The historical record of the drafts’ ownership and passage from hand to hand, especially between 1886 and 1954, is full of silences. Millicent Todd Bingham, who inherited the Lord letters from her mother, Mabel Loomis Todd, implies that they had been entrusted by Dickinson herself to Austin Dickinson, who, in turn, passed them on to Todd: “One packet brought by Mr. Dickinson was different from all the others. In a used brown envelope, addressed in an unknown [emphasis added] hand to ‘Miss E. C. Dickinson, Amherst, Mass.,’ the canceled stamps an issue of the early 1880s, it is labeled in my mother’s writing, ‘Rough drafts of Emily’s letters. . . . Obviously love letters, my mother did not ask Mr. Dickinson how they came to be in his possession, wondering though she did how they could have escaped destruction” (Rev., 1–2). So much for the letters. As for what Bingham labels “supplementary rough notes,” even less is known: discovered not with the fair copy drafts but “among the masses of unclassified bits of verse and prose” left by Dickinson after her death, their history of ownership and passage is virtually unrecoverable. Moreover, by 1954 the link between the fair copy drafts and the rough drafts, if indeed a link ever existed, is lost. Johnson does not really pursue questions of ownership or passage in Letters, choosing instead to follow Bingham’s lead. In a note to L 559, the first of the Lord letters in his edition, Johnson comments, “The letters, and drafts and fragments of letters, to Lord were found among ED’s papers after her death and given to Mrs. Todd by Austin Dickinson.” Only Jay Leyda imagines two distinct groups of manuscripts, one managed by Lavinia Dickinson, to whom Dickinson expressly bequeathed “all my estate, real and personal,” and another by Austin Dickinson. According to Leyda, Lavinia and Austin appear to have offered manuscripts of the drafts to Todd in 1891 and 1892, respectively. Although all such speculations remain tentative, Leyda’s breakdown suggests an interesting pattern: while Lavinia seems to have controlled almost all the “scraps,” Austin controlled the great majority of fair copy fragments. Paradoxically, it is the fair copy fragments that have been subjected to the most scissoring and bewildering of leaves.

A. Manuscripts from Lavinia Dickinson to Mabel Loomis Todd (1891?)

            Second of March, and the Crow, . . .

            (verso) Arrows enamored of his Heart –; Circumference thou Bride of Awe

            Glass was the Street –

            (verso) It came his turn to beg –

            Still as the Stern Profile of a Tree . . .

            (verso) I never heard you call anything beautiful . . .

            I feel like wasting my Cheek on your Hand . . .

            (verso) The Summer that we did not prize . . .

            Through what transports of Patience . . .

            Tis a dangerous moment for any one . . .

            We do not think enough of the Dead . . .

            My lovely Salem smiles at me . . . (rough copy draft)

            . . . remained what the Carpenter called the Door . . .

            A group of students passed the House –

            But why did you distrust your little Simon . . .

            Emerging from an Abyss and entering it again –

            (verso) I do . . . her Sister . . .

            I kissed the little blank –

            I sometimes have almost feared Language . . .

            My little devices to live till Monday . . . (two drafts)

            Tuesday is a deeply depressed Day –

            Thank you for knowing I did not spurn it, . . .

            (verso) It is joy to be with you . . .

            This has been a beautiful Day – dear –

            Throngs who would not prize them, . . .

            (verso) When it becomes necessary . . .

            Common Sense is almost as omniscient . . .

            As there are Apartments in our own minds . . .

            But are not all Facts Dreams . . .

            God cannot [annull] discontinue himself –

            Spirit cannot be moved by Flesh –

            (verso) . . . we are always in danger of magic . . .

B. Manuscripts from Austin Dickinson to Mabel Loomis Todd (1892?)

            My lovely Salem smiles at me –

            Ned and I were talking . . .

            To beg for the Letter . . .

            Dont you know you are happiest . . .

            . . . To lie so near your longing –

            . . . I know you acutely weary, . . .

            . . . Door either, after you have entered, . . .

            His little “Playthings” were very sick . . .

            To remind you of my own rapture . . .

            I wonder we ever leave the Improbable –

            You spoke of “Hope” surpassing “Home” –

            The celestial Vacation of writing you . . .

            What if you are writing!

            The withdrawal of the Fuel of Rapture . . .