PART II

SEEKING A PUBLISHER

July 8th.

To-day I took it to the publisher's!

I had been pondering for a week who were the best publishers. To-day I hardly had the courage to go in—I know nothing about such things—and my hands shook so I could hardly hold the package.

I asked to see the manager. I told him I had a manuscript to submit. He looked at me—I guess I must look rather seedy. “What sort of a manuscript?” he asked. “A blank verse drama!”

Then he took it and glanced over it. “Blank verse dramas are difficult things to publish,” he said.

“You had best read it, I think,” I answered, “you will find it worth while.”

“Very well, if you wish,” said he, “we always read everything that is offered to us.”

“How soon shall you be able to let me know?”

“Oh, in a week or ten days.”

And then I went out—shuddering with excitement. A week or ten days! Well—I can wait. I have done all my duty, at any rate.

July 9th.

I have certainly played a bold game with my poem! At the publisher's at last—and I, having paid my room-rent, have just a dollar in my pocket!

I have been tramping about all day to-day, looking for some work. I don't care what it is—I can do anything to keep alive for a week or ten days.—I wonder if they will advance me some money at once.

They all stare at me suspiciously. I think some of the wildness of the woods must still hang about me.—Anyway, I walk along on air, I fear nothing. I could hug all the passers-by. My book is at the publisher's! I could beg, I think, if I had to, and do it serenely, exultingly. I have only a dollar—but have I not all the stars?

I was thinking to-day about Carlyle, and that ghastly accident to his manuscript. Let others blame Carlyle for his sins—for those days of agony and horror I forgive him all things, and love him.

I have the original manuscript of The Captive put safely away. If that poem were destroyed it would kill me. I can think of anything else in the world but such a thing as that.

July 10th.

What will they write me about it? I picture to myself all the emotions of a publisher when he discovers a poem like that! Ah yes, good publisher, I have scanned your lists for many months back; but you have published nothing like The Captive.

And then I shall taste my first drop of success.

—I do not want it for myself—it is not that—I want it for the book! I want people to love it—I want it to stir their souls! I want brothers and friends and lovers in that great glory of mine! That is why I want all the world to shake with it.

And then I can go on!

—I wonder if they will write to me sooner, when they find out what it is.—

I have been picturing myself with some money! It is all over now—and I can do that—will it not be strange to have some money! I have been thinking where I should live, and what I should do.

The first thing I shall do is to get somebody to teach me music. And then all the concerts that I long for! How long has it been since I have heard a note of music?

I think that is all I want. I want no toys in my life. I want my freedom, and my soul, and the forest once again.—

I read some of the psalms to-night—far, far into the morning. My heart is a psalm.

—I have gotten something to do! I am a waiter in a restaurant on Sixth Avenue! I got the place this morning. Ugh!—it is nasty beyond words. But I do not care, it will keep me alive.

July 11th.

What a thing is hope! I have been for two days chained in the most horrible kind of a place. Picture it—to stand all day and see low people stuffing themselves with food—the dirt and the grease and the stench and the endless hideous drudgery! And I five days out of the springing forest and the ecstasy of inspiration!—Truly, it is a thing to put one's glory to a test! But I hardly feel it—I walk on air—deep back in my soul there is an organ song, I hear it all day, all day!

How soon will they write? I fly up-stairs each night, looking for a letter. Hurry up! Hurry up!

—“Pegasus im Joche!”

July 13th.

The book! The book! I go thinking about it—when I come home I throw myself down on the bed and laugh with suppressed excitement. I think all day—they are reading it now, perhaps! Ah, my book! And perhaps I'll find somebody at home there to see me about it to-night!

I look at the reviews—I am interested in all the books of the day now—because The Captive is going to be among them! How will it seem to see it there, in big letters?

And how will it seem to be known? I am not a fool—I know what will help me to my peace when I am out there in the woods again—and it will not be that the newspapers have been talking about me, and that the dames of high society have asked me to their tea-parties. But there are one or two men in this world that I should like to know. Perhaps as the author of a book that is known it would be possible.

—Yes, before I was one of the mob, and now I have shown what I can do.

July 15th.

The horror of that awful “eating-joint” grows on me every hour. I could not bear it much more—physically it makes me ill, and no amount of enthusiasm can make that better. I will not sell a second more of my time than I have to. I made up my mind that I would give up the place at the end of the week. The money will do me for another week after that, and by that time I will surely have heard from the publishers.

