“My Business is Circumference”

Letter from Emily Dickinson to her editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, July, 1862. The letter is signed “Your Scholar”:

Will you tell me my fault, frankly, as to yourself, for I had rather wince, than die. Men do not call the surgeon, to commend—the Bone, but to set it, Sir, and fracture within, is more critical. And for this, Preceptor, I shall bring you—Obedience—the Blossom from my Garden, and every gratitude I know. Perhaps you smile at me. I could not stop for that—My Business is Circumference—An ignorance, not of Customs, but if caught with the Dawn—or the Sunset see me—Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty, Sir, if you please, it afflicts me, and I thought that instruction would take it away.

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1 Response to “My Business is Circumference”

  1. Desirae says:

    Even her letters are poetry – like that’s just how she thought, all the time.

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