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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79277 ***




MOODS




  MOODS

  _Prose Poems
  by
  Mercedes de Acosta_

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
  1919




  COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
  MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY




CONTENTS


                    PAGE

  MEMORY              3

  FAITH               5

  LOVE                7

  DISGUST            10

  JOY                13

  DESPAIR            16

  TENDERNESS         18

  HURT FEELINGS      22

  WEARINESS          24

  OPPORTUNITY        26

  TIME               28

  REVELATION         31

  FINDING GOD        34

  BRAINSTORM         38

  PEACE              41

  TWILIGHT DREAMS    44




INTRODUCTION


There is a happy gift revealed in these little pastels, vignettes, or
whatever one wishes to name such fragments that Miss de Acosta has
written and which refuse to be catalogued and classified. They stand
out in one’s reading in refreshing contrast to many opaque books of
verse. They are not poetry; but they are the most singable prose, and
they have a haunting quality, a breath of mystery, as though a ghost
walked in a garden. They are strange, but they are human too; for if
Miss de Acosta has anything it is a belief in, and an understanding
of, her fellow human beings. In the little picture of the tired woman
in the subway she shows with what feeling her heart is charged; and in
the fragment of the studio, the climax is deftly approached. Brief as
these glimpses of human experience are, they leave one with a sense
of finality. It is as though a door were suddenly opened, or a window
quickly raised--and then as suddenly closed again. But one has seen the
room in its entirety, and the interior has been photographed on the
brain.

Miss de Acosta, who comes forward here with her first volume, bears
promise of even finer achievement. I like the perfume of these flowers.
And I like her directness, her obvious sincerity, her passion for the
truth as Life reveals it to her, and her endeavor to give the reader a
swift, vivid picture. She may go very far.

  CHARLES HANSON TOWNE.




MEMORY


    Do you know I am living tonight in a
    cloud of memory?
    I, who always preach to you of looking
    forward, am sitting here silently looking
    backward and tearing the veil from off
    the dead faces of the past.

    Memory is a strange thing, so poignant and
    alive in its insistence, so dead and
    lifeless in its reality, so cruel and
    portentous in its regrets.

    It is curious how, merely in the brain,
    wide vistas of recollection can be opened,
    and whole pictures of the past stretch
    before us by simply recalling the touch
    of a hand, by the stirring of a soft
    breath of wind, by a sad prolonged
    street cry, or by the heavy atmospheric
    pressure of a warm summer’s night.

    Sometimes it is a strain of music across
    far waters that brings back long-distant
    years; again it is the odor of a box suddenly
    opened, which gives forth the fragrance
    of violets or rose leaves long since
    dead and which instantly brings a tug
    at the heart strings and fills the throat
    with burning tears.

    It seems to me a comparatively easy thing
    to suppress our memories during the day, when
    a host of things come clamoring and crowding
    for us to accomplish.

    But the past, with its sad, tragic eyes and
    fantastic shapes, its shrill, melancholy wails
    and dear, dead voices, its heavily perfumed
    flowers, its vibrating, pulsing music, its
    soft, caressing touches and maddening, heart-rending
    regrets--these all come filing
    back one by one and play upon the soul
    and make the lips turn white....
          Sometimes at night!




FAITH


    I think it does not matter so much what we believe
    as what we _want_ to believe,--the desire seems
    to me greater than the accomplishment.

    They say “men live by hope,” but I feel men must
    live by faith or else they perish.
    Or perhaps faith and hope are very closely akin--
    one being the Touch of God, and the other being
    the Breath of a Divine Perfume He has tossed
    out upon the world, so that man might still
    find a smile where there seemed only to be tears.

    Today I do not feel that I am groping my way
    as I have heretofore done, but a strange exaltation
    is in me as though a star had caught in my hair,
    or as if a piece of the moon had come down and
    brushed against my cheek.

    I wonder could you understand if I told you why?

    If I tell you that for days and nights my soul
    has been writhing in a corner of darkness,--
    oppressed by a thousand apprehensions and crushed
    by the weight of fear?
    Until today no light has come its way and yet
    do you know that in that solitude and stillness
    I have been conscious of a little something
    stirring in me and trying to make me believe
    that help _would_ come?
    But the dreariness came again and strange
    grotesque shapes pressed about me and bade
    me let go and sink and sink....

