Emily Dickinson's House in Amherst, MA | Bookish Travels

[Music] I've been reading the palms of Emily Dickinson because look at where we are this is Emily Dickinson's house let's go check it up why hello there friends Emma here the bookish princess today today I'm posting this video is December 10th and December 10th is the poet Emily Dickinson's birthday if you've been around my channel for a while you'll know that whenever I can I love to celebrate authors birthdays with a bookish travel vlog and that is what I have for you guys today earlier this fall my cousin Becky and I visited Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst Massachusetts it was the perfect day for it was so much fun to wander around the house they're actually two houses the homestead where emily lived with her parents and her sister Lavinia and then her brother Austin's house next door I feel like Emily Dickinson sometimes to get a bad rap like people think of her poems and they think they're very strange they think they're very dark about death and kind of gloomy kind of a goth poet but she has so many poems and so many of them are so bright and beautiful and hopeful it was so cool to visit her house and hear all these interesting stories about her life fun little things like when there were parties next door at Austin and Sue's house Emily would sometimes let down a basket with all sorts of baked goods for the kids from her house apparently she was an amazing Baker I actually bought from the gift shop you'll see there's a little cookbook Emily Dickinson as Baker so I'm excited to try some of those recipes without further ado let's head to Emily Dickinson's house Wow look at that little cupola it's like a widow's walk isn't that what they got I think the entrance is this way this office should always stay in a jar but the George abortion [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I have this on my purse I am less at home to it these are so cool to metal fragments unlike the ends of envelopes okay I think I'm gonna get one of these they're kinda awesome [Music] they're trying to rebuild the library here and rebuild it with the same editions that Emily would have read herself here's the whole cast of characters her sister Lavinia her brother Austin sister-in-law yeah you might not have Emily Dickinson not so maybe we missed Todd because she published the first volume of poems in the 1890s this is a lady whose book I read Millicent she had to turn the like lever to the to the letter and then push it down and it wouldn't you have to have it it's the second rubber sheet sort of you had to have a sheet on it underneath and then it would stamp mabel process transcribe them oh my gosh there's yeah it must have taken forever reading Millicent because Millicent was growing up as her mother was working on this and she would help sometimes and but oh my gosh it must have just taken absolute hours and hours oh dear Martha was a writer too and it says that she said she was well on her way to becoming an author when she was forced to become a nice so she had to work on her aunt's stuff instead of her own [Music] there is Emily's house right there and this is her brother's house Austin's house apparently when Austin got married too soon they were thinking of moving up West and the dad mr. Dickinson Emily's father did not want that to happen so he he offered to build of a house and they got to furnish it no pellets Emily's house so much better than Austin in seize it was so much brighter and lighter olho colder because they went they had central heating and running water when they bill Austin 7 so that's pretty incredible Emily's but what a lovely day for it it's so perfect and polished and autumnal it's so cool to like imagine Emily walking in those houses look at that beautiful view of the hills and all of these gorgeous trees and this house all the windows yeah if I lived in this house if I lived in this house I think I would have been willing to become erect listings because it's just so beautiful and apparently she was a gardener an avid gardener and an avid Baker so I think we're walking right down right now to where one of her gardens was so even though she was a recluse and it was when she was in her thirties that she decided she just didn't want to go into society as much Ian want to go to parties but she'd still leave her house like she'd go her Watsons and working her garden and and she was obviously you know leaving treats for the kids she said that they wrote that she wrote a note to her nephew saying that that pie you stole yesterday here's its brother that was so sweet yeah when I was in high school I feel like the only poem and by Emily Dickinson where we read was the ass deaths shall not wait for me like it was one of the death ones if they tell you oh she was a recluse she wore white all the time she's kind of crazy lady which I'm sure she was a little crazy but in a good way and so many of his poems are like so hopeful and bright and like beautiful they're not all about death and gloom and doom which I feel like can sometime be the sort of perception of her but like the they read one of my favorite poems in there we I dwell in possibility a fairer house than prose more numerous of windows superior for doors he sure um lived in a house numerous of windows and superior four doors in fact that poem goes on of chambers like the Cedars and for an everlasting roof The Gables of the sky or the Gambrills of the sky because of course she