“As I lay in sleep a sheep ate up the ivy crown of my head—ate and then said: 'Zarathustra is no more a scholar.'
“Said it and went strutting away, and proud. A child told it to me....
“This is the truth. I am gone out of the house of the scholars, and have slammed to the door behind me....
“I am too hot, and burning with my own thoughts; oft will it take away my breath. I must into the open and out of all dusty rooms.
“But they sit cool in cool shadows; they wish in all things to be but spectators, and guard themselves lest they sit where the sun burns the steps.
“Like those who stand upon the street and stare at the people who go by; so they wait also and stare at the thoughts that others have thought.
“If one touches them with the hands, they make dust around them like meal-sacks, and involuntarily;but who could guess that their dust comes from corn and the golden rapture of the summer fields?”
“Too far away into the future I flew; a horror overcame me. And as I looked around me, there was Time my only companion.
“Then I flew backward, homeward—and ever faster: so I came to you, men of the present, and to the Land of Culture.
“For the first time I brought an eye for you, and good wishes; truly, with longing in my heart I came.
“And what happened to me? Frightened as I was—I had to laugh. Never had my eyes seen anything so color-besprinkled!
“I laughed and laughed while my foot still trembled, and my heart too: 'Here is the home of all paint-pots!' said I.
“Painted over with fifty spots in face and limbs; so sat ye there, to my amazement, ye men of the present!...
“Written all over with the signs of the past, and also these signs painted over with new signs; so you have hidden yourself well from all sign-readers!...
“All Times and Principles look piebald out of your coverings; all Customs and Faiths speak piebald out of your features....
“Howcouldye believe, ye color-besprinkled!—who are pictures of everything that ever was believed!...
“Ah, whither shall I go now with my longing?”
“Who are pictures of everything that ever was believed! Who are pictures of everything that ever was believed!” I read that and I slapped my knees and I lay back and laughed like a very Falstaff. “Pictures of everything that ever was believed!” Ho, ho, ho!
—That is some of Nietzsche!
January 8th.
To-day it snowed hard, and it occurred to me that I might add to my money. I bought a second-hand shovel and went out to shovel snow. It is not so bad, I said, you are out of doors, and also you can think of Nietzsche.
I made a dollar and a half, but I fear I did not think very much. My hands were cold, for one thing, and my shoes thin, for another.
There is nothing that brings me down like physical toil. It is madness to believe that you can do anything else—you drudge and drudge, and your mind is an absolute blank while you do it. It is a thing that sets me wild with nervousness and impatience. I hate it! I hate it!
And I find myself crying out and protesting against it; and then I see other men not minding it, and I hear the words of my dear clergyman friend: “The labor which all of us have to share.” So I say to myself: Perhaps I am really an idler then! A poor unhappy fool that can not face life's sternness, that is crying out to escape his duty!
That I could say such a thing—O God, what sign is that of how far I have fallen! Of how much I have yielded!—
A vapor, heavy, hueless, formless, cold!
Leave it to time! Leave it to time!
—I hear that, and I hear around me the laughter of mocking demons. It startles my soul—but no longer to rage as it used to. I sit and stare at it with a great, heavy numbness possessing me.
January 12th.
I am still reading Nietzsche. I think I shall read all that he has written. I am always kept aware of the limitations, but he is a tremendous man. Can you guess how this took hold of me?—
“There lies the island of graves, the silent; there are also the graves of my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life.”
Thus resolving in my heart, I went over the sea.—
Oh ye visions and apparitions of my youth! Oh all ye glances of love, ye godlike moments! How swiftly you died in me! I remember you to-day as my dead.
From you, my dearest dead, there comes to me a sweet odor, heart-melting, tear-melting. Truly it shakes and melts the heart of the lonely seaman.
Still am I the richest and the most to be envied—I, the most lonely. For Ihadyou, and you have me still; say, to whom fell, as to me, such rose-apples from the trees?...
