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.
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 amnotreading 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 knownow?
—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 Icando! 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! Icannot!
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?
November 26th.
I wrote to him again to-day, inquiring. If he does not answer that, I shall suppose his secretary threw it away.
There is nothing weakens my soul like this endless waiting. I wander around desolate, helpless, I can not fix my mind on anything. Oh, the shame of it!
November 30th.
I could not give up that hope yet. It seemed to me so terrible that of all the men of wealth in this city there should not be one willing to help me save my message.—I wrote to-day the same letter to a clergyman who I know is wealthy, and who I believe would be interested in my work.
December 2d.
“I have received your letter, and I regret very much that I can not grant the request you make. The pressure upon my time is such that I can not possibly undertake to read your book. There would be no use in my doing so, anyhow, for I tell you frankly it seems to me the situation you are in is just what you need. My advice to you is to be a man and face it. I do not see any reason why one person should be set free from the labor which all of us have to share; and I assure you that you are entirely mistaken if you think that an artist has nothing to expect but ruin from contact with the world, and with suffering and toiling humanity.”
Isn't that a slap in the face for you?
Great God, I think that is the most insulting thing that has ever happened to me in all my days. “Set free from the labor which all of us have to share!”—What do you think I am—a tramp, or a loafer, you hound!
“A high challenge from an artist's soul!”
I think I never had so much hatred in my heart in all my life as I have to-day. Oh, my God, what a thing this world is! What stupid, blind brutality, what hideous vulgarity! This man aclergyman! And this is his faith, his nobility, his understanding!
Why, I came out of the forest with my naked heart in my hands! I came out quivering with emotion, melting with love and with trust for all men! I came all sensitive and raw—hungering for sympathy and kindness! And oh, my soul!—my God!—you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur!
Had I not offered up my heart for a sacrifice? Had I not burned it with fire? Had I not made all my being one consecration? And all for men, for men! For men I had torn myself—lashed myself—killed myself—for men I had forgotten what self was—yes, literally that—forgotten what self was! So little self had I left that I was willing to ask favors! So much consecration had I, so much trust, that I would beg! I had wept—I had suffered—I had starved! I had dreamed and sung, toiled until I set fire to my very brain! And you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur!
Those thoughts turn my whole soul into one wild curse! Have done with laying bare your heart to men, have done with telling your life to men! Why should you go on trying to be a poet, go on putting your secret soul into books, to be spurned at by the rabble? Your soul is your own—it is your God's—and what have the rabble to do with it! And all its tenderness! all its shrinking ecstasy! all its holiest consecration!—You will take them out to sell them to the rabble!
When will you get back into yourself, you fool? When will you have learned your lesson, and let this hellish world boot you out of its way no more? Let ever any man know a gleam of your heart again!—see one trace of your joy!
—And I came to it on my knees—to this world—crouching, cringing, begging! Oh, oh!—I scream it—Oh!
—And after that I sank down by the bed and hid my face and sobbed: “Oh, Shelley! Oh, my Shelley!”
December 3d.
—I saw myself a business man to-day, clearing a path for myself! But it does not last—I am not that kind of a man. My folly is my being—rest assured that I shall climb back to the heights again where I am willing to bear any insult.
But it will be a long time before I write any more letters. I have come to understand the world's point of view.
I suppose busy men get thousands of letters from cranks; they will get no more from me.
December 5th.
I was reading an essay on Balzac to-day. I read about Balzac's fondness forthings; and I put the book down and spent an hour of perplexity. I fear I am a very narrow person in my sympathies and understandings. Why should a man care aboutthings! About all sorts of houses and furniture, and pictures, and clothes, and jewels!
I can understand a man's caring about love and joy and aspiration. Butthings! I can understand a child's caring about things, or a fool's caring; I see millions of such; but an artist? A thinker? Aman?
I am reading novels nowadays—reading all sorts of things thatentertain. I have not read a poem for a long time, I have no interest in reading unless I cangowith it.
I have been studying some of the French novelists—some of Maupassant yesterday. What a strange creature is a Frenchman! A nervous, hysterical, vain, diseased creature!
“The Gallic disease!” Let that be a phrase.
The Gallic disease is this: to see only one thing in life, to know only one purpose, to understand only one pleasure; to have every road lead to that, every thought, every phrase. To know that every character in a book is thinking it; to know that every man who is introduced is looking for a woman! And that as soon as he finds her, they must forthwith—whatever be their age, rank, character, and position at the moment—begin to burn with unclean desires!
