“The Soul selects her own Society — / Then — shuts the Door — / To her divine Majority — / Present no more — / Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing — / At her low Gate —”

Dickinson's soul closes its door on the whole world and keeps one visitor, and readers have spent a century arguing whether the chosen one is a person, a calling or a god. What is certain is the argument she is making about intimacy: it is a narrowing, and the narrowing is the point.