--I heard a gull to-day--far, far up--a mere speck in the sky. I started, as I watched him vanish. Then I said: "But you, too, will have to come down and mingle in the turmoil and the danger!"
May 6th.
I go over into the Park--the springtime is in full glory, all the sights that used to thrill my heart are there; the splendor of new verdure and young flowers, the birds that I love rioting in song. But it moves me not in the least, it only makes me ten times more mournful. I turn away.
Why, once an apple spray in blossom was to me a drunken ecstasy.
--Shall I ever know what it is to be generous, and rich and royal in my heart again? To know that surging fulness of emotion that makes you think of gold and purple and regal pomp?
I tell you the whole thing is a question of money with me. I have come down to the bare bed-rock of sordidness--I must have money--_money!_--It is everything in this world to me. I can never think of anything else again until I have it.
I see myself going out into the world and fighting as other men fight, and making a place in it for myself.
May 8th.
I am getting down again; my poor h.o.a.rd is going! I sit and count it--I calculate it--I lay out my bill of fare. Oh, where shall I go, what _can_ I do? Can I write anything? I ask. I have nothing in me but a naked, shivering longing.
I dread to be in the desperate fix I was the last time I could find no work. And yet I can not make up my mind to do anything until I hear from this one publisher more.
May 9th.
I walked over there to-day to save a postage-stamp. They had not heard from the reader yet.
--I sit down and try to study. Then I get up and say I ought not to put it off any longer. Then again I think: "Wait until to-morrow, at any rate."
May 10th.
I was looking at that man"s magazine to-day. What thoughts it brought to me--what agonies, what longings, what despair! And, above all, what ocean-floods of bitterness!
I walked all the way down to the wholesale-paper store. I thought I would prefer that to evils that I know not of. I have almost a terror of having to come into contact with new people.
But my place was filled. I trudged home again. I went to the publisher"s too; nothing yet. The three weeks were up to-day.
May 12th.
I dared not wait any more to-day. I had just three dollars and ten cents left. And my rent is due the day after to-morrow. I have answered every sort of advertis.e.m.e.nt, from dishwashing to tutoring a boy. I guess I looked too seedy for the latter.
--Sometimes when I am wandering around in all this misery, still yearning for what I might have been, the thought comes across my mind: "And in this huge world there might yet be some one who would understand the thing!
Some one who would help me! Some one by whom it would be an honor to be helped--if I could only find him."
And here I am, having my life beaten out of me, spark by spark,--and I can"t find him--I _can"t_!
I cry out for money--for money!
But no, it is others who have it.--And the way that they use it--O G.o.d, the way that they use it!
If all the world were poor, it would not be so bad; but the sight of wealth--of infinite oceans of it squandered in perfect frenzies of ostentation! The sight of this "world"--this world, which they take quite as a matter of course!
I have seen a good deal of this world myself, and I at least do not take it thus. I gaze upon the men and women who do take it thus, and I say, "Are you men and women really? Or are you not some strange, un-G.o.dmade creatures, without ever a thought about justice, without ever a gleam of reason or purpose or sense?"
May 14th.
I have tramped the streets for two days more. I was made so ill by my anxiety last time that I made up my mind I would not risk it again. I asked my landlady to-night to wait a while, as I was looking for some work. She was ungracious enough, but I have no longer any sensibilities--I only want to be safe. She can wait--she has my trunk, as I told her.
Probably she wouldn"t even be as willing, if she could see what is in it! I have no longer anything to sell. I had to exchange my waiter"s costume for a pair of trousers, for mine were all in rags.
I have two dollars and seventy cents. I imagine that is a safe margin.
There are no words that can tell what an absolutely deadening thing it is to be wandering about the city looking for work. It turns you into a log of wood--you not only no longer have an idea, you have not a thought of an idea. You simply drag on and on until the thing becomes a habit, and you go without even thinking of that.
May 15th.
"Our readers have examined with a great deal of interest the unusual piece of work which you have sent us. But it has been our experience that poetry proves such a distressing adventure commercially, that we are forced to decline the offer which you have so kindly made us. We wish, however, to a.s.sure you of our desire to see anything else which you may have on hand, or may have at any time in future."
That is about the way the letter ran--I tore it up. I did not read it but once. I took the thing to another firm--it can"t do any harm.