Emily Dickinson: Excess of Monkey!

Emily Dickinson, in a letter to her brother, describing their father's reaction to a recital by Jenny Lind in Northampton, Massachusetts:

'Father sat all the evening looking mad, and silly, and yet so much amused you would have died a laughing--when the performers bowed, he said "Good evening Sir"--and when they retired, "very well--that will do," it was'nt sarcasm exactly, nor it was'nt disdain, it was infinitely funnier than either of those virtues, as if old Abraham had come to see the show, and thought it was all very well, but a little excess of Monkey!'



Not that there's anything wrong with that...