I cannot explain this extraordinary signature, substituted for the now customary “Your Scholar,” unless she imagined her friend to be in some incredible and remote condition, imparting its strangeness to her. Swedenborg somewhere has an image akin to her “oblique place,” where he symbolizes evil as simply an oblique angle. With this letter came verses, most refreshing in that clime of jasmines and mockingbirds, on the familiar robin:— THE ROBIN The robin is the one That interrupts the morn With hurried, few, express reports When March is scarcely on. The robin is the one That overflows the noon With her cherubic quantity, An April but begun. The robin is the one That, speechless from her nest, Submits that home and certainty And sanctity are best. In the summer of 1863 I was wounded, and in hospital for a time, during which came this letter in pencil, written from what was practically a hospital for her, though only for weak eyes:— DEAR FRIEND,—Are you in danger? I did not know that you were hurt. Will you tell me more? Mr. Hawthorne died. I was ill since September, and since April in Boston for a physician’s care. He does not let me go, yet I work in my prison, and make guests for myself. Carlo did not come, because that he would die in jail; and the mountains I could not hold now, so I brought but the Gods. I wish to see you more than before I failed. Will you tell me your health? I am surprised and anxious since receiving your note. The only news I know Is bulletins all day From Immortality. Can you render my pencil? The physician has taken away my pen. I inclose the address from a letter, lest my figures fail. Knowledge of your recovery would excel my own. E. DICKINSON. Later this arrived:— DEAR FRIEND,—I think of you so wholly that I cannot resist to write again, to ask if you are safe? Danger is not at first, for then we are unconscious, but in the after, slower days. Do not try to be saved, but let redemption find you, as it certainly will. Love is its own rescue; for we, at our supremest, are but its trembling emblems. YOUR SCHOLAR. These were my earliest letters from Emily Dickinson, in their order. From this time and up to her death (May 15, 1886) we corresponded at varying intervals, she always persistently keeping up this attitude of “Scholar,” and assuming on my part a preceptorship which it is almost needless to say did not exist. Always glad to hear her “recite,” as she called it, I soon abandoned all attempt to guide in the slightest degree this extraordinary nature, and simply accepted her confidences, giving as much as I could of what might interest her in return.