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Thank you Connie for the information regarding Mary Lyon. I took your
advice and searched the early letters -- what fun to read Emily in her
teens!
I thought Emily's letters to Abiah Root were especially revealing. In
one she said, in a very joking tone, that she figured she must be Eve,
ince Eve's death was never recorded in the Bible. It seems Emily
thought it curious that some took a strict literal interpretation of the
scriptures. I thing the leap of faith that many of her friends took
during these school years, was to Emily a leap of ignorance, and while at
times she spoke almost longingly of their conversions, she plainly stated
that she could not do the same.
Mary Lyon must had heaped a large dose of punishment oriented theology on
the girls, for Emily had it in her head that were she to convert she
would have to "give up the world". Direct examples of how this all
worked are still rare to me, but ML did, I learned, forbid the girls to
send those "foolish notes called Valentines" (an example of a worldly
delight that Emily found charming)--and even conducted an investigation
at the school to ascertain who had sent them.
Emily must have been a puzzle to ML--she seems to have aced her exams and
been an exceptional student, though somewhat frail physically. Emily saw
her education at Holyoke as an opportunity to learn and engage her
curious mind, but as she said in several letters, "I find no Rose without
a Thorn". Emily did write in May of 1848, to Abiah Root, "Father has
decided not to send me to Holyoke another year". I wonder if that was
standard procedure? Did the fathers frequently make such decisions during
the mid 1800's and how rare was it that a girl would stay for only a
year?
I also wonder if Mary Lyon put the questions about conversion to Emily in
a very direct way or if she interviewed Emily's family and friends?
Debbie
_
Dr. Marcy Tanter
Department of English and Languages
Box T-0300
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX 76401
phone/voicemail: 254 968-9892
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's [sic]
most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people
who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of
the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce."
--Thomas Jefferson, rough draft of The Declaration of Independence, 1776
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