Good night, sweet prince,And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
July 6th.
Five in the afternoon! And the wind was howling in turret and tree, and all the forest was an organ chant. So I packed up my belongings, and laid my poem in next to my heart—the last words written: “It is done!”
And I went out and stood and gazed at my little home. Farewell, farewell, little home! Perhaps I shall never see you again; but ever you will live in my fancy as my heaven upon earth. They built thee for picnic parties! And I wonder what proud prince had built for his pleasures—the Garden of Gethsemane!
And now I go forth like a bridegroom out of my chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. And all the world dances around me, and I stretch out my arms and sing!
Come, come, my foes, where are ye now? What foes shall I be afraid of now! Is it the world and its trials? Come!
I go back to conquer—I have forged my weapon! I have bared my arm! Where are those foes of mine?
There is nothing so commonplace that it does not sing to me. I walk with a springing step, I laugh, I exult. Birds, flowers, men—I love them all; I get into the train, and the going of it is drunkenness. I have won! I have won!
I go back to the world. Come, world! I have but four dollars left—four dollars!—and The Captive!
It is not strange that a man should be made drunk with happiness by the writing of a tragedy! That is the great insincerity of the artist. “That cry of agony!—what a triumph of genius was that my cry of agony!”
—It is not the sorrow, it is the struggle; so I read the tragedy. This man is dead, but God lives, and Art lives.
I will go back, I will do anything now—I will empty ash-cans, and find it a joy. The book is done—safe in next to my heart!—And now it will be printed, and not fire nor earthquake can destroy it after that. Free! Free!
I am writing on the train. I write commonplaces. That is because I can not shout.
But back there, coming out of the woods, I shouted—and not commonplaces either!
Coming out of the forest—forest-drunk! Now I know all about Pan and his creatures!
I write carelessly. But in my heart I sit shuddering before that fearful glory. O God, my Father, let me not forget this awful week, and I will live in Truth all my days.
July 7th. [Footnote: Possibly an error in the date, as the day was Sunday.]
Wandering all day about the streets of the hot city, seeing it not, hearing it not—waiting for the last lines of the poem to be copied! I could not do anything until that was done, and at a publisher's. I got it and fled home, and spent the night correcting the copy.
Ah, God, what a thing it is! How it roars, how it thunders, how it surges! How infinite, how terrible! Stern, throbbing—is there anything like it in the world?
Ten lines of it make my blood tingle—an act of it makes me bury my face in my pillow and laugh and sob for five minutes.
Go forth, oh my perfect song!
July 8th.
To-day I took it to the publisher's!
I had been pondering for a week who were the best publishers. To-day I hardly had the courage to go in—I know nothing about such things—and my hands shook so I could hardly hold the package.
I asked to see the manager. I told him I had a manuscript to submit. He looked at me—I guess I must look rather seedy. “What sort of a manuscript?” he asked. “A blank verse drama!”
Then he took it and glanced over it. “Blank verse dramas are difficult things to publish,” he said.
“You had best read it, I think,” I answered, “you will find it worth while.”
“Very well, if you wish,” said he, “we always read everything that is offered to us.”
“How soon shall you be able to let me know?”
“Oh, in a week or ten days.”
And then I went out—shuddering with excitement. A week or ten days! Well—I can wait. I have done allmyduty, at any rate.
July 9th.
I have certainly played a bold game with my poem! At the publisher's at last—and I, having paid my room-rent, have just a dollar in my pocket!
I have been tramping about all day to-day, looking for some work. I don't care what it is—I can do anything to keep alive for a week or ten days.—I wonder if they will advance me some money at once.
They all stare at me suspiciously. I think some of the wildness of the woods must still hang about me.—Anyway, I walk along on air, I fear nothing. I could hug all the passers-by. My book is at the publisher's! I could beg, I think, if I had to, and do it serenely, exultingly. I have only a dollar—but have I not all the stars?
I was thinking to-day about Carlyle, and that ghastly accident to his manuscript. Let others blame Carlyle for his sins—for those days of agony and horror I forgive him all things, and love him.
