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diff --git a/7774.txt b/7774.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1252490 --- /dev/null +++ b/7774.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9672 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Journal of Arthur Stirling, by Upton Sinclair + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Journal of Arthur Stirling + "The Valley of the Shadow" + +Author: Upton Sinclair + + +Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7774] +This file was first posted on May 16, 2003 +Last updated: April 28, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING + +"THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW" + +By Upton Sinclair + +Revised And Condensed With An Introductory Sketch + + + + +EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION + + +The matter which is given to the public in this book will speak with a +voice of its own; it is necessary, however, to say a few words in advance +to inform the reader of its history. + +The writer of the journal herein contained was not known, I believe, +to more than a dozen people in this huge city in which he lived. I am +quite certain that I and my wife were the only persons he ever called his +friends. I met him shortly after his graduation from college, and for the +past few years I knew, and I alone, of a life of artistic devotion of such +passionate fervor as I expect never to meet with again. + +Arthur Stirling was entirely a self-educated man; he had worked at I know +not how many impossible occupations, and labored in the night-time like +the heroes one reads about. He taught himself to read five languages, and +at the time when I saw him last he knew more great poetry by heart than +any man of letters that I have ever met. He was the author of one book, +a tragedy in blank verse, called The Captive; that drama forms the chief +theme of this journal. For the rest, it seems to me enough to quote this +notice, which appeared in the New York Times for June 9, 1902. + + STIRLING.--By suicide in the Hudson River, poet and + man of genius, in the 22d year of his age, only son of + Richard T. and Grace Stirling, deceased, of Chicago. + Chicago papers please copy. + +Arthur Stirling was in appearance a tall, dark-haired boy--he was really +only a boy--with a singularly beautiful face, and a strange wistful +expression of the eyes that I think will haunt me as long as I live. I made +him, somewhat externally and feebly, I fear, one of the characters in a +recently published novel. That he was a lonely spirit will be plain enough +from his writings; he lived among the poverty-haunted thousands of this +city, without (so he once told me) ever speaking to a living soul for a +week. Pecuniarily I could not help him--for though he was poor, I was +scarcely less so. At the time of his frightful death I had not seen him for +nearly two months--owing to circumstances which were in no way my fault, +but for which I can nevertheless not forgive myself. + +The writing of The Captive, as described in these papers, was begun in +April, 1901. I was myself at that time in the midst of a struggle to have +a book published. It was not really published until late in that year--at +which time The Captive was finished and already several times rejected. +It was an understood thing between us that should my book succeed it would +mean freedom for both of us, but that, unfortunately, was not to be. + +Early in April of 1902 I had succeeded in laying by provisions enough to +last me while I wrote another book, and I fled away to put up my tent in +the wilderness. The last time that I ever saw Arthur Stirling was in his +room the night before I left. He smiled very bravely and said that he would +keep his courage up, that he was pretty sure he would come out all right. + +I did not expect him to write often--I knew that he was too poor for that; +but after six weeks had passed and I had not heard from him at all, I +wrote to a friend to go and see him. It developed that he had moved. The +lodging-house keeper could only say that he had left her his baggage, being +unable to pay his rent; and that he "looked sick." Where he went she did +not know, and all efforts of mine to find him were of no avail. The only +person that I knew of to ask was a certain young girl, a typewriter, who +had known him for years, and who had worshiped him with a strange and +terrible passion--who would have been his wife, or his slave, if he had not +been as iron in such things, a man so lost in his vision that I suppose he +always thought she was lost in it too. This girl had copied his manuscripts +for years, with the plea that he might pay her when he "succeeded"; and she +has all of his manuscripts now, except what I have, if she is alive. All +that we could learn was that she had "gone away"; I feel pretty certain +that she went in search of him. + +In addition, all that I have to tell is that on Monday, June 9th last I +received a large express package from Arthur. It was sent from New York, +but marked as coming from another person--evidently to avoid giving an +address of his own. Upon opening it I found two packages, one of them +carefully sealed and marked upon the outside, The Captive; the other was +the manuscript of this journal, and upon the top of it was the following +letter: + + MY DEAR ----: You have no doubt been wondering what has become + of me. I have been having a hard time of it. I wish I could + find some way to make this thing a little easier, but I can + not. When you read this letter I shall be dead. There is + nothing that I can tell you about it that you will not read in + the papers I send you. It is simply that I was born to be an + artist, and that as anything else I can not live. The burden + that has been laid upon me I can not bear another day. I have + told the whole story of it in this book--I have kept myself + alive for months, sick and weeping with agony, in order that I + might tear it out of my heart and get it written. It has been + my last prayer that the struggle my life has been may somehow + not be useless. There will come others after me--others perhaps + keener than I--and oh, the world must not kill them all! + + You will take this manuscript, please, and go over it, and cut + out what you like to make it printable, and write a few words + to make people understand about it. And then see if any one + will publish it. You know more about all these things than I + do. If it should sell, keep part of the money for your own + work and give the rest to poor Ellen. As to The Captive--I + all but burned it, as you will read; but keep it, sealed as + I have sealed it, for two years, and then offer it to some + publishers--to others than the nine who have already rejected + it. If you can not find any one to take it, then burn it, or + keep it for love, I do not care which. + + I am writing this on Thursday night, and I am almost dead. I + mean to get some money to-morrow, and then to buy a ticket for + as far up the Hudson as I can go. In the evening I mean to find + a steep bank, and, with a heavy dumb-bell I have bought, and + a strong rope, I think I can find the peace that I have been + seeking. + + The first thing that I have to say to you about it is, that + when you get this letter it will be over and done, and that I + want you, for God's sake, not to make any fuss. No one will + find my body and no one will care about it. You need not think + it necessary to notify the newspapers--what I'm sending you + here is literature and not journalism. I have no earthly + belongings left except these MSS., upon which you will have to + pay the toll. I have written to M----, a man who once did some + typewriting for me, asking him to use a dollar he owes me in + putting a notice in one of the papers. I suppose I owe that to + the people out West. + + I can't write you to-night--before God I can't; my head is going + like a steel-mill, and I'm _so_ sick. You will get over + this somehow, and go on and do your task and win. And if the + memory of my prayer can help you, that will be something. Do + the work of both of us if you can. Only, if you do pull through, + remember my last cry--remember the young artist! There is no + other fight so worth fighting--take it upon you--shout it day + and night at them--what things they do with their young artists! + + God bless you, dear friend. Yours, ARTHUR. + +The above is the only tidings of him, excepting the extended accounts of +his death which appeared in the New York Times and the New York World for +June 10 and 11, 1902, and several letters which he wrote to other people. +There remains only to say a few words as to the journal. + +It is scrawled upon old note-books and loose sheets of paper. The matter, +although a diary, contains odd bits of his writings--one of two letters +to me which he had me send back, and some extracts from an essay which +a friend of mine was offering at that time to magazines in the hope of +placing it for him. There is a problem about the work which I leave +to others to solve--how much of it was written as dated, and how much +afterward, as a piece of art, as a testament of his sorrow. Parts of it +have struck me as having been composed in the latter way, and the last +pages, of course, imply as much. + +Extraordinary pages they are to me. That a man who was about to take his +life should have written them is one of the strangest cases of artistic +absorption I know of in literature. But Arthur Stirling was a man lost in +his art just so--so full of it, so drunk with it, that nothing in life had +other meaning to him. To quote the words he loved, from the last of his +heroes, he longed for excellence "as the lion longs for his food." + +So he lived and so he worked; the world had no use for his work, and so he +died. + +S. + +NEW YORK, _November 15, 1902_. + + + + +READER: + +I do not know if "The Valley of the Shadow" means to you what it means to +me; I do not know if it means anything at all to you. But I have sought +long and far for these words, to utter an all but unutterable thought. + +When you walk in the forest you do not count the lives that you tread into +nothingness. When you rejoice with the springtime you do not hear the cries +of the young things that are choked and beaten down and dying. When you +watch the wild thing in your snare you do not know the meaning of the torn +limbs, and the throbbing heart, and the awful silence of the creature +trapped. When you go where the poor live, and see thin faces and hungry +eyes and crouching limbs, you do not think of these things either. + +But I, reader--I dwell in the Valley of the Shadow. + +Sometimes it is silent in my Valley, and the creatures sit in terror of +their own voices; sometimes there are screams that pierce the sky; but +there is never any answer in my Valley. There are quivering hands there, +and racked limbs, and aching hearts, and panting souls. There is gasping +struggle, glaring failure--maniac despair. For over my Valley rolls _The +Shadow_, a giant thing, moving with the weight of mountains. And you +stare at it, you feel it; you scream, you pray, you weep; you hold up your +hands to your God, you grow mad; but the Shadow moves like Time, like the +sun, and the planets in the sky. It rolls over you, and it rolls on; and +then you cry out no more. + +It is that way in my Valley. The Shadow is the Shadow of Death. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION + +THE AUTHOR TO THE READER + +PART I. WRITING A POEM + + II. SEEKING A PUBLISHER + + III. THE END + + + + +PART I. WRITING A POEM + + +The book! The book! This day, Saturday, the sixth day of April, 1901, I +begin the book! + +I have never kept a journal--I have been too busy living; but to-day I +begin a journal. I am so built that I can do but one thing at a time. Now +that I have begun The Captive, I must be haunted with it all day; when I +am not writing it I must be dreaming it, or restless because I am not. +Therefore it occurred to me that in the hours of weariness I would write +about it what was in my mind--what fears and what hopes; why and how I +write it will be a story in itself, and some day I think it will be read. + + * * * * * + +I have come to the last stage of the fight, and I see the goal. I will tell +the story, and by and by wise editors can print it in the Appendix! + +Yesterday I was a cable-car conductor, and to-day I am a poet! + +I know of some immortal poems that were written by a druggist's clerk, and +some by a gager of liquid barrels, but none by a cable-car conductor. "It +sounds interesting, tell us about it!" says the reader. I shall, but not +to-day. + +To-day I begin the book! + + * * * * * + +I did not write that on April 6th, I wrote it a month ago--one day when I +was thinking about this. I put it there now, because it will do to begin; +but I had no jests in my heart on April 6th. + + * * * * * + +April 10th. + +I have been for four days in a kind of frenzy. I have come down like a +collapsed balloon, and I think I have had enough for once. + +I have written the opening scene, but not finally; and then I got into the +middle--I could not help it. How in God's name I am ever to do this fearful +thing, I don't know; it frightens me, and sometimes I lose all heart. + + * * * * * + +I suppose I shall have to begin again tonight. I must eat something first, +though. That is one of my handicaps: I wear myself out and have to stop and +eat. Will anybody ever love me for this work, will anybody ever understand +it? + +I suppose I can get back where I was yesterday, but always it grows harder, +and more stern. I set my teeth together. + + * * * * * + +It was like the bursting of an overstrained dam, these last four days. How +long I have been pent up--eighteen months! And eighteen months seems like a +lifetime to me. I have been a bloodhound in the leash, hungering--hungering +for this thing, and the longing has piled up in me day by day. Sometimes it +has been more than I could bear; and when the time was near, I was so wild +that I was sick. The book! The book! Freedom and the book! + +And last Saturday I went out of the hell-house where I have been pent so +long, and I covered my face with my hands and fled away home--away to the +little corner that is mine. There I flung myself down and sobbed like a +child. It was relief--it was joy--it was fear! It was everything! The +book! The book! Then I got up--and the world seemed to go behind me, and +I was drunk. I heard a voice calling--it thundered in my ears--that I was +free--that my hour was come--that I might live--that I might live--live! +And I could have shouted it--I know that I laughed it aloud. Every time I +thought the thought it was like the throbbing of wings to me--"Free! Free!" + +No one can understand this--no one who has not a demon in his soul. No one +who does not know how I have been choked--what horrors I have borne. + +I am through with that--I did not think of that. I am free! They will never +have me back. + +That motive alone would drive me to my work, would make me dare _anything_. +But I do not need that motive. + + * * * * * + +I think only of the book. I thought of it last Saturday, and it swept me +away out of myself. I had planned the opening scene; but then the thought +of the triumph-song took hold of me, and it drove me mad. That song was +what I had thought I could never do--I had never dared to think of it. +And it came to me--it came! Wild, incoherent, overwhelming, it came, the +victorious hymn. I could not think of remembering it; it was not poetry--it +was reality. _I_ was the Captive, _I_ had won freedom--a faith and a +vision! + +So it throbbed on and on, and I was choked, and my head on fire, and my +hands tingling, until I sank down from sheer exhaustion--laughing and +sobbing, and talking to God as if He were in the room. I never really +believe in God except at such times; I can go through this dreadful world +for months, and never think if there be a God.--Here I sit gossiping about +it.--But I am tired out. + + * * * * * + +The writing of a book is like the bearing of a child. But every birth-pang +of the former lasts for hours; and it is months before the labor is done. + +It is not merely the vision, the hour of exultation; that is but the +setting of the task. Now you will take that ecstasy, and hold on to it, +hold on with soul and body; you will keep yourself at that height, you +will hold that flaming glory before your eyes, and you will hammer it +into words. Yes, that is the terror--into words--into words that leap the +hilltops, that bring the ends of existence together in a lightning flash. +You will take them as they come, white-hot, in wild tumult, and you will +forge them, and force them. You will seize them in your naked hands and +wrestle with them, and bend them to your will--all that is the making of +a poem. And last and worst of all, you will hold them in your memory, the +long, long surge of them; the torrent of whirling thought--you will hold it +in your memory! You are dazed with excitement, exhausted with your toil, +trembling with pain; but you have built a tower out of cards, and you have +mounted to the clouds upon it, and there you are poised. And anything +that happens--anything!--Ah, God, why can the poet not escape from his +senses?--a sound, a touch--and it is gone! + +These things drive you mad.-- + +But meanwhile it is not gone yet. You have still a whole scene in your +consciousness--as if you were a juggler, tossing a score of golden balls. +And all the time, while you work, you learn it--you learn it! It is +endless, but you learn it. In the midst of it, perhaps, you come down of +sheer exhaustion; and you lie there, panting, shuddering, your hands moist; +you dare not think, you wait. And then by and by you begin again--if +it will not come, you _make_ it come, you lash yourself like a dumb +beast--up, up, to the mountain-tops again. And then once more the thing +comes back--you live the scene again, as an actor does, and you shape it +and you master it. And now in the midst of it, you find this highest of all +moments is gone! It is gone, and you can not find it! Those words that came +as a trumpet-clash, burning your very flesh--that melody that melted your +whole being to tears--they are gone--you can not find them! You search and +you search--but you can not find them. And so you stumble on, in despair +and agony; and still you dare not rest. You dare not ever rest in this +until the thing is done--done and over--until you have _nailed_ it +fast. So you go back again, though perhaps you are so tired that you are +fainting; but you fight yourself like a madman, you struggle until you feel +a thing at your heart like a wild beast; and you keep on, you hold it fast +and learn it, clinch it tight, and make it yours forever. I have done that +same thing five times to-day without a rest; and toiled for five hours in +that frenzy; and then lain down upon the ground, with my head on fire. + +Afterward when you have recovered you sit down, and for two or three hours +you write; you have it whole in your memory now--you have but to put it +down. And this forlorn, wet, bedraggled thing--this miserable, stammering, +cringing thing--_this_ is your poem! + + * * * * * + +Some day the world will realize these things, and then they will present +their poor poets with diamonds and palaces, and other things that do not +help. + +I wrote this, and then I leaned back, tired out. My thoughts turned to +Shakespeare, and while I was thinking of him-- + + But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, + Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill! + + * * * * * + +April 11th. + +I have not done much to-day. I spent the morning brooding over the opening +speech. It is somber and terrible, but I have not gotten it right. It +must have a tread--a tread like an orchestra! Ah, how I wish I had an +orchestra!--I would soon do it then--_"So bist nun ewig du verdammt!"_ + +The secret of the thing is iteration. I must find a word that is like a +hammer-stroke. I have tried twenty, but I have not found the one. + + * * * * * + +--I spent the rest of the day thinking over the whole first act, mapping it +out, so to speak. + +I have often fancied a resemblance between The Captive and the C-minor +symphony; I wonder if any one else would have thought of it. It is not +merely the opening--it is the whole content of the thing--the struggle of a +prisoned spirit. I would call The Captive a symphony, and print the C-minor +themes in it, only it would seem fanciful.--But it would not really be +fanciful to put the second theme opposite the thought of freedom--of the +blue sky and the dawning spring. + +All except the scherzo. I couldn't find room for the scherzo. Men who have +wrestled with the demons of hell do not tumble around like elephants, no +matter how happy they are. I wish I could take out Beethoven's scherzos! + +My heart leaps when I think of my one big step. I have put those pages +away--I shall not look at them again for a month. Then I can judge them. + + * * * * * + +April 13th. + +A cable-car conductor and a poet! I think that will be a story worth +telling. + +I have tried many and various occupations, but I have not found one so +favorable to the study of poetry as my last. I should have made out very +well--if I had not been haunted by The Captive. + +With everything else you do you are more or less hampered by having to sell +your brain; and also by having to obey some one. But a cable-car is an +unlimited monarchy; and all you have to do is to collect fares and pull +the bell, both of which duties are quite mechanical. And besides that you +receive princely wages--and can live off one-third of them, if you know +how; and that means that you need only work one-third of the time, and can +write your poetry the rest of it! + +This sounds like jesting, but it is not. I have only been a cable-car +conductor six months, but in that time I have taught myself to read Greek +with more than fluency. All you need is good health and spirits, a will of +iron, and a very tiny note-book in the palm of your hand, full of the words +you wish to learn. And then for ten or twelve hours a day you go about +running a car with your body--and with your mind--hammering, hammering! +It is excellent discipline--it is fighting all day, "_Pous, podos_, +the foot--_pous, podos_, the foot--34th Street, Crosstown East and +West--_pous, podos_, the foot!" + +And then when you get home late at night, are there not the great masters +who love you? + + * * * * * + +April 15th. + +Thou wouldst call thyself Artist; thou wouldst have the Eternal Presence to +dwell within thee, to fire thy heart with passion and dower thy lips with +song; canst thou go into thy closet, and alone with thy Maker, say these +words: + +"O Thou Unthinkable, source of all light and life, Thou the great unselfish +One, the great Sufferer; Thou seest my heart this day, how in it dwells but +love of Thy truth and worship of Thy holiness. Thou seest that I seek not +wealth that men should serve me, nor fame that they should honor me, for +the glory that is Thine. Thou seest that I bring all my praise to Thy feet, +that I love all things that Thou hast made, that I envy no man Thy gifts, +that I rejoice when Thou sendest one stronger than I into the battle. And +when these things are not, may Thy power leave me; for I seek but to dwell +in Thy presence, and to speak Thy truth, which can not die." + + * * * * * + +That prayer welled up in my heart to-day. There are times when I sit before +this thing in my soul, crouching and gazing at it in fear. Then I see +the naked horror of it, the shuddering reality of it. I see the Soul: +motionless, tense, quivering, wrestling in an agony with the powers of +destruction. It is so real to me that my body stiffens into stone, and I +sit with the sweat on my forehead. That happened to me to-day, and I wrote +a few lines of the poem that made my voice break--the passionate despairing +cry for deliverance, for rest from the terror. + +But there is no rest. The mountain slope is so that there is no standing +upon it, and once you stop, it breaks your heart to begin again. And so you +go on--up--up--and there is not any summit. + +It is that way when you write a book; and that way when you make a +symphony; and that way when you wage a war. + + * * * * * + +But my soul hungered for it. I have loved the great elemental +art-works--the art-works that were born of pure suffering. For months +before I began The Captive I read but three books--read them and brooded +over them, all day and all night. They were Prometheus Bound, Prometheus +Unbound, and Samson Agonistes. + +You sit with these books, and time and space "to nothingness do sink." +There looms up before you--like a bare mountain in its majesty--the great +elemental world-fact, the death-grapple of the will with circumstance. +You may build yourself any philosophy or any creed you please, but you +will never get away from the world-fact--the death-grapple of the soul +with circumstance. AEschylus has one creed, and Milton has another, +and Shelley has a third; but always it is the death-grapple. Chaos, +evil--circumstance--lies about you, binds you; and you grip it--you close +with it--all your days you toil with it, you shape it into systems, you +make it live and laugh and sing. And while you do that, there is in your +heart a thing that is joy and pain and terror mingled in one passion. + +Who knows that passion? Who knows-- + + "With travail and heavy sorrow + The holy spirit of Man." + +Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound, and Samson Agonistes! And now there +will be a fourth. It will be The Captive. + +Am I a fool? I do not know--that is none of my business. It is my business +to do my best. + + * * * * * + +Horace bids you, if you would make him weep, to weep first yourself. I +understand by the writing of a poem just this: that the problem you put +there you discover for yourself; that the form you put it in you invent +for yourself; and, finally, that what you make it, from the first word to +the last word, from the lowest moment to the highest moment, you _live_; +that when a character in such a place acts thus, he acts thus because you, +in that place--not would have acted thus, but _did_ act thus; that the +words which are spoken in that moment of emotion are spoken because you, +in that moment of emotion--not would have spoken them, but _did_ speak +them. I propose that you search out the scenes that have stirred the hearts +of men in all times, and see if you can find one that was written thus--not +because the author had lived it thus, but because somebody else had lived +it thus, or because he wanted people to think he had lived it thus. + +And now you are writing The Captive. You do not go into the dungeon in the +body, because you need all your strength; but in the spirit you have gone +into the dungeon, and the door has clanged, and it is black night--the +world is gone forever. And there you sit, while the years roll by, and +you front the naked fact. Six feet square of stone and an iron chain are +your portion--that is circumstance; and the will--_you_ are the will. And +you grip it--you close with it--all your days you toil with it; you shape +it into systems, make it live and laugh and sing. And while you do that +there is in your heart a thing that is joy and pain and terror mingled in +one passion. + + * * * * * + +Yes, sometimes I shrink from it; but I will do it--meaning what those words +mean. I will fight that fight, I will live that life--to the last gasp; and +it shall go forth into the world a living thing, a new well-spring of life. + +It shall be--I don't know what you call the thing, but when you have hauled +your load halfway up the hill you put a block in the way to keep it from +sliding back. That same thing has to be done to society. + +Man will never get behind the Declaration of Independence again, nor behind +the writings of Voltaire again. We let Catholicism run around loose now, +but that is because Voltaire cut its claws and pulled out all its teeth. + + * * * * * + +April 16th. + +I was thinking to-day, that The Captive would be an interesting document +to students of style. Read it, and make up your mind about it; then I will +tell you--the first line of it is almost the first line of blank verse I +ever wrote in my life. + +I have read about the French artists, the great masters of style, and +how they give ten years of their lives to writing things that are never +published. But I have noticed that when they are masters at last, and when +they do begin to publish--they very seldom have anything to say that I care +in the least to hear. + +--My soul is centered upon _the thing_! + +Let it be a test. + + * * * * * + +I am trying to be an artist; but I have never been able to study style. I +believe that the style of this great writer came from what he had to say. +You think about how he said it; but he thought about what he was saying. + +It seemed strange to me when I thought of it. With all my trembling +eagerness, with all my preparation, such an idea as "practise" never came +to me. How could I cut the path until I had come to the forest? + +All my soul has been centered upon _living_. Since this book first took +hold of me--eighteen months ago--I could not tell with what terrible +intensity I have lived it. They said to me, "You are a poet; why don't you +write verses for the magazines?" But I was not a writer of verses for the +magazines. + +It has been a shrine that I have kept in the corner of my heart, and tended +there. I have never gone near it, except upon my knees. There were days +when I did not go near it at all, when I was weak, or distraught. But I +knew that every day I was closer to the task, that every day my heart was +more full of it. It was like wild music--it came to a climax that swept me +away in spite of myself. + +To get the mastery of your soul, to hold it here, in your hands, at your +bidding, to consecrate your life to that, to watch and pray and toil for +that, to rouse yourself and goad yourself day and night for that; to +thrill with the memory of great consecrations, of heroic sufferings and +aspirations; to have the power of the stars in your heart, of nature, of +history and the soul of man; _that_ is your "practise." + + * * * * * + +April 17th. + +It is true that my whole life has been a practise for the writing of +this book, that this book is the climax of my whole life. I have +toiled--learned--built up a mind--found a conviction; but I have never +written anything, or tried to write anything, to be published. I have said, +"Wait; it is not time." And now it _is_ time. If there is anything of +use in all that I have done, it is in this book. + +Yes; and also it is a climax in another way. It is my goal and my +salvation.--Ah, how I have toiled for it! + + * * * * * + +April 19th. + +I saw my soul to-day. It was a bubble, blown large, palpitating, whirling +over a stormy sea; glorious with the rainbow hues it was, but perilous, +abandoned.--Do you catch the _feeling_ of my soul? + +Something perilous--I do not much care what. A traveler scaling the +mountains, leaping upon dizzy heights; a gambler staking his fortune, his +freedom, his life--upon a cast! + +I will tell you about it. + +It began when I was fifteen. My great-uncle, my guardian, is a wholesale +grocer in Chicago; he has a large palace and a large waistcoat. + +"Will you be a wholesale grocer?" said he. + +"No," said I, "I will not." + +I might have been a partner by this time, had I said Yes, and had a palace +and a large waistcoat too. + +"Then what will you be?" asked the great-uncle. + +"I will be a poet," said I. + +"You mean you will be a loafer?" said he. + +"Yes," said I--disliking argument--"I will be a loafer." + +And so I went away, and while I went I was thinking, far down in my soul. +And I said: "It must be everything or nothing; either I am a poet or I am +not. I will act as if I were; I will burn my bridges behind me. If I am, I +will win--for you can not kill a poet; and if I am not, I will die." + +Thus is it perilous. + +I fight the fight with all my soul; I give every ounce of my strength, my +will, my hope, to the making of myself a poet. And when the time comes I +write my poem. Then if I win, I win empires; and if I lose-- + +"You put all your eggs into one basket," some one once said to me. + +"Yes," I replied, "I put all my eggs into one basket--and then I carry the +basket myself." + +Now I have come to the last stage of the journey--the "one fight more, and +the last." And can I give any idea of what is back of me, to nerve me to +that fight? I will try to tell you. + +For seven years I have borne poverty and meanness, sickness, heat, +cold, toil--that I might make myself an artist. The indignities, the +degradations--I could not tell them, if I spent all the time I have in +writing a journal. I have lived in garrets--among dirty people--vulgar +people--vile people; I have worn rags and unclean things; I have lived upon +bread and water and things that I have cooked myself; I have seen my time +and my strength wasted by a thousand hateful impertinences--I have been +driven half mad with pain and rage; I have gone without friends--I have +been hated by every one; I have worked at all kinds of vile drudgery--or +starved myself sick that I might avoid working. + +But I have said, "I will be an artist!" + +Day and night I have dreamed it; day and night I have fought for it. I have +plotted and planned--I have plotted to save a minute. I have done menial +work that I might have my brain free--all the languages that I know I have +worked at at such times. I have calculated the cost of foods--I have lived +on a third of the pittance I earned, that I might save two-thirds of my +time. I once washed dishes in a filthy restaurant because that took only +two or three hours a day. + +I have said, "I will be an artist! I will fix my eyes upon the goal; I +will watch and wait, and fight the fight day by day. And when at last I am +strong, and when my message is ripe, I will earn myself a free chance, and +then I will write a book. All the yearning, all the agony of this my life +I will put into it; every hour of trial, every burst of rage. I will make +it the hope of my life, I will write it with my blood--give every ounce of +strength that I have and every dollar that I own; and I will win--I will +win! + +"So I will be free, and the horror will be over." + +I have done that--I am doing that now. I mean to finish it if it kills +me.-- + +But I was sitting on the edge of the bed to-night, and the tears came into +my eyes and I whispered: "But oh, you must not ask me to do anymore! I can +not do any more! It will leave me broken!" + +Only so much weight can a man carry. The next pound breaks his back. + + * * * * * + +April 22d. + +I am happy to-night; I am a little bit drunk. + +To-day was one day in fifty. Why should it be? Sometimes I have but to +spread my wings to the wind. Yesterday I might have torn my hair out, and +that glory would not have come to me. But to-day I was filled with it--it +lived in me and burned in me--I had but to go on and go on. + +The Captive! It was the burst of rage--the first glow in the ashes of +despair. I was walking up and down the room for an hour, thundering it to +myself. I have not gotten over the joy of it yet: _"Thou in thy mailed +insolence!"_ + +I wonder if any one who reads those thirty lines will realize that they +meant eight hours of furious toil on my part! + + * * * * * + +Stone by stone I build it. + +The whole possibility of a scene--that is what I pant for, always; that +it should be all there, and yet not a line to spare; compact, solid, +each phrase coming like a blow; and above all else, that it should be +inevitable! When you stand upon the height of your being, and behold the +thing with all your faculties--the thing and the phrase are one, and one to +all eternity. + + * * * * * + +April 24th. + +I was looking at a literary journal to-day. Oh, my soul, it frightens me! +All these libraries of books--who reads them, what are they for? And each +one of them a hope! And I am to leap over them all--I--I? I dare not think +about it. + +I have been helpless to-day. I can not find what I want--I struggled for +hours, I wore myself out with struggling. And I have torn up what I wrote. + +Blank verse is such a--such a thing not to be spoken of! Is there anything +worse, except it be a sonnet? How many miles of it are ground out every +day--sometimes that kind comes to me to mock me--I could have written a +whole poem full of it this afternoon. If there are two lines of that sort +in The Captive, I'll burn it all. + +An awful doubt came to me besides. Somebody had sown it long ago, and it +sprouted to-day. "Yes, but will it be _interesting_?" + +Heaven help me, how am I to know if it will be interesting? The question +made me shudder; I have never thought anything about making it +interesting--I've been trying to make it true. Can it possibly be that the +ecstasy of one soul, the reality of one soul, the quivering, exulting life +of it--will not interest any other soul? + +"How can you know that what you are doing is real, anyhow?" The devil would +plague me to death to-day. "But how many millions write poems and think +they are wonderful!" + +--I do not believe in my soul to-day, because I have none. + + * * * * * + +April 25th. + +Would you like to know where I am, and how I am doing all these things? +I am in a lodging-house. I have one of three hall rooms in a kind of top +half-story. There is room for me to take four steps; so it is that I "walk +up and down" when I am excited. I have tried--I have not kept count of +how many places--and this is the quietest. The landlady's husband has a +carpenter shop down-stairs, but he is always drunk and doesn't work; it has +also been providentially arranged that the daughter, who sings, is sick for +some time. Next door to me there is a man who plays the 'cello in a dance +hall until I know not what hour of the night. He keeps his 'cello at the +dance hall. Next to him is a pale woman who sits and sews all day and +waits for her drunken husband to come home. In front there is some kind of +foolish girl who leaves her door open in the hope that I'll look in at her, +and a couple of inoffensive people not worth describing. + +I get up--I never know the time in the morning; and sometimes I lie without +moving for hours--thinking--thinking. Or sometimes I go out and roam around +the streets; or sit perfectly motionless, gazing at the wall. When it will +not come, I make it. I breakfast on bread and milk, and I eat bread and +milk at all hours of the day when I am hungry. For dinner I cook a piece of +meat on a little oil-stove, and for supper I eat bread and milk. The rest +of the time I am sitting on the floor by the window, writing; or perhaps +kneeling by the bed with my head buried in my arms, and thinking until the +room reels. When I am not doing that I wander around like a lost soul; I +can not think of anything else.--Sometimes when I am tired and must rest, I +force myself to sit down and write some of this. + +I have just forty dollars now. It costs me three dollars a week, not +including paper and typewriting. Thus I have ten or twelve weeks in which +to finish The Captive--that many and no more. + +If I am not finished by that time it will kill me; to try to work and earn +money in the state that I am in just at present would turn me into a +maniac--I should kill some one, I know. + +I am quivering with nervous tension--every faculty strained to breaking; +the buzz of a fly is a roar to me. I build up these towering castles of +emotion in my soul, castles that shimmer in the sunlight: + + Banners yellow, glorious, golden! + +And then something happens, and they fall upon me with the weight of +mountains. + + * * * * * + +Ten weeks! And yet it is not that which goads me most. + +What goads me most is that I am a captive in a dungeon, and am fighting for +the life of my soul. + +I shall win, I do not fear--the fountains of my being will not fail me. I +saw my soul a second time to-day; it was no longer the bubble, blown large, +palpitating. It was a bird resting upon a bough. The bough was tossed and +flung about by a tempest; and a chasm yawned below; but the bough held, and +the bird was master of its wings, and sang. + +The name of the bough was Faith. + + * * * * * + +April 27th. + +I have read a great deal of historical romance, and a great deal of local +color fiction, and a great deal of original character-drawing--and I have +wished to get away from these things. + +There is no local color, and no character-drawing, in The Captive. You do +not know the name of the hero; you do not know how old he is, or of what +rank he is, at what period or in what land he lives. He is described but +once. He is "A Man." + +My philosophy is a philosophy of will. All virtue that I know is +conditioned upon freedom. The object of all thinking and doing, as I see +it, is to set men free. + +There is the tyranny of kings--the tyranny of force; there is the tyranny +of priests--the tyranny of ignorance; there is the tyranny of society--the +tyranny of selfishness and indolence; and above all, and including all, and +causing all--there is the tyranny of self--the tyranny of sin, the tyranny +of the body. So it is that I see the world. + +So it is that I see history; I can see nothing else in history. The tyranny +of kings and nobles, the tyranny of the mass and the inquisition, the +tyranny of battle and murder and crime--how was a man to live in those +ages? + +How is a man to live in _this_ age? The tyranny of kings and of +priests is gone, and from the tyranny of industrialism the individual can +escape. But the lightning--is not that an inquisition? And if it comes +after you, will it not find out all your secrets? And the tyranny of +hurricane and shipwreck, of accident, disease, and death? Any tyranny is +all tyranny, I say; and the existence of tyranny is its presence. + +It is conceivable that some day the sovereign mind may shake off its +shackles, and the tyranny of matter be at an end. But that day is not yet; +and meanwhile, the thing existing, how shall a man be free? That has been +the matter of my deepest brooding. + +This much I have learned: + +The man may accept this life, if it please him, and its chances; but while +he does he can never be a soul. So long as he accepts this life and its +chances, he is the slave of tyranny. When the day comes that mind is +sovereign, I will give myself into the hands of this life. But meanwhile I +will know myself for what I am--a bubble upon the surface of a whirling +torrent, an insect borne aloft upon a flying wheel. + + * * * * * + +It is by your will that you are free; by your will you are one with the +infinite freedom, by your will you are master of time and your fate, lord +of the stars and the endless ages, thinker of all truth, hearer of all +music, beholder of all beauty, doer of all righteousness. That is the truth +which I have brought out of my deepest brooding. + +So long as your happiness is in anything about yourself--your wealth, or +your fame, or your life--you are not free. So long as your happiness is in +houses and lands, in sons and in daughters, you are not free. You give one +atom of your soul to these things at your own peril; for when your hour +comes you tear them from you, though they be as your eyes; and by your +_will_ you save your soul alive. + +Therefore I write The Captive. I put aside childish things--I grip my hands +upon naked Reality. + + * * * * * + +There are nine characters in The Captive: a tyrant, two slaves, six guests, +and a man. There are two scenes--a dungeon, and a banquet-hall. + +A tyrant: I understand by a tyrant a man whose happiness is the unhappiness +of others. I read of the discoverers of Mexico, and how they found a +pyramid of human skulls, raised as a monument; that has been to me, ever +since, the type of tyranny. The forms of tyranny vary through the ages, but +the principle is always the same; a tyrant is a man who is made great by +the toil and sorrow of others. + +The slave also remains the same through all time; and likewise the guest. +The guest is the man who takes the world as he finds it, and likes a good +dinner. The population of society is made up of tyrants, slaves, and +guests. + +The man is a character of my own imagining. + +The first scene of The Captive is the dungeon. When I was very young I was +in Europe, and I was in a dungeon; I have never forgotten it. There enter +the tyrant and the two slaves with the man. They chain him to the wall, and +then the tyrant speaks. That first speech--I have written it now--I have +gotten the hammer-thuds! Tyranny is an iron thing--you had to feel the +tread of it, the words had to roll like thunder. It is an advantage to me +that I am full of Wagner; I always hear the music with my poetry. (I shall +be disappointed if some one does not make an opera out of The Captive.) + + * * * * * + +The man is there, and he is there forever. After that, once a day, bread +and water are shoved in through an opening. But the door of the dungeon +does not open again until the last act--when ten years have passed. + + * * * * * + +That is all. And now the man will battle with that problem. Will he go mad +with despair? Will he sink into a wild beast? Will he commit suicide? Or +what _will_ he do? Day by day he sinks back from the question, numb with +agony; day by day the grim hand of Fate drags him to it; and so, until from +the chaos of his soul he digs out, blow by blow, a faith. + +Here there will be Reality; no shams and no lies will do here--here is iron +necessity, and cries out for iron truth. God--duty--will--virtue--let such +things no more be names, let us see what they _are_! + +These are awful words. Sometimes I shrink from this thing as from fire, +sometimes I rush to it with a song; I am writing about it now because I am +worn out, and yet I can not think of anything else. + +This man will find the truth; being delivered from the captivity of the +world and set free to be a soul. Superstition blinds him; doubt and despair +and weakness blind him; but still he gropes and strives, cries out and +battles for truth; until at last, shut up in his own being, he tears his +way out to the very source of it, and knows for himself what it is. +_Infinite it is, and unthinkable; glorious, all-consuming, all-sufficing; +food and drink, friendship and love, ambition and victory, joy, power, +and eternity it is to him who finds it; and all things in this world are +nothing to him who finds it._ + + * * * * * + +And so comes the victory to this soul. Hour by hour he catches gleams of +the light; day by day he toils toward it, with fear and agony and prayer; +until at last he knows his salvation--to rest never, and to toil always, +and to dwell in this Presence of his God. In one desperate hour he flings +away the world and the hope of the world, and vows this consecration, and +lives. + + * * * * * + +He keeps the vow; it is iron necessity that drives him. He finds himself, +he finds his way--each day his step is surer. + +Each day the channels of his being deepen. He lays broad plans for his +life--he gathers all knowledge, he solves all problems; lord of the +infinite mind, he ranges all existence, and beholds it as the symbol of +himself. Into the deeps and yawning spaces of it he plunges; blind, he sees +what men have never seen; deaf, he hears what men have never heard--singer +he is, prophet and poet and maker. New worlds leap into being in the +infinite fulness of his heart, visions of endless glory that make his +senses reel; as a column of incense towering to the sky is the ecstasy of +his adoration and his joy. + + * * * * * + +And so the long years roll by; and the unconquered spirit has left the +earth: left time and space and self, and dwells where never man has dwelt +before. And then one day the door of the dungeon is opened, and his chains +are shattered, and the slaves lead him up to the light of day. + +It is the banquet-hall; and there is the tyrant, and there the +guests--there is the world. + + * * * * * + +He is aged, and weak, and white, and terrible. They stare at him; and he +stares at them, for he is dazed. They begin to mock at him, and then at +last he realizes, and he covers his face and weeps--beholding the world, +and the way that it must come. They jeer at him, they strike him; and when +he answers not, they call to the slaves to torture him. + + * * * * * + +This man has lived for ten years with _himself_. He is nothing but a +will. And now they will conquer him! + + * * * * * + +I recall the highest moment of my being. I saw that moment, and all the +others of my life. I saw them as something that I could not bear to see, +and I cried out that from that hour I would change them. I have not kept +the vow; there was no one to drive me. + +But this man they drive; they pinch him and burn him and tear him; they +crush his limbs, they break his bones, they grind his flesh, they make his +brain a living fire of anguish. And he fights them. + +Into the deep recesses of his being goes the cry--for all that he has--for +all that he is! For every ounce of his strength, for every throb of his +will, for every vision, every truth that he knows! To bear this, to save +him here! And so he wrestles, so he rises, so he gropes and gasps; and in +the moment of his fiercest straining, with the throb of all his being he +bursts the barrier, he rends the veil; and infinite passion rolls in in +floods upon him, he clutches all existence in his arms; and from his lips +there bursts a mad frenzied shout of rapture--that makes his torturers +stand transfixed, listening, trembling with terror. + +And so they drag him back to his dungeon; and there, unable to move, he +lies upon the stones and pants out his ecstasy and his life. + +That is The Captive. + + * * * * * + +April 29th. + +What counts in this thing is momentum--spiritual momentum. You are filled +with it all the time, it never leaves you; it drives behind you like a gale +of wind; it roars in your ears when you are awake, it rocks you to sleep +when you are weary; whenever you are dull or do not heed it, it nags at +you, it goads you, it beats into your face. Each day it is more, each day +it is harder, more unattainable; but only do not stop, it carries you with +it like a wave; you mount upon each day's achievement to reach the next, +you move with the power of all the days before. It is momentum that counts. + +Do not stop!