1908 February 25

MCM tells Haldeman about criticism she has received from a friend named as "Margaret M." regarding her short story "Pym" which had just been published in the January 1908 issue of Tipyn O'Bob. The story concerns a literary youth's ambition to become a writer and his vacillations between the artistic life and the practical expectations of an uncle. Moore writes, "She tells me… the 'struggle' is almost too obvious-to try something out in the field of observation but not to me as an individual, so vital-(as Pym)" The letter also contains Moore's handwritten text of "The Sentimentalist," the poem published in Tipyn O'Bob in April 1908 and a reference to her poem "To Come After a Sonnet" about which the poet writes, "[It is] a very awkward sketch 'tis true. But since it is a sketch of you, I like it here and there-do you?"