The loss of an Estate —
Because Estates can be
Replenished — faith cannot —
Inherited with Life —
Belief — but once — can be —
Annihilate a single clause —
And Being's — Beggary —
Fr632 (1863) J377
Dickinson wrote quite a few poems that reveal her struggles with the Calvinist Christianity she grew up with. This poem makes it clear that the stakes of such struggles are high – in fact, the 'Beggary' of one's Being. Dickinson makes her argument by comparing faith to an estate. Both are inherited, but while someone can sell off part or all of an estate and potentially get it back, any diminution of faith's estate forfeits the entirety of it. Dickinson's remarkable claim is that faith is indivisible and can never be restored.
The poem has a legal tone. Faith is 'Inherited with Life', knitted together with clauses that if independently annihilated unravel its entire fabric. This legalistic tone reflects both the lawyerly speech Emily Dickinson, daughter of a lawyer, would have grown up on, as well as the covenant theology underpinning not only Calvinism itself but also its influence on civic and civil structures.
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| Dickinson Homestead -- lost but regained |
But how believable is it, really, when Dickinson says that faith can not be replenished, that even the loss of 'a single clause' can cause impoverishment? Can't our faith grow in a larger sense even while shrinking from some aspects of our original familial faith? In fact Dickinson herself struggles with aspects of belief from poem to poem**. And in the end, can't people come back to faith – embrace the religion they grew up with?
It may be that the poet is aiming at something larger than the constricting Calvinism of Victorian New England. Her underlying concern may be that life, that physical reality, has a purpose, that it springs from an underlying intent. Or that death does not terminate existence, that there is some sort of continuation other than the coldness of the grave. Once belief in such is lost, what possibly can be left to faith other than it behooves us to live each moment to the best of our abilities? I can't imagine that thought comforting Dickinson in her religion-drenched environs and who thought deeply about a god who is (sometimes) everywhere and (sometimes) nowhere – and how one knows the difference.
*Sewell, The Life of Emily dickinson, p.28-29: "In his all but fanatical work in the founding of Amherst College, Dickinson ruined his health and his fortune, sold the Homestead, and left Amherst when Emily was two." More information is available at the ever-useful Emily Dickinson Museum.
** Just a very few examples include:
- "My period had come for Prayer" (Fr525) where Dickinson depicts an impersonal, incorporeal, but perhaps omnipresent God
- "Faith is a fine invention" (Fr202) where Dickinson seems to argue that faith alone is not sufficient
- "Of Course – I prayed –" (Fr581) where God is depicted as unresponsive to prayer.
- "This World is not Conclusion" (Fr373) where "Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul –"
"Safe in their alabaster chambers –" (Fr124) where the dead do not rise and seem very dead indeed
- "He strained my faith –" (FR366) where it is God who tests the faith of believers