Meto kill, they strangled you, you song-birds of my hopes. Yea, at you, the dearest, shot wickedness its arrows—to strike my heart!...
This word will I speak to my enemies: “What is all murder of man beside that which ye did to me?”
Thus, in the good hour, spake my purity: “Godlike shall all being be to me.”
Then ye fell upon me with your foul spirits; ah, whither now hath the good hour fled?
“All days shall be holy to me”—so spake once the wisdom of my youth; truly the speech of a happy wisdom.
But then you enemies stole away my nights and sold them to sleepless torment; ah, whither now hath the happy wisdom fled?...
As a blind man once I went a blissful way; then you threw rubbish in the blind man's way; and now he is weary of the old blind ascendings....
And once would I dance as never had I danced before; above all the heavens away would I dance. And then you lured away my dearest singer!...
Only in the dance can I speak metaphors of the highest things:—and now my highest metaphor remained unspoken in my limbs!
Unspoken and undelivered remained my highest hope! And there died all the visions and solaces of my youth!
That thing brought the tears down my cheeks. It is what my soul has cried all day and all night—that I see all my joy and all my beauty going!
It is the fearful, the agonizingwaitingthat does it. I know it—I put it down—there is nothing kills the soul in a man so much as that. When you wait your life is outside of yourself; you hope,—you are at the mercy of others—at the mercy of indifference and accident and God knows what.
But again I cry, “What can I do? If there is anything I have not done—tell me! Tell me!”
Here I sit, and I have but seven dollars left to my name, including what I made by the shoveling. And I sit and watch the day creep on me like a wild beast on its prey—the day when I must go back into the world and toil again! Oh, it will kill me—it will kill me!
I sit and wait and hang upon the faint chance of one publisher more. It is my only chance,—and such a chance! I find myself calculating, wondering; yes, famous books have been rejected often, and still found their mark. Can I still believe that this book will shake men?
Ah, God, in my soul I do not believe it, because I have lost my inspiration! I have let go of that fire that was to drive like a wind-storm over the world.
Yes, I ask myself if such things can be! I ask myself if they were real, all those fervors and all that boldness of mine! If it was natural, that way that lived!
—Oh, and then I look back, and my heart grows sick within me.
So I spend my time, and when I turn and try to lose myself in Nietzsche, his mercilessness flings me into new despair.
January 18th.
I have the terrible gift of insensibility; and I think my insensibility torments me more than anything else in the world.
I have no life, no power, no feeling, naturally—it is all my will, it is all effort. And now that I am not striving, I sink back into a state of numbness, of dull, insensible despair. I no longer feel anything, I no longer care about anything. I pass my time in helpless impotence—and day by day I watch a thing creeping upon me as in a nightmare. I must go out into the world again and slave for my bread!
—Oh,thenI will feel something, I think!
Another week and more is gone, and I have but a little over four dollars.
January 20th.
I have stopped reading Nietzsche. I could not stand any more of it. It does not satisfy me.
It is not merely that I am so weak now, and that his mocking goads me. I would have been through with him in any case. He is so narrow—so one-sided.
It is reaction from the present, of course, that accounts for it. Too much gazing upon the world, that has led him to believe that love of man necessarily implies compromise.
There are two words that are absent from his writings—they are love and humanity; and so it never satisfies you, you are always discontented, you have always to correct and supply.
January 22d.
Oh why do those publishers take so long! I wait and yearn; I grow sick with waiting and yearning.
I never allowed any weakness in my soul before; I never made any terms with it. I blamed everything upon myself. And now that my whole life is weakness and misery, I writhe and struggle—I turn back always on myself, suspecting myself, blaming myself. I can not lay it to the world, I can not get into the habit—it is such a miserable habit! How many millions there are of them—poor, querulous wretches, blaming their fate, crying out against the world's injustice and neglect—crying out against the need of working, wishing for this and that—discontented, impotent, miserable! Oh my God—and I am one of such!