I have the original manuscript of The Captive put safely away. If that poem were destroyed it would kill me. I can think of anything else in the world but such a thing as that.
July 10th.
What will they write me about it? I picture to myself all the emotions of a publisher when he discovers a poem like that! Ah yes, good publisher, I have scanned your lists for many months back; but you have published nothing like The Captive.
And then I shall taste my first drop of success.
—I do not want it for myself—it is not that—I want it for the book! I want people to love it—I want it to stir their souls! I want brothers and friends and lovers in that great glory of mine! That is why I want all the world to shake with it.
And then I can go on!
—I wonder if they will write to me sooner, when they find out what it is.—
I have been picturing myself with some money! It is all over now—and I can do that—will it not be strange to have some money! I have been thinking where I should live, and what I should do.
The first thing I shall do is to get somebody to teach me music. And then all the concerts that I long for! How long has it been since I have heard a note of music?
I think that is all I want. I want no toys in my life. I want my freedom, and my soul, and the forest once again.—
I read some of the psalms to-night—far, far into the morning. My heart is a psalm.
—I have gotten something to do! I am a waiter in a restaurant on Sixth Avenue! I got the place this morning. Ugh!—it is nasty beyond words. But I do not care, it will keep me alive.
July 11th.
What a thing is hope! I have been for two days chained in the most horrible kind of a place. Picture it—to stand all day and see low people stuffing themselves with food—the dirt and the grease and the stench and the endless hideous drudgery! And I five days out of the springing forest and the ecstasy of inspiration!—Truly, it is a thing to put one's glory to a test! But I hardly feel it—I walk on air—deep back in my soul there is an organ song, I hear it all day, all day!
How soon will they write? I fly up-stairs each night, looking for a letter. Hurry up! Hurry up!
—“Pegasus im Joche!”
July 13th.
The book! The book! I go thinking about it—when I come home I throw myself down on the bed and laugh with suppressed excitement. I think all day—they are reading it now, perhaps! Ah, my book! And perhaps I'll find somebody at home there to see me about it to-night!
I look at the reviews—I am interested in all the books of the day now—because The Captive is going to be among them! How will it seem to see it there, in big letters?
And how will it seem to be known? I am not a fool—I know what will help me to my peace when I am out there in the woods again—and it will not be that the newspapers have been talking about me, and that the dames of high society have asked me to their tea-parties. But there are one or two men in this world that I should like to know. Perhaps as the author of a book that is known it would be possible.
—Yes, before I was one of the mob, and now I have shown what I can do.
July 15th.
The horror of that awful “eating-joint” grows on me every hour. I could not bear it much more—physically it makes me ill, and no amount of enthusiasm can make that better. I will not sell a second more of my time than I have to. I made up my mind that I would give up the place at the end of the week. The money will do me for another week after that, and by that time I will surely have heard from the publishers.
I'll have to tell them, that's all,—it is nothing to be ashamed of. They'll have to give me some money in advance. I can not live in that cesspool.
Yes, to-morrow and half of the next day,—that is all I will bear!
—I long sometimes to go and see them; but no, I can wait.
July 17th.
I treated myself to a long holiday this afternoon. I went up to the park, and walked and walked. Everything was in a tumult within me—I was clear of that last prison. And all the excitement and the power of that poem are still in me. I am restless, all on fire, stern, hungry, like a wind-storm. Come not near me unless you wish for truth! Come not near me if you fear the gods!
To-day my thoughts went surging into the future. I shall have money!—I shall be free!—And what shall I do next? I counted up what I might have—even a slight success for the book would mean a fortune such as turned my head to think of. What would I do?
My mind pounced upon a new work—a work that I have dreamed of often. Would it be my next work? I thought—would I be able—would I dare? It is a grand thing.
I went on, and got to thinking of it; I almost forgot that I was not still in the woods. What a sweeping thing I see it!
The American! It would have to be a three-volume novel, I fear—it would be as huge as Les Misérables!
