The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 2

You sit with these books, and time and s.p.a.ce "to nothingness do sink."

There looms up before you--like a bare mountain in its majesty--the great elemental world-fact, the death-grapple of the will with circ.u.mstance.

You may build yourself any philosophy or any creed you please, but you will never get away from the world-fact--the death-grapple of the soul with circ.u.mstance. aeschylus has one creed, and Milton has another, and Sh.e.l.ley has a third; but always it is the death-grapple. Chaos, evil--circ.u.mstance--lies about you, binds you; and you grip it--you close with it--all your days you toil with it, you shape it into systems, you make it live and laugh and sing. And while you do that, there is in your heart a thing that is joy and pain and terror mingled in one pa.s.sion.

Who knows that pa.s.sion? Who knows--

"With travail and heavy sorrow The holy spirit of Man."

Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound, and Samson Agonistes! And now there will be a fourth. It will be The Captive.

Am I a fool? I do not know--that is none of my business. It is my business to do my best.

Horace bids you, if you would make him weep, to weep first yourself. I understand by the writing of a poem just this: that the problem you put there you discover for yourself; that the form you put it in you invent for yourself; and, finally, that what you make it, from the first word to the last word, from the lowest moment to the highest moment, you _live_; that when a character in such a place acts thus, he acts thus because you, in that place--not would have acted thus, but _did_ act thus; that the words which are spoken in that moment of emotion are spoken because you, in that moment of emotion--not would have spoken them, but _did_ speak them. I propose that you search out the scenes that have stirred the hearts of men in all times, and see if you can find one that was written thus--not because the author had lived it thus, but because somebody else had lived it thus, or because he wanted people to think he had lived it thus.

And now you are writing The Captive. You do not go into the dungeon in the body, because you need all your strength; but in the spirit you have gone into the dungeon, and the door has clanged, and it is black night--the world is gone forever. And there you sit, while the years roll by, and you front the naked fact. Six feet square of stone and an iron chain are your portion--that is circ.u.mstance; and the will--_you_ are the will. And you grip it--you close with it--all your days you toil with it; you shape it into systems, make it live and laugh and sing. And while you do that there is in your heart a thing that is joy and pain and terror mingled in one pa.s.sion.

Yes, sometimes I shrink from it; but I will do it--meaning what those words mean. I will fight that fight, I will live that life--to the last gasp; and it shall go forth into the world a living thing, a new well-spring of life.

It shall be--I don't know what you call the thing, but when you have hauled your load halfway up the hill you put a block in the way to keep it from sliding back. That same thing has to be done to society.

Man will never get behind the Declaration of Independence again, nor behind the writings of Voltaire again. We let Catholicism run around loose now, but that is because Voltaire cut its claws and pulled out all its teeth.

April 16th.

I was thinking to-day, that The Captive would be an interesting doc.u.ment to students of style. Read it, and make up your mind about it; then I will tell you--the first line of