Lamenting the Lost Emilys.

I very much like what the literary critic TW Higginson said about his meeting with the poet Emily Dickinson:

He said that he never was “with anyone who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her.”

There are a very, very small number of people, past and present, with whom I feel any sense of connection. The list now includes two Emilys, and they’re both long gone.