This is Emily Dickinson's country, and
there is a reminiscent sameness in the fauna and
flora of her poems in these.
The two little girls go to a school a few blocks
from where they live. In the afternoons, they
take long walks with their mother, or play in the
garden while she writes. On rainy days, there
are books and Mrs. Conkling's piano, which is not
just a piano, for Mrs. Conkling is a musician, and
we may imagine that the children hear a special
music as they certainly read a special literature.
By "special" I do not mean a prescribed course
(for dietitians of the mind are quite as apt to be
faddists as dietitians of the stomach), but just
that sort of reading which a person who passionately
loves books would most want to introduce
her children to. And here I think we have the
answer to the why of Hilda. She and her sister
have been their mother's close companions ever
since they were born. They have never known
that somewhat equivocal relationship--a child
with its nurse. They have never been for hours
at a time in contact with an elementary intelligence.
If Hilda had shown these poems to even
the most sympathetic nurse, what would have been
the result? In the first place, they would, in all
probability, have been lost, since Hilda does not
write her poems, but tells them; in the second, they
would have been either extravagantly praised or
laughingly commented upon.
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