Some Favored Nook, Pt. 3: No. 14, These Are My Introduction

DICKINSON:

Dear Friend,

You were not aware that you saved my life. To thank you in person has been since

then one of my few requests.

[From Higginson’s commentary “Emily Dickinson’s Letters,” Atlantic Monthly, October 1891]22

HIGGINSON:

At last after many postponements,

On August 16, 1870,

I found myself face to face

With my hitherto unseen correspondent At her father’s house.

I heard an extremely faint and pattering

footstep

Like that of a child, in the hall, And in glided, almost noiselessly, A plain shy little person, with eyes, As she herself, said,

HIGGINSON/DICKINSON:

“Like the sherry the guest leaves in

the glass,”

HIGGINSON:

She came toward me with two day lilies

DICKINSON:

These are my introduction Forgive me if I am frightened. I never see strangers

And hardly know what I say

HIGGINSON:

But soon she began to talk— almost

constantly—

DICKINSON:

If I read a book and it makes My whole body so cold

No fire can ever warm me,

I know that is poetry.

HIGGINSON:

Interspersed with these confidences Came phrases—

Putting into words what the most

extravagant

Might possibly think without saying.

DICKINSON:

If I feel physically as if

The top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

HIGGINSON:

We met only once again

We corresponded for years

She sometimes enclosed23 flowers Or fragrant leaves

With a verse or two.