--I cry it all day--Do not stop! + + * * * * * + +April 30th. + +It is weak of me, but sometimes I can not help but look ahead--and think +that it is done! I could not find any words to tell the joy that that will +be to me--to be free, after so long--to be free! + +I do not care anything about the fame--it would not be anything to me to be +a great author. If it could be done, nothing would please me better than +to publish it anonymously--to let no one ever know that it was mine. If I +could only have the little that I need to be free, I would publish all that +I might ever write anonymously. + +Yes, that is the thing that makes my blood bound. To be free! Let it only +be done--let it only be real, as it will be--and the naked force of it will +shake men to the depths of their souls. I could not write it, if I did not +believe that I was writing words that would grip the soul of any man--I +care not how dull or how coarse he might be. + + * * * * * + +I finished the first act just now. + + * * * * * + +May 1st. + +I am wild to-day. Oh, how can I bear this--why should I have to contend +with such things as this! Is it not hard enough--the agony that I have to +bear, the task that takes all my strength and more? And must I be torn to +pieces by such hideous degradation as this? Oh, my God, if my life is not +soon clear of these things I shall die! + + * * * * * + +Oh, it is funny--yes, funny!--Let us laugh at it. The dance-hall musician +has brought home his 'cello! I heard him come bumping up the stairs with +it--God damn his soul! And there he sits, sawing away at some loathsome jig +tunes! And he has two friends in there--I listen to their wit between the +tunes. + +Here I sit, like a wild beast pent in a cage. I tell you I can bear any +work in the world, but I can not bear things such as this. That I, who am +seeking a new faith for men--who am writing, or trying to write, what will +mean new life to millions--should have my soul ripped into pieces by such +loathsome, insulting indignities! + +Oh, laugh!--but _I_ can't laugh--I sit here foaming at the lips, and +crying! And suppose he's lost his position, and does this every day! + +Now every day I must lay aside what I am doing and sit and shudder when I +hear him coming up the steps--and wait for him to begin this! I tell you, +I demand to be free--I _demand_ it! I want nothing in this world but to +be let alone. I don't want anybody to wait on me.--_I don't want anything +from this hellish world but to be let alone!_ + +It is pouring rain outside, and my overcoat is thin; but I must go out and +pace the streets and wait until a filthy Dutchman gets through scraping +ragtime on a 'cello. + +All day wasted! All day! Does it not seem that these things persecute you +by system? I came in, cold and wet, and got into bed, and then he began +again! And the friends came back and they had beer, and more music. And I +had to get up and put on the wet clothes once more. + + * * * * * + +May 2d. + +I was crouching out on one of the docks last night. I had no place else to +go. I can think anywhere, if it is quiet. + +A wonderful thing is the night. I bless Thee for the night, oh "_suesse, +heilige Natur_"! + +It was a voice in my soul, as clear as could be. + +--She can not bear too long the sight of men, sweet, holy Nature: the +swarming hives--the millions of tiny creatures, each drunk and blind with +his own selfishness; and so she lays her great hand upon it all, and hides +it out of her sight. + +Once it was all silent, and formless as the desert; soon it shall all be +silent and formless again; and meanwhile--the night, the night! + + * * * * * + +Oh, I hunger for the desert! I do not care for beauty--I have no time for +beauty, I want the earth stern and forbidding. Give me some place where no +one else would want to go--an iron crag where the oceans beat--a +mountain-top where the lightning splinters on the rocks. + + * * * * * + +I go at it again. But I am nervous--these things get me into such a state +that I simply can not do anything. It was not merely yesterday--I have it +constantly. The dirty chambermaid singing, or yelling down to the landlady; +the drunken man swearing at his wife; the boys screaming in the street and +kicking a tomato-can about. When I think of how much beauty and power has +been shattered in my life by such things as these, it brings tears of +impotent rage into my eyes. + +I must be free--oh, I must be free! + + * * * * * + +It comes strangely from the author of The Captive, does it not? + +I give all my life to my work, and sometimes, when I am broken like this, I +wonder if I do not give too much. Once I climbed to a dizzy height, and I +cried out a dizzy truth: + +"O God, how as nothing in Thy sight are my writings!" + +I do not know if I shall ever reach that height again. + + * * * * * + +May 3d. + +I have not one single beautiful memory in my life. I have nothing in my +life that, when I think of it, does not make me _writhe_. + +To all that I have lived, and known, and seen, I have but one word, one +cry--Away! Away! Let me get away from it! Let me get away from cities, let +me get away from men, let me out of my cage! Let me go with my God, let +me forget it all--put it away forever and ever! Let me no longer have to +plot and plan, to cringe and whimper, to barter my vision and my hours for +bread! + +Who knows what I suffer--who has any idea of it? To have a soul like a +burning fire, to be hungry and swift as the Autumn wind, to have a heart as +hot as the wild bird's, and wings as eager--and to be chained here in this +seething hell of selfishness, this orgy of folly. + + * * * * * + +Ah, and then I shut my hands together. No, I am not weak, I do not spend my +time chafing thus! I have fought it out so far-- + + "I was ever a fighter, so one fight more!" + +I will go back, and I will hammer and hammer again--grimly--savagely--day +by day. And out of the furnace of my soul I will forge a weapon that will +set me free in the end--I think. + + * * * * * + +May 4th. + +I wrote a little poem once. I remembered two lines of it--a nature +description; they were not great lines, but there flashed over me to-day an +application of them that was a stroke of genius, I believe. I was passing +the Stock Exchange. It was a very busy day. I climbed one of the pillars, +in spirit, and wrote high above the portals: + + Where savage beasts through forest midnight roam, + Seeking in sorrow for each other's joy. + + * * * * * + +May 5th. + +A dreadful thing is unbelief! A dreadful thing it is to be an infidel! + +--That is what all men cry nowadays--there is so much infidelity in the +world--it is the curse of our modern society--it is everywhere--it is +all-prevailing! + +I had a strange experience to-day, Sunday. I went into a church, and high +up by the altar, dressed in solemn garb and offering prayers to God--I saw +an infidel! + +He preached a sermon. The theme of his sermon was "Liberalism." + +"These men," cried the preacher, "are blinding our eyes to our salvation, +they are undermining, day by day, our faith! They tell us that the sacred +word of God is 'literature'! And they show us more 'literature'; but oh, my +friends, what new _Bible_ have they shown us!" + +As I got up and went out of that church, I whispered: "What a dreadful +thing it is to be an infidel!" + +Oh Dante and Goethe and Shakespeare--oh Wordsworth and Shelley and Emerson! +Oh thrice-anointed and holy spirits! What a dreadful thing it is to be an +infidel! + +What a dreadful thing it is to believe in a Bible, and not to believe in +literature--to believe in a Bible and not to believe in a God! + +You think that this world lives upon the revelation of two thousand years +ago! Fool--this world lives as your body lives by the beating of its +heart--upon the revelation and the effort of each instant of its life. And +to-day or to-morrow the great Revealer might send to some lonely thinker in +his garret a new word that would scatter to dust and ashes all laws and all +duties that now are known to men. + + * * * * * + +There are many ways to look at the world, and always a deeper one. I see it +as a fearful thing, towering, expanding, upheld by the toil and the agony +of millions. Who will bring us the new hope, the new song of courage, that +it go not down into the dust to-day? + +To do that there is the poet; to live and to die unheeded, and to feed for +ages upon ages the hungry souls of men--that is to be a poet. Therefore +will he sing, and sing ever, and die in the sweetness of his song. + +When I think of that--not now as I write it here in bare words--but in +quivering reality, it is a hand upon my forehead, and a presence in the +room. + + * * * * * + +May 6th. + +Chiefest of all I think of my country! Passionately, more than words can +utter, I love this land of mine. If I tear my heart till it bleeds and pour +out the tears of my spirit, it is for this consecration and this hope--it +is for this land of Washington and Lincoln. There never was any land like +it--there may never be any like it again; and Freedom watches from her +mountains, trembling. + +--It is a song that it needs, a song and a singer; to point it to its high +design, to thrill it with the music of its message, to shake the heart of +every man in it, and make him burn and dare! For the first time there is +Liberty; for the first time there is Truth, and no shams and no lies, +enthroned. The news of it has gone forth like the sound of thunder, and has +shaken all the earth: that man at last may live, may do what he can and +will! + +--And to what is it? Is it to the heaping up of ugly cities, the packing of +pork and the gathering of gold? That is the thing that I toil for--to tear +this land from the grasp of mean men and of merchants! To take the souls +of my countrymen into the high mountains with me, to thrill them with a +soaring, strong resolve! _Living things_ shall come from this land of +mine, living things before I die, for the hunger of it burns me, and will +not ever let me rest. Freedom! freedom! And stern justice and honor, and +knowledge and power, and a noonday blaze of light! + + Arise in thy majesty, confronting the ages! + Stretch out thine arms to the millions that shall be! + Justice thine inheritance, God thy stay and sustenance, + My country, to thee! + +Those are feeble words. If this were a book, I would tear it all up. + +I wonder if any one will ever read this. As a matter of fact, I suppose ten +people will read gossip about the book for every one who reads the book. + + * * * * * + +This is just a month from the beginning. A month to-day! Yes--I have done +my share, I have done a third of it--a third! + +But the end is so much harder! + + * * * * * + +May 9th. + +I have been for two days in the mire. I was disturbed, and then I was +sluggish. Oh, the sluggishness of my nature! + +If ever I am a great poet, I will have made myself that by the power of my +will; that is a fact. I am by nature a great clod--I feel nothing, I care +about nothing. I look at the flowers as a cow chewing its cud.--It is only +that I _will_ to do right. + +Sometimes the sight of my dulness drives me wild. Then again I merely +gaze at it. I try time and again to get my mind on my work, and +something--anything, provided it is trivial enough--turns me aside. Just +now I saw a spider-web, and that made me think of Bruce, and thence I went +by way of Walter Scott to Palestine, and when I came to I was writing a +song for--who was the minstrel?--to sing outside of the prison of Coeur de +Lion. + +I go wandering that way--sometimes I sit so for an hour; and then suddenly +I leap up with a cry. But I may try all I please--I don't care anything +about the work--it doesn't stir me--the verses I think of make me sick. And +then I remember that I have only so many weeks more; and what it will mean +to fail; and that makes me desperate, but doesn't help. + +When I have stopped at some resting-place in the poem, I can get going +again. But now I have stopped in the middle of a climax; and the number +of times that I have read that last line, trying to find another--Great +heavens! + + * * * * * + +But I can not find another word. I am in despair. + +I know perfectly well what I shall do, only I am a coward, and do not do +it. I shall stay in this state till my rage has heaped itself up enough and +breaks through everything at last. And then I shall begin to hammer myself! +to swear at myself in a way that would make a longshoreman turn white. And +I shall spend perhaps two or three hours--perhaps two or three days--doing +that, until I am quite in a white heat; and then--I shall go to my work. + +That is the price I pay for being distracted. + + * * * * * + +May 11th. + +I said to myself the day before yesterday--with a kind of a dry sob--"I +can't do it! I can't do it!" + +Oh how tormented I am by noises--noises! What am I not tormented by? Some +days ago I was writing in a frenzy--and the landlady came for her rent. And +the horrible creature standing there, talking at me! "So lonely!--don't +ever see people! Mrs. Smithers was a-saying--" Oh, damn Mrs. Smithers! + +I thought I could never do it--I was really about to give it up. I went out +on the street--I roamed about for hours, talking I don't know what nonsense +to myself. And then at last I came home, and I knelt down there at the +bedside and said: "Here you stay without anything to eat until you've +written ten lines of that poem!" + +And that was how I did it. I stayed there, and I prayed. I don't often +pray, but that time I prayed like one possessed--I was so lonely and so +helpless--and the work was so beautiful. I stayed there for nine blessed +hours, and then the clock stopped and I couldn't count after that. + +But the day came, and then the ten lines! And so I had my breakfast. + +These things leave you weak, but a little less dull. + + * * * * * + +May 13th. + +I have been working with a kind of wild desperation all day to-day. Oh it +hurts--it hurts--but I am doing it! Whenever I read some lines of it that +are real--whenever some great living phrase flashes over me--then I laugh +like a man in the midst of a battle. + +I shall be just as a man who has been through a battle; haggard and wild +and desperate. Oh, I don't think I shall _ever_ have the courage to do +it again! + +I did not know what it meant! I did not! It was giving myself into the +hands of a fiend! + +All great books will be something different to me after this. Did +Shakespeare write thus with the blood of his soul? Or am I weak? Did he +ever cry out in pain, as I have? + + * * * * * + +May 14th. + +Another day of raw torture. It is like toiling up a mountain side; and your +limbs are of lead. It is like struggling in a nightmare,--that is just what +it is like. It is sickening. + +But then you dare not stop. It is hard to go on, but it is ten times as +hard to start if you stop. + +I could hardly stand up this afternoon! but the thing was ringing in +my ears--it went on and on--I had to go after it! I was in the seventh +heaven--I could see anything, dare anything, do anything. It made no +difference how hard--it called to me--on--on! And I said: "Suppose I were +to be tortured--could I go then?" And so I went and went. + +I haven't written it down yet; I felt sick. But I know it all. + +Oh men--oh my brothers--will you love me for this thing? + + * * * * * + +May 16th. + +I did no writing yesterday or to-day. I have been terribly frightened. + +I wrote what I had to write the day before yesterday--I could not help it. +But when I stopped my head was literally on fire, and the strangest mad +throbbing in it--I stood still in fear, it felt so as if something were +going to burst--my head seemed to weigh a ton. I poured cold water over it, +but it made no difference--it stayed that way all night and all yesterday. + +What am I to do? I dare not think--I took a long walk, and even now I find +myself thinking of the book without knowing it. Imagine me sitting on a +doorstep and playing for two hours with a kitten! + +Why should I be handicapped in such a way as this? I had never thought of +such a thing. + + * * * * * + +I was thinking about The Captive--it is my own. Nobody has helped me--I +have told not one person of it. Everything in it has come out of my soul. + + * * * * * + +May 17th. + +I feel better to-day, but I hardly know what to do. + +Meantime I was happy!--Think of a poet's being happy with city flowers! of +a poet's being happy with store-flowers--prostitute-flowers--flowers for +sale! + +It was all about a narcissus--"Very flower of youth, and morning's golden +hour!"--as I called it once. And it danced so! (It was out on the +curbstone)--and I went off happy. + +Then I thought of a poem that is pure distilled ecstasy to my spirit. I +will write it, and be happy again: + + Sit thee by the ingle, when + The sear faggot blazes bright; + Spirit of a winter's night!-- ... + Sit thee there, and send abroad, + With a mind self-overaw'd, + Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her! + She has vassals to attend her; + She will bring, in spite of frost, + Beauties that the earth hath lost; + She will bring thee, all together, + All delights of summer weather; + All the buds and bells of May, + From dewy sward or thorny spray; + All the heaped Autumn's wealth, + With a still, mysterious stealth; + She will mix those pleasures up, + Like three fit wines in a cup, + And thou shall quaff it!-- + +Ah! And so I went along, "sun, moon, and stars forgot"--laughing and half +dancing. People stared at me--and I laughed. And then I passed three pretty +girls, and I laughed, and they laughed too. I guess they thought I was +going to follow them. + +--But that pleasure was not in my cup, dear girls. + + * * * * * + +Some of these days I hope to live in a beautiful world, where a man may +speak to a pretty girl on the street. Badness is its own punishment, let +the bad world observe. + +I would rather look at a beautiful woman than do anything else I know of in +this world, except listen to music. + + * * * * * + +May 18th. + +I often think how I shall spend my money after The Captive is done. I shall +take a band of chosen youths, seekers and worshipers, and we shall build a +house on a mountain-top and worship the Lord in the beauty of music! + +I shall have to begin at the beginning--I have never had any one to teach +me music. But oh, if I did know!--And if I ever got hold of an +orchestra--_how_ I would make it go! + +And in the middle of it the astonished orchestra would see the conductor +take wings unto himself and fly off through the roof. + +A book that I mean to write some day will be called The Pleasures of Music, +and it will sing the joys of being clean and strong, of cold water and the +early morning and a free heart. It will show how all the unhappiness of men +is that they live in the body and in self, and how the world is to be saved +through music, which is not of the body, nor of self--which is free and +infinite, swift as the winds, vast as the oceans, endless as time, and +happy as whole meadows of flowers! The more who come to partake of it, the +better it is; for generous is "Frau Musika," her heart is made wholly of +love. + +--And when I have shown all these things, Frau Musika, I shall tell of the +golden lands that I have visited upon the wings of thy spirit!-- + + What objects are the fountains + Of thy happy strain! + What fields or waves or mountains, + What shapes of sky or plain! + What love of thine own kind, what ignorance of pain! + + * * * * * + +May 20th. + +I live among the poor people and that keeps me humble. There is not much +chance for freedom, I hear them say, there are not many who can dwell in +the forests. Prove your right to it--prove what you can do--the law is +stern. I am not afraid of the challenge; I will prove what I can do. + +But I see one here and there with whom the law is not so strict, I think. + + * * * * * + +I met a merchant the other night. I dreamed of him. He said: "I buy such +goods as men need; I buy them as cheaply as I can, since life is grim. I +sell them as cheaply as I can, since men are poor and suffering. I make of +profit what I need to live humbly. I am not of the world's seekers; I am of +the finders." + + * * * * * + +I met also a guileless fool. + +We passed a great mansion. "I should like to know the man who lives there," +said the fool. + +"Should you?" said I. + +"Is he a hero?" asked the fool. + +"No," said I. + +"Is he a poet?" asked the fool. + +"No," said I. + +"Must he not be very beautiful," said the fool, "that men judge him worthy +of so much beauty?" + + * * * * * + +May 21st. + +I must finish this thing this time! That cry rings in my ears night after +night. I am toiling upward--upward--I can see no sign of the end yet--but +I must finish this time! If I had to stop with this thing haunting me--if +I had to go out into that jungle of a world with this weight upon me--to +repress myself with this fire in my heart--I could not bear it--I could not +bear it! + +And if I stopped and went out into that world again--how many weeks of +agony would it cost me to get back to where I am now! + +I must finish this time! + + * * * * * + +May 22d. + +"No, officer, I am neither a burglar nor a highwayman, nor anything else +worth bothering; I'm just a poet, and I'm crazy, to all practical purposes, +so please get used to me and let me wander about the streets at these +strange hours of the night without worrying!" + +Poor, perplexed policeman! Poor, perplexed world! Poor, perplexed mothers +and fathers, sisters and cousins and aunts of poets! + + Mit deinen schwarzbraunen Augen + Siehst du mich forschend an: + "Wer bist du, und was fehlt dir, + Du fremder, kranker Mann!" + +Who does not love the poet Heine--melodious, beautiful, bitter soul? Is +there any other poet who can mingle, in one sentence, savage irony and +tenderness that brings tears into the eyes? Who can tell the secret of his +flower-like verses? + + Ich bin ein deutscher Dichter, + Bekannt im deutschen Land; + Nennt man die besten Namen + So wird auch der meine genannt. + Und was mir fehlt, du Kleine, + Fehlt manchem im deutschen Land; + Nennt man die schlimmsten Schmerzen, + So wird auch die meine genannt! + +I have never seen but one beautiful thing in New York, and that is its +mighty river in the night-time. I wander down to the docks when my work is +done, and when it is still; I sit and gaze at it until the city is quite +gone, and all its restlessness,--until there is but that grave presence, +rolling restlessly, silently, as it has rolled for ages. It makes no +comments; it has seen many things. + +To-night I sat and watched it till a tangled forest sprang up about me, and +I saw a strange, high-bowed, storm-beaten craft glide past me, ghostly +white, its ghostly sailors gazing ahead and dreaming of spices and gold. + + * * * * * + +The old, old river--my only friend in a whole city! It goes its way--it is +not of the hour. + +It fascinates me, and I sit and sit and wonder. I gaze into its black and +gurgling depths, and whisper what Shelley whispered: "If I should go down +there, I should _know_!" + + * * * * * + +But no, I should not know anything. + + * * * * * + +_The days when thou wert not, did they trouble thee? The days when thou +art not shall trouble thee as much._ + + * * * * * + +May 24th. + +AN ESSAY AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS + +I write this to set forth a purpose which I have for over a year held +before me. I write it that it may serve me for a standard. I write it at +a time when my bank-account consists of twenty-five dollars, and I mean +to publish it at such a time as by the method of plain living and high +thinking, I shall have been able to increase it a hundredfold. + +We are told that a man who would write a great poem must first make a poem +of his life. An artist, as I understand the word, is a man who has but one +joy and one purpose and one interest in life--the creating of beauty; he is +a man lifted above and set apart from all other motives of men; a man who +seeks not wealth nor comfort nor fame, nor values these things at all; a +man whose heart is forever lonely, whose life is an endless sorrow, and +whose excuse and whose spur and whose goal and whose consecration, is the +creating of beauty. + +What power--be it talent or genius--God has given me, I can not tell; I +only know that an artist in that sense of the word I mean to be. I have +thought out a plan by which I shall make the publishing of my books, as +well as the writing of them, a thing of Art. + +No one will read very far in what I shall write without perceiving there +a savage hatred of the spirit of the modern world of wealth; it is only +because I have faith in democracy and hope in the people of my country that +I do not go to worship my God on a desert island. The world which I see +about me at the present moment--the world of politics, of business, of +society--seems to me a thing demoniac in its hideousness; a world gone mad +with pride and selfish lust; a world of wild beasts writhing and grappling +in a pit. + +I am but a voice crying in the wilderness, and these things must run their +course. But in the meantime there is one thing that I can do, and the doing +of that has become with me a passion--I can keep my own life pure; I can +see that there is one man amid all this madness whose life is untouched by +any stain of it; who lives not by bread alone, nor by jewelry and gold; who +lives not to be stared at and made drunk with pride, but to behold beauty +and dwell in love; who labors day and night to keep a heart full of worship +and to sing of faith to suffering men; who takes of the reward of that +singing just what food and shelter his body needs; and who shrinks from +wealth and luxury as he would from the mouth of hell. + +To live humbly and in oblivion would be my choice, but it will be my duty +to do differently. I know enough about the human heart to know that the +presence of one righteous man makes ten thousand unrighteous men angry and +uncomfortable. And therefore, for the help of any whom it may comfort, and +for the damnation of all the rest, I shall choose that the life I live and +the thing I do shall be public; I shall choose that the millions in our +country who are wearing out their frantic lives in the pursuit of the +dollar, and the few who are squandering their treasures in drunken pomp, +shall know that there is one man who laughs at them--whom all the millions +of all of them could not buy--and who dwells in joy and worship in a heaven +of which they can not even know. In other words, it is my idea not merely +to make a poem of my life, but to publish the poem. + +I shall have other, and deeper, and kinder reasons also, for what I shall +do. What I write in my books must be from my deepest heart, the confession +of those moments of which I would speak to no living soul; it must be all +my tenderness, and all my rapture, and all my prayer; and do you think it +will come easily to me to put that out before the rough world to be stared +at, to be bound up in a book and hawked about by commercial people?... + + (Here follows in the manuscript the outline of a + plan for publishing the writer's works at cost.) + + * * * * * + +Would it not be interesting to me, if I could but pierce the future once, +and see how long it is destined to be before I do so publish a book! I +would do my work better, I fancy, for that.--But let it lie. I shall +publish it some day surely, that I know at least. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes I can hardly realize what it will be to me when I have really won +fame, when I can speak the things that so need speaking--and be heard. + + * * * * * + +May 25th. + +Line by line, page by page, I do it. I am counting the days now, +wondering--longing. + +It is not merely the writing of it, it is the seeing of it--the planning +and designing. Sometimes I brood over it for hours--I can not find what +I want; and then suddenly a phrase flashes over me and like a train of +gunpowder my thought goes running on--leaping, flying; and then the whole +thing is plain as day. And I hold it all living in my hands. + +I am blessed with a good memory. In times of excitement such as that I +seize all the best phrases and carry them away, and bury them out of sight, +like a miser. They are my nuggets of gold. + +And sometimes I am a greedy miser, and stand perplexed; shall I go on and +gather more, or shall I make off with the armful that I have? + + * * * * * + +May 26th. + +My religion is my Art. I have no prayer but my work. + +Sometimes that is a glory, and sometimes again that is an agony. To have no +duty outside of yourself; to have no inspiration outside of yourself; to +have no routine to help you, no voice to cry out when your conscience goes +to sleep, no place of refuge in your weakness!-- + +All that is but the reason why I dare not be weak. I have chosen to lead +and not to follow; therefore I have no rest, and may not look behind me, +and can think of nothing but the way. + +To be the maker of a religion is to sweat blood in the night-time. + + * * * * * + +There is but one way that I may live--to take every impulse that comes--to +be watching, watching--to dare always and instantly, to hesitate, to put +off never, to seize the skirt of my muse whenever it shimmers before me. So +I make myself a habit, a routine, a discipline; and so each day I have new +power. So each day I feel myself, I bare my arms, I walk erect, exulting--I +laugh--I am a god! + +--And as I write that a feeling takes rise in me, and my heart beats +faster; but I am tired, I sink back, I do not take the gift that is +offered; and then my conscience gives a growl, and in a flash I see what +I have done, and feel a throb of rage and leap up. + + * * * * * + +One of my perils is that when I am strong I feel that I must always be so. +This truth that is so obvious, these words that flow so swift--what need is +there to fear for them, to write them now?--And so they are never written. + + * * * * * + +May 27th. + +Will you imagine me to-day, kneeling by the bedside, shuddering; my face +hidden, the tears streaming down my cheeks--and I crying aloud: "I +will--oh, I will!" + +I can not tell any more. + + * * * * * + +May 29th. + +I am coming to the last scenes. I hear them rumbling in my soul--far, far +off--like a distant surf on a windless night. + +I am coming, step by step: I mean to fight it out on this line. + +I know a man who always rose to the occasion. Never was he challenged that +he did not dare and triumph. Oh, if instead of being hungry and pining, I +had but the music of that divine inspirer!-- + + Heller schallend, + mich umwallend, + sind es Wellen + sanfter Luefte? + Sind es Wogen + wonniger Duefte? + Wie sie schwellen, + mich umrauschen, + soll ich athmen, + soll ich lauschen? + Soll ich schluerfen, + untertauchen, + suess in Dueften + mich verhauchen? + + * * * * * + +May 30th. + +To-day. I had a spiritual experience--a revelation; to-day, in a flash of +insight, I understood an age--whole centuries of time, whole nations of +men. + +I had been writing one of the great hymns, one of the great victories; and +I had been drunk with it, it had come with a surge and a sweep, it had set +everything about me in motion--huge phantom shapes--all life and all being +gone mad. + +And then, when I had written it, I went out into the dark night; I walked +and walked, not knowing where, still tingling with excitement. And, +suddenly, I stood spellbound--the cathedral! + +There it was--there it was! I saw it, alive and real before me--all of +it--all that I had seen and known! I cried out for joy, I stretched out my +arms to it--the great, dark surging presence; and all my soul went with it, +singing, singing--up into the misty night! + + * * * * * + +June 1st. + +I sat to-night by the river again. It was moonlight, and the water lay +shimmering. A little yacht, gleaming with lights, sped by; it was very +close, and I saw a group of people on it, I heard them laughing; and one +of them--a woman--was singing. + +O God, what a voice! So rich, so exquisite! It soared upward and died +again, quivering like the reflection of the stars on the water. It went +in--in to the very depths of my soul; it loosed all the woe of my spirit, +it made the tears gush into my eyes. And then it died away, away in the +distance; and I sat with my hands clasped. + +Sail on--sail on--oh heavenly voice! Far-off vision of brightness and +beauty! Your lot is not my lot. + + * * * * * + +--There is something within me that weeps yet, at the echo of that music. +Oh, what would I not give for music! How much of my bitterness, how many of +my sorrows have melted into tears at one strain! + +And I can not have it! Oh, you who do have it, do you know what you have? +Oh beautiful voice, do you hear yourself? + +All things else I can make for myself--friendship and love--nature and +books and prayer; all things but music! + + * * * * * + +Can you not hear that voice dying--dying--"over the rolling waters"? + + * * * * * + +June 2d. + +I shall come out of this a man--a man! I shall know how to live all my +days! I shall have memories that will always haunt me, memories that I can +build the years by! + + * * * * * + +June 3d. + +From the time that I began The Captive it has been almost two months; it is +just six weeks from the day I wrote that I had ten or twelve weeks in which +to finish. I have done well financially--I have twenty-one dollars left, +and I have paid for my typewriting. + +It is not a fortune. But enough is as good as a fortune. + +And I am coming on! I have been counting the scenes--I am really within +sight of the end. + +--That day when I crouched by the bed I saw all of the end. I have seen the +whole thing. It will leave me a wreck, but I can do it. And it will take me +about three weeks. + +Think of my being able to say that!--Five or six hundred lines at least +I shall have to do, and still I dare to say that. But I am full of this +thing, I mount with it all the time. I am finding my wings. + +Nothing can stop me now; I feel that I shall hold myself to it. I become +more grim every day. + + * * * * * + +No one can guess what it means to me to find that I have hold of the whole +of this thing! It is like strong wine to me--I scarcely know where I am. + + * * * * * + +June 4th. + +I am sitting down by the window, and first I kick my heels against my old +trunk, and then I write this. Hi! Hi! I think of a poem that I used to +recite about Santa Claus--"Ho, Castor! ho, Pollux!"--and then ho a lot of +other things--a Donner and a Blitzen I remember in particular. I want a +reindeer--a Pegasus--a Valkyrie--an anything--to carry me away up into the +air where I can exult without impropriety! + + Come blow your horn, hunter, + Come blow your horn on high! + In yonder room there lieth a 'cello player, + And now he's going to move away! + Come blow your horn-- + +That's an old Elizabethan song. I heard them come up for his trunk just +now, and they've dragged it down-stairs, and I hear the landlady fuming +because they are tearing the wall paper. I have never loved the sound of +the landlady's voice before. + + * * * * * + +--The world is divinely arranged, there is no question about it. + + * * * * * + +June 5th. + +Deep in my soul I was convinced that the room would be let to something +worse. But now it appears that the landlady's sister is to occupy it. + +--So now I will get to work! + +--Moving is noisy; I can't complain. I have been walking about the streets. +I am hungry for the work; but still, I had much to think of. It is a +wonderful thing--a glorious thing, this story--it will make men's hearts +leap. + + * * * * * + +June 6th. + +I have plenty of time to write journals, if I feel like it. There is the +sister, and there is the landlady, and there is another woman, and they +have been jabbering about dresses all of the morning. I have been like a +crazy man--I was all on fire this morning, too! O God, it is too cruel! + +I could dress those three hags with broomsticks. + + * * * * * + +--How long is this to continue, I want to know. Here it is afternoon and +they are still chattering. Every time I have tried to compose my thoughts +they have come back and begun chattering again. And so I can only pace +about, and then rush out into the street--and wear myself sick. I call +this simply monstrous. That my soul should be tied down to such vulgarity +as this--is it not maddening? Here I am--with all my load of woe--at +this fearful crisis! And I am to be shattered and wrecked and ruined by +_this_! Just as long as they choose to sit there, just so long I am +helpless. Was it for this that I have borne all the pain? + + * * * * * + +It seems to me that I hear jeering laughter around me from a swarm of +little demons. I hide my face and flee, but they follow me. + + * * * * * + +But what can you expect? Have they not a right to talk?--Yes--all the world +has a right to be as hideous as it can. And I have no right but to suffer +and to choke in my rage. + +Three vile, ignorant serving-women! Serving-women--ah yes, and if they were +_my_ servants! If I could pay them!--But who serves me! Of what consequence +am I! + + * * * * * + +These things goad me, they are like poisoned thorns in my flesh. The +infinite degradation of it all, the shame, the outrage! + +It has burned a brand deep into my flesh, and never while I live will it +come out. Ah, you rich men! You who rule us, who own the treasures, the +opportunities, the joys! You who trample the fair gardens of life like +great blind beasts! + +Do you think it is nothing to me that the inspiration and the glory of my +whole lifetime is to be trampled into nothingness for lack of what others +spend upon one dress? Yes, of my whole lifetime! My whole lifetime! Give me +but what another will spend upon one foolish gimcrack that he never looks +at again, and I will live for a whole lifetime! And I will write such +music--Bah! What am I doing? + + * * * * * + +--Sometimes when I think of these things a black shadow stalks over my +heart. I hear a voice, "Fool, and do you still think that you are ever +to escape from this? Do you not perceive that this sordid shame is your +_lot_? Do you not perceive that you may writhe and twist, struggle and +pant, toil and serve, till you foam at the lips? Who will heed you! Who +will hear you! Who cares anything about you!--Who wants your Art! Who wants +your work! Who wants your _life_!--Fool!" + + * * * * * + +--Of course this thing could not go on. And so of course,--stammering and +writhing, as I always do when I have my nose pushed into this kind of +filth--I had to speak to the landlady about it to-night.-- + +And of course the landlady was astonished. "Why, Mr. Stirling, can't a body +talk in a body's own room?" Yes, a body can talk, but then other bodies +have to move away. + +Now she's going to speak to her sister about it. And here I sit, writhing +and trembling. Oh my God, suppose I have to move! Oh merciful Father, have +pity on me--I can't bear much of this! To go tramping around this hot and +horrible city, to go into some new and perhaps yet more dirty place! And +oh, the agony, the shame--suppose _that_ will not do, and I have to +keep on searching! Dragging this fearful burden with me! And I have only +eighteen dollars left! + + * * * * * + +If I think of it any longer I shall scream with nervousness. + + * * * * * + +June 7th. + +And now it is all settled. A body has to talk in a body's own room, and a +body's nose has to turn up with indignation as a body announces the fact. +And so here I sit, waiting for the expressman to come for my trunk. + +Now that it is over it does not seem so bad. I am like a snail--once back +in my shell, I do not care what happens. I have given up trying to write +The Captive, and so nothing bothers me any more.--I have forgotten all +about it now, it is years behind me. + +But I have seen it all; I can get it back in good time. I do not fear. + +I have rolled up a little bundle, a tooth-brush and some manuscripts +principally; and I send the rest to a friend's house. I have had an +inspiration. Why should I stay in this hot and steaming place?--Why should +I be "barricaded evermore within the walls of cities?" _Ich will ins +Land!_ + +Why did I not think of this in the beginning? I am going now to see the +springtime!--"the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing--hey +ding-a-ding!" + +That was a real idea. I do not know where I am going; but I will walk and +get somewhere--there will be woods. I'll sleep in hay-ricks if it can't be +managed any other way. + + Away, away from men and towns, + To the wildwood and the downs! + +I could have been through in three weeks now, I believe. But it was not to +be. We have to take what comes to us-- + + Let us then be up and doing, + With a heart for any fate. + +I'm glad I don't have to write poetry like _that_! + + * * * * * + +June 8th. + +Howdy-do, Brother Bobolink! How in the world did you guess I was coming +this way? + + --Es ist nun einmal so. + Kein Dichter reist incognito! + +Ah, to be out in the open air again, to see the world green and beautiful; +to run with the wind and look at the flowers and listen to the birds! I am +sitting by a spring; I have eaten my dinner. + +I turned my steps Jerseyward. + + * * * * * + +--I have been walking all day. I must find some place to stop very soon. +I can not think of the country with this burden on me. I am like a sick +animal--I seek a hiding-place. I fancied I might think of my work on the +way, but I can not. The world is happy; my work is not happy. + +My hope is all in the end of the journey, and the walking is drudgery. And +then, my money is going! I must find some sort of a hut--a tumble-down +house, an old barn--anything. + +I shall trudge one more day's journey. Then I think I shall be far enough +from New York. + + * * * * * + +--I passed a tramp to-day; and while we walked together I composed an +address: + +"My brother--for are we not brothers, thou and I? + +"Have we not fled from the sleek man, thou and I? And is it not we alone +that know Truth? + +"Thy clothing is ragged, and there is hunger in thine eyes; it is so also +with me. + +"It is thy fate to wander; it is my fate to wander too. And with restless +eyes to look out upon the world, to meet with distrust from men. + +"Yet not for that am I sad, nay, not for that, but for a deeper sorrow; +because I was sent out into the world with a curse upon me, because I was +sent out into the world a Drunkard. + +"Yea, so it is, my brother. + +"And that for which I thirst is not easy to find; and when I have found it +I am not content, but must seek more; and so I have only desolation. + +"Who laid this curse upon us, my brother? + +"That we should dwell in sorrow and unrest? + +"That no man should heed our voice, and that we should grow weak and faint? + +"That we should die, and be forgotten--thou and I? + +"Oh, tell us wherefore--ye wise men." + + * * * * * + +June 9th. + +I have walked another day. I am beginning to get away from the suburban +towns, and into the real country. I knew that it would cost me a good deal +to go to a hotel last night, and it was warm, so I slept in a hay-stack! +It was quite an adventure. Now I've got my pockets stuffed full of rolls, +Benjamin Franklin style. + +--My mind is like the ocean after a storm. + +The great waves come rolling over it still; it is all restless, tossing. +But it is sinking, sinking to rest!--Heaven grant that I may find my place +of refuge before it is quite calm. + +It is everything or nothing with me; I am made that way. Either I give +every instant of my time, every thought, every effort to my work, or else I +close up like a flower and wait. I can not write poetry and hunt a lodging +too. + +So I am waiting--waiting.-- + + * * * * * + +June 10th. + +I began inquiring to-day--a shanty, a barn--anything. Every one thinks it +necessary to be very much puzzled about what I want it for. My clothes +are still fairly respectable, and so they tell me about pretty summer +cottages--only so much per month! + + * * * * * + +June 12th. + +I have been tramping on and on for two more days. I do not believe I shall +ever find what I want. Nothing but one old musty place in ruins, so far! +And my money is going, and I am wild with anxiety! I am almost tempted to +turn back to the ruin. + + * * * * * + +June 13th. + +I am sitting in a room in a dirty hotel. It was raining to-day and I had to +come here. I shall probably have to pay fifty cents too. I won't stay to +breakfast. + +Oh what will I do if my money gives out? I saw a cottage to-day, that a man +said I could have for ten dollars a month. I was tempted to spend nearly +all I had and take it, and live on bread and water. I am desperate. + + * * * * * + +June 14th. + +"Perhaps maybe you'd like 'Oaklands,'" said the farmer, laughing. + +"Oaklands" turned out to be the home of a millionaire "dry-goods man" who +was in Europe. I did not want "Oaklands." + +"I don't know of anything else," said the farmer, scratching his head. Then +he added with a grin, "unless it be the cook-house." + +"What's the cook-house?" I asked, suspiciously. + +"Oh, it's a kind of a little place they've got 'way out in the woods," said +the farmer. "It's where they goes when they goes picnicking." + +My heart gave a jump. "What sort of a place?" I asked. + +"They've got a big platform chiefly, where they put up a tent. The +cook-house ain't nothin' but a little two by four shanty, with a big stove +in it." + +"How big is it?" I cried. + +"It's about half o' this here room, I reckon." + +("This here room" was about six of my rooms in New York!) + +"And where is it?" I cried. "How can I get there?" + +"Oh, you don't want to go to no sech place ez that!" said the farmer. +"There ain't no bed nor nothin' in it! An' it's two mile out there in the +woods!" + +Let anybody imagine how my heart was going! "Who can show it to me?" I +panted. + +"Why," said he, "I'm the man that's in charge of it; but I--" + +"And can you rent it to me for a month?" + +"Why, I don't know any reason why I can't rent it to you for a year--only +it ain't worth nothin', an'--" + +"Then rent it to me! The less it is worth the better it will suit me. But +come, show me where it is!" + +"I reckon I can show you," said the man, looking perplexed. "But what in +the world do you want to go into that lonesome place for? Why, boy, nobody +goes there in a month! An' what you goin' to do for somethin' to eat, an' +some place to sleep, an'--" + + * * * * * + +I managed to get him started at last. And now, oh just look at me! I've +been roaming around staring at it--inside and outside. The gods love me +after all. + +The infinite relief that it is! The infinite exultation that it is! And +all to myself--not a soul near me! And out in the woods! _And mine for +a month!