on honest feedback

Mr. Higginson,-Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?
The mind is so near itself it cannot see distinctly and I have none to ask.
Should you think it breathed, and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude.
If I make the mistake, that you dared to tell me would give me sincerer honor toward you.
I enclose my name, asking you, if you please, sir, to tell me what is true?
That you will not betray me it is needless to ask, since honor is its own pawn.

-------
Emily Dickinson to Thomas Higginson, 1862

all day.

Central Ave. 2007

Patience and Kindness: the Sequel

My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered the interruptions were my work.
-Henri Nouwen

on (im)patience. on kindness.

If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path.
-Mary Webb

you know it would