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FREEDOMWAYS        FOURTH QUARTER 1972

Won't I take Edwards' offer though!  Hell, if we don't fall out in a a short time ( and we are likely to) I shall be in the East before long, but not so long as July, but if we do meet then we will teach the effete East a thing or two.


...About that picture-oh yes- well it's coming and coming soon, though you must wait till I have one made.  Do you want it with a full beard or smooth face?  Careless or sedate expression?  With spectacles or without?  Please specify.  But you really shall have it, dear little friend, and soon.

No, don't drop your middle name, it is too cute but you might dispense with your last name and as a substitute what is the matter with
                              Dunbar?

The far-flung travels, the many recitals and lectures and the concomitant feting and entertainment were taking their toll of Dunbar's health if not his spirit.  From Toledo, in April, he wrote, "I am quite ill just now but will write you at greater length when I am well enough to wield the pen."  And again, in September, "I am worked to death and totally tired out physically and mentally.  I came home with the intention of resting but am as busy as ever trying to fill a couple of orders for the N.Y. Independent and Mr. Bok of the Ladies' Home Journal with promise of a novel for D. Appleton & Co. (a novel which I fear will never be written.)  How would you like to collaborate?"
Meanwhile his incredible literary output was incresing-stories, novels and his poems-even as the years were rushing toward his release as "a caged bird."*  A lighter mood is found in this letter to:
   My dear Alice: When your letter came this 
   morning I had just
   sat down to answer one from Mr. Howells.  
   But after reading your words 
   Howells and all his tribe were forgotten and  
   I immediately changed my paper and penned 
   this note to you.
                           Yours sincerely,
                             Paul

Dayton, Sept. 19th, 1896
A letter from his beloved wife seems fitting at this juncture:
*from his poem, "Sympathy"
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