    Then I lay despairing and could not move
    or raise my eyes--but suddenly, when
    my faith had almost ceased to be....

    God put out His Hand and, stooping down--touched me!




LOVE


    It seems absurd I did not recognize it at once,
    but at first my thoughts were indefinite
    and I did not know by what name to call it.
    I had always looked upon it as something
    so much more personal and individual, and
    coming this way as it did, it seemed new and
    strange. It came to me in the subway.
    I remember it had been raining and as I
    entered the train I remarked to myself on
    the hideous smell of damp clothing and
    dripping umbrellas. At first the crowd was
    oppressive; I who hate crowds so, shrank
    a little and tried to gain my balance. It
    was just then the peculiar thing happened....

    Suddenly, in spite of the fact that I was
    pushed and pulled here and there I did not
    seem to mind. A man rose giving me a seat,
    and as I sank into it and the crowds thinned
    out at a station, I looked across the train
    and saw a woman dozing in the corner. Her
    face was worn, white and pinched;
    her clothes dirty and her hat sliding off.

    Every time the train swayed her head lurched
    forward, each second seeming to assume a more
    uncomfortable position. I looked at her
    pathetic face and longed with all my heart
    to put her tired head upon my shoulder,
    taking my coat and wrapping it around her
    emaciated form.

    Then I looked down the train and saw an old man;
    he had apparently been to the hospital, because
    his head was bandaged and his face contracted
    from time to time in pain. He gazed slyly
    about, and when he thought no one was looking
    he spat upon the floor between his legs.
    Ordinarily I should have wanted to kill
    him for it, but then, oddly enough, I felt
    no disgust but only a great pity and sympathy
    for him.

    A small child opposite was screaming shrilly
    and every few seconds licking the window pane,
    while his parents fought and argued with each
    other beside him. I wanted to take their hands
    and tell them not to quarrel and I longed to
    take the child on my lap; cuddling it to me
    and distracting it from the soiled window pane.

    Then as I gazed at all the faces along the seats
    a great understanding and sympathy for them sprang
    up within me. I wished I could take them by
    the hand one by one out into the sunlight, giving
    them what they most desired, and then be able to
    rejoice at their good fortune in which I would
    share no part.
    I forgot myself completely and a spirit of
    exaltation came to me such as I had never
    experienced before. The subway ceased to smell
    and upon each face and in my heart I seemed to
    discern a great light.
    I held my breath while I felt as if I were being
    carried on by some unknown harmony and rhythm;
    I was sure that all the eyes in the train had
    grown kindly and that no one harbored evil in
    his heart.

    Before the feeling faded away--as I knew it would--
    and left me again my same selfish and miserable
    self, I longed to ascertain what this sublime
    mood could be. As I wondered, back from my brain
    and all the way down to my heart I heard the
    words beating and hammering my answer----

    “This is love!” they cried.




DISGUST


    Do you remember the day I left your house so
    suddenly and rushed out on the street?
    Or perhaps you do not recall it and did not
    remark my absence,--you had so many people there,
    and your house was fragrant with such quantities
    of flowers, and every one seemed to pretend at being
    gay, even if he were not.

    And I? I left it all behind me because I heard
    you boasting in such a light-hearted way of all we
    had dreamed of and loved so well.

    My heart trembled at your careless words and I
    closed my ears and rushed out before you should have
    killed my last illusion and made me hate you.
    Your house, which a few moments before seemed gay
    and bright, suddenly flung from out its windows the
    flag of hypocrisy, and became meaningless and empty.

    My head ached; and I hurried aimlessly along the
    street peering into the faces of the passers-by,
    thinking that in humanity I should find a solace and
    an answer.... But they only pushed and knocked against
    me and not one spirit spoke to me.

    Then I went into the museum and thought that there
    with art I could find revelation and be comforted.
    So I walked through the galleries, but I was followed
    unendingly by the same unsparing mob that
    jostled me in the streets and suspicious guards
    glared at me while all around hung low rows
    of portraits in heterogeneous fashion which, melting
    into one another, lost their personality and meant
    nothing to me.

    So I dragged myself out again into the spring
    air and walked wearily toward the park. There,
    reaching a bench, I sank down and thought
    at last I could relax undisturbed.
    But a drunken man came and sat beside
    me and nudged my elbow, so I rose and moved
    away and wondered if there were any place
    in the whole wide world where one could be
    really alone and unimbittered.

