Selected Letters (Emily)

Pieces parsed. Old college notes from English class.

1866-1869

We do not always know the source of the smile that flows to us. Ned tells that the Clock purrs and the Kitten ticks. He inherits his Uncle Emily's ardor for the lie. (315)

My flowers are near and foreign, and I have but to cross the floor to stand in the Spice Isles. (315)

The Landscape of the Spirit requires a lung, but no Tongue. I hold you few I love, till my heart is red as February and purple as March. (315)

Still I have the Hill, my Gibraltar remnant.
Nature, seems it to myself, plays without a friend.
You mention Immortality.
That is the Flood subject. I was told that the Bank was the safest place for a Finless mind. (319)

Dreamed of your meeting Tennyson in Ticknor and Fields -
Where the Treasure is, there the Brain is also -
Love for Boy - (320)

Bringing still my "plea for Culture,"
Would it teach me now? (323)

My Breakfast surpassed Elijah's, though served by Robins instead of Ravens. (326) - (an allusion to I Kings 17.6)

A Letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend...I never try to lift the words which I cannot hold. (330)

Of our greatest acts we are ignorant - (330)

...but dying is a wide Night and a new Road. (332)

Secrets are interesting, but they are also solemn - (332)

We bruise each other less in talking than in writing, for then a quiet accent helps words themselves too hard. (332)

1870-1874

- who knows how deep the Heart is and how much it holds? (338)

There are no Dead, dear Katie, the Grave is but our moan for them. (338)

Mother went rambling, and came in with a burdock on her shawl, so we know that the snow has perished from the earth. (339)

Did you know about Mrs. J --? She fledged her antique wings. 'Tis said that "nothing in her life became her like the leaving it." (339)

The incredible never surprises us because it is the incredible. (342)

Women talk: men are silent: that is why I dread women. (342a)

My father only reads on Sunday - he reads lonely & rigorous books. (342a)

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way. (342a)

How do most people live without any thoughts. There are many people in the world (you must have noticed them in the street). How do they live. How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning. (342a)

When I lost the use of my Eyes it was a comfort to think there were so few real books that I could easily find some one to read me all of them. (342a)

People must have puddings. (342a)

I wd. have stolen a totty meteor, dear but they were under glass. (342b)

Is it oblivion or absorption when things pass from our minds? (342b)

Life is the finest secret. (354)

To shut our eyes is Travel. (354)

How lonesome to be an Article! I mean - to have no soul.
An Apple fell in the night and a Wagon stopped.
I suppose the Wagon ate the Apple and resumed its way. (354)

Each expiring Secret leaves an Heir, distracting still. (359)

The heart keeps sobbing in its sleep. It is the speck that makes the cloud that wrecks the vessel, children, yet no one fears a speck...Sorrow is the "funds" never quite spent, always a little left to be loaned kindly. We have a new cow. I wish I could give Wisconsin a little pail of milk...How are the long days that made the fresh afraid? (367)

Steam has his Commissioner, tho' his substitute is not yet disclosed to God. (369)

I don't know what to do with my heart. I dare not take it, I dare not leave it - what do you advise? Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it. (389)

Vinnie drank your Coffee and has looked a little like you since, which is nearly a comfort. (392)

My flight kept time to the Words. (412)