On August 14, 1895, Paul Laurence Dunbar in Dayton described his emotional mood swings in a letter to Alice Ruth Moore, a writer and school teacher in New Orleans. Paul and Alice had been corresponding for a few months and would later get married.
I am writing a great deal now and the joy of creating is in my blood. I know you have felt the same just as I can appreciate what you experience with the Muse. I am either high on the mountain top or away down in the valley.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Ruth Moore, August 14, 1895. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Paul's tendency toward depression was mentioned on other occasions in his correspondence with Alice, and with his friend Rebekah Baldwin in Washington, D. C.
Your letter was forwarded to me at Chicago, but I have not answered because I was away down in the depths of despondency. I am no better now, but a little business matter compels me to write to you and I shall earnestly try to keep my blues out of this letter.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Ruth Moore, September 21, 1895. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Your welcome letter has put me decidedly on my feet when I was feeling particularly groggy and a left handed finger tap would have put it out. I have been morbid for some days, but I am cured.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Ruth Moore, March 23, 1896. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
This rainy Sunday finds me still lingering in Toledo -- idly busy, lazily industrious. On the last few days, the sun has kissed the face of April into smiles and blushes, but today she is back at her old trick of weeping and sulking, like a petulant maiden. And I am like the day, full of moods and changing feelings, now sad, now pensive, now gay. Just at present there is not much gaiety in me. The clouds and the wind and the rain depress me. But I am not going to shove off my blues on you as I am sure you have enough to bear.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Ruth Moore, April 19, 1896. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Apropos of your poems Paul, a gentleman asked me the other night, why it is that through nearly all your poems, except the dialect ones, there runs such a melancholic strain. He wanted to know what there had been in your life to make you such a pessimist. I too have often wondered why you look on the "dark" side. Tell me what it is, my friend, that saddens all your songs? Mr. Douglass says that he and I were sent into your life to brighten it. He says that you seem to feel that the whole world is against you.
Rebekah Baldwin to Paul Laurence Dunbar, December 7, 1897. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 1).
Paul and Alice were married in March 1898, but soon afterward Alice moved out of their home and a long separation began. She was reluctant to return to Paul and his dark moods.
I only feel sorrowful, because it seems to me so utterly hopeless, because you won't try to control your brooding tendencies. Promise me that you'll let past be past, for as long as you brood and harp upon the things that were, just so long will there be inharmony and unhappiness. I warn you that any evidence on your part toward brooding, blues, morbidity, theatrical posing, nonsensical introspection and sensation-studying that I see, I shall regard as sheer morbid nonsense, proceeding from an unhealthy mental and physical condition and shall treat it as such. I shall regard you as an unfortunate, unhealthy, uncontrolled child, to be humored a little, pitied a great deal, and dealt sternly with at the right time. I do not propose to have two lives wrecked.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, September 13, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).