    Friendship, art and all the things I cherished
    seemed to have failed me.
    Suddenly I thought of death!

    Then, meditating on the last long sleep, a
    sense of great peace and the solitude I
    had longed for came over me....

    But only for a brief instant, because I
    remembered with anguish that, even in
    death, one could not be alone; and the
    thought of overcrowded and congested
    cemeteries filled my soul with horror;
    and I shuddered!




JOY


    I looked out of the window at the snow
    on the ground and something in the
    sunlight made me throw aside my books
    and go out.

    I do not recall how I reached there,
    but I found myself in the heart of the
    park, and maybe because it was so
    early, or I do not know quite why,--
    it seemed empty,--I looked across the
    white stretch of glistening snow and
    my heart beat with joy at being alone.
    Suddenly something very odd happened to me:

    Everything and everyone in my life
    seemed to drop away from me; I felt
    as though my spirit had been freed
    and as if no harm could ever come
    to me again.

    So I laughed and blew my breath out
    in the cold air and waved it good-bye,
    and I shouted aloud and tossed the
    snow from side to side with my feet.
    I knew you would be waiting for me and
    be angry, but that and all things else
    seemed very remote and far away, so
    I dismissed it from my mind and did not
    think of it again.

    Then I pretended I was Columbus discovering
    America and I called out “land ahead.”
    But after, I changed and pretended I was
    Jeanne d’Arc leading the French army,
    and all the while sang the Marseillaise
    because it thrilled me so and I waved my
    arms and danced.

    Then I decided to be the wind, and I
    ran as fast as I could and fell down
    in the snow, jumped up again and laughed
    some more.

    I threw kisses and made faces at the sun
    and I tried to catch the little diamonds
    that gleamed on the snow,--but each one
    lured me on to another, until it seemed
    like an eternal mirage,--so I stood still,
    drew a long breath and thanked God for Life!

    Then as I walked on I felt that I possessed
    everything, because I had youth, health
    and ambition.

    And the whole world seemed to be stretching
    out its alluring hands before me with
    wonderful rose-tipped fingers!




DESPAIR


    One day I said, “There is no such thing as
    love,” and something closed up within
    me; and although I looked upon people
    I knew I did not see them. Some horrible
    apprehension seemed to grip at my heart
    with ice-boned hands. I felt nauseated
    and sick.

    I went home and closed my door and, for
    the first time in my life, threw my
    books into a corner and broke my pens
    and pencils.

    After that outburst I sat down and tried
    to think, but all my thoughts seemed
    draped in long garbs of black crepe that,
    stealing in and out through my mind like
    phantoms on tiptoe, gave me no peace.

    I thought what a failure my life had been
    and I believed every one had deserted me.
    I longed to die!

    I saw your roses, but I threw them
    on the floor and stepped on them because
    they seemed fresh and gay; and a thousand
    sad thoughts rushed through my mind, while
    I felt as if I were being oppressed by
    all the nightmares of the world and beating
    my soul against a closed iron door.

    Then I remembered that people said “tears soothe
    the heart;” so I prayed to be allowed to weep,
    but instantly cursed myself for praying
    and cried aloud, “There is no God!”

    And all night long I sat in darkness, staring
    into space with clenched hands, repeating the
    words over and over again, “No love, no hope”--
    “No love, no hope”....




TENDERNESS


    They always said of her that she was selfish
    and spoiled and that, although she lived in a
    big house and had everything in the world
    money could buy, no one really cared about her
    for herself.

    They admitted she had beauty, but they said her
    face was hard and bitter and that her only
    power lay in her worldly prosperity, which had
    a certain empty, insincere following,--but
    that she had no real influence because she did
    not have a heart and no one loved her.

    I used to hear them talking about her rudeness
    and her detached indifference, and they seemed
    to excite themselves greatly about her,
    and grow angry and shrug their shoulders;
    then they would always end by thanking God
    they were not like her.

    After these discussions--in which I took no
    part--I always went home and thought about her.

    And then one day I went to hear Kreisler play.
    I think he played more exquisitely than I had
    ever heard him before; perhaps it was the
    music of Beethoven that moved me so or,
    more likely, the mingling of both their spirits
    that tore so plaintively at my soul.

    Whatever the cause, I felt a great spell upon me,
    and I saw nothing and was not conscious where
    I was until, suddenly and accidentally, my eyes
    fell upon her face; I was brought back to my
    surroundings,--and all the things I had heard
    about her came to me, and went crowding through
    my mind.

