|
MANUSCRIPT: About December 1871, in packet 38 (H 205a). These lines evidently were composed with the thought of her nephew Ned in mind. He was ten years old at the time. A note, now lost, which she wrote him incorporates a variant reading of the last eight lines:
In a letter to Sue (H B 59) written during the summer of 1866, when Ned was five, ED supplies a budget of family news and says of Ned:The cat that in the corner sitsP.S. Grandma characteristically hopes Neddy will be a good boy. Obtuse ambition of Grandma's!
...Grandma "hoped" characteristically "he would be a very good boy." ... Obtuse ambition of Grandmamas!It is possible that Mrs. Bianchi, when she published the poem sent to Ned, attached the sentences about Ned taken from the letter written to Sue five years before; such was occasionally her practice. PUBLICATION: The text of the packet copy is in BM (1945), 88, derived from a transcript made by Mrs. Todd. The note to Ned is in Atlantic Monthly, CXV (1915), 38; and LL (1924), 59, whence the text above derives.
dickinson/ned dickinson correspondence main page | dickinson electronic archives main menu
|