Do not try to be saved, but let redemption find you, as it certainly will. Love is its own rescue; for we, at our supremest, are but its trembling emblems.
Your Scholar.
These were my earliest letters from Emily Dickinson, in their order. From this time and up to her death (May 15, 1886) we corresponded at varying intervals, she always persistently keeping up this attitude of “Scholar,” and assuming on my part a preceptorship which it is almost needless to say did not exist. Always glad to hear her “recite,” as she called it, I soon abandoned all attempt to guide in the slightest degree this extraordinary nature, and simply accepted her confidences, giving as much as I could of what might interest her in return.
Sometimes there would be a long pause, on my part, after which would come a plaintive letter, always terse, like this:—
“Did I displease you? But won’t you tell me how?”
Or perhaps the announcement of some event, vast in her small sphere, as this:—
Amherst.
Carlo died.
E. Dickinson.