Emily Dickinson

To Elizabeth Holland

October 1873

Little Sister.

​ I miss your childlike Voice —

​ I miss your Heroism.

​ I feel that I lose combinedly a Soldier and a Bird.

​ I trust that you experience a trifling destitution. Thank you for having been.

​ These timid Elixirs are obtained too seldom.

​ Thank you for every Patience. You won the love of all, even a sweet remark from Austin, in itself an achievement. I am glad “the Jessamine lived.”

​ To live is Endowment. It puts me in mind of that singular Verse in the Revelations — “Every several Gate was one of Pearl.” Little Sister — Good Night — I am sure you went. Parting is one of the exactions of a Mortal Life. It is bleak — like Dying, but occurs more times.

​ To escape the former, some invite the last. The Giant in the Human Heart was never met outside.

​ The sun came out when you were gone.

​ I chided him for delay —

​ He said we had not needed him. Oh prying Sun!

​ Love for Doctor. Emily.

Daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson, 1846-1847, Amherst College, Archival Collections.

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