My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson II

I am ambling along in the book and will spend several more weeks before finishing. Habegger seems to be recording all of the pertinent information – and there is a lot of it. He inserts his interpretations from time to time, and they seem reasonable enough, but it is clear that he is an English professor who was educated in the U.S. Emily's father, Edward, seems to have been interested in restoring his family's reputation in Amherst, but was initially hindered by the Panic of 1837, which was part of a series of recessions and depressions that had originated in the cotton industry. Immediately after his marriage, he had been living in a rental house, but when it became apparent that he could be evicted, he made arrangements to move into one half of the old Dickinson Homestead. This occurred before Emily was born. In 1839, they all moved to a house on West Street, where Emily spent much of her childhood. Once again, I am finding that money often plays a background role in enabling children to lead successful lives, in the arts or otherwise. Edward got help from his father-in-law, who advanced funds to the family by deducting them from his daughter's future inheritance. Charles Darwin's father did the same thing when Charles wanted to buy a house. Edward also made investments in land in Michigan. Besides his law practice, he was the treasurer of Amherst College. He also served in the Massachusetts government as a state representative and, later, as a state senator.

The Dickinson household followed a completely patriarchal model, but Emily didn't seem to mind. She had so many relatives and there were so many illnesses going around that there was always some activity. When Edward was away in Boston, he always left instructions and sometimes arranged for a substitute male to be present. He acted as if he were an amateur physician and advised his family members on what they should and shouldn't do for their health. Emily herself sometimes had serious coughs.

Some hints of Emily's later interests emerged quite early. Her poetic style may have been influenced by signing as a witness some of her father's legal documents. Her siblings also did this, but it appears that they were often out socializing, while Emily remained at home. I can see how Emily's poems roughly match rather terse legal documents. Her mother loved flowers, and Emily began collecting wildflowers and cultivated flowers at an early age. She dried and pressed them and kept them in a large book, called a herbarium, up to her death. It contains four or five hundred specimens, which are identified by their scientific names. Her poems are also economical in style and were produced slowly over much of her life. They were also carefully preserved up to the time of her death. It appears that Emily spent much of her time alone and gave considerable thought to these two hobbies.

With respect to her siblings, they seem to have had cooperative relationships. Clearly, Austin was destined to be a future patriarch, but Emily seems to have enjoyed communicating with him, both in conversation and letters. Her younger sister, Lavinia, known as "Vinnie," was more socially active than Emily and far less intellectual.

Emily's high school equivalent was Amherst Academy, which was somewhat unstable and in a state of flux while she attended it. As described by Renée Bergland in Natural Magic, it seems almost accidentally to have been rather advanced in the subjects offered to girls. Besides the sciences and mathematics, they were taught Latin, and Emily excelled at the latter. I never studied Latin at all, and I have always been interested in how it became a popular subject. When I was in college, I studied Greek mythology and Homeric Greek, which seem a lot more interesting to me. The answer seems to be that Oxford and Cambridge were originally theological seminaries, and church services were then conducted in Latin. The original graduates, who became the English clergy, had to know Latin for their livelihoods. By the time that the Catholic Church left England, Latin was so much associated with high social status that it took hundreds of years for its importance to diminish within the English universities. Charles Darwin, who was certainly no linguist, had to be tutored in Latin in order to be admitted to Cambridge. On the other hand, Emily Dickinson was supremely talented in language and did well in Latin.

Following Amherst Academy, Emily spent a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, as also described by Renée Bergland. While she did enjoy some of her classes, the environment was unpleasant in several respects. Emily preferred Amherst, which was only ten miles away, but was often unable to go home due to the strict rules. Furthermore, with all of the girls and faculty squeezed into tight quarters, people were often sick. The worst thing, I think, was that the women running it were intense evangelicals, and they harassed the "impenitents" mercilessly. As an independent thinker, Emily can't have found that pleasant. Although she regretted having to leave school early that year due to an illness, in many respects it must not have suited her at all.