tara’s Reviews > The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson > Status Update

“A promise is firmer than a hope. Hope never knew horizon.”

“Morning might come by accident, Sister,
Night comes by event—
To believe the final line of the card
Would foreclose Faith,
Faith is doubt, Sister.
Show me Eternity, and
I will show you memory—
Both in one package lain
And lifted back again.
Be Sue while I am Emily,
Be next what you have ever been—
Infinity.”

“Emily, in the darkest, entirest privacy, was terrified for the result of her experiment—the little white moth being almost fluttered to death, all a-tremble and ready to die of the experience and be found on the floor next morning a mere hint of winged dust! She seemed to know the world from intuition, but to shrink from that which sends the soft bright-eyed things flying from us in the forest.”

“From the time of her father's death she never left the house, except to flit about the porch at dusk to water her frail plants—set just outside in summer—looking in her white dress like just another moth fluttering in the twilights.”

“To be cherished as a temporary guest of the heart, already half an angel.”

“With what a menace of light.”

“Such soar, but never set. I see him in the star and meet his sweet velocity in everything that flies.”

“And during these years of increasing isolation it was to her work she turned for relief and renewal.”

“It seems like a memoir of the sun when the noon is gone!”

“Their visits also in the darkened library, hand in hand on the little sofa by the fire, and with them, two intellects met as equals.”

“Their partings overheard were like those of desperate final sundered souls; but both were dramatic of temperament and to Emily the darkness was denser always after the radiant passage of one of her chosen. Helen always preferred Emily in genius and power, and considered herself but a small spark beside her.”

“Her spirit found its own nectars in spite of her loneliness.”

“So busy missing you I have not tasted Spring.”

“I must wait a few days before seeing you. You are too momentous,—but remember dear, it is idolatry, not indifference.”

🥺💗

“To the faithful absence is condensed presence.”