Kelly in Kansas

I was reading the latest Chronicle that showed up in my mailbox. In reading the Observer column, That Side of Paradise, by Thomas Washington, I wanted to share his final paragraph.

While I contemplate, from my chair at the library reference desk, the other side of paradise (however delusional) inside the university walls, maybe I need to follow the example of Emily Dickinson, who left Mount Holyoke after just one year. Reclusive yet alive with imagination - she wrote poems on the back of candy bar wrappers - she created lifelong bliss within the confines of her own homestead in Amherst, Mass., just beyond the college gates.

Labels: academic life, Chronicle, Emily Dickinson, ivory tower