...Higginson. The first letter, dated April 16, 1862, is evidence to the point : Mr. Higginson, are you loo deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive ? The...cannot see distinctly, and I have none to ask. Should jou think it breathed, and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude. If I make...

...when she was over thirty years old. In the spring of 1862 she wrote a letter to Higginson beginning, "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is...it cannot see distinctly, and I have none to ask." Discerning the divine spark in her shapeless verse, he welcomed her advances, and became her "preceptor,"...

...office in Worcester, Mass., where I was then living, the following letter : — Мк. HIGOTNSON, — Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is...The mind is so near itself it cannot see distinctly, und I have none to ask. Should you think it breathed, and had you the leisure to tell me, I should...

...On April 16th of that year, I received a reply that began as follows: (Reads.) "Mr. Higginson,—Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?...think it breathed, and had you the leisure to tell me, 1 should feel quick gratitude . . ." (Looks up.) Four poems were enclosed—very much alive if baffling....

...Unrealized" (no. 3i9).12 The covering letter asks quite simply, "[Is] my Verse alive?" She tells him that "The Mind is so near itself — it cannot see, distinctly — and I have none to ask — " (L, 2 : 403, no. 260). Again, she has placed herself at the mercy of a powerful male; not only...

...sought literary advice. She did write to the critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson in 1862, abruptly asking, "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" Higginson, an abolitionist and admirer of John Brown, was radical in politics but conservative in aesthetics....

...Monthly which offered advice to aspiring writers. In April I862, Emily Dickinson had written to ask, 'Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive? The mind is so near itself it cannot see distincdy, and I have none to ask. Should you think it breathes, and you had the leisure to tell me,...

...poems. In this letter, dashes predominate, the whole gist of the message is directed to the future — "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" (BPL Higg 50, L 403, #260)— and Dickinson does all she can to be deferential. She chooses to represent...

...had just contributed to the Atlantic Monthly an article of encouragement to young American writers. "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" So ran her opening sentence to Higginson. Like a valentine, this first letter in tiny birdlike writing,...

...their works published. After reading the article in Amherst, Emily Dickinson wrote to Higginson asking, "Mr. Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?" (qtd. in Tuttleton 143). Though Higginson advised Dickinson to delay publication until she had mastered...