Chapter VIII: Part II: Seeking a Publisher (4)

I sit and wait and hang upon the faint chance of one publisher more. It is my only chance,--and such a chance! I find myself calculating, wondering; yes, famous books have been rejected often, and still found their mark. Can I still believe that this book will shake men?

Ah, God, in my soul I do not believe it, because I have lost my inspiration! I have let go of that fire that was to drive like a wind-storm over the world.

* * * * *

Yes, I ask myself if such things can be! I ask myself if they were real, all those fervors and all that boldness of mine! If it was natural, that way that lived!

--Oh, and then I look back, and my heart grows sick within me.

* * * * *

So I spend my time, and when I turn and try to lose myself in Nietzsche, his mercilessness flings me into new despair.

* * * * *

January 18th.

I have the terrible gift of insensibility; and I think my insensibility torments me more than anything else in the world.

I have no life, no power, no feeling, naturally--it is all my will, it is all effort. And now that I am not striving, I sink back into a state of numbness, of dull, insensible despair. I no longer feel anything, I no longer care about anything. I pass my time in helpless impotence--and day by day I watch a thing creeping upon me as in a nightmare. I must go out into the world again and slave for my bread!

--Oh, _then_ I will feel something, I think!

* * * * *

Another week and more is gone, and I have but a little over four dollars.

* * * * *

January 20th.

I have stopped reading Nietzsche. I could not stand any more of it. It does not satisfy me.

It is not merely that I am so weak now, and that his mocking goads me. I would have been through with him in any case. He is so narrow--so one-sided.

It is reaction from the present, of course, that accounts for it. Too much gazing upon the world, that has led him to believe that love of man necessarily implies compromise.

There are two words that are absent from his writings--they are love and humanity; and so it never satisfies you, you are always discontented, you have always to correct and supply.

* * * * *

January 22d.

Oh why do those publishers take so long! I wait and yearn; I grow sick with waiting and yearning.

I never allowed any weakness in my soul before; I never made any terms with it. I blamed everything upon myself. And now that my whole life is weakness and misery, I writhe and struggle--I turn back always on myself, suspecting myself, blaming myself. I can not lay it to the world, I can not get into the habit--it is such a miserable habit! How many millions there are of them--poor, querulous wretches, blaming their fate, crying out against the world's injustice and neglect--crying out against the need of working, wishing for this and that--discontented, impotent, miserable! Oh my God--and I am one of such!

I can not bear the sound of my own voice when I complain! I hear the world answering me--and I take the part of the world! “Why don't you be a man and go out and earn your way? Why don't you face your fate? You prate about your message--what business has a man with a message that is too much for him? What business have you with weakness--what _excuse_ have you for weakness?”

And so I came to see it. The world is right and I am all wrong! And the truth of it burns me like an acid in my brain.

* * * * *

January 24th.

And all the time my whole being is still restless with the storms that raged in it last spring! I have all those memories, all that poignancy. I can not realize it--any of what I was and had--but I know it as a _fact_, a memory, and I crouch and tremble, I grow sick with it.

* * * * *

Why don't they write to me? My money is going!

* * * * *

January 26th.

The reason that I shudder so at the prospect of having to face the world again, is that I have no hope. _I have no hope!_ Once I could go out into that hellish market. I could be any man's slave, do any drudgery--because I saw a light ahead--I saw deliverance--I had a purpose!

And now what purpose have I--what hope have I? I tell you I am a man in a trap! I can do nothing! I can do no more than if I were walled in with iron!

I say that my business in this world is to be a poet! I say that there is only one thing I can do--only one way that I can get free--and that is by doing my work, by writing books. And I have done all that I can do, I have earned my freedom--and no one will give it to me! Oh, I shall die if I am penned here much longer!

* * * * *

I eat out my heart, I burn up my very entrails in my frenzies. Set me free! _Set me free!_

* * * * *

I thought to-day if I only had a little money--if I could only publish that book myself! I can not believe that men would not love it--I can not--no, you may crush me all you please, but I can not! And I would take it and shout it from the housetops--I would peddle it on the streets--I would _make_ the world hear me!

--And then I sink back, and I hear the world say, “You poor fool!”

* * * * *

January 28th.

I have only a dollar and a half left! I have sat, shuddering and waiting, all that I dare; the end is come now, I must look for work to-morrow. It is like a death-sentence to me. I could do nothing to-night.

* * * * *

January 29th.

Providence came to help me to-night for once! It snowed to-day and I have been hard at work again.

* * * * *

January 30th.

Some more snow. My hands were nearly frost-bitten, but I keep at it; for at least it is out in the air, and it gives me a little longer respite.