That is what one might call theconventionof French fiction. It gets very monotonous when you are used to it; it takes all of the interest out of the story. For there is but one ending to such a story.
One's whole being is lowered by contact with that incessant animal appeal.
December 8th.
I have discovered another trouble—as if I did not have enough! I am to suffer from indigestion! It plagues me continuously—I can not do anything for an hour after a meal, no matter what simplest thing I have eaten.
And so all through my life I am to be hindered in my work by having to wrestle with this handicap! Just as if I had not been a clean man, but some vulgarbon vivant.
December 10th.
This is my fifth publisher. They said they thought it would take two weeks, but it has been three already, and they have not even answered my letter of inquiry. I see you can put no reliance on them in the matter of time.
December 11th.
In two days more it will be three months since I gave up my situation. I count my little hoard day by day, as a castaway might, or a besieged garrison. I have begun to try to get along on cheap foods again—(that is the reason of my indigestion). Yesterday I burned a mess of oatmeal, and now I shall live on burned oatmeal for I know not how long. I was cooking a large quantity to save time.
I count my store. I have come the last month on eleven dollars! I have been doing my own washing, and reading the newspapers at a library. I buy nothing but food—chiefly bread and milk and cereals. Why is it that everything that is cheap has no taste?
Sometimes I am angry because I can not have anything good to eat, but I only write my dignified sentiments here.
I am getting down to the limit again; I sit shuddering. I shall have to get some work again; I can not bear to think of it! What shall I do? If I go to that slavery again it will be the death of my soul, for I have no hope, and I can not fight as I did before.
And I can only try one or two publishers more. Oh, take it! Take it!
December 14th.
I went down to see them to-day. The manuscript mislaid—very sorry—had written readers to examine it at once—expecting report any instant—will write me—etc.
And so I walked home again.
Yes, elegant ladies and gentlemen, I am a poor poet; and my overcoat is out at one elbow, and I am sick. I look preoccupied, too; would you like, perhaps, to know what is in my mind? I will tell you five minutes of it to-day:
“Bang! Bang! Look out of the way there, you fool!—Use Casey's Corn Cure!—Extry! Extry! Evening Slop-Bucket and Swill-Barrel, six o'clock edition!—And it was at seventy-two and the market—Cab! Cab!—Try Jones's Little Five-cent Cigars!—Brown's Élite Tonsorial and Shaving Parlors!—Have you seen Lucy Legs in the High Kicker? The Daily Hullabaloo says—Shine, boss?—But she wouldn't cut it on the bias, because she thought—Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! Five hundred million copies sold every year! We rake all the mud-gutters and it only costs you one cent! The Slop-Bucket is the paper of the people!—Move along, young man, don't block up the passage! Bang! Bang! Hurry up there, if you want to get aboard—Come along, my honey-baby girl! (hand-organ)—If you will try Superba Soap—Simpkins's Whisky is all the rage!—Isaac Cohenstein's Cash Clothing Store, Bargains in Gents' Fall Overcoats! Look at these! Walk in, sir! Cash! Cash!—The most elegant topaz brooches, with little—Read the Daily Swill-Barrel!—Extry! Extry! He Cut Her Throat with a Carving-Knife!—Bang! Bang!—Toodles' Teething Sirup—Look at my elegant hat with the flamingo on it!—O'Reilly's Restaurant—walk in and gorge yourself, if you can pay us. Walk in!—Get out of the way there!—Have you read the Pirate's Pledge! The Literary Sensation—Cash! Cash!—Just come and see our wonderful display of newly imported—Smith and Robinson, Diamonds and Jewelry, latest and most elegant—Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder!Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder!!USE TOMPKINS'S—Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! We rake all the mud-gutters!—Murphy's Wines and Liquors—Try Peerless Cocktails—Levy's High-Class Clothing Emporium!—Come in and buy something—anything—we get down on our knees—we beg you!—Cab, sir? Cab!—Bargains! Bargains!—Cash! Cash!—Yein, yein, yein!”
So it keeps up for hours! And I put my fingers in my ears and run.
December 17th.
To-day I happened to read in one of the magazines an article on a literary subject by a college professor of some reputation. It was a fine piece of work, I thought, very true; and I got to thinking of him, wondering ifhemight not be the man.
I have no hope that these last publishers will take the book, and so I made up my mind to write to him.
I wrote what I had written to all the others; I told him how I had struggled, and how I was living. Perhaps he is less busy than the rest.
December 19th.
The manuscript came back to-day. The letter was simple—the old, meaningless form. I am waiting to hear from the professor.
December 20th.
