“My Susie”
Susan Dickinson
“With the exception of Shakespeare, you have told me of more knowledge than any one living. To say that sincerely is strange praise” – Emily Dickinson to Susan Gilbert Dickinson, 1882.
Austin’s marriage to Susan Huntington Gilbert in 1856 solidified the place in the family of one of Dickinson’s dearest friends. Susan’s friendship helped expand the poet’s horizons, and their sharing of books and ideas was a vital component of her intellectual life. Susan was a vivacious and intelligent woman, a great reader, and a sparkling conversationalist.
Emily Dickinson to Susan Gilbert Dickinson (L757), about 1882, in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965), 3: 733.
A Poetic Discussion
Susan was the family member most familiar with Dickinson’s writing, having received over 250 poems. In one documented exchange, Susan offered advice and criticism, after receiving this poem c.1859. Dickinson then sent over a version with a different second verse, accompanied by the note, “Perhaps this verse would please you better - Sue -“. Sue thought this new verse was, “remarkable as the chain lightning that blinds us hot nights in the Southern sky but it does not go with the ghostly shimmer of the first verse as well as the other one - It just occurs to me that the first verse is complete in itself…Strange things always go alone…”. This interaction and the poem’s variations shine light on Dickinson’s writing process, and prove the strength of her’s and Sue’s relationship. Which version of the poem do you prefer?
Correspondence between Emily Dickinson and Susan Gilbert Dickinson (L238), summer 1861, in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958), 2:379–240.
Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University
Show me Eternity, and I will show you Memory - Both in one package lain And lifted back again -
Be Sue, while I am Emily - Be next, what you have ever been, Infinity -
Dickinson’s relationship with Susan was arguably her longest and most intimate one, lasting until the poet’s death in 1886. Their correspondence, occasionally interrupted by periods of seeming estrangement, is evidenced today by the extant letters Dickinson sent to Sue. The intimacy of these letters and poems suggests a possible romantic interest. In an 1852 letter, the poet wrote, “If you were here, and Oh that you were, my Susie, we need not talk at all, our eyes would whisper for us, and your hand fast in mine, we would not ask for language —“. It is certain that Susan Dickinson was one of the most important people in the poet’s life.
Emily Dickinson, Fr 1658, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, ed. R.W. Franklin (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 601.
Emily Dickinson to Susan Gilbert (Dickinson) (L94), June 11, 1852, in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965), 2:211.
Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University