It is the Civil War! I am haunted by that fearful struggle. Is there anything more fearful in history, any more tremendous effort of the human spirit? And so far it has not made one great poem, one great drama, one great novel!
It was the furnace-fire in which this land was forged—this land which holds in its womb the future of the world—this land that is to give laws to the nations and teach mankind its destiny. I search the ages, and I find no struggle so fraught with meaning, with the woe and the terror and the agony of a desperate hope.
It must be all put into an art-work, I say! There is no theme that could thrill the men of this country more, that could lift them more, that could do more to make their hearts throb with pride. We sent all the best that we had—armies and armies of them—and they toiled and suffered, they rotted upon a thousand fields of horror. And their souls cry out to me, that it must not be for naught, that the fearful consecration must not be for naught.
The world is filled with historical fiction; it is the cant and the sham of the hour.—Bah!
—This is what I long to do; to take the agony of that struggle and live it and forge it into an art-work; to put upon a canvas the soul of it; to put it there, living and terrible, that the men of this land might know the heritage that is come down to them.
It would take years of toil, it would take money, too—I should have to go down there. But some day I shall do it!
I saw some of it to-day, and it made my blood go!
I saw a poet, young, sensitive, throbbing at the old, old wrong, at the black shame of our history; I saw him drawn into that fearful whirlpool of blood and passion, driven mad with the pain and the horror of it; and I saw him drilled and hammered to a grim savageness, saw him fighting, day by day, with his spirit, forging it into an iron sword of war. He was haggard and hollow-eyed, hard, ruthless, desperate. He saw into the future, he saw the land he loved, the land he dreamed of—the Union! She stretched out her arms to him; she cried with the voices of unborn ages, she wrung her hands in the agony of her despair. And for her his heart beat, for her he was a madman, for her he marched in sun and in snow, for her he was torn and slashed, for her he waded through fields of slaughter. Of her he dreamed and sung—sung to the camps in the night-time, till armies were thrilled with his singing.
This was the thing of which he sang, the gaunt, grim poet: There is a monster, huge beyond thought, terrible, all-destroying; the name of it is Rebellion, and the end of it is Death! Day by day you grapple with it, day by day you hammer it, day by day you crush it. Down with it, down with it! Finish it!
I heard that as a battle-cry: “Finish it!” I saw a man, wild and war-frenzied, riding a war-frenzied horse; he rode at the head of a squadron, bare-headed, sword in hand, demon-like—thundering down-hill upon a mass of men, stabbing, slashing, trampling, scattering! Above the roar of it all I heard his cry: “Finish it! Finish it!”
And afterward he staggered from his horse and knelt by the men he had killed, and wept.
—I saw him again. It was when the man of the hour had come at last; when the monster had met his master; when, day by day, they hammered it, the fire-spitting, death-dealing monster; when they closed with it in death-grapple in a tangled wilderness, where armies fought like demons in the dark, and the wounded were burned by the thousands. I saw companies of fainting, starving, agonized men, retreating, still battling, day by day; and I saw the wild horseman galloping on their track, slashing, trampling—and still with the battle-yell: “Finish it! Finish it!”
I saw him yet a third time. It was done, it was finished; and he lay wounded in a dark room, listening. Outside in the streets of Washington a great endless army marched by, the army of victory, of salvation; and the old war-flags waved, and the old war-songs echoed, and he heard the trampling of ten thousand feet—the rumbling of the old cannon—and the ocean-roaring of the vast throngs of men! A wild delirium of victory throbbed in his soul,—burned him up, as he lay there alone, dying of his passion and his wounds. Born of the joy that throbbed in the air about him, born of the waving banners and the clashing trumpets and the trampling hosts and the shouting millions—a figure loomed up before him—a figure with eyes of flame and a form that towered like the mountains—with arms outstretched in rapture and robes that touched the corn-fields as she sped—angel, prophetess, goddess!—Liberty!
—And at her feet he sobbed out his life.
—The American!
July 18th.
Still another day, and no news from the publisher's. The time is nearly up—I can not wait much longer.
