A 867: etext transcription

The type and number of texts inscribed across the body of this manuscript, as well as the relations among them, are ambiguous. The lines "a similar mirage | of thought - | Bottle | Slip -" may be increments of a single text, or they may be discrete fragments unrelated to each other as well as to the longer fragment-pensée that follows; alternatively, these isolated words and phrases may be the beginning of the longer text, "Nothing is so res - | onant with | mystery. . ." The consistency of the handwriting across the manuscript's surface at least suggests that the passages were all jotted down in the same scene of writing. All, moreover, beg an interpretation of absence—whether of the "mirage | of thought -" or of the vanished other ("friend"; "one"). As Dickinson composed, she also revised, canceling words and passages, substituting others, and setting down unresolved variants. A 867a constitutes a scene of revision: here Dickinson composed three trial variants for the final canceled passage on A 867. Each time she composed a new variant Dickinson rotated the paper one-quarter turn; the repetition of the variant passages may indicate that Dickinson was experiencing a brief compositional block, that she could not move beyond the lines, and so continued to retrace them until the act of retracing led her beyond the impasse.