I'll have to tell them, that's all,—it is nothing to be ashamed of. They'll have to give me some money in advance. I can not live in that cesspool.

Yes, to-morrow and half of the next day,—that is all I will bear!

—I long sometimes to go and see them; but no, I can wait.

July 17th.

I treated myself to a long holiday this afternoon. I went up to the park, and walked and walked. Everything was in a tumult within me—I was clear of that last prison. And all the excitement and the power of that poem are still in me. I am restless, all on fire, stern, hungry, like a wind-storm. Come not near me unless you wish for truth! Come not near me if you fear the gods!

To-day my thoughts went surging into the future. I shall have money!—I shall be free!—And what shall I do next? I counted up what I might have—even a slight success for the book would mean a fortune such as turned my head to think of. What would I do?

My mind pounced upon a new work—a work that I have dreamed of often. Would it be my next work? I thought—would I be able—would I dare? It is a grand thing.

I went on, and got to thinking of it; I almost forgot that I was not still in the woods. What a sweeping thing I see it!

The American! It would have to be a three-volume novel, I fear—it would be as huge as Les Misérables!

It is the Civil War! I am haunted by that fearful struggle. Is there anything more fearful in history, any more tremendous effort of the human spirit? And so far it has not made one great poem, one great drama, one great novel!

It was the furnace-fire in which this land was forged—this land which holds in its womb the future of the world—this land that is to give laws to the nations and teach mankind its destiny. I search the ages, and I find no struggle so fraught with meaning, with the woe and the terror and the agony of a desperate hope.

It must be all put into an art-work, I say! There is no theme that could thrill the men of this country more, that could lift them more, that could do more to make their hearts throb with pride. We sent all the best that we had—armies and armies of them—and they toiled and suffered, they rotted upon a thousand fields of horror. And their souls cry out to me, that it must not be for naught, that the fearful consecration must not be for naught.

The world is filled with historical fiction; it is the cant and the sham of the hour.—Bah!

—This is what I long to do; to take the agony of that struggle and live it and forge it into an art-work; to put upon a canvas the soul of it; to put it there, living and terrible, that the men of this land might know the heritage that is come down to them.

It would take years of toil, it would take money, too—I should have to go down there. But some day I shall do it!

I saw some of it to-day, and it made my blood go!

I saw a poet, young, sensitive, throbbing at the old, old wrong, at the black shame of our history; I saw him drawn into that fearful whirlpool of blood and passion, driven mad with the pain and the horror of it; and I saw him drilled and hammered to a grim savageness, saw him fighting, day by day, with his spirit, forging it into an iron sword of war. He was haggard and hollow-eyed, hard, ruthless, desperate. He saw into the future, he saw the land he loved, the land he dreamed of—the Union! She stretched out her arms to him; she cried with the voices of unborn ages, she wrung her hands in the agony of her despair. And for her his heart beat, for her he was a madman, for her he marched in sun and in snow, for her he was torn and slashed, for her he waded through fields of slaughter. Of her he dreamed and sung—sung to the camps in the night-time, till armies were thrilled with his singing.

This was the thing of which he sang, the gaunt, grim poet: There is a monster, huge beyond thought, terrible, all-destroying; the name of it is Rebellion, and the end of it is Death! Day by day you grapple with it, day by day you hammer it, day by day you crush it. Down with it, down with it! Finish it!

I heard that as a battle-cry: “Finish it!” I saw a man, wild and war-frenzied, riding a war-frenzied horse; he rode at the head of a squadron, bare-headed, sword in hand, demon-like—thundering down-hill upon a mass of men, stabbing, slashing, trampling, scattering! Above the roar of it all I heard his cry: “Finish it! Finish it!”

And afterward he staggered from his horse and knelt by the men he had killed, and wept.

—I saw him again. It was when the man of the hour had come at last; when the monster had met his master; when, day by day, they hammered it, the fire-spitting, death-dealing monster; when they closed with it in death-grapple in a tangled wilderness, where armies fought like demons in the dark, and the wounded were burned by the thousands. I saw companies of fainting, starving, agonized men, retreating, still battling, day by day; and I saw the wild horseman galloping on their track, slashing, trampling—and still with the battle-yell: “Finish it! Finish it!”