They have rejected The Captive! They have rejected The Captive! In God's name, what does it mean? They have rejected The Captive!
I stared at the paper in blank consternation! I couldn't realize the words, I couldn't understand what they meant. Such a thing never occurred to me in my wildest moment.
What is the matter with them—are they mad? Great God, that any human creature!—And without a line about it!
—“We have carefully considered the MS. which you have kindly offered us, and regret that we are not advised to undertake its publication. We are returning the MS. with thanks for your courtesy in submitting it.”
That letter came to me like a blow in the face.—I have spent hours to-night pacing the streets, almost speechless. Fools!
—But I will not let such a thing disturb me for an instant. Yes, they are a great publishing-house—but such things as I have seen them publish! And they “regret.” Well, youwillregret, some day, never fear!
July 19th.
The manuscript arrived this morning. I took it up-stairs and sat down, trembling, and read it all again.
I wish that I could see the man or woman who read that poem and rejected it—just that I might see what kind of looking person it is. Oh, the wildness of it, the surge and the roar of it! The glory of it!
I can not afford to waste my time worrying about such things. I only say “Fools!”
—I took it to another publisher. I don't know any in particular, but I will try the best. This publisher didn't seem very anxious to read it. Go ahead, try it!—Or are you a fool too?
—Of course I shall have to begin tramping around, looking for some work again. I must find something better than the last.
July 20th.
Nervous, impatient—it is so that I have lived. Never to waste an instant has been my passion. I have struggled, watched, fought for a minute. If ever I were held back or kept idle it drove me wild, and I burst through everything. It has always been a torture to me not to be thinking something.
But less of that torture than I have now, I think I never had; it seems as if I had won the mastery—I mind nothing any more. I walk upon the air, and I never tire. Thoughts—endless thoughts—come to me without ever the asking; nothing disturbs me, nothing hinders me—I take everything along with me.—I am full of impulse, of life, of energy!—
I am the owner of the sphere,Of the seven stars and the solar year,Of Cæsar's hand and Plato's brain!—
And this when I have spent all the day looking for work!—answering advertisements, and tramping to this place and that! Discouraging?—what does the word mean?
—I am the man who has never learned to shiver and shake!
I thought of a young Irishman I worked with a long time ago. “Once I went into a place, and says I, 'I'd like to be havin' a job.' An' he looked me over, an' he says, says he, 'Git oot!' An' so I thought I'd better git oot!”
It might take me some time to find a publisher, I was thinking to-day. I do not know anything about publishers. But once get it before the world, that is the thing! I fear nothing, I can wait. It is done, that is all I can think of. —The rest “must follow, as the night the day.”
July 21st.
To-night I sat by the bedside trembling, thinking of what I had learned. Oh, this faith that I have gained, it must go forth among men! A prayer welled up in my soul—I have learned what I can do—I have learned that I can do what I will! I have seen the infinite heights that lie beyond—oh, let me not fail! The hopes of unborn generations are in my soul.
—That is true. What systems shall come of this vision of mine, what new ways of beauty, what new happiness and new freedom! That thought has shaken the very depths of my soul.
It makes me leap up—it makes me wish to go! Why should I not start now? Why should I waste to-day?
July 22d.
I have been making plans. I must get to work. I was racing through all sorts of vast schemes to-day as I walked about the streets hunting for something to do. I will make my Greek perfect first—I can do that while I am walking.
I made an athlete of myself pacing up and down with The Captive! I honestly think I walked ten or twelve hours some days. I have walked all day to-day, but I do not feel tired. I answered advertisements in the papers.
—Why are men impolite? I do not believe I could ever learn to speak rudely.
July 23d.
The impossible occupations that I have thought of, in trying to solve my problem! To-day I saw myself a lighthouse-keeper! What does a lighthouse-keeper do, anyway? And could I manage to get such a place where I could be alone by myself?
—But no, some one would have to attend to the light!—
I thought of being a hall-boy. But you are not paid very much.—I said, however, that I would at least get some sort of a place up-town. I could not stand it down in the “business” world.