    She was not alone in the box, although she
    sat apart in a corner, separated from the
    other people as it seemed to me she always
    was. She was leaning a bit forward with
    her hands clasping her knees, her lips a
    trifle apart and seeming singularly pale;
    but what I noticed most was the expression
    in her eyes, which had an entreaty and a
    pathos in them I had never seen in any face
    before,--and her mouth was strangely soft with a
    look of sweetness about its corners.

    She was not looking at Kreisler, but gazing out
    before her as though at something we others could
    not see, and I was filled with a peculiar sensation
    that she understood and felt things which were remote
    from other people.

    Then I looked away because somehow I felt as if
    I were spying at her with her mask off, and
    looking upon her soul!

    The violin stopped and, as the last notes vibrated
    and died away and were swallowed up in the applause,
    I looked at her again.

    Once more the hard look was on her face and the
    bitter pain in her eyes.
    I saw the people she was with exchange a casual
    remark with her, and then draw a little aside
    and talk among themselves.

    All at once a great wave of tenderness came over me,
    and I longed with sudden eagerness to put my arms
    about her and draw her to me. I wanted to tell
    her not to be lonely and sad and bitter, because
    I knew she was not all they said she was, and all
    they had made her with their idle talk.

    I wanted to hold her hand and tell her I understood
    and sympathized with her, and that I knew she only
    seemed all the things they said, simply because
    no one ever kissed her.




HURT FEELINGS


    You remember of course the day I acted so
    queerly in your studio?
    How happy we were going up the stairs, and how
    we laughed and vowed it would be the most wonderful
    day we had ever spent!

    “The day of days,” you called it.

    And do you remember how I tripped and
    dropped the tea and sugar packages, and you dropped the cake in
    an effort to steady me--and how we sat down on the
    steps and laughed and laughed as though it was the
    funniest thing in the whole wide world?

    And then in the corridor you would not let me open
    the door until you had kissed my hands.

    But as soon as we were in the studio something
    seemed to snap within me, my mood changed entirely
    and I ceased to laugh; I put the packages on the table
    and was very quiet.

    Of course you thought I had one of my old-time
    headaches, and you took out that absurd headache
    cologne--which never does the slightest bit of good--
    and insisted upon spraying it over me.

    And you tried to make me laugh again and kissed my
    neck, but in spite of the fact that you looked like
    an injured little child, I stood looking out of the
    window and, when you asked me what was the
    matter, I merely replied “nothing.”

    Then in the face of all your desperate entreaties
    I left the studio, and went down the stairs out into
    the street....

    I am sorry now I did it and, although I
    never meant to tell you the reason--now,
    because it all seems so trivial, I think
    I shall:

    Do you remember how I stopped laughing the
    instant you opened the door?
    That was because I noticed at once the
    little plant I gave you was placed in a
    dark corner, withered and dead.




WEARINESS


    No, I do not want to dance tonight,
    nor talk nor play.
    You think I am foolish because I
    want to sit here and stare into the
    night? I wonder!
    You say I am lazy?
    I wonder at that too. Well, no matter.

    You go and dance and leave me here
    alone; then when you return you will
    tell me what you have accomplished by
    your dancing, and if you feel any the
    happier for it,--but no, do not bother--
    I think I shall be too tired even to listen.

    It is true you will be exercising
    your legs, but I shall sit here
    and travel far and wide among the stars--
    and exercise my soul.

    Do you know my body seems strangely
    lax tonight?
    I think I must be quite exhausted;
    and I am sure that I could sit here
    for years and years and never move
    a muscle or enter into life at all again.
    So tired am I.

    Perhaps, if I sit here long enough,
    all the generations of the future will come
    and tell me their secrets because they
    will know I should be far too weary
    ever to repeat them.




OPPORTUNITY


    It is strange how seldom people can judge
    the psychological moment to reach forth
    their hands and grasp what they desire.
    How often does the gardener in the field of
    life pick the rose before it has really
    opened or just a little too late, when
    it has already commenced to fade and drop
    its petals,--but how divinely fortunate
    is the one who plucks it just at the right
    moment and, as a reward, not only has the
    rose, but very often with it a tiny, glistening,
    jewelled drop of dew!

    We cannot say that this is merely chance,
    but rather a God-like bit of intuition
    that is wound about and entwined in some
    souls.