I saw him yet a third time. It was done, it was finished; and he lay wounded in a dark room, listening. Outside in the streets of Washington a great endless army marched by, the army of victory, of salvation; and the old war-flags waved, and the old war-songs echoed, and he heard the trampling of ten thousand feet—the rumbling of the old cannon—and the ocean-roaring of the vast throngs of men! A wild delirium of victory throbbed in his soul,—burned him up, as he lay there alone, dying of his passion and his wounds. Born of the joy that throbbed in the air about him, born of the waving banners and the clashing trumpets and the trampling hosts and the shouting millions—a figure loomed up before him—a figure with eyes of flame and a form that towered like the mountains—with arms outstretched in rapture and robes that touched the corn-fields as she sped—angel, prophetess, goddess!—Liberty!

—And at her feet he sobbed out his life.

—The American!

July 18th.

Still another day, and no news from the publisher's. The time is nearly up—I can not wait much longer.

They have rejected The Captive! They have rejected The Captive! In God's name, what does it mean? They have rejected The Captive!

I stared at the paper in blank consternation! I couldn't realize the words, I couldn't understand what they meant. Such a thing never occurred to me in my wildest moment.

What is the matter with them—are they mad? Great God, that any human creature!—And without a line about it!

—“We have carefully considered the MS. which you have kindly offered us, and regret that we are not advised to undertake its publication. We are returning the MS. with thanks for your courtesy in submitting it.”

That letter came to me like a blow in the face.—I have spent hours to-night pacing the streets, almost speechless. Fools!

—But I will not let such a thing disturb me for an instant. Yes, they are a great publishing-house—but such things as I have seen them publish! And they “regret.” Well, you will regret, some day, never fear!

July 19th.

The manuscript arrived this morning. I took it up-stairs and sat down, trembling, and read it all again.

I wish that I could see the man or woman who read that poem and rejected it—just that I might see what kind of looking person it is. Oh, the wildness of it, the surge and the roar of it! The glory of it!

I can not afford to waste my time worrying about such things. I only say “Fools!”

—I took it to another publisher. I don't know any in particular, but I will try the best. This publisher didn't seem very anxious to read it. Go ahead, try it!—Or are you a fool too?

—Of course I shall have to begin tramping around, looking for some work again. I must find something better than the last.

July 20th.

Nervous, impatient—it is so that I have lived. Never to waste an instant has been my passion. I have struggled, watched, fought for a minute. If ever I were held back or kept idle it drove me wild, and I burst through everything. It has always been a torture to me not to be thinking something.

But less of that torture than I have now, I think I never had; it seems as if I had won the mastery—I mind nothing any more. I walk upon the air, and I never tire. Thoughts—endless thoughts—come to me without ever the asking; nothing disturbs me, nothing hinders me—I take everything along with me.—I am full of impulse, of life, of energy!—

And this when I have spent all the day looking for work!—answering advertisements, and tramping to this place and that! Discouraging?—what does the word mean?

—I am the man who has never learned to shiver and shake!

I thought of a young Irishman I worked with a long time ago. “Once I went into a place, and says I, 'I'd like to be havin' a job.' An' he looked me over, an' he says, says he, 'Git oot!' An' so I thought I'd better git oot!”

It might take me some time to find a publisher, I was thinking to-day. I do not know anything about publishers. But once get it before the world, that is the thing! I fear nothing, I can wait. It is done, that is all I can think of. —The rest “must follow, as the night the day.”

July 21st.

To-night I sat by the bedside trembling, thinking of what I had learned. Oh, this faith that I have gained, it must go forth among men! A prayer welled up in my soul—I have learned what I can do—I have learned that I can do what I will! I have seen the infinite heights that lie beyond—oh, let me not fail! The hopes of unborn generations are in my soul.

—That is true. What systems shall come of this vision of mine, what new ways of beauty, what new happiness and new freedom! That thought has shaken the very depths of my soul.

It makes me leap up—it makes me wish to go! Why should I not start now? Why should I waste to-day?

July 22d.

I have been making plans. I must get to work. I was racing through all sorts of vast schemes to-day as I walked about the streets hunting for something to do. I will make my Greek perfect first—I can do that while I am walking.

I made an athlete of myself pacing up and down with The Captive! I honestly think I walked ten or twelve hours some days. I have walked all day to-day, but I do not feel tired. I answered advertisements in the papers.

—Why are men impolite? I do not believe I could ever learn to speak rudely.

July 23d.

The impossible occupations that I have thought of, in trying to solve my problem! To-day I saw myself a lighthouse-keeper! What does a lighthouse-keeper do, anyway? And could I manage to get such a place where I could be alone by myself?