I can not bear the sound of my own voice when I complain! I hear the world answering me—and I take the part of the world! “Why don't you be a man and go out and earn your way? Why don't you face your fate? You prate about your message—what business has a man with a message that is too much for him? What business have you with weakness—whatexcusehave you for weakness?”
And so I came to see it. The world is right and I am all wrong! And the truth of it burns me like an acid in my brain.
January 24th.
And all the time my whole being is still restless with the storms that raged in it last spring! I have all those memories, all that poignancy. I can not realize it—any of what I was and had—but I know it as afact, a memory, and I crouch and tremble, I grow sick with it.
Why don't they write to me? My money is going!
January 26th.
The reason that I shudder so at the prospect of having to face the world again, is that I have no hope.I have no hope!Once I could go out into that hellish market. I could be any man's slave, do any drudgery—because I saw a light ahead—I saw deliverance—I had a purpose!
And now what purpose have I—what hope have I? I tell you I am a man in a trap! I can do nothing! I can do no more than if I were walled in with iron!
I say that my business in this world is to be a poet! I say that there is only one thing I can do—only one way that I can get free—and that is by doing my work, by writing books. And I have done all that I can do, I have earned my freedom—and no one will give it to me! Oh, I shall die if I am penned here much longer!
I eat out my heart, I burn up my very entrails in my frenzies. Set me free!Set me free!
I thought to-day if I only had a little money—if I could only publish that book myself! I can not believe that men would not love it—I can not—no, you may crush me all you please, but I can not! And I would take it and shout it from the housetops—I would peddle it on the streets—I wouldmakethe world hear me!
—And then I sink back, and I hear the world say, “You poor fool!”
January 28th.
I have only a dollar and a half left! I have sat, shuddering and waiting, all that I dare; the end is come now, I must look for work to-morrow. It is like a death-sentence to me. I could do nothing to-night.
January 29th.
Providence came to help me to-night for once! It snowed to-day and I have been hard at work again.
January 30th.
Some more snow. My hands were nearly frost-bitten, but I keep at it; for at least it is out in the air, and it gives me a little longer respite.
In the afternoon I made up my mind to go and see the publishers and ask them if they could not read the story at once—it has been a month. I saw their literary manager; he said he was going to read it himself.
January 31st.
More snow again to-day. And I have made over five dollars. But I have come out of it more dead than alive—dulled, dispirited, utterly worn out.
If I could only be an animal for a time. But each day of the drudgery only makes me wilder with nervousness.
February 1st.
They regret, of course, and hold the MS. at my disposal. I went up to get it this afternoon, and half by accident I met the man I had seen before. I had a talk with him. He was a very curious personage.
He seemed to have been interested in The Captive. “I'll tell you,” he said, “you know there's really some extraordinary work in that poem. I believe that you have it in you to make some literature before you get through, Mr. Stirling.”
“Do you?” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “I feel pretty sure of it. You ask me to tell you about it—so you mustn't mind if I speak frankly. And of course it's very crude. You haven't found your voice yet, you're seeking for mastery, and your work is obviously young. Anybody can see in a few lines that it's young—it's one of those things like Goetz von Berlichingen, or Die Räuber—you tear a passion to tatters, you want to rip the universe up the back. But of course that wears off by and by; it isn't well to take life too seriously, you know, and I don't think it'll be long before you come to feel that The Captive isn't natural or possible—or desirable either.”
The publisher was smoking a cigar. He puffed for a moment and then he asked, “What are you doing now?”
“Nothing just at present,” said I.
“I should have supposed you'd be writing another poem,” he replied,—“though of course as a matter of fact the wisest thing you can do is to wait and learn. Your next book will be entirely different, you can be quite sure—you won't be so anxious to get hold of all the world and make it go your way.”
I smiled feebly. “Possibly not,” I said.