    Too often in our feebleness we say opportunity
    makes us what we are; and we do not realize our
    strength or we should say that _we_ will make
    opportunity for that which we wish to be!

    I feel that opportunity is something which grows
    often and plentifully in the lives of some but,
    like the grass beneath our feet, it is very
    seldom cultivated and springs up noiselessly
    and silently so that we do not notice it.

    Most of us, when we wish to do something very
    much or attain a great desire, expect the
    moment for fulfillment to come heralded with
    blasts of trumpets--and when it does not
    come that way, but through an unpretentious
    medium, we cannot grasp its significance;
    and so we pass it by....

    The wise soul is he who expects and seeks
    opportunity in all places--not graspingly
    or shrewdly, but silently and with great
    faith; and who knows and comprehends the
    law that not always must we go out to seek
    it, but perhaps, while merely contemplating
    the stars, will we gain force--and so it
    will come to us.

    Not too obviously, perhaps, but with an interior
    illumination that will give us the Vision
    and show us the path onward.




TIME


    Time and space mean very little to me today.
    I am sitting here thinking of ten years ago
    and marvelling because it seems so close and so
    little forgotten,--infinitely nearer than those
    moments of even yesterday, which seem already remote and distant.

    How strange time is!

    Do you know I often fancy that old Father Time
    holds in his hand some musical instrument? Maybe
    a harp or a lyre--instead of a scythe as he is
    always depicted--and he plays and plays and
    plays ... mostly very low; and then things
    that occurred only yesterday seem vague, almost
    forgotten and far away.

    But sometimes he sees our hearts craving to recall
    vividly some face, to live over again some
    moment, or to hear once more an almost forgotten
    echo--and then he takes compassion upon us and
    he plays madly and loudly, and suddenly, as though
    in a vision, we witness departed moments; or we
    see a face or hear a voice close beside us, and
    so real are they, that we have but to stretch out
    our hands to touch and caress them, or turn
    our heads to hear the cadence of a voice rise from
    out the long-dead past.

    Have you noticed how vividly old people recall
    their childhood?

    Ah, that is because Father Time, being so old
    himself, has a profound attraction for old age,
    based on reciprocal qualities which he knows them
    to share in common with him.

    So of course he loves them best and, realizing
    that he has no earthly future to offer them, he
    draws down his musical instrument and plays louder
    and louder--and lo! they can sit for hours at
    a time, slowly rocking backward and forward, and
    all the while they are living over again some
    cherished moment and hearing sweet, enchanted music.

    And, if you listen closely during the silent
    intervals between the squeaking and rocking of
    their chairs, I am sure you will hear them saying
    softly to themselves as they nod their heads slowly
    to and fro--
          “Why, it all seems only yesterday!”




REVELATION


    It seems to me that life is absolutely
    futile and incomplete until we realize that
    no matter what we are doing, or whither
    going, it is because of some preconceived
    reason; and that in the end, when we have
    reached the last turning of the road and
    come to lay down our wearying burdens, no
    matter what our regrets through life may have
    been--we will know and fully comprehend
    that the tending of our footsteps this or
    that way was merely the working out of a
    great end.

    The orientation of our views is so limited
    and circumscribed that, when something comes
    to us which we have not desired, we can
    only feel the bearing down of a cruel fate
    upon our heads. And too often we toss those
    same heads back in stubborn despair and grind
    our teeth in the gale of what must be--
    thereby losing our balance and sense of what
    _might_ be had we the courage to entwine
    our strength with that of the Infinite!

    Many times the inveiglement of an idea--a set
    idea which perhaps we have nourished in our
    hearts for days--will keep us from all
    realization of the good we might gain by a
    different shaping of our lives from that
    which we had dreamed.

    To some of us the revelation never comes;
    and we go on pursuing life with our noses
    pressed to the ground, without a glimmer
    of comprehension of the great and superfine
    machine which marks out and registers our lives.

    To others, who are perhaps more worthy, the
    revelation _does_ come, and usually during or
    after our darkest hours.
    It is indeed a proof of the Divine that we should
    receive light after darkness!

    To these same it is strange how sometimes
    it will come slowly like the rising of the
    moon, and then again quickly as a flood
    of sunlight after a darkening cloud has passed.