—But no, some one would have to attend to the light!—

I thought of being a hall-boy. But you are not paid very much.—I said, however, that I would at least get some sort of a place up-town. I could not stand it down in the “business” world.

God, how horrible it is! All that seething effort—and for what? All this “business”—is it really necessary to the developing of the souls of men? Does each man in that rushing mob need more money yet, to begin developing his soul?

—Another occupation! I saw myself a lonely hunter, living by a mountain lake, and shooting game for a living! I wonder if that wouldn't be possible. I never shot any game, but I could learn.

It would suit me perfectly to sit by a mountain lake and read Greek and watch for ducks.

July 27th.

I was getting down pretty close to the limit again, but I got something to do to-day. I had to take what I could find; it is what would be called a good position, I suppose; I am in a wholesale-paper store. I get twelve dollars, and that is quite something.

The business of the will is to face the things that come—not any other things. Now I have to drill and discipline myself anew, to learn to save my soul alive in a wholesale-paper store!

It is a great, dingy place, full of chaffering, hungry-looking men. They are all desperately serious; it is a great “business house,” I believe; the very atmosphere of it is deadly poison.

—Oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner, that didst gaze at me over black-rimmed spectacles—so I have “an opportunity to rise,” have I?

Yes,—I shall rise upon wings of a sapphire sheen, and toss myself up in the wind and shake down showers of golden light into thy wondering eyes, oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner!

—It is my business to show samples of paper. I shall learn all about them in a few days, and then I shall go at the Greek.

July 28th.

Whenever I feel weary I run off into a corner and whisper into my ear, “It is done! Be not afraid!” Instantly my heart goes up like swift music.

July 31st.

Twelve days since I left The Captive; they said it would take three weeks.

Something strange flashed over me to-day, something that sent a shudder through me; I have done a strange thing to myself this summer, not in metaphor, but in fact. I have seen a ghost; I have drunk a potion; I have gazed upon a nymph; I have made myself mad!

I am no longer a man among men—I am “the reed that grows never more again”!

—I try to lose myself in a book, but the book does not hold me. Nothing satisfies me as it used to,—I am restless, hungry, ill at ease. Why should I read this man's weak efforts—what profits me that man's half-truths?

—And all the time I know too well what I want—I want to fight!

I want to get back into the woods again! I want that vision again! That work again! I want myself!

—And here I am, a bird in a cage, beating the bars. What folly to say that I can be strong and endure this thing! That I can endure anything, dare anything. Yes, so I can—if I can strive! Put me out there alone, and set me a task, and I will do it though it kill me. But how can I conquer when I can not strive?

Here I am, tied! I am tied—not hand and foot—but tied in soul. Tied in time! Tied in attention! How can I be anything but beaten and wretched? How can I expect anything but defeat and ruin? A song comes to me, it calls me—and I can not go! I must stare at it and watch it leave me!—How can that not drive me wild?

The great wings of my soul begin to beat—I go up, I am wild for the air,—and then suddenly I am struck back by the hideous impertinences of the wholesale-paper business! How can I endure such things as that—how can I conquer Why, it is like the clashing in my ears of twenty trumpets out of tune!

Do not keep me here long! Do not keep me here long!

—It is something that I find very strange and curious to watch—how spontaneously, and instinctively, all young men dislike me. Have I a brand upon my forehead?

It is not my habit to stand upon the pedestal of my inspiration, and gaze down upon those that I meet. Sympathy is my life—I can sympathize even with men who aspire to rise in business. But I have to live many lives, and new lives; and I can brook no delay.

I will make no compromises; I have sworn a vow against idle words—they may dislike me as they will. I give my work, for which I am paid; I can not give my soul.

August 2d.

Oh what a horrible thing is “business”! Here, where I am,—this is the world. An industrial era!

This is a wholesale-paper house, and the three partners who run it call themselves, with unconscious irony, “wholesale-paper MEN”! They live their lives in wholesale-paper,—they talk it—they dream it—they plan it—they have no hope in the world except to find people to buy wholesale-paper! And the manager—keen and hungry—he is planning to be a wholesale-paper man himself. And here are twenty-five men and youths apparently having but one virtue in the world, the possibility of consecrating their souls to wholesale-paper!

What they make is useful, it may even be sublime—in which way the business is unique. But none of these men ever thinks of that—they would be just as absorbed in the business if it were wholesale bonnets. None of them has the least care in the world about books. And these men who come here to buy the paper—are they any better? Or is their interest in the paper the profits it may bring to them?

