Paul Laurence Dunbar by Gene Andrew Jarrett

Author:Gene Andrew Jarrett [Jarrett, Gene Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691150529
Publisher: Princeton UP
Published: 2022-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

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In December, the financial desperation that led Paul to accept a full-time job at the Library of Congress and, in his spare time, to travel and recite his literature was taking its toll. Finite was his well of energy. Writing in haste one afternoon from the library, Paul said he barely had time to draft a letter for Alice to read. “I am greatly depressed without exactly knowing why. I am very tired physically & mentally and spiritually.” Amid recitals in four cities during the week of December 13, he worked each day at the Library of Congress from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.—his usual hours—then traveled to his engagements. He was in Baltimore, Maryland, Monday night; scheduled to visit Wilmington, Delaware, the following evening; and had to look ahead to dates in Philadelphia Thursday night and Washington, D.C., Friday evening. Reciting his work did not invigorate him the same way it did during his tour of England. His reading in Baltimore the previous night was a success, but it did not excite him. Few things did anymore.

“I am only weary, weary, and I wish to God the fight was over and I were where I could rest always,” Paul confessed. Compounding these pressures was the peculiar condition of being a writer wrestling with the expectations of readers and audiences, respectively—with the stereotypes governing their prejudice of him and his race. The next scheduled recital—in Wilmington, North Carolina—was likely to prolong his misery. “Only it seems now there is no more light & in this mood I must go to Wilmington tonight to play the buffoon for a lot of grinning Negroes whom I hate.” Even as he was a distinguished gentleman of letters, the caricature of the buffoon, even in the eyes of members of his own race, was never too far from his persona.24

The cost “physically & mentally and spiritually” Paul was incurring discouraged him from accepting an invitation to deliver two more readings in Wilmington. “My head is so dizzy now I can scarcely write. I am glad the day is nearly over,” he would write Alice afterward, upon his return to Washington, D.C. Traveling farther to see her in person certainly would help assuage his misery. But the fragility of his finances, which deterred him from spending money on the train fare from Washington to New York City, perpetuated the fragility of his mind, heart, and spirit. Frugality remained crucial as 1897 turned into 1898; “but the time cannot, must not be long until I see you.”25

Alice wanted Paul to come to New York City for another reason. Delaying their efforts to get married was the obligation she had to herself and her friends to earn certification to teach in New York. He was already resistant to her employment as a teacher in Brooklyn, so she knew that he might not have the most sympathetic ear; but her educational and professional advancement meant a lot to her, and he knew that. On New Year’s

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