Amherst/Tuesday 10 P.M.
I shan't sit up tonight to write you all about E.D. dearest but if you had read Mrs. Stoddard's novels you could understand a house where each member runs his or her own selves. Yet I only saw her.
A large county lawyer's house, brown brick, with great trees & a garden - I sent up my card. A parlor dark & cool & stiffish, a few books & engravings & an open piano - Malbone & O D Out Door Paper among other books.
A step like a pattering child's in entry & in glided a little plain woman with two smooth bands of reddish hair & a face a little like Belle Dove's; not plainer - with no good feature - in a very plain & exquisitely clean white pique & a blue net worsted shawl. She came to me with two day lilies which she put in a sort of childlike way into my hand & said "These are my introduction" in a soft frightened breathless childlike voice - & added under her breath Forgive me if I am frightened; I never see strangers & hardly know what I say - but she talked soon & thenceforward continuously - & deferentially - sometimes stopping to ask me to talk instead of her - but readily recommencing. Manner between Angie Tilton & Mr. Alcott - but thoroughly ingenuous & simple which they are not & saying many things which you would have thought foolish & I wise - & some things you wd. hv. liked. I add a few over the page.
This is a lovely place, at least the view Hills everywhere, hardly mountains. I saw Dr. Stearns the Pres't of College - but the janitor cd. not be found to show me into the building I may try again tomorrow. I called on Mrs. Banfield & saw her five children - She looks much like H. H. when ill & was very cordial & friendly. Goodnight darling I am very sleepy & do good to write you this much. Thine am I
I got here at 2 & leave at 9. E.D. dreamed all night of you (not me) & next day got my letter proposing to come here!! She only knew of you through a mention in my notice of Charlotte Hawes.
"Women talk: men are silent: that is why I dread women.
"My father only reads on Sunday - he reads lonely & rigorous books."
"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."
"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"
"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"
"Truth is such a rare thing it is delightful to tell it."
"I find ecstasy in living - the mere sense of living is joy enough"
I asked if she never felt want to employment, never going off the place & never seeing any visitor "I never thought of conceiving that I could ever have the slightest approach to such a want in all future time" (& added) "I feel that I have not expressed myself strongly enough."
She makes all the bread for her father only likes hers & says "& people must have puddings" this very dreamily, as if they were comets - so she makes them.
[That evening Higginson made this entry in his diary:]
To Amherst, arrived there at 2 Saw Prest Stearns, Mrs. Banfield & Miss Dickinson (twice) a remarkable experience, quite equalling my expectation. A pleasant country town, unspeakably quiet in the summer aftn.