PART I (continued 2)

“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.

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!