    In the sad or desperate moments of our lives
    when indeed we see nothing to go on for--
    when we are torn and spent and there seems
    no end to the coursing of the blood from
    out our hearts--it is then that the knowledge
    in a flash comes to us, that there _must_
    be a reason, and that we could not be made
    to suffer so without an ultimate beneficial
    purpose.

    And so all striving seems puerile and we cease
    to beat our wings against the cage, lift our
    torn hearts instead to the sweet rain of
    heaven and ask to see the star that may guide us.

    And, as small children who, seeing not, obey,
    so we too, set forth; and, although unconsciously,
    in our faith become as sages.




FINDING GOD


    I have been reading tonight a book on
    science which, I think, tends to
    kill all spiritual hope and attributes
    everything to the material; taking away
    our dreams of miracles, crushing
    our hopes in the Beyond and
    tearing down the belief of a divine
    intuition within us.
    It explains all these things as springing
    entirely from pathological causes and
    seems to feed the intellect while
    it starves the Soul.
    I think so much has been said in this generation
    about science, so much has been questioned and
    delved into about it that I cannot help
    feeling that science will eventually encompass
    and satiate the world--that is, if we let it
    engulf us completely and turn our hearts and
    souls into rocks and machines; and insist in
    believing that the still silent voice within
    us, which we once called God, is merely the
    emotion caused by a craving for food or sleep
    or air, or some other physical necessity--
    which will cease when we last close these
    weary eyes of ours.

    It is indeed true to call this the age of science
    and “The Iron Age,” for what could tend to make
    men’s hearts more thoroughly iron than to tell
    them to stifle and kill all their emotions and
    that we are, after all, only a part of the scheme
    of the Whole, and must not look forward because
    there is no Beyond?

    “Where there is no vision the people perish.”
    So in this age when men seek and in answer
    find only a golden frame--with no color
    picture inside to brighten the rooms of life--
    but instead cold dismal facts, perhaps then
    it is well that thousands of these poor
    men should be killed off and not taste the bitter
    poison to the end.

    And yet, is it not the irony of fate that
    science again with its machine guns, its
    poisoned gas and all other improved and
    advanced diabolical warfare should be the
    hand to slay them?

    Men’s ears that can only listen to the roar
    of machinery, cannot hear the song of the
    birds; men’s bodies and feet that are so well
    clothed, cannot feel the clay of the earth nor
    the poetry of the wind and sun on their bodies;
    men’s eyes that are tired straining in the
    research room or the laboratory cannot see the
    stars, and men’s hearts that lead themselves into
    believing that from the decay of these poor
    bodies there is no future, cannot see God.

    And by these words I do not mean to refute
    the great and everlasting good that science
    has done for the world, nor do I forget the
    vast progress for the benefit of humanity in
    surgery, hygiene and medicine, and the advancement
    toward comfort, economy of time and manual labor
    which it has donated to us by the efforts and
    sacrifices of wonderful and brave men.

    To all those who have toiled and still have been
    able to Believe, I should like to write a eulogy.

    But it is to those who, in their search in science,
    have lost their ideal and come to live so scientifically
    that their souls, as it were, have dried up and left
    only the workings of their brains--
    it is from these, that I would turn my face away.

    To live _really_ it is impossible to live scientifically.
    We must live by the emotions to survive and find
    God, because it is only by and through the emotions
    that we truly palpitate and feel ... and reaching
    out we extend our hands and lean far into the Vast
    Space of the Infinite!




BRAINSTORM


    How absurd people are! As if anyone could ever
    understand anyone else! I am so tired of people
    always trying to understand me, when I hold no
    understanding of myself. Tonight I have no faith
    and in my brain there are chaos and whirlwinds.
    I have ceased to believe in God or man.

    Do you remember when I used to talk to you of ideals
    and truth and all such false things? That was when
    I was quite mad, but tonight I am _sane_; sane and
    weary of all control and pretenses. I am tired of
    being polite, of talking low when I wish to shout, of
    laughing when I want to cry. I am tired of convention
    and going to dinners and saying “What a charming party
    this is” when all the while I should like to tear the
    table-cloth off and smash up the best china.

    I am tired of shuffling feet, ever struggling onward
    and leading nowhere. I am tired of weak vacillating
    people and those who do not know real love--Love is
    no love at all where for its sake one is not willing
    to commit a crime. But I am also tired of loving and
    of being loved--it seems to be the dark ages since
    I spoke to you of love--I am tired of lies and truth--
    more tired of truth since it only raises hopes and in the end fails.
    How futile all these things are, how misguiding and tragically frail!