_ Oh blessed 'cello player that moved away; blessed landlady's +sister that talked--! + +And oh blessed cook-house! We will make thee a consecrated cook-house +before we get through--we will! We will cook a dish in thee that will warm +the hearts of a goodly company--oh blessed cook-house! + +--And outside a great white moon streaming through the forest trees! + + * * * * * + +The "cook-house" is about ten feet square. It is about one-third stove, now +covered with a newspaper and serving as a table. Besides that there is one +chair, for which I have just improvised a leg, with the help of my knife. + +Besides the knife I have a fork, a plate, a cup, and a spoon--borrowed from +the farmer. I have a blanket and a bed consisting of an old carriage robe, +rented from the farmer. I have a lamp and a kerosene-can--ditto. I have a +frying-pan--ditto. But I haven't my little oil-stove, so I fear I shall eat +mostly cold things. I have a pail of milk, a loaf of bread, a ginger-cake, +some butter, some eggs, some bacon, some apples and some radishes; also a +tooth-brush, a comb, a change of clothing, two handkerchiefs, some pencils +and paper, Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound, Samson Agonistes, faith, +hope, and charity! + +--I believe I have named all the necessaries of life. + + * * * * * + +June 15th. + +I have scooped myself out a bathtub below the spring. I forgot towels in +my list of necessaries! I fear it will be inconvenient on rainy days. I am +like a child with a new toy, in my wonderful home. I was too excited to +think of working. I fried an egg over a little fire, and then I roamed all +about the woods. I don't remember ever having been so happy before. I had +forgotten there was anything beautiful in the world.-- + + * * * * * + +--I spent the whole of the afternoon dreaming a dream. When I have finished +The Captive and gotten some money, I am going to have a little house in the +woods! I have just had it before my eyes--and I laughed with delight like a +boy. + +It will be a fine big house--it will cost about fifty dollars; and there +will be a table and a chair, and a cot, and such things. It will stand by a +lake, a wild lake far out in the mountains! I have vowed to find a lake at +least five miles from anything; and once a week I will have somebody bring +me provisions. + + * * * * * + +--That is the way I shall spend next summer!--Up, up! Get to work!-- + + * * * * * + +June 17th. + +I have done nothing for two days but wander around and stare at things. It +is all gone, every gleam of it! And I can not bring it back--I know not +what to do, where to turn. I stopped in one of the hardest parts of the +whole thing--in the very midst of it; and how in the world am I to begin? I +walk around, I sit down, I get up again; I try to put my thoughts upon it, +I bring them back again and again. But I can not do it--I have let every +thread of it go. What has tramping over the country and delight in houses +got to do with my work? + +I have nothing to write--the whole thing is a blank to me. And here I am, +eating up my provisions!--This shows me what I am--what a child. + +--But how am I to get up on those fearful heights again? How am I to take +the first step toward those fearful heights again? I cry that all day! + + * * * * * + +June 20th. + +Oh, the joy of being out in the woods! I never knew of it before--I never +dreamed it! + +It is better than an orchestra. To be able to stretch your arms! To have a +place to walk! To be able to talk aloud!--to laugh--to shout--to do what +you please!--to be free from all men, and the thought of all men! + +And to hear your own poetry aloud!--I cried out to-day that I would go back +and do the whole of The Captive over again, so that I could hear it out +loud. It made me quite wild yesterday when I first realized that I was +_alone_! + +--Last night there was a gale, and the clouds sped over the moon, and the +wind roared in the trees--and I roared too! + +--"For I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set!" + + * * * * * + +June 21st. + +I did just as I have always done before. I got desperate enough, and then +I went to work. I said "I will! and I will! and I will!" I think I said +nothing else for twenty-four hours. + +And so the storm again, and the great waves speeding! + + * * * * * + +Is there any one who has ever watched the great waves?--How they go! They +take you right with them. My verses shall be waves. + +I am tired out again; but oh, I am filled with my music! There was never +any poetry like it in the world! + + * * * * * + +And at the height of it I cry out: "I am free! I am free! + +"I won't have to stop again! + +"I can go to the very end of it! + +"And I don't care who hears me! + +"I am free!" + + * * * * * + +June 23d. + +I ate a raw egg this morning. For yesterday I let the fire go out five +times, and gave up my breakfast rather than start a sixth. + +I wanted to save time--I thought it would be egg just the same; but I +record it for future generations of poets, that the experiment is not a +success. You taste raw egg all day. + +I shall have them all hard-boiled in the farmhouse after this. + +--Twenty-eight lines to-day! I had more, but I lost them, and then I fell +down. + +--There is always a new height, but there are not always new words. My +verse grows more and more incoherent, and more and more daring. I can feel +the difference of a whole lifetime between it now, and what I wrote ten +weeks ago. + + * * * * * + +--That is as it should be, of course. One does not reckon by days in a +dungeon. + +I notice also that the periods get longer; it has more sweep--it leaps +wider spaces--it is less easy to follow. + + * * * * * + +--Oh, let not any man read what I wrote this morning, except he stand upon +the heights! + + * * * * * + +I have worn a path in the woods, deep and wide, pacing back and forth, +back and forth, all day. Any one who saw me would think that I was mad. +Fighting--fighting--all the time fighting! Sometimes I run--sometimes I +don't know what I do. Last night I know that it grew dark, and that I was +still lying flat on the dead leaves, striking my hands, that were numb with +excitement. I was too weak to move--but I remember panting out, "There is +nothing like that in _King Lear_!" + + * * * * * + +I brought about twenty phrases out of that, and one or two sentences. They +will fall into the verse the next time it comes. + + * * * * * + +June 24th. + +--Listen to me, oh thou world--I will tell you something! You may take a +century to understand those phrases--to stop laughing at them, perhaps--who +knows? But those sentences are _real_; and they will last as long as +there is a man alive to read them! + +When I let anything make me cease to believe in that scene, may I die! + +--I will shout it aloud on the streets; they are _real_! + + * * * * * + +And there has been nothing like them done for some years, either. + + * * * * * + +June 25th. + +To-day you may imagine me frantically throwing stones at a squirrel. I +said: "If I get him I won't have to go to the farmhouse to-morrow." + +I had had nothing to eat but bread and apples for two meals, and I couldn't +stand that again. + +I had fried squirrel and fried apples for supper. It was a very curious +repast. + +And I was hungry, and I ate too much! That made me wild, of course, and I +flung all my apples away into the woods. May they feed new squirrels! + + * * * * * + +June 26th. + +I get up every morning like--like the sun! I overflow with +laughter--nothing frightens me now. I never knew what was the matter with +me before--it was simply that I could not fight as I chose. If ever I go +back again to have my soul pent up in the cities of men! + +I am full of it--full of it! I grapple with it all the day, I can not get +enough of it. I do crazy things. + +And the harder it is the faster I go! This thing has been my torturing--it +has made me fight and live. That is really the truth. + + * * * * * + +And I am coming to the end--really to the end! + + * * * * * + +June 27th. + +A rainy day! And no glass in my house--only a board cover to the window. I +made myself a nest on the sheltered side. + +Nearer! Nearer! + + * * * * * + +June 29th. + +Wandering through the woods dreaming of a banquet-hall.--The guests are +witty. + + * * * * * + +I have put into the mouths of the guests all that the world has said to me, +since first I went poetical. + + * * * * * + +June 30th. + +To-day I got a big stock of things to eat. I count my time not by days, but +by loaves of bread and dozens of hard-boiled eggs. + + * * * * * + +--This book goes out into the world, not to be judged, but to judge! + + * * * * * + +July 1st. + +You do not hear much from a man in a battle, just now and then a cry. + +I have gone in to seek out my last enemy--the last demon who has defied me. +I shall close with him--I shall have the thing over with--I will no longer +be haunted and made sick. + +--I believe I shall do it all in one day. I don't think I can lay it aside. + + * * * * * + +July 3d. + +It is done!-- + +I wrote that at three o'clock this morning, and then I lay back and laughed +and sobbed, and in the end I fell asleep in the chair. + +I was not ill--my relief was so great. I was only happy. I lay back and +closed my eyes. I have born my child. + +It is done! It is done! I realize it, and then I am like a crazy person. I +do not know what I am doing--I only wander around and sit down in the woods +and laugh and talk to myself. O God, I am so happy! + +I have only to write the end--the last scene in the dungeon. And that is +nothing. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course!" + + * * * * * + +July 4th. + +I have only to write the echoes that are in my heart, the stammering words +of thanksgiving. It is nothing--I have been over them. My whole being is +melted with the woe of them--but I can do them anywhere--anyhow. + +--And a sudden wild longing has come over me for the city. I must take all +the world into my arms--I am so happy--I love it so! + +Ah, I have done it! I have done it! I am free! _Free!_ FREE! + +I must get this thing typewritten--I must get rid of it--it must be +published. How long does it take to get a book published? + + * * * * * + +July 5th. + +I fought a fight with myself yesterday, and won it. The last of my +weaknesses! I wanted to pack up my things and go home! And finish my poem +on the train! I was that hungry for the goal! But I am still here--doing +the last scene. I shall stay until it is done. I can not stay after that. + + * * * * * + +Let me hear how your voice trembles as you sing the last strains of your +song, and I will tell you how great an artist you are. + + Good night, sweet prince, + And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! + + * * * * * + +July 6th. + +Five in the afternoon! And the wind was howling in turret and tree, and all +the forest was an organ chant. So I packed up my belongings, and laid my +poem in next to my heart--the last words written: "It is done!" + +And I went out and stood and gazed at my little home. Farewell, farewell, +little home! Perhaps I shall never see you again; but ever you will live +in my fancy as my heaven upon earth. They built thee for picnic parties! +And I wonder what proud prince had built for his pleasures--the Garden of +Gethsemane! + + * * * * * + +And now I go forth like a bridegroom out of my chamber, rejoicing as a +strong man to run a race. And all the world dances around me, and I stretch +out my arms and sing! + +Come, come, my foes, where are ye now? What foes shall I be afraid of now! +Is it the world and its trials? Come! + + * * * * * + +I go back to conquer--I have forged my weapon! I have bared my arm! Where +are those foes of mine? + + * * * * * + +There is nothing so commonplace that it does not sing to me. I walk with a +springing step, I laugh, I exult. Birds, flowers, men--I love them all; I +get into the train, and the going of it is drunkenness. I have won! I have +won! + +I go back to the world. Come, world! I have but four dollars left--four +dollars!--and The Captive! + + * * * * * + +It is not strange that a man should be made drunk with happiness by the +writing of a tragedy! That is the great insincerity of the artist. "That +cry of agony!--what a triumph of genius was that my cry of agony!" + + * * * * * + +--It is not the sorrow, it is the struggle; so I read the tragedy. This man +is dead, but God lives, and Art lives. + +I will go back, I will do anything now--I will empty ash-cans, and find +it a joy. The book is done--safe in next to my heart!--And now it will be +printed, and not fire nor earthquake can destroy it after that. Free! Free! + + * * * * * + +I am writing on the train. I write commonplaces. That is because I can not +shout. + +But back there, coming out of the woods, I shouted--and not commonplaces +either! + +Coming out of the forest--forest-drunk! Now I know all about Pan and his +creatures! + + * * * * * + +I write carelessly. But in my heart I sit shuddering before that fearful +glory. O God, my Father, let me not forget this awful week, and I will live +in Truth all my days. + + * * * * * + +July 7th. [Footnote: Possibly an error in the date, as the day was Sunday.] + +Wandering all day about the streets of the hot city, seeing it not, hearing +it not--waiting for the last lines of the poem to be copied! I could not do +anything until that was done, and at a publisher's. I got it and fled home, +and spent the night correcting the copy. + +Ah, God, what a thing it is! How it roars, how it thunders, how it surges! +How infinite, how terrible! Stern, throbbing--is there anything like it in +the world? + + * * * * * + +Ten lines of it make my blood tingle--an act of it makes me bury my face in +my pillow and laugh and sob for five minutes. + + * * * * * + +Go forth, oh my perfect song! + + + + +PART II. SEEKING A PUBLISHER + + +July 8th. + +To-day I took it to the publisher's! + + * * * * * + +I had been pondering for a week who were the best publishers. To-day I +hardly had the courage to go in--I know nothing about such things--and my +hands shook so I could hardly hold the package. + + * * * * * + +I asked to see the manager. I told him I had a manuscript to submit. He +looked at me--I guess I must look rather seedy. "What sort of a +manuscript?" he asked. "A blank verse drama!" + +Then he took it and glanced over it. "Blank verse dramas are difficult +things to publish," he said. + +"You had best read it, I think," I answered, "you will find it worth +while." + +"Very well, if you wish," said he, "we always read everything that is +offered to us." + +"How soon shall you be able to let me know?" + +"Oh, in a week or ten days." + + * * * * * + +And then I went out--shuddering with excitement. A week or ten days! +Well--I can wait. I have done all _my_ duty, at any rate. + + * * * * * + +July 9th. + +I have certainly played a bold game with my poem! At the publisher's at +last--and I, having paid my room-rent, have just a dollar in my pocket! + + * * * * * + +I have been tramping about all day to-day, looking for some work. I don't +care what it is--I can do anything to keep alive for a week or ten days.--I +wonder if they will advance me some money at once. + + * * * * * + +They all stare at me suspiciously. I think some of the wildness of the +woods must still hang about me.--Anyway, I walk along on air, I fear +nothing. I could hug all the passers-by. My book is at the publisher's! I +could beg, I think, if I had to, and do it serenely, exultingly. I have +only a dollar--but have I not all the stars? + + * * * * * + +I was thinking to-day about Carlyle, and that ghastly accident to his +manuscript. Let others blame Carlyle for his sins--for those days of agony +and horror I forgive him all things, and love him. + +I have the original manuscript of The Captive put safely away. If that poem +were destroyed it would kill me. I can think of anything else in the world +but such a thing as that. + + * * * * * + +July 10th. + +What will they write me about it? I picture to myself all the emotions of +a publisher when he discovers a poem like that! Ah yes, good publisher, +I have scanned your lists for many months back; but you have published +nothing like The Captive. + +And then I shall taste my first drop of success. + +--I do not want it for myself--it is not that--I want it for the book! I +want people to love it--I want it to stir their souls! I want brothers and +friends and lovers in that great glory of mine! That is why I want all the +world to shake with it. + + * * * * * + +And then I can go on! + + * * * * * + +--I wonder if they will write to me sooner, when they find out what it +is.-- + + * * * * * + +I have been picturing myself with some money! It is all over now--and I can +do that--will it not be strange to have some money! I have been thinking +where I should live, and what I should do. + +The first thing I shall do is to get somebody to teach me music. And then +all the concerts that I long for! How long has it been since I have heard a +note of music? + + * * * * * + +I think that is all I want. I want no toys in my life. I want my freedom, +and my soul, and the forest once again.-- + + * * * * * + +I read some of the psalms to-night--far, far into the morning. My heart is +a psalm. + + * * * * * + +--I have gotten something to do! I am a waiter in a restaurant on Sixth +Avenue! I got the place this morning. Ugh!--it is nasty beyond words. But I +do not care, it will keep me alive. + + * * * * * + +July 11th. + +What a thing is hope! I have been for two days chained in the most horrible +kind of a place. Picture it--to stand all day and see low people stuffing +themselves with food--the dirt and the grease and the stench and the +endless hideous drudgery! And I five days out of the springing forest and +the ecstasy of inspiration!--Truly, it is a thing to put one's glory to a +test! But I hardly feel it--I walk on air--deep back in my soul there is an +organ song, I hear it all day, all day! + +How soon will they write? I fly up-stairs each night, looking for a letter. +Hurry up! Hurry up! + +--"_Pegasus im Joche_!" + + * * * * * + +July 13th. + +The book! The book! I go thinking about it--when I come home I throw myself +down on the bed and laugh with suppressed excitement. I think all day--they +are reading it now, perhaps! Ah, my book! And perhaps I'll find somebody at +home there to see me about it to-night! + +I look at the reviews--I am interested in all the books of the day +now--because The Captive is going to be among them! How will it seem to see +it there, in big letters? + + * * * * * + +And how will it seem to be known? I am not a fool--I know what will help +me to my peace when I am out there in the woods again--and it will not be +that the newspapers have been talking about me, and that the dames of high +society have asked me to their tea-parties. But there are one or two men in +this world that I should like to know. Perhaps as the author of a book that +is known it would be possible. + + * * * * * + +--Yes, before I was one of the mob, and now I have shown what I can do. + + * * * * * + +July 15th. + +The horror of that awful "eating-joint" grows on me every hour. I could not +bear it much more--physically it makes me ill, and no amount of enthusiasm +can make that better. I will not sell a second more of my time than I have +to. I made up my mind that I would give up the place at the end of the +week. The money will do me for another week after that, and by that time I +will surely have heard from the publishers. + + * * * * * + +I'll have to tell them, that's all,--it is nothing to be ashamed of. +They'll have to give me some money in advance. I can not live in that +cesspool. + + * * * * * + +Yes, to-morrow and half of the next day,--that is all I will bear! + + * * * * * + +--I long sometimes to go and see them; but no, I can wait. + + * * * * * + +July 17th. + +I treated myself to a long holiday this afternoon. I went up to the park, +and walked and walked. Everything was in a tumult within me--I was clear +of that last prison. And all the excitement and the power of that poem are +still in me. I am restless, all on fire, stern, hungry, like a wind-storm. +Come not near me unless you wish for truth! Come not near me if you fear +the gods! + +To-day my thoughts went surging into the future. I shall have money!--I +shall be free!--And what shall I do next? I counted up what I might +have--even a slight success for the book would mean a fortune such as +turned my head to think of. What would I do? + +My mind pounced upon a new work--a work that I have dreamed of often. Would +it be my next work? I thought--would I be able--would I dare? It is a grand +thing. + +I went on, and got to thinking of it; I almost forgot that I was not still +in the woods. What a sweeping thing I see it! + +The American! It would have to be a three-volume novel, I fear--it would be +as huge as Les Miserables! + +It is the Civil War! I am haunted by that fearful struggle. Is there +anything more fearful in history, any more tremendous effort of the human +spirit? And so far it has not made one great poem, one great drama, one +great novel! + + * * * * * + +It was the furnace-fire in which this land was forged--this land which +holds in its womb the future of the world--this land that is to give laws +to the nations and teach mankind its destiny. I search the ages, and I find +no struggle so fraught with meaning, with the woe and the terror and the +agony of a desperate hope. + +It must be all put into an art-work, I say! There is no theme that could +thrill the men of this country more, that could lift them more, that could +do more to make their hearts throb with pride. We sent all the best that we +had--armies and armies of them--and they toiled and suffered, they rotted +upon a thousand fields of horror. And their souls cry out to me, that it +must not be for naught, that the fearful consecration must not be for +naught. + +The world is filled with historical fiction; it is the cant and the sham of +the hour.--Bah! + + * * * * * + +--This is what I long to do; to take the agony of that struggle and live it +and forge it into an art-work; to put upon a canvas the soul of it; to put +it there, living and terrible, that the men of this land might know the +heritage that is come down to them. + +It would take years of toil, it would take money, too--I should have to go +down there. But some day I shall do it! + +I saw some of it to-day, and it made my blood go! + +I saw a poet, young, sensitive, throbbing at the old, old wrong, at the +black shame of our history; I saw him drawn into that fearful whirlpool of +blood and passion, driven mad with the pain and the horror of it; and I saw +him drilled and hammered to a grim savageness, saw him fighting, day by +day, with his spirit, forging it into an iron sword of war. He was haggard +and hollow-eyed, hard, ruthless, desperate. He saw into the future, he saw +the land he loved, the land he dreamed of--the Union! She stretched out her +arms to him; she cried with the voices of unborn ages, she wrung her hands +in the agony of her despair. And for her his heart beat, for her he was +a madman, for her he marched in sun and in snow, for her he was torn and +slashed, for her he waded through fields of slaughter. Of her he dreamed +and sung--sung to the camps in the night-time, till armies were thrilled +with his singing. + + * * * * * + +This was the thing of which he sang, the gaunt, grim poet: There is a +monster, huge beyond thought, terrible, all-destroying; the name of it is +Rebellion, and the end of it is Death! Day by day you grapple with it, day +by day you hammer it, day by day you crush it. Down with it, down with it! +Finish it! + +I heard that as a battle-cry: "Finish it!" I saw a man, wild and +war-frenzied, riding a war-frenzied horse; he rode at the head of a +squadron, bare-headed, sword in hand, demon-like--thundering down-hill upon +a mass of men, stabbing, slashing, trampling, scattering! Above the roar of +it all I heard his cry: "Finish it! Finish it!" + +And afterward he staggered from his horse and knelt by the men he had +killed, and wept. + + * * * * * + +--I saw him again. It was when the man of the hour had come at last; +when the monster had met his master; when, day by day, they hammered it, +the fire-spitting, death-dealing monster; when they closed with it in +death-grapple in a tangled wilderness, where armies fought like demons in +the dark, and the wounded were burned by the thousands. I saw companies of +fainting, starving, agonized men, retreating, still battling, day by day; +and I saw the wild horseman galloping on their track, slashing, +trampling--and still with the battle-yell: "Finish it! Finish it!" + + * * * * * + +I saw him yet a third time. It was done, it was finished; and he lay +wounded in a dark room, listening. Outside in the streets of Washington +a great endless army marched by, the army of victory, of salvation; and +the old war-flags waved, and the old war-songs echoed, and he heard the +trampling of ten thousand feet--the rumbling of the old cannon--and the +ocean-roaring of the vast throngs of men! A wild delirium of victory +throbbed in his soul,--burned him up, as he lay there alone, dying of his +passion and his wounds. Born of the joy that throbbed in the air about him, +born of the waving banners and the clashing trumpets and the trampling +hosts and the shouting millions--a figure loomed up before him--a figure +with eyes of flame and a form that towered like the mountains--with arms +outstretched in rapture and robes that touched the corn-fields as she +sped--angel, prophetess, goddess!--Liberty! + + * * * * * + +--And at her feet he sobbed out his life. + + * * * * * + +--The American! + + * * * * * + +July 18th. + +Still another day, and no news from the publisher's. The time is nearly +up--I can not wait much longer. + + * * * * * + +They have rejected The Captive! They have rejected The Captive! In God's +name, what does it mean? They have rejected The Captive! + +I stared at the paper in blank consternation! I couldn't realize the words, +I couldn't understand what they meant. Such a thing never occurred to me in +my wildest moment. + +What is the matter with them--are they mad? Great God, that any human +creature!--And without a line about it! + +--"We have carefully considered the MS. which you have kindly offered us, +and regret that we are not advised to undertake its publication. We are +returning the MS. with thanks for your courtesy in submitting it." + + * * * * * + +That letter came to me like a blow in the face.--I have spent hours +to-night pacing the streets, almost speechless. Fools! + +--But I will not let such a thing disturb me for an instant. Yes, they are +a great publishing-house--but such things as I have seen them publish! And +they "regret." Well, you _will_ regret, some day, never fear! + + * * * * * + +July 19th. + +The manuscript arrived this morning. I took it up-stairs and sat down, +trembling, and read it all again. + +I wish that I could see the man or woman who read that poem and rejected +it--just that I might see what kind of looking person it is. Oh, the +wildness of it, the surge and the roar of it! The glory of it! + + * * * * * + +I can not afford to waste my time worrying about such things. I only say +"Fools!" + + * * * * * + +--I took it to another publisher. I don't know any in particular, but I +will try the best. This publisher didn't seem very anxious to read it. Go +ahead, try it!--Or are you a fool too? + +--Of course I shall have to begin tramping around, looking for some work +again. I must find something better than the last. + + * * * * * + +July 20th. + +Nervous, impatient--it is so that I have lived. Never to waste an instant +has been my passion. I have struggled, watched, fought for a minute. If +ever I were held back or kept idle it drove me wild, and I burst through +everything. It has always been a torture to me not to be thinking +something. + +But less of that torture than I have now, I think I never had; it seems as +if I had won the mastery--I mind nothing any more. I walk upon the air, +and I never tire. Thoughts--endless thoughts--come to me without ever the +asking; nothing disturbs me, nothing hinders me--I take everything along +with me.--I am full of impulse, of life, of energy!-- + + I am the owner of the sphere, + Of the seven stars and the solar year, + Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain!-- + +And this when I have spent all the day looking for work!--answering +advertisements, and tramping to this place and that! Discouraging?--what +does the word mean? + + * * * * * + +--I am the man who has never learned to shiver and shake! + + * * * * * + +I thought of a young Irishman I worked with a long time ago. "Once I went +into a place, and says I, 'I'd like to be havin' a job.' An' he looked me +over, an' he says, says he, 'Git oot!' An' so I thought I'd better git +oot!" + + * * * * * + +It might take me some time to find a publisher, I was thinking to-day. I do +not know anything about publishers. But once get it before the world, that +is the thing! I fear nothing, I can wait. It is done, that is all I can +think of. --The rest "must follow, as the night the day." + + * * * * * + +July 21st. + +To-night I sat by the bedside trembling, thinking of what I had learned. +Oh, this faith that I have gained, it must go forth among men! A prayer +welled up in my soul--I have learned what I can do--I have learned that I +can do what I will! I have seen the infinite heights that lie beyond--oh, +let me not fail! The hopes of unborn generations are in my soul. + + * * * * * + +--That is true. What systems shall come of this vision of mine, what new +ways of beauty, what new happiness and new freedom! That thought has shaken +the very depths of my soul. + +It makes me leap up--it makes me wish to go! Why should I not start now? +Why should I waste to-day? + + * * * * * + +July 22d. + +I have been making plans. I must get to work. I was racing through all +sorts of vast schemes to-day as I walked about the streets hunting for +something to do. I will make my Greek perfect first--I can do that while I +am walking. + +I made an athlete of myself pacing up and down with The Captive! I honestly +think I walked ten or twelve hours some days. I have walked all day to-day, +but I do not feel tired. I answered advertisements in the papers. + + * * * * * + +--Why are men impolite? I do not believe I could ever learn to speak +rudely. + + * * * * * + +July 23d. + +The impossible occupations that I have thought of, in trying to solve +my problem! To-day I saw myself a lighthouse-keeper! What does a +lighthouse-keeper do, anyway? And could I manage to get such a place +where I could be alone by myself? + + * * * * * + +--But no, some one would have to attend to the light!-- + + * * * * * + +I thought of being a hall-boy. But you are not paid very much.--I said, +however, that I would at least get some sort of a place up-town. I could +not stand it down in the "business" world. + + * * * * * + +God, how horrible it is! All that seething effort--and for what? All this +"business"--is it really necessary to the developing of the souls of men? +Does each man in that rushing mob need more money yet, to begin developing +his soul? + + * * * * * + +--Another occupation! I saw myself a lonely hunter, living by a mountain +lake, and shooting game for a living! I wonder if that wouldn't be +possible. I never shot any game, but I could learn. + +It would suit me perfectly to sit by a mountain lake and read Greek and +watch for ducks. + + * * * * * + +July 27th. + +I was getting down pretty close to the limit again, but I got something to +do to-day. I had to take what I could find; it is what would be called a +good position, I suppose; I am in a wholesale-paper store. I get twelve +dollars, and that is quite something. + + * * * * * + +The business of the will is to face the things that come--not any other +things. Now I have to drill and discipline myself anew, to learn to save my +soul alive in a wholesale-paper store! + +It is a great, dingy place, full of chaffering, hungry-looking men. They +are all desperately serious; it is a great "business house," I believe; the +very atmosphere of it is deadly poison. + +--Oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner, that didst gaze at me over +black-rimmed spectacles--so I have "an opportunity to rise," have I? + +Yes,--I shall rise upon wings of a sapphire sheen, and toss myself up in +the wind and shake down showers of golden light into thy wondering eyes, oh +bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner! + + * * * * * + +--It is my business to show samples of paper. I shall learn all about them +in a few days, and then I shall go at the Greek. + + * * * * * + +July 28th. + +Whenever I feel weary I run off into a corner and whisper into my ear, "It +is done! Be not afraid!" Instantly my heart goes up like swift music. + + * * * * * + +July 31st. + +Twelve days since I left The Captive; they said it would take three weeks. + + * * * * * + +Something strange flashed over me to-day, something that sent a shudder +through me; I have done a strange thing to myself this summer, not in +metaphor, but in fact. I have seen a ghost; I have drunk a potion; I have +gazed upon a nymph; I have made myself mad! + + * * * * * + +I am no longer a man among men--I am "the reed that grows never more +again"! + + * * * * * + +--I try to lose myself in a book, but the book does not hold me. Nothing +satisfies me as it used to,--I am restless, hungry, ill at ease. Why should +I read this man's weak efforts--what profits me that man's half-truths? + + * * * * * + +--And all the time I know too well what I want--I want to fight! + +I want to get back into the woods again! I want that vision again! That +work again! I want _myself_! + + * * * * * + +--And here I am, a bird in a cage, beating the bars. What folly to say that +I can be strong and endure this thing! That I can endure anything, dare +anything. Yes, so I can--if I can strive! Put me out there alone, and set +me a task, and I will do it though it kill me. But how can I conquer when I +can not strive? + +Here I am, tied! I am tied--not hand and foot--but tied in soul. Tied in +time! Tied in attention! How can I be anything but beaten and wretched? How +can I expect anything but defeat and ruin? A song comes to me, it calls +me--and I can not go! I must stare at it and watch it leave me!--How can +that not drive me wild? + +The great wings of my soul begin to beat--I go up, I am wild for the +air,--and then suddenly I am struck back by the hideous impertinences of +the wholesale-paper business! How can I endure such things as that--how can +I _conquer_ Why, it is like the clashing in my ears of twenty trumpets +out of tune! + + * * * * * + +Do not keep me here long! Do not keep me here long! + + * * * * * + +--It is something that I find very strange and curious to watch--how +spontaneously, and instinctively, all young men dislike me. Have I a brand +upon my forehead? + + * * * * * + +It is not my habit to stand upon the pedestal of my inspiration, and gaze +down upon those that I meet. Sympathy is my life--I can sympathize even +with men who aspire to rise in business. But I have to live many lives, and +new lives; and I can brook no delay. + +I will make no compromises; I have sworn a vow against idle words--they may +dislike me as they will. I give my work, for which I am paid; I can not +give my soul. + + * * * * * + +August 2d. + +Oh what a horrible thing is "business"! Here, where I am,--this is _the +world_. An industrial era! + + * * * * * + +This is a wholesale-paper house, and the three partners who run it call +themselves, with unconscious irony, "wholesale-paper MEN"! They live their +lives in wholesale-paper,--they talk it--they dream it--they plan it--they +have no hope in the world except to find people to buy wholesale-paper! And +the manager--keen and hungry--he is planning to be a wholesale-paper man +himself. And here are twenty-five men and youths apparently having but one +virtue in the world, the possibility of consecrating their souls to +wholesale-paper! + +What they make is useful, it may even be sublime--in which way the business +is unique. But none of these men ever thinks of that--they would be just as +absorbed in the business if it were wholesale bonnets. None of them has the +least care in the world about books. And these men who come here to buy the +paper--are _they_ any better? Or is their interest in the paper the +profits it may bring to them? + + * * * * * + +--Dear God!--That brought me back to The Captive. + + * * * * * + +--I have been sick to-day, and sickness clips your wings. It is an error of +mine--I pay for my food with my soul, and so I try to eat little, and +thereby make myself ill. + + * * * * * + +August 3d. + +I got my first twelve dollars to-day! + + * * * * * + +August 5th. + +To-day I made a resolution, that I must stop this chafing, this panting, +this beating my wings to pieces. A man's inspiration must be under his +control, to stop it, as well as to start it. I can not write or dream +poetry while I am in this slavery, and somehow I have to realize it. When +I go home I will get to some work, and not wander around hungering. + +After my glimpse of the forest it is frightful to be penned in this +steaming city. To have to work in an office all day--sometimes it makes me +reel. And then at night too, when I try to read, the room gets suffocating. + +Then I go out among the tenement-house crowds, carrying my little +note-book. I stop at a lamp-post and look at a couple of words and then +walk on and learn them! So I go for hours. + + * * * * * + +--Hurry up, publishers!--I wrote to them to-night. + + * * * * * + +August 7th. + +"In answer to your letter of the 5th instant, we beg to inform you that +your manuscript is now in the hands of our readers, and that you may expect +a report upon it in a week." + + * * * * * + +I am reading Euripides. + + * * * * * + +August 8th. + +Oh how will I find words for my delight when I have got a little money and +can escape from dirt and horror. To-night two vile men have been quarreling +in the room underneath, and I have been drinking in all their brutal +ugliness. Bah!-- + + * * * * * + +To live in a place where there are not horrible women in wrappers, reeling, +foul-smelling men, snuffling children with beer-cans! + +This is more of my "economy"! + + * * * * * + +To-night I sat upon the edge of the bed and whispered, "To be free! I shall +be free!"--until I was trembling in every nerve. + +My beautiful poem! My beautiful poem will set me free! + +Sometimes I love it just as if it were a child. + + * * * * * + +August 10th. + +Twelve dollars more! + + * * * * * + +August 11th. + +"We have read with the utmost interest the manuscript of The Captive which +you have been so good as to show us. We are very sorry to say that it does +not seem to us that the publication of this poem would be a venture in +which we could engage with profit. At the same time, however, we have been +very much struck with it, and consider it an altogether remarkable piece of +work. We should like very much to have the privilege of an interview with +you, should you find it convenient." + + * * * * * + +Now what in the world do they mean by that? If they are not going to +publish the book, what do they want to see me for? And I've wasted two +weeks more of my life! + +I had not reckoned on petty things such as these. I fear I have not much +knowledge of men. How can a man read The Captive and not know that others +would read it? What are they in business for, anyway? + + * * * * * + +August 12th. + +I begged off from work for an hour. I have had an interview with the great +publishers! I have learned a great deal too. + +I saw the manager of the firm. He meant to be very kind, that is the first +thing to say; the second is that he is very well-dressed, and +comfortable-looking. + + * * * * * + +"Now, Mr. Stirling," said he, "you know a publishing house is always on +the lookout for the new man. That is why I wanted to have the pleasure of +meeting you. It is evident to me that you have literary talent of no common +kind." + +(I bow.) + +"I wish that I could tell you that we could consider The Captive an +available piece of writing; I have read it myself with the greatest care. +But you must know, Mr. Stirling, that it is an exceedingly _difficult_ +piece of work; I mean difficult from a publisher's point of view. There is +very little demand for poetry nowadays--a publisher generally brings out at +a loss even the poems that make a reputation for their authors. Whether you +are aware of that I don't know, but it is true; and I think of all kinds of +poetry a blank verse tragedy is the most to be shunned." + +(Here a pause. I have never any tongue when I am with men.) + +"What I want to talk to you about, Mr. Stirling, is the work which you +contemplate in the future. As I said, I was interested at once in this +work; I should like very much indeed to advise you and to be of any +assistance to you that I can. I should like very much to know what your +plans are. I should like very much to see anything that you might write. +Are you contemplating anything just at present?" + +"No, not just at present." + +"Not? Don't you think that you might find it possible to produce something +just a little more in accordance with the public taste? Don't you think, +for instance, that you might possibly write a novel?" + +(Some hesitation.) "I have thought of a novel." + +"Ah! And might I ask--would it be a character study?--or perhaps +historical?--or--" + +"It would be historical." + +"Ah! And of what period?" + +"The Civil War." + +(A great look of satisfaction.) "Dear me! Why, that is very interesting +indeed, Mr. Stirling! I should like to see such a work from your pen. And +are you thinking of completing it soon?" + +(General discomfort on my part.) "I had never thought of the time exactly. +I had feared it would take a great many years." + +(Perplexity.) "Oh, pshaw!--still, of course, that is the way all great work +is done. Yes, one has to obey one's own inspiration. I understand perfectly +how he can not adjust himself to the market. I have seen too often how +disastrous such attempts are." + +(More courteous platitudes, I assenting. Then at last, weary--) + +"You don't think, then, that you will be able to undertake The Captive?" + +"No, Mr. Stirling, I really do not think we can. You understand, of course, +if I take this work to the firm I have to tell them I think it will sell; +and that I can not honestly do. You know that a publishing house is just as +much limited as any other business firm--it can not afford to publish books +that the trade does not want. And this is an especially unusual sort of +thing, it is by no means easy to appreciate--you must be aware of that +yourself, Mr. Stirling. You see when I read a manuscript I have to keep +constantly before my mind the thought of how it is going to affect the +public--a very different thing from my own judgment, of course. From the +former standpoint I believe there are things in The Captive that would meet +with a reception not satisfactory to either of us, Mr. Stirling." + +(Perplexity on my part.) "You'll have to explain that to me, I fear." + +"Why--but the explaining of that would be to offer you my opinion about the +book--" + +"I should be very pleased to hear it. Your reason for declining it, then, +is not altogether that it is a blank-verse drama?" + +"Not altogether, Mr. Stirling. It's a little difficult for me to tell you +about these things, you know. I understand that the book must have meant a +great deal to you, and so I am naturally diffident. But if you will pardon +my saying so, it seems to me that the book--it is obviously, of course, +the work of a young man--it is very emotional, it strives to very high +altitudes. I will not say that it is exaggerated, but--the last part +particularly--it seems to me that you are writing in too high a key, that +your voice is strained." (An uncomfortable pause.) "Of course, now, that is +but my opinion. It will not seem of any value to you, perhaps, but while +I read it I could not get away from the fact that it was not altogether +natural. It seemed hysterical and overwrought in places--it gives the +effect of crudeness. It is rather hard, you know, to expect a man who sits +at a desk all day to follow you in such very strenuous flights." (A slight +laugh.) + +"Mind you it is not that I do not appreciate high qualities, Mr. Stirling, +it is merely that it seemed to me that if it were toned down somewhat it +would be better--you know such things strike different people in different +ways; you do not find it easy to believe that it would affect men so--but I +am pretty sure that the impulse of the average critic would be to go still +further--to make fun of it. Here, for instance--let me read you the opinion +upon the book that was handed in by one of our most experienced +readers--etc., etc.--" + +I have told enough of that story, giving the conversation as literally as +I can recall it. I am always a fool, the presence of other men overawes +me; I sit meek and take all that comes, and then make my escape. The great +publishers' manager still thinks he impressed me with his wisdom--he has +half an idea I'm going to "tone down" The Captive! + +--He read me that criticism--great God, it makes me writhe! It was like a +review of the Book of Revelations by Bill Nye. + + * * * * * + +_That my work should be judged by such men!_ + + * * * * * + +--"Exaggerated!" "Hysterical!" And is there nothing hysterical in life, +then? And would you go through battle and pestilence with the same serenity +that you sit there at your desk all day, you publisher? + +As if a man who was being torn to pieces would converse after the manner of +Mr. Howells and Jane Austen! + + * * * * * + +--"Tone it down!" That bit of inanity has been haunting my ears. Tone down +The Captive! Tone down the faith and rapture of my whole life, until +it is what the reading public will find natural!--And tone down the +Liebes-Tod--and tone down the Choral Symphony--and Epipsychidion--and King +Lear! + + Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: + Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast? Woo't tear thyself? + Woo't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? + I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine? + To outface me with leaping in her grave? + Be buried quick with her, and so will I: + And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw + Millions of acres on us, till our ground, + Singeing his pate against the burning zone, + Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, + I'll rant as well as thou!