—Dear God!—That brought me back to The Captive.

—I have been sick to-day, and sickness clips your wings. It is an error of mine—I pay for my food with my soul, and so I try to eat little, and thereby make myself ill.

August 3d.

I got my first twelve dollars to-day!

August 5th.

To-day I made a resolution, that I must stop this chafing, this panting, this beating my wings to pieces. A man's inspiration must be under his control, to stop it, as well as to start it. I can not write or dream poetry while I am in this slavery, and somehow I have to realize it. When I go home I will get to some work, and not wander around hungering.

After my glimpse of the forest it is frightful to be penned in this steaming city. To have to work in an office all day—sometimes it makes me reel. And then at night too, when I try to read, the room gets suffocating.

Then I go out among the tenement-house crowds, carrying my little note-book. I stop at a lamp-post and look at a couple of words and then walk on and learn them! So I go for hours.

—Hurry up, publishers!—I wrote to them to-night.

August 7th.

“In answer to your letter of the 5th instant, we beg to inform you that your manuscript is now in the hands of our readers, and that you may expect a report upon it in a week.”

I am reading Euripides.

August 8th.

Oh how will I find words for my delight when I have got a little money and can escape from dirt and horror. To-night two vile men have been quarreling in the room underneath, and I have been drinking in all their brutal ugliness. Bah!—

To live in a place where there are not horrible women in wrappers, reeling, foul-smelling men, snuffling children with beer-cans!

This is more of my “economy”!

To-night I sat upon the edge of the bed and whispered, “To be free! I shall be free!”—until I was trembling in every nerve.

My beautiful poem! My beautiful poem will set me free!

Sometimes I love it just as if it were a child.

August 10th.

Twelve dollars more!

August 11th.

“We have read with the utmost interest the manuscript of The Captive which you have been so good as to show us. We are very sorry to say that it does not seem to us that the publication of this poem would be a venture in which we could engage with profit. At the same time, however, we have been very much struck with it, and consider it an altogether remarkable piece of work. We should like very much to have the privilege of an interview with you, should you find it convenient.”

Now what in the world do they mean by that? If they are not going to publish the book, what do they want to see me for? And I've wasted two weeks more of my life!

I had not reckoned on petty things such as these. I fear I have not much knowledge of men. How can a man read The Captive and not know that others would read it? What are they in business for, anyway?

August 12th.

I begged off from work for an hour. I have had an interview with the great publishers! I have learned a great deal too.

I saw the manager of the firm. He meant to be very kind, that is the first thing to say; the second is that he is very well-dressed, and comfortable-looking.

“Now, Mr. Stirling,” said he, “you know a publishing house is always on the lookout for the new man. That is why I wanted to have the pleasure of meeting you. It is evident to me that you have literary talent of no common kind.”

(I bow.)

“I wish that I could tell you that we could consider The Captive an available piece of writing; I have read it myself with the greatest care. But you must know, Mr. Stirling, that it is an exceedingly difficult piece of work; I mean difficult from a publisher's point of view. There is very little demand for poetry nowadays—a publisher generally brings out at a loss even the poems that make a reputation for their authors. Whether you are aware of that I don't know, but it is true; and I think of all kinds of poetry a blank verse tragedy is the most to be shunned.”

(Here a pause. I have never any tongue when I am with men.)

“What I want to talk to you about, Mr. Stirling, is the work which you contemplate in the future. As I said, I was interested at once in this work; I should like very much indeed to advise you and to be of any assistance to you that I can. I should like very much to know what your plans are. I should like very much to see anything that you might write. Are you contemplating anything just at present?”

“No, not just at present.”

“Not? Don't you think that you might find it possible to produce something just a little more in accordance with the public taste? Don't you think, for instance, that you might possibly write a novel?”

(Some hesitation.) “I have thought of a novel.”

“Ah! And might I ask—would it be a character study?—or perhaps historical?—or—”

“It would be historical.”

“Ah! And of what period?”

“The Civil War.”

(A great look of satisfaction.) “Dear me! Why, that is very interesting indeed, Mr. Stirling! I should like to see such a work from your pen. And are you thinking of completing it soon?”

(General discomfort on my part.) “I had never thought of the time exactly. I had feared it would take a great many years.”

(Perplexity.) “Oh, pshaw!—still, of course, that is the way all great work is done. Yes, one has to obey one's own inspiration. I understand perfectly how he can not adjust himself to the market. I have seen too often how disastrous such attempts are.”

(More courteous platitudes, I assenting. Then at last, weary—)

“You don't think, then, that you will be able to undertake The Captive?”

“No, Mr. Stirling, I really do not think we can. You understand, of course, if I take this work to the firm I have to tell them I think it will sell; and that I can not honestly do. You know that a publishing house is just as much limited as any other business firm—it can not afford to publish books that the trade does not want. And this is an especially unusual sort of thing, it is by no means easy to appreciate—you must be aware of that yourself, Mr. Stirling. You see when I read a manuscript I have to keep constantly before my mind the thought of how it is going to affect the public—a very different thing from my own judgment, of course. From the former standpoint I believe there are things in The Captive that would meet with a reception not satisfactory to either of us, Mr. Stirling.”

(Perplexity on my part.) “You'll have to explain that to me, I fear.”

“Why—but the explaining of that would be to offer you my opinion about the book—”

“I should be very pleased to hear it. Your reason for declining it, then, is not altogether that it is a blank-verse drama?”

“Not altogether, Mr. Stirling. It's a little difficult for me to tell you about these things, you know. I understand that the book must have meant a great deal to you, and so I am naturally diffident. But if you will pardon my saying so, it seems to me that the book—it is obviously, of course, the work of a young man—it is very emotional, it strives to very high altitudes. I will not say that it is exaggerated, but—the last part particularly—it seems to me that you are writing in too high a key, that your voice is strained.” (An uncomfortable pause.) “Of course, now, that is but my opinion. It will not seem of any value to you, perhaps, but while I read it I could not get away from the fact that it was not altogether natural. It seemed hysterical and overwrought in places—it gives the effect of crudeness. It is rather hard, you know, to expect a man who sits at a desk all day to follow you in such very strenuous flights.” (A slight laugh.)

“Mind you it is not that I do not appreciate high qualities, Mr. Stirling, it is merely that it seemed to me that if it were toned down somewhat it would be better—you know such things strike different people in different ways; you do not find it easy to believe that it would affect men so—but I am pretty sure that the impulse of the average critic would be to go still further—to make fun of it. Here, for instance—let me read you the opinion upon the book that was handed in by one of our most experienced readers—etc., etc.—”

I have told enough of that story, giving the conversation as literally as I can recall it. I am always a fool, the presence of other men overawes me; I sit meek and take all that comes, and then make my escape. The great publishers' manager still thinks he impressed me with his wisdom—he has half an idea I'm going to “tone down” The Captive!

—He read me that criticism—great God, it makes me writhe! It was like a review of the Book of Revelations by Bill Nye.

That my work should be judged by such men!

—“Exaggerated!” “Hysterical!” And is there nothing hysterical in life, then? And would you go through battle and pestilence with the same serenity that you sit there at your desk all day, you publisher?

As if a man who was being torn to pieces would converse after the manner of Mr. Howells and Jane Austen!

—“Tone it down!” That bit of inanity has been haunting my ears. Tone down The Captive! Tone down the faith and rapture of my whole life, until it is what the reading public will find natural!—And tone down the Liebes-Tod—and tone down the Choral Symphony—and Epipsychidion—and King Lear!

“This is mere madness,” observes the queen. Tone it down!

August 12th.

I sat last night brooding over this thing till almost dawn. I could not bring myself to the thought of offering my work again to be judged by such people. I made up my mind to take a different course—I sat and wrote a long letter to a certain poet whom I love and honor. He is known as a critic—he will know. I told him the whole story, and asked him to read the poem.

It was something that I had never thought about, the effect of The Captive upon commonplace people. I was so full of my own rapture—I made my audience out of my own fancy. And now these snuffy little men come peering at it!

My appeal is not to the reading public—my appeal is to great minds and heroic hearts—to the ages that will come when I have gone.

—And can it be that I am to repeat the old, old story—will every one laugh at me and leave me to starve?

—I will get myself together and prepare for a siege. I will find an opening somewhere. You can not shut up a volcano.

August 16th.

There seems to be little use of struggling. I can not control myself. I wander around, restless, unhappy. That horrible prison that I am pent in—God, how I hate it! Such heart-sickening waiting—waiting!—and meanwhile that intolerable treadmill! It drives me wild! I am so full of life, of passion; and to be dragged back—and back—and stamped on! Each day I feel myself weaker; each day my power and my joy are going. Let me go—let me go!

Is my inspiration of no value at all, my ardor, my tenderness, my faith,—all nothing? You treat me as if I were an ox!

It is like being chained in the galleys! The dust and the heat, the jostling crowds, the banging and rattling, the bare, hideous streets—and above it all the wild, rampant vulgarity—the sordidness, the cheapness, the chaffering! My eyes stare at advertisements and signs until they burn me in my head.

Oh, the hell of egotism and vulgarity that is a city!

—“Why so much trouble? Other men bear dust and heat, and do their work without complaining!” Ah, yes!—but they do not have to write poems in the bargain!

If it were for truth and beauty, such a life would be heroism. But the hoards of wealth that they heap up—they spend it upon fine houses, and silly clothes, and gimcracks, and jewels, and rich food to eat, and wines to drink, and cigars to smoke! Bah!—

It is the brutality of it all that drives me wild. I see great, hulking, disgusting bodies that live to be pampered and fed. And after that, in the place of minds, I see little restless centers of vanity—hungering, toiling, plotting, intriguing—to be stared at and praised and admired.

August 20th.

I thought that I would surely have heard from my poet by now. I am not a good waiter.

The senior-partner's nephew is a young German, over to learn the language. He is on a furlough from the army. He has close-cropped hair, a low forehead, and two front teeth like a squirrel's. When he smiles he makes you think of a horse. He has opinions, commercial and political, which he enunciates in a loud voice. Think of listening to Prussian opinions!

And there is another clerk who was meant for a variety-show specialist. He hums comic songs and cracks jokes, and conducts witty pantomime incessantly. He is very popular. He is never quiet. Sometimes he slaps you on the back.

I wrestle with my soul all day; the rage of it is like to burst me. The infinite pettiness of it—that is the thing! I am bitten and stung by a swarm of poisonous flies!

August 24th.

Another twelve dollars yesterday! I gasp with relief as if I were hauling a load up successive slopes; here is so much gained, so much safe. I have gotten along on twelve dollars; I have a little over thirty-five.

I believe these things are more wearing than the toil of writing; I know I find it so. Then I accomplish something; here I work myself into nervous frenzies, and chafe and pant for nothing. I can feel how it weakens me; I can feel that I have less elasticity, less élan 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:

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!—

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 Molière 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 Heloïse. 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:

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—

November 2d.

I am not always as I write here—I am not always angry. I have my tender moments, when I see my woe as the world's woe—above all the poverty. Oh let me always have a tender heart for the poor!

November 6th.

I have a distant relative in this city, an old gentleman who belongs to clubs and is what is known as a “man of the world.” He has quite a sense of humor—is famous for good stories. He told me that he was interested in me—that he would be glad to find a place for me in life, if I would only get over my youthful follies. It has been years since I saw him, but I can still hear him.

The last words he ever said to me were these—said with his quiet, amused smile: “Never mind, my boy, leave it to time. You needn't argue with me—just leave it to time, and it'll come out all right.”

Never have I sunk into a fit of despair that I have not thought of that; and the quiet smile has become the sneer of an imp. It has become all the world watching me, and knowing full well the issue; wise world!

That memory has never yet lost its power to make me grip my hands suddenly. “So! And my life has no other purpose, then, than to point a moral for a rich clubman!”

Leave it to time! Leave it to time! O God, what a sentence that is—so savage—and so true! Leave it to the long weary days that come one after another—that never tire—that never are beaten—that never are less—never faster—never slower—that wear you out as water wears a stone! Leave it to time! Say nothing, fear nothing; leave it to time! Leave it to the hours of dulness, the hours of sickness, the hours of despair! Leave it to failure piled upon failure, to insult piled upon insult, to rebuff upon rebuff, to sneer upon sneer! Leave it to the endless, never-ceasing sight of ugliness; the endless, never-ceasing sight of selfishness; of pettiness, emptiness, heartlessness, hatefulness! Leave it to heat and to cold, to dust and to dirt, to hunger and penury, to headache and heartache, and bitter, bitter loneliness! Leave it to time! Leave it to time!—Oh my Father in heaven!

November 8th.

—What am I doing? I am reading books full of facts—I am reading books that do not make me wretched. I am not reading poetry.

I am leaving it to time!

November 10th.

It has been four weeks yesterday! I have been expecting to hear from the last publishers every day for a week. I have been trembling while I watched each mail. I have more than a hope that these publishers will take it—they publish a deal of poetry.

But I have been practising my friend's plan, I have been saying to myself all day: “You might as well know that it is coming back. What is the use of trying to deceive yourself?”

It has been four months since I finished The Captive! If I had known then what I know now, I do not believe I could ever have written a line of it.

What do I know now?

—I know more than I care to own to myself. There is a deadly growth taking root in the depths of my soul.

November 13th

It is two months to-day since I gave up my last place. I have gotten along on just three dollars a week, including everything. I find it is not possible to do better than that, there are so many odds and ends one needs. I have spent twenty-seven dollars. I have twenty-nine dollars. That means I can try two, or possibly three, publishers—after this one.

November 16th.

My method did make it easier after all. The letter came this morning.

“We have read with care the manuscript of The Captive which you have offered us. We are pleased to be able to tell you that we have found it a very fine piece of work, but we are sorry to say that our previous experience with publications of this character does not lead us to believe that we could make a success of it.

“We are holding MS. subject to your order.”

I did a desperate thing to-day—two of them. First I had to go and get the manuscript, so I asked to see the publisher. I sat down and looked straight into his face and said: “How is a man who is trying to write what is fine to keep alive if the publishers won't publish what he writes?”

He was very kind—he seemed to be interested. He explained that a publisher who published books that the public did not want would be driven out of business in a year. Then he said he knew many who were facing the same problem as I; that there was nothing to do but write for the magazines and the papers, and that it was a bitter shame that society made no provision for such men. “Your work is as noble and sincere as work can be,” he said, “but I do not believe that you will find a publisher in this country to undertake it, unless there be one who feels wealthy enough to do it as a service to literature and a labor of love.”

That made me turn white. I got my manuscript and I went out on the street, and the houses reeled about me. “So,” I said, “and that settles it!”

As I walked along I stared into the future. It seemed very clear all of a sudden.

I thought it all out. “No one will publish The Captive,” I said, “and no one would heed it if it were published. Therefore I have but one question to face, Have I the strength to go on, living as I have lived, distracted and tormented as I have been—and still piling up new emotions in my soul, daring new efforts, reaching new heights, producing new books? I can have no idea that my second work will be any more available than my first; on the contrary, I know that it would be just what The Captive is, only more so. Therefore, perhaps it will be ten years—perhaps it will be twenty years—before men begin to pay any heed to what I have written! And so there is the question, Have I the strength to go on in that way—have I the strength to face that future?”

Then I grew faint and had to lean against a railing. I knew that I could not do that!

It is no question of what I will do! It is a question of what I can do! I am weakened and sick with the yearning that I have in me already. My last “business” experience drove me mad. And I am to go on, I am to rouse new hunger, new passion, new agony in my soul! Why, the work that I have dreamed of next is so hard and so far-away that I hardly dared even whisper it! It would take years and years of toiling! And I am to do it here in this seething city—to do it while I sell wholesale-paper—to do it while I am sick for lack of food! I can not do it! I can not!

I went home, and I was crazy; so it was that I did my second desperate thing.

I sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. ——. I wrote a letter—I can not see how it could fail to stir the soul of any man. I told him how I had toiled—I told him how for four long months I had waited in agony—I told him what the publishers had said to me. I begged him—I implored him—for the sake of the unuttered message that cried out day and night in my soul—not to throw the letter aside—to read it—to give me a chance to talk to him. I said: “I will live in a hut, I will cook my own food, I will wear the clothes of a day laborer! If I can only be free—if I can only be free to be an artist! I could do it, all of it, for two hundred dollars a year; and I could win the battle, I know, if I had but three years. I am desperate as I write to you—I look ahead and I can see only ruin; and not ruin for myself—I do not mind that—but ruin for my art! I can tell you what that means to me in but one way—I ask you to read my book. I have put all my soul into that book—I will stake my all upon it. If you will only read it, you will see what I mean—you will see why I have written you this letter. You will see that it is not a beggar's letter, but a high challenge from an artist's soul.”

So there is one chance more. I do not see how he can refuse, and if he will only read the manuscript, I will be safe, I think.

November 20th.

I have done nothing but wait for four days, but I have not heard from him yet. To-day I made up my mind that I would take the manuscript to another publisher's meanwhile. He is probably busy, and may not answer for a long while; and I can get the manuscript from a publisher at any time.

November 24th.

Still I have not heard anything from Mr. ——. My soul was full of hope again, but it is sinking down as before. Is he not going to answer me at all?—Can it be that he has not even read my letter?