    If Life only had long hair so that I might run my hand
    through it and tear it from its roots! If I could
    only be an earthquake and shake the very civilization
    of life! Civilization, what a farce! As if there
    existed any such thing. I wish I could be a hurricane
    and crush down everything in my way, or a maddening
    thunderstorm, with its flashes of blood and fire across the sky....
    A thousand dead bodies tonight might lie in my way
    and I should like to walk over them and, I wish that
    Life itself were a strip of gauze so that I might tear
    it asunder and throw it to the winds!

    Chaotic wild thoughts are running through my brain,
    but mostly darkness and a mad desire to end it all.
    I am so very tired of Life, but most of all I am tired
    of myself.
    _Oh, My God_, let me break these chains....
            I am so very tired of myself!




PEACE


    It had been such a warm day. Toward sunset
    do you remember how we stole away to the
    beach and after driving for some time we
    finally came to the dunes, got out of the
    motor and walked the rest of the way?

    I can remember now how white the sand was
    and how our feet sank in it and, when we
    drew them out again it seemed to cover our
    tracks leaving hardly any impression behind us.
    I remember also how the long reeds sprang up
    and almost hid you from view; then we began
    to climb the dunes and all out of breath
    we reached the top, and there below us lay
    the beach, and the ocean spreading out from
    it as far as we could see.

    I recall catching my breath as I always do
    when I again perceive the ocean after having
    been away from it. It always seems to fill
    me with such inexhaustible wonder and pours
    into my soul a peculiar strength and power
    to go on with the dull and terrible things
    of life ... forcing me to finish and, at
    the end, to conquer them.
    I can see now the blueness of the water and
    feel again the great stillness that seemed
    to be about us. Over our left shoulder
    back of us lay the inlet, with the sun shining
    on it and causing it to dazzle like a steel
    needle; and the long thin white beach--like
    a golden thread--stretching from it and
    finally seeming to trail off to nothing and
    burying itself in the foam of the sea.

    Do you remember how we lay there for ever so
    long and neither of us said a word? Finally
    the sun went down and we watched the sand
    change from gold to red; the sky became violet
    with little shadings of green and pink and
    then suddenly--as if by magic--the ocean
    became quite calm and a fascinating little
    star appeared reflecting and twinkling on the inlet.

    Back on the main land we watched the little
    lights of the houses come out one by one;
    in the twilight at first they were very faint
    and pale, but after as the night stooped
    down and crept upon us, they grew brighter and stronger.

    And then for the first time you broke the silence;
    turning to me you asked, “What are you feeling?”

    I answered, “Peace.”




TWILIGHT DREAMS


    As I open the long windows and step out upon
    the terrace, the presence of the mysterious
    hour is upon me....
    A strange undefined blue mist rises from the
    earth and gently, like a magical veil, winds
    itself around the trees and slowly rising,
    presses its face against the sky as though to
    peer into the eyes, and read the heart of the stars.

    Fantastic trees dimly outlined, bend together
    and whisper softly; suddenly I feel as though
    the air were charged with all the wishes of the
    world. Great and small, joyous and sad wishes,
    all thrown out from the struggling desirous
    heart of Life and, at twilight hour stealing
    silently--some a little ashamed, some a little
    proud--to nestle under the white moon--flowers
    in hopes that some soul of the dead--which steal
    about at twilight hour too--may be their friend
    and help them to come true.

    Timidly, and trembling a little from the embraces
    of the mist, a tiny star shines out, while slowly
    and reverently the darkness kneels down and kisses
    the face of the earth.
    A vast and deep silence has come over everything;
    and I, with all else, find myself holding my
    breath as I steal back into the room and sink into a chair.
    Leaning back languidly I half close my eyes, while
    far off I smell the salt and sadness of the sea....
    Weirdly and ghostlike you creep in and, in my
    twilight dreams, you come to me!




Transcriber’s Note:

- Text that was in italics is enclosed in underscores (_italics_).

- Text that was in small caps is in all caps (SMALL CAPS).

- Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

- Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
changes:

  Page 11: “by the same upsparing” to “by the same unsparing”

  Page 16: “my heart with ice boned” to “my heart with ice-boned”

  Page 36: “to live so scentifically” to “to live so scientifically”
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79277 ***