BIB_ID
159706
Accession number
MA 1617.153
Creator
Thanet, Octave, 1850-1934.
Display Date
Clover Bend, Arkansas, 1898 February 20.
Credit line
Purchased as the gift of Edwin J. Beinecke, 1955.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 17.5 x 11.4 cm
Notes
Written on mourning stationery.
Octave Thanet was the pseudonym of Alice French. The letter is signed "Alice French / (Octave Thanet)."
The lines quoted in this letter are the opening lines of Henley's "Invictus."
Octave Thanet was the pseudonym of Alice French. The letter is signed "Alice French / (Octave Thanet)."
The lines quoted in this letter are the opening lines of Henley's "Invictus."
Provenance
Purchased as the gift of Edwin J. Beinecke, 1955.
Summary
Saying "I have always felt the power and the charm of your poetry; but your lines / out of the night that / covers me / had the fortune to be my greatest help in a cruel sorrow. On my unconscious way to it I read them in the November McClures; and (little dreaming of their office) I learned them by heart. They came to me and steadied me through all the hideous days and weeks that have followed. I clung to them as a drowning man to a raft. Thanks to them more than any outside help i was able to be calm so long as my composure was needed. I thought you might like to know what you had done for one human soul. At first I did not intend to sign my name : but I never have written an anonymous letter and it is late to begin : besides I hope if you ever are lured to America to be able to tempt you to see a Western town on an Arkansas plantation."
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