“I reply to your letter somewhat against my rule—chiefly because of what you tell me about your circumstances. I will read your manuscript if you still think it worth while to send it to me; but I must tell you at the outset that I consider the chances very unfavorable, as regards my finding the work what you believe it. I assure you that the literary situation is not in the least what you picture it; the book-market was never more wide-awake than it is now, the publishers are all as eager as possible for the least sign of new power; and besides that, the magazines afford outlet—not only for talent, but for mediocrity as well. You are entirely mistaken in your idea that literary excellence is not equivalent to commercial availability. If you could write one paragraph as noble as the average of Dr. ——, or one stanza as excellent as the average of Professor ——, you would find an instant and hearty welcome.
“Moreover, I believe that you are entirely wrong in your ideas of what you need. You will not make yourself a great artist by secluding yourself from men—go out into the world, young man, go out into the world and see what men are!
“As I say, it is not my rule to answer letters such as yours. The cry of the suffering is in the air every instant, if we heeded it we should never get our work done. But I am willing to read your poem, if this letter has not chilled your ardor.”
—Last night I read The Captive again, and it brought the tears into my eyes; and so my ardor is not chilled, good professor—and I will send you the poem.
—But as for going out into the world—I think I am learning what men are pretty fast!
December 23d.
My poem stirs me, but it does not last. My whole habit of mind seems to me to be changed—a deep, settled melancholy has come over me; I go about mournful, haunted. I read—but all the time I am as if I had forgotten something, and as if half my mind were on that. I have lost all my ardor—I look back at what I was, and it brings the tears into my eyes. It is gone! It is gone! It will not ever come back!
And each day I am drawing nearer to the rapids—to the ghastly prospect of having to drag myself back to work!
Oh my God, what shall I do?—tell me anything, and I will do it! Give me a hope—any hope—even a little one!
The last day I can stretch my miserable pittance to is the first of February.
December 25th.
Christmas Day—and I have no news, except that I am hungry, and that I am sitting in my room with a blanket around me, and with a miserable cold in my head.
It is the agony of an unheated room, an old acquaintance of mine, that comes with each bitter winter. I live in a house full of noisy people and foul odors; and so I keep my door shut while I try to read, and so my room is like a barn.
I could not accomplish anything to-day—I could not read. I felt like a little child. I wanted nothing but to hide my head on some one's shoulder and sob out all my misery.
I am nothing but a forlorn child, anyway, lost in this great, cruel city.
—I am not much at pathos; but it was Christmas night, and I had one kind of cold in my head, and another kind in my feet.
December 27th.
I tell you that my salvation was my impatience! My salvation was that I wasted not an instant, that I fought—that I fought! And each hour that I am forced to submit—that I am forced to endure and be still—that is an hour of ruin! It was those fearful seven weeks that began it—and now I shall have to go back to that again! Oh my God, how can I bear it? What can I do? The pain of it heaps itself up in my soul—I am desperate—I will go mad! Tell me what to do! Tell me what to do!
December 28th.
I had a strange adventure to-night, a long, long adventure. I was free for once in my life! Free and glorious—and delivered from earth! It happened all in a dream; I sat crouching in the corner, thinking.
I had been walking down the street during the day and had seen a flower in a window, and had been made happy for a minute, thinking of last spring. My step had grown light, and I had forgotten the street around me. But then I had heard two little girls, sitting in a doorway, whisper excitedly: “Oh, look—he's laughing!” And instantly all my soul had shrunk up, and my dream had fled, and I had hurried past and turned the corner.
Is it not a strange thing? I mused—this as I sat by the window—that deep instinct of secrecy—that cowardice! Why is it that I would die before I would let any man see the life of my soul? What are these people to me? I know them not at all, and never shall. But I crouch back—I put on a mask—yes, think of it, I evengiveup the life of my soul, rather than that any man should see me acting differently than himself!
Somehow all at once that thought took hold of me with an overwhelming power—I saw the truth as I had never seen it before in my life. I saw how we live in society; and how social convention and triviality have us in such a grasp that it never even dawns upon us that the laws it dictates are not eternal and necessary! “You must be dignified, and calm, and commonplace,” say social convention and triviality.
—But I amnotdignified—I amnotcalm!—I amnotcommonplace!
Well, then, you mustseemso. You must walk quietly; you must gaze around indifferently; you must keep a vacant face; you must try to look innocent of a thought. If you can't manage that—if you really want to think—why then you must flee away to the woods, where you are sure no one will come upon you and find you out. And if you can't do that—why then there's nothing for you to do but give up thinking, give up living, become like everybody else!
