On October 21, 1897, Alice Ruth Moore in Brooklyn wrote an emotional letter to her fiancé Paul Laurence Dunbar in Washington, D. C. They had been engaged for more than eight months, but had no definite plans regarding their marriage. Though Paul often expressed his love for her, she felt uncertain about his affection. Alice grew even more worried after a friend was jilted by her intended husband.
Sometimes when I think you don't love me it makes me bluer than I am naturally -- then I weep little weeps all by myself and think how foolish I am to expect you to care for me. Funny thing happened here. A young lady living in Harlem was to have been married next Wednesday evening. We were all bidden to the wedding, 150 invitations out. I was at the house last Thursday, inspected trousseau and wedding dress, which was a dream, I selected present etc., etc. All trimmings. Now the wedding is off. A set of complications arose; man wrote girl letter declaring his intention not to marry her but commit suicide instead, and mysteriously disappeared. I'm real blue over it. You'd better not do me such a trick.
Alice Ruth Moore to Paul Laurence Dunbar, October 21, 1897. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
At the time, Paul was becoming one of the leading figures in American literature and Alice seemed to feel unworthy of his affection. She expressed her sense of inadequacy in an autobiographical story written years later. In this fictional account, she changed Paul's name to Gerald, but the details of their courtship were authentic.
I had met Gerald in a rather romantic fashion. He saw my picture in an amateur magazine, which published some of my verses, and a brief biographical sketch. He wrote me in my southern home, and I was thrilled to the very center of my being when the letter came. For Gerald Kennedy was the leading novelist of the moment. He had sprung into prominence from the middle west, and like Byron, he literally "awoke one morning and found himself famous." That he would condescend to notice the amateurish outpourings of a little small-town southern schoolgirl seemed incredible. I answered his letter, and a correspondence grew up, more or less clandestine. My mother had old-fashioned ideas about correspondence with strange men, and I did not take her entirely into my confidence as to the number and length of our letters. Nor of the ardent verses which he sent me -- and afterwards sold to magazines, for Gerald was a poet as well as a novelist.
"No Sacrifice," by Alice Moore Dunbar. Published in The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Volume 3, edited by Gloria T. Hull. Oxford University Press (New York, New York). 1988. Page 203.
In his response, Paul scolded Alice for doubting the intensity of his love for her, but at the same time saying he was acting "non-committal" about their marriage.
I don't see what right you have to even think that I do not love you. You know better, dear. Now I am going to be your husband and you had as well begin to learn to obey now as later, so I command you not to think such things any more, for I do love you beyond my power to express it. Everyone here is talking about our approaching marriage and I am being unmercifully joked about it. I have had to grow non-committal about the matter. Sometimes dear I feel as if I cannot wait any longer for you, but must marry you at once. I know now what love's heart-hunger is.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Ruth Moore, October 24, 1897. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 5).