The Lady Appeared

Yesterday was both weirdly odd, oddly strange, and strangely weird – so how bizarre is that?  I traveled to the center of the city in the mid of the morning to visit a library and three used bookstores, and I swear, I lived through what seemed to be a mix of the "Twilight Files" and the "X Zone." I'll begin in the second bookstore with episode three, “The Lady Appeared.”

​I had just consumed a delicious cup of corn and crab soup at a local bistro, and I sent back my compliments to the chef (although I did not include any accolade for the small puck –like biscuit of which I will never speak again). 

I departed, and into my purview a seller of used books, antique maps, and old prints came into view.  I entered the shop, and to my right were shelves upon shelves of antique volumes.

“Ohhh,” I said excitedly to the shopkeep who was shuffling stacks of charts and maps on a table before me, “I publish daily posts about Emily Dickinson and wonder if you have any books on or by her?”

“No,” she snapped without looking up.  Then she turned to a co-worker who was hunched over a computer on a dimly lit desk. “Do we have any Dickinson,” she asked.

“No,” he huffed, without looking up. 

She turned back to me and repeated sharply, “No.” 

She hoisted her heap of newly arranged placards, cast them to the table with a whack to level the stack, and marched off to drop them in a bin just outside the store.  When she shuffled out of sight, I scanned the wall of time-worn books before me.  ’Twas then the lady appeared – the Belle of Amherst, the myth, the poetess in perpetuity.  She was staring right at me. 

I asked if I could thumb through the volumes, a three-book set of The Letters of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johson and Theodora Ward and published in 1958.

Atop the box was a small sticker – a bit smaller than a fingernail – and on it, a number and a word.  I don’t recall the word – maybe “box”? – but the number was 325.

I asked, “Is this just an inventory number of sorts, three-two-five, or the price, three hundred and twenty-five dollars?”

Without looking up, he at the dimly lit desk growled, “Three hundred twenty-five dollars.”

“Ohhh,” I replied.  “That’s a bit out of my league” – and I laughed.  No humor was exchanged.

I looked through the volumes.  A few quotes caught my eye so I snapped a few pictures (which I’ll share momentarily down below).

After the fifth pic click “zzzht” of my phone, he-at-the-desk rose, turned toward me, and said to his co-worker something like, “I’m hearing a lot of picture taking and want to make sure that he’s just trying not to buy a three hundred twenty-five dollar book.”

I spaketh not but thought to myself, “Are you kidding me?  You think I’m taking pictures of a three-volume set with over 1,000 pages just to save three hundred and twenty –five dollars?”  Instead, I smiled and said something like, “Oh – I’ll stop taking pictures if you like.  I’m just snapping a few quotes that jumped out at me.  I publish daily posts –”

He cut me off. 

“Yes,” he said flatly.  “You told us.”

I closed the books and returned them to their cardboard casing.  She-of-the-shuffled-placards accepted it from me and returned the set to its place on the shelf – this time hiding the poet’s gaze from view.

And with that, the lady vanished. 

To refashion a poem by Dickinson:

Image of Light, Adieu –
Thanks for the interview –
So long – so short –
Purveyor of the Books  –
Coeval Logophile –
Impart – Depart –

Below:  The five pics I took of the five quotes that jumped out at me:

"Prose Fragments":  Johnson, who published the first "complete" volume of Dickinson's poetry, did not include any of these fragments as either complete or partial poems; however, some researchers have argued that some of the lines "occasionally demonstrate a degree of metrical regularity"; therefore, some of the lines show up in subsequent volumes as "poetry."  One example is shown below. 

I love that first fragment, "As one noble Act makes a whole neighborhood tender with the new or forgotten Grace possible to each " – I'd not heard this before.  

Kind of reminded me of the simple adage so popular these days, "Be Kind."

As noted above, some "prose fragments" are viewed as poetry in later editions of Dickinson's work.  Take a look at fragment #75 at the left; it shows up as poem #1244 (below) in R. W. Franklin's volume of The Poems of Emily Dickinson: 

Remember – the second pass you by –
The Second is pursuing the Century
The Century is chasing Eternity –
What a Responsibility –
No wonder that the little Second flee –
Out of it’s frightened way –

Prose fragment #80 has always amused me:  Dickinson wrote, "I don’t keep the Moth part of the House – I keep the Butterfly part."

I reminds me of a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright -- though with a different slant:  "Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves"

Of course, that always makes me think of this quote from E. E. Cummings:  "I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."

But hey -- it's worth it, no?  For the luxuries and "Butterfly part" of life?
 

I actually saw Dickinson's poetry fragment #93 (pictured at the right), “Not to send errands by John Alden is one of the instructions of History.” in a display at the Frost Library at Amherst College on a recent trip to Amherst, MA. 

I wrote about it HERE. 

​Section VIII of Volume 2 is entitled, “A Letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.”

Sooo...it's not included in the section of "Prose Fragments"; however, stash this quote away in a mental filing cabinet as I'll mention it again soon in another episode of my weirdly odd, oddly strange, and strangely weird day.