would always have multiple options for words in her poems like she would even Jack them down like like oh I could go with this word or I could go with that word so many of the houses around here has such fun little like Gables or Gambrills that you can kind of tell what inspired the poem she really was incredible too because she was the first one to write poetry like that like she lived in the Victorian era poetry of her time was very structured like rhyming and and but her as little is like not structured at all or structured to her own sort of internal internal rhythm that they were telling us that there is a class at Amherst College that meets here which is so cool like they get to meet in the house that is awesome it was so cool to hear about her family to her mom was the daughter of a person who founded a school and then her dad his dad found at Amherst College she was very well educated and super smart she's so cool to visit magnificent always climbing this for anyway look at how humongous ELISA oh my gosh umbrella Magnolia so we're wandering around the garden now you can get you can pick up this free outdoor tour I think you can also download it online somehow but if you do the tour inside then you can borrow these for free there's the house up there so she would have come out here worked on her garden apparently later in her life she had trouble with her eyes and had to get like eye surgery and so our tour guide our guy was so good there's so much interesting information um they were saying that that might have been part of why she became a recluse that when she came back from that eye surgery she actually wrote her sister Lavinia and asked her to pick her up at a station train station that was like miles away from home and to come alone and and they were saying that she had to garden early in the morning like at sunrise and sunset or I think they said she might come out in garden by like the light of the full moon her poems are so full of like appreciation for the beauty of things and and to be losing your eyesight that is a problem about it that they read I love that they read different poems throughout the tour it was so cool so she would wear white I guess for the second part of her life and her dress they have one dress of hers and it was so beautiful it was like a wrapper but it wasn't at all plain wasn't it lovely it was like so many pleats and lace so beautiful you weren't allowed to take any pictures inside and it came up on Google oh so there is a picture yeah perfect I'll put it in here that's nice because if you want to refer to it later like the wallpaper in her room apparently they um apparently when they were restoring the house they found the tiny fragment of wallpaper like the original wallpaper so they kind of recreated it from that and it was absolutely beautiful I understand when they don't want you to take photos and videos on toys because they want you to focus on what they're saying and focus on the house and not just be on your phone or whatever but I wish they would like have like maybe do the talk and then like have like maybe just a couple minutes as you're like moving from one room to another and say okay you can take a couple of pictures cuz it would be nice to have more like video clips to intersperse there was some photographer in the house today obviously a professional maybe they're taking pictures for the website or doing a tour or something we have this big fancy lens yessuh sadly no footage from inside either house they do have both houses apparently these museums have not been around for long she said they've only been here for about 14 years so a bunch of the furniture with DoDEA to Harvard because I guess the family or someone at one point needs to raise money so they sold the furniture and Harvard got furniture but Harvard has not lent it back to them which they're hoping like because the museum is still fairly young that hopefully is here so my heart for Harvard will loan them some stuff that it can return to its original home how lovely is this just like strolling up - it's so beautiful this enormous tree oh my gosh it's just huge what are you learning from the audio teri so remember the evergreens was named after a bunch of evergreens that Austin planted but they were all knocked down in a hurricane yeah a hundred trees on the Dames that property came down oh oh wow so it must have even been more of a forest yeah when Emily Dickinson was here I wonder if she found it hard to grow the plants because obviously at super-shady its kind of hard to get things to grow they'd say like there's a whole meadow over there oh you're right there were no houses else over there and there's her conservatory right there they must have had to build that back on because they said that at one point after all the Dickinson's had died you know out long after Emily Dickinson had died that another family bought it yeah and tore down the conservatory but I think that and used the windows to fill the garage and you sewage but there were that many windows her grandfather I guess had a big her grandfather invested so much money into Amherst College because he was one of the founders of Ambrose College that he himself went bankrupt and then they had to sell this house and she was ten years old they said for when she was from when she was ten to twenty five they lived somewhere else but then her father really wanted to buy the house back saved up was able to buy it back this able to buy a bill his son the