That idea shook me all of a sudden, it made me quite wild—it made me dig my nails into my hands. It was the truth—I saw that—it was the truth! Here I was, a miserable, pining, starving wretch—and for no reason in the world but that I was a coward, but that I was a coward—a blind fool! Because I had not let the empty-headed and sodden, the placid and smug, the fat and greasy citizens of our great metropolis, tellme—the servant of the muses—how I ought to look, how I ought to act, what I ought to be! The very breath of my body is prayer—is effort—is vision; to dwell in my own light, to behold my own soul, to know my own truth—that is my one business in this world! To assert my own force—to be what I like—that is my duty, that is my hope, my one hope in all the world! And I do not, I can not, I dare not do it! I am sick and starved and dying, and I crouch in corners while I pray for help, and if a gleam of sunshine comes from a flower to me, it goes because a child sees me laughing!
I sat burning with the rage of that. What am I to do? I cried. How is it to be changed? Shall I live my life in spite of all men?
And then I heard one of my devils—my commonplace devil—say, “But people would think you were crazy!”
“What do I care what people think?” I burst out.
Then came another of my devils—my facetious devil—and he made me laugh. “By all means,” said he, “let us get together a few eager poets, and establish a Society for the Propagation of Lunacy. Let us break down these conventions and confound the eyes of the fat and greasy citizens, and win freedom for our souls at any price. Let us wear strange clothes, and recite our poetry upon the streets. Let us—”
But I was not in a mood for my facetious devil—I flung him aside and sprang up and fled out to the street (this in thought, of course). What do I need with others? I exclaimed—with others to help me dare? This has to do withme! And it has to do with menow—with this moment! Am I to give up and let myself go down for such a phantom as this! For such a dread as that wooden-headed men and women will think me “queer”! Am I to stay in a prison such as that—to be bound by a chain such asthat? I—I, who go about trying to persuade myself that this world is nothing to me—that this world is nothing to any one—that it is a phantom—that the soul is truth! When I say that the soul is truth, do I mean it? Do Imeanit? And if I do mean it, will I act by it—will I act by it now—now, while I see it? Will I fling off this nightmare, will I tear my way through these wrappings that have choked me? Will I say, once and for all time, that I will be myself—that I will live my life—and that no man shall stop me—that no man shall make me afraid? Will I take the battle upon me and win it—win itnow—fling off the last rag of it—put the world straight behind me—now—here? Spread the wings of my soul and take my flight into the far spaces of myself! And dwell there—stay there—hold to the task and give it not up though it kill me—now—now!
These thoughts took hold of me—they made my brain reel—and I cried aloud in excitement. I had not been so much awake since the day I came out of the woods! I said the word—I said it—the mad word that I had not heard for six long months—that I had not heard since I wrote the last lines of my poem and came back to the haunts of men. And I clinched my hands, and stamped upon the ground, and shouted: “Come on! Come on!”—to the legions of my spirit. And it was like the taking flight of a great swarm of birds within me—a rushing of wings and a surging upward, a singing for joy as of a symphony. And there was singing in my soul, the surge of it caught me—and I waved my arms and went striding on, shouting still, “Come on! Come on!—
“Now!now! We will have it out with them—here—here! We will fight our fight and win it, and they shall not turn us back—no, by God, they shall not! And they may take it as they please—my soul is free—freeonce again! Away!Away!”
And I felt the breeze of the mountains about me, and heard the rushing of the storm-wind and the trampling of the thunder. There awoke the old rush in my heart, the old Valkyrie music that flies over the forests and mountains. And I laughed as I sang it; I heard the war-horses neighing, and yelled to them—faster and faster—higher and higher—away from earth and all men!—
And then suddenly I felt some one seize me by the shoulder and shake me, and heard a gruff voice say: “Here! Here! What's the matter with you?” And I stared, half-dazed. It was a big policeman, and around me I saw a sea of staring faces, wild-eyed children, women gazing in fright, boys jeering; and the windows were filled with yet another crowd!
“What's the matter with you?” demanded the policeman again. “Are you drunk, or crazy!”
And then I realized. But the fire was still blazing in me, and a wild rage whirled over me. “Then it is by this that I am to be stopped!” I gasped. “Bythis! It is not possible after all, it seems; and I'm to be dragged back after all!—By Heaven, we'll see!”
And so I gave the cry again—the cry of the Valkyrs that is madness to me! Do you not hear it?—and I was away again and free!
