| In a recent post about ED artifacts on display at the Frost Library at Amherst College (HERE), I discussed this doozy of a scrap (shown at the right): Not to send errands by John Alden is one of the instructions of History – |  |
Of course, my first stop online when I was exploring this quote was the Dickinson Archive. I typed “Alden” into the search field, and one poem popped up, “God is a distant – stately Lover.” However, the poem does NOT include the line that is scrawled on the scrap of paper:
| God is a distant – stately Lover – Woos, as He states us – by His Son – Verily, a Vicarious Courtship – "Miles", and "Priscilla", were such an One – But, lest the Soul – like fair "Priscilla" Choose the Envoy – and spurn the ’Groom – Vouches, with hyperbolic archness – "Miles", and "John Alden" were Synonyme – |  |
No, the fragment is not a part of any poem by Dickinson. Instead, it is classified in Miller & Mitchell’s book, The Letters of Emily Dickinson, as a "writing note" WN 40 (p. 837): -- what Thomas Johnson referred to as a "prose fragment." However, the Archive revealed that the poem with "Alden," "God is a distant -- stately Lover" had an interesting publication history.
Mabel Loomis Todd had planned to include the poem in the second series of Poems published in 1891. Prior to the publication of that volume, though, Todd sent a copy of this poem to S. J. Barrows, editor of a Boston weekly religious journal, The Christian Register, in hopes that a pre-publication printing of the poem would give readers “a foretaste of ED's wit and unconventionality in treating sacrosanct themes.”
Barrows was delighted with the poem. He wrote to Todd in March of 1891:
Many thanks for your kindness in sending me the poem of Emily Dickinson. What a genius she was! Her resurrection surely came. Would that we might always think that genius had its Easter and was not buried in the tomb.
Barrows included the poem in the April 22, 1891, issue of The Christian Register.
Barrows was delighted with the poem. He wrote to Todd in March of 1891:
Many thanks for your kindness in sending me the poem of Emily Dickinson. What a genius she was! Her resurrection surely came. Would that we might always think that genius had its Easter and was not buried in the tomb.
Barrows included the poem in the April 22, 1891, issue of The Christian Register.
Below: I found a copy of the April 2, 1981, issue of The Christian Register with the poem, but I could not access it without a paid subscription. You can see a portion of the poem's text at the left.
Barrow's decision to print the poem, though, proved to be unwise. In late April, he wrote again to Ms. Todd:
I have had two letters from readers who have been greatly shocked by the poem of Emily Dickinson which I published, and Rev. Brooke Herford who forwarded one of them says: "It is one of the most offensive bits of contemptuous Unitarianism that I have met with."
Herford was the Unitarian minister of the Arlington Street Church in Boston.
Barrows, seeing nothing more irreverent in the poem than in the metaphors of the Song of Solomon or in the representation of the Church as the Bride of Christ in the Apocalypse, continued:
But it makes some difference whether such a poem has the stamp of traditional authority upon it or not.
Todd decided to omit the poem from the second volume of Poems, and Barrows printed an editorial in the last April issue of the Register stoutly defending ED's position and incidentally his own.
Then, in 1929, Dickinson’s niece, Marth Dickinson Bianchi published Further Poems of Emily Dickinson and included the poem.
I have had two letters from readers who have been greatly shocked by the poem of Emily Dickinson which I published, and Rev. Brooke Herford who forwarded one of them says: "It is one of the most offensive bits of contemptuous Unitarianism that I have met with."
Herford was the Unitarian minister of the Arlington Street Church in Boston.
Barrows, seeing nothing more irreverent in the poem than in the metaphors of the Song of Solomon or in the representation of the Church as the Bride of Christ in the Apocalypse, continued:
But it makes some difference whether such a poem has the stamp of traditional authority upon it or not.
Todd decided to omit the poem from the second volume of Poems, and Barrows printed an editorial in the last April issue of the Register stoutly defending ED's position and incidentally his own.
Then, in 1929, Dickinson’s niece, Marth Dickinson Bianchi published Further Poems of Emily Dickinson and included the poem.
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 | Indignant letters and notices followed which prompted Bianchi to omit it from the Centenary edition issued in the following year and from subsequent collections. The poem did not appear again until 1945, in Millicent Todd Bingham’s Ancestors’ Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson. The archive also stated, “ED uses the older spelling ‘synonyme’ which is not retained in any printed text.” However, her use of “synonyme” is used in the Franklin and Miller editions (see below). |
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I also found that in the 16th to 19th centuries, printers and writers occasionally used the synonyme spelling with the trailing "e" -- although it was most commonly used only in its plural form (synonymes). Below: The OED lists these examples of uses with the "e" from the 1800s:
CONCERNING DICKINSON'S USE OF "AN ONE":
I found this: Historically, writers frequently used "an one" because the word "one" was pronounced with an initial vowel sound or a different phonetic start (resembling "own" or an unvoiced sound) rather than today's prominent "w" sound (wun). Phrases like "such an one" were common in older texts, including the King James Bible (which, by the way, was the version of the Bible that Dickinson owned).
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Etymology
Indefinite article
Middle English, from Old English ān one
I also found this regarding "Historical Exceptions" to the use of "an one" over "a one": "Though Modern English considers 'an one' incorrect and outdated, older English texts sometimes used 'an' before words starting with an 'h' or a vowel-consonant blend like one, such as 'such an one.'"
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Etymology
Indefinite article
Middle English, from Old English ān one
I also found this regarding "Historical Exceptions" to the use of "an one" over "a one": "Though Modern English considers 'an one' incorrect and outdated, older English texts sometimes used 'an' before words starting with an 'h' or a vowel-consonant blend like one, such as 'such an one.'"
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