A 802: etext transcription

A 802, by itself an extrageneric fragment or pensée, has links to three documents: it is a variant version of a rough-copy fragment possibly composed around 1885 (THJ)(A 809); a draft and variant version of a message composed late summer 1885 (THJ) and possibly sent to Sara Philips Colton Gillett (Oresman); and a trace (text altered) in a letter sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (BPL Higg 116) in early August 1885 (THJ). The message to Higginson registers Dickinson's shock at the news of Helen Hunt Jackson's death; the provenance of the note to Gillett, if indeed it was addressed to her, is not known. Thomas Johnson conjectures that the Oresman manuscript was not addressed to Gillett but presented to her by the unknown recipient as a memento.