What does a man want for his soul, if it be not just to strive, and to be resisted, and still to strive? What difference makes anything else—time, place or conditions? I was myself again—and what else did I care about? I felt the policeman take me by the collar and march me down the street; but I hardly knew that—I was on the mountains, and I laughed and sang. The very hatefulness of what was about me was my desperation—I would make head against such things or I would die in the attempt! I would be free!—I would live! I would live my life; and not the life of these people about me! I would fight and win, I would hold fast my heart, I would be true though the heavens fell! I would have it out, then and there, as I said—I would not come back to earth until I was master of myself.
And so when I stood in the station-house and the sergeant asked me my name, I said: “Desire is my name, and the soul is my home!” And then because they shook me and worried me, I stretched forth my arms and cried out: “O God, my Father—thou who art my help and my life—thou soul of my soul—shall I go back for these things?—Shall I fear for these things? No, no—while I have life I will not! I will live for the truth, I will be crushed no longer!”
They led me to a cell, and when I heard the door shut I laughed like a madman for joy. And then—ah, then—who can tell it? They came—all my angels and all my demons! All my muses and all my nymphs! And the bases of the earth rocked and the heavens danced and sang; and I mounted on the wings of the ages, and saw the joys of the systems and the dancing of the young suns. Until I could bear it no more, and fell down and sobbed, and cried out to my soul that it was enough, enough!
And afterward I sat there on the stone floor, and ate bread and water and ambrosial peace; and a doctor came in to see me, and asked me who I was. And I laughed—oh, who ever laughed like that? And I said,“I am the author of The Captive!”
He left me and I sat there, shaking my head and pounding the stone floor for joy. And I sang again, and sang again. Yes, the author of The Captive! And captive myself, and free at last!
It was far into the night when I stopped singing; and then I lay down and never before had I known such peace; for I had found the way—I had seen the light—I was delivered from all fear and dulness for the rest of my days! I was so excited I could not sleep—when I fell asleep at last it was from sheer exhaustion.
And when they roused me the next morning I bounded to my feet like a shot, and shouted to my soul, and was up and away through the forest like a startled deer again! They tried their very best to catch me, but they could not. I had not lived in the woods for nothing, I knew the paths, I knew where the mountains were. And when they thought they had me in court, I was on the very summits—and laughing and drunk with the mountain air!
I have a keen sense of humor,—and of course I am never so drunk that I do not know I'm drunk, and know just what I'm drunk about—else how could I write poems about it? Do you think that when Shakespeare cried out his “Blow ye winds and crack your cheeks!” he did not know just what he was saying? Ah!—And when I saw all these queer little men about me, staring and wondering—and so solemn!—I laughed the inextinguishable laughter of Olympus, and shouted so that they dragged me out of court in a hurry.
And then there came the end! They took me to the insane asylum, and I sat down on the floor of a cell and gazed at myself in amazement and panted: So thereisa way you can live, after all! Thereisa way you can make them support you! Thereisa way you can do all your work in peace, and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! I could scarcely believe it all—it took half an hour for me to realize it. And then I shouted that I was saved!—and fell to work at shaping that mad Song of the West Wind I had been so full of.
And then suddenly I heard a muffled voice say: “What in the dickens are you making all that rumpus for?” And I stared about me and saw that I was still crouching by the window in my room! And I shrank back and quivered with rage, because I knew that I had been making a noise and that some one out in the hall had been listening to me!
And that was the end of my long adventure.
December 30th.
“I am pleased to be able to tell you that your poem is a great deal better than I expected to find it. I am forced to write briefly by reason of pressure of business; but you have very considerable literary gifts. The work is clearly made whole of sincerity; it shows a considerable command of expression, and a considerable understanding of style. It has qualities of imagination and of emotional insight, and is obviously the fruit of a wide reading. But besides these things, it is exactly as I expected, and as I told you—the work is very narrow in the range of its appeal; you can not in the least blame the publishers for declining it, because it is true that very few people would care for it. My own judgment is hardly capable in the matter, because I myself am not an idealist. Recording my own opinion, I found the poem monotonous, and not especially interesting; but then, I say that of much that some other people consider great poetry.
“My advice to you is just what it was before—that you go out into the world and become acquainted with life. Not knowing you personally, I could not counsel you definitely, but I should think that what would benefit you most would be a good stiff course in plain, every-day newspaper reporting. Newspaper reporters have many deficiencies, but at least they learn to keep in touch with their audiences, and to write in a way that takes hold of the people. You may not welcome this advice—but we seldom welcome what is good for us.”
