A 636: etext transcription

The inside of the seal carries a rough-copy draft of a message to Susan Dickinson composed around 1882 (THJ). The seal appears to act as a textual boundary, separating the message-fragment from the other, extrageneric fragments on the outside of the envelope: if the envelope were properly folded, the message-draft would disappear. The fragments inscribed on the outside of the envelope are so brief that, alone, they remain generically undecidable, sometimes appearing as exquisite lyric throes, sometimes only as random words and phrases. They reappear, however, as faint traces, in a rough- and a fair-copy draft of the poem beginning "Pompless | no Life | can pass | away -" ("No Life can | pompless pass | away -") and composed around 1882 (RWF) or 1884 (THJ); see A 332 and A 333. Dickinson may have jotted down the fragments on the envelope while working on the rough-copy draft. Dickinson's handwriting on the manuscript is faint, in places illegible, possibly because of erasures. The envelope face is addressed by Judge Otis P. Lord, in brown ink, to "Misses Emily and Vinnie Dickinson | Amherst | Mass," and postmarked Salem P.M. Dec. 11.