Page:The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924).pdf/96

68 made them incredible presents of coral and mosaics and those cameos so coveted by that generation, when she made her rare visits upon them. The Hollands were intimates of the entire family, and until the death of Dr. Holland in 1881 the families visited back and forth familiarly, Emily going to them after she had ceased to accept invitations even from her own cousins in Boston. Dr. Josiah Gilbert Holland was one of the founders of "Scribner's Magazine" in 1870 and became one of its editors; leaving Springfield, where he had been engaged on the "Republican" for many years, to live in New York. At his home, "Bonnicastle," named from the hero of his first novel, his friends were constantly entertained and a sorry gap in the lives of the entire Dickinson family was made by the change. Dr. Holland—who afterward came to be widely known as J. G. Holland—made a valuable contribution to local American history in his two-volume "History of Western Massachusetts." He also wrote a number of novels, "Arthur Bonnicastle," "The Bay Path"—a colonial tale, one of his first—followed by the "Titcomb Letters," "Nicholas Minturn," "Sevenoaks," etc., and several volumes of poems, of which "Bitter-sweet," "Kathrina," and "The Mistress of the Manse" were those most popular. After his work called him to New York to live, he often returned to the Dickinson home for rest and refreshment and inspiration. Richard Watson Gilder, later editor of the "Century Magazine," remembered being taken there by him, as a lad, but "did not see Miss Emily," a fact he bewailed in later years.

Judge Otis P. Lord, of Salem, was her father's friend, but into his childless heart of rigorous justice Emily