I am not dead yet, and I have not lost the power of getting angry. Such things as that do me good, they make me fight, they get all my soul in arms. Great God, the blindness, the asininity of it!
It is enough if you can classify a man; give him a name—and then it's all out of the way. If he have faith and fire and aspiration and worship—and you have not—why, say that he is an idealist, and that you are something else, and let it go at that.
December 31st.
The poem came back to-day, and I trudged off to another publisher's—the sixth. I have no hope now, however; I send it as a matter of form.
I shudder at the prospect of to-morrow's coming; for it will be just a month more to the time I said I should have to go to work!
And New Year's day—my soul, if I had foreseen this last New Year's! I thank Heaven for that blessing, at least.
Who are these men that I should submit to their judgments? These men and their commonplace lives—are they not that very world out of which I have fought my way, by the toil of nights and days?—And now I must come back and listen to their foolish judgments about my song!
—You felt what was in it, you poor, stupid man! But it did not take you with it, for you are not a poet; you have not kept the holy fire burning, you are not still “strenuous for the bright reward.” And so you found it monotonous! Some men find nature monotonous. And some men find music monotonous.
January 5th.
Two days ago I was reading Menschen und Werke, by Georg Brandes. I was glancing over an essay on Friedrich Nietzsche, and I came upon some things that made my heart throb:—
“This man [Nietzsche's ideal] takes willingly upon himself the sorrow of speaking the truth. His chief thought is this: A happy life is an impossibility; the highest that man can attain is a heroic life, a life in which, amid the greatest difficulties, something is striven for which, in one way or other, proves for the good of all. To what is truly human only the true men can lift us, those who seem to have come into being through a leap of nature, the thinkers and discoverers, the artists and producers, and those who achieve more through their being than their doing; the noble, the good in a great sense, those in whom the genius of the good works. These men are the goal of history. Nietzsche formulates the sentence 'Humanity shall labor continually at this, to beget solitary great men—and this and nothing else is its task.'—
“Here Nietzsche has reached the final answer to his question 'What is Culture?' For upon this rest the fundamental principles of Culture, and the duties which it imposes. It lays upon me the duty to place myself actively in relation to the great human ideals. Its chief thought is this: To every one who will look for it and partake of it, it sets the task; to labor in himself and outside of himself at the begetting of the thinker and the artist, the truth-loving and the beauty-loving man, the pure and good personality—and therewith at the fulfilment of nature....
“In our day a so-called Culture institution signifies only too often an arrangement by which the cultured, moving in closed ranks, force to one side all those solitary and contrary ones whose striving is directed to higher things. Also among the learned there is so far lacking, as a rule, all sense for the genius that is coming into being, and every feeling for the work of the contemporary and struggling soul. Therefore, in spite of the irresistible and restless advance in all technical and specialized fields, the conditions for the originating of the great are so little improved that the opposition to the highly gifted has rather increased than diminished.
“From the government the superior individuals can not expect much. It helps them rarely when it takes them into its service, very certainly it will help them only when it gives them full independence. Only true Culture can prevent their early becoming weary or exhausted, and protect them from the exasperating battle with Culture-philistinism.”
Those words made my blood tingle, they made me tremble. Alone, miserable, helpless—here was a voice at last, a friend! I dropped the book and I went to the library, and I was back with “Also sprach Zarathustra” in an hour.
I have been reading it for two days—reading it in a state of excitement, forgetting everything. Here is a man!—Here is a man! The first night that I read it I kicked my heels together and laughed aloud in glee, like a child.Oh, it was so fine! And to find things like this already written, and in the world! Great heavens, it was like finding a gold mine underneath my feet; and I have forgotten all my troubles again, forgotten everything! I have found a man who understands me, a man to be my friend!
I do not know what the name Friedrich Nietzsche conveys to the average cultured American. I can only judge by my own case—I have kept pace with our literary movements and I have read the standard journals and reviews; but I have never come upon even a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche, except as a byword and a jest.
I had rather live my own life than any other man's life. My own vision is my home. But every great man's inspiration is a challenge, and until you have mastered it you can not go on.
I speak not of poets, nor of philosophers, but of religious teachers, of prophets; and I speak but my opinion—let every man form his own. I say that I have read all those that men honor, and that a greater prophet than this man has not come upon the earth in centuries. I think of Emerson and Carlyle as the religious teachers, the prophets, of this time; and beside this mighty spirit Emerson is a child and Carlyle a man without a faith or an idea. I call him the John Baptist of the new Dispensation, the first high priest of the Religion of Evolution; and I bid the truth-seeker read well his Bible, for in it lies the future of mankind for ages upon ages to come.