God, how horrible it is! All that seething effort—and for what? All this “business”—is it really necessary to the developing of the souls of men? Does each man in that rushing mob need more money yet, to begin developing his soul?
—Another occupation! I saw myself a lonely hunter, living by a mountain lake, and shooting game for a living! I wonder if that wouldn't be possible. I never shot any game, but I could learn.
It would suit me perfectly to sit by a mountain lake and read Greek and watch for ducks.
July 27th.
I was getting down pretty close to the limit again, but I got something to do to-day. I had to take what I could find; it is what would be called a good position, I suppose; I am in a wholesale-paper store. I get twelve dollars, and that is quite something.
The business of the will is to face the things that come—not any other things. Now I have to drill and discipline myself anew, to learn to save my soul alive in a wholesale-paper store!
It is a great, dingy place, full of chaffering, hungry-looking men. They are all desperately serious; it is a great “business house,” I believe; the very atmosphere of it is deadly poison.
—Oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner, that didst gaze at me over black-rimmed spectacles—so I have “an opportunity to rise,” have I?
Yes,—I shall rise upon wings of a sapphire sheen, and toss myself up in the wind and shake down showers of golden light into thy wondering eyes, oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner!
—It is my business to show samples of paper. I shall learn all about them in a few days, and then I shall go at the Greek.
July 28th.
Whenever I feel weary I run off into a corner and whisper into my ear, “It is done! Be not afraid!” Instantly my heart goes up like swift music.
July 31st.
Twelve days since I left The Captive; they said it would take three weeks.
Something strange flashed over me to-day, something that sent a shudder through me; I have done a strange thing to myself this summer, not in metaphor, but in fact. I have seen a ghost; I have drunk a potion; I have gazed upon a nymph; I have made myself mad!
I am no longer a man among men—I am “the reed that grows never more again”!
—I try to lose myself in a book, but the book does not hold me. Nothing satisfies me as it used to,—I am restless, hungry, ill at ease. Why should I read this man's weak efforts—what profits me that man's half-truths?
—And all the time I know too well what I want—I want to fight!
I want to get back into the woods again! I want that vision again! That work again! I wantmyself!
—And here I am, a bird in a cage, beating the bars. What folly to say that I can be strong and endure this thing! That I can endure anything, dare anything. Yes, so I can—if I can strive! Put me out there alone, and set me a task, and I will do it though it kill me. But how can I conquer when I can not strive?
Here I am, tied! I am tied—not hand and foot—but tied in soul. Tied in time! Tied in attention! How can I be anything but beaten and wretched? How can I expect anything but defeat and ruin? A song comes to me, it calls me—and I can not go! I must stare at it and watch it leave me!—How can that not drive me wild?
The great wings of my soul begin to beat—I go up, I am wild for the air,—and then suddenly I am struck back by the hideous impertinences of the wholesale-paper business! How can I endure such things as that—how can IconquerWhy, it is like the clashing in my ears of twenty trumpets out of tune!
Do not keep me here long! Do not keep me here long!
—It is something that I find very strange and curious to watch—how spontaneously, and instinctively, all young men dislike me. Have I a brand upon my forehead?
It is not my habit to stand upon the pedestal of my inspiration, and gaze down upon those that I meet. Sympathy is my life—I can sympathize even with men who aspire to rise in business. But I have to live many lives, and new lives; and I can brook no delay.
I will make no compromises; I have sworn a vow against idle words—they may dislike me as they will. I give my work, for which I am paid; I can not give my soul.
August 2d.
Oh what a horrible thing is “business”! Here, where I am,—this isthe world. An industrial era!
This is a wholesale-paper house, and the three partners who run it call themselves, with unconscious irony, “wholesale-paper MEN”! They live their lives in wholesale-paper,—they talk it—they dream it—they plan it—they have no hope in the world except to find people to buy wholesale-paper! And the manager—keen and hungry—he is planning to be a wholesale-paper man himself. And here are twenty-five men and youths apparently having but one virtue in the world, the possibility of consecrating their souls to wholesale-paper!