In the afternoon I made up my mind to go and see the publishers and ask them if they could not read the story at once--it has been a month. I saw their literary manager; he said he was going to read it himself.

* * * * *

January 31st.

More snow again to-day. And I have made over five dollars. But I have come out of it more dead than alive--dulled, dispirited, utterly worn out.

If I could only be an animal for a time. But each day of the drudgery only makes me wilder with nervousness.

* * * * *

February 1st.

They regret, of course, and hold the MS. at my disposal. I went up to get it this afternoon, and half by accident I met the man I had seen before. I had a talk with him. He was a very curious personage.

He seemed to have been interested in The Captive. “I'll tell you,” he said, “you know there's really some extraordinary work in that poem. I believe that you have it in you to make some literature before you get through, Mr. Stirling.”

“Do you?” I said.

“Yes,” he replied, “I feel pretty sure of it. You ask me to tell you about it--so you mustn't mind if I speak frankly. And of course it's very crude. You haven't found your voice yet, you're seeking for mastery, and your work is obviously young. Anybody can see in a few lines that it's young--it's one of those things like Goetz von Berlichingen, or Die Räuber--you tear a passion to tatters, you want to rip the universe up the back. But of course that wears off by and by; it isn't well to take life too seriously, you know, and I don't think it'll be long before you come to feel that The Captive isn't natural or possible--or desirable either.”

The publisher was smoking a cigar. He puffed for a moment and then he asked, “What are you doing now?”

“Nothing just at present,” said I.

“I should have supposed you'd be writing another poem,” he replied,--“though of course as a matter of fact the wisest thing you can do is to wait and learn. Your next book will be entirely different, you can be quite sure--you won't be so anxious to get hold of all the world and make it go your way.”

I smiled feebly. “Possibly not,” I said.

“I'll tell you a story,” said the publisher--“speaking about youthful aspirations! I was talking to Mr. X---- last night, the author of ----. [Footnote: The manuscript names an extremely popular historical novel.] You wouldn't think X---- was the sort of man to be reforming the world, would you? But he told me about his earliest work, that he said he had tucked away in a drawer, and it turned out he was like all other authors. This was a socialist story, it seems, and the hero delivered fiery speeches six pages long. And X---- said that he had written it and taken it to a publisher, expecting to upset the world a week after it appeared, but that he never could get anybody to publish it, and gave it up finally and went into journalism. The funny part of it was that he had sent it here, and when he told me about it, I remembered looking it over and writing him just about what I'm telling you.”

The publisher smoked for a moment or two. “You see, Mr. Stirling,” he said at last, “he had to wait ten years before he 'arrived.' So you must not be discouraged. Have you read his book?”

“No, I have not.”

“It is a very pretty piece of work--it's been many months since it came out, but they say it's still selling in the thousands. Don't get discouraged, Mr. Stirling, keep at it, because you have real talent, I assure you.”

I rose to go, and he shook my hand. “Take my advice,” he said, “and write something more practicable than a tragedy. But of course don't forget in any case that we shall always be very happy to read anything of yours at any time.”

--I walked down the street meditating. I will get over it again, of course; but to-night I sat in the dark and the cold, shivering. And I asked myself if it must not be so after all. “_Is_ it true, the thing that I did; is it _natural_?” I said. “Or must it not be exaggerated and crude, as they all tell me! And uninteresting!--What is the use of it? I tormented myself that way and tore myself to pieces, but it does not stir any one else.”

Ah, of course it's all dead in me--and I'm prepared to believe anything they tell me! It's overwrought, it's young, it's pitched in too high a key, it's strained and unnatural, it takes life too seriously! Certainly at any rate they are right that I shall never, never do the same thing again.

But unfortunately I don't feel like writing anything else. I don't know anything about historical novels.

* * * * *

--I would have read some of the poem again to-night, but I'm too discouraged. I am tired of it. I know it by heart, and it doesn't take hold of me.

I have been too long among men, I groan. I see their point of view too well!

Why, there are things in that book that when I read them now make me shudder. I have hardly the courage to offer it to any one else to read. I don't know any one to take it to, besides.

* * * * *

O God, I'm so unhappy!

* * * * *

February 3d.

To-day an idea occurred to me, one that should have occurred before. Once upon a time I was introduced to the editor of the ----. Perhaps he will not remember it, I said. But anyhow, why not try? I will take him The Captive--perhaps he can use it in the magazine--who knows?

I knew nothing better to do, so I went there. He was very polite--he did remember my face. He was fearfully busy, it seemed. He did not think there was much likelihood of a magazine's publishing a blank-verse tragedy; but I told him how I had worked, and he said he'd read it.

And so there's one chance more!

My poor, foolish heart is always ready to tremble with new hope. But faith in that book was so _ground_ into it!

--I asked him to read it at once, I explained that I was in great haste. I think he understood what I meant. My clothes show it.

I have been hoarding my money--counting every cent. I dread the world so! Now that I am so broken, so laden with misery, it sounds about me as one jeer of mockery. But I shall have to be hunting a place soon--you never can tell how long it may take you, and the chances are so terrible.

I will not do anything until I hear from this one man, however. He promised to let me know in a week.

* * * * *

I did not see him at the publisher's--he has another office besides. He had huge piles of papers and books about him; he is an important man, I guess; can it be that he will be the one to save me?

I think: “Oh if he knew, he would!” I find myself thinking that of all the world--if I could only make them understand! Poor, impotent wretch, if I could only find the _word_!

--Or is it simply my blind egotism that makes me think that?

* * * * *

February 6th.

I do not think that what I write can be of much interest. It must be monotonous--all this despair, this endless crying out, this endless repetition of the same words, the same thought.

Yet that is all that my life is! That is just what I do every day--whenever I am not reading a book to forget myself.

It is all so simple, my situation! That is the most terrible thing about it, it is the same thing always and forever.

* * * * *

I have lived so much agony through this thing--it would not startle me if I saw that my hair had turned white. I know I feel like an old man. I am settled down into mournfulness, into despair; I can do nothing but gaze back--I have lived my life--I have spent my force--I am tired and sick.

I! I! I!--do you get tired of hearing it? It was not always like that; once you read a little about a book.

* * * * *

February 8th.

This is the fifth day. I am counting the days, I have been counting the very hours. He said he would be a week. And I--only think of it--I have but two dollars and sixty cents left!

Hurry up! Hurry up!

--And then I say with considerable scorn in my voice: “Haven't you learned enough about that manuscript yet? And about publishers yet?”

* * * * *

February 10th.

Just imagine! I went to see him to-day, and he stared at me. “Why, sure enough, Mr. Stirling!--It had slipped my mind entirely!”

I have learned to bear things. I asked him calmly to let me know as soon as possible. He said: “I am honestly so rushed that I do not know where to turn. But I will do the best I possibly can.”

I said--poor, pitiful cringing, is it not terrible?--that I'd be up his way again in three days, and did he think he could have it read by then. He said he was not sure, but that he'd try.

And so I went away. Now I have two dollars and twenty-three cents. I have to pay my rent to-morrow, and that will leave me a dollar and a half. I can make that do me seven or eight days--I have one or two things at home. I'll wait the three days--and then I'll have to set out in earnest to find something to do.

Oh, the horror of not knowing if you can pay your next week's room rent in this fearful city!

* * * * *

February 11th.

I sat and looked at myself to-day. I said: “When a soul is crushed like this, can it ever get up again? Can it ever be the same, no matter what happens? Don't you see the fact, that you've been tamed and broken--that you've _given in_! And how will you ever rise from the shame of it, how will you ever forget it? All this skulking and trembling--how will you ever dare look yourself in the face again! Will not it mock your every effort? Why, you poor wretch, _you've got a broken back!”_

* * * * *

February 12th.

And to-morrow again I must go there, trembling and nervous, hanging on a word!

There is not much sense in it, but I have learned to hate all men who have ease and power.

* * * * *

February 13th.

I knew it! I could have told it beforehand. “I am awfully sorry, Mr. Stirling, but it is no use talking, I simply can not! I will write you just as soon as ever I get it read.”

And so I came out. I had a dollar and twenty cents. My rent would be due in four days again. So even if I got some work at once I should have to pawn something.

--Thus I began my search for a situation. I could not choose--I was willing to take anything.

I fear I look like a tramp; but I have several letters from places where I have worked. Still, I could not find anything. I have tramped all day until I could hardly move. I bought a paper, but everything advertised was gone by that time.

If it would only snow again, so that I could shovel some more!

* * * * *

February 14th.

Again I have been pacing the streets the whole endless day, beaten back and rebuffed at every turn. I have been drilled for this, this is the climax! First take every gleam of heart out of me, and then set me to pacing the streets in the cold, to be stared at and insulted by every kind of a man!

And still nothing to do.

* * * * *

February 15th.

I take my lunch with me--I have cut myself down to twenty cents a day for food. I walk and walk, and I am so hungry I can not do on less than that. I have but sixty cents left to-night. I failed again to-day.

* * * * *

February 16th.

It is not as desperate as it sounds, because I have a few books and things that I can sell--I do not believe that I will actually starve--I have always done my work well, and have gotten references. But O God, the shame of it--the endless, heaped-up bitterness!

I have sunk into a beast of burden. I trudge on with my mind torpid--I take whatever comes to me, and go on mechanically. Oh it cows me, it wears me down! I have learned to bear anything--_anything_! A man might kick me and I would not mind.

I think I went to fifty places yesterday. Nothing to do--nothing. To-day is Sunday, but I tried even to-day. I came home to get some dinner.--I might have been a porter in a hotel, and carried trunks--that was my one chance. But I have not the physical power for that.

--And then after all--toward evening--when I was so tired I was almost wild--I had an offer at last! And guess what it was--of all the things that I had made up my mind I could not bear--to be a waiter!

It is, I believe, what a man should call a rare opportunity. It is a fairly good restaurant just off Broadway; and I get ten dollars and tips. Poor me! My heart bounded for a moment, and then I asked myself, And what do you want with money any more? I took the place, and I am to begin the day after to-morrow. I am so tired I can hardly move.

* * * * *

February 17th.

Was it not irony? I have watched day by day for snow; and now that I have taken the other place--behold, to-day it snows a foot!

--I went to see the editor in the afternoon. I was desperate at the thought of to-morrow. I said I would tell him!--But when I got there I only had the courage to inquire about the poem. He had not read it. I feared he seemed annoyed.

I shall not go there again for a week. I can not make him hurry.

* * * * *

February 18th.

To-day I had to begin by apologizing to my landlady, and begging her to let me pay her a week later. I had to go into an elaborate explanation--she wanted to know why I had not been working all these months, and so on. She has a red face, and drinks, I think.

Then I had to take a load of my best books--my poor, few precious books that I have loved--and sell them at a second-hand bookstore. When I had sold them I had to hire a waiter's suit for a week, until I had money to buy it. And then with that awful thing on I went down to the restaurant.

Can you imagine how a pure woman would feel if she had to go into a brothel to live? That was just how I felt--just how! Oh my God, the indignity of it! Is there _anything_ that I could do more humiliating?

--But I have lost the power of getting angry. Only my heart is one great sob.

* * * * *

February 20th.

Oh, that hellish place! What is there in this whole city more brutal than that restaurant?

Day and night, day and night, to see but one thing--to see flashy, overdressed, fat and vulgar men and women gorging themselves! Oh, this will teach me to feel--this at least! I go about with my whole being one curse of rage--I could throttle them! And to bow and smirk and lackey them--all day! All day! Oh, what shall I do--how shall I bear it?

They offer me tips. At first I thought I should refuse; but no, I dare not do that, even if I wanted to. And since I have stooped to do it, I will take all I can get. To get money is my one passion now. Oh my God, how can I bear it!

* * * * *

February 21st.

I said to-day, I must fight this thing--I must, or it will kill me; I can not let myself go to wreck in this fashion--_I've got to fight!_

And so I got my note-book; and I fell to work to drive myself as of old. The effort that it cost me made me ill, but I did it. I shall keep on doing it--I am like a man faced by a fiend--I _must_ keep on--I must!

But then, why do you want to have new languages? Do you not know enough now to keep you in reading matter for all the time you are ever likely to have?

* * * * *

February 24th.

Oh, one can get used to even a flashy restaurant! It is your fate--you take it. This is how I pass all my time there. I struggle to resist the deadening of it, and the horror of it; while I am going about the loathsome grind I try to think--try to have some idea in my head. And something comes to me--something beautiful, perhaps; and then in a few moments, in the clatter and confusion, I lose it; and after that I go about haunted, restless, feeling that I have lost something, that I ought to be doing something. What the thing is, I do not even know--but so it drives me and drives me!

I spend literally hours that way.

* * * * *

February 25th.

When are you going to read that poem--_when_? The week was gone yesterday--but I will not trouble you, even now! I wait, I wait!

* * * * *

February 27th.

There is another torment about this fearful place that I am in, one that you could not imagine. I had thought that it would be a pleasure, but it tears my soul. They have music in the evening; and fancy a person in my state listening to a violin!

Chiefly, of course, they play trash; but sometimes there comes something beautiful, perhaps only a phrase. But it takes hold of my soul, it makes my eyes grow dim, it makes me shudder. It is all my pent-up agony, it is all my sleeping passion--why, it overwhelms me! And I am helpless--I can not get away from it!

Remember that I have not heard any music for a year. It is like the voice of a dead love to me. I thought to-night that I could not bear it.

* * * * *

March 1st.

To-day I had a day off, and I went to see the editor. I have been waiting, day by day, for a letter; it has been a month since I left it with him, and I found that he had not read it yet!

“Mr. Stirling,” he said, “it is not my fault, it has simply been impossible. Now I will tell you what to do. I am going out of the city Sunday week, and I shall have a little leisure then. I do not see how I can get to it before that, so you take it and see if you can find some one else to read it meanwhile. If you will bring it to me Saturday, a week from to-day, I will promise you faithfully to read it on Sunday.”

So I took the manuscript. I tried four publishing houses, but I could not find one that would read it in a week. I had to take the manuscript home.

* * * * *

March 3d.

To-morrow ends my second week at the restaurant. It took me five days to find that place, but I am going to give it up to-morrow. I could not bear it, if it were to save my life. I can not bear the noise and the grease and the dirt, and the endless, endless vulgarity; but above all I can not bear the music.

I can bear almost any degradation, I have found; but not when I have to listen to music!

Besides, I can afford to give it up. I have made a fortune. I shall have over thirty dollars when I leave!

* * * * *

I have always been paid, I find, in proportion to the indignities I bore--in proportion to the amount I humiliated myself before the rich and the vulgar. These vile, bejeweled, befeathered women, these loathsome, swinish men--_these_ are the people who have money to spend. They go through the world scattering their largess with royal hand; and you can get down and gather it up out of the mud beneath their feet.

* * * * *

I come home at night worn out and weak, sometimes almost in a stupor; but I am never too ill to brood over that hideous state of affairs. I gaze at it and I wring my hands, and I cry: Oh my Father in heaven, will it always be like this?

Think of it--this money that these people squander--do you know what it is? It is the toil of society! That is what it is,--it is _my_ toil--it is the toil of the millions that swarm in the tenements where I live--it is the toil of the laborers, the beasts of burden of society, in the cities and in the country.

Think about it, I cry, think about it!--Can I not find any word, is there nothing I can do or say now or at any time, to make men see it? Why, you take it for granted--_I_ have taken it for granted all my days--that money should belong to the brutal rich to squander in whatever inanity may please them! But it never dawns upon you that this money is _the toil of the human race_! Money is the representation of all that human toil creates--of all _value_; it is houses that laborers build, it is grain that farmers raise, it is books that poets write! And see what becomes of it--see! _see_! Or are you blind or mad, that you _will_ not see? Have you no more faith in man, no more care about the soul?

* * * * *

You think that I have been made sick by my work in that one haunt of vice. But it is not only that, it is not only that fever district where all the diseases of a city gather. I have been all _over_ the city, and it is everywhere the same. Go to the opera-house any night and you may see blasphemous vanity enough to feed the starving of this city for a year. Walk up Fifth Avenue and see them driving; or go to Newport and see them there. Why, I read in the papers once of a woman who gave a ball--and the little fact has stuck in my mind ever since that she wore a dress trimmed with lace that cost a thousand dollars a meter! I do not speak of the infinite vulgarity of the thing--it is the monstrous _crime_ of it that cries to me. These people--why, they have society by the _throat_!

* * * * *

I bury my face in my pillow and sob; but then I look up and pray for faith. I say we are only at the beginning of civilization, we can see but the first gleams of a social conscience; but it will come--it must come! Am I to believe that mankind will always submit to toil and pant to make lace at a thousand dollars a meter to cover the pride-swollen carcase of a society dame?

* * * * *

How is it to be managed? I do not know. I am not a political economist--I am a seeker after righteousness. But as a poet, and as a clear-eyed soul, I stand upon the heights and I cry out for it, I demand it. I demand that society shall come to its own, I demand that there shall be intelligence in the world! I demand that the toil of the millions shall not be for the pride of the few! I demand that it shall not be to buy diamonds and dresses and banquets, horses and carriages, palaces and yachts! I demand that it shall be for the making of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and love!

* * * * *

Oh, thou black jungle of a world!--What know you of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and love? What do you dream of these things? The end of man as you know it is to fight and struggle like a maniac, and grab for his own all that he can lay his claws upon. And what is your social ideal--but to lavish, each man upon himself, all that he can lavish before he dies? And whom do you honor save him who succeeds in that? And whom do you scorn save him who fails?

* * * * *

Oh thou black jungle of a world!--I cry it once again--

Where savage beasts through forest midnight roam,
Seeking in sorrow for each other's joy!

I sit alone and think of these things, until my breath comes hard with rage. I say: “It is these that I serve--it is these who own the fruits of my toil--it is these for whom I am starved and crushed--it is these by whom my God-given power is trampled into annihilation!”

* * * * *

March 4th.

I gave the place up this morning. I have thirty-one dollars. I think such a sum of money never made me less happy.

I have nothing to do but drag myself back to my room and wait there until the eighth, to take back my manuscript. It will be five weeks that he has kept me--I suppose that is not his fault.

And then I say: “Fool, to torment yourself with such hopes! Don't you _know_ that he will say what all the rest have said? He is a clever man, and he knows everything; but what use is he going to have for your poetry?”

* * * * *

I wandered about almost all of to-day, or sat stupid in my room. I have lost all my habits of effort--I have forgotten all that I ever knew, all my hopes, all my plans. I said: “I will study!” But then I added: “Why should I? Shall I not only make myself miserable, get myself full of emotion, and to no purpose but the carrying of dishes?”

* * * * *

It is terrible to me to have to acknowledge any change in my way of living--I never did that before. Compromises! Concessions! Surrenders!--words such as those set me mad. But what am I to do? What _can_ I do? I writhe and twist, but there is no escape. I struggle upward, but I am only beaten back and back? How should I not stop striving?

* * * * *

Circumstances made no difference to a man. So I used to prate!

No difference! Why, I was a giant in my soul, swift and terrible as the lion. I leaped upon my task, I seized upon everything that came my way. I passed whole classes of men at a bound, I saw, I felt--I bore the world in my soul. I would dare everything, learn everything, live everything--take it all into myself. And every day I was stronger, every day I was more!--

And now see me! You have penned me here, you have starved me, stunted me, crushed me--I sit shivering and staring at my own piteousness! Why, I can not even be angry any more--I am too shrunken, too impotent for that! And was it my fault? Have I not fought till I was ill?

--But never did I put forth a hope that it was not withered in the bud! My every enthusiasm you stamped into the ground; every advance that I made--why you smote me in the face! And all my ardor, my confidence, my trust--has it ever met with anything but jeers?

* * * * *

--Yes, and now you turn away--this revolts you! This is bare, painful egotism--this is whining--this is querulous misery. It offends you like the sight of raw flesh!

--It is my raw soul. My poor little naked, pitiful, beaten soul!--groveling, and begging, too!

* * * * *

--But whose fault is it--merciful Heaven, whose fault is it? It is my nature to live in myself--to live from myself. And this that is unbearable egotism, why, it would have been exulting power! Joy in a vision! Mastery of a life and an art!

But here you shut me up! You crush me down! I try to escape--I cry out: “I am _not_ an egotist--I am a worshiper! I want nothing in the world so much as to forget myself--my rights, my claims, my powers, my talents! I want to think of God! Only give me a chance--only give me a chance to do that, and I care not what you do with me! Here I stand with my poor little work, begging, pleading for some one to heed it! Thinking of it only, living for it only, insisting upon it day and night! But do you think that I do that of choice? My God, no--you are mad--I only want to go on! Give me but the chance to go on--and do you think that I would care whether any man admired my work?”

--Why, I would not even know it--I would be out in the mountains alone!

* * * * *

“But for what had you your pride in the morning, and in the evening your submission?”

Can you guess how that jeer rings in my ears, how it goads me?

* * * * *

March 5th.

Sinking down! Sinking down! To see yourself one of the losing creatures, to know that there is no help for you in this world--that no one will heed you, no one will stretch out a hand! To see yourself with every weakness, to see yourself as everything that you hate--to be mad with rage against yourself, and still to be able to do nothing!

* * * * *

--Understand what I mean--poor fools, do not think it is for myself that I fear. If I wanted to fight a way for myself--I could do it yet--never fear. But ah, you will save the mother and not her child! What I weep for, what I die for, is my ART!

My vision, my life, my joy, my fire! These are the things that are dying! And when the soul is dead do you think that I shall care about the body? Do you think that I will stay in this world a shell, a mockery, a corpse? Stay either to putrefy with pleasure or to be embalmed in dulness? Nay, you do not know me!

* * * * *

--I said to myself to-night, “If I perish in this world it will be because I was too far ahead of my environment--that and that only. It will be because I was pure, single-hearted, consecrated, and because of such you neither know nor care.” Do I fear to say that? I am done with shame--I think that I am dying--let me speak the truth.

* * * * *

--And I have really said the word then--the word that can not be recalled--that my hope is dead, that I give up--that I can not live my life? Nay--I do not have to say the word, the word says itself.

* * * * *

March 6th.

To-day I shook myself together. I could not stand such wretchedness. I said, I will get a novel, and I will put myself into it--grimly--I will read in spite of everything.

* * * * *

And such a book as I lighted on by chance!--Once I had whole yawning vistas of books toward which I stretched out my arms; but somehow I had forgotten them all to-day. I could do no better than pick up a book by chance.--

I picked up Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I found myself in the midst of the same misery that haunts me here. I read it, but it did not help me.

* * * * *

--It is strange what poverty has ground into my soul. I find myself reading such a book with but one feeling, one idea crying out in me. I discover that my whole being is reduced to the great elemental, primitive instinct of self-preservation. Love is dead in me, generosity, humanity, imagination is dead,--everything but one wild-beast passion; and I find myself panting as I read: “Get some money! Get some money! Hold on to it!”

* * * * *

--After a while I think suddenly: “And I am a poet!” That brings a moan from me and I sit shuddering.

* * * * *

March 7th.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most unconvincing books I ever read. I neither believed in it nor cared about it in the slightest.

I am shown a “pure woman,” and by and by I learn, to my perplexity, that she has been seduced; after which she continues the “pure woman” again, and I am asked to agonize over her troubles! But all the time I keep saying, “This is not a woman that you are showing me at all--a woman with a soul; it is a puppet figure that you suppose 'seduced' for the sake of the story.”

It is our absurd English ideas of “propriety” that make possible such things. If the author had had to show the seduction of “Tess” the weakness of the thing would have been plain in an instant. That he did not show it was his lack of conscience. There is no propriety in art but truth.

* * * * *

March 8th.

I took the manuscript to the editor again to-day. He told me to come in on Monday.

Deep in my soul I can have no more disappointments about it. I take it about from habit. I sat and looked it over last night, but one can not read emotional things in cold blood. I said, Is this true? Is it natural? Is there any _use_ in it?

I was tempted to cut out one or two things; but I decided to let it stay as it was.

* * * * *

March 10th.

I have been sitting to-night in my room, half-dazed, or pacing about the streets talking to myself in a frenzy. I can hardly believe that it is true, I can hardly realize it! I laugh with excitement, and then I cry.

* * * * *

I went to-day to get back my manuscript. And the editor said: “Mr. Stirling, it is a most extraordinary piece of work. It is a most interesting thing, I like it very much.”

I stared at him gasping. Then I waited to hear him say--“But I regret”--But he didn't!

“I can't tell you anything definite about it,” he said. “I want to submit it to the firm. I wouldn't undertake to accept any such unusual thing for the magazine without consulting them, and especially seeing if they will bring it out afterward--”

“You are thinking of using it in the magazine!” I cried.

“As I tell you, I can't say positively. I can only tell you what I think of it. I will have them read it at once--”

“I will take it to them to-day!” I put in.

“No,” he said, “you need not, for I am going there this afternoon, and I will take it, and ask them to read it immediately.”

I can't remember what else he said. I was deaf, crazy! I rushed home, talking to myself incoherently. I remember sitting here in a chair and saying aloud, “Oh, it can't be! It is impossible! That it should be good enough to publish in a magazine like that! It is some mistake--it will all come to nothing. It's absurd!”

* * * * *

So I sat, and I thought what such a thing would mean to me--it would make my reputation in a day--I should be free--_free_! But I thought of it and it did not make me happy; I only sat staring at myself, shuddering. The endless mournfulness that is in my heart surged up in me like a tide, and suddenly I began to cry like a child.

“It has come to me too late,” I exclaimed, “too late! I can't believe it--it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care anything about it--I mean the poem! _I don't believe in it myself_!”

God, do you know I said that, and _meant_ it? I said more--I sat and whispered it to myself: “Let them take it, yes, let them! I don't care--it will set me free--I shall have some money! But they're fools to do it, they're fools!”

* * * * *

March 11th.

I tremble with excitement all the day, dreaming about that thing. I go about half-mad. “Oh, just think of it,” I whisper, “just think of it!”

I linger about it hungrily! He spoke as if he really meant to make them take it.

* * * * *

March 13th.

I went to see him to-day to ask. No, they had not let him know yet, but they had the manuscript. He would write me.

I made up my mind that I would not bother him again. I will wait, hard as it is.

* * * * *

I sat asking myself to-day, “Do you really mean that you believe that poem is going to stir the world--this huge, heedless world you see about you? Have you truly that blind, unreasoning faith that you try to persuade yourself you have?”

* * * * *

Ah, I don't know what I believe now. Only, once I had my young courage,--I feared not the world, I could do anything. Now I am but one among a million.

* * * * *

March 16th.

I force myself to read these things that half-interest me; but I think I spend a quarter of my time wandering about whispering that they are going to publish it. I cry out, “Oh, they must!” I go into the library and stare at the magazine and think of it there. I walk past the publishers', and think of it there! I have been inquiring all about publishing, about terms and all that sort of thing. It makes my brain reel--why, they might pay me five hundred dollars for it! Think of it--five hundred dollars!--I could go crazy with such a thought as that.

And then I think what the reviews will say of it, and I cry, “Oh, no, it can't be true!”

Again I find myself saying, “Only let them take it! I don't care about the rest, whether it succeeds or not--let them take it!”

* * * * *

March 18th.

I walked past the editor's office to-day. It took just every bit of will that I had, not to go in. I said: “He might know even now, and I wouldn't hear till to-morrow!”

But I didn't do it. I said I would wait a week, anyhow.

* * * * *

March 20th.

I don't know what in the world to make of it.

The week ended to-day, and nothing yet; and I hit upon another scheme, I went to the publishers. I said: “I will ask them, and he needn't know anything about it and it won't bother him.” So I went in and they referred me to the manuscript clerk. She said she had never heard of The Captive.

“But it's here somewhere,” I said, “the editor brought it here.”

“There is no manuscript ever comes here,” she answered, “that is not entered on my books.”

“But,” I said, “some member of the firm must have it.”

“If any member of the firm got it,” she said, smiling, “the first thing he would do would be to bring it to me to enter in the books.”

I insisted. I wanted to see somebody in the firm, but she answered me there was no use. Finally she suggested that they might know something about it up in the offices of the magazine. I went there, but no, no one had ever heard of it there.

I came home dazed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. He certainly said that the firm was reading it. I wrote to-night to ask him about it.

* * * * *

March 23d.

I have waited day by day in the utmost perplexity to hear from him about that. I should have heard from him yesterday. I don't know what in the world to make of it. Can he have gone in to them privately? Or can he have forgotten it--he is so busy!

I dread the latter circumstance--but I dread as much to anger him in the other case.

* * * * *

March 27th.

I waited four days more. I went up to see him. Just as I feared. I have annoyed him. I could see it. I know he must be tired of seeing my face.

“Mr. Stirling,” he said, “I have told you that the poem is being read by the firm, and that I will let you know the moment I hear from them.”

“I only came,” I said, “because the clerk told me--”

“There are some things clerks don't know,” he put in.

I tremble at the thought of making him angry. I will not go near him again.

* * * * *

March 30th.

I am doing my best to keep my mind on some reading, so as not to make the agony unbearable. But it is very hard--the mails disturb you. I can only read in the middle of the day, and at night. In the morning I expect the first mail, trembling; but after that I know a city letter can't come till afternoon, so I can read. Then again at night I know it can't come.

* * * * *

--I am reading The Ring and the Book. I have always found that it doesn't do to take vulgar opinions. I had supposed I should find The Ring and the Book hard reading.

It _is_ skippable--the consequence of having a foolish scheme to fill out. But the story of Pompilia and Giuseppi is one of the finest things I know of anywhere.

* * * * *

April 3d.

It has been another week. I could not stand it any more. I am going over to the publishers' again this afternoon.

--What in Heaven's name does this thing mean? I met the satisfied smile of the clerk again. “We have never seen the manuscript, Mr. Stirling!”

If you could only see how positive she is! “I don't know anything about what the editor told you, I can only tell you positively that he has never submitted any such manuscript to the firm, or to anybody connected with the firm.”

That thing drove me wild. I don't know what to make of it. Surely he's given it to some one, for he told me so.

I went up to the magazine rooms, and he was in his office; but he had left word that he would not see any one, and they would not even take in my name.

* * * * *

April 4th.

I can do nothing but haunt that place till I find out what it means! It has been three weeks and a half since he gave it to them, and he said I would hear at once. What in the world does he think it means to me? Can't I presume the slightest gleam of interest, of care, on his part?

* * * * *

April 5th.

To-day I could not stand it any longer. I went to the place again. I saw the manuscript clerk once more--the same answer. I went upstairs; he was there again, but busy. I wrote a note and left it. I explained that I did not in the least wish to trouble him, but that the thing meant a great deal to me, and that I had the utmost need of promptness; that it had been almost four weeks since he gave it to the firm, and that nobody there seemed to know anything about it.

* * * * *

April 7th.

He did not answer my letter! I thought I should hear to-day. O God, this is the most tormenting thing! Think what it means! And what in Heaven's name has he done? Surely some one--he must have given it to some one!

Only why in the world doesn't he understand my perplexity and explain?

* * * * *

April 9th.

No letter yet. I went back to the publishers' again this morning. I have been wandering by the place every day since. They had not seen it yet. She said she'd have the firm inquire, but I said not to, as it might annoy him. “He surely has given it to some one, you know.”--She laughed at me.

I went up to the magazine office again. He was not there, but I saw his associate. The associate did not know anything about it either.

* * * * *

April 10th.

I waited one day more and no answer. I wrote to him again to-night, begging him to please reply.

* * * * *

--I have begun several novels, but I can't get interested in them. I am simply sick. I came out of that horrible restaurant with money enough to do me for ten weeks, and here are over five of them gone in this hideous way. Oh, it is monstrous!