“I'll tell you a story,” said the publisher—“speaking about youthful aspirations! I was talking to Mr. X—— last night, the author of ——. [Footnote: The manuscript names an extremely popular historical novel.] You wouldn't think X—— was the sort of man to be reforming the world, would you? But he told me about his earliest work, that he said he had tucked away in a drawer, and it turned out he was like all other authors. This was a socialist story, it seems, and the hero delivered fiery speeches six pages long. And X—— said that he had written it and taken it to a publisher, expecting to upset the world a week after it appeared, but that he never could get anybody to publish it, and gave it up finally and went into journalism. The funny part of it was that he had sent it here, and when he told me about it, I remembered looking it over and writing him just about what I'm telling you.”
The publisher smoked for a moment or two. “You see, Mr. Stirling,” he said at last, “he had to wait ten years before he 'arrived.' So you must not be discouraged. Have you read his book?”
“No, I have not.”
“It is a very pretty piece of work—it's been many months since it came out, but they say it's still selling in the thousands. Don't get discouraged, Mr. Stirling, keep at it, because you have real talent, I assure you.”
I rose to go, and he shook my hand. “Take my advice,” he said, “and write something more practicable than a tragedy. But of course don't forget in any case that we shall always be very happy to read anything of yours at any time.”
—I walked down the street meditating. I will get over it again, of course; but to-night I sat in the dark and the cold, shivering. And I asked myself if it must not be so after all. “Isit true, the thing that I did; is itnatural?” I said. “Or must it not be exaggerated and crude, as they all tell me! And uninteresting!—What is the use of it? I tormented myself that way and tore myself to pieces, but it does not stir any one else.”
Ah, of course it's all dead in me—and I'm prepared to believe anything they tell me! It's overwrought, it's young, it's pitched in too high a key, it's strained and unnatural, it takes life too seriously! Certainly at any rate they are right that I shall never, never do the same thing again.
But unfortunately I don't feel like writing anything else. I don't know anything about historical novels.
—I would have read some of the poem again to-night, but I'm too discouraged. I am tired of it. I know it by heart, and it doesn't take hold of me.
I have been too long among men, I groan. I see their point of view too well!
Why, there are things in that book that when I read them now make me shudder. I have hardly the courage to offer it to any one else to read. I don't know any one to take it to, besides.
O God, I'm so unhappy!
February 3d.
To-day an idea occurred to me, one that should have occurred before. Once upon a time I was introduced to the editor of the ——. Perhaps he will not remember it, I said. But anyhow, why not try? I will take him The Captive—perhaps he can use it in the magazine—who knows?
I knew nothing better to do, so I went there. He was very polite—he did remember my face. He was fearfully busy, it seemed. He did not think there was much likelihood of a magazine's publishing a blank-verse tragedy; but I told him how I had worked, and he said he'd read it.
And so there's one chance more!
My poor, foolish heart is always ready to tremble with new hope. But faith in that book was sogroundinto it!
—I asked him to read it at once, I explained that I was in great haste. I think he understood what I meant. My clothes show it.
I have been hoarding my money—counting every cent. I dread the world so! Now that I am so broken, so laden with misery, it sounds about me as one jeer of mockery. But I shall have to be hunting a place soon—you never can tell how long it may take you, and the chances are so terrible.
I will not do anything until I hear from this one man, however. He promised to let me know in a week.
I did not see him at the publisher's—he has another office besides. He had huge piles of papers and books about him; he is an important man, I guess; can it be that he will be the one to save me?
I think: “Oh if he knew, he would!” I find myself thinking that of all the world—if I could only make them understand! Poor, impotent wretch, if I could only find theword!
—Or is it simply my blind egotism that makes me think that?
February 6th.
I do not think that what I write can be of much interest. It must be monotonous—all this despair, this endless crying out, this endless repetition of the same words, the same thought.
Yet that is all that my life is! That is just what I do every day—whenever I am not reading a book to forget myself.
It is all so simple, my situation! That is the most terrible thing about it, it is the same thing always and forever.