What they make is useful, it may even be sublime—in which way the business is unique. But none of these men ever thinks of that—they would be just as absorbed in the business if it were wholesale bonnets. None of them has the least care in the world about books. And these men who come here to buy the paper—aretheyany better? Or is their interest in the paper the profits it may bring to them?
—Dear God!—That brought me back to The Captive.
—I have been sick to-day, and sickness clips your wings. It is an error of mine—I pay for my food with my soul, and so I try to eat little, and thereby make myself ill.
August 3d.
I got my first twelve dollars to-day!
August 5th.
To-day I made a resolution, that I must stop this chafing, this panting, this beating my wings to pieces. A man's inspiration must be under his control, to stop it, as well as to start it. I can not write or dream poetry while I am in this slavery, and somehow I have to realize it. When I go home I will get to some work, and not wander around hungering.
After my glimpse of the forest it is frightful to be penned in this steaming city. To have to work in an office all day—sometimes it makes me reel. And then at night too, when I try to read, the room gets suffocating.
Then I go out among the tenement-house crowds, carrying my little note-book. I stop at a lamp-post and look at a couple of words and then walk on and learn them! So I go for hours.
—Hurry up, publishers!—I wrote to them to-night.
August 7th.
“In answer to your letter of the 5th instant, we beg to inform you that your manuscript is now in the hands of our readers, and that you may expect a report upon it in a week.”
I am reading Euripides.
August 8th.
Oh how will I find words for my delight when I have got a little money and can escape from dirt and horror. To-night two vile men have been quarreling in the room underneath, and I have been drinking in all their brutal ugliness. Bah!—
To live in a place where there are not horrible women in wrappers, reeling, foul-smelling men, snuffling children with beer-cans!
This is more of my “economy”!
To-night I sat upon the edge of the bed and whispered, “To be free! I shall be free!”—until I was trembling in every nerve.
My beautiful poem! My beautiful poem will set me free!
Sometimes I love it just as if it were a child.
August 10th.
Twelve dollars more!
August 11th.
“We have read with the utmost interest the manuscript of The Captive which you have been so good as to show us. We are very sorry to say that it does not seem to us that the publication of this poem would be a venture in which we could engage with profit. At the same time, however, we have been very much struck with it, and consider it an altogether remarkable piece of work. We should like very much to have the privilege of an interview with you, should you find it convenient.”
Now what in the world do they mean by that? If they are not going to publish the book, what do they want to see me for? And I've wasted two weeks more of my life!
I had not reckoned on petty things such as these. I fear I have not much knowledge of men. How can a man read The Captive and not know that others would read it? What are they in business for, anyway?
August 12th.
I begged off from work for an hour. I have had an interview with the great publishers! I have learned a great deal too.
I saw the manager of the firm. He meant to be very kind, that is the first thing to say; the second is that he is very well-dressed, and comfortable-looking.
“Now, Mr. Stirling,” said he, “you know a publishing house is always on the lookout for the new man. That is why I wanted to have the pleasure of meeting you. It is evident to me that you have literary talent of no common kind.”
(I bow.)
“I wish that I could tell you that we could consider The Captive an available piece of writing; I have read it myself with the greatest care. But you must know, Mr. Stirling, that it is an exceedinglydifficultpiece of work; I mean difficult from a publisher's point of view. There is very little demand for poetry nowadays—a publisher generally brings out at a loss even the poems that make a reputation for their authors. Whether you are aware of that I don't know, but it is true; and I think of all kinds of poetry a blank verse tragedy is the most to be shunned.”
(Here a pause. I have never any tongue when I am with men.)
“What I want to talk to you about, Mr. Stirling, is the work which you contemplate in the future. As I said, I was interested at once in this work; I should like very much indeed to advise you and to be of any assistance to you that I can. I should like very much to know what your plans are. I should like very much to see anything that you might write. Are you contemplating anything just at present?”
