* * * * *
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 _Г©lan_ 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 MoliГЁre 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 HeloГЇse. 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.
