A Glimpse of Dickinson at Work

Abstract

EMILY Dickinson's little Louise and Frances Norcross were not, Richard B. Sewall surmises, such inconsiderable people as Mabel Todd and our ignorance traditionally have them. We would like to know more about them and someday we may.' Unfortunately, most of what we do know about the Norcross cousins has been inferred from excerpts of the letters Dickinson wrote to them between I859 and i886. They reluctantly shared excerpts of these letters in the early I89os with Todd, who subsequently excoriated them for refusing to allow their entire publication.2 Louise Norcross, the more private of the pair, later arranged for the original correspondence to be destroyed at her death.3 As Jay Leyda laments, moreover, Few of their own letters are known.4 Indeed, only letter from Louise's pen has hitherto been known to Dickinson scholarship. Though she was Emily's intimate friend, one of the ones from whom I do not run away,5 so shrouded in mystery are the details of their friendship that Sewall speculates whether Louise even knew about her cousin's passion for poetry.6 The mystery is at least partly solved by the discovery of a letter addressed to the editors of the Boston Woman's Journal early in