The "Master" Letters
Reverend Charles Wadsworth
1814 - 1882
Mention the subject of American poetry along with
the Wadsworth name and most people would immediately think of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow was arguably one of the most
popular literary figures of his time and his works helped define the
American experience in the early to mid 19th century. But he
was not the only Wadsworth that was influential in 19th
century American poetry. There is a lesser known, and somewhat
mysterious connection between Charles Wadsworth, a charismatic
Presbyterian minister, and Emily Dickinson, the reclusive and enigmatic
poet of Amhurst, Massachusetts.
The Reverend Charles Wadsworth, was the pastor of the Presbyterian
church in Philadelphia from 1850 to 1862. It was during this period that
he met Dickinson, who was on a rare trip to Philadelphia in 1855,
presumably to seek treatment for an eye problem. Wadsworth, who was to
become Emily’s "dearest earthly friend", was a romantic
figure that Emily could confide in when writing her poetry. Most
importantly, it is widely believed that Emily had a great love for this
Reverend from Philadelphia even though he was married. Many of
Dickinson's critics believe that Wadsworth was the focal point of
Emily's love poems.
Charles Wadsworth was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on May 8th,
1814. After graduation at Union college in 1837 he served as pastor of
the 2nd Presbyterian church in Troy, New York, from 1842 to 1850; of the
Arch street Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, from 1850 to 1862; of a
Presbyterian church in San Francisco from 1862 to 1869; of the 3d
Reformed Dutch church, Philadelphia, from 1869 to 1873; of the Clinton
Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1873 to 1879; and of the
Clinton Street Immanuel Church in Philadelphia from 1879 to 1882. The
University of the city of New York awarded him the degree of D.D. in
1857. Wadsworth died in Philadelphia on April 1, 1882.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in the quiet
community of Amherst, Massachusetts, the second daughter of Edward and
Emily Norcross Dickinson. The Dickinson family was prominent in Amherst.
In fact, Emily's grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, was one of the
founders of Amherst College, and her father served as lawyer and
treasurer for the institution. Emily's father also served in powerful
positions on the General Court of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts State
Senate, and the United States House of Representatives.
Unlike her father, Emily did not enjoy the popularity and excitement
of public life in Amherst, and she began to withdraw, wearing all white
clothing and spending all of her time in her room. But embedded in the
life and work of the poet is the identity of a man to whom she wrote
three passionate letters. The “Master” letters are actually drafts,
written when Dickinson was about 30. Her sister, Lavinia, discovered
them after her death at age 55. The poet had stored them with other
correspondence and nearly 2,000 unpublished poems in a bedroom chest in
the Dickinson home.
Dickinson’s biographer, the late Richard Sewall, called the letters
“extraordinary human documents, at once baffling and breathtaking.”
He believed they show us the poet at “a crucial point in her life,”
when she had just been through a crisis – “probably a love crisis.”
Emily Dickinson was in love. And, as the letters suggest, in love with a
married man who lived outside New England.
Over the years, scholars have proposed several candidates for the man
she referred to as “Master”. The most popular have been the Reverend
Charles Wadsworth, and Samuel Bowles, the editor of a Springfield
newspaper. It was Bowles' newspaper that printed a small number of
Dickinson’s poems. The only ones published during her lifetime.
But historian Ruth Owen Jones has proposed a different person as
Dickinson’s “Master". The evidence Jones has uncovered makes a
strong case for Professor William Smith Clark as the poet’s “muse
and audience from 1857 until 1865.” Jones believes Dickinson wrote
hundreds of poems for him, including those she hand-stitched into little
booklets, known as fascicles. Further, Jones believes that Dickinson’s
love for Clark “explains most of her reclusive behavior, much about
her poetry and letters, and why her work remained largely unpublished
until after her death.”
A contemporary historian wrote that Clark (1826-1886) was “personally
and socially attractive, a brilliant talker, a good listener … the
life of the social circle, the faculty meeting, the gathering at the
corner of the streets, the legislative hall or the popular assembly.”
Clark was a founder and the first sitting president of Massachusetts
Agricultural College, now the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Clark was also the first Amherst College graduate to earn a Ph.D., and
in 1852, was hired to teach botany, zoology and chemistry. Clark’s
expertise in botany, in fact, became a crucial discovery in linking
Clark to Dickinson.
Jones first began to suspect that Clark might be the Master when she
was doing research for a book about Dickinson’s flower poems.
Dickinson often used scientific language in writing about flowers and
had studied botany at Mount Holyoke. The Clark home, which had a
well-stocked greenhouse with exotic plants from all over the world, was
very near the Dickinson home. Jones even speculates that Clark may have
passed by Emily’s home on his way to the College each day. Emily may
have even audited some of Clark’s classes at Amherst College.
Much of the language of the Master letters was about flowers. Jones
writes: “The recipient clearly was knowledgeable in the field. In the
Master letters Emily was his Daisy; she had sent him flowers, and he
asked her what they meant. She wrote love poems with erotic undertones:
‘Did the harebell loose her girdle/To the lover Bee.’”
Jones suspects that Dickinson’s love interest was found out.
Knowing that a woman in love with a married man would suffer rebuke in
pious Amherst, may have caused Dickinson to withdraw from the social
world. “People have thought Emily was a nutty recluse. If the Master
was Clark, then she seems more sane, more rational, more in charge of
her life.” By dropping out, Dickinson avoided the public humiliation
of her family as well as the potential personal ignominy that would come
with being an unmarried daughter of the town’s leading citizen.
We may never know the identity of the Master. Was it Reverend Charles
Wadsworth or Samuel Bowles the newspaper editor? Or is Jones correct in
believing it may have been Professor William Clark? One thing is
certain, the mystery of Emily Dickinson’s “Master” may be one of
the most intriguing leaves on the Wadsworth Family tree.
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