Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science IV

When Dickinson returned to Amherst in 1848 at the age of seventeen, she gradually settled into what was to become her adult life. In 1851, there was a spectacular display of the aurora borealis that awed the entire town. At the time, Emily and her friends speculated on mysterious natural forces. They thought that telepathy, as described in Jane Eyre, could be some sort of electrical phenomenon. By 1855, the fortunes of her father, Edward, had improved. He was able to buy back the Dickinson Homestead, and the family returned to it. At that time, her older brother, Austin, was away from home. He eventually became a lawyer and worked at his father's law firm in Amherst. Thereafter, Emily, her mother, father and younger sister, Lavinia, lived at the Homestead. Austin later moved to a house next door. Her mother became ill after the move, and Emily disliked doing the housework.

One of Dickinson's poetic inspirations was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, particularly Aurora Leigh. She also subscribed to Atlantic Monthly, where, in 1860 she would have read Asa Gray's review of On the Origin of Species, which was the first in the U.S. So far in the book, Bergland is emphasizing the theory of evolution as a confirmation of the relatedness of organisms, which accords with Dickinson's view in her poems. However, Bergland seems to be downplaying the actual process of natural selection, which can be quite grim. On the other hand, Bergland does a good job explaining how neither Darwin nor Dickinson were anthropocentric in their views of nature. Neither of them seem to have adopted the rigid, ideological tree that I mentioned before, which presents a developmental hierarchy with Homo sapiens at the top.

Even so, I think that Bergland is stretching things a little by emphasizing the similarities between Dickinson and Darwin. Dickinson's poems tend to interweave elements of the personal with elements of the natural world and the mystical. Darwin's work is specifically scientific and attempts to develop biological theories from the observations that he made. Bergland dutifully reports that it was Darwin who first discovered carnivorous plants, and that he spent years studying them. For all of her enjoyment of plants and natural phenomena, Dickinson's projects had little to do with scientific knowledge. Darwin's projects involved more than scientific discovery in the sense that he carefully calculated how to present his ideas in an environment in which he knew that some of his colleagues would be hostile because of their religious implications – he did in fact lose several friends. However, Darwin had a soft side, and at times he seems to have been almost paralyzed by the enormity of his findings. To this day, I don't think that many people can face them straight on.

It may not be Bergland's fault, because there doesn't seem to be much information available, but so far in the book I haven't developed much of a sense of how people who knew Dickinson perceived her. Her family life seems to have been satisfactory, though it was clearly patriarchal. Obviously, Emily was extremely introverted, and her mother and Lavinia may also have been. Emily developed a close friendship with Susan Gilbert, who read some of her poems and offered advice. But, after, Susan married her brother and lived next door, the relationship seemed to decline. Austin and Susan had large parties, which Emily avoided. There is also speculation in this book and elsewhere about Emily's sexuality. There don't seem to be clear answers, though several of her poems seem to be of a sexual nature.

I should finish this book within two more posts. Although it is entertaining to see Dickinson within the context of scientific progress during the nineteenth century, I prefer to see her as a talented artist who developed her craft in privacy and to very high standards. To some extent, this makes her immediate social environment, which seems a little insipid, of somewhat lesser importance than Bergland suggests. Dickinson seems to me a lot more like Vivian Maier, who developed very high proficiency as a street photographer completely in private, than Charles Darwin, who had few discernible artistic tendencies.

Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science III

I've reached the halfway point in the book and am enjoying it, but am mainly reading it in bed at night for a few minutes at a time. Not much space is devoted to Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle, which was a major transformative experience in his life. Through the captain, Robert FitzRoy, and his reading of Charles Lyell on the voyage, he changed his focus from biology to geology. When he returned to England, Darwin became a close friend of Lyell, who helped him launch his career – as a geologist. Bergland does describe Charles's brother, Erasmus, a little and suggests that he may have been gay. Erasmus was a close friend of Harriet Martineau, the most prominent female intellectual in England at the time, and notes that Charles also knew her and spoke to her. Darwin himself hardly ever mentioned Martineau, and I think the same occurred with George Eliot. It is a little difficult to sort out Darwin's attitude toward women: on the one hand, one might say that he was a complete sexist who thought that the ideas of women had no scientific importance, but, on the other hand, especially for an introvert, he was extremely socially aware and didn't want to make public statements that linked him to specific women who were not members of his family.

Following the voyage, Darwin married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, after a completely lackluster courtship, during which she didn't think that he was interested in her. Bergland doesn't mention that he had a potential love interest before the voyage that had evaporated. While Janet Browne isn't particularly sanguine about the marriage, Bergland thinks that it worked very well. As a couple, they had identical social backgrounds, so they were operating on the same model. They each knew their predefined roles and stuck to them. I found this interesting, because it may be an example of a pre-feminism marriage that worked well for both the husband and the wife. Their personality differences seemed to complement each other. While he was highly introverted and disliked most social events and public speaking, she was highly extroverted and socialized a lot. With frequent visits from family members and several children of her own, Emma's social needs seem to have been satisfied. Of course, it helped that they were rich and had several servants. I should also note that, in those days, before radio, films, TV, computers, smartphones and social media, married couples often read books out loud together for entertainment, and this probably added a stability to their relationships. Darwin may have been slightly dismissive of women as thinkers, and Emma thought that he was a hypochondriac – though he may have picked up some very unhealthy microbes on his voyage. They both enjoyed their children a lot, and Darwin liked to compare them to orangutans. I doubt that Emma would ever have wanted to be a business executive or a professional athlete. Bergland makes a strained attempt to show a connection between Darwin and Amherst by saying that Harriet Martineau met the geologist, Edward Hitchcock, in Amherst, and Charles Lyell and Darwin corresponded with him.

The details of Dickinson's development are sparse compared to those of Darwin. Like her mother, also named Emily, she was a very good student across all subjects. However, as an adult, her mother spent more time on housework than on reading. Her father, Edward, tried to control which novels his children read, and the household doesn't seem to have been particularly open to new ideas or perspectives. After finishing at Amherst Academy, Emily studied for a year at Mount Holyoke, which was then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, about ten miles from Amherst. Though the word "seminary" at the time did not imply any religious training, the students were ranked according to their religious standing. The highest rank consisted of members of the orthodox Congregationalist Church. The next rank consisted of those who aspired to become members, and the bottom rank consisted of those who had "no hope" of joining the church: they were called "impenitents." Dickinson became an "impenitent," it seems, based on whatever she said, after careful consideration of her religious views at the time. She stayed at Mount Holyoke for only a year. It isn't entirely clear to me why she left. Her academic performance had been good. Apparently, besides disliking the religious pressure, she felt herself to be on par with the faculty, which, in those days, consisted of people with no college training. She gradually stopped going to church, though the rest of her family continued to go. This is not to say that she wasn't religious: it is evident in many of her poems that she had strong religious sentiments, but that she didn't want to submit to religious orthodoxy simply to conform with those around her. You might say that she wanted to divine the divine on her own.