I sank down upon the ground as I heard that voice. I was shuddering with fear; and I moaned aloud: "I don"t want to die! I want to live, I want to do my work!"--And then I heard the voice say, "You hound!"
And so I shut my hands like a vise; and I panted: "No, no! Come! Take me!
I will go!" I think it must have been hours that I lay there, wrestling in horrible agony. I cried again and again: "Yes, yes,--I will do it! I will do it!" I fled on breathlessly, whispering, panting to myself. Before I knew it I was saying part of The Captive--the first fearful lines of the struggle:
Spirit or fiend that led me to this way!
Oh, tell me, was ever poet so taken at his word before?
I thought of that then, and I shook like a leaf with the pain of it. Again and again I faced it, again and again I failed. It was physical pain, it was a thing that I could feel like a clutch at my heart. Was it not tearing out my very soul?
But the voice cried out to me: "You have been a slave to the world! You have been a slave to life! You have been crucified upon the cross of Art!"--Yes, and all things a man may sacrifice to Art but one thing; he may not sacrifice his soul!
"What!" it rushed on. "Have you so much faith in your art, and no faith in your G.o.d? Is it for _Him_ that you have so much need to fear, to crouch and tremble, to plot and to plan--for _Him_? And when he made you, when he gave you your inspiration--his soul was faint?"
"He that sendeth forth the surging springtime, and covereth all the earth with new life! He that is the storm upon the sea, the wind upon the mountains, the sun upon the meadows! He that poureth the races from his lap! He that made the ages, the suns and the systems throughout all s.p.a.ce--he that maketh them forever and smiteth them into dust again for play! He that is infinite, unthinkable, all-glorious, all-sufficient--_He hath need of thee_!
"He hath need that thy wonderful books should be written, that mankind should hear thy wonderful songs! Thy books, thy songs, that are to last through the ages! And when this earth shall have withered, when the sun shall have touched it with his fiery finger, when it shall roll through s.p.a.ce as silent and bare as the desert, when the comet shall have smitten it and hurled it into dust, when the systems to which it belongs--the sun into which it melted--shall be no more known to time--_where then will be thy books and thy songs_? Where then will be these things for which thou didst crouch and tremble, didst plot and plan? For which thou didst lick the feet of vile men--_for which thou didst give up thy G.o.d_!"
And then I leaped up and stretched out my arms. "No! No!" I cried aloud: "I have done with it! Have I not fought this fight once, and did I not win it--this fight of The Captive? And can I not fight it and win it again?
Away, away with you, world, for I am a free man again, and no slave! Soul am I, _will_ am I, unconquerable, all-defying! In His arms I lie, in His breath I breathe, in His life I live--I am _He_! Fear I know not, death I know not, slavery and sin and doubt and fear I will never know again!"
Nay,--nay. Go thy road, proud world, and I go mine!--
In dem wogenden Schwall, in dem tonenden Schall, in des Welt-Athems wehendem All!-- ertrinken-- versinken-- unbewusst-- hochste l.u.s.t!
Oh, think not of that poetry! Think of the music! The surging, drunken, overwhelming waves of music! Do you not hear them--do you not hear them?--
Wie sie schwellen, mich umrauschen!
Soll ich athmen, soll ich lauschen!
So the thing went; and I panted and throbbed, and sank down upon the ground for weakness. There came to me all that mad poetry that I had written myself, all that victory that I had won, that freedom, that vision, that glory! It came to me ten times over, for was it not everything to me now?
It was more than I could bear, it split my brain.
And it would not leave me. All through the long, long night I prayed and wept with it; and in the morning I reeled through the street with it, and men stared at me.
But here was one time when I did not fear men! I was free--I was a soul at last. I had won the victory, I went my way as a G.o.d. I had renounced, I had given up fear, I had given up my _self_. My mind was made up, and I never change my mind. I had pa.s.sed the death-sentence upon myself, I walked through the streets as a disembodied soul--as the Captive dragged to the banquet-hall.
But no, I went to my torture of myself.
I went to the store. It was early Sunday morning, and the place was just open.--I got my papers and put them under my arm--my original draft of The Captive, and all my journal. I went down the street and came to a place where a man was burning some trash.
I was a demon in my strength just then; my head reeled, but I went with the dancing step of new-born things. I stood upon the heights, I "laughed at all Sorrow-play and Sorrow-reality"! "Ho, sir," I cried, "I have things here that will make a fire for you!"
And so I knelt down and unwrapped The Captive. "There is much fire in this," I said; "once I thought it would explode, I did. It was a shot that would have been heard around the world, sir! Only I could not pull the trigger."
The man stared at me, and so I burned it, page by page, and laughed, and sang a foolish song that I thought of: _Stride la vampa!_
And afterward I unwrapped the journal. I laughed at my journal--"tis a foolish thing; but then all at once my conscience touched me. I said: "Is it not a shame? Is it not small of you? They would not heed you!--fool, what of it? Perhaps it is not their fault--certainly it is their sorrow.
But you will not get much higher than you are now by trampling upon them."
And so I stopped; and I wrapped up my journal again. "You have fire enough now, sir," I said to the man. "I will keep this to build another fire with."
I went on. "Let them have it," I said, "let them make what they can out of it." And then I laughed aloud: "And they will discuss it! And there will be reviews of it! And wise articles about it! And learned scholars will write tomes upon it, showing how many sentences there are in it ending with a punctuation mark; and old ladies and Methodist ministers will shake their heads over it and say: "See what comes of not believing in Adam!""
I walked on, singing the Ride of the Valkyries, the children staring at me, going to Sunday-school.
But I was glad that there was another copy of The Captive left. I love even that wicked editor now.
--All that was a day and a half ago. I am not so happy now, but I am very calm. I have found my righteousness again, and I can take whatever comes.
And tasks in hours of insight willed Can be in hours of gloom fulfilled!
June 3d.
I have now three days more to wait, to learn if The Captive is accepted.
I have money enough to last me till then. If it is not accepted I should obviously have to starve, should I not? For I will never serve the world again. And am I a sheep that must be driven? No, I shall find a quicker way of dying than by starvation. In the meanwhile I live my life and say my prayer.
I have thought a great deal about the thing, and it seems by no means best for the world that it should treat all the men who have my gift as it has treated me. Let the world take notice that I perish because I have not cheap qualities. Because I was born to sing and to worship! Because I have no alloy, because I will not compromise, because I do not understand the world, and do not serve its uses! If I only knew all the book-gossip of the hour, and all the plat.i.tudes of the reviews! If only I knew anything of all the infinite frivolity and puerility that occupies the minds of men! But I do not, and so I am an outcast, and must work as a day laborer for my bread.
--The infinite irrationality of it seems to me notable. Why, upon the men of genius of the _past_ you feed your lives, you blind and foolish men! They are the bread and meat of your souls--they make your civilizations--they mold your thoughts--they put into you all that little life which you have. And your reviews have use enough for _them_! Your publishers publish enough of _them_! _But what thoughts have you about the NEW teacher, the NEW inspirer?_
The madness of the thing! I read books enough, it seems to me, telling of the sufferings of the poets of a century ago!--of the indifference of the critics, the blindness of the public, of a century ago. And those things pain you all so cruelly! But the possibility of their happening to the poets of the _present_--it never seems to enter into your heads! Why, that very man who sent me back his curt refusal by his secretary--he writes about the agonies of Sh.e.l.ley and Keats in a way that brings the tears into your eyes! And that is only one example among thousands.
What do these men think? Is it their idea that the public and the critics are now so true and so eager that the poets have nothing more to fear? That stupidity and blindness and indifference are quite entirely gone out of the world? That aspiration and fervor are now so much the rule that the least penny-a-liner can judge the new poet?
And they think that the soul is dead then! And that G.o.d has stopped sending into this world new messages and new faiths!
Oh you civilization! You society! You critics and lovers of books! Why, that new message and that new faith ought to be the one thing in all this world that you bend your faculties to save! It is that upon which all your life is built--it is that by which this Republic, for one thing, is to be made a factor in the history of mankind. But what do you do? What _have_ you done? Here I am; and come now and tell me what it is that you _think_ you have done. _For I have the message!--I have the faith_! And you have starved me, and you have beaten me, until I am too ill to drag myself about!
And what can I do? Where can I turn? What hope have I, except, as Swift"s phrase has it, to "die like a poisoned rat in a hole"? I could wish that you would think over that phrase a little while, cultivated ladies and gentlemen. It is not pleasant--to die like a poisoned rat in a hole.