first poems in the
winter of 1862. In a letter to oone of the present Editors the
April following, she says, "I made no verse, but one or two, until
this winter."

The handwriting was at first somewhat like the delicate, running
Italian hand of our elder gentlewomen; but as she advanced in
breadth of thought, it grew bolder and more abrupt, until in her
latest years each letter stood distinct and separate from its
fellows. In most of her poems, particularly the later ones,
everything by way of punctuation was discarded, except numerous
dashes; and all important words began with capitals. The effect of
a page of her more recent manuscript is exceedingly quaint and
strong. The fac-simile given in the present volume is from one of
the earlier transition periods. Although there is nowhere a date,
the handwriting makes it possible to arrange the poems with general
chronologic accuracy.

As a rule, the verses were without titles; but "A Country Burial,"
"A Thunder-Storm," "The Humming-Bird," and a few others were named
by their author, frequently at the end,--sometimes only in the
accompanying note, if sent to a friend.

The variation of readings, with the fact that she often wrote in
pencil and not always clearly, have at times thrown a good deal of
responsibility upon her Editors. But all interference not
absolutely inevitable has been avoided. The very roughness of her
rendering is part of herself, and not lightly to be touched; for it
seems in many cases that she intentionally avoided the smoother and
more usual rhymes.

Like impressionist pictures, or Wagner's rugged music, the very
absence of conventional form challenges attention. In Emily
Dickinson's exacting hands, the especial, intrinsic fitness of a
particular order of words might not be sacrificed to anything
virtually extrinsic; and her verses all show a strange cadence of
inner rhythmical music. Lines are always daringly constructed, and
the "thought-rhyme" appears frequently,--appealing, indeed, to an
unrecognized sense more elusive than hearing.

Emily Dickinson scrutinized everything with clear-eyed frankness.
Every subject was proper ground for legitimate study, even the
sombre facts of death and burial, and the unknown life beyond. She
touches these themes sometimes lightly, sometimes almost
humorously, more often with weird and peculiar power; but she is
never by any chance frivolous or trivial. And while, as one critic
has said, she may exhibit