-- + +"This is mere madness," observes the queen. Tone it down! + + * * * * * + +August 12th. + +I sat last night brooding over this thing till almost dawn. I could not +bring myself to the thought of offering my work again to be judged by such +people. I made up my mind to take a different course--I sat and wrote a +long letter to a certain poet whom I love and honor. He is known as a +critic--he will know. I told him the whole story, and asked him to read the +poem. + +It was something that I had never thought about, the effect of The Captive +upon commonplace people. I was so full of my own rapture--I made my +audience out of my own fancy. And now these snuffy little men come peering +at it! + +My appeal is not to the reading public--my appeal is to great minds and +heroic hearts--to the ages that will come when I have gone. + +--And can it be that I am to repeat the old, old story--will every one +laugh at me and leave me to starve? + + * * * * * + +--I will get myself together and prepare for a siege. I will find an +opening somewhere. You can not shut up a volcano. + + * * * * * + +August 16th. + +There seems to be little use of struggling. I can not control myself. I +wander around, restless, unhappy. That horrible prison that I am pent +in--God, how I hate it! Such heart-sickening waiting--waiting!--and +meanwhile that intolerable treadmill! It drives me wild! I am so full of +life, of passion; and to be dragged back--and back--and stamped on! Each +day I feel myself weaker; each day my power and my joy are going. Let me +go--let me go! + +Is my inspiration of no value at all, my ardor, my tenderness, my +faith,--all nothing? You treat me as if I were an ox! + + * * * * * + +It is like being chained in the galleys! The dust and the heat, the +jostling crowds, the banging and rattling, the bare, hideous streets--and +above it all the wild, rampant vulgarity--the sordidness, the cheapness, +the chaffering! My eyes stare at advertisements and signs until they burn +me in my head. + +Oh, the hell of egotism and vulgarity that is a city! + +--"Why so much trouble? Other men bear dust and heat, and do their work +without complaining!" Ah, yes!--but they do not have to write poems in the +bargain! + + * * * * * + +If it were for truth and beauty, such a life would be heroism. But the +hoards of wealth that they heap up--they spend it upon fine houses, and +silly clothes, and gimcracks, and jewels, and rich food to eat, and wines +to drink, and cigars to smoke! Bah!-- + +It is the brutality of it all that drives me wild. I see great, hulking, +disgusting _bodies_ that live to be pampered and fed. And after that, +in the place of minds, I see little restless centers of vanity--hungering, +toiling, plotting, intriguing--to be stared at and praised and admired. + + * * * * * + +August 20th. + +I thought that I would surely have heard from my poet by now. I am not a +good waiter. + + * * * * * + +The senior-partner's nephew is a young German, over to learn the language. +He is on a furlough from the army. He has close-cropped hair, a low +forehead, and two front teeth like a squirrel's. When he smiles he makes +you think of a horse. He has opinions, commercial and political, which he +enunciates in a loud voice. Think of listening to Prussian opinions! + + * * * * * + +And there is another clerk who was meant for a variety-show specialist. +He hums comic songs and cracks jokes, and conducts witty pantomime +incessantly. He is very popular. He is never quiet. Sometimes he slaps you +on the back. + + * * * * * + +I wrestle with my soul all day; the rage of it is like to burst me. The +infinite pettiness of it--that is the thing! I am bitten and stung by a +swarm of poisonous flies! + + * * * * * + +August 24th. + +Another twelve dollars yesterday! I gasp with relief as if I were hauling +a load up successive slopes; here is so much gained, so much safe. I have +gotten along on twelve dollars; I have a little over thirty-five. + + * * * * * + +I believe these things are more wearing than the toil of writing; I know I +find it so. Then I accomplish something; here I work myself into nervous +frenzies, and chafe and pant for nothing. I can feel how it weakens me; I +can feel that I have less elasticity, less _elan_ every day. Ah, God, +let me go! + + * * * * * + +August 25th. + +Why doesn't he answer my letter? + + * * * * * + +August 27th. + +To-day I took myself off in a corner. I said: "Am I not here, have I not +this thing to _do_? The power that I have in my soul--it is to be +used for the doing of _this_; if I am to save my soul, it must be by +the doing of _this_! And I am a fool that I do not face the fact. I +shall be free some day--that I know--I have only to bide my time and wait. +Meanwhile I am to stay here--or until I have money enough; and now I will +turn my soul to iron, and do it! I am going to study what I can in this +place, and at night I am going to speed home and get into a book. I will +never stop again, and never give up--and above all never think, and never +feel! I will get books of fact to read--I will read histories, and no more +poetry. I will read Motley, and Parkman, and Prescott, and Gibbon, and +Macaulay.--Macaulay will not afflict me with wild yearnings, I guess." + +--Is there any author in the world more vulgar than Macaulay?--unless it be +Gibbon. Or possibly Chesterfield. + +I have heard Chesterfield's letters referred to as a "school for +gentlemen." When the world is a little bit civilized, men will read them as +they now read Machiavelli's Prince. + + * * * * * + +--All these resolutions while I was selling wholesale-paper! I fought quite +a battle, and heard some of the old-time music. What a task for a poet,--to +fight _not_ to live! + + * * * * * + +August 30th. + +I have still heard nothing from my poet! I wrote to him to-day to ask him +if he had received my letter. Eighteen whole days gone by, and I watching +every mail, with The Captive lying idle in a drawer! I can not stand +waiting like this--Why do not people answer my letters promptly? + + * * * * * + +August 31st. + +I have been reading George Moore's Evelyn Innes for the last two days. He +is striving toward deeper things; but the mark of the beast is in the +fiber. + +The spiritual struggles of a young lady with two sloppy lovers at once! Of +a young and beautiful girl whose first walk on the street with a baronet is +a "temptation." And who turns nun at last and worships the Holy Virgin, in +order to forget her nastiness! A Gallicized novelist ought to deal with +Gallic characters. While I was reading Evelyn Innes, I could never get away +from the impression that I was reading the career of a chambermaid. + +And the whole story hinges upon the fact that a woman can not sing the +sacred ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde without being a harlot! + + * * * * * + +I read the Confessions of a Young Man, and I felt the vigor of it, and the +daring; but it was a very cheap kind of daring. The fundamental laws of +life are occasionally enunciated by commonplace people, and that gives an +opportunity to be startling. But I leave it for small boys to gape at such +fireworks; my interest is in the stars. + +The last chapter runs into absolute brutality. I am accustomed to say that +Gautier is a ruffian author, but if there is any ruffianism in Gautier more +savage than that sentiment about the "skinful of champagne," I do not know +where to find it. + +About such stuff as that I would say that it makes me sick, but it is not +worth that--it simply makes me tired. One would not call it impudent, +because it is so silly--it is the driveling of a fool. He will get me off +in a corner now, will he, and probe my soul? "Out with it!--Why not confess +that you'd like to live a life of dissipation if you only had the money!" +Why, you poor fool, before I would live such a life, I'd have my eyes torn +out, and my ears torn off, and my fingers, and my hands, and my feet. "Why +not confess the wild joys of getting drunk on champagne!" Poor fool, I have +never tasted champagne. + + * * * * * + +--"Perhaps that is just the reason," you add. When the folly of a fool +reaches its climax, the fool becomes a wit. But possibly that is it, I +never was drunk. + +--And yet I know something about drunkenness. I once buried a drunkard. He +was my father. He died in a delirium. + + * * * * * + +There must be something young about my attitude--men smile at me. But I do +not find it easy to imagine evil of men. I do not mean the crowd--I do not +philosophize about the crowd. But I mean the artists. I was looking at a +picture of Musset the other day; it was a noble face--the face of a man; +and in the face of a man I read dignity and power--high things that I love +and bow before. Here are lips,--and lips are things that speak of beauty; +here are eyes,--and eyes are things that seek the light. And now to gaze +upon that face and say: "This man lived in foulness; he was the slave of +hateful lust--he died rotten, and sodden with drink."--I say that I do not +find it easy. + + * * * * * + +I have nothing to do with any artist who has anything to do with +sin--anything, one way or the other. If a man must still think about sin, +let him go back, and let him go down,--let him be a Christian. Let him +wrestle with his body, overcome himself, obey laws, and learn fear. To such +men and to such ways I can only say: "I have nothing to do with you." My +life is for free men--my words are for free men--for men defying law and +purged of fear, for men mad with righteousness. What right have foul men +in the temple of my muse? The thought of them is insult to me--away with +them--in their presence I will not speak of what I love. For I am a +drunkard--yes, and I am drunk all night and all day! And I am a lover--a +free lover--knowing no law and defying all restraint. And how can I say +such things in the presence of foul men? + +Let not any man think that he can feel the love-clasp of my muse while +he hides a satyr's body underneath his cloak. Free is my muse, and bold, +fearing not the embrace of man, fearing not passion, nor the words of +passion,--not the throbbing heart, nor the burning brow, nor the choking +voice. But the warmth of her breath and the fire of her eyes, they were +kindled at a shrine of which the beast does not know. Let not any man think +that he can kiss the lips of my muse while his breath is tainted with the +fumes of wine! + + * * * * * + +An artist is a man with one pleasure--and it is not self-indulgence; an +artist is a man with one virtue--and it is not self-restraint. Sweetly and +simply will I and my muse take all temptation, knowing not that it tempts, +and wondering at the clamor of men. I will eat and drink that I may be +nourished, I will sleep that I may be rested, I will dress that I may be +warm. When I go among men it shall be to speak the truth, and when I press +a woman to my heart, it shall be that a man may be born into the world. +There is but one sin that I know, and that is dulness; there is but one +virtue, and that is fire. And for the rest, I love pleasure, and hold +it sweetest and holiest of all the words I know; the guide-post of all +righteousness is pleasure--which whoso learns to read may follow all his +days. + + * * * * * + +September 1st. + +"The reason for delay in replying to your letter is that it was mislaid. +I am directed by Mr. ---- to say that he has so many requests to read +manuscripts that he is compelled to make it an invariable rule to decline. + +"Secretary." + +So that hope is gone! + +That letter--or rather the chain of thoughts which it brought me, made me +feel ill to-night. "So many requests!" "An invariable rule!" + +So many swarming millions, helpless, useless, dying unknown and unheeded. +And I am in the midst of them--helpless, unknown, and unheeded! And now +that I have done my work, I can not find any one with faith +enough--interest enough--even to look at it! + +How could a man who is a poet--who writes things that stir the hearts of +men--how could he send such an answer to such a letter as I wrote him? I do +not think that _I_ shall ever send such an answer! + +Or is it really true, then, that the world is such a thing that it closes +the hearts even of poets? That his ardor and his consecration, his sympathy +and love and trust--he gives all to the things of his dreams and never to +the men and women he meets? + +Oh how shall I find one--just one--warmhearted man! + + * * * * * + +I begin the trying of the publishers once more to-morrow. + + * * * * * + +September 2d. + +I am in my sixth week! Two weeks of the money is nearly gone--I had to get +another pair of shoes and a necktie and to have some things laundered +twice. I have to be respectable now, I can not wash my own clothes at the +faucet when no one is about. + +My "room" costs me seventy-five cents a week, and my food from a dollar and +a half to two dollars. At the end of the seventh week I shall have over +fifty dollars clear. I have made up my mind to give up the place at the end +of that time. Twelve dollars is the most I ever earned, but I can't stand +it longer than that. + +I shall be clear for nearly four months, and that will surely put me safe +until I have found a publisher. I would go away into the country again, +only I must have books. I have nothing to write now. + + * * * * * + +--Oh the heat of this dreadful city; sometimes it takes all my strength to +bear that and my drudgery, and nothing else. When the night comes I am +panting, and can only shut my eyes. + +If I am kept here long, I tell you I shall never, as long as I live, be as +strong and keen as I might have been. + +So long as I was working, striving for an education, preparing myself, +I could bear it. But now I have done all that I can do amid these +surroundings. I cry out day and night, "I have earned my freedom!" + + * * * * * + +September 6th. + +He had no business to send me that answer! He had no business to send it! +I care not how many such requests he gets! Pain throbbed in that letter, +hunger and agony were in it; and if he were a man he would have known it! +He had no business to send me that answer! I shall never forgive him for +it. + + * * * * * + +The last publisher said it would take a month; they had many manuscripts on +hand, and could not do any better. So I have only to set my teeth together +and wait. + + * * * * * + +I count the days before my escape from that hideous place down-town. The +thought of it drives me wild--it gets more and more a torture. Can I stay +out the week? I ask. + + * * * * * + +September 8th. + +All day--all day--I have but one thought in my mind--but one thought in my +life! I am beset by it, I can not escape it. That horrible shame to which I +am subjected! + +It turns all my life to gall! It beats down my enthusiasm, it jeers at my +faith, it spits into the face of my unselfishness! I come home every night +weak and worn and filled with despair, or else with a choking in my throat, +and helpless, cruel rage in my soul. Never mind that I am going to be +free--the wrong is that it should ever have been--it will stay with me all +my days and turn all my life to gall! It will wreck all my visions, all my +aspirations, my faith, my eagerness; the memory of it will sound like a +mocking voice in my ears, a sneer! + +Day by day I strive and struggle and tear my-self to pieces, and sink back +worn out; and don't you suppose that has any effect upon me? I can feel it. +I see it plain as day, and shudder at it--I am being cowed! I am being +tamed, subdued, overpowered; the thing is like a great cold hand that is +laid upon me, pressing me down, smothering me! I know it--and I cry out +and struggle as if in a nightmare; but it only presses the harder. Why, I +was like a lion--restless--savage--all-devouring! Never-ceasing, eager, +untamable--hungry for life, for experience, for power! I rushed through in +days what others took months at--I watched every instant--I crowded hours +into it. + + * * * * * + +--And now look at me! I crouch and whine--there is an endless moan in +my soul. Can you break a man's spirit so that he never rises again? So +that all his attempts to be what he was mock at him? So that he never +_tries_ any more? Look at those poor wretches you pass on the +street--those peasants from Europe, from Russia! See the restless, +shifting eyes, the cringing gait--_that_ is what it is to be tamed! + + * * * * * + +Hateful tyrant of the commonplace--so you will lay your cold hand over me +and crush out all the fire from my heart. All this that was to build new +empires--new hopes, new virtues, new power; all that I was, and all that +I sought to be! Ah, but you will not crush me--understand it well, you +may beat me and kick me, you may starve me to death, but you will never +overcome me, you will never tame me into one of the pack-horses of society! +I will fight while I have a breath in me, while my heart has left one beat. + +The time may come when I shall have to drag myself away like a sick beast +to die in the mountains; but if it does, I shall go defying you! + + * * * * * + +Bah! + +--How I wish I could find a rich man who could spare it, and from whom I +could steal a thousand dollars. I would turn it into a thousand songs that +diamonds could not buy--that would build new empires--and then I would pay +the poor rich man back. + + * * * * * + +--I read a poem of Matthew Arnold's last night: + + From the world's temptations, + From tribulations; + From that fierce anguish + Wherein we languish; + From that torpor deep + Wherein we lie asleep, + Heavy as death, cold as the grave, + Save, oh save! + + * * * * * + +September 10th. + +A man was talking to me to-day about what I am doing. "I should think you +would try to get some work more congenial," he said, "some literary work." +Yes!--I sell wholesale-paper, and that is bad enough; but at least I do not +sell my character. + +I to enter into the literary business world! I to forsake my ideals and my +standards--to learn to please the public and the men who make money out of +the public! Ah, no--let me go on selling paper, and "keep my love as a +thing apart--no heathen shall look therein!" + + * * * * * + +What could I do, besides? And who would give me a chance? I could not +review books--I know nothing about modern books, and still less about +modern book standards. Neither do I know anything to write that any +magazines would want. + + * * * * * + +--And besides, in four days more, shall I not have fifty or sixty dollars? +And what shall I want then? + + * * * * * + +Ah, how I count the days! And when I am out of this place, how I will run +away from it! The very books I read while I was there will always be +painful to me. + +--They will be glad to get rid of me, too. Poor me--I have given up trying +to be understood. All these things pass. My business is with God. + + * * * * * + +Cicero thinks that the remembering of past sorrows is a pleasure. Yes, +when the sorrows are beautiful, noble. But I have sorrows in my life, the +thoughts of which send through my whole frame--literally and physically--a +_spasm_. + + * * * * * + +September 11th. + +I told the bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner to-day that I was going +to leave. He seemed surprised--offered me a "raise." I told him I was going +out of New York. + + * * * * * + +--I am a liar. Sometimes I philosophize about that. I am an unprincipled +idealist. I have not the least respect for fact; I am doing my work. If I +could help my work, I would lie serenely in all the six languages I know. +And if I were caught, I would say, "Why, yes, of course!" + +I think I would rather have a finger cut off than say to a New York +business man, "I am a poet!" + + * * * * * + +September 12th. + +I have been forcing myself to read Gibbon, but half of him was all I could +stand. I think with astonishment of the reputation of this history, a bare +recital of facts, without the least interest or importance, and a recital +by the shallowest of men! + +The vulgarity of his character is more evident than ever since the +repressed parts of his biography have appeared. It is comical. And this +man, who has no more understanding of spirituality than a cow, to tell the +story of the greatest movement of the soul of man in history! + +There is not one gleam of the Christian superstition left in me. I have +nothing to fear from the sneers of Gibbon any more than I have from those +of Voltaire; but I do not care to hear lectures on the steam-engine by a +man who does not believe in steam. + + * * * * * + +--Some of these days--the last thing that I can see on the horizon of my +future--I am going to write a tragedy called Jesus. The time is past, it +seems to me, when an artist must leave alone the greatest art-theme of the +ages. + +Is it not the greatest? Is there any story in history more sublime than the +story of this man? A humble, ignorant peasant he was, and out of the faith +of his soul he made the future of the world for centuries! It is a thing +that makes your brain reel. + +I write it casually, but I have shuddered over it far into the deep, deep +night. I have dreamed of two acts--one of them Gethsemane, and the other +Calvary.--Poor fool, perhaps I shall never write them! + + * * * * * + +I have burrowed into that soul, seeking out the truths of it; the truths, +as distinguished from the ten thousand fancies of men. When I write that +drama I shall deal with those truths. + +The climax of the scene in the garden of Gethsemane will be a vision in +which looms up before him the whole history of Christianity; and that will +be the last agony. It will be then that he sweats blood. + +That will be something, I think. + + * * * * * + +September 13th. + +To-morrow is the last time I shall ever go into that hellish place! +To-morrow is the last time in all my life that I shall ever have to say, +"We have this same quality in ninety-pound paper at four sixty-nine!" + +Throughout all this thing it seemed to me that when I came out I should no +longer have a soul. But it is not so; I shall still keep at it grimly. + + * * * * * + +September 14th. + +And now to-day I make my plans. I must keep near a library; but I shall +hunt out a room uptown. There I can be near the Park, and I shall suffer +a little less from these hideous noises. I shall go over there and spend +every day--find out some place where there are not too many nurse-girls! + +I can not begin any other book; I must stand or fall by The Captive. I +shall be a "homo unius libri"! + +But I can not attempt to write again--ever--in these circumstances. It is +not that my force is spent--I am only at the beginning of my life, I see +everything in the future. But I could not wrestle with these outside things +again--it took all my courage and all my strength to do it once. + + * * * * * + +There is no reason why I should worry about that. I have fifty-six dollars, +and I am free for four months, barring accidents. And surely I shall have +found some one to love my book by that time! + + * * * * * + +And so I set to work reading. + + * * * * * + +September 15th. + +A slight preliminary, of course. I spent a ghastly day hunting for a room. +I found one in a sufficiently dirty and cheap place, and then I spent +another hour finding a man who would take my trunk for a quarter. Having +succeeded in that, I walked up there to save five cents; and when the trunk +came the driver tried to charge me fifty cents! + + * * * * * + +Picture me haggling and arguing on the steps--"Didn't know it was so +far--Man didn't understand"--God knows what else! And then he tries to +carry off the trunk--and I rushing behind, looking for a policeman! Again +more arguing, and a crowd, of course. At last it appears that I have to pay +him what he asks and go down to the City Hall and make my complaint--hadn't +told him how many steps there were, etc. So finally I agree to carry it up +the steps myself, if he'll only leave it for a quarter! + +Next you must picture me breaking my back and tearing my fingers and the +damned wall paper--while the damned frowsy-headed landlady yells and the +damned frowsy-headed boarders stick out their heads! And so in the end I +get into my steaming hot room and shut the door and fall down on the bed +and burst into tears. + + * * * * * + +O God, the stings of this bitter, haunting, horrible poverty! The ghastly +weight that has hung about my neck since ever I can remember! Oh, shall I +ever be free from it? Shall I ever know what it is to have what I ought +to have, to think of my work without the intrusion of these degrading +pettinesses? + +They are so infinite, so endless, so hideous! The thing gets to be a habit +of my thoughts; my whole nature is steeped and soaked in it--in filthy +sordidness! I plot and I plan all the day--I can not buy a newspaper +without hesitating and debating--I am like a ragpicker going about the +streets! + +Sometimes the thing goads me so that I think I must go mad--when I think of +the time that I lose, of the power, of the courage! I walk miles when I am +exhausted, to save a car-fare! I wear ragged collars and chafe my neck! I +stand waiting in foul-smelling grocery shops with crowds of nasty people! +I cook what I eat in a half-dirty frying-pan because I can not afford to +pay the servant to wash it! So it is that I drag myself about--chafing and +goaded--crouching and cringing like a whipped cur! + +My God, when will I be free? My God! My God! + + * * * * * + +--The boarding-houses that I have been in! The choice collection of +memories that I have stored away in my mind, memories of boarding-houses! +The landladies' faces--the assorted stenches--the dark hallways--the +gabbling, quarreling, filthy, beer-carrying tenants! Oh, I wring my hands +and something clutches me in my heart! Let me go! Let me go! + +Six times in the course of my life, when I have been starved sick on my own +feeding, I have become a "table-boarder"; and out of those six experiences +I could make myself another Zola. The infinite variety of animality in +those six vile stables--the champing jaws and the slobbering mouths and +the rank odor of food! The men who shoveled with their knives or plastered +things on their forks as hod-carriers do mortar! The women who sucked in +their soup, and the children who smeared their faces and licked their lips +and slopped upon the table-cloth! The fat Dutchman who grunted when he ate, +and then leaned back and panted! The yellow woman with the false teeth who +gathered everything about her on the table! The flashy gentleman with the +diamond scarf-pin and the dirty cuffs, who made a tower out of his dirty +dishes and then sucked his teeth! O God! + +And the loathsome food!--For seven years I have had my nose stamped into +this mud, and all in vain; I can still starve, but I can not eat what is +not clean. + +--Some day I shall put into a book all the rage and all the hate and all +the infamy of these things, and it will be a book that will make your flesh +sizzle. And you will wonder why I did it! + +It will be better than Troilus and Cressida, better than the end of +Gulliver's Travels--better than Swellfoot the Tyrant! + + * * * * * + +I wonder why nobody else ever reads or mentions Swellfoot the Tyrant? I +call it the most whole-hearted, thorough-going, soul-satisfying piece of +writing in any language that I know. + + * * * * * + +--When you think of my work you must think of these things! I do not +mention them often, but they are never out of my mind. If you should read +anything beautiful of mine, you must bear in mind that it is about half a +chance that there was a dirty child screaming out in the hall while I wrote +it. + + * * * * * + +September 20th. + +It took me a couple of days to realize that I have still not to go +down-town. But I have a fine facility in making myself new habits! Just now +I am on a four months' studying campaign. It is monotonous--to read about. +I get up at six, and when I have had my breakfast and fixed a lunch, I go +over into the Park. There are only birds and squirrels and a few tramps +about then, and it is glorious. Sometimes I am so happy that I do not want +to read; later come the squalling children and the hot sun; but I flit +about from place to place. I wonder what they think of me!-- + + Wer bist du, und was fehlt dir! + + * * * * * + +I read all day, right straight along, and all night, now that it is +not too hot. I have always done my reading by periods--I read our +nineteenth-century poets that way, sixteen hours a day; I read Shakespeare +in three weeks that way, and finished the month with Milton. So when I got +German, I read Goethe and Schiller, and Moliere and Hugo again. + +Now I am reading history; it gives me the nightmare, but one has to read +it. + +Every night when I put down my book, I flee in thought to my own land as to +a city of refuge. A history where everything counts! A history that is not +a mad, blind chaos of blood and horror! A history that has other meaning +than the drunken lust and the demon pride of a Napoleon or a Louis le +Grand! + +--Some day the ages will discern two movements in history: the first, the +Christian dispensation, and the second the American. + +There is a great deal in knowing how to read, especially with such books +as history. I try to read as I write; to lash my author, to make him fill +my mind. If he gets sluggish I am soon through with him--I read whole +paragraphs in a sentence, and whole volumes in an hour. + + * * * * * + +September 25th. + +The third week of the publisher's month has gone by. God, how cruel is +waiting! I wonder if their readers knew how hungry I am if they would not +hurry a little! + +I say to myself--"There has been enough of this nonsense! Oh, surely there +will not be any more, surely these men must take it!" + + * * * * * + +September 28th. + +I still read the literary journals and tingle with excitement thinking of +the time when The Captive is discussed in them. Can I believe that this +book will not stir the world? If I did not believe it, I could not believe +anything! + +I feel a new interest now in the authors that people talk about. I want +to know who they are and what they do. And all the time I find myself +thinking: "Have I more than this man?--More than that man?" That always +throws me into despair, because I am a great admirer; and because I am +always hypnotized by the last thing that I read. + +But I find very little that is great in modern books. Books are better +made now than they ever were before--I mean in the way of literary +craftsmanship. As far as form goes, there is no author living who would put +together such a hodge-podge as Wilhelm Meister, or La Nouvelle Heloise. But +they all imitate each other; they are all mild and tame; there is no real +power, no genius among them. They have even forgotten it exists. + + * * * * * + +I came across this, for instance, the other day in a book of Mr. Howells's: + +"In fact, the whole belief in genius seems to me rather a mischievous +superstition, and if not mischievous, always, still always, a superstition. +From the account of those who talk about it, genius appears to be the +attribute of a very potent and admirable prodigy which God has created +out of the common for the astonishment and confusion of the rest of us +poor human beings. Do they mean anything more or less than the mastery +which comes to any man in accordance with his powers and diligence in any +direction? If not, why not have an end to the superstition which has caused +our race to go on for so long writing and reading of the difference between +talent and genius?" + +Is not that simply blasphemous? + + * * * * * + +--Have I genius? Ah, save the word! + +How can I know? It is none of my affair--I do my work. + +Genius is next to the last and most sacred word we know, next to God; +and next to the most abused word. Every man will possess it, in degree +proportionate to his vanity. I think if they knew the work and the terror +that goes with even a grasp at it, they would not make so free with it. + + * * * * * + +September 30th. + +I wait--I wait for The Captive. I do all these other things--I read, I +think, I study--but all the while I am merely passing the time. I am +waiting for The Captive to win me the way. All my life hangs on that, I +can do nothing else but pray for that--pray for it and yearn for it! + +--Yes--and do you know it?--I am sinking down every day! Down, down! The +Captive is my high-water mark; where I was when I wrote that I shall never +come again in my life--until I am given my freedom and new courage, and can +set to work to toil as I did then! + +Tell me not about future books, foolish publishers! I have told you I put +all that I had and all that I was into that book! And by that book I stand +or I fall. + + * * * * * + +October 3d. + +Their month is up. I walked down there to-day and saw them. "The manuscript +is now being read--we are awaiting a second report." + +A second! That made my heart go like mad. "Does that mean that the first is +favorable?" I asked. + +"It means that we are interested in it," the man answered; "we will let you +know shortly." + +Oh this waiting, this waiting! + + * * * * * + +October 8th. + +Ah, God! I came home from the Park tonight, and I saw something that made +my heart go down like lead. It hurt me so that I cried out! + +My manuscript! It was back again! + +O Christ! How the sight of it hurt me! There was a letter with it, and my +hand shook as I opened it: + + * * * * * + +"We are returning you the manuscript of The Captive by messenger herewith, +regretting exceedingly that we can not make you a publishing offer upon +it." + + * * * * * + +Is not this awful? Oh, it is terrible! It is beyond belief! A whole month +gone, and only a note like that to show for it! Four weeks of yearning and +hoping--of watching the mail in agony--of struggling and toiling to forget! +And then a note like this! + +Oh, it drives me wild! I sat to-night in a chair motionless, forgetting +that I was hungry, forgetting everything. I looked to the future; I had +a feeling that I do not think I ever had in my life before--a horrible, +black, yawning despair--a thing so fearful that it took my breath away. +Suppose you were standing on a bridge over an abyss, and that suddenly it +gave way, and in one dreadful instant you realized that you were going +down--down like a flash--and that nothing could save you! + + * * * * * + +So it is to be this, so this is to be my life! I am to send this book to +publisher after publisher, and have it come back like this! And meanwhile +to spend my time alternating between this room--and the wholesale-paper +business! + + * * * * * + +Yes, I am getting to see the truth! I am a helpless atom, struggling +to survive--a glimmering light in the darkness--and I am going out! I +am losing--and what shall I do! Who will save me--who will help me? + + * * * * * + +I was talking to a friend yesterday; he predicted just what happened. "Make +one rule," he said, "expect nothing of the world. When you send out a +manuscript, _know_ that it is coming back!--Otherwise you go mad." + +But I should go mad _that_ way. Why, what am I to do? How am I to work +unless I can get free? I can not live a single day unless I have that hope. +And if these blind creatures that make money out of books keep on sending +my poem back--why, it will kill me--it will turn me into a fool! + + * * * * * + +October 9th. + +I did not go to bed last night until nearly daylight. I was desperate--I +was crazy with perplexity. This thing had never occurred to me as the +wildest possibility. + +I would pace the floor for hours; and then again sink into a stupor. "They +send it back! They don't want it!"--I kept on muttering.--And, poor fool +that I am, I had pictured to myself how they would read it. I saw the +publisher himself glancing at a line of it by chance, and then rushing on. +I saw him declaiming it with excited eyes--as I used to declaim it! Poor +fool! + + * * * * * + +--Well, I made another desperate attempt. I wrote last night to another +poet that I respect--(the list is not very long). I wrote in the heat of +my despair--I told him the whole story. I said that I was crying for the +judgment of some one who had love and enthusiasm; some one who had another +idea than making money out of it. I told him that I knew he had many such +requests, but that he never had one from a man who had worked as I had. I +pleaded that he need only read a few lines--I begged him to let me hear +from him at once. + +--And now I shall wait. I can't do anything else but wait! + + * * * * * + +October 10th. + +I tried to read a novel to-day, but I could not fix my attention--I could +not do anything. + + * * * * * + +October 11th. + +"I answer your letter at once as you ask me to. In the first place let me +assure you of my sympathy. You are at a stage at which all poets--or nearly +all--have to pass. Do not let yourself be disheartened--keep at it--and if +you work as you write you will come out the victor in the end. + +"As to my reading the book, you must believe what I tell you--that I +am simply crowded. I have no time to explain, but I could not possibly +do it now, nor can I tell you when I could. Go ahead and try the +publishers--there are enough of them. And take my advice--do not go on +clinging to that book--do not pin all your hope to that--go on--go on! +Maybe it _is_ young and exaggerated--what of it? Go on!--Meanwhile +your circumstances seem to you hard--but in future years when you look back +at them you will see, as all men see, that it was in that struggle that you +got your strength." + + * * * * * + +It is a lie! It is a lie! It is silly cant--it is brutal stupidity! What, +you try to tell me that it is in contest with these degradations--these +horrors--that I am to find my enthusiasm and my hope! Am I a dog that you +must kick me to my task?--It is a lie, I say--it is a lie! + + * * * * * + +If you could not find time to read my work, very well; but you did not have +to sugar the pill with silly platitudes such as those. "Go on, go on!" My +God, what a mockery! Is it not to go on that I am panting day and night--is +it not with the hunger to go on that I am mad?--You fool--do you think I +wrote to you because I wanted some one to admire me--because I had the need +of praise and encouragement in my work? Give me a year's freedom--give me +two hundred dollars--and I'll show you how much I care for your praise. + +But then you chain me here to your torture stake, and bid me "Go on! Go +on!" + +--And it is in that struggle that I am to get my strength! That sentence +burns in my blood, it stings me! What is this struggle that you prate +about, anyway? And what do you mean by "getting my strength?" Did I get my +strength to write The Captive that day when those fishwives moved in next +door to me? Did I get my strength to dream of my new work that day when I +was chasing after an express-driver to save a quarter? Do I get it now when +I am sitting here panting and ill with a headache, and with despair, and +with lack of food? Damn such asininity, I say! + +What do you mean, I cry--what do you mean? Would it have helped Kant to +solve the problems of the universe to have had a swarm of mosquitoes +buzzing about his face? Would it have helped Beethoven to compose his +symphonies to have had a dance hall over his head? What ghastly farce +it is! That a poet is helped to realize his dreams and his joys in this +hellish, reeking, market-place of a city! Why, I tell you, sir, that every +hour that I have lived in it I have known that I have paid out unmeasured +powers of my soul! And I know now, as every other poet knows, that when I +am out of it I come with what pittance of strength I have been able to save +from the horrible ordeal. Do you think that I am a fool that I do not know +what inspires me and what degrades me? Why, sir, I sit here and watch my +spirit wither like a frost-bitten plant! + +Such things bring tears of indignation into my eyes. + + * * * * * + +--As a matter of simple reference, if any one wants to know what I imagine +helps a poet--it is to live in the woods, to think and to dream, to read +books and hear music, to eat wholesome food--and, above all, to escape from +hot asphalt streets, cable-car gongs, and flaring advertisements of soaps +and cigars. + + * * * * * + +October 12th. + +I had an adventure to-day. I woke up with a headache, dull, sick, +discouraged. I cared no more about anything. I got out The Captive and made +ready to take it to the publishers. + +And then I thought I would read a little of it. + +I sat down in the corner--I forgot the publishers--I sat +reading--reading--and my heart beat fast, and my hands shook, and all my +soul rose in one hymn of joy! + +Oh world, do your worst, I do not care! You may turn me off--but the gates +of heaven are open! I will go on--I will bear anything--bear all things! I +will wait and live and learn meanwhile, knowing with all my soul what this +book is and what it must bring. So long as I can read it, I can wake my +soul again. + + * * * * * + +It is at the publishers'. I will read books meantime and be happy. + +I saw a manuscript clerk this time. She was very airy. I fear I am a +sad-looking poet--my buttonholes are beginning to wear out. "We never read +manuscripts out of turn," she said. "It will take them three or four +weeks." + + * * * * * + +--Yes, good poet, that is my answer to you. I can not take your advice--I +will cling to my book--I will pin all my hopes to it! I will toil and +strive for it, I will haunt men with it, I will shout it from the +housetops. No other book--no future book--_this_ book! It is a great +book--a great book--it is--it _is_! + + * * * * * + +I am not ignorant of the price it costs to do that; it is my fate +that I have to pay it. I can see, for instance, how Wordsworth paid +it--Wordsworth, our greatest, our noblest poet since Milton. He had +his sacred inspiration, and the world laughed at it; and so, grimly, +systematically, he set to work to teach them--to say to all men--to say to +himself--to say day and night--"It _is_ poetry! It is _great_ +poetry! It is--_it is_!" + +And of course at last he made them believe him; and when they believed him, +he--Wordsworth--was a matter-of-fact, self-centered, dull and poor old man. + + * * * * * + +--It all rests with you, good world! How long must I stand here and knock +at the door? + + * * * * * + +October 18th. + +I am reading, reading--and trying to forget meanwhile! When I get through +my long list of histories I shall go back to my Greek dramatists again. +My Greek is getting better now--I expect to have a happy time with +Aristophanes.--He is the funniest man that ever lived, Aristophanes. + +Then I am coming back to read the French novelists. There are many of them +I do not know. (I do not expect to like them--I do not like Frenchmen.) + + * * * * * + +October 22d. + +I was glancing to-day over a volume of Shelley's, and the memory of old +glories thrilled in me. Ah, let me not forget what Shelley was to me in my +young struggling days! Let me not forget while I am wrestling with a dull +world--let me not forget what a poet is to young men hungering for beauty! +Let me not forget! + +Yes, it is to such that my appeal is, it is by such that I will be judged! +It is for such that I toil! For hearts upon whom the cold world has not +laid its hand! For the poets and the seekers of all ages! Oh come to me, +poets and seekers of all ages--dwell in my memory and strengthen my soul! +That I go not down altogether--that I be not overcome by the dull things +about me! + + * * * * * + +These thoughts are not becoming to a reader of history. But I am not a good +reader of history--the old beasts are still growling within me. Something +starts a longing in me--I cry out that I am getting dull, that I am going +down, that I am putting off--I, who never put off before! And so the old +storms rise and the great waves come rolling again! + + * * * * * + +October 25th. + +I read that over just now. Yes, it is this that I dread. I dread the habit +of not striving! When that becomes my habit it is my death! And here I sit, +day by day--doing just the thing I dread! "Let me go _now_!" something +shouts in me. "_Now_--or I shall never go at all!" + +Oh, if I could find some word to tell men the terror of that thought! + +--It is my life--that is what it is! To obey this thing within me, to save +this thing within me, to _find_ this thing within me--that is my life! + + * * * * * + +It is a demon thing--it is a thing that has lifted me up by the hair +of my head and shaken me--that has glared at me with the wild eyes of a +beast--that has beaten me like a storm of wind and struck me down upon the +ground! It shakes me now--it shakes me all the time--it makes me scream +with pain--incoherently, frantically. "Oh save me!--Spare me!--Let me go!" + + * * * * * + +I rave, you say--yes, I know. That is because I can not say what I feel. +But what matters it? + + * * * * * + +Sometimes I say to myself, "I put all that in The Captive, and men have not +heard it! And now, what can I do that they _will_ hear--shall I have +to go out in the streets and scream? Or what other desperate thing is +there?" + + * * * * * + +--Mark this, oh you world that I can not make hear me! Some desperate thing +I shall do--I will not sit here and be respectable always! + +--I wonder what locusts taste like, and just where one could find wild +honey. + + * * * * * + +October 29th. + +I sang a song to-day--a mad, mad song! I wish I could bring it back. It +came to me unexpectedly, while I was kneeling by the bed, thinking. + +I have forgotten it all now--one always forgets his best songs. I have not +a line of this one, except the chorus: + + For I am lord of a thousand dollars! + +So it is that my best songs go. I can count them on my fingers. But I have +not yet learned how precious they are--that is why I lose them. + +--Do you remember that time on the great cliffs by the ocean? There was +nothing left but the ending again-- + + Oh bear me away in thy bosom, + Thou wind of the mountain high! + + * * * * * + +November 2d. + +I am not always as I write here--I am not always angry. I have my tender +moments, when I see my woe as the world's woe--above all the poverty. Oh +let me always have a tender heart for the poor! + + * * * * * + +November 6th. + +I have a distant relative in this city, an old gentleman who belongs to +clubs and is what is known as a "man of the world." He has quite a sense +of humor--is famous for good stories. He told me that he was interested in +me--that he would be glad to find a place for me in life, if I would only +get over my youthful follies. It has been years since I saw him, but I can +still hear him. + +The last words he ever said to me were these--said with his quiet, amused +smile: "Never mind, my boy, leave it to time. You needn't argue with +me--just leave it to time, and it'll come out all right." + +Never have I sunk into a fit of despair that I have not thought of that; +and the quiet smile has become the sneer of an imp. It has become all the +world watching me, and knowing full well the issue; wise world! + +That memory has never yet lost its power to make me grip my hands suddenly. +"So! And my life has no other purpose, then, than to point a moral for a +rich clubman!" + + * * * * * + +Leave it to time! Leave it to time! O God, what a sentence that is--so +savage--and so true! Leave it to the long weary days that come one after +another--that never tire--that never are beaten--that never are less--never +faster--never slower--that wear you out as water wears a stone! Leave it to +time! Say nothing, fear nothing; leave it to time! Leave it to the hours of +dulness, the hours of sickness, the hours of despair! Leave it to failure +piled upon failure, to insult piled upon insult, to rebuff upon rebuff, to +sneer upon sneer! Leave it to the endless, never-ceasing sight of ugliness; +the endless, never-ceasing sight of selfishness; of pettiness, emptiness, +heartlessness, hatefulness! Leave it to heat and to cold, to dust and to +dirt, to hunger and penury, to headache and heartache, and bitter, bitter +loneliness! Leave it to time! Leave it to time!