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DUNBAR: AN INTIMATE GLIMPSE
YOUNG

"My lady-love lives far away, and oh my heart is sad by day... Who loves in silence loves the best.
But bide thy time, she will awake,
No night so dark but morn will break."

The matter of the photograph exchange continued into March of 1896 when Dunbar wrote from Indianapolis: "Your letter and photograph have been forwarded to me here and brought a great deal of pleasure to me" but just when he completed his part of the exchange I have not yet determined from the letters and papers!  Their correspondence continued with a regularity that even this outburst did not interrupt:

Dayton, Ohio, October 13th '95
Dear Miss Moore:
While I do not wish to apologize for what I am about to write, I do think it needs an explanation, that is if the spontaneity of emotion can be explained.

I am sitting here with your picture before me and my heart is throbbing faster than my pen goes. [This was the picture sent to the Indianapolis WORLD as a loan] I have kept your picture this long because I could not bear to part with it.  It seemed to me your other self and I was better for its presence.  I am afraid that you will think that I am foolish when I say that this counterfeit presentment of yourself has kept me from yielding to temptations.  You cannot, and yet I believe you can understand my impulsive nature.  But you [italicized]will [/italicized] not understand when I tell you that I love you and have loved you since the first time that I saw your picture and ready your story.

I know it seems foolish and you will laugh perhaps, or perhaps grow angry; but I can explain in one sentence; You were the sudden realization of my ideal!  Isn't there some hope from me?  I wish you could read my heart.  I love you.  I love you.  You bring out all the best in me.  You are an inspiration to me.  I am better and purer for having touched hands with you all these miles.

Think of it, Alice-let me call you that just time-before I had even written to you, you were the heroine of one of

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-19 20:46:51