White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple

Author:Brenda Wineapple [Wineapple, Brenda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Autobiography.Historical Figures
ISBN: 9781400044016
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2008-12-15T00:38:53+00:00

“MOTHER WAS PARALYZED TUESDAY,” Emily penciled a quick note on dark paper to Wentworth in the summer of 1875. “A year from the evening father died. I thought perhaps you would care.”

In Mrs. Dickinson’s bedroom the shades were half-drawn, and the place smelled of camphor and roses. Over and over she kept asking for Edward, wondering why he did not come. “I am glad of what grieves ourself so much—,” Emily wrote Wentworth, “can no more grieve him.”

Though feeble, Mrs. Dickinson was alert enough to draw up her will. Her husband had died intestate, and she wanted to make sure her estate went to her daughters. Emily, too, decided to do the same thing, bequeathing everything to Lavinia. Austin could take care of himself and his family, she reasoned. “Knowing that his fraternal love towards me is undiminished, I am sure that his judgment concurs with mine in the disposition of my estate; and my beloved and honored mother also will feel that such disposal, while it is less onerous to her, will be as beneficial, as if I had given all to her.” Emily named Vinnie her executrix.

In the meantime, Austin’s control of their father’s estate left the Dickinson women dependent, for the moment, on the residents of the Evergreens. Vinnie’s resentment of this situation, long smoldering, would ultimately result both in the publication and the eventual suppression of her sister’s poems.

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