house next door so Emily Dickinson's letters are what made me first fall in love with Emily Dickinson because her poetry is difficult to come out at first but when I read her letters like it was just a little bit easier and yet still had her clever voice witty voice she was such a funny warm interesting person so many of these letters they feel like their letters to you she just really cares about the person she's writing to and expresses herself so interestingly wow that's quite a house fair to cross the street there was a class meeting I think could have faked it joined in but we're gonna have our own little Emily Dickinson session so this is the evergreens yeah there aren't any more evergreens because they were all knocked down this was Austin and Sue's house which Emily Dickinson would have stopped coming to eventually because Sue was a very heavy entertainer and would have lavish parties did you see that menu they had a menu and they had on the menu was like ice cream and it was ice cream cake in the shape of a foot in the shape of a heart with her oh was it frozen oh my gosh I which if Emily didn't really want to you know have to interact the society anymore she would kind of have to avoid this house although she still would see them all at her house before rush across the place look this man I think is good for this time of year like mighty foot lights burned the red a basis of the trees the fire theatricals of day exhibiting to these it was universe that did applaud while chiefess chiefest of the crowd enabled by his royal dress myself distinguished God so you think that would be burned the red at the basis of the trees would be a falling leaves maybe yeah so I first read about sort of the history of these two houses and Emily's family in ancestors brocade which is by Millicent Todd them and that just talks about how me will publish the post and how she worked so hard to get them out and how they had this great reception and and in your she admits that her mom I guess kind of edited the poems along with this Higginson guy so that it would fit like people's expectations a little bit more because the poems are but I think Millicent does a good job of explaining like that that first publication kind of got people ready for the real poems like and it got people interested in and made the story of Emily's poems continue but gosh Emily's life is so interesting isn't that like you think about most people try to most people want Fame and for its enduring their life they want recognition like if they're writing something they want it to be published whereas Emily's poems were never published during her life and she only got recognition well after it but she still I think lived a full life and obviously though her poems are so beautiful and full of meaning in an insight and I just love the way so that is the parlor those behind those four windows and that lovely porch it's just so sunny and beautiful in there and then her bedroom are those windows right up there and she must have had this gorgeous view because all of that would have been just open fields and she could have watched the activity actually at the Evergreen scene the party guests arriving seen all the traffic on the street they called me to the window for 12 cents someone said I only saw a sapphire farm and just a single heard of cattle eating fara promises and even while I looked dissolved no cattle were nor soil but in there instead a see displayed and ships of such a size as crew of mountains could afford and decks to see the skies this to the Stroman rubbed away and when I looked again no farm nor opal herd was there nor Mediterranean Sea so when she looked out of her window she saw all of that that's not your turn let the wind Emily will guide the guide the page although this is such a heavy volume it's not oh hey look I am what are those from oh I used to try I often will try to memorize poems and it's all sometimes write them on post nose and stick them in my pocket a quietness distilled as twilight long begun candor my tepid friend come not to play with me the MERS and mochas of the mind are its iniquity the past is such a curious creature to look her in the face a transport may recede us or a discreet unarmed if any neighbor I charge him flies have faded ammunition might yet reply her faded ammunition might yet reply so the past can make you sad even if you've thought of it even if it's been a long time when you remember something it makes me think of you know and you remember something embarrassing and you still feel embarrassed still had some way to put a quarter in to our later there is no parking lot but there are parking places all along this street um so it's kind of nice so look at that it was Emily Dickinson she gave us an extra 15 minutes to sit underneath her beautiful trees and read some of her beautiful words go traveling with us her travels daily be by roots of ecstasy two evenings see I'm traveling with us that should be my new life you know like your subtitle go traveling with us I love that one that that goes I'm nobody who are you are you nobody too it was my favorite that's on the shirt yeah I bought a little book of her Emily Dickinson poet and Baker was the name of it and it has the recipe I'm totally gonna try them yeah bake they had a milkman in there those had a little note in it about like this is what Emily would have used to make her black cake it's like pudding Oh let's go without thirty maybe it was burnt at the kitchen would have