I have lived so much agony through this thing—it would not startle me if I saw that my hair had turned white. I know I feel like an old man. I am settled down into mournfulness, into despair; I can do nothing but gaze back—I have lived my life—I have spent my force—I am tired and sick.
I! I! I!—do you get tired of hearing it? It was not always like that; once you read a little about a book.
February 8th.
This is the fifth day. I am counting the days, I have been counting the very hours. He said he would be a week. And I—only think of it—I have but two dollars and sixty cents left!
Hurry up! Hurry up!
—And then I say with considerable scorn in my voice: “Haven't you learned enough about that manuscript yet? And about publishers yet?”
February 10th.
Just imagine! I went to see him to-day, and he stared at me. “Why, sure enough, Mr. Stirling!—It had slipped my mind entirely!”
I have learned to bear things. I asked him calmly to let me know as soon as possible. He said: “I am honestly so rushed that I do not know where to turn. But I will do the best I possibly can.”
I said—poor, pitiful cringing, is it not terrible?—that I'd be up his way again in three days, and did he think he could have it read by then. He said he was not sure, but that he'd try.
And so I went away. Now I have two dollars and twenty-three cents. I have to pay my rent to-morrow, and that will leave me a dollar and a half. I can make that do me seven or eight days—I have one or two things at home. I'll wait the three days—and then I'll have to set out in earnest to find something to do.
Oh, the horror of not knowing if you can pay your next week's room rent in this fearful city!
February 11th.
I sat and looked at myself to-day. I said: “When a soul is crushed like this, can it ever get up again? Can it ever be the same, no matter what happens? Don't you see the fact, that you've been tamed and broken—that you'vegiven in! And how will you ever rise from the shame of it, how will you ever forget it? All this skulking and trembling—how will you ever dare look yourself in the face again! Will not it mock your every effort? Why, you poor wretch,you've got a broken back!”
February 12th.
And to-morrow again I must go there, trembling and nervous, hanging on a word!
There is not much sense in it, but I have learned to hate all men who have ease and power.
February 13th.
I knew it! I could have told it beforehand. “I am awfully sorry, Mr. Stirling, but it is no use talking, I simply can not! I will write you just as soon as ever I get it read.”
And so I came out. I had a dollar and twenty cents. My rent would be due in four days again. So even if I got some work at once I should have to pawn something.
—Thus I began my search for a situation. I could not choose—I was willing to take anything.
I fear I look like a tramp; but I have several letters from places where I have worked. Still, I could not find anything. I have tramped all day until I could hardly move. I bought a paper, but everything advertised was gone by that time.
If it would only snow again, so that I could shovel some more!
February 14th.
Again I have been pacing the streets the whole endless day, beaten back and rebuffed at every turn. I have been drilled for this, this is the climax! First take every gleam of heart out of me, and then set me to pacing the streets in the cold, to be stared at and insulted by every kind of a man!
And still nothing to do.
February 15th.
I take my lunch with me—I have cut myself down to twenty cents a day for food. I walk and walk, and I am so hungry I can not do on less than that. I have but sixty cents left to-night. I failed again to-day.
February 16th.
It is not as desperate as it sounds, because I have a few books and things that I can sell—I do not believe that I will actually starve—I have always done my work well, and have gotten references. But O God, the shame of it—the endless, heaped-up bitterness!
I have sunk into a beast of burden. I trudge on with my mind torpid—I take whatever comes to me, and go on mechanically. Oh it cows me, it wears me down! I have learned to bear anything—anything! A man might kick me and I would not mind.
I think I went to fifty places yesterday. Nothing to do—nothing. To-day is Sunday, but I tried even to-day. I came home to get some dinner.—I might have been a porter in a hotel, and carried trunks—that was my one chance. But I have not the physical power for that.
—And then after all—toward evening—when I was so tired I was almost wild—I had an offer at last! And guess what it was—of all the things that I had made up my mind I could not bear—to be a waiter!
