William Austin Dickinson (1829-1895)"As Father was going to Northhampton, and thought of coming over to see you [at Williston Semianry in nearby Easthampton] I thought I would improve the opportunity and write you a few lines - We miss you very much indeed you cannot think how odd it seems without you there was always such a Hurrah wherever you was." Letter from Dickinson to William Austin Dickinson, written April 18, 1842, when Dickinson was eleven. "Of all the most important people in her life, Emily Dickinson probably counted Austin as the most significant. They were confidants; indeed, he seems to be the only person other than Colonel Higginson to whom Emily wrote that she desired to be a poet: 'Austin is a Poet….I've been in the habit myself of writing some few things'(L110)." from The Letters of Emily Dickinson by Thomas H. Johnson and An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia by Jane Donahue Eberwein, ed. |