Despite a lasting reputation for both the dark and delusional, Edgar Allan Poe could - on occasion - handle love with a gentle touch. This is evidenced in a letter he wrote to his once-fiance, poet Sarah Helen Whitman. She was a Transcendentalist, he was a Romantic. They met first through their love of words, when she composed a Valentine for him on the occasion of a holiday party (which he didn't attend). Upon hearing her poem, he replied with a poem of his own; thus began a correspondence that sparked a courtship.