--_Oh my Father in +heaven!_ + + * * * * * + +November 8th. + +--What am I doing? I am reading books full of facts--I am reading books +that do not make me wretched. I am _not_ reading poetry. + +I am leaving it to time! + + * * * * * + +November 10th. + +It has been four weeks yesterday! I have been expecting to hear from the +last publishers every day for a week. I have been trembling while I watched +each mail. I have more than a hope that these publishers will take it--they +publish a deal of poetry. + +But I have been practising my friend's plan, I have been saying to myself +all day: "You might as well know that it is coming back. What is the use of +trying to deceive yourself?" + +It has been four months since I finished The Captive! If I had known then +what I know now, I do not believe I could ever have written a line of it. + +What do I know _now_? + +--I know more than I care to own to myself. There is a deadly growth taking +root in the depths of my soul. + + * * * * * + +November 13th + +It is two months to-day since I gave up my last place. I have gotten along +on just three dollars a week, including everything. I find it is not +possible to do better than that, there are so many odds and ends one needs. +I have spent twenty-seven dollars. I have twenty-nine dollars. That means I +can try two, or possibly three, publishers--after this one. + + * * * * * + +November 16th. + +My method did make it easier after all. The letter came this morning. + + * * * * * + +"We have read with care the manuscript of The Captive which you have +offered us. We are pleased to be able to tell you that we have found it +a very fine piece of work, but we are sorry to say that our previous +experience with publications of this character does not lead us to believe +that we could make a success of it. + +"We are holding MS. subject to your order." + + * * * * * + +I did a desperate thing to-day--two of them. First I had to go and get the +manuscript, so I asked to see the publisher. I sat down and looked straight +into his face and said: "How is a man who is trying to write what is fine +to keep alive if the publishers won't publish what he writes?" + +He was very kind--he seemed to be interested. He explained that a publisher +who published books that the public did not want would be driven out of +business in a year. Then he said he knew many who were facing the same +problem as I; that there was nothing to do but write for the magazines and +the papers, and that it was a bitter shame that society made no provision +for such men. "Your work is as noble and sincere as work can be," he said, +"but I do not believe that you will find a publisher in this country to +undertake it, unless there be one who feels wealthy enough to do it as a +service to literature and a labor of love." + + * * * * * + +That made me turn white. I got my manuscript and I went out on the street, +and the houses reeled about me. "So," I said, "and that settles it!" + +As I walked along I stared into the future. It seemed very clear all of a +sudden. + +I thought it all out. "No one will publish The Captive," I said, "and no +one would heed it if it were published. Therefore I have but one question +to face, Have I the strength to go on, living as I have lived, distracted +and tormented as I have been--and still piling up new emotions in my soul, +daring new efforts, reaching new heights, producing new books? I can have +no idea that my second work will be any more available than my first; on +the contrary, I know that it would be just what The Captive is, only more +so. Therefore, perhaps it will be ten years--perhaps it will be twenty +years--before men begin to pay any heed to what I have written! And so +there is the question, Have I the strength to go on in that way--have I the +strength to face that future?" + +Then I grew faint and had to lean against a railing. _I knew that I could +not do that!_ + + * * * * * + +It is no question of what I will do! It is a question of what I _can_ +do! I am weakened and sick with the yearning that I have in me already. My +last "business" experience drove me mad. And I am to go on, I am to rouse +new hunger, new passion, new agony in my soul! Why, the work that I have +dreamed of next is so hard and so far-away that I hardly dared even whisper +it! It would take years and years of toiling! And I am to do it here in +this seething city--to do it while I sell wholesale-paper--to do it while +I am sick for lack of food! I can not do it! I _can_ not! + +I went home, and I was crazy; so it was that I did my second desperate +thing. + +I sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. ----. I wrote a letter--I can not +see how it could fail to stir the soul of any man. I told him how I had +toiled--I told him how for four long months I had waited in agony--I told +him what the publishers had said to me. I begged him--I implored him--for +the sake of the unuttered message that cried out day and night in my +soul--not to throw the letter aside--to read it--to give me a chance to +talk to him. I said: "I will live in a hut, I will cook my own food, I will +wear the clothes of a day laborer! If I can only be free--if I can only be +free to be an artist! I could do it, all of it, for two hundred dollars a +year; and I could win the battle, I know, if I had but three years. I am +desperate as I write to you--I look ahead and I can see only ruin; and not +ruin for myself--I do not mind that--but ruin for my art! I can tell you +what that means to me in but one way--I ask you to read my book. I have put +all my soul into that book--I will stake my all upon it. If you will only +read it, you will see what I mean--you will see why I have written you this +letter. You will see that it is not a beggar's letter, but a high challenge +from an artist's soul." + + * * * * * + +So there is one chance more. I do not see how he can refuse, and if he will +only read the manuscript, I will be safe, I think. + + * * * * * + +November 20th. + +I have done nothing but wait for four days, but I have not heard from him +yet. To-day I made up my mind that I would take the manuscript to another +publisher's meanwhile. He is probably busy, and may not answer for a long +while; and I can get the manuscript from a publisher at any time. + + * * * * * + +November 24th. + +Still I have not heard anything from Mr. ----. My soul was full of hope +again, but it is sinking down as before. Is he not going to answer me at +all?--Can it be that he has not even read my letter? + + * * * * * + +November 26th. + +I wrote to him again to-day, inquiring. If he does not answer that, I shall +suppose his secretary threw it away. + +There is nothing weakens my soul like this endless waiting. I wander around +desolate, helpless, I can not fix my mind on anything. Oh, the shame of it! + + * * * * * + +November 30th. + +I could not give up that hope yet. It seemed to me so terrible that of all +the men of wealth in this city there should not be one willing to help me +save my message.--I wrote to-day the same letter to a clergyman who I know +is wealthy, and who I believe would be interested in my work. + + * * * * * + +December 2d. + +"I have received your letter, and I regret very much that I can not grant +the request you make. The pressure upon my time is such that I can not +possibly undertake to read your book. There would be no use in my doing so, +anyhow, for I tell you frankly it seems to me the situation you are in is +just what you need. My advice to you is to be a man and face it. I do not +see any reason why one person should be set free from the labor which all +of us have to share; and I assure you that you are entirely mistaken if you +think that an artist has nothing to expect but ruin from contact with the +world, and with suffering and toiling humanity." + +Isn't that a slap in the face for you? + +Great God, I think that is the most insulting thing that has ever happened +to me in all my days. "Set free from the labor which all of us have to +share!"--What do you think I am--a tramp, or a loafer, you hound! + +"A high challenge from an artist's soul!" + +I think I never had so much hatred in my heart in all my life as I have +to-day. Oh, my God, what a thing this world is! What stupid, blind +brutality, what hideous vulgarity! This man a _clergyman_! And this is +his faith, his nobility, his understanding! + +Why, I came out of the forest with my naked heart in my hands! I came out +quivering with emotion, melting with love and with trust for all men! I +came all sensitive and raw--hungering for sympathy and kindness! And oh, my +soul!--my God!--you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur! + +Had I not offered up my heart for a sacrifice? Had I not burned it with +fire? Had I not made all my being one consecration? And all for men, for +men! For men I had torn myself--lashed myself--killed myself--for men I +had forgotten what self was--yes, literally that--forgotten what self +was! So little self had I left that I was willing to ask favors! So much +consecration had I, so much trust, that I would beg! I had wept--I had +suffered--I had starved! I had dreamed and sung, toiled until I set fire to +my very brain! And you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy +cur! + +Those thoughts turn my whole soul into one wild curse! Have done with +laying bare your heart to men, have done with telling your life to men! Why +should you go on trying to be a poet, go on putting your secret soul into +books, to be spurned at by the rabble? Your soul is your own--it is your +God's--and what have the rabble to do with it! And all its tenderness! all +its shrinking ecstasy! all its holiest consecration!--You will take them +out to sell them to the rabble! + +When will you get back into yourself, you fool? When will you have learned +your lesson, and let this hellish world boot you out of its way no more? +Let ever any man know a gleam of your heart again!--see one trace of your +joy! + + * * * * * + +--And I came to it on my knees--to this world--crouching, cringing, +begging! Oh, oh!--I scream it--Oh! + +--And after that I sank down by the bed and hid my face and sobbed: "Oh, +Shelley! Oh, my Shelley!" + + * * * * * + +December 3d. + +--I saw myself a business man to-day, clearing a path for myself! But it +does not last--I am not that kind of a man. My folly is my being--rest +assured that I shall climb back to the heights again where I am willing to +bear any insult. + + * * * * * + +But it will be a long time before I write any more letters. I have come to +understand the world's point of view. + +I suppose busy men get thousands of letters from cranks; they will get no +more from me. + + * * * * * + +December 5th. + +I was reading an essay on Balzac to-day. I read about Balzac's fondness for +_things_; and I put the book down and spent an hour of perplexity. I +fear I am a very narrow person in my sympathies and understandings. Why +should a man care about _things_! About all sorts of houses and +furniture, and pictures, and clothes, and jewels! + +I can understand a man's caring about love and joy and aspiration. But +_things_! I can understand a child's caring about things, or a fool's +caring; I see millions of such; but an artist? A thinker? A _man_? + + * * * * * + +I am reading novels nowadays--reading all sorts of things that +_entertain_. I have not read a poem for a long time, I have no +interest in reading unless I can _go_ with it. + +I have been studying some of the French novelists--some of Maupassant +yesterday. What a strange creature is a Frenchman! A nervous, hysterical, +vain, diseased creature! + + * * * * * + +"The Gallic disease!" Let that be a phrase. + + * * * * * + +The Gallic disease is this: to see only one thing in life, to know only one +purpose, to understand only one pleasure; to have every road lead to that, +every thought, every phrase. To know that every character in a book is +thinking it; to know that every man who is introduced is looking for a +woman! And that as soon as he finds her, they must forthwith--whatever be +their age, rank, character, and position at the moment--begin to burn with +unclean desires! + +That is what one might call the _convention_ of French fiction. It +gets very monotonous when you are used to it; it takes all of the interest +out of the story. For there is but one ending to such a story. + +One's whole being is lowered by contact with that incessant animal appeal. + + * * * * * + +December 8th. + +I have discovered another trouble--as if I did not have enough! I am to +suffer from indigestion! It plagues me continuously--I can not do anything +for an hour after a meal, no matter what simplest thing I have eaten. + +And so all through my life I am to be hindered in my work by having to +wrestle with this handicap! Just as if I had not been a clean man, but some +vulgar _bon vivant_. + + * * * * * + +December 10th. + +This is my fifth publisher. They said they thought it would take two weeks, +but it has been three already, and they have not even answered my letter of +inquiry. I see you can put no reliance on them in the matter of time. + + * * * * * + +December 11th. + +In two days more it will be three months since I gave up my situation. +I count my little hoard day by day, as a castaway might, or a besieged +garrison. I have begun to try to get along on cheap foods again--(that is +the reason of my indigestion). Yesterday I burned a mess of oatmeal, and +now I shall live on burned oatmeal for I know not how long. I was cooking a +large quantity to save time. + + * * * * * + +I count my store. I have come the last month on eleven dollars! I have +been doing my own washing, and reading the newspapers at a library. I +buy nothing but food--chiefly bread and milk and cereals. Why is it that +everything that is cheap has no taste? + +Sometimes I am angry because I can not have anything good to eat, but I +only write my dignified sentiments here. + + * * * * * + +I am getting down to the limit again; I sit shuddering. I shall have to get +some work again; I can not bear to think of it! What shall I do? If I go to +that slavery again it will be the death of my soul, for I have no hope, and +I can not fight as I did before. + +And I can only try one or two publishers more. Oh, take it! Take it! + + * * * * * + +December 14th. + +I went down to see them to-day. The manuscript mislaid--very sorry--had +written readers to examine it at once--expecting report any instant--will +write me--etc. + +And so I walked home again. + + * * * * * + +Yes, elegant ladies and gentlemen, I am a poor poet; and my overcoat is +out at one elbow, and I am sick. I look preoccupied, too; would you like, +perhaps, to know what is in my mind? I will tell you five minutes of it +to-day: + + * * * * * + +"Bang! Bang! Look out of the way there, you fool!--Use Casey's Corn +Cure!--Extry! Extry! Evening Slop-Bucket and Swill-Barrel, six o'clock +edition!--And it was at seventy-two and the market--Cab! Cab!--Try +Jones's Little Five-cent Cigars!--Brown's Elite Tonsorial and Shaving +Parlors!--Have you seen Lucy Legs in the High Kicker? The Daily Hullabaloo +says--Shine, boss?--But she wouldn't cut it on the bias, because she +thought--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! Five hundred million copies sold +every year! We rake all the mud-gutters and it only costs you one cent! The +Slop-Bucket is the paper of the people!--Move along, young man, don't block +up the passage! Bang! Bang! Hurry up there, if you want to get aboard--Come +along, my honey-baby girl! (hand-organ)--If you will try Superba +Soap--Simpkins's Whisky is all the rage!--Isaac Cohenstein's Cash Clothing +Store, Bargains in Gents' Fall Overcoats! Look at these! Walk in, sir! +Cash! Cash!--The most elegant topaz brooches, with little--Read the Daily +Swill-Barrel!--Extry! Extry! He Cut Her Throat with a Carving-Knife!--Bang! +Bang!--Toodles' Teething Sirup--Look at my elegant hat with the flamingo on +it!--O'Reilly's Restaurant--walk in and gorge yourself, if you can pay us. +Walk in!--Get out of the way there!--Have you read the Pirate's Pledge! The +Literary Sensation--Cash! Cash!--Just come and see our wonderful display of +newly imported--Smith and Robinson, Diamonds and Jewelry, latest and most +elegant--Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder! _Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder!!_ +USE TOMPKINS'S--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! We rake all the +mud-gutters!--Murphy's Wines and Liquors--Try Peerless Cocktails--Levy's +High-Class Clothing Emporium!--Come in and buy something--anything--we get +down on our knees--we beg you!--Cab, sir? Cab!--Bargains! Bargains!--Cash! +Cash!--_Yein, yein, yein_!" + + * * * * * + +So it keeps up for hours! And I put my fingers in my ears and run. + + * * * * * + +December 17th. + +To-day I happened to read in one of the magazines an article on a literary +subject by a college professor of some reputation. It was a fine piece of +work, I thought, very true; and I got to thinking of him, wondering if +_he_ might not be the man. + +I have no hope that these last publishers will take the book, and so I made +up my mind to write to him. + +I wrote what I had written to all the others; I told him how I had +struggled, and how I was living. Perhaps he is less busy than the rest. + + + * * * * * + +December 19th. + +The manuscript came back to-day. The letter was simple--the old, +meaningless form. I am waiting to hear from the professor. + + * * * * * + +December 20th. + +"I reply to your letter somewhat against my rule--chiefly because of what +you tell me about your circumstances. I will read your manuscript if you +still think it worth while to send it to me; but I must tell you at the +outset that I consider the chances very unfavorable, as regards my finding +the work what you believe it. I assure you that the literary situation +is not in the least what you picture it; the book-market was never more +wide-awake than it is now, the publishers are all as eager as possible +for the least sign of new power; and besides that, the magazines afford +outlet--not only for talent, but for mediocrity as well. You are entirely +mistaken in your idea that literary excellence is not equivalent to +commercial availability. If you could write one paragraph as noble as the +average of Dr. ----, or one stanza as excellent as the average of Professor +----, you would find an instant and hearty welcome. + +"Moreover, I believe that you are entirely wrong in your ideas of what you +need. You will not make yourself a great artist by secluding yourself from +men--go out into the world, young man, go out into the world and see what +men are! + +"As I say, it is not my rule to answer letters such as yours. The cry of +the suffering is in the air every instant, if we heeded it we should never +get our work done. But I am willing to read your poem, if this letter has +not chilled your ardor." + + * * * * * + +--Last night I read The Captive again, and it brought the tears into my +eyes; and so my ardor is not chilled, good professor--and I will send you +the poem. + + * * * * * + +--But as for going out into the world--I think I am learning what men are +pretty fast! + + * * * * * + +December 23d. + +My poem stirs me, but it does not last. My whole habit of mind seems to +me to be changed--a deep, settled melancholy has come over me; I go about +mournful, haunted. I read--but all the time I am as if I had forgotten +something, and as if half my mind were on that. I have lost all my ardor--I +look back at what I was, and it brings the tears into my eyes. It is gone! +It is gone! It will not ever come back! + +And each day I am drawing nearer to the rapids--to the ghastly prospect of +having to drag myself back to work! + +Oh my God, what shall I do?--tell me anything, and I will do it! Give me a +hope--any hope--even a little one! + + * * * * * + +The last day I can stretch my miserable pittance to is the first of +February. + + * * * * * + +December 25th. + +Christmas Day--and I have no news, except that I am hungry, and that I am +sitting in my room with a blanket around me, and with a miserable cold in +my head. + + * * * * * + +It is the agony of an unheated room, an old acquaintance of mine, that +comes with each bitter winter. I live in a house full of noisy people and +foul odors; and so I keep my door shut while I try to read, and so my room +is like a barn. + +I could not accomplish anything to-day--I could not read. I felt like a +little child. I wanted nothing but to hide my head on some one's shoulder +and sob out all my misery. + +I am nothing but a forlorn child, anyway, lost in this great, cruel city. + +--I am not much at pathos; but it was Christmas night, and I had one kind +of cold in my head, and another kind in my feet. + + * * * * * + +December 27th. + +I tell you that my salvation was my impatience! My salvation was that I +wasted not an instant, that I fought--that I fought! And each hour that I +am forced to submit--that I am forced to endure and be still--that is an +hour of ruin! It was those fearful seven weeks that began it--and now I +shall have to go back to that again! Oh my God, how can I bear it? What can +I do? The pain of it heaps itself up in my soul--I am desperate--I will go +mad! Tell me what to do! Tell me what to do! + + * * * * * + +December 28th. + +I had a strange adventure to-night, a long, long adventure. I was free for +once in my life! Free and glorious--and delivered from earth! It happened +all in a dream; I sat crouching in the corner, thinking. + + * * * * * + +I had been walking down the street during the day and had seen a flower in +a window, and had been made happy for a minute, thinking of last spring. My +step had grown light, and I had forgotten the street around me. But then I +had heard two little girls, sitting in a doorway, whisper excitedly: "Oh, +look--he's laughing!" And instantly all my soul had shrunk up, and my dream +had fled, and I had hurried past and turned the corner. + + * * * * * + +Is it not a strange thing? I mused--this as I sat by the window--that deep +instinct of secrecy--that cowardice! Why is it that I would die before I +would let any man see the life of my soul? What are these people to me? +I know them not at all, and never shall. But I crouch back--I put on a +mask--yes, think of it, I even _give_ up the life of my soul, rather +than that any man should see me acting differently than himself! + +Somehow all at once that thought took hold of me with an overwhelming +power--I saw the truth as I had never seen it before in my life. I saw how +we live in society; and how social convention and triviality have us in +such a grasp that it never even dawns upon us that the laws it dictates +are not eternal and necessary! "You must be dignified, and calm, and +commonplace," say social convention and triviality. + +--But I am _not_ dignified--I am _not_ calm!--I am _not_ +commonplace! + +Well, then, you must _seem_ so. You must walk quietly; you must gaze +around indifferently; you must keep a vacant face; you must try to look +innocent of a thought. If you can't manage that--if you really want to +think--why then you must flee away to the woods, where you are sure no one +will come upon you and find you out. And if you can't do that--why then +there's nothing for you to do but give up thinking, give up living, become +like everybody else! + + * * * * * + +That idea shook me all of a sudden, it made me quite wild--it made me dig +my nails into my hands. It was the truth--I saw that--it was the truth! +Here I was, a miserable, pining, starving wretch--and for no reason in +the world but that I was a coward, but that I was a coward--a blind fool! +Because I had not let the empty-headed and sodden, the placid and smug, +the fat and greasy citizens of our great metropolis, tell _me_--the +servant of the muses--how I ought to look, how I ought to act, what I ought +to be! The very breath of my body is prayer--is effort--is vision; to dwell +in my own light, to behold my own soul, to know my own truth--that is my +one business in this world! To assert my own force--to be what I like--that +is my duty, that is my hope, my one hope in all the world! And I do not, I +can not, I dare not do it! I am sick and starved and dying, and I crouch +in corners while I pray for help, and if a gleam of sunshine comes from a +flower to me, it goes because a child sees me laughing! + +I sat burning with the rage of that. What am I to do? I cried. How is it to +be changed? Shall I live my life in spite of all men? + +And then I heard one of my devils--my commonplace devil--say, "But people +would think you were crazy!" + +"What do I care what people think?" I burst out. + +Then came another of my devils--my facetious devil--and he made me laugh. +"By all means," said he, "let us get together a few eager poets, and +establish a Society for the Propagation of Lunacy. Let us break down these +conventions and confound the eyes of the fat and greasy citizens, and win +freedom for our souls at any price. Let us wear strange clothes, and recite +our poetry upon the streets. Let us--" + +But I was not in a mood for my facetious devil--I flung him aside and +sprang up and fled out to the street (this in thought, of course). What do +I need with others? I exclaimed--with others to help me dare? This has to +do with _me_! And it has to do with me _now_--with this moment! +Am I to give up and let myself go down for such a phantom as this! For such +a dread as that wooden-headed men and women will think me "queer"! Am I to +stay in a prison such as that--to be bound by a chain such as _that_? +I--I, who go about trying to persuade myself that this world is nothing +to me--that this world is nothing to any one--that it is a phantom--that +the soul is truth! When I say that the soul is truth, do I mean it? Do I +_mean_ it? And if I do mean it, will I act by it--will I act by it +now--_now_, while I see it? Will I fling off this nightmare, will I +tear my way through these wrappings that have choked me? Will I say, once +and for all time, that I will be myself--that I will live my life--and that +no man shall stop me--that no man shall make me afraid? Will I take the +battle upon me and win it--win it _now_--fling off the last rag of +it--put the world straight behind me--_now_--_here_? Spread the +wings of my soul and take my flight into the far spaces of myself! And +dwell there--stay there--hold to the task and give it not up though it kill +me--now--_now_! + +These thoughts took hold of me--they made my brain reel--and I cried aloud +in excitement. I had not been so much awake since the day I came out of the +woods! I said the word--I said it--the mad word that I had not heard for +six long months--that I had not heard since I wrote the last lines of my +poem and came back to the haunts of men. And I clinched my hands, and +stamped upon the ground, and shouted: "Come on! Come on!"--to the legions +of my spirit. And it was like the taking flight of a great swarm of birds +within me--a rushing of wings and a surging upward, a singing for joy as +of a symphony. And there was singing in my soul, the surge of it caught +me--and I waved my arms and went striding on, shouting still, "Come on! +Come on!-- + +"Now! _now_! We will have it out with them--here--_here_! We will +fight our fight and win it, and they shall not turn us back--no, by God, +they shall not! And they may take it as they please--my soul is +free--_free_ once again! Away! _Away!_" + +And I felt the breeze of the mountains about me, and heard the rushing +of the storm-wind and the trampling of the thunder. There awoke the old +rush in my heart, the old Valkyrie music that flies over the forests and +mountains. And I laughed as I sang it; I heard the war-horses neighing, and +yelled to them--faster and faster--higher and higher--away from earth and +all men!-- + + * * * * * + +And then suddenly I felt some one seize me by the shoulder and shake me, +and heard a gruff voice say: "Here! Here! What's the matter with you?" And +I stared, half-dazed. It was a big policeman, and around me I saw a sea of +staring faces, wild-eyed children, women gazing in fright, boys jeering; +and the windows were filled with yet another crowd! + +"What's the matter with you?" demanded the policeman again. "Are you drunk, +or crazy!" + +And then I realized. But the fire was still blazing in me, and a wild rage +whirled over me. "Then it is by this that I am to be stopped!" I gasped. +"By _this_! It is not possible after all, it seems; and I'm to be +dragged back after all!--By Heaven, we'll see!" + +And so I gave the cry again--the cry of the Valkyrs that is madness to me! +Do you not hear it?--and I was away again and free! + +What does a man want for his soul, if it be not just to strive, and to be +resisted, and still to strive? What difference makes anything else--time, +place or conditions? I was myself again--and what else did I care about? I +felt the policeman take me by the collar and march me down the street; but +I hardly knew that--I was on the mountains, and I laughed and sang. The +very hatefulness of what was about me was my desperation--I would make head +against such things or I would die in the attempt! I would be free!--I +would live! I would live my life; and not the life of these people about +me! I would fight and win, I would hold fast my heart, I would be true +though the heavens fell! I would have it out, then and there, as I said--I +would not come back to earth until I was master of myself. + +And so when I stood in the station-house and the sergeant asked me my name, +I said: "Desire is my name, and the soul is my home!" And then because they +shook me and worried me, I stretched forth my arms and cried out: "O God, +my Father--thou who art my help and my life--thou soul of my soul--shall I +go back for these things?--Shall I fear for these things? No, no--while I +have life I will not! I will live for the truth, I will be crushed no +longer!" + +They led me to a cell, and when I heard the door shut I laughed like a +madman for joy. And then--ah, then--who can tell it? They came--all my +angels and all my demons! All my muses and all my nymphs! And the bases +of the earth rocked and the heavens danced and sang; and I mounted on the +wings of the ages, and saw the joys of the systems and the dancing of the +young suns. Until I could bear it no more, and fell down and sobbed, and +cried out to my soul that it was enough, enough! + + * * * * * + +And afterward I sat there on the stone floor, and ate bread and water and +ambrosial peace; and a doctor came in to see me, and asked me who I was. +And I laughed--oh, who ever laughed like that? And I said, _"I am the +author of The Captive!"_ + +He left me and I sat there, shaking my head and pounding the stone floor +for joy. And I sang again, and sang again. Yes, the author of The Captive! +And captive myself, and free at last! + +It was far into the night when I stopped singing; and then I lay down and +never before had I known such peace; for I had found the way--I had seen +the light--I was delivered from all fear and dulness for the rest of my +days! I was so excited I could not sleep--when I fell asleep at last it was +from sheer exhaustion. + +And when they roused me the next morning I bounded to my feet like a shot, +and shouted to my soul, and was up and away through the forest like a +startled deer again! They tried their very best to catch me, but they could +not. I had not lived in the woods for nothing, I knew the paths, I knew +where the mountains were. And when they thought they had me in court, I was +on the very summits--and laughing and drunk with the mountain air! + +I have a keen sense of humor,--and of course I am never so drunk that I +do not know I'm drunk, and know just what I'm drunk about--else how could +I write poems about it? Do you think that when Shakespeare cried out his +"Blow ye winds and crack your cheeks!" he did not know just what he was +saying? Ah!--And when I saw all these queer little men about me, staring +and wondering--and so solemn!--I laughed the inextinguishable laughter of +Olympus, and shouted so that they dragged me out of court in a hurry. + + * * * * * + +And then there came the end! They took me to the insane asylum, and I sat +down on the floor of a cell and gazed at myself in amazement and panted: So +there _is_ a way you can live, after all! There _is_ a way you +can make them support you! There _is_ a way you can do all your work +in peace, and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! I could scarcely +believe it all--it took half an hour for me to realize it. And then I +shouted that I was saved!--and fell to work at shaping that mad Song of the +West Wind I had been so full of. + + * * * * * + +And then suddenly I heard a muffled voice say: "What in the dickens are you +making all that rumpus for?" And I stared about me and saw that I was still +crouching by the window in my room! And I shrank back and quivered with +rage, because I knew that I had been making a noise and that some one out +in the hall had been listening to me! + + * * * * * + +And that was the end of my long adventure. + + * * * * * + +December 30th. + +"I am pleased to be able to tell you that your poem is a great deal better +than I expected to find it. I am forced to write briefly by reason of +pressure of business; but you have very considerable literary gifts. The +work is clearly made whole of sincerity; it shows a considerable command of +expression, and a considerable understanding of style. It has qualities of +imagination and of emotional insight, and is obviously the fruit of a wide +reading. But besides these things, it is exactly as I expected, and as I +told you--the work is very narrow in the range of its appeal; you can not +in the least blame the publishers for declining it, because it is true that +very few people would care for it. My own judgment is hardly capable in the +matter, because I myself am not an idealist. Recording my own opinion, I +found the poem monotonous, and not especially interesting; but then, I say +that of much that some other people consider great poetry. + +"My advice to you is just what it was before--that you go out into the +world and become acquainted with life. Not knowing you personally, I could +not counsel you definitely, but I should think that what would benefit you +most would be a good stiff course in plain, every-day newspaper reporting. +Newspaper reporters have many deficiencies, but at least they learn to keep +in touch with their audiences, and to write in a way that takes hold of the +people. You may not welcome this advice--but we seldom welcome what is good +for us." + + * * * * * + +I am not dead yet, and I have not lost the power of getting angry. Such +things as that do me good, they make me fight, they get all my soul in +arms. Great God, the blindness, the asininity of it! + +It is enough if you can classify a man; give him a name--and then it's all +out of the way. If he have faith and fire and aspiration and worship--and +you have not--why, say that he is an idealist, and that you are something +else, and let it go at that. + + * * * * * + +December 31st. + +The poem came back to-day, and I trudged off to another publisher's--the +sixth. I have no hope now, however; I send it as a matter of form. + +I shudder at the prospect of to-morrow's coming; for it will be just a +month more to the time I said I should have to go to work! + +And New Year's day--my soul, if I had foreseen this last New Year's! I +thank Heaven for that blessing, at least. + +Who are these men that I should submit to their judgments? These men and +their commonplace lives--are they not that very world out of which I have +fought my way, by the toil of nights and days?--And now I must come back +and listen to their foolish judgments about my song! + +--You felt what was in it, you poor, stupid man! But it did not take you +with it, for you are not a poet; you have not kept the holy fire burning, +you are not still "strenuous for the bright reward." And so you found it +monotonous! Some men find nature monotonous. And some men find music +monotonous. + + * * * * * + +January 5th. + +Two days ago I was reading Menschen und Werke, by Georg Brandes. I was +glancing over an essay on Friedrich Nietzsche, and I came upon some things +that made my heart throb:-- + +"This man [Nietzsche's ideal] takes willingly upon himself the sorrow +of speaking the truth. His chief thought is this: A happy life is an +impossibility; the highest that man can attain is a heroic life, a life in +which, amid the greatest difficulties, something is striven for which, in +one way or other, proves for the good of all. To what is truly human only +the true men can lift us, those who seem to have come into being through a +leap of nature, the thinkers and discoverers, the artists and producers, +and those who achieve more through their being than their doing; the noble, +the good in a great sense, those in whom the genius of the good works. +These men are the goal of history. Nietzsche formulates the sentence +'Humanity shall labor continually at this, to beget solitary great men--and +this and nothing else is its task.'-- + +"Here Nietzsche has reached the final answer to his question 'What is +Culture?' For upon this rest the fundamental principles of Culture, and the +duties which it imposes. It lays upon me the duty to place myself actively +in relation to the great human ideals. Its chief thought is this: To every +one who will look for it and partake of it, it sets the task; to labor in +himself and outside of himself at the begetting of the thinker and the +artist, the truth-loving and the beauty-loving man, the pure and good +personality--and therewith at the fulfilment of nature.... + +"In our day a so-called Culture institution signifies only too often an +arrangement by which the cultured, moving in closed ranks, force to one +side all those solitary and contrary ones whose striving is directed to +higher things. Also among the learned there is so far lacking, as a rule, +all sense for the genius that is coming into being, and every feeling for +the work of the contemporary and struggling soul. Therefore, in spite of +the irresistible and restless advance in all technical and specialized +fields, the conditions for the originating of the great are so little +improved that the opposition to the highly gifted has rather increased than +diminished. + +"From the government the superior individuals can not expect much. It helps +them rarely when it takes them into its service, very certainly it will +help them only when it gives them full independence. Only true Culture can +prevent their early becoming weary or exhausted, and protect them from the +exasperating battle with Culture-philistinism." + + * * * * * + +Those words made my blood tingle, they made me tremble. Alone, miserable, +helpless--here was a voice at last, a friend! I dropped the book and I went +to the library, and I was back with "Also sprach Zarathustra" in an hour. + + * * * * * + +I have been reading it for two days--reading it in a state of excitement, +forgetting everything. Here is a man!--Here is a man! The first night that +I read it I kicked my heels together and laughed aloud in glee, like a +child. _Oh_, it was so fine! And to find things like this already +written, and in the world! Great heavens, it was like finding a gold mine +underneath my feet; and I have forgotten all my troubles again, forgotten +everything! I have found a man who understands me, a man to be my friend! + + * * * * * + +I do not know what the name Friedrich Nietzsche conveys to the average +cultured American. I can only judge by my own case--I have kept pace with +our literary movements and I have read the standard journals and reviews; +but I have never come upon even a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche, except +as a byword and a jest. + + * * * * * + +I had rather live my own life than any other man's life. My own vision is +my home. But every great man's inspiration is a challenge, and until you +have mastered it you can not go on. + +I speak not of poets, nor of philosophers, but of religious teachers, of +prophets; and I speak but my opinion--let every man form his own. I say +that I have read all those that men honor, and that a greater prophet than +this man has not come upon the earth in centuries. I think of Emerson and +Carlyle as the religious teachers, the prophets, of this time; and beside +this mighty spirit Emerson is a child and Carlyle a man without a faith or +an idea. I call him the John Baptist of the new Dispensation, the first +high priest of the Religion of Evolution; and I bid the truth-seeker read +well his Bible, for in it lies the future of mankind for ages upon ages to +come. + + * * * * * + +Half that I love in my soul's life I owe to the prophet of Nazareth. The +other half I owe,--not to Nietzsche, but to the new Dispensation of which +he is a priest. Nietzsche will stand alone; but he is nevertheless the +child of his age--he sings what thousands feel. + + * * * * * + +It is a disadvantage to be the first man. If you are the first man you see +but half-truths and you hate your enemies. When you seek truth, truly, all +systems and all faiths of men--they are beautiful to you--born of sorrow, +and hallowed with love; but they will not satisfy you, and you put them by. +You do not let them influence you one way or the other; you can no more +find truth while you are bound to them by hatred than while you are bound +to them by love. There are dreary places in "Also sprach Zarathustra," +narrownesses and weaknesses too; they come whenever the writer is thinking +of the evils of the hour, whenever he is gazing, not on the vision of his +soul, but on the half-truths of the men about him. + + * * * * * + +When I speak of Christ let no man think of Christianity. I speak of a +prince of the soul, the boldest, the freest, the noblest of men that I +know. With the thousand systems that mankind has made in his memory, I have +simply nothing in any way to do. + + * * * * * + +To me all morality is one. Morality is hunger and thirst after +righteousness. Morality is a quality of will. The differences that there +are between Christ and Nietzsche are differences of the intellect--where no +man is final. + +The doctrine of each is a doctrine of sacrifice; with one it is a sacrifice +of love, with the other it is a sacrifice of labor. For myself, I care not +for the half-truths of any man. I said to my soul, "Shall I cast out love +for labor?" And my soul replied, "For what wilt thou labor but love?" + + * * * * * + +Moral sublimity lies in the escape from self. The doctrine of Christ is a +negation of life, that of Nietzsche an affirmation; it seems to me much +easier to attain to sublimity with the former. + +It is easier to die for righteousness than to live for it. If you are to +die, you have but to fix your eyes upon your vision, and see that you do +not take them away. But the man who will _live_ for righteousness--he +must plant and reap, must gather fire-wood and establish a police-force; +and to do these things nobly is not easy; to do them sublimely seems hardly +possible at all. + + * * * * * + +Twenty centuries ago the Jewish world was a little plain, and God a loving +Father. He held you in his arms, he spoke to you in every dream, in every +fantasy, in every accident. Life was very short--but a little trial--you +had only to be patient, and nothing mattered. Society did not exist--only +your neighbor existed. Knowledge did not exist, nor was it needed--the +world was to end--perhaps to-night--and what difference made all the rest? +You took no heed for the morrow--for would not your Father send you bread? +You resisted not evil--for if you died, was not that all that you could +ask? + +It was with such a sweet and simple faith as this that the victory of Jesus +Christ was won. These were his ideas, and as the soul was all-consuming +with him, he lived by them and died by them, and stands as the symbol of +faith. + + * * * * * + +And now twenty centuries have gone by. And a new teacher has come to whom +also the soul is all-consuming. What ideas has _he_? And what task +does he face? + + * * * * * + +I speak not to children. I speak to men seeking truth. + +In twenty centuries we have learned that God is not a Father who answers +prayers and works miracles and holds out his arms at the goal. We have +come shuddering to the awful mystery of being; strange and terrible +words have been spoken--words never to be forgotten--"phenomenon," and +"thing-in-itself"; not knowing what these words mean, you are ignorant and +recreant to the truth; _knowing_ what they mean, you tug no more at +the veil. Also we have learned that time and change are our portion, "the +plastic dance of circumstance"; we talk no more of immortality. We have +turned our hopes to the new birth of time, to the new goal of our labor, +the new parent of our love, that we name Society. + +And likewise Evolution has come, which is the whole of knowledge. And we +have learned of starry systems, of the building of worlds, of the pageant +of history and the march of mind. Out of all these things has come a new +duty, which is not peace, but battle--which is not patience, but +will--which is not death, but life. + + * * * * * + +There is no room in the world of Evolution for the doctrine of +non-resistance to evil. Non-resistance to evil is the negation of life, and +the negation of life is the negation of faith. How shall you resist not +evil when life is action and not passion? When not a morsel of food can you +touch except by the right that you are more fitted to survive than that +morsel? How when you know that you rose from the beast by resistance? And +that you stay above the beast by resistance? Will you give up the farm land +to be jungle again? Or will you teach the beasts your non-resistance? And +the trees of the forest to crowd no more your land! + +It is no longer possible to build a heaven and reject the earth. Such as +life is you have to take it. + + * * * * * + +And you have to live it. The huge machinery of Society is on your hands, +with all its infinite complications, its infinite possibilities of beauty +and joy. Your life is, as ever, a sacrifice; all life is, as ever, a +sacrifice; but it is a sacrifice to man--a sacrifice to the best. Once your +task was self-abnegation, and that was easy; now it is self-assertion, and +that is hard. Knowing what you are, you will dare to live, not for your own +sake, but that strength and beauty may be in the world. Knowing what you +might be, you choose infinite toil for your portion, and in the humility of +toil you find your holiest peace. Your enemy you resist with all your soul, +not for hatred of your enemy, but for love of the right. If he were not +evil he could not be your enemy; and being evil, he has no right to be. +Your conscience to you is no longer a shame, but a joy; you think no +more of infinite sin, but of infinite virtue.