Page:The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924).pdf/128

96 bush "afire with God," and each revelation of twilight and dawn or starry sky as spread forth by the Eternal. Each personality had a dignity that lent it awe to her. She was respectful to every mortal as to every worm that crawls. She could mock or epigramize the mean or outrageous, but never inflict a false or wounding touch or thought upon a sincere and unspoiled nature.

Toward her family and her daily circle, servants, friends, chance comers, she was the spirit of loveliness incarnate. "Whatever it is, Emily will get it for you!" she vowed dramatically to her weeping children adorers, who fled to her in dismay in any incredible panic. The fruit of her religion was incessant sweet ministration; she was incarnate devotion, service; wanting nothing for herself except to give to some one else.

There must have been the most lofty, holy inspiration, indeed, to perfect such fragrant living. Like Saint Francis, she might have preached to the birds, and included not only "Sister Lark," but Bumble Bee, in her sermon. And when the immortal in her friends began, and when she approached death and the mystery of the superhuman, who shall attempt to follow her except by repetition of her own words, those phrases she brought back from her perpetual adorations of the Unknown, from her adventures in the dark ways of thought and spirit? She may not have had a consciously phrased conviction, such as her family called "creed"; she may not have connected the old First Church with what she called her "Father's House"; she certainly never considered God her judge or her enemy; but her faith was that of one who has never ceased to be a mortal. She was a part of God, and God was in her so truly that no