"Emblem is immeasurable, that is why it is better than fulfillment, which can be drained"—reveals her elusive quality.
And how much she crowded into one sparse sentence when she said:
Danger is not at first, for then we are unconscious, but in the slower days.
Her letters sent when her family were really at a distance are never like those of any one else, and usually reflect the day and season more than any personal happenings. Across one runs this postscript:
Father's sister is dead, and Mother wears a black ribbon on her bonnet.
But usually they were more like this, one chosen at random:
Nothing is gone, dear, or no one that you know. The forests are at home, the mountains intimate at night and arrogant at noon. A lonesome fluency abroad, like suspended music.
Further on in the same letter:
Come home and see your weather; the hills are full of shawls. We have a new man whose name is Tim. Father calls him "Timothy" and the barn sounds like the Bible.
Twilight touches Amherst with his yellow glove. Miss me sometimes, dear, not on most occasion, but in the Sometimes of the mind.
The small heart cannot break. The ecstasy of its penalty solaces the large.
Emerging from an abyss and reëntering it, that is Life, dear, is it not?
There were no so gay hours in Emily's life as those spent at her brother's home when there were guests of their own inner circle, who revelled in her companionship. For her own life never lacked its joy in comedy nor was