“No, not just at present.”
“Not? Don't you think that you might find it possible to produce something just a little more in accordance with the public taste? Don't you think, for instance, that you might possibly write a novel?”
(Some hesitation.) “I have thought of a novel.”
“Ah! And might I ask—would it be a character study?—or perhaps historical?—or—”
“It would be historical.”
“Ah! And of what period?”
“The Civil War.”
(A great look of satisfaction.) “Dear me! Why, that is very interesting indeed, Mr. Stirling! I should like to see such a work from your pen. And are you thinking of completing it soon?”
(General discomfort on my part.) “I had never thought of the time exactly. I had feared it would take a great many years.”
(Perplexity.) “Oh, pshaw!—still, of course, that is the way all great work is done. Yes, one has to obey one's own inspiration. I understand perfectly how he can not adjust himself to the market. I have seen too often how disastrous such attempts are.”
(More courteous platitudes, I assenting. Then at last, weary—)
“You don't think, then, that you will be able to undertake The Captive?”
“No, Mr. Stirling, I really do not think we can. You understand, of course, if I take this work to the firm I have to tell them I think it will sell; and that I can not honestly do. You know that a publishing house is just as much limited as any other business firm—it can not afford to publish books that the trade does not want. And this is an especially unusual sort of thing, it is by no means easy to appreciate—you must be aware of that yourself, Mr. Stirling. You see when I read a manuscript I have to keep constantly before my mind the thought of how it is going to affect the public—a very different thing from my own judgment, of course. From the former standpoint I believe there are things in The Captive that would meet with a reception not satisfactory to either of us, Mr. Stirling.”
(Perplexity on my part.) “You'll have to explain that to me, I fear.”
“Why—but the explaining of that would be to offer you my opinion about the book—”
“I should be very pleased to hear it. Your reason for declining it, then, is not altogether that it is a blank-verse drama?”
“Not altogether, Mr. Stirling. It's a little difficult for me to tell you about these things, you know. I understand that the book must have meant a great deal to you, and so I am naturally diffident. But if you will pardon my saying so, it seems to me that the book—it is obviously, of course, the work of a young man—it is very emotional, it strives to very high altitudes. I will not say that it is exaggerated, but—the last part particularly—it seems to me that you are writing in too high a key, that your voice is strained.” (An uncomfortable pause.) “Of course, now, that is but my opinion. It will not seem of any value to you, perhaps, but while I read it I could not get away from the fact that it was not altogether natural. It seemed hysterical and overwrought in places—it gives the effect of crudeness. It is rather hard, you know, to expect a man who sits at a desk all day to follow you in such very strenuous flights.” (A slight laugh.)
“Mind you it is not that I do not appreciate high qualities, Mr. Stirling, it is merely that it seemed to me that if it were toned down somewhat it would be better—you know such things strike different people in different ways; you do not find it easy to believe that it would affect men so—but I am pretty sure that the impulse of the average critic would be to go still further—to make fun of it. Here, for instance—let me read you the opinion upon the book that was handed in by one of our most experienced readers—etc., etc.—”
I have told enough of that story, giving the conversation as literally as I can recall it. I am always a fool, the presence of other men overawes me; I sit meek and take all that comes, and then make my escape. The great publishers' manager still thinks he impressed me with his wisdom—he has half an idea I'm going to “tone down” The Captive!
—He read me that criticism—great God, it makes me writhe! It was like a review of the Book of Revelations by Bill Nye.
That my work should be judged by such men!
—“Exaggerated!” “Hysterical!” And is there nothing hysterical in life, then? And would you go through battle and pestilence with the same serenity that you sit there at your desk all day, you publisher?
As if a man who was being torn to pieces would converse after the manner of Mr. Howells and Jane Austen!
—“Tone it down!” That bit of inanity has been haunting my ears. Tone down The Captive! Tone down the faith and rapture of my whole life, until it is what the reading public will find natural!—And tone down the Liebes-Tod—and tone down the Choral Symphony—and Epipsychidion—and King Lear!