been at the back of the house there where we first walked in and where the gift shop is a leaf just fell in actually I'm gonna have leaves from Emily Dickinson's house in my Emily Dickinson thing I think she pressed flowers and things from her garden because I feel like pest bars were using for the Victorians and late making bookmarks and like yeah all sorts of crafts alone I cannot be to visit me record this company New Bethel key they have no robes and our names or almanacs in our climbs but general homes like gnomes they're coming may be known by couriers within there going is not where they're never gone hey we could be maybe we're part of the record that's company we're little we're little gnomes talking to us you know we're little knows we're talking to Emily Dickinson dude fool time if you were coming in the fall I brush the summer vibe with half a smile and half ass burn as housewives do if I could see you in a year I'd wind Munson balls and put them each in separate drawers until their time to fall if only centuries delayed I count them on my hand subtracting till my fingers dropped into Van Diemen's land if certain when this life was out that yours and mine should be I toss that younger like arrived and taste eternity but now I'll ignorant of the length of time it goats me like a goblin me that will not stay estate hmm could be either one since she changed besides the autumn poets sing a few prosaic days a little this side of the snow there's snow in the forecast this week and that side of the haze a few incisive warnings of us enemies gone mr. Brian's goldenrod and mr. Thompson's sheaves still as the bustle in the brook sealed are the spicy valve mesmeric fingers softly touched the eyes of many elves perhaps the squirrel may remain my sentiments to share Granby Oh Lord a sunny mind thy windy will to bear I love that grab me a sunny mind by windy will to bear what a great poem what a great prayer rather the morons are weaker than they were the nuts are getting brown the various cheek is plumper Rose is out of town the maple wears a gayer scarf the field of scarlet gown lest I should be old-fashioned I'll put a trinket since the fall colors are so bright she has to put on something to match the fall colors [Music] yes no any less any last thoughts we were just talking about how Emily Dickinson's house was not as well kept up because it wasn't in the family I wasn't in the family until it I was singing especially a Beatrix Potter sperm which we visited together and which was made into a trust like immediately a death so everything was Stalinist had been beautifully preserved everything off the possessions were there just the way she would have left it yeah we're this like the gardens are gone so they've tried replicated and like I don't know there's just a lot of restoration work that needs to be done yeah and they're pretty new into it like really haven't been it's just a lot for them to get it that's geriatric yeah Louisa May Alcott's House Orchard House was pretty good because it was passed on pretty quickly although we went to dub cottage which was a words right now in the Lake District and that was kind of like this because yeah it had a little more but yeah it had passed Hannah select items from different different places in it which I suppose makes sense because she was not I like it soon was not famous when she died so it's not no no not at all yeah and she she has no living relatives because none of the none of us was the last her niece he asked officiant Pavitra I enjoyed this so much I was so recommend coming and even if you don't know about either interesting I enjoyed it yeah I think they did a good job of like giving the background for people who aren't familiar with it but then giving like additional background if you are a little more familiar with it thank you guys for watching if you're interested in those videos of because I have the one for Beatriz powders house and we using Alcott's I make a playlist of all my author home there so you can check them out in the description thanks for watching look at this three minutes left what a win we timed it perfectly our second important destination that's so you can like see how they how it goes on Becky is an excellent I can only knit in different scarves although I feel inspired maybe I should try something more Wow oh my gosh all oh wow that's really pretty how hard do you think this is you're just you're still just knitting and also one of the stitches had been oh yes oh but I fixed it no I did it right I did it right we're good it's okay whoops stitch we're super getting this guy's just how beautiful these are like just the Hat I feel like could be a decoration or so biggest lovely new ones urine is just beautiful are these more kids should we pick one out [Music] oh here we go New England autumn wow that's lovely a shawl that's like pretty basic I think I can probably do that right so and that doesn't change us yeah it doesn't look like that complicated a garter stitch border or maybe know that I should have them I wish they had a skill level you know passionate relentless unapologetic color how pretty that is this makes me want to knit more so many buttons [Music] that is awesome [Music]

Channel: BookishPrincess

Views: 43,624

Keywords: emily dickinson, emily dickinson's house, emily dickinson museum, Amherst, Amherst Massachusetts, Webs Yarn Store

Id: _8X_bFUjfJ8

Length: 26min 57sec (1617 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018