In letter #342a, Higginson writes to his wife about meeting Dickinson. Something that really stuck out to me in this letter was his description of meeting Dickinson in person for the first time; he describes her as very meek, saying that she seemed frightened and childlike. This feels like the complete opposite of the Dickinson that we see presented in her letters. Obviously, this description of meeting her shouldn’t be too surprising as we know that she rarely sees new people, but the difference between the self-assured confidence she exudes in her letters and her poetry compared to the shyness that she shows in-person felt very drastic.