolink...I used to think when I
died--I could see you--so I died as fast as I could--but the
"Corporation" are going Heaven too so Eternity wont be
sequestered- -now Say I may wait for you--say I need go with no
stranger to the to me--untried country...I waited a long
time--Master- -but I can wait more--wait till my hazel hair is
dappled--and you carry the cane...What would you do with me if I came
'in white?' Have you the little chest to put the Alive--in?
I want to see you more--Sir--than all I wish for in this
world--and the wish--altered a little--will be my only one--for the
skies.
Could you come to New England--this summer--could- -would you
come to Amherst--Would you like to come--Master?
Would it do harm--yet we both fear God--Would Daisy
disappoint you--no--she would'nt--Sir- -it were comfort forever--just
to look in your face, while you looked in mine--then I could play in
the woods till Dark--till you take me where Sundown cannot find
us--and the true keep coming--till the town is full, Will you tell me
if you will?....
--Emily Dickinson
Well, when we look at SAM in the first three lines of Poem 62,
and in the first three lines of Poem 94 [which, by the way,
does it twice for *Doubting Thomases*], we cannot help but
find Emily Dickinson ramming it down our throats in the
first three lines of Poem 188! And the chances of that occurring
by chance are nada, zippo, zilch. It only occurs in *authorial
intention* that in a two year span, from 1858 to 1860, that
our poet would encypher SAM in the first letter positions,
and *ALL* in CAPS, and in the span of 126 created poems,
*T-H-R-E-E T-I-M-E-S* to make it clear she *intended*
Dickinsonians to *K-N-O-W* who was her secret love *Master*!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, our poet was a
cryptologist as she said in Letter 171 of 1854 when she was
23 and had not yet begun her secret love poems.
You know what irks some fans and some students of Dickinson?
It is that it took Bill Arnold, Dickinson scholar, only one little book
called *Emily Dickinson's Secret Love: Mystery *Master* Behind Poems*
to turn their faulty world interpretations of her poems upside down.
Well, too bad! That is the way Emily Dickinson wrote her writings,
with her one thousand secret love poems, prominent, front and
center, and she could care less if the rest of the world is hot and
bothered, and breathing hard. Too bad, too bad, too bad, she said.
You know she wrote that poem about a worm on a string in her
bedroom which turned into an erect talking snake and had no qualms
about offering it to the world as one of her premiere presentations
of her SAM B artistic cryptology
poems!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!
It's Poem 1670 (Johnson) in case you missed it, and note that her
best girlfriend Elizabeth Holland's grandaughter was editor of that
edition, and had no qualms about it. Check it out, folks!
It is interesting when one looks at Dickinson's writings in toto
one finds that she clearly conveyed who her secret love was.
In any court of law, any jury basing their decision on the
written documentary evidence in Emily Dickinson's own writings,
would conclude beyond a "reasonable doubt" that Samuel Bowles
was her secret love and the masculine "Sir/Sire/Master" behind
all her love poems, circa one thousand!
The fact that she embedded these facts of her life in her writings,
also found in circa one thousand letters, many to "Him" as well,
and took the extraordinary *S-T-E-P-S* over her entire life to
encypher SAM B letters, and all in capital letters, to make it
crystal clear she intended for them to stand out, leaves only
the inescapable conclusion that she intended for posterity to
*KNOW* ! So, who are we to deny her *authorial intention*?
Take note in the following poem which was written in 1862
that she wrote *words* which she used in letters and letter-poems
to Samuel Bowles in the very *SAME* year and which undeniably
demonstrate he was the *Master* !
Poem 640 below clearly invokes while he is away at sea her
fear that "were You lost" while they were "Oceans" apart that
she would implore "heaven" on his behalf. No doubt the very
same thoughts were imparted in Poem 226 which is not really
a poem apart but part of a letter to Samuel Bowles, Letter 249,
in which she calls herself "your *Queen*--Mr. Bowles." So, who
among the world of Dickinson scholars doubts Samuel Bowles
was the *Master*? Well, none who can read!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !
And why would she not be *Queen* to the *Master Plantagenet King*?
After all, it is not our surmise but the *W-O-R-D-S* of Dickinson!!!
She wrote, in part, in that letter, what has been divorced from her
recipient
by ill-advised editors in creating the host of her poems when in fact
many
were letters, to Samuel Bowles: "Should you but fail at--Sea--In
sight of me--or doomed lie--next Sun--to die--Or rap--at
Paradise--unheard --I'd *harass* God--Until he let you in!" Oh, yes,
this
woman who knew the meaning of words, wrote to Sam B, in this very same
Letter
249, "My Love is my only apology...I have met--no others." Sounds like
*Love* to me! if it sounds like a "Homesick... Housewife, " and if it
writes like a "Homesick... Housewife, " then it must *BE* a
"Homesick... Housewife. "
Make that [sic] also on the word *Love* which she herself capitalized
in
her letter to Samuel
Bowles!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!! !!!
Poem 640 (Johnson) was "written" by Emily Dickinson,
manufactured into booklet 9, circa 1862. Emily Dickinson
placed it into a series of her love letters to the world,
and made it explicit the "Master" was not Jesus, and yet
the poem clearly is about her masculine "Sir/Master: "
I cannot live with You--
It would be Life--
And Life is over there--
Behind the Shelf
The Sexton keeps the Key to--
Putting up
Our Life--His Porcelain--
Like a Cup--
Discarded of the Housewife--
Quaint--or Broke--
A newer Sevres pleases--
Old Ones crack--
I could not die--with You--
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down—
You--could not--
And I--Could I stand by
And see You--freeze- -
Without my Right of Frost--
Death's privilege?
Nor could I rise--with You--
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus'--
That New Grace
Glow plain--and foreign
On my homesick Eye--
Except that You than He
Shone closer by--
They'd judge Us—-How--
For You--served Heaven--You know,
Or sought to--
I could not--
Because You saturated Sight--
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
And were You lost, I would be--
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame--
And were You--saved--
And I--condemned to be
Where You were not--
That self--were Hell to Me--
So We must meet apart--
You there--I--here- -
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are--and Prayer--
And that White Sustenance--
Despair--
--Emily Dickinson
No doubt, for Dickinsonians, this poem will ring true for the Truth
of 1862, when she and her Master, Samuel Bowles, were "Oceans...apart, "
he in Europe and she in Amherst, and she already dressed in white, hidden
behind doors, so that when he returned that fall, Emily Dickinson was already
in seclusion.
And, as icing on the cake of *DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE* Dickinson scholars
note Emily Dickinson referred to "Paradise" in both poems, one a letter-poem
of great note, and also in another letter about Samuel Bowles, shortly after
his death, called him: "THE MOST TRIUMPHANT FACE OUT OF PARADISE."
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Hand out plastic flies while reciting the immortal line:
