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 ma.n.u.script clerk this time. She was very airy. I fear I am a sad-looking poet--my b.u.t.tonholes are beginning to wear out. "We never read ma.n.u.scripts 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 n.o.blest 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 Sh.e.l.ley"s, and the memory of old glories thrilled in me. Ah, let me not forget what Sh.e.l.ley was to me in my young struggling days! Let me not forget while I am wrestling with a dull world--let me not forget what a poet is to young men hungering for beauty!
Let me not forget!
Yes, it is to such that my appeal is, it is by such that I will be judged!
It is for such that I toil! For hearts upon whom the cold world has not laid its hand! For the poets and the seekers of all ages! Oh come to me, poets and seekers of all ages--dwell in my memory and strengthen my soul!
That I go not down altogether--that I be not overcome by the dull things about me!
These thoughts are not becoming to a reader of history. But I am not a good reader of history--the old beasts are still growling within me. Something starts a longing in me--I cry out that I am getting dull, that I am going down, that I am putting off--I, who never put off before! And so the old storms rise and the great waves come rolling again!
October 25th.
I read that over just now. Yes, it is this that I dread. I dread the habit of not striving! When that becomes my habit it is my death! And here I sit, day by day--doing just the thing I dread! "Let me go _now_!" something shouts in me. "_Now_--or I shall never go at all!"
Oh, if I could find some word to tell men the terror of that thought!
--It is my life--that is what it is! To obey this thing within me, to save this thing within me, to _find_ this thing within me--that is my life!
It is a demon thing--it is a thing that has lifted me up by the hair of my head and shaken me--that has glared at me with the wild eyes of a beast--that has beaten me like a storm of wind and struck me down upon the ground! It shakes me now--it shakes me all the time--it makes me scream with pain--incoherently, frantically. "Oh save me!--Spare me!--Let me go!"
I rave, you say--yes, I know. That is because I can not say what I feel.
But what matters it?
Sometimes I say to myself, "I put all that in The Captive, and men have not heard it! And now, what can I do that they _will_ hear--shall I have to go out in the streets and scream? Or what other desperate thing is there?"
--Mark this, oh you world that I can not make hear me! Some desperate thing I shall do--I will not sit here and be respectable always!
--I wonder what locusts taste like, and just where one could find wild honey.
October 29th.
I sang a song to-day--a mad, mad song! I wish I could bring it back. It came to me unexpectedly, while I was kneeling by the bed, thinking.
I have forgotten it all now--one always forgets his best songs. I have not a line of this one, except the chorus:
For I am lord of a thousand dollars!
So it is that my best songs go. I can count them on my fingers. But I have not yet learned how precious they are--that is why I lose them.
--Do you remember that time on the great cliffs by the ocean? There was nothing left but the ending again--
Oh bear me away in thy bosom, Thou wind of the mountain high!
November 2d.