It is, I believe, what a man should call a rare opportunity. It is a fairly good restaurant just off Broadway; and I get ten dollars and tips. Poor me! My heart bounded for a moment, and then I asked myself, And what do you want with money any more? I took the place, and I am to begin the day after to-morrow. I am so tired I can hardly move.
February 17th.
Was it not irony? I have watched day by day for snow; and now that I have taken the other place—behold, to-day it snows a foot!
—I went to see the editor in the afternoon. I was desperate at the thought of to-morrow. I said I would tell him!—But when I got there I only had the courage to inquire about the poem. He had not read it. I feared he seemed annoyed.
I shall not go there again for a week. I can not make him hurry.
February 18th.
To-day I had to begin by apologizing to my landlady, and begging her to let me pay her a week later. I had to go into an elaborate explanation—she wanted to know why I had not been working all these months, and so on. She has a red face, and drinks, I think.
Then I had to take a load of my best books—my poor, few precious books that I have loved—and sell them at a second-hand bookstore. When I had sold them I had to hire a waiter's suit for a week, until I had money to buy it. And then with that awful thing on I went down to the restaurant.
Can you imagine how a pure woman would feel if she had to go into a brothel to live? That was just how I felt—just how! Oh my God, the indignity of it! Is thereanythingthat I could do more humiliating?
—But I have lost the power of getting angry. Only my heart is one great sob.
February 20th.
Oh, that hellish place! What is there in this whole city more brutal than that restaurant?
Day and night, day and night, to see but one thing—to see flashy, overdressed, fat and vulgar men and women gorging themselves! Oh, this will teach me to feel—this at least! I go about with my whole being one curse of rage—I could throttle them! And to bow and smirk and lackey them—all day! All day! Oh, what shall I do—how shall I bear it?
They offer me tips. At first I thought I should refuse; but no, I dare not do that, even if I wanted to. And since I have stooped to do it, I will take all I can get. To get money is my one passion now. Oh my God, how can I bear it!
February 21st.
I said to-day, I must fight this thing—I must, or it will kill me; I can not let myself go to wreck in this fashion—I've got to fight!
And so I got my note-book; and I fell to work to drive myself as of old. The effort that it cost me made me ill, but I did it. I shall keep on doing it—I am like a man faced by a fiend—Imustkeep on—I must!
But then, why do you want to have new languages? Do you not know enough now to keep you in reading matter for all the time you are ever likely to have?
February 24th.
Oh, one can get used to even a flashy restaurant! It is your fate—you take it. This is how I pass all my time there. I struggle to resist the deadening of it, and the horror of it; while I am going about the loathsome grind I try to think—try to have some idea in my head. And something comes to me—something beautiful, perhaps; and then in a few moments, in the clatter and confusion, I lose it; and after that I go about haunted, restless, feeling that I have lost something, that I ought to be doing something. What the thing is, I do not even know—but so it drives me and drives me!
I spend literally hours that way.
February 25th.
When are you going to read that poem—when? The week was gone yesterday—but I will not trouble you, even now! I wait, I wait!
February 27th.
There is another torment about this fearful place that I am in, one that you could not imagine. I had thought that it would be a pleasure, but it tears my soul. They have music in the evening; and fancy a person in my state listening to a violin!
Chiefly, of course, they play trash; but sometimes there comes something beautiful, perhaps only a phrase. But it takes hold of my soul, it makes my eyes grow dim, it makes me shudder. It is all my pent-up agony, it is all my sleeping passion—why, it overwhelms me! And I am helpless—I can not get away from it!
Remember that I have not heard any music for a year. It is like the voice of a dead love to me. I thought to-night that I could not bear it.
March 1st.
To-day I had a day off, and I went to see the editor. I have been waiting, day by day, for a letter; it has been a month since I left it with him, and I found that he had not read it yet!
