White Heat
The Boston neighborhood in which I live encompasses an almost undisturbed patch of Victoriana. Huge, sleepy mansions line streets that stretch from a Unitarian church of somber stone up to a dark Episcopalian basilica set on a hill. Were Emily Dickinson to turn up on our block tomorrow 鈥� apart from the cars and utility poles 鈥� there would be almost nothing to surprise her.
The surprises, I suspect, would all be on our side.
The Dickinson found in the pages of Brenda Wineapple鈥檚 intelligent, delightful White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson is aggressive, sexy, furious, flirtatious, subtle, witty, and very much in control. That is, except when she is timid, morbidly sensitive, reclusive, childlike, and decidedly odd.
鈥淲hite Heat鈥� is packed with contradictions, and Wineapple is a writer skilled enough to embrace these rather than to puzzle over them. The author of previous biographies (of Nathaniel Hawthorne,聽 Gertrude and Leo Stein, and Janet Flanner), Wineapple tells us from the start that here she is attempting neither biography nor literary criticism. Instead, she hopes to 鈥渢hrow a small, considered beam鈥� on a remarkable friendship between 鈥渢wo unusual, seemingly incompatible friends.鈥�
Dickinson and Higginson exchanged hundreds of deeply personal letters over the course of almost a quarter of a century and yet met face to face only twice in their lives. They had a friendship 鈥渂ased on absence, geographic distance, and the written word,鈥� writes Wineapple, and yet 鈥渟omehow these two people created out of words a nearness we today do not entirely grasp.鈥�
Their connection began in 1862, seemingly on a whim, when the 31-year-old Dickinson wrote to the 38-year-old Higginson 鈥� whom she knew only by reputation as a writer for The Atlantic Monthly 鈥� sending him a handful of her poems and asking, 鈥淎re you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?鈥�
Higginson was stunned by what he read (鈥渆ven at this day I still stand somewhat bewildered,鈥� he wrote, many years after Dickinson鈥檚 death) and immediately offered a friendly response. 鈥淭he hand you stretch to me in the Dark,鈥� she answered in turn, 鈥淚 put mine in.鈥�
And so a friendship was launched.
Most of Higginson鈥檚 letters to Dickinson were lost (or perhaps destroyed by her sister) so it is largely through Dickinson鈥檚 writings to him that we are able to enter into their connection. Being 鈥渃oy but not capricious,鈥� Wineapple tells us, Dickinson describes herself to her new friend as the 鈥渙nly Kangaroo among the Beauty.鈥� When he asks for a portrait, she says she has none but offers a verbal sketch instead; 鈥渟mall, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur 鈥� and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves.鈥�
Higginson was a married man, bound to an invalid wife who was irritated, at best, by this new connection. (鈥淲hy do the insane cling to you?鈥� she asked him.) Higginson may have been 鈥渉alf in love,鈥� Wineapple speculates, with 鈥渢his strange woman,鈥� but to Wineapple鈥檚 credit she never pushes any conclusions. 鈥淚 cannot reach you,鈥� he tells his bewitching correspondent, 鈥渂ut only rejoice in the rare sparkles of light.鈥�
Then, in the summer of 1870, after eight years of correspondence, Higginson found himself near Amherst and stopped by the Dickinson home. Emily greeted him, dressed all in white, with two daylilies in her hand. They would meet in person only once again, after the death of his wife. 鈥淚 am glad not to live near her,鈥� he concluded. No one else, he said, had ever 鈥渄rained my nerve power so much.鈥�
But Dickinson poured much of herself into her correspondence with Higginson, and it is largely through these letters that we know her today. After Dickinson鈥檚 death, when her huge cache of unpublished poems was discovered, Higginson helped to edit and prepare them for publication. His efforts to 鈥渢idy up鈥� her unusual punctuation and structure earned him a reputation as a philistine in later years, but Wineapple is quick to defend him, pointing out that 鈥渓anguage like this had never been seen before; nothing like it, really, every appeared again.鈥�
One of the great pleasures of 鈥淲hite Heat鈥� is the portrait of Higginson that it offers. An idealistic, somewhat melancholy being, he was an abolitionist and womens鈥� rights advocate with distinguished intellectual and activist credits to his name. (Thoreau once called him, 鈥渢he only Harvard Phi Beta Kappa, Unitarian minister, and master of seven languages who has led a storming party against a federal bastion with a battering ram in his hands.鈥�)
During the Civil War Higginson commanded the first federally authorized regiment of freed slaves and spent the rest of his life remembering his soldiers with deep affection. In 1869, his essays on the war published in The Atlantic Monthly were collected in a book called 鈥淎rmy Life in a Black Regiment,鈥� a work that Wineapple calls 鈥渁 minor masterpiece.鈥�
鈥淲hite Heat鈥� is also an engaging glimpse of an era and yet another attempt to fathom the world that surrounded Emily Dickinson. But what is most touching in this book is its graceful depiction of an emotional and intellectual bond between an admirable man and a remarkable woman, a tie that 鈥渘either of them expected or wanted ... to lead anywhere specific.鈥� Directionless though it might have been, to travel with Dickinson and Higginson down the road of their friendship is a rich and satisfying journey.
Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor鈥檚 book editor.
