Her life was lived—as every life is lived—not by Emily Dickinson, but by many Emily Dickinsons. Lavinia’s sister was different from Austin’s sister, different from Susan’s almost-lover, different from Higginson’s cracked correspondent, different from the woman who silently tended to the orchids in the glass chamber of her winter conservatory, different from the ghost who sent Mabel wine and verses from the bedroom above Beethoven. These are not costumes donned with artifice for different occasions—they are facets of a self, each illuminated when a particular beam hits at a particular angle. We
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