“Mr. Stirling,” he said, “it is not my fault, it has simply been impossible. Now I will tell you what to do. I am going out of the city Sunday week, and I shall have a little leisure then. I do not see how I can get to it before that, so you take it and see if you can find some one else to read it meanwhile. If you will bring it to me Saturday, a week from to-day, I will promise you faithfully to read it on Sunday.”
So I took the manuscript. I tried four publishing houses, but I could not find one that would read it in a week. I had to take the manuscript home.
March 3d.
To-morrow ends my second week at the restaurant. It took me five days to find that place, but I am going to give it up to-morrow. I could not bear it, if it were to save my life. I can not bear the noise and the grease and the dirt, and the endless, endless vulgarity; but above all I can not bear the music.
I can bear almost any degradation, I have found; but not when I have to listen to music!
Besides, I can afford to give it up. I have made a fortune. I shall have over thirty dollars when I leave!
I have always been paid, I find, in proportion to the indignities I bore—in proportion to the amount I humiliated myself before the rich and the vulgar. These vile, bejeweled, befeathered women, these loathsome, swinish men—theseare the people who have money to spend. They go through the world scattering their largess with royal hand; and you can get down and gather it up out of the mud beneath their feet.
I come home at night worn out and weak, sometimes almost in a stupor; but I am never too ill to brood over that hideous state of affairs. I gaze at it and I wring my hands, and I cry: Oh my Father in heaven, will it always be like this?
Think of it—this money that these people squander—do you know what it is? It is the toil of society! That is what it is,—it ismytoil—it is the toil of the millions that swarm in the tenements where I live—it is the toil of the laborers, the beasts of burden of society, in the cities and in the country.
Think about it, I cry, think about it!—Can I not find any word, is there nothing I can do or say now or at any time, to make men see it? Why, you take it for granted—Ihave taken it for granted all my days—that money should belong to the brutal rich to squander in whatever inanity may please them! But it never dawns upon you that this money isthe toil of the human race! Money is the representation of all that human toil creates—of allvalue; it is houses that laborers build, it is grain that farmers raise, it is books that poets write! And see what becomes of it—see!see! Or are you blind or mad, that youwillnot see? Have you no more faith in man, no more care about the soul?
You think that I have been made sick by my work in that one haunt of vice. But it is not only that, it is not only that fever district where all the diseases of a city gather. I have been alloverthe city, and it is everywhere the same. Go to the opera-house any night and you may see blasphemous vanity enough to feed the starving of this city for a year. Walk up Fifth Avenue and see them driving; or go to Newport and see them there. Why, I read in the papers once of a woman who gave a ball—and the little fact has stuck in my mind ever since that she wore a dress trimmed with lace that cost a thousand dollars a meter! I do not speak of the infinite vulgarity of the thing—it is the monstrouscrimeof it that cries to me. These people—why, they have society by thethroat!
I bury my face in my pillow and sob; but then I look up and pray for faith. I say we are only at the beginning of civilization, we can see but the first gleams of a social conscience; but it will come—it must come! Am I to believe that mankind will always submit to toil and pant to make lace at a thousand dollars a meter to cover the pride-swollen carcase of a society dame?
How is it to be managed? I do not know. I am not a political economist—I am a seeker after righteousness. But as a poet, and as a clear-eyed soul, I stand upon the heights and I cry out for it, I demand it. I demand that society shall come to its own, I demand that there shall be intelligence in the world! I demand that the toil of the millions shall not be for the pride of the few! I demand that it shall not be to buy diamonds and dresses and banquets, horses and carriages, palaces and yachts! I demand that it shall be for the making of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and love!
Oh, thou black jungle of a world!—What know you of knowledge and power, of beauty and light and love? What do you dream of these things? The end of man as you know it is to fight and struggle like a maniac, and grab for his own all that he can lay his claws upon. And what is your social ideal—but to lavish, each man upon himself, all that he can lavish before he dies? And whom do you honor save him who succeeds in that? And whom do you scorn save him who fails?
Oh thou black jungle of a world!—I cry it once again—