Half that I love in my soul's life I owe to the prophet of Nazareth. The other half I owe,—not to Nietzsche, but to the new Dispensation of which he is a priest. Nietzsche will stand alone; but he is nevertheless the child of his age—he sings what thousands feel.
It is a disadvantage to be the first man. If you are the first man you see but half-truths and you hate your enemies. When you seek truth, truly, all systems and all faiths of men—they are beautiful to you—born of sorrow, and hallowed with love; but they will not satisfy you, and you put them by. You do not let them influence you one way or the other; you can no more find truth while you are bound to them by hatred than while you are bound to them by love. There are dreary places in “Also sprach Zarathustra,” narrownesses and weaknesses too; they come whenever the writer is thinking of the evils of the hour, whenever he is gazing, not on the vision of his soul, but on the half-truths of the men about him.
When I speak of Christ let no man think of Christianity. I speak of a prince of the soul, the boldest, the freest, the noblest of men that I know. With the thousand systems that mankind has made in his memory, I have simply nothing in any way to do.
To me all morality is one. Morality is hunger and thirst after righteousness. Morality is a quality of will. The differences that there are between Christ and Nietzsche are differences of the intellect—where no man is final.
The doctrine of each is a doctrine of sacrifice; with one it is a sacrifice of love, with the other it is a sacrifice of labor. For myself, I care not for the half-truths of any man. I said to my soul, “Shall I cast out love for labor?” And my soul replied, “For what wilt thou labor but love?”
Moral sublimity lies in the escape from self. The doctrine of Christ is a negation of life, that of Nietzsche an affirmation; it seems to me much easier to attain to sublimity with the former.
It is easier to die for righteousness than to live for it. If you are to die, you have but to fix your eyes upon your vision, and see that you do not take them away. But the man who willlivefor righteousness—he must plant and reap, must gather fire-wood and establish a police-force; and to do these things nobly is not easy; to do them sublimely seems hardly possible at all.
Twenty centuries ago the Jewish world was a little plain, and God a loving Father. He held you in his arms, he spoke to you in every dream, in every fantasy, in every accident. Life was very short—but a little trial—you had only to be patient, and nothing mattered. Society did not exist—only your neighbor existed. Knowledge did not exist, nor was it needed—the world was to end—perhaps to-night—and what difference made all the rest? You took no heed for the morrow—for would not your Father send you bread? You resisted not evil—for if you died, was not that all that you could ask?
It was with such a sweet and simple faith as this that the victory of Jesus Christ was won. These were his ideas, and as the soul was all-consuming with him, he lived by them and died by them, and stands as the symbol of faith.
And now twenty centuries have gone by. And a new teacher has come to whom also the soul is all-consuming. What ideas hashe? And what task does he face?
I speak not to children. I speak to men seeking truth.
In twenty centuries we have learned that God is not a Father who answers prayers and works miracles and holds out his arms at the goal. We have come shuddering to the awful mystery of being; strange and terrible words have been spoken—words never to be forgotten—“phenomenon,” and “thing-in-itself”; not knowing what these words mean, you are ignorant and recreant to the truth;knowingwhat they mean, you tug no more at the veil. Also we have learned that time and change are our portion, “the plastic dance of circumstance”; we talk no more of immortality. We have turned our hopes to the new birth of time, to the new goal of our labor, the new parent of our love, that we name Society.
And likewise Evolution has come, which is the whole of knowledge. And we have learned of starry systems, of the building of worlds, of the pageant of history and the march of mind. Out of all these things has come a new duty, which is not peace, but battle—which is not patience, but will—which is not death, but life.
There is no room in the world of Evolution for the doctrine of non-resistance to evil. Non-resistance to evil is the negation of life, and the negation of life is the negation of faith. How shall you resist not evil when life is action and not passion? When not a morsel of food can you touch except by the right that you are more fitted to survive than that morsel? How when you know that you rose from the beast by resistance? And that you stay above the beast by resistance? Will you give up the farm land to be jungle again? Or will you teach the beasts your non-resistance? And the trees of the forest to crowd no more your land!
It is no longer possible to build a heaven and reject the earth. Such as life is you have to take it.