--And for the rest, you do +not attain perfection, and you are not worshiped as a god; you are much +troubled by trivialities, and the battle tries your soul. But you make no +truce with lies, and you never lay down your sword; you keep your eyes upon +a far goal, and you leave the world better than you found it. When you come +to die you have no fear, but a song; for you are master of yourself, and +you have learned to know that which you are. + + * * * * * + +--And there is only to add--that whether you believe these things or not, +they are what you actually _do_. It seems to me not desirable that +one's belief should be less than one's practise. + + * * * * * + +January 6th. + +Has any one, at this end of the nineteenth century, a clear idea of what +the poets of the ages called _Inspiration_? If no one have, I will +describe it. With the least remainder of superstition in him a man would +scarcely be able to put aside the idea that he was merely the Incarnation, +the mouthpiece, the medium of overwhelming powers. The idea of Revelation +in the mind describes exactly the state of affairs--that suddenly, with +unspeakable certainty and fineness, something became visible and audible, +something that shakes and pervades one to the depths. One hears--he does +not seek; he takes--he does not ask who gives; like lightning gleams out +a thought, of necessity, formed without hesitation--I have never had a +choice. An ecstasy, whose colossal strain breaks in the middle with a +stream of tears, in the course of which the step becomes, involuntary, now +raging, now slow; a state in which one is completely beside himself, with +the distinctest consciousness of countless shudderings and quiverings, even +to the toes of his feet; a depth of joy in which all that is painful and +somber serves, not as a contrast, but as conditioned, as demanded, as a +necessary color in such an overflow of light; an instinct of rhythmic +relations which overleaps vast spaces of forms; all happening in the +highest degree involuntarily, but as if in a storm of sensations of +freedom, of infinity, of power, of divinity.--This is my experience of +Inspiration; I doubt not but that one must needs go back thousands of +years to find one who might say, "It is also mine." + + * * * * * + +Do you think that _I_ wrote that--I, Arthur Stirling? No, I did not +write that. The man who wrote that is known to you as an atheist. + + * * * * * + +January 7th. + +When Zarathustra came into the next city, which lay beside the forest, he +found in that place much people gathered together in the market; for they +had been called that they should see a rope-dancer. And Zarathustra spoke +thus unto the people: + +_"I teach ye the Over-man._ The man is something who shall be +overcome. What have ye done to overcome him? + +"All being before this made something beyond itself: and you will be the +ebb of this great flood, and rather go back to the beast than overcome the +man? + +"What is the ape to the man? A mockery or a painful shame. And even so +shall man be to the Over-man: a mockery or a painful shame. + +"Man is a cord, tied between Beast and Over-man--a cord above an abyss. + +"A perilous arriving, a perilous traveling, a perilous looking backward, a +perilous trembling and standing still. + +"What is great in man is that he is a bridge, and no goal; what can be +loved in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under. + +"I love them that know not how to live, be it even as those going under, +for such are those going across. + +"I love them that are great in scorn, because these are they that are great +in reverence, and _arrows of longing toward the other shore!"_ + + * * * * * + +And here ended the first speech of Zarathustra. + + * * * * * + +"The air thin and clear, the danger nigh, and the spirit filled with a +joyful mischief; these things go well together. + +"I will have gnomes about me, for I am merry.... + +"I feel no more with you; these clouds which I see under me, these clouds +black and heavy over which I laugh--just these are your storm-clouds. + +"You gaze upward if you long for exaltation. I gaze downward because I am +exalted. + +"Who among you can both laugh and be exalted? + +"Who climbs upon the highest mountains, he laughs at all sorrow-play and +sorrow-reality. + +"Bold, untroubled, mocking, full of power--so will wisdom have us; she is a +woman and loves always but the warrior. + +"You say to me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But for what had you your pride in +the morning, and in the evening your submission?... + +"I would believe only in a god who knew how to dance. + +"And when I saw my devil, I found him earnest, profound, deep, solemn; he +was the Spirit of Heaviness--through him fail all things. + +"Not by anger, but by laughing, one kills. Up, let us kill the Spirit of +Heaviness!..." + + * * * * * + +"Free dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and not that +thou hast escaped a yoke. + +"Art thou such a one that _can_ escape a yoke? + +"Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye tell me: +free _to_ what? + +"Canst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy will +above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and avenger of thy +law? + +"Fearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy law. So is +a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy breath of isolation.-- + +"Dost thou know truly, my brother, the word scorn? And the pain of thy +righteousness, to be just that which thou dost scorn?..." + + * * * * * + +"As I lay in sleep a sheep ate up the ivy crown of my head--ate and then +said: 'Zarathustra is no more a scholar.' + +"Said it and went strutting away, and proud. A child told it to me.... + +"This is the truth. I am gone out of the house of the scholars, and have +slammed to the door behind me.... + +"I am too hot, and burning with my own thoughts; oft will it take away my +breath. I must into the open and out of all dusty rooms. + +"But they sit cool in cool shadows; they wish in all things to be but +spectators, and guard themselves lest they sit where the sun burns the +steps. + +"Like those who stand upon the street and stare at the people who go by; so +they wait also and stare at the thoughts that others have thought. + +"If one touches them with the hands, they make dust around them like +meal-sacks, and involuntarily; _but who could guess that their dust comes +from corn and the golden rapture of the summer fields?_" + + * * * * * + +"Too far away into the future I flew; a horror overcame me. And as I looked +around me, there was Time my only companion. + +"Then I flew backward, homeward--and ever faster: so I came to you, men of +the present, and to the Land of Culture. + +"For the first time I brought an eye for you, and good wishes; truly, with +longing in my heart I came. + +"And what happened to me? Frightened as I was--I had to laugh. Never had my +eyes seen anything so color-besprinkled! + +"I laughed and laughed while my foot still trembled, and my heart too: +'Here is the home of all paint-pots!' said I. + +"Painted over with fifty spots in face and limbs; so sat ye there, to my +amazement, ye men of the present!... + +"Written all over with the signs of the past, and also these signs painted +over with new signs; so you have hidden yourself well from all +sign-readers!... + +"All Times and Principles look piebald out of your coverings; all Customs +and Faiths speak piebald out of your features.... + +"How _could_ ye believe, ye color-besprinkled!--who are pictures of +everything that ever was believed!... + +"Ah, whither shall I go now with my longing?" + + * * * * * + +"Who are pictures of everything that ever was believed! Who are pictures of +everything that ever was believed!" I read that and I slapped my knees and +I lay back and laughed like a very Falstaff. "Pictures of everything that +ever was believed!" Ho, ho, ho! + + * * * * * + +--That is some of Nietzsche! + + * * * * * + +January 8th. + +To-day it snowed hard, and it occurred to me that I might add to my money. +I bought a second-hand shovel and went out to shovel snow. It is not so +bad, I said, you are out of doors, and also you can think of Nietzsche. + +I made a dollar and a half, but I fear I did not think very much. My hands +were cold, for one thing, and my shoes thin, for another. + + * * * * * + +There is nothing that brings me down like physical toil. It is madness to +believe that you can do anything else--you drudge and drudge, and your mind +is an absolute blank while you do it. It is a thing that sets me wild with +nervousness and impatience. I hate it! I hate it! + +And I find myself crying out and protesting against it; and then I see +other men not minding it, and I hear the words of my dear clergyman friend: +"The labor which all of us have to share." So I say to myself: Perhaps +I am really an idler then! A poor unhappy fool that can not face life's +sternness, that is crying out to escape his duty! + + * * * * * + +That I could say such a thing--O God, what sign is that of how far I have +fallen! Of how much I have yielded!-- + + A vapor, heavy, hueless, formless, cold! + +Leave it to time! Leave it to time! + +--I hear that, and I hear around me the laughter of mocking demons. It +startles my soul--but no longer to rage as it used to. I sit and stare at +it with a great, heavy numbness possessing me. + + * * * * * + +January 12th. + +I am still reading Nietzsche. I think I shall read all that he has written. +I am always kept aware of the limitations, but he is a tremendous man. Can +you guess how this took hold of me?-- + + * * * * * + +THE GRAVE-SONG + +"There lies the island of graves, the silent; there are also the graves of +my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life." + +Thus resolving in my heart, I went over the sea.-- + +Oh ye visions and apparitions of my youth! Oh all ye glances of love, ye +godlike moments! How swiftly you died in me! I remember you to-day as my +dead. + +From you, my dearest dead, there comes to me a sweet odor, heart-melting, +tear-melting. Truly it shakes and melts the heart of the lonely seaman. + +Still am I the richest and the most to be envied--I, the most lonely. For +I _had_ you, and you have me still; say, to whom fell, as to me, such +rose-apples from the trees?... + +_Me_ to kill, they strangled you, you song-birds of my hopes. Yea, at +you, the dearest, shot wickedness its arrows--to strike my heart!... + +This word will I speak to my enemies: "What is all murder of man beside +that which ye did to me?" + +Thus, in the good hour, spake my purity: "Godlike shall all being be to +me." + +Then ye fell upon me with your foul spirits; ah, whither now hath the good +hour fled? + +"All days shall be holy to me"--so spake once the wisdom of my youth; truly +the speech of a happy wisdom. + +But then you enemies stole away my nights and sold them to sleepless +torment; ah, whither now hath the happy wisdom fled?... + +As a blind man once I went a blissful way; then you threw rubbish in the +blind man's way; and now he is weary of the old blind ascendings.... + +And once would I dance as never had I danced before; above all the heavens +away would I dance. And then you lured away my dearest singer!... + +Only in the dance can I speak metaphors of the highest things:--and now my +highest metaphor remained unspoken in my limbs! + +Unspoken and undelivered remained my highest hope! And there died all the +visions and solaces of my youth! + + * * * * * + +That thing brought the tears down my cheeks. It is what my soul has cried +all day and all night--that I see all my joy and all my beauty going! + +It is the fearful, the agonizing _waiting_ that does it. I know it--I +put it down--there is nothing kills the soul in a man so much as that. When +you wait your life is outside of yourself; you hope,--you are at the mercy +of others--at the mercy of indifference and accident and God knows what. + +But again I cry, "What can I do? If there is anything I have not done--tell +me! Tell me!" + +Here I sit, and I have but seven dollars left to my name, including what I +made by the shoveling. And I sit and watch the day creep on me like a wild +beast on its prey--the day when I must go back into the world and toil +again! Oh, it will kill me--it will kill me! + + * * * * * + +I sit and wait and hang upon the faint chance of one publisher more. It is +my only chance,--and such a chance! I find myself calculating, wondering; +yes, famous books have been rejected often, and still found their mark. Can +I still believe that this book will shake men? + +Ah, God, in my soul I do not believe it, because I have lost my +inspiration! I have let go of that fire that was to drive like a wind-storm +over the world. + + * * * * * + +Yes, I ask myself if such things can be! I ask myself if they were real, +all those fervors and all that boldness of mine! If it was natural, that +way that lived! + +--Oh, and then I look back, and my heart grows sick within me. + + * * * * * + +So I spend my time, and when I turn and try to lose myself in Nietzsche, +his mercilessness flings me into new despair. + + * * * * * + +January 18th. + +I have the terrible gift of insensibility; and I think my insensibility +torments me more than anything else in the world. + +I have no life, no power, no feeling, naturally--it is all my will, it is +all effort. And now that I am not striving, I sink back into a state of +numbness, of dull, insensible despair. I no longer feel anything, I no +longer care about anything. I pass my time in helpless impotence--and day +by day I watch a thing creeping upon me as in a nightmare. I must go out +into the world again and slave for my bread! + +--Oh, _then_ I will feel something, I think! + + * * * * * + +Another week and more is gone, and I have but a little over four dollars. + + * * * * * + +January 20th. + +I have stopped reading Nietzsche. I could not stand any more of it. It does +not satisfy me. + +It is not merely that I am so weak now, and that his mocking goads me. I +would have been through with him in any case. He is so narrow--so +one-sided. + +It is reaction from the present, of course, that accounts for it. Too +much gazing upon the world, that has led him to believe that love of man +necessarily implies compromise. + +There are two words that are absent from his writings--they are love and +humanity; and so it never satisfies you, you are always discontented, you +have always to correct and supply. + + * * * * * + +January 22d. + +Oh why do those publishers take so long! I wait and yearn; I grow sick with +waiting and yearning. + +I never allowed any weakness in my soul before; I never made any terms with +it. I blamed everything upon myself. And now that my whole life is weakness +and misery, I writhe and struggle--I turn back always on myself, suspecting +myself, blaming myself. I can not lay it to the world, I can not get into +the habit--it is such a miserable habit! How many millions there are of +them--poor, querulous wretches, blaming their fate, crying out against the +world's injustice and neglect--crying out against the need of working, +wishing for this and that--discontented, impotent, miserable! Oh my +God--and I am one of such! + +I can not bear the sound of my own voice when I complain! I hear the world +answering me--and I take the part of the world! "Why don't you be a man and +go out and earn your way? Why don't you face your fate? You prate about +your message--what business has a man with a message that is too much for +him? What business have you with weakness--what _excuse_ have you for +weakness?" + +And so I came to see it. The world is right and I am all wrong! And the +truth of it burns me like an acid in my brain. + + * * * * * + +January 24th. + +And all the time my whole being is still restless with the storms that +raged in it last spring! I have all those memories, all that poignancy. +I can not realize it--any of what I was and had--but I know it as a +_fact_, a memory, and I crouch and tremble, I grow sick with it. + + * * * * * + +Why don't they write to me? My money is going! + + * * * * * + +January 26th. + +The reason that I shudder so at the prospect of having to face the world +again, is that I have no hope. _I have no hope!_ Once I could +go out into that hellish market. I could be any man's slave, do any +drudgery--because I saw a light ahead--I saw deliverance--I had a purpose! + +And now what purpose have I--what hope have I? I tell you I am a man in a +trap! I can do nothing! I can do no more than if I were walled in with +iron! + +I say that my business in this world is to be a poet! I say that there is +only one thing I can do--only one way that I can get free--and that is by +doing my work, by writing books. And I have done all that I can do, I have +earned my freedom--and no one will give it to me! Oh, I shall die if I am +penned here much longer! + + * * * * * + +I eat out my heart, I burn up my very entrails in my frenzies. Set me free! +_Set me free!_ + + * * * * * + +I thought to-day if I only had a little money--if I could only publish that +book myself! I can not believe that men would not love it--I can not--no, +you may crush me all you please, but I can not! And I would take it and +shout it from the housetops--I would peddle it on the streets--I would +_make_ the world hear me! + +--And then I sink back, and I hear the world say, "You poor fool!" + + * * * * * + +January 28th. + +I have only a dollar and a half left! I have sat, shuddering and waiting, +all that I dare; the end is come now, I must look for work to-morrow. It is +like a death-sentence to me. I could do nothing to-night. + + * * * * * + +January 29th. + +Providence came to help me to-night for once! It snowed to-day and I have +been hard at work again. + + * * * * * + +January 30th. + +Some more snow. My hands were nearly frost-bitten, but I keep at it; for at +least it is out in the air, and it gives me a little longer respite. + +In the afternoon I made up my mind to go and see the publishers and ask +them if they could not read the story at once--it has been a month. I saw +their literary manager; he said he was going to read it himself. + + * * * * * + +January 31st. + +More snow again to-day. And I have made over five dollars. But I have come +out of it more dead than alive--dulled, dispirited, utterly worn out. + +If I could only be an animal for a time. But each day of the drudgery only +makes me wilder with nervousness. + + * * * * * + +February 1st. + +They regret, of course, and hold the MS. at my disposal. I went up to get +it this afternoon, and half by accident I met the man I had seen before. I +had a talk with him. He was a very curious personage. + +He seemed to have been interested in The Captive. "I'll tell you," he said, +"you know there's really some extraordinary work in that poem. I believe +that you have it in you to make some literature before you get through, Mr. +Stirling." + +"Do you?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied, "I feel pretty sure of it. You ask me to tell you about +it--so you mustn't mind if I speak frankly. And of course it's very crude. +You haven't found your voice yet, you're seeking for mastery, and your work +is obviously young. Anybody can see in a few lines that it's young--it's +one of those things like Goetz von Berlichingen, or Die Raeuber--you tear a +passion to tatters, you want to rip the universe up the back. But of course +that wears off by and by; it isn't well to take life too seriously, you +know, and I don't think it'll be long before you come to feel that The +Captive isn't natural or possible--or desirable either." + +The publisher was smoking a cigar. He puffed for a moment and then he +asked, "What are you doing now?" + +"Nothing just at present," said I. + +"I should have supposed you'd be writing another poem," he +replied,--"though of course as a matter of fact the wisest thing you can do +is to wait and learn. Your next book will be entirely different, you can be +quite sure--you won't be so anxious to get hold of all the world and make +it go your way." + +I smiled feebly. "Possibly not," I said. + +"I'll tell you a story," said the publisher--"speaking about youthful +aspirations! I was talking to Mr. X---- last night, the author of ----. +[Footnote: The manuscript names an extremely popular historical novel.] You +wouldn't think X---- was the sort of man to be reforming the world, would +you? But he told me about his earliest work, that he said he had tucked +away in a drawer, and it turned out he was like all other authors. This +was a socialist story, it seems, and the hero delivered fiery speeches +six pages long. And X---- said that he had written it and taken it to a +publisher, expecting to upset the world a week after it appeared, but that +he never could get anybody to publish it, and gave it up finally and went +into journalism. The funny part of it was that he had sent it here, and +when he told me about it, I remembered looking it over and writing him just +about what I'm telling you." + +The publisher smoked for a moment or two. "You see, Mr. Stirling," he said +at last, "he had to wait ten years before he 'arrived.' So you must not be +discouraged. Have you read his book?" + +"No, I have not." + +"It is a very pretty piece of work--it's been many months since it +came out, but they say it's still selling in the thousands. Don't get +discouraged, Mr. Stirling, keep at it, because you have real talent, I +assure you." + +I rose to go, and he shook my hand. "Take my advice," he said, "and write +something more practicable than a tragedy. But of course don't forget in +any case that we shall always be very happy to read anything of yours at +any time." + +--I walked down the street meditating. I will get over it again, of course; +but to-night I sat in the dark and the cold, shivering. And I asked myself +if it must not be so after all. "_Is_ it true, the thing that I did; +is it _natural_?" I said. "Or must it not be exaggerated and crude, as +they all tell me! And uninteresting!--What is the use of it? I tormented +myself that way and tore myself to pieces, but it does not stir any one +else." + +Ah, of course it's all dead in me--and I'm prepared to believe anything +they tell me! It's overwrought, it's young, it's pitched in too high a key, +it's strained and unnatural, it takes life too seriously! Certainly at any +rate they are right that I shall never, never do the same thing again. + +But unfortunately I don't feel like writing anything else. I don't know +anything about historical novels. + + * * * * * + +--I would have read some of the poem again to-night, but I'm too +discouraged. I am tired of it. I know it by heart, and it doesn't take hold +of me. + +I have been too long among men, I groan. I see their point of view too +well! + +Why, there are things in that book that when I read them now make me +shudder. I have hardly the courage to offer it to any one else to read. I +don't know any one to take it to, besides. + + * * * * * + +O God, I'm so unhappy! + + * * * * * + +February 3d. + +To-day an idea occurred to me, one that should have occurred before. Once +upon a time I was introduced to the editor of the ----. Perhaps he will +not remember it, I said. But anyhow, why not try? I will take him The +Captive--perhaps he can use it in the magazine--who knows? + +I knew nothing better to do, so I went there. He was very polite--he did +remember my face. He was fearfully busy, it seemed. He did not think there +was much likelihood of a magazine's publishing a blank-verse tragedy; but I +told him how I had worked, and he said he'd read it. + +And so there's one chance more! + +My poor, foolish heart is always ready to tremble with new hope. But faith +in that book was so _ground_ into it! + +--I asked him to read it at once, I explained that I was in great haste. I +think he understood what I meant. My clothes show it. + +I have been hoarding my money--counting every cent. I dread the world so! +Now that I am so broken, so laden with misery, it sounds about me as one +jeer of mockery. But I shall have to be hunting a place soon--you never can +tell how long it may take you, and the chances are so terrible. + +I will not do anything until I hear from this one man, however. He promised +to let me know in a week. + + * * * * * + +I did not see him at the publisher's--he has another office besides. He had +huge piles of papers and books about him; he is an important man, I guess; +can it be that he will be the one to save me? + +I think: "Oh if he knew, he would!" I find myself thinking that of all the +world--if I could only make them understand! Poor, impotent wretch, if I +could only find the _word_! + +--Or is it simply my blind egotism that makes me think that? + + * * * * * + +February 6th. + +I do not think that what I write can be of much interest. It must be +monotonous--all this despair, this endless crying out, this endless +repetition of the same words, the same thought. + +Yet that is all that my life is! That is just what I do every day--whenever +I am not reading a book to forget myself. + +It is all so simple, my situation! That is the most terrible thing about +it, it is the same thing always and forever. + + * * * * * + +I have lived so much agony through this thing--it would not startle me if +I saw that my hair had turned white. I know I feel like an old man. I am +settled down into mournfulness, into despair; I can do nothing but gaze +back--I have lived my life--I have spent my force--I am tired and sick. + +I! I! I!--do you get tired of hearing it? It was not always like that; once +you read a little about a book. + + * * * * * + +February 8th. + +This is the fifth day. I am counting the days, I have been counting the +very hours. He said he would be a week. And I--only think of it--I have but +two dollars and sixty cents left! + +Hurry up! Hurry up! + +--And then I say with considerable scorn in my voice: "Haven't you learned +enough about that manuscript yet? And about publishers yet?" + + * * * * * + +February 10th. + +Just imagine! I went to see him to-day, and he stared at me. "Why, sure +enough, Mr. Stirling!--It had slipped my mind entirely!" + +I have learned to bear things. I asked him calmly to let me know as soon +as possible. He said: "I am honestly so rushed that I do not know where to +turn. But I will do the best I possibly can." + +I said--poor, pitiful cringing, is it not terrible?--that I'd be up his way +again in three days, and did he think he could have it read by then. He +said he was not sure, but that he'd try. + +And so I went away. Now I have two dollars and twenty-three cents. I have +to pay my rent to-morrow, and that will leave me a dollar and a half. I +can make that do me seven or eight days--I have one or two things at home. +I'll wait the three days--and then I'll have to set out in earnest to find +something to do. + +Oh, the horror of not knowing if you can pay your next week's room rent in +this fearful city! + + * * * * * + +February 11th. + +I sat and looked at myself to-day. I said: "When a soul is crushed like +this, can it ever get up again? Can it ever be the same, no matter what +happens? Don't you see the fact, that you've been tamed and broken--that +you've _given in_! And how will you ever rise from the shame of it, +how will you ever forget it? All this skulking and trembling--how will you +ever dare look yourself in the face again! Will not it mock your every +effort? Why, you poor wretch, _you've got a broken back!"_ + + * * * * * + +February 12th. + +And to-morrow again I must go there, trembling and nervous, hanging on a +word! + +There is not much sense in it, but I have learned to hate all men who have +ease and power. + + * * * * * + +February 13th. + +I knew it! I could have told it beforehand. "I am awfully sorry, Mr. +Stirling, but it is no use talking, I simply can not! I will write you just +as soon as ever I get it read." + +And so I came out. I had a dollar and twenty cents. My rent would be due in +four days again. So even if I got some work at once I should have to pawn +something. + +--Thus I began my search for a situation. I could not choose--I was willing +to take anything. + +I fear I look like a tramp; but I have several letters from places where I +have worked. Still, I could not find anything. I have tramped all day until +I could hardly move. I bought a paper, but everything advertised was gone +by that time. + +If it would only snow again, so that I could shovel some more! + + * * * * * + +February 14th. + +Again I have been pacing the streets the whole endless day, beaten back and +rebuffed at every turn. I have been drilled for this, this is the climax! +First take every gleam of heart out of me, and then set me to pacing the +streets in the cold, to be stared at and insulted by every kind of a man! + +And still nothing to do. + + * * * * * + +February 15th. + +I take my lunch with me--I have cut myself down to twenty cents a day for +food. I walk and walk, and I am so hungry I can not do on less than that. I +have but sixty cents left to-night. I failed again to-day. + + * * * * * + +February 16th. + +It is not as desperate as it sounds, because I have a few books and things +that I can sell--I do not believe that I will actually starve--I have +always done my work well, and have gotten references. But O God, the shame +of it--the endless, heaped-up bitterness! + +I have sunk into a beast of burden. I trudge on with my mind torpid--I take +whatever comes to me, and go on mechanically. Oh it cows me, it wears me +down! I have learned to bear anything--_anything_! A man might kick me +and I would not mind. + +I think I went to fifty places yesterday. Nothing to do--nothing. To-day is +Sunday, but I tried even to-day. I came home to get some dinner.--I might +have been a porter in a hotel, and carried trunks--that was my one chance. +But I have not the physical power for that. + +--And then after all--toward evening--when I was so tired I was almost +wild--I had an offer at last! And guess what it was--of all the things that +I had made up my mind I could not bear--to be a waiter! + +It is, I believe, what a man should call a rare opportunity. It is a fairly +good restaurant just off Broadway; and I get ten dollars and tips. Poor me! +My heart bounded for a moment, and then I asked myself, And what do you +want with money any more? I took the place, and I am to begin the day after +to-morrow. I am so tired I can hardly move. + + * * * * * + +February 17th. + +Was it not irony? I have watched day by day for snow; and now that I have +taken the other place--behold, to-day it snows a foot! + +--I went to see the editor in the afternoon. I was desperate at the thought +of to-morrow. I said I would tell him!--But when I got there I only had the +courage to inquire about the poem. He had not read it. I feared he seemed +annoyed. + +I shall not go there again for a week. I can not make him hurry. + + * * * * * + +February 18th. + +To-day I had to begin by apologizing to my landlady, and begging her to let +me pay her a week later. I had to go into an elaborate explanation--she +wanted to know why I had not been working all these months, and so on. She +has a red face, and drinks, I think. + +Then I had to take a load of my best books--my poor, few precious books +that I have loved--and sell them at a second-hand bookstore. When I had +sold them I had to hire a waiter's suit for a week, until I had money to +buy it. And then with that awful thing on I went down to the restaurant. + +Can you imagine how a pure woman would feel if she had to go into a brothel +to live? That was just how I felt--just how! Oh my God, the indignity of +it! Is there _anything_ that I could do more humiliating? + +--But I have lost the power of getting angry. Only my heart is one great +sob. + + * * * * * + +February 20th. + +Oh, that hellish place! What is there in this whole city more brutal than +that restaurant? + +Day and night, day and night, to see but one thing--to see flashy, +overdressed, fat and vulgar men and women gorging themselves! Oh, this will +teach me to feel--this at least! I go about with my whole being one curse +of rage--I could throttle them! And to bow and smirk and lackey them--all +day! All day! Oh, what shall I do--how shall I bear it? + +They offer me tips. At first I thought I should refuse; but no, I dare not +do that, even if I wanted to. And since I have stooped to do it, I will +take all I can get. To get money is my one passion now. Oh my God, how can +I bear it! + + * * * * * + +February 21st. + +I said to-day, I must fight this thing--I must, or it will kill me; I can +not let myself go to wreck in this fashion--_I've got to fight!_ + +And so I got my note-book; and I fell to work to drive myself as of old. +The effort that it cost me made me ill, but I did it. I shall keep on doing +it--I am like a man faced by a fiend--I _must_ keep on--I must! + +But then, why do you want to have new languages? Do you not know enough now +to keep you in reading matter for all the time you are ever likely to have? + + * * * * * + +February 24th. + +Oh, one can get used to even a flashy restaurant! It is your fate--you +take it. This is how I pass all my time there. I struggle to resist the +deadening of it, and the horror of it; while I am going about the loathsome +grind I try to think--try to have some idea in my head. And something +comes to me--something beautiful, perhaps; and then in a few moments, in +the clatter and confusion, I lose it; and after that I go about haunted, +restless, feeling that I have lost something, that I ought to be doing +something. What the thing is, I do not even know--but so it drives me and +drives me! + +I spend literally hours that way. + + * * * * * + +February 25th. + +When are you going to read that poem--_when_? The week was gone +yesterday--but I will not trouble you, even now! I wait, I wait! + + * * * * * + +February 27th. + +There is another torment about this fearful place that I am in, one that +you could not imagine. I had thought that it would be a pleasure, but it +tears my soul. They have music in the evening; and fancy a person in my +state listening to a violin! + +Chiefly, of course, they play trash; but sometimes there comes something +beautiful, perhaps only a phrase. But it takes hold of my soul, it makes my +eyes grow dim, it makes me shudder. It is all my pent-up agony, it is all +my sleeping passion--why, it overwhelms me! And I am helpless--I can not +get away from it! + +Remember that I have not heard any music for a year. It is like the voice +of a dead love to me. I thought to-night that I could not bear it. + + * * * * * + +March 1st. + +To-day I had a day off, and I went to see the editor. I have been waiting, +day by day, for a letter; it has been a month since I left it with him, and +I found that he had not read it yet! + +"Mr. Stirling," he said, "it is not my fault, it has simply been +impossible. Now I will tell you what to do. I am going out of the city +Sunday week, and I shall have a little leisure then. I do not see how I can +get to it before that, so you take it and see if you can find some one else +to read it meanwhile. If you will bring it to me Saturday, a week from +to-day, I will promise you faithfully to read it on Sunday." + +So I took the manuscript. I tried four publishing houses, but I could not +find one that would read it in a week. I had to take the manuscript home. + + * * * * * + +March 3d. + +To-morrow ends my second week at the restaurant. It took me five days to +find that place, but I am going to give it up to-morrow. I could not bear +it, if it were to save my life. I can not bear the noise and the grease and +the dirt, and the endless, endless vulgarity; but above all I can not bear +the music. + +I can bear almost any degradation, I have found; but not when I have to +listen to music! + +Besides, I can afford to give it up. I have made a fortune. I shall have +over thirty dollars when I leave! + + * * * * * + +I have always been paid, I find, in proportion to the indignities I +bore--in proportion to the amount I humiliated myself before the rich and +the vulgar. These vile, bejeweled, befeathered women, these loathsome, +swinish men--_these_ are the people who have money to spend. They go +through the world scattering their largess with royal hand; and you can get +down and gather it up out of the mud beneath their feet. + + * * * * * + +I come home at night worn out and weak, sometimes almost in a stupor; but I +am never too ill to brood over that hideous state of affairs. I gaze at it +and I wring my hands, and I cry: Oh my Father in heaven, will it always be +like this? + +Think of it--this money that these people squander--do you know what it is? +It is the toil of society! That is what it is,--it is _my_ toil--it is +the toil of the millions that swarm in the tenements where I live--it is +the toil of the laborers, the beasts of burden of society, in the cities +and in the country. + +Think about it, I cry, think about it!--Can I not find any word, is there +nothing I can do or say now or at any time, to make men see it? Why, you +take it for granted--_I_ have taken it for granted all my days--that +money should belong to the brutal rich to squander in whatever inanity may +please them! But it never dawns upon you that this money is _the toil +of the human race_! Money is the representation of all that human toil +creates--of all _value_; it is houses that laborers build, it is grain +that farmers raise, it is books that poets write! And see what becomes of +it--see! _see_! Or are you blind or mad, that you _will_ not see? +Have you no more faith in man, no more care about the soul? + + * * * * * + +You think that I have been made sick by my work in that one haunt of vice. +But it is not only that, it is not only that fever district where all the +diseases of a city gather. I have been all _over_ the city, and it is +everywhere the same. Go to the opera-house any night and you may see +blasphemous vanity enough to feed the starving of this city for a year. +Walk up Fifth Avenue and see them driving; or go to Newport and see them +there. Why, I read in the papers once of a woman who gave a ball--and the +little fact has stuck in my mind ever since that she wore a dress trimmed +with lace that cost a thousand dollars a meter! I do not speak of the +infinite vulgarity of the thing--it is the monstrous _crime_ of it +that cries to me. These people--why, they have society by the +_throat_! + + * * * * * + +I bury my face in my pillow and sob; but then I look up and pray for faith. +I say we are only at the beginning of civilization, we can see but the +first gleams of a social conscience; but it will come--it must come! Am I +to believe that mankind will always submit to toil and pant to make lace at +a thousand dollars a meter to cover the pride-swollen carcase of a society +dame? + + * * * * * + +How is it to be managed? I do not know. I am not a political economist--I +am a seeker after righteousness. But as a poet, and as a clear-eyed soul, I +stand upon the heights and I cry out for it, I demand it. I demand that +society shall come to its own, I demand that there shall be intelligence in +the world! I demand that the toil of the millions shall not be for the +pride of the few! I demand that it shall not be to buy diamonds and dresses +and banquets, horses and carriages, palaces and yachts! I demand that it +shall be for the making of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and +love! + + * * * * * + +Oh, thou black jungle of a world!--What know you of knowledge and power, of +beauty and light and love? What do you dream of these things? The end of +man as you know it is to fight and struggle like a maniac, and grab for his +own all that he can lay his claws upon. And what is your social ideal--but +to lavish, each man upon himself, all that he can lavish before he dies? +And whom do you honor save him who succeeds in that? And whom do you scorn +save him who fails? + + * * * * * + +Oh thou black jungle of a world!--I cry it once again-- + + Where savage beasts through forest midnight roam, + Seeking in sorrow for each other's joy! + +I sit alone and think of these things, until my breath comes hard with +rage. I say: "It is these that I serve--it is these who own the fruits of +my toil--it is these for whom I am starved and crushed--it is these by whom +my God-given power is trampled into annihilation!" + + * * * * * + +March 4th. + +I gave the place up this morning. I have thirty-one dollars. I think such a +sum of money never made me less happy. + +I have nothing to do but drag myself back to my room and wait there until +the eighth, to take back my manuscript. It will be five weeks that he has +kept me--I suppose that is not his fault. + +And then I say: "Fool, to torment yourself with such hopes! Don't you +_know_ that he will say what all the rest have said? He is a clever +man, and he knows everything; but what use is he going to have for your +poetry?" + + * * * * * + +I wandered about almost all of to-day, or sat stupid in my room. I have +lost all my habits of effort--I have forgotten all that I ever knew, all my +hopes, all my plans. I said: "I will study!" But then I added: "Why should +I? Shall I not only make myself miserable, get myself full of emotion, and +to no purpose but the carrying of dishes?" + + * * * * * + +It is terrible to me to have to acknowledge any change in my way of +living--I never did that before. Compromises! Concessions! +Surrenders!--words such as those set me mad. But what am I to do? What +_can_ I do? I writhe and twist, but there is no escape. I struggle +upward, but I am only beaten back and back? How should I not stop striving? + + * * * * * + +Circumstances made no difference to a man. So I used to prate! + +No difference! Why, I was a giant in my soul, swift and terrible as the +lion. I leaped upon my task, I seized upon everything that came my way. I +passed whole classes of men at a bound, I saw, I felt--I bore the world in +my soul. I would dare everything, learn everything, live everything--take +it all into myself. And every day I was stronger, every day I was more!-- + +And now see me! You have penned me here, you have starved me, stunted me, +crushed me--I sit shivering and staring at my own piteousness! Why, I can +not even be angry any more--I am too shrunken, too impotent for that! And +was it my fault? Have I not fought till I was ill? + +--But never did I put forth a hope that it was not withered in the bud! +My every enthusiasm you stamped into the ground; every advance that I +made--why you smote me in the face! And all my ardor, my confidence, my +trust--has it ever met with anything but jeers? + + * * * * * + +--Yes, and now you turn away--this revolts you! This is bare, painful +egotism--this is whining--this is querulous misery. It offends you like the +sight of raw flesh! + +--It is my raw soul. My poor little naked, pitiful, beaten +soul!--groveling, and begging, too! + + * * * * * + +--But whose fault is it--merciful Heaven, whose fault is it? It is my +nature to live in myself--to live from myself. And this that is unbearable +egotism, why, it would have been exulting power! Joy in a vision! Mastery +of a life and an art! + +But here you shut me up! You crush me down! I try to escape--I cry out: "I +am _not_ an egotist--I am a worshiper! I want nothing in the world so +much as to forget myself--my rights, my claims, my powers, my talents! I +want to think of God! Only give me a chance--only give me a chance to do +that, and I care not what you do with me! Here I stand with my poor little +work, begging, pleading for some one to heed it! Thinking of it only, +living for it only, insisting upon it day and night! But do you think that +I do that of choice? My God, no--you are mad--I only want to go on! Give me +but the chance to go on--and do you think that I would care whether any man +admired my work?" + +--Why, I would not even know it--I would be out in the mountains alone! + + * * * * * + +"But for what had you your pride in the morning, and in the evening your +submission?" + +Can you guess how that jeer rings in my ears, how it goads me? + + * * * * * + +March 5th. + +Sinking down! Sinking down! To see yourself one of the losing creatures, to +know that there is no help for you in this world--that no one will heed +you, no one will stretch out a hand! To see yourself with every weakness, +to see yourself as everything that you hate--to be mad with rage against +yourself, and still to be able to do nothing! + + * * * * * + +--Understand what I mean--poor fools, do not think it is for myself that I +fear. If I wanted to fight a way for myself--I could do it yet--never fear. +But ah, you will save the mother and not her child! What I weep for, what I +die for, is my ART! + +My vision, my life, my joy, my fire! These are the things that are dying! +And when the soul is dead do you think that I shall care about the body? Do +you think that I will stay in this world a shell, a mockery, a corpse? Stay +either to putrefy with pleasure or to be embalmed in dulness? Nay, you do +not know me! + + * * * * * + +--I said to myself to-night, "If I perish in this world it will be because +I was too far ahead of my environment--that and that only. It will be +because I was pure, single-hearted, consecrated, and because of such you +neither know nor care." Do I fear to say that? I am done with shame--I +think that I am dying--let me speak the truth. + + * * * * * + +--And I have really said the word then--the word that can not be +recalled--that my hope is dead, that I give up--that I can not live my +life? Nay--I do not have to say the word, the word says itself. + + * * * * * + +March 6th. + +To-day I shook myself together. I could not stand such wretchedness. I +said, I will get a novel, and I will put myself into it--grimly--I will +read in spite of everything. + + * * * * * + +And such a book as I lighted on by chance!--Once I had whole yawning vistas +of books toward which I stretched out my arms; but somehow I had forgotten +them all to-day. I could do no better than pick up a book by chance.-- + +I picked up Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I found myself in the midst of +the same misery that haunts me here. I read it, but it did not help me. + + * * * * * + +--It is strange what poverty has ground into my soul. I find myself reading +such a book with but one feeling, one idea crying out in me. I discover +that my whole being is reduced to the great elemental, primitive instinct +of self-preservation. Love is dead in me, generosity, humanity, imagination +is dead,--everything but one wild-beast passion; and I find myself panting +as I read: "Get some money! Get some money! Hold on to it!" + + * * * * * + +--After a while I think suddenly: "And I am a poet!" That brings a moan +from me and I sit shuddering. + + * * * * * + +March 7th. + +Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most unconvincing books I ever +read. I neither believed in it nor cared about it in the slightest. + +I am shown a "pure woman," and by and by I learn, to my perplexity, that +she has been seduced; after which she continues the "pure woman" again, and +I am asked to agonize over her troubles! But all the time I keep saying, +"This is not a woman that you are showing me at all--a woman with a soul; +it is a puppet figure that you suppose 'seduced' for the sake of the +story." + +It is our absurd English ideas of "propriety" that make possible such +things. If the author had had to show the seduction of "Tess" the weakness +of the thing would have been plain in an instant. That he did not show it +was his lack of conscience. There is no propriety in art but truth. + + * * * * * + +March 8th. + +I took the manuscript to the editor again to-day. He told me to come in on +Monday. + +Deep in my soul I can have no more disappointments about it. I take it +about from habit. I sat and looked it over last night, but one can not read +emotional things in cold blood. I said, Is this true? Is it natural? Is +there any _use_ in it? + +I was tempted to cut out one or two things; but I decided to let it stay as +it was. + + * * * * * + +March 10th. + +I have been sitting to-night in my room, half-dazed, or pacing about the +streets talking to myself in a frenzy. I can hardly believe that it is +true, I can hardly realize it! I laugh with excitement, and then I cry. + + * * * * * + +I went to-day to get back my manuscript. And the editor said: "Mr. +Stirling, it is a most extraordinary piece of work. It is a most +interesting thing, I like it very much." + +I stared at him gasping. Then I waited to hear him say--"But I regret"--But +he didn't! + +"I can't tell you anything definite about it," he said. "I want to submit +it to the firm. I wouldn't undertake to accept any such unusual thing for +the magazine without consulting them, and especially seeing if they will +bring it out afterward--" + +"You are thinking of using it in the magazine!" I cried. + +"As I tell you, I can't say positively. I can only tell you what I think of +it. I will have them read it at once--" + +"I will take it to them to-day!" I put in. + +"No," he said, "you need not, for I am going there this afternoon, and I +will take it, and ask them to read it immediately." + +I can't remember what else he said. I was deaf, crazy! I rushed home, +talking to myself incoherently. I remember sitting here in a chair and +saying aloud, "Oh, it can't be! It is impossible! That it should be good +enough to publish in a magazine like that! It is some mistake--it will all +come to nothing. It's absurd!" + + * * * * * + +So I sat, and I thought what such a thing would mean to me--it would make +my reputation in a day--I should be free--_free_! But I thought of it +and it did not make me happy; I only sat staring at myself, shuddering. The +endless mournfulness that is in my heart surged up in me like a tide, and +suddenly I began to cry like a child. + +"It has come to me too late," I exclaimed, "too late! I can't believe +it--it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care anything about it--I mean +the poem! _I don't believe in it myself_!" + +God, do you know I said that, and _meant_ it? I said more--I sat and +whispered it to myself: "Let them take it, yes, let them! I don't care--it +will set me free--I shall have some money! But they're fools to do it, +they're fools!" + + * * * * * + +March 11th. + +I tremble with excitement all the day, dreaming about that thing. I go +about half-mad. "Oh, just think of it," I whisper, "just think of it!" + +I linger about it hungrily! He spoke as if he really meant to make them +take it. + + * * * * * + +March 13th. + +I went to see him to-day to ask. No, they had not let him know yet, but +they had the manuscript. He would write me. + +I made up my mind that I would not bother him again. I will wait, hard as +it is. + + * * * * * + +I sat asking myself to-day, "Do you really mean that you believe that poem +is going to stir the world--this huge, heedless world you see about you? +Have you truly that blind, unreasoning faith that you try to persuade +yourself you have?" + + * * * * * + +Ah, I don't know what I believe now. Only, once I had my young courage,--I +feared not the world, I could do anything. Now I am but one among a +million. + + * * * * * + +March 16th. + +I force myself to read these things that half-interest me; but I think I +spend a quarter of my time wandering about whispering that they are going +to publish it. I cry out, "Oh, they must!" I go into the library and stare +at the magazine and think of it there. I walk past the publishers', and +think of it there! I have been inquiring all about publishing, about terms +and all that sort of thing. It makes my brain reel--why, they might pay me +five hundred dollars for it! Think of it--five hundred dollars!--I could go +crazy with such a thought as that. + +And then I think what the reviews will say of it, and I cry, "Oh, no, it +can't be true!" + +Again I find myself saying, "Only let them take it! I don't care about the +rest, whether it succeeds or not--let them take it!" + + * * * * * + +March 18th. + +I walked past the editor's office to-day. It took just every bit of will +that I had, not to go in. I said: "He might know even now, and I wouldn't +hear till to-morrow!" + +But I didn't do it. I said I would wait a week, anyhow. + + * * * * * + +March 20th. + +I don't know what in the world to make of it. + +The week ended to-day, and nothing yet; and I hit upon another scheme, I +went to the publishers. I said: "I will ask them, and he needn't know +anything about it and it won't bother him." So I went in and they referred +me to the manuscript clerk. She said she had never heard of The Captive. + +"But it's here somewhere," I said, "the editor brought it here." + +"There is no manuscript ever comes here," she answered, "that is not +entered on my books." + +"But," I said, "some member of the firm must have it." + +"If any member of the firm got it," she said, smiling, "the first thing he +would do would be to bring it to me to enter in the books." + +I insisted. I wanted to see somebody in the firm, but she answered me there +was no use. Finally she suggested that they might know something about it +up in the offices of the magazine. I went there, but no, no one had ever +heard of it there. + +I came home dazed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. He +certainly said that the firm was reading it. I wrote to-night to ask him +about it. + + * * * * * + +March 23d. + +I have waited day by day in the utmost perplexity to hear from him about +that. I should have heard from him yesterday. I don't know what in the +world to make of it. Can he have gone in to them privately? Or can he have +forgotten it--he is so busy! + +I dread the latter circumstance--but I dread as much to anger him in the +other case. + + * * * * * + +March 27th. + +I waited four days more. I went up to see him. Just as I feared. I have +annoyed him. I could see it. I know he must be tired of seeing my face. + +"Mr. Stirling," he said, "I have told you that the poem is being read by +the firm, and that I will let you know the moment I hear from them." + +"I only came," I said, "because the clerk told me--" + +"There are some things clerks don't know," he put in. + +I tremble at the thought of making him angry. I will not go near him again. + + * * * * * + +March 30th. + +I am doing my best to keep my mind on some reading, so as not to make the +agony unbearable. But it is very hard--the mails disturb you. I can only +read in the middle of the day, and at night. In the morning I expect the +first mail, trembling; but after that I know a city letter can't come till +afternoon, so I can read. Then again at night I know it can't come. + + * * * * * + +--I am reading The Ring and the Book. I have always found that it doesn't +do to take vulgar opinions. I had supposed I should find The Ring and the +Book hard reading. + +It _is_ skippable--the consequence of having a foolish scheme to fill +out. But the story of Pompilia and Giuseppi is one of the finest things I +know of anywhere. + + * * * * * + +April 3d. + +It has been another week. I could not stand it any more. I am going over to +the publishers' again this afternoon. + +--What in Heaven's name does this thing mean? I met the satisfied smile of +the clerk again. "We have never seen the manuscript, Mr. Stirling!" + +If you could only see how positive she is! "I don't know anything about +what the editor told you, I can only tell you positively that he has never +submitted any such manuscript to the firm, or to anybody connected with the +firm." + +That thing drove me wild. I don't know what to make of it. Surely he's +given it to some one, for he told me so. + +I went up to the magazine rooms, and he was in his office; but he had left +word that he would not see any one, and they would not even take in my +name. + + * * * * * + +April 4th. + +I can do nothing but haunt that place till I find out what it means! It +has been three weeks and a half since he gave it to them, and he said I +would hear at once. What in the world does he think it means to me? Can't +I presume the slightest gleam of interest, of care, on his part? + + * * * * * + +April 5th. + +To-day I could not stand it any longer. I went to the place again. I saw +the manuscript clerk once more--the same answer. I went upstairs; he was +there again, but busy. I wrote a note and left it. I explained that I did +not in the least wish to trouble him, but that the thing meant a great +deal to me, and that I had the utmost need of promptness; that it had been +almost four weeks since he gave it to the firm, and that nobody there +seemed to know anything about it. + + * * * * * + +April 7th. + +He did not answer my letter! I thought I should hear to-day. O God, this is +the most tormenting thing! Think what it means! And what in Heaven's name +has he done? Surely some one--he must have given it to some one! + +Only why in the world doesn't he understand my perplexity and explain? + + * * * * * + +April 9th. + +No letter yet. I went back to the publishers' again this morning. I have +been wandering by the place every day since. They had not seen it yet. She +said she'd have the firm inquire, but I said not to, as it might annoy him. +"He surely has given it to some one, you know."--She laughed at me. + +I went up to the magazine office again. He was not there, but I saw his +associate. The associate did not know anything about it either. + + * * * * * + +April 10th. + +I waited one day more and no answer. I wrote to him again to-night, begging +him to please reply. + + * * * * * + +--I have begun several novels, but I can't get interested in them. I am +simply sick. I came out of that horrible restaurant with money enough to do +me for ten weeks, and here are over five of them gone in this hideous way. +Oh, it is monstrous! + +It has been nine weeks and a half since I gave him that poem in the +beginning! I never spent nine such weeks of horror in my life. + + * * * * * + +April 12th. + +"In answer to your letter I beg to inform you that the manuscript of The +Captive is now in the hands of the firm, and that you may expect a decision +in about a week." + +So! It is a relief at any rate to know that the thing is all right. I can +wait a little better now. + +Of course I knew it must be there. A plague on that foolish clerk! + + * * * * * + +April 14th. + +All the while that I am writing about this thing I keep up my courage by +thinking what it will mean to me. It is something so immense that I can +hardly realize it. I shall be famous!--And he really liked it, there can be +no doubt about that! He was too busy to talk much, but he showed he liked +it. + + * * * * * + +April 17th. + +Oh my soul, I think this is the most frightful thing--is it not simply a +nightmare? I have been pacing the floor to-night in an agony. _They have +never seen that manuscript_! + +I was going by there to-day, and I couldn't withstand the temptation; the +week was not up, but I said: "If I inquire, there's no reason why he should +know about it." I went in. + +And that terrible clerk--she smiled at me still! The more I talked, the +more she shook her head. "There's no such manuscript ever been seen here," +she said. I showed her the letter, and that decided her to go in and see +the firm. They sent out word that neither they nor their readers had ever +heard of it, but that they would write to the editor at once. + + * * * * * + +Oh, I think this is horrible--horrible! And then just guess what I did! I +couldn't bear the agony--I went to the other place, and he wasn't there, +and so at last I went to his club. + +He wasn't at the club, but they told me where he was; and I spent ten cents +telephoning him. At this place they said he had an engagement to be there +later, so I spent another ten cents, and that time I found him. I told him +who I was. "The week isn't up yet," I said, "but the firm say they have +never received the manuscript." + +"So?" he said; his voice sounded hard, I thought, and it made me shudder. +"You come up to see me the day after to-morrow at ten o'clock, and you'll +hear about your manuscript." + +And that is all. And I walked out of the great, rich club, and I have been +pacing up and down in my own garret ever since. I am almost too ill with +anxiety to stand. + + * * * * * + +April 18th. + +And to-day I can only wait. Once I lay down upon the bed and cried. + + * * * * * + +April 19th. + +I don't know how to tell this thing. I am simply dazed. I had an experience +to-day--the most hideous thing that I think ever happened to me in my life. +Oh, I have been like a madman ever since--I lost my head--I did not know +what I was doing. I was really crazy--it is three o'clock in the morning, +now, but I shall write it down--I can not sleep. + + * * * * * + +To-day I went up to see that man as he told me to. I went trembling with +suspense--just think, it has been eleven weeks since this agony began. And +I went into his office--he was alone; and when he saw me he sprang to his +feet--my soul, he looked like a tiger. He stood there in the middle of the +room fairly gasping with rage. + +"So," he cried, "you've come, have you! I tell you, young man, I have never +been subjected to such an outrage as this in my life! I would not read +another manuscript for you--why, I wouldn't stand for such an imposition +from Balzac or Thackeray--no, sir, I wouldn't!" + +I stared at the man simply speechless with astonishment. "Why," I panted, +"what do you mean?" + +"What do I mean? Why, you have hounded me about this city until I'm crazy. +There's no place I can go to escape you. You come to my office, you come +here, you come to my club! You have made yourself a perfect pest at the +publishers to every one! Why--" + +He stopped out of breath. Of course I have no courage or head with men--I +was ready to grovel at his feet. "My dear sir," I pleaded, "I assure you +I didn't mean to do anything of the kind--it was only that the clerk kept +telling me--" + +"I don't care what the clerk kept telling you! I tell you that that +manuscript has been in the hands of the company since the day I told you I +would leave it there. Of course there have been delays, there is all sorts +of routine to go through with; but suppose all our contributors did the +same thing--what would we do?" + +He was talking at me as if expecting a reply. Fortunately the right words +came to my lips--I was really ready to cry with shame and perplexity. + +"I don't think it is quite the same with all your contributors," I said, +with a trembling voice. "While I have been waiting I have been simply +starving." + +It seemed to clear the atmosphere. He stared at me, and then he sat down. +He was ashamed of himself, I could see. "Why," he said, "you couldn't have +been paid anything for months." + +"I didn't know," I said, "I didn't know anything about it. But I have been +starving." + +He spoke more quietly. "Mr. Stirling," he said, "I'm very sorry about this, +the whole thing has been unfortunate. Excuse me that I spoke angrily; let +us not think any more about it." + +I stood there, feeling almost like crying, I was so nervous. + +"Now, about that manuscript," he went on, "I'm doing what I can to learn +about it. It's been there all along, as I told you, and you will hear about +it soon. Why, Mr. Stirling, I even took the trouble to send my secretary +down there yesterday to make sure that it was all right." + +"I did not want you to go to any such trouble," I stammered. + +"That's all right," he said, "don't mention it. Now they will have decided +in a few days, and I will write you--" + +"No, please do not," I said, still with my abject humility. "Don't take any +more trouble--let me go there and find out--" + +"By no means!" said he. "Take my advice and don't go near there again under +any circumstances. You can't tell how much an author hurts himself by +troubling a publisher as you have done. Don't go near there--let me write +to you." + +I promised that I would; and then with more abjectness I got myself out of +that room, and I went out and sat down upon a step near by, simply shaking +like a leaf. + +"Oh, heavens!" I gasped. "That was horrible! Horrible!" + + * * * * * + +I sat dazed--thinking about it--thinking it over and over--I couldn't +understand it, try as I might. Why should he have been so angry _that_ +day--had he not told me to come there? And had he not said I should have a +report? + + * * * * * + +--And then suddenly something flashed over me that made me leap! That +firm had written him a letter the day before yesterday asking about the +manuscript, and _that_ was why he was angry! And he had sent his +secretary down to inquire!--But why in Heaven's name should he send his +secretary down to inquire _when he had a telephone connecting with the +firm right there in his office_! + +And so I saw it--all in one instant the thing flashed over me! + +I was so wild I paid a car-fare--I rode straight as a die down to that +place, and I went in and saw the clerk. + +"He has sent the manuscript now," I said, "hasn't he?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"He sent it in yesterday?" I said. + +"Yes." + +"He sent it by his secretary, didn't he?" + +"Yes," she said again. + +"Thank you," I answered, and went out. + + * * * * * + +Is not that simply monstrous, simply awful beyond words? I have been beside +myself tonight with rage, with amazement, with perplexity. Oh, think +what I have suffered at the hands of that frightful man! And what have I +_done_ to him--why should he have treated me so? What does it mean? I +am baffled every way I turn. + +The thing is like flame in my blood--like acid in my veins. It makes me +hysterical with pain. I cry aloud. + + * * * * * + +--What do you mean by it, you monster, you wretch? Why, here for eleven +weeks I have been hanging upon your every word--eleven weeks of my life +spent in torment--absolutely flung away! _Eleven weeks!_ And you have +lied to me--and you have kicked me about like a dog! + +What do you mean? What do you mean? Tell me, above all, _why_ you did +it! Were you torturing me on purpose? Or did you simply forget it? But +then, how could you forget it when you had to tell me all those miserable +falsehoods? And when you had to write me those letters? + +And then to-day! + +That is the thing that goads me most--to-day! I stood there cringed before +you like a beaten cur--you kicked me--you spit upon me! And it was every +bit of it a lie! That insolent rage of yours--why, it wasn't even genuine! +You weren't even angry--you knew that you had no reason to be angry--that +you had treated me as if I were a worm to tread on! And yet you stood there +and abused me! + +Oh--why, the thing is madness to think of! It is more madness the more you +realize it! I have never known anything like it before in my life. + +Yes--actually--it is something quite new to me. I have met blind +people--people who would not heed me--but a really evil person I have never +known before! A person who has no respect for another's rights--who would +trample upon another! Oh, you miserable wretch--and the lies--the lies! The +hateful sneaking of it--you black-hearted, insolent man! The manuscript had +been there all the time! _The delays, the routine_! And you had sent +your secretary down to inquire! And above all--oh, above all--the prince of +them--I must not go near there lest I should injure myself! I must not go +near them--they were so weary of seeing me! And I never saw a single soul +there in my life but one clerk! + +I never suffered such a thing as this before in all my days--deliberate, +brutal injustice! And that I should be so placed as to be a victim of such +a thing--that I should have to hang upon your words and to be at your mercy +for eleven weeks of agony! You are a great editor, a clubman, a rich man! +You have fame and power and wealth--and you stand up there and scald me +with your rage--and with your heart a mess of lies all the time! + + * * * * * + +--But _why_ did you do it? That is the thing I ask myself in +consternation. Why? _Why?_--Were you not interested in my work? If you +weren't--why didn't you give it back to me, and let me go my way? And if +you were--if you had any idea of publishing it--then why did you use me in +this way? Where was the manuscript all this time? What did you mean to do +with it? How long did you expect me to wait? And what object did you have +in telling me untruths about it meanwhile? + +--The whole thing is as blank to me as night. That a man should have in him +so much infinite indifference about another as to leave that manuscript in +a drawer, and write me that I was to "have a report on it within a week"! +Why, it is something of which I can not even think. And then to get out of +it by that sham anger and that sneaking!-- + + * * * * * + +April 20th. + +I have done absolutely nothing but brood over this thing and rage all day. +What am I to do?--I sat and wondered if there was anything I could do but +go and shoot that man. And I asked myself: Ought I not at least to go and +get the manuscript from that accursed place this instant? Ought I not to +have taken it then and there? But see the utter misery of my situation, the +abject shame of it--suppose they were to take the thing! It is my one hope +in this world--I dare not lose it--I have to leave it there! + + * * * * * + +But then, what hope is there now? I ask. Why, he was going to urge it upon +them! And now, of course, he's simply sent it in there without a word! + +Don't you see what it was--it was that letter of inquiry they wrote him! He +paid no more attention to me than if I were a hound; but he had to send it +when they wrote! And perhaps they said something about carelessness and +that made him wild. + +Oh, the thing is an endless spring of gall to me! I am all raw with it--I +have to rush out on the street and walk away my passion. I never saw +my situation so plainly--the horrible impotence of it! Just see what I +struggle against, the utter insane futility of everything I do! Why, I beat +my wings in a void, I hammer my head against a wall! + + * * * * * + +--And now I must wait for that thing to come back--don't I know that it +will come back? And don't I know that that will be the end of me? + +A black, horrible gloom has settled down upon me. I am utterly lost in +despair. + + * * * * * + +April 21st. + +I will write no more about that man--my whole being is turned to +bitterness. I wonder at myself--I have no longer one feeling left in this +world except a black brooding hatred of him! + + * * * * * + +--And all the time the thing haunts me like a detective story--I can't find +the solution! What does it mean? Why did he do it? It is so irrational--so +impossible--so utterly incomprehensible! And shall I _never_ know the +truth about it? + + * * * * * + +April 24th. + +"We regret that we are not advised to undertake the publication of The +Captive. We return the manuscript by express." + + * * * * * + +There it is! I read that thing, and I felt my whole being sinking down as +if into hell. There it is! And that is the end of it all! Oh, merciful +Providence, is it not simply too cruel to be believed! Eleven weeks! +_Eleven weeks_! + + * * * * * + +--I can do no more--I do not know where to turn. I believe I shall go mad +with my misery. + + * * * * * + +April 25th. + +To-day I thought I would go up and see him--I thought I could not live +until I knew what this thing meant. I heard myself saying, "I _demand_ +to know why you treated me thus? I say I demand it! Before God, how +_dared_ you--or don't you believe in a God?" + + * * * * * + +--Then again I thought, I will plead with him. It must be some mistake--I +can't believe that it is all over. Why, he liked it! And now perhaps it was +only looked over by some careless reader and flung aside! + +But no--I could not go near the place! I could not face that man again. The +memory of his look as he stood there in his insolence is so hateful to me +that it makes me tremble. + + * * * * * + +April 26th. + +I see myself crying this out from the housetops. I even wrote a letter to a +newspaper, but I did not send it. + +I went to a lawyer, a man I used to know. I told him I had no money--I +asked him to help me. But I can not sue him--he was under no obligations, +it seems; and I can not prove that the manuscript was injured in value by +the delay. + +So there is nothing that I can do. He will go his way--he will never think +of me again. He is rich and famous.-- + + * * * * * + +--I have just nine dollars left of my money. I can not possibly make it do +more than three or four weeks; and meanwhile I sit and brood and watch them +go by in blank despair. + + * * * * * + +April 28th. + +I fight with myself--I must get that hellish thing out of my head! I went +to a publisher's to-day--I didn't have the heart to go in, but I gave it to +the clerk. + +It will take two or three weeks. This will be the eighth publisher. + + * * * * * + +I said to-day: "I will force myself to read, I will get myself together; I +will not let myself be stamped to the mud by this man." + + * * * * * + +There is nothing I can do about it--I only poison my whole soul thinking of +it. I must put it out of my mind--I must work! + + * * * * * + +May 1st. + +I said to myself to-day: "Do you really believe that the world would heed +that poem? Do you think that if any publisher published it, he could sell +it?" I answered, "No, I do not." + +If one took it I should think I was making a fool of him. I offer it on +that chance! + +--What am I going to do? I do not know. I must try to find some work that +does not tear me to pieces; and then perhaps some day I shall be able to +write something different. + + * * * * * + +May 3d. + +My whole soul is in a turmoil these days. I struggle,--I can not give +up while I live; but for what do I struggle? I am a man journeying in a +thicket; I can not see one step before me. + +--I try to forget myself--I try to get interested in a book. But I never +had but one kind of interest. I can not get used to living without a +purpose, without enthusiasm, without morality. + + * * * * * + +I have no ideas any more. My whole life is shrunken and contracted. It is +all stagnant--the garden of my soul is full of weeds. The broad fields that +I used to cover, the far-off things I used to strive for--what have they to +do with me now? + + * * * * * + +--I heard a gull to-day--far, far up--a mere speck in the sky. I started, +as I watched him vanish. Then I said: "But you, too, will have to come down +and mingle in the turmoil and the danger!" + + * * * * * + +May 6th. + +I go over into the Park--the springtime is in full glory, all the sights +that used to thrill my heart are there; the splendor of new verdure and +young flowers, the birds that I love rioting in song. But it moves me not +in the least, it only makes me ten times more mournful. I turn away. + +Why, once an apple spray in blossom was to me a drunken ecstasy. + +--Shall I ever know what it is to be generous, and rich and royal in my +heart again? To know that surging fulness of emotion that makes you think +of gold and purple and regal pomp? + +I tell you the whole thing is a question of money with me. I have come down +to the bare bed-rock of sordidness--I must have money--_money!_--It is +everything in this world to me. I can never think of anything else again +until I have it. + + * * * * * + +I see myself going out into the world and fighting as other men fight, and +making a place in it for myself. + + * * * * * + +May 8th. + +I am getting down again; my poor hoard is going! I sit and count it--I +calculate it--I lay out my bill of fare. Oh, where shall I go, what +_can_ I do? Can I write anything? I ask. I have nothing in me but +a naked, shivering longing. + +I dread to be in the desperate fix I was the last time I could find no +work. And yet I can not make up my mind to do anything until I hear from +this one publisher more. + + * * * * * + +May 9th. + +I walked over there to-day to save a postage-stamp. They had not heard from +the reader yet. + + * * * * * + +--I sit down and try to study. Then I get up and say I ought not to put it +off any longer. Then again I think: "Wait until to-morrow, at any rate." + + * * * * * + +May 10th. + +I was looking at that man's magazine to-day. What thoughts it brought to +me--what agonies, what longings, what despair! And, above all, what +ocean-floods of bitterness! + + * * * * * + +I walked all the way down to the wholesale-paper store. I thought I would +prefer that to evils that I know not of. I have almost a terror of having +to come into contact with new people. + +But my place was filled. I trudged home again. I went to the publisher's +too; nothing yet. The three weeks were up to-day. + + * * * * * + +May 12th. + +I dared not wait any more to-day. I had just three dollars and ten cents +left. And my rent is due the day after to-morrow. I have answered every +sort of advertisement, from dishwashing to tutoring a boy. I guess I looked +too seedy for the latter. + + * * * * * + +--Sometimes when I am wandering around in all this misery, still yearning +for what I might have been, the thought comes across my mind: "And in this +huge world there might yet be some one who would understand the thing! +Some one who would help me! Some one by whom it would be an honor to be +helped--if I could only find him." + +And here I am, having my life beaten out of me, spark by spark,--and I +can't find him--I _can't_! + + * * * * * + +I cry out for money--for money! + + * * * * * + +But no, it is others who have it.--And the way that they use it--O God, the +way that they use it! + +If all the world were poor, it would not be so bad; but the sight of +wealth--of infinite oceans of it squandered in perfect frenzies of +ostentation! The sight of this "world"--this world, which they take quite +as a matter of course! + + * * * * * + +I have seen a good deal of this world myself, and I at least do not take +it thus. I gaze upon the men and women who do take it thus, and I say, +"Are you men and women really? Or are you not some strange, un-Godmade +creatures, without ever a thought about justice, without ever a gleam of +reason or purpose or sense?" + + * * * * * + +May 14th. + +I have tramped the streets for two days more. I was made so ill by my +anxiety last time that I made up my mind I would not risk it again. I asked +my landlady to-night to wait a while, as I was looking for some work. She +was ungracious enough, but I have no longer any sensibilities--I only want +to be safe. She can wait--she has my trunk, as I told her. + + * * * * * + +Probably she wouldn't even be as willing, if she could see what is in it! I +have no longer anything to sell. I had to exchange my waiter's costume for +a pair of trousers, for mine were all in rags. + +I have two dollars and seventy cents. I imagine that is a safe margin. + +There are no words that can tell what an absolutely deadening thing it is +to be wandering about the city looking for work. It turns you into a log +of wood--you not only no longer have an idea, you have not a thought of an +idea. You simply drag on and on until the thing becomes a habit, and you go +without even thinking of that. + + * * * * * + +May 15th. + +"Our readers have examined with a great deal of interest the unusual piece +of work which you have sent us. But it has been our experience that poetry +proves such a distressing adventure commercially, that we are forced to +decline the offer which you have so kindly made us. We wish, however, to +assure you of our desire to see anything else which you may have on hand, +or may have at any time in future." + +That is about the way the letter ran--I tore it up. I did not read it but +once. I took the thing to another firm--it can't do any harm. + +I have not been able to find anything to-day. + + * * * * * + +May 16th. + +So long as I have thoughts I can write a journal; but while my life is that +of an animal, it doesn't seem very necessary. I have always felt myself an +outcast--a poet has to be that; but I never felt it quite so much as at +present. I wander around from door to door; and those who have homes and +money and power--they simply order me out of the way. + + * * * * * + +May 18th. + +I do not think I can stand this much longer. I never had such a time before +finding anything. I think my state must be written in my face--men no +longer have any use for me. + +I fear my coat is seedy. And I know my collar is soiled; but the two I left +at the laundry won't be done till to-morrow. + +I have broken my last two-dollar bill. I watch in terror for the next +week--I can not face that woman again. I must save enough for that. + + * * * * * + +May 19th. + +I applied for a position as office-boy to-day--I was desperate. I have not +enough to last me through a week, if I pay the woman anything. + +But they said I was too old. + +My feet are most horribly sore. I can hardly walk. And I have the strangest +ringing in my head. I could not eat any supper--and the milk won't keep in +this warm weather, either. + + * * * * * + +May 22d. + +The day before yesterday, when I woke up in the morning, I could hardly +stand. My head was on fire, and I do not think I have ever been so sick +before. I got around to a drug-store--the man said he would give me some +powders; he said they were forty cents, but I dared not pay it. He gave +them to me for a quarter. He said I should have a tonic, but I haven't had +it. + +I was too ill to move all day yesterday. I am better to-day, but still I +daren't go out. I have only eighty-five cents left. + + * * * * * + +I must manage to get out and get some work to-morrow, or I shall go mad. + + * * * * * + +I had a scene with that horrible creature yesterday. It was the second +week--she thought I was shamming, I know. She said she never allowed her +"roomers" to get behindhand--it was her invariable rule. O God, I was so +sick I could scarcely see--I did not care what she did. I told her that I +had no money; that I was waiting to get some work; that I would pay her the +first moment I could. + +"Why don't you keep work when you get it?" she demanded. "You have been +idle nearly all the whole time you've been here." + +I could not argue with her; she can turn me out when she likes. + + * * * * * + +May 24th. + +I dragged myself out to-day. I feel better except for the blisters on my +feet. But nothing to do! Nothing to do! Oh, I am half mad. + +I thought to-day I would call upon some of my relatives. But I bit my lips +together--no, I will not ever do that! + + * * * * * + +It is the ghastly heat that kills me. Yesterday was almost stifling, I +thought I could not bear it. I never knew it to be so hot so early. + + * * * * * + +May 26th. + +I have got but thirty-five cents, and to-day I was so tired I had to rest +for two hours nevertheless. Oh, merciful heavens, but this is fiery +torture! + + * * * * * + +It is half a week again. I know she will not let me stay another week. I +did a strange thing--I wrapped up all my papers and carried them out under +my coat. She can keep everything else I have, but my papers are mine. I +took them to the grocery-store where I buy things and asked the man to keep +them for me. + + * * * * * + +May 27th. + +What does a man do when he wants to work and can't find anything? Does he +really starve? Or does he get locked up? Or what? + +I said to-day: I will eat nothing but bread and oatmeal till I get +something to do. + + * * * * * + +May 29th. + +It was just as I thought. She has demanded her money--and I have but +fifteen cents! I helped a man up with a trunk and got ten.--She told me +that I would have to get out. It is clear to-night. I shall sleep somewhere +in the Park. I can not write any more. + + * * * * * + +May 31st. + +I got some work to do after all--at the height of my despair. I am giving +out samples of a hitherto unequaled brand of soap. + +It was yesterday morning, I met one of the men and asked him where he got +the job. He said they wanted more men, so I got on a car and rode down +there in haste. I made fifty cents yesterday, for half a day, and a dollar +to-day. Thank God! + +I spent the night before last in the Park, and last night in the room where +I am writing. It is in a tenement-house. I paid fifty cents a week for it, +and there is a drunken man snoring on the other side of a board partition. + +I sha'n't go back to the other place, of course, until I get more money. +Besides, she has probably rented the room. + + * * * * * + +I am so relieved at having gotten something to do. I believe I am even +proud of the soap. + +I am getting used to walking all day; anything so long as one doesn't have +the agonizing worry about starvation. I am ill, but I shall keep at it, and +answer advertisements meanwhile by mail, till I get something better. + +I am going out to sit by the river. I can not stand the heat and stench in +this room. To-morrow is Sunday. I shall have a long rest. + + * * * * * + +June 2d. + +I did not go back to distribute soap to-day. I have given up the work. I +have just seventy cents left in my pocket. The rent of this room is up on +June 6th, and the money will last me until then. + +On June 6th I am going to die. + + * * * * * + +--To-day I went to the publisher's. I said: "On June 6th I am going out +of town. (Grim humor, that!) On June 6th you will have had the manuscript +three weeks and more. I shall have to ask you to have a report by that +date, or to return it to me now." He said: "You shall have the report." + +If they will publish the poem, I shall wait. If not, I shall die on June +6th. That is settled. + + + + +PART III. THE END + + +Listen to me now. I must soon get to the end of this. I mean to tell you +about it. I have spent yesterday and to-day going over this journal, +explaining things that I had written too briefly, putting in things that +ought to be there. I mean to tell everything. + +When I began this journal it was with the idea that I should be famous, +and that then it would be published. Of late I have written it from habit, +mainly, never expecting that any one would see it. Now I write again for a +reader, _to_ a reader. I know that it will be published. + + * * * * * + +The night before last I went down by the river. As well as I can remember, +these were the thoughts that came to me. + + * * * * * + +It was a calm, still night, and I sat watching the lights on the water. +Then suddenly I recollected the night when the yacht had passed, and I had +heard the woman singing. It came back to me like an apparition, that voice +and that melody. I heard it again more plainly than words can tell, dying +away over the water; and a perfect sea of woe rolled over my soul. + +I thought of that night, what I had been that night, what hopes I had had, +what fervor, what purpose, what faith. That was, you remember, just when I +was at the height of my work; and the memory came back to me, as it has +never come back to me since the day that I came out of the forest with my +book. It simply overwhelmed me, it shook me to the very depths of my being. +I buried my face and burst out sobbing. It shook away from me all the +hideous dulness that had mastered me. I saw myself as I was, ruined, lost. +I cried out: "Oh, my Father in heaven, it is gone! It is gone, and it will +never come back! I am a lost soul! I am a traitor, I am ruined!" + +So I went on, feverishly, twisting my hands together. "I have given up the +fight! I have been beaten--oh, my God--beaten! Think of those raging hours +in the woods, those hours of defiance, of glory! I gazed at commonplaceness +and dulness--I mocked at it; and now it has conquered me! I am trampled +down, beaten! It is all gone out of me!" And then I cried out in despair +and terror: "Oh, no, it can't be! It _can't_ be!" + +But even while I cried that, my thoughts fled back to the horror to which I +was tied, to the samples of soap and to the filthy hole next to a drunken +laborer. The thing overwhelmed me, even while I stood there trying to +resolve. + +I was frenzied. "I have done everything," I panted, "I have fought and +toiled and struggled--I have wept and prayed, and even begged. And yet I +have been beaten--I have gone down--down! And what more is there that I can +do? I shall be beaten down again! Oh, what shall I do? Is there any hope, +any new plan that I can try? Shall I go through the streets and shriek +it; shall I lay hold upon some man and _make_ him hear me? Is there +anything--_anything_?" + +To make them understand what I have! To make them understand what they are +doing! God gave me a vision--it may not come again for a century, it can +never come again--it is mine--_mine only_! And they grind it into the +dust! This demon power that is in me--don't you suppose I know what it is? +This thing that roars like the wind upon the mountains, that runs like the +great billows on the sea! + +I was pacing back and forth in the silent night. I had all the world about +me, I cried out to it, I gripped it, to make it hear me. "Fools! oh fools!" +I cried, "what is it that you _do_ believe in? Blind creatures that +you are, this raging faith of mine--this fervent ardor--you do not believe +in _that_! You do not believe in enthusiasm, you do not believe in +ecstasy, you do not believe in genius! You think that I am mad, poor raving +poet! You see me sick, haggard, dragging myself about. + +"But I am caged, I tell you,--I am caged! You are killing me as you would +kill some animal; and I am never to sing that song--I am never to sing that +song!" + +The thing was a madness to me. "No, no!" I rushed on, "I will! I will get +free--I say I will! If I must, I will go out and beg on the streets, before +I will let this thing die! Show me the vilest of you--I will get down upon +my knees before him--I will kiss his feet and beg him to let me live! There +is no degradation of my _self_ that I will not bear! I!--what am I? +I am a worm--I am filth--I am vanity and impertinence and delusion. But +_this_ thing--this is _God_! Oh you man with a carriage, will +_you_ not give me a little? For a hundred or two of dollars I can live +for a year! And you--why, see that ring on your finger! You would not think +twice if you lost it; and yet think what I could do with that bauble! Oh, +see how you abuse life--how you mock it, how you trample upon it--how you +trample upon _God_! + +--"So I go about all day, haunted all the time, raging, lusting for my +task. And you who believe in genius in the past, and do not believe in it +in the present! Some of you had this faith when you were young; but I have +it always--it is _I_! I was born for that, I will die for that! It is +my love, my food, my health, my breath, my life! It comes to me wherever +I am--carrying trays in a restaurant--pacing back and forth by the +river--sitting here in my room and writing of it!" + + * * * * * + +So I thought, so I cried out; and each time as the thing surged in me, I +sank down and moaned and sobbed. "No, it is all lost. I am helpless. I am +beaten! I am walled in and tortured! I am a slave, I am a prisoner--I--" + +--And so the torrent of my thoughts sped on, and so I rushed with +it--rushed to my fate. For suddenly I came to four words--four fearful +words that roared in my soul like the thunder!-- + +"I AM A CAPTIVE!" + +It was like the falling of a bolt from the sky. It came with a sound that +stunned me, with a flash that lit in one instant the whole horizon of my +mind. + +"I am a captive! I am _The_ Captive! Fool that I am,--pent here in +these prison-walls of tyranny, and beating out my brains against them! +Panting--praying--cursing--pining to be free! And I am The Captive!" + +The thing struck terror into the last chambers of my soul. I stood stock +still; I felt my flesh quiver, I felt my very hair move. I saw a pair of +demon eyes glaring into mine--I saw all the wildness and the fearfulness +of life in that one instant. + +"I wrote a book, I tried to make it true--and, oh, my God, how have I +succeeded!" + +I do not know what I did, I was half-crazed, as in a nightmare. I fought +and struggled; but I was in the grip of a truth, and though it set my brain +on fire, I had to face it. + +I was The Captive! I was The Captive! And I was crying out against +circumstances--I was crying out against my fate--and all the time there +it stood and faced me--the truth, the iron truth: + + * * * * * + +--_I was to die!_ + + * * * * * + +A sudden fury swept over me--my whole being flamed with wrath. "What!" I +cried. "I shall go on in this servitude--in this degradation! I shall go +on playing the lackey to the filthy pleasures of men, cringing, crouching +before any insult--begging for my bread--begging to keep my miserable self +alive! And I shall see one by one my virtues die in me, my powers, my +consecrations! I shall sink into a beast of burden, into a clod of the +earth, into a tool of men! + +"And I, who wrote The Captive--my God, who wrote The Captive! I, who stood +upon that height, drank in that glory, sang with those angels and gods! I, +who was noble and high-born--pure and undefiled--seer and believer--I! I +walked with Truth--and now I am a slave; a whimpering, beaten hound! They +have made a eunuch of me, they have cut away my manhood! They have put me +with their swine, they have fed me upon husks, they have bid me drink their +swill! And I bear it, by God, I bear it! And why?--" + + * * * * * + +"_I bear it that I may live!_" + + * * * * * + +"Come here, come here! Look at this!" The thing seized me by the shoulders +and shook me, the thing with the fiery eyes. "Did you _mean_ it, all +that you wrote in that book--did you mean it, those vows that you swore +in the forest? Were they the truth of your soul as you faced your God--or +were they shams that you dallied with to please your vanity? Answer me! +_Answer_!" + + * * * * * + +I sank down upon the ground as I heard that voice. I was shuddering with +fear; and I moaned aloud: "I don't want to die! I want to live, I want to +do my work!"--And then I heard the voice say, "You hound!" + +And so I shut my hands like a vise; and I panted: "No, no! Come! Take me! +I will go!" I think it must have been hours that I lay there, wrestling in +horrible agony. I cried again and again: "Yes, yes,--I will do it! I will +do it!" I fled on breathlessly, whispering, panting to myself. Before I +knew it I was saying part of The Captive--the first fearful lines of the +struggle: + + Spirit or fiend that led me to this way! + +Oh, tell me, was ever poet so taken at his word before? + +I thought of that then, and I shook like a leaf with the pain of it. Again +and again I faced it, again and again I failed. It was physical pain, it +was a thing that I could feel like a clutch at my heart. Was it not tearing +out my very soul? + + * * * * * + +But the voice cried out to me: "You have been a slave to the world! You +have been a slave to life! You have been crucified upon the cross of +Art!"--Yes, and all things a man may sacrifice to Art but one thing; he may +not sacrifice his soul! + +"What!" it rushed on. "Have you so much faith in your art, and no faith +in your God? Is it for _Him_ that you have so much need to fear, to +crouch and tremble, to plot and to plan--for _Him_? And when he made +you, when he gave you your inspiration--his soul was faint?" + +"He that sendeth forth the surging springtime, and covereth all the earth +with new life! He that is the storm upon the sea, the wind upon the +mountains, the sun upon the meadows! He that poureth the races from his +lap! He that made the ages, the suns and the systems throughout all +space--he that maketh them forever and smiteth them into dust again for +play! He that is infinite, unthinkable, all-glorious, all-sufficient--_He +hath need of thee_! + +"He hath need that thy wonderful books should be written, that mankind +should hear thy wonderful songs! Thy books, thy songs, that are to last +through the ages! And when this earth shall have withered, when the sun +shall have touched it with his fiery finger, when it shall roll through +space as silent and bare as the desert, when the comet shall have smitten +it and hurled it into dust, when the systems to which it belongs--the sun +into which it melted--shall be no more known to time--_where then will be +thy books and thy songs_? Where then will be these things for which thou +didst crouch and tremble, didst plot and plan? For which thou didst lick +the feet of vile men--_for which thou didst give up thy God_!" + +And then I leaped up and stretched out my arms. "No! No!" I cried aloud: +"I have done with it! Have I not fought this fight once, and did I not win +it--this fight of The Captive? And can I not fight it and win it again? +Away, away with you, world, for I am a free man again, and no slave! Soul +am I, _will_ am I, unconquerable, all-defying! In His arms I lie, in +His breath I breathe, in His life I live--I am _He_! Fear I know not, +death I know not, slavery and sin and doubt and fear I will never know +again!" + +Nay,--nay. Go thy road, proud world, and I go mine!-- + + In dem wogenden Schwall, + in dem toenenden Schall, + in des Welt-Athems + wehendem All!-- + ertrinken-- + versinken-- + unbewusst-- + hoechste Lust! + +Oh, think not of that poetry! Think of the music! The surging, drunken, +overwhelming waves of music! Do you not hear them--do you not hear them?-- + + Wie sie schwellen, + mich umrauschen! + Soll ich athmen, + soll ich lauschen! + +So the thing went; and I panted and throbbed, and sank down upon the ground +for weakness. There came to me all that mad poetry that I had written +myself, all that victory that I had won, that freedom, that vision, that +glory! It came to me ten times over, for was it not everything to me now? +It was more than I could bear, it split my brain. + +And it would not leave me. All through the long, long night I prayed and +wept with it; and in the morning I reeled through the street with it, and +men stared at me. + + * * * * * + +But here was one time when I did not fear men! I was free--I was a soul at +last. I had won the victory, I went my way as a god. I had renounced, I had +given up fear, I had given up my _self_. My mind was made up, and I +never change my mind. I had passed the death-sentence upon myself, I walked +through the streets as a disembodied soul--as the Captive dragged to the +banquet-hall. + +But no, I went to my torture of myself. + + * * * * * + +I went to the store. It was early Sunday morning, and the place was just +open.--I got my papers and put them under my arm--my original draft of The +Captive, and all my journal. I went down the street and came to a place +where a man was burning some trash. + +I was a demon in my strength just then; my head reeled, but I went with the +dancing step of new-born things. I stood upon the heights, I "laughed at +all Sorrow-play and Sorrow-reality"! "Ho, sir," I cried, "I have things +here that will make a fire for you!" + +And so I knelt down and unwrapped The Captive. "There is much fire in +this," I said; "once I thought it would explode, I did. It was a shot that +would have been heard around the world, sir! Only I could not pull the +trigger." + +The man stared at me, and so I burned it, page by page, and laughed, and +sang a foolish song that I thought of: _Stride la vampa!_ + +And afterward I unwrapped the journal. I laughed at my journal--'tis a +foolish thing; but then all at once my conscience touched me. I said: "Is +it not a shame? Is it not small of you? They would not heed you!--fool, +what of it? Perhaps it is not their fault--certainly it is their sorrow. +But you will not get much higher than you are now by trampling upon them." + +And so I stopped; and I wrapped up my journal again. "You have fire enough +now, sir," I said to the man. "I will keep this to build another fire +with." + +I went on. "Let them have it," I said, "let them make what they can out of +it." And then I laughed aloud: "And they will discuss it! And there will be +reviews of it! And wise articles about it! And learned scholars will write +tomes upon it, showing how many sentences there are in it ending with a +punctuation mark; and old ladies and Methodist ministers will shake their +heads over it and say: 'See what comes of not believing in Adam!'" + +I walked on, singing the Ride of the Valkyries, the children staring at me, +going to Sunday-school. + + * * * * * + +But I was glad that there was another copy of The Captive left. I love even +that wicked editor now. + + * * * * * + +--All that was a day and a half ago. I am not so happy now, but I am very +calm. I have found my righteousness again, and I can take whatever comes. + + And tasks in hours of insight willed + Can be in hours of gloom fulfilled! + + * * * * * + +June 3d. + +I have now three days more to wait, to learn if The Captive is accepted. +I have money enough to last me till then. If it is not accepted I should +obviously have to starve, should I not? For I will never serve the world +again. And am I a sheep that must be driven? No, I shall find a quicker way +of dying than by starvation. In the meanwhile I live my life and say my +prayer. + + * * * * * + +I have thought a great deal about the thing, and it seems by no means best +for the world that it should treat all the men who have my gift as it has +treated me. Let the world take notice that I perish because I have not +cheap qualities. Because I was born to sing and to worship! Because I have +no alloy, because I will not compromise, because I do not understand the +world, and do not serve its uses! If I only knew all the book-gossip of the +hour, and all the platitudes of the reviews! If only I knew anything of all +the infinite frivolity and puerility that occupies the minds of men! But +I do not, and so I am an outcast, and must work as a day laborer for my +bread. + +--The infinite irrationality of it seems to me notable. Why, upon the +men of genius of the _past_ you feed your lives, you blind and +foolish men! They are the bread and meat of your souls--they make your +civilizations--they mold your thoughts--they put into you all that little +life which you have. And your reviews have use enough for _them_! Your +publishers publish enough of _them_! _But what thoughts have you +about the NEW teacher, the NEW inspirer?_ + +The madness of the thing! I read books enough, it seems to me, telling of +the sufferings of the poets of a century ago!--of the indifference of the +critics, the blindness of the public, of a century ago. And those things +pain you all so cruelly! But the possibility of their happening to the +poets of the _present_--it never seems to enter into your heads! Why, +that very man who sent me back his curt refusal by his secretary--he writes +about the agonies of Shelley and Keats in a way that brings the tears into +your eyes! And that is only one example among thousands. + +What do these men think? Is it their idea that the public and the critics +are now so true and so eager that the poets have nothing more to fear? That +stupidity and blindness and indifference are quite entirely gone out of the +world? That aspiration and fervor are now so much the rule that the least +penny-a-liner can judge the new poet? + +And they think that the soul is dead then! And that God has stopped sending +into this world new messages and new faiths! + +Oh you civilization! You society! You critics and lovers of books! Why, +that new message and that new faith ought to be the one thing in all this +world that you bend your faculties to save! It is that upon which all your +life is built--it is that by which this Republic, for one thing, is to be +made a factor in the history of mankind. But what do you do? What +_have_ you done? Here I am; and come now and tell me what it is that +you _think_ you have done. _For I have the message!--I have the +faith_! And you have starved me, and you have beaten me, until I am too +ill to drag myself about! + +And what can I do? Where can I turn? What hope have I, except, as Swift's +phrase has it, to "die like a poisoned rat in a hole"? I could wish that +you would think over that phrase a little while, cultivated ladies and +gentlemen. It is not pleasant--to die like a poisoned rat in a hole. + + * * * * * + +You ask me to believe in your civilization; you ask me to believe in your +love of light! Let me tell you when I would believe in your civilization +and your love of light. + +I say that the last and the highest thing in this world is _Genius_. +I say that Religion and Art and Progress and Enlightenment--that all +these things are made out of Genius; and that Genius is first and last, +highest, and best, and fundamental. And I say that when you recognize that +fact--when you believe in Genius--when you prepare the way for it and make +smooth the paths for it--I say that then and then alone may you tell me +that you are civilized. + +The thing shrieks against heaven--your cruelty, your stupidity. Since ever +the first poet came into this world it has been the same story of agony, +indignity, and shame. _And what do you do?_ + +It is poverty that I talk about, poverty alone! The poet wants nothing in +this world but to be let alone to listen to the voices of his soul. He +wants nothing from you in all this world but that you give him food while +he does it--while he does it, miserable people--not for himself, but for +_you_. + +This is the shame upon you--that you expect--that you always have +expected--that the poet, besides doing the fearful task his inspiration +lays upon him--that he shall go out into the coarse, ruthless world and +slave for his bread! That is the shame! That is the indignity, that is +the brutality, the stupidity, the infamy! Shame upon you, shame upon you, +world! + + * * * * * + +The poet! He comes with a heart trembling with gladness; he comes with +tears of rapture in his eyes! He comes with bosom heaving and throat +choking and heart breaking. He comes with tenderness and with trust, with +joy in the beauty that he beholds. He comes a minstrel, with a harp in his +hand--and you set your dogs upon him--you drive him torn and bleeding from +your gates! + + * * * * * + +The poet! You make him go out into the market and chaffer for his bread! +You subject him to the same law to which you subject your loafers and +your louts--that he who will not work can not eat! Your drones, and your +drunkards--and your poets! Every man must earn for himself, every man must +pay his way! No man must ask favors, no man must be helped, no man shall be +any different from other men! For shame! For shame! + + * * * * * + +And you love letters! You love poetry! You are civilized, you are liberal, +you are enlightened! You are fools! + + * * * * * + +I tell you the agony of this thing is in me yet--it has heaped itself up +in my soul all my days. It was my life, it was my _life_ that cried +out! And now that I can not save my own self--oh, let me at least save the +others! O God, let me not die till I have said one word that reaches their +hearts, till I have done something to change this ghastly thing! The voices +of the ages cry out to me. Not only the hundreds who have gone before--but +the hundreds and the thousands who are to come! What are _we_ to do? +they cry--who shall save _us_? Are we to share the same fate--are we +too to struggle and die in vain? And in this world that is civilized! In +this world that seeks progress! In this world that wants nothing but light! +Not to the mob I speak, not to those who once mocked me; if none but they +lived, I should hold my tongue and go. But you men who are leaders, you men +who stand upon the top, you men who see!--can I not find some word to reach +_you_? You men who really love books--who have money--who want nothing +but to put it to use!--can I not find some word to reach _you_? + +O God! And it is all so simple. + + * * * * * + +I tell you this land will never be civilized, this land will never lead +mankind, it will never be anything but the torture-house that I have found +it, until it makes some provision for its men of _Genius_! Until this +simple fundamental thing be true--that a man may know that if he have +_Genius_--that the day he shows he has _Genius_--he will be +honored and protected by society and not trampled and kicked like a dog. +That he will not have to go out into the market-place and vend his wares! +That he will not have to make sick his soul haggling for his bread! That if +he turns his strength to higher things, and exposes himself to the world +thereby, he will not be trodden down in the struggle for existence! That +he will not have to bear indignities and insults; that he will not have to +write till he be ripe, or be stunted and deformed by early deprivation. + + * * * * * + +Genius. And am I not to die now?--And what matters the world? + +Therefore let me write it: that I was a man of Genius. And that you have +trodden me down in the struggle for existence. That I saw things that no +other man has ever seen, I would have written things that no other man +can ever write. And that you have trodden me down in the struggle for +existence--that you have trodden me down because I could not earn my bread! + + * * * * * + +This is what I tell you--this is what I cry out to you, that the man of +Genius _can not_ earn his bread! That the work by which he develops +his power is something absolutely and utterly different from the work by +which he earns his bread! And that every hour which he gives to the one, he +lessens his power and his capacity for the other! Every hour that he gives +to the earning of his bread, he takes from his soul, he weakens his work, +he destroys beauty which never again can he know or dream! + +And this again is what I tell you, this again is what I cry out to you: +that the power by which a man of Genius does his work, and the power by +which he earns his bread, are things so entirely distinct that _they may +not occur together at all_! The man may have both, but then again he may +only have the former.--And in that case he will die like a poisoned rat in +a hole. + + * * * * * + +What is the first principle of the democracy of which we boast, if +it be not that excellence, that power, that _Genius_, is not the +attribute of the rich or the noble, but that it may make its appearance +anywhere among men? And you who sigh for men of talent to raise American +letters--what do you _do_ about it? I will tell you something right +now, to begin with; it will startle you, perhaps, and you may not believe +it; but I mean to prove it later on. For the present I say this: that of +the seven poets who constitute the glory of the literature of England in +the nineteenth century, four of them were rich men, five of them were +independent, one of them was endowed when he was a youth, and the seventh, +the greatest of them all, died like a poisoned rat in a hole. + +And what do you _do_ about it? What you do is to lean back in your +chair and say: "The literary market was never so wide-awake as it is now, +and the publishers never so anxious for new talent"! + + * * * * * + +Fools! And you think that the publishers are in business for the developing +of talent, and for the glory of literature! And that they care about +whether a man of Genius dies in the streets, or not! Why, have I not heard +them tell me, with their own lips, that "a publisher who published books +that the trade did not want would be driven out of business in a year"? + + * * * * * + +And you tell me that the author is an independent man nowadays! And can +earn his living with his books! + + * * * * * + +It is your privilege to think that, if you choose; but perhaps you will not +mind hearing what _I_ tell you--that the author can find no way to a +living more degrading to him than the earning of it with his books. I have +shoveled snow, and shoveled manure too, in the streets, and shoveled food +for swine in a restaurant. But I never did anything so degrading as I +should have had to do if I had tried to earn my living with my books. + + * * * * * + +Oh, the author may be independent, may he! And you will escape with that +fine platitude, and with that bitter mockery! And never think that the +author's independence is but the fine phrase for your own indifference! + +Again it is your privilege to think what you choose; but again perhaps you +will not mind hearing what I tell you--that there can never be any man +in this world more dependent than an author, if he be a true author. A +true author is the singer and dreamer of society; and who is there more +dependent than the singer and the dreamer--who is there less powerful and +less cunning in the things of the body? + + * * * * * + +Why, the author gives up his whole life for your joy and help, he +consecrates himself, he lashes and burns and tortures himself--for your +sake! And you spurn him from you, and tell him he is "independent"! + +Here is the truth, here is the crux, here is the whole thing in a sentence. +A publisher is not in business for the furtherance of Art, or for the +uplifting of humanity, or for the worship of God. He doesn't mind doing +these things incidentally, of course, when the fortunate occasion arises; +but do you think if he had his choice between publishing a new Paradise +Lost to be read fifty years from date, and publishing a biography of a +reigning prince, or a treatise on gastronomy, or a new dime novel by Marie +Corelli in a first edition of a hundred thousand copies--do you think he +would hesitate, now really? + + * * * * * + +You say that "literary excellence is identical with publishing +availability"! I tell you that they are as far apart--why, that they are +just exactly this far apart--as far as what mankind likes is from what +mankind ought to like. + + * * * * * + +And you ask the man of Genius to cringe and tremble before the standard +of what the reading public likes! You ask him to tame the frenzy of his +inspiration, to pull your pleasure-carriages with his winged steed! He +shall be no more the seer and the prophet and the leader--he shall be +mountebank and public-entertainer. + +And you call yourself civilized! O God! + +And the poet! Again the poet! Is he not _vital_ to your society? Is +he not, in the last analysis, the lawmaker, the law-enforcer--this seeker, +this inspirer, this man with the new vision of right? I look at this +society--body enough I see, bone and muscle, and a good, large, capable +stomach. Brain enough I see, too, or nearly enough; but Soul? Soul? Who +will dare to tell me that there is Soul enough? And your poet--why, +_he_ is your Soul! He is the man who fills the millions with the +breath of life, who makes the whole vast machine a living, rejoicing, +beautiful thing. _He_--every noble impulse that you have has come +originally from him--the memory of his words thrill in the hearts +of men--pupils gather to study them--tired hearts seek them for +refreshment--they grow and they fill all the earth--and never through +the centuries do they die! They blossom into noble impulses, into new +movements,--into reforms that reach down to the lowest wretches of the +gutter, who never even heard of a poet. Why, they have reached to the very +dogs, that are beaten less than they were. + + * * * * * + +And what is it that makes civilization in the end? What is it that the +world really honors in the end? You Americans, you who love your country, +you who believe in your country's institutions, who believe that your +country holds in her womb the future of mankind! You who want the world to +believe that!--how are you going to _get_ the world to believe that? +Is it--poor, impotent, foolish creatures--by covering your land until it is +a maze of twenty-story office buildings? By lining it with railroads six +feet apart?--Do you not know that this very hour the reason why Europe does +not believe in America is that it has not a man to sing its Soul? That it +has been a century in the eyes of the world, and has not yet brought forth +one single poet or thinker of the first rank? + +The poet! And I sought to be that man, my heart burned to sing that song! +And look at me! + + * * * * * + +Who will dare to say that I might not have sung it? What chance have I +had--have I not been handicapped and stunted, beaten and discouraged, +punished as if I had been a loafer--by _you_, the world? Here I am--I +am only a boy--and thrilling with unutterable things! And I am going down, +down to destruction! Why, for what I had to say I needed years and years to +ripen; and how can I tell now--how can any man tell now--what those things +would have been? + +And I--what am I?--a worm, an atom! But what happens to me to-day may +happen to another to-morrow, and may happen to a hundred in a century. And +who knows?--who cares? + + * * * * * + +What do you do with your railroad presidents? You take good care that +_they_ get their work done, don't you? They have secretaries to catch +every word, they have private cars to carry them where they would go, men +to run and serve them, to make smooth their paths and save their every +instant for them! But your poet, your man of genius--who makes smooth +_his_ paths, who helps _him_? He needs nobody to run and serve +him--he needs no cars and no palaces, no gold and precious raiment--no, nor +even praise and honor! What he needs--I have said it once--he needs but to +be left alone, to listen to the voices of his soul, and to have some one +bring him food to keep him alive while he does it. That--only that!--think +of it--for the most precious things of this life, the things that alone +save this life from being a barren mockery and a grinning farce! And he can +not have them--and you, you enlightened society, you never care about it, +you never _think_ of it! + + * * * * * + +If he comes a master, he can force his way; or if he be rich, or if some +one honor him, then he can live his life and heed nothing. But when he is +poor! And when he is weak! And when he is young! God help him, God help +him!--for you, you great savage world, you _crush_ him. + + * * * * * + +You send him to the publishers! And he is young, and crude, and +inexperienced! He has not found himself, he has not found his voice, he +stammers, he falters, he is weak! And you send him to the publishers! + + * * * * * + +I have said it once, I say it again: that the publisher is part of the +world and his law is a law of iron--he publishes the books that will sell. +And this feeble voice, this young love, this tender aspiration, this holy +purpose--oh, it is a thing to make one shudder! + + * * * * * + +And these things higher yet, these things so precious that we dare not +whisper them--this new awe of righteousness--this new rage at what the +world loves best--this flash of insight that will astound a new age! + + * * * * * + +You send it all to the publisher! + + * * * * * + +But what _can_ you do? I will tell you what you can do--I will tell +you what you _will_ do when you come finally to honor what is truly +precious in this life--when you are really civilized and enlightened--when +you really believe in and value Genius. + + * * * * * + +You will provide it that your young poet, your young worshiper, come +elsewhere to receive a judgment than to the money-making publisher, and to +the staring, vulgar crowd. You will provide it that he does not measure his +voice against the big-drum thumping of the best-selling pomposities of the +hour. You will provide it that he come, with all honor and all dignity, to +the best and truest men that you can engage for the service; and that he +come to be judged by one standard, and that not the standard of sales. +Whether it be true, whether it be noble, whether it be sincere; whether +it show imagination, whether it have melody, beauty, love, aspiration, +knowledge; whether, in short, in those forms or in any other forms, it have +_power_! Whether the man who wrote it is a man worth training, whether +he will repay society for its trust, whether he will bring new beauty into +the world!--And then, if these things be true, so long as he works, and +grows, and proves his value, so long shall he have the pittance that he +needs until he be the master of his voice. + +Yes, you never thought of that before! I read everything--everywhere--and +I never heard it before. And what does that tell about the poverty and +blindness and stupidity of this world? Are we not rich enough? Are we not +the richest nation in the world? Have we not railroads and houses, food and +clothing and bank-stocks enough to make the brain reel? And do we not call +ourselves a Christian land? And worship as divine the Teacher who said that +"man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out +of the mouth of God"? + + * * * * * + +Oh, you world! + + * * * * * + +And what would it do? What would it mean? I will tell you a few things that +it would mean. + +First of all it would mean that the man who felt in him the voice of God +would know that there was a road he could travel, would know that there +was a home for him. He would no longer face the fearful alternative of +mediocrity or starvation. He would no longer be tempted, he would no longer +be forced to turn from his faith, and stunt his development, and wreck +his plans, by base attempts to compromise between his highest and what +the world will pay for. Can you have any idea what that would mean to an +artist? You say that you love art! Can you have any idea of the effect +which that would have upon art? Upon the art of your country--upon American +literature! To have a band of perhaps a hundred--perhaps a thousand, proved +and chosen--the best and strongest that could be found--and set free and +consecrated to the search for beauty! Try it for fifty years--try it for +ten years--try the method of raising your poets in your gardens instead of +flinging them into your weed-beds--and see what the result would be! See if +in fifty years American literature would not have done more than all the +rest of the world! + + * * * * * + +And what would it cost?--O God! Is there a railroad in this country +so small that its earnings would not pay for it--for the whole of the +thousand? Why, pay a poet five hundred dollars a year, and he is a rich +man; if he is not, he is no poet, but a knave. + + * * * * * + +And there would be waste?--Yes--where is there not waste? But grant that in +the whole thousand there is just _one_ who is a master mind; and that +him you set free and keep from defeat--that him with all his glory you make +yours--and then tell me if there be any other way in this world that you +could have done so much for man with your money! + + * * * * * + +--No, these are not your ways, oh you cruel world! You let every man go his +way--you let him starve, you let him die in any hole that he can find. The +poet--tenderest and most sensitive of all men! The poet--the master of the +arts of suffering! Exposed on every side, nervous, haunted, unused to the +world, knowing how to feel and knowing that alone! Is not his life an agony +under any conditions,--is he not tortured for you--the world? And you leave +him helpless, despairing! + +What is the matter with you?--How can you be so blind? There are some of +you who really love books--look and see the story of genius--if it be not +a thing to make you shudder and turn sick. It has been so through all the +ages, and it will be so through all the ages to come, until society has +a conscience and a soul. Tell me if there is anything in this world more +frightful than the lot of the poets who have been born poor--of Marlowe and +Chatterton and Goldsmith, Johnson and Burns and Keats! And who can tell how +many were choked before even their first utterance? + + * * * * * + +I can not talk of that, for it makes me sick; but I will talk of the poets +who were born rich. Is it not singular--is it not terrible--how many of the +great stalwart ones were rich? To be educated, to own books, to hear music, +to dwell in the country, to be free from men and men's judgments! Oh, the +words break my heart! + + * * * * * + +--But was not Goethe rich, and did he not have these things? And was not +Hugo rich? And Milton? When he left college he spent five years at his +father's country place and wrote four poems that have done more to make men +happy than if they had cost many millions of dollars. + + * * * * * + +But let me come to what I spoke of before, the seven poets of this century +in England. + + * * * * * + +I name Wordsworth and Byron, Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne, Shelley and +Keats. I said that six of them were independent, and that the other--the +greatest--died like a dog. + + * * * * * + +Wordsworth came first; he was young and poor and struggling, and a friend +left him just such an independence as I have cried for; and he consecrated +himself to art, and he revolutionized English poetry, he breathed truth +into a whole nation again. And when he was clear and looked back, he made +such statements as these: that "a poet has to _create_ the taste by +which he is to be enjoyed," and that "my poetry has never brought me enough +to pay for my shoe-strings." + + * * * * * + +And see how the publishers and critics--how the literary world--received +him! How they jeered and jibed, and took fifty years to understand him! Oh +think of these things, think what they mean, you who love literature! Think +that the world owes its possession of Wordsworth's poetry to the accident +that a friend died and left him some money! + + * * * * * + +I name Byron; he was a rich man. I name Tennyson; he had a little +competence, and he gave up the idea of marriage and for ten years devoted +himself to art; and when he was thirty-two he published his work--and then +they gave him a pension! + + * * * * * + +I name Browning; Browning went his own way, heeding no man; and he never +had to think about money. I name Swinburne; and the same was true of him. + + * * * * * + +I name Shelley; and Shelley was wealthy. They kept him poor for a time, but +his poems do not date from then. When he wrote the poetry that has been the +spiritual food of the high souls of this century, he lived in a beautiful +villa in Italy, and wandered about the forest with his books. And oh, you +who love books, stop just a moment and listen: I am dying, and the cry +of all my soul is in this. Tell me, you who love Shelley--the "pardlike +spirit, beautiful and swift"--"thyself the wild west wind, oh boy +divine!"--tell me how much you think you'd have had of that glorious burst +of music--that golden rain of melody, of heavenly ecstasy--if the man who +wrote had been a wholesale-paper clerk or a cable-car conductor! How much +do you think you'd have had if when he'd torn himself free to write Queen +Mab--or even if he'd been ripe enough and written his Prometheus--if he'd +had to take them to publishers! If he had had to take them to the critics +and the literary world and say, "Here is my work, now set me free that I +may help mankind!" + + * * * * * + +--And when I wrote that I sank down and burst into tears. It can not be +helped. It is very hard for me.-- + + * * * * * + +Oh, but come face this thing--you that are responsible! + + * * * * * + +--"But who is responsible?" I hear a voice. Every single man is +responsible--every single man who has money, who loves letters, and who +faces these facts--_you_--YOU--are responsible! + + * * * * * + +Perhaps you are weary of my pleading, you think that I perish of my own +weakness. But come and tell me, if you can, what it is that I have not +done? What expedient is there that I have not tried, what resource, what +hope? Have I not been true enough, have I not worked enough? Have I been +extravagant, have I been dissipated? Did I not make my work my best? Come +and reason with me--I shall be dead when you read this, but let us talk it +over calmly. Put yourself here in my place and tell me what you would do. +Have I not tried the publishers, the critics, the editors, the poets, the +clergymen, the professors? Have I not waited--until I am sick, crazy? Have +I not borne indignities enough? Have I not gotten myself kicked enough for +my efforts? + + * * * * * + +--But you say: "I know nothing about The Captive!" Yes--so it is--then +let us go back to Shelley. A fair test would be Queen Mab or The Revolt +of Islam--he was my age then; but I will go ten years later and take +Prometheus Bound. Would he have found any one to publish it? _Did_ he +find any one to _read_ it? Why, ten or twenty years after Shelley +died, Browning (then a boy) records that he searched all England for a +copy of that queer poet's works! Why, Shelley's poetry was a byword and a +mockery; and Shelley himself--first of all he was insane, of course, and +afterward he was exile, atheist, adulterer, and scoundrel. They took his +children away from him, because he was not fit to take care of them! + + * * * * * + +And he would not have been welcomed with open arms, I think! And he +wouldn't have been set free--consecrated soul that he was. And sensitive, +nervous, fragile, hysterical boy--do you think he would ever have written +his poems, that he would ever have uttered his message? + +I have to make somebody understand this thing, somehow. I suggest that you +think what that would have meant to you--to you who love poetry. Think that +you would never have read: + + Oh wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn's being!... + Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud, + I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed! + +Think that you would never have read: + + Teach me half the gladness + That thy brain must know! + +That you would never have read: + + On a poet's lips I slept! + +I repeat that I have to make somebody understand this thing. I try that +plan a little more. Listen to me now--think what it would have meant if +that wise friend had not died when he did; think that you would never have +read: + + And then my heart with rapture fills, + And dances with the daffodils! + +Think that you would never have read: + + The light that never was on sea or land, + The consecration and the poet's dream! + +Think that you would never have read: + + Blank misgivings of a creature + Moving about in world not realized; + High instincts before which our moral nature + Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised! + +That you would never have read: + + Will no one tell me what she sings? + Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things + And battles long ago. + +I say a third time that I have to make somebody understand this thing. Let +us try it again now, just once again. Let us suppose that there had not +been any little independence or any pension. Who can think what it would +have meant to us? Who can think what it would mean never to have read + + Ring out, wild bells, + +or + + When the war-drum throbs no longer, + +or + + Crossing the bar. + +Never to have read + + Blow, bugle, blow! + +Never to have read + + My strength is as the strength of ten, + Because my heart is pure! + + * * * * * + +Oh, think not of what these things are to _you_--think of what they +are to _men_! How many railroads would pay for them?--one, do you +think? The work of how many libraries have they done, do you think? _How +much money do you think could be raised in the world to-day to save +them?_ + + * * * * * + +_And not one cent to create them!_ + + * * * * * + +--I have saved the chief thing to the last. I have spoken of the six +fortunate ones who had money; I have not spoken of thee, oh my poor, poor +Keats! The hours that I have hungered with thee, the hours that I have wept +with thee, oh thou _my_ poet, oh thou _my_ Keats! Oh thou most +wretched, most miserable of poets, oh thou most beautiful, most exquisite, +most unthinkable of poets! Most inspired poet of England, since Milton +died!--It was given to others to be beautiful, it was given to thee alone +to be perfect! It was given to thee to be ecstasy incarnate, to be melody +too sweet to hear! It was given to thee, alone of all poets, to achieve by +mere _language_ a rapture that thrills the soul like the sound of an +organ. And they mocked thee, they spit upon thee, they cursed thee, oh my +poor, poor Keats! Thou, the hostler's son--thou, the apothecary's clerk! +Thou, sick and starved and helpless--thou, dying of disease and neglect and +despair: + + Oh for a draft of vintage! That hath been + Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, + Tasting of Flora and the country green, + Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! + Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, + Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, + With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, + And purple-stained mouth; + That I might drink and leave the world unseen, + And with thee fade away into the forest dim! + +"Go back to thy gallipots, Mr. Keats!" Think not of Gifford--poor fool--but +think of yourself, oh world! Think what you lost in that man! You killed +him, yes, you trampled him, and you throttled him! And he was only +twenty-five! And he had never finished _Hyperion_--because he had not +the heart! + + * * * * * + +--Come, now, all you who love books, come quickly, and let us take up a +subscription, _that we may save for men the rest of Hyperion_! + + Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, + And feeds her grief with his remembered lay! + + * * * * * + +I have been sitting here from seven in the evening until three in the +morning, and I can not write any more. + + * * * * * + +Only--think about this thing. Look up the facts and see if they are not +true. These seven men _made_ England's poetry for a century; they made +England's _thought_ for a century--they make it to-day! They are the +inspiration of whole peoples, the sources of multitudes of noble deeds and +purposes. What do you think in money would be represented by the value of +these books alone? Enough to support ten thousand poets for a lifetime, do +you think? And how many hundreds of thousands of students are hearing about +them this day? How many young men and maidens are going out into the world +owing all that they have that is beautiful to them? And all these authors +of the day, all these critics and teachers, novelists and poets--how much +of what they have that is true do they not owe to these men? Go ask them, +go ask them! + + * * * * * + +--And you have it all because of the accident that these men were +independent! You have all from six of them for that, and from the seventh +you have nothing--yes, almost nothing--because he was poor! Because he was +a hostler's son, and not a gentleman's son; and you sent him back to his +gallipots and to his grave. + + * * * * * + +June 4th. + +I wait to hear from the publisher merely as a matter of duty. I have never +had the least idea that he will take the book. + + * * * * * + +I have made up my mind to drown myself. There is no mess about it, and men +do not have to know of it. + + * * * * * + +I have often read of murder cases. They tie a rope around the body and a +stone to the rope; but the stone slips out, or the rope wears, and then +it is unpleasant. I used to say they were fools; why did they not get a +dumb-bell or something like that, and a small chain. Then there would have +been no trouble. + + * * * * * + +When I thought of that I smiled grimly. I am living on dry bread, and +saving my money to buy a dumb-bell and a chain on Friday. + + * * * * * + +I pray most of the time. I have no longer the old ecstasy--such things do +not come often in cities. But it will come once again before I die, that I +know. + + * * * * * + +I have a strange attitude toward death. To me it is nothing. There is, of +course, the pain of drowning--it probably hurts to be strangled, but I do +not think it will hurt as much as ten lines of The Captive hurt. + + * * * * * + +About the physical part of it, the "invisible corruption," I never think; +it is enough that it will be invisible. And for the rest, death is nothing, +it is the end. I have never shrunk from the thought of it, it does not come +as a stranger to me now. I take it simply and naturally--it is the end. It +is the end that comes to all things in this phantom-dance of being; to +flowers and to music, to mountains and to planets, to histories, and to +universes, and to men. + + * * * * * + +I said: "It must come some day. It may come any day. Love not thy life too +much--know what thou art." + + * * * * * + +God can spare me. He got along without me once, and doubtless he can do it +again. There are many things that I should like to see--I should like to +see all the ages; but that was not my fate. + + * * * * * + +When I was young they taught me to be orthodox. And I see them stare at me +now in horror. "Suicide!" they gasp. "Suicide!" + + * * * * * + +Yes!--Why not? Am I not the lord of mine own life, to end it as well as to +live it? + + * * * * * + +And the law! Prate not of laws, I know of no laws, either of man or God; my +law is the right and my holy will. + + * * * * * + +And the punishment! Well, and if your hell be a reality, why, it is my +home--it is the home of all true men. The sublime duty of being damned is +ever my reply to theological impertinences. + + * * * * * + +--No, the sight of death does not thrill me in the least--when I stand upon +the brink it will not thrill me. It is not fearful; what the weakest of men +have done, I can do. And it is not sublime. Life is sublime, life thrills +me; death is nothing. + + * * * * * + +June 5th. + +To-day I wished that it were winter. A wonderful idea came to me--I am +almost tempted to live and wait for winter. I said: I would choose one +place where the money-blind and the folly-mad assemble--where I have seen +them and had my eyes burned by the sight. I would go to the opera-house +on the opening night! I would go to the top gallery, and I would put my +journal, my story, under my coat; and in the midst of the thing I would +give one cry, to startle them; and I would dash down that long flight of +steps, and shoot over the railing headfirst. + +--Ha! That would make them think! They might read the book, then. + +What place could be more fitted? In an opera-house meet, as nowhere else in +this world that I know of, the two extremes of life--God and the devil. I +mean on a Wagner night! Here is the inspiration of a sainted poet, here is +ecstasy unthinkable, flung wide and glorious as the dawn; and here is all +the sodden and brutal vulgarity of wealth, deaf, blind, and strutting in +its insolent pomposity. + + * * * * * + +--I am very ill to-day--I have a splitting headache and I am weak. It +is from trying to save too much money for the dumb-bell, I fear. But I +laugh--what care I? My body is going to wreck--but what care I? Ah, it is a +fine thing to be death-devoted, and freed from all the ills that flesh is +heir to! I go my way--do what I please--hammer on and on, and let happen +what will. What, old head!--wilt ache? I guess I can stop thy aching +before long! And all ye mechanical miscellaneities--stomachs and what not! +_Thou_ wilt trouble me too? Do thy pleasure, go thy way--I go mine! + + * * * * * + +There is a kind of intoxication in it. I climb upon all these ills that +used to frighten me--I mock at them, I am a god. I smite my head--I say, "I +am done with thee, old head! I have thought with thee all the thoughts I +have to think!" + + * * * * * + +I have made me right drunk upon life, yes, that is the truth; and now the +feast is over, and I will smash the crockery! Come, boys, come!--Away with +it! Through the window here with the head--look out of the way below there +for the stomach--ha, ha! + +--Is not that Shakespearian humor for you? Such a thing it is to be +death-devoted! + + * * * * * + +--But there is a deeper side to this wonderful thing--this prospect of +peace--this end of pain. All these solemn realities that were so much to +thee--this "world" and all its ways--its conventions and proprieties, its +duties and its trials; how now, do they seem so much to thee after all? +Cynical relative that wouldst "leave it to time"--was I so wrong, that I +would not hear thy wisdom? Suppose thou wert coming with me to-morrow--hey? +And to leave all thy clothes and thy clubs, thy bank-account, and thy +reputation, and thy stories! Ah, thou canst not come with me, but thou wilt +come after me some day, never fear. This is a journey that each man goes +alone. + +Oh, it is easy to be a man when you are sentenced to die. Then all things +slip into their places, power and pride, wealth and fame--what strange +fantasies they seem! What tales I could tell the world at this minute, of +how their ways seem to me!--Oh, take my advice, good friend, and pray thy +God for one hour in which thou mayst see the truth of all those foolish +great things of thy life! + + * * * * * + +I read Alastor this afternoon. What a strange vision it is! And I, too, in +awe and mystery shall journey away unto a high mountain to die. + + * * * * * + +--And then later I went out into the Park. I saw a flower; and suddenly the +wild ecstasy flashed over me, and I sank down upon a seat, and hid my face +in my hands, and everything swirled black about me. I cried: "I do not +want to die! Why, I am only a boy! I love the flowers--I want to see the +springtime!" + +And then I felt some one take me by the shoulder, and heard a grim voice +within me say, "Come! Come!" + + * * * * * + +Oh, it will be all right, never fear! Never yet have I failed to do what I +resolved to do. And thou world, thou wouldst have me thy slave; but I am no +man's slave--not I! + + * * * * * + +My death-warrant is ready. I go for it to-morrow. + + * * * * * + +June 6th. + +Last night I knelt by the bedside, far into the deep hours, far into the +dawn. The whole drama of my life rolled out before me, I saw it all, I +lived it all again; and Him in whose arms I lay--I blessed Him for the +whole of it. Now that the pain is gone I see that it was beautiful, that +flower of my life. Other flowers the plant might have borne; but this +flower was beautiful; and each flower is for itself. + +I stretch out my arms, I float upon a tide, back, back, into the rolling +source of things. Weep not for me, you who may love me; I can not die, +for I never was; that which I am, I was always, and shall be ever; I am +_He_. Go out into the world, you who may love me, and say, "This +flower is he, this sunset cloud is he; this wind is his breath, this song +is his spirit." + + * * * * * + +What is my faith, the faith in which I die? It is the faith of modern +thought; it is the faith of the ages. It is a spiritual Pantheism, an +impassioned Agnosticism. + + * * * * * + +A Presence am I; what is my source I know not, nor can I ever know. The +moral fact I know, my will; and I take it as I find it, and rejoice in the +making of beauty. + + * * * * * + +Do I believe that I ever shall live again? I know that I shall not. I do +not insult His perfection and my faith, with the wish that such as I should +be immortal. What I have He gave me; it is His, and He will take it. I +have no rights, and I have no claims. I see not why He should give me ages +because He has given me an hour. He never turns back, He never makes over +again--that I know. + + * * * * * + +--And neither do I ask rewards; my life was beautiful, I bless Him for +every prayer. I ask Him not that He cover the fair painting with whitewash. + + * * * * * + +I have no fear of Oblivion. I have no thoughts about it. There are no +thoughts in Oblivion. + +_The days when thou wert not, did they trouble thee? The days when thou +art not shall trouble thee as much_. + + * * * * * + +--I have made up my mind that I will get some work this morning, or sell my +coat, or something. I will go out into the country, I will be alone with +Him to-night. I will fling off every chain that has bound me. I will fling +off the world, I will fling off pain, I will fling off health. I will say, +"Burst thyself, brain! Rend thyself, body, as thou wilt!--but I will see my +God to-night before I die!" + + * * * * * + +I have been to the publishers. They gave me back The Captive. "It is done." + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Journal of Arthur Stirling, by Upton Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING *** + +***** This file should be named 7774.txt or 7774.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/7/7774/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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