And you have to live it. The huge machinery of Society is on your hands, with all its infinite complications, its infinite possibilities of beauty and joy. Your life is, as ever, a sacrifice; all life is, as ever, a sacrifice; but it is a sacrifice to man—a sacrifice to the best. Once your task was self-abnegation, and that was easy; now it is self-assertion, and that is hard. Knowing what you are, you will dare to live, not for your own sake, but that strength and beauty may be in the world. Knowing what you might be, you choose infinite toil for your portion, and in the humility of toil you find your holiest peace. Your enemy you resist with all your soul, not for hatred of your enemy, but for love of the right. If he were not evil he could not be your enemy; and being evil, he has no right to be. Your conscience to you is no longer a shame, but a joy; you think no more of infinite sin, but of infinite virtue.—And for the rest, you do not attain perfection, and you are not worshiped as a god; you are much troubled by trivialities, and the battle tries your soul. But you make no truce with lies, and you never lay down your sword; you keep your eyes upon a far goal, and you leave the world better than you found it. When you come to die you have no fear, but a song; for you are master of yourself, and you have learned to know that which you are.
—And there is only to add—that whether you believe these things or not, they are what you actuallydo. It seems to me not desirable that one's belief should be less than one's practise.
January 6th.
Has any one, at this end of the nineteenth century, a clear idea of what the poets of the ages calledInspiration? If no one have, I will describe it. With the least remainder of superstition in him a man would scarcely be able to put aside the idea that he was merely the Incarnation, the mouthpiece, the medium of overwhelming powers. The idea of Revelation in the mind describes exactly the state of affairs—that suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and fineness, something became visible and audible, something that shakes and pervades one to the depths. One hears—he does not seek; he takes—he does not ask who gives; like lightning gleams out a thought, of necessity, formed without hesitation—I have never had a choice. An ecstasy, whose colossal strain breaks in the middle with a stream of tears, in the course of which the step becomes, involuntary, now raging, now slow; a state in which one is completely beside himself, with the distinctest consciousness of countless shudderings and quiverings, even to the toes of his feet; a depth of joy in which all that is painful and somber serves, not as a contrast, but as conditioned, as demanded, as a necessary color in such an overflow of light; an instinct of rhythmic relations which overleaps vast spaces of forms; all happening in the highest degree involuntarily, but as if in a storm of sensations of freedom, of infinity, of power, of divinity.—This is my experience of Inspiration; I doubt not but that one must needs go back thousands of years to find one who might say, “It is also mine.”
Do you think thatIwrote that—I, Arthur Stirling? No, I did not write that. The man who wrote that is known to you as an atheist.
January 7th.
When Zarathustra came into the next city, which lay beside the forest, he found in that place much people gathered together in the market; for they had been called that they should see a rope-dancer. And Zarathustra spoke thus unto the people:
“I teach ye the Over-man.The man is something who shall be overcome. What have ye done to overcome him?
“All being before this made something beyond itself: and you will be the ebb of this great flood, and rather go back to the beast than overcome the man?
“What is the ape to the man? A mockery or a painful shame. And even so shall man be to the Over-man: a mockery or a painful shame.
“Man is a cord, tied between Beast and Over-man—a cord above an abyss.
“A perilous arriving, a perilous traveling, a perilous looking backward, a perilous trembling and standing still.
“What is great in man is that he is a bridge, and no goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under.
“I love them that know not how to live, be it even as those going under, for such are those going across.
“I love them that are great in scorn, because these are they that are great in reverence, andarrows of longing toward the other shore!”
And here ended the first speech of Zarathustra.
“The air thin and clear, the danger nigh, and the spirit filled with a joyful mischief; these things go well together.
“I will have gnomes about me, for I am merry....
“I feel no more with you; these clouds which I see under me, these clouds black and heavy over which I laugh—just these are your storm-clouds.
“You gaze upward if you long for exaltation. I gaze downward because I am exalted.
“Who among you can both laugh and be exalted?
“Who climbs upon the highest mountains, he laughs at all sorrow-play and sorrow-reality.
“Bold, untroubled, mocking, full of power—so will wisdom have us; she is a woman and loves always but the warrior.
“You say to me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But for what had you your pride in the morning, and in the evening your submission?...
“I would believe only in a god who knew how to dance.
“And when I saw my devil, I found him earnest, profound, deep, solemn; he was the Spirit of Heaviness—through him fail all things.
“Not by anger, but by laughing, one kills. Up, let us kill the Spirit of Heaviness!...”
“Free dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and not that thou hast escaped a yoke.
“Art thou such a one thatcanescape a yoke?
“Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye tell me: freetowhat?
“Canst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy will above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and avenger of thy law?
“Fearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy law. So is a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy breath of isolation.—
“Dost thou know truly, my brother, the word scorn? And the pain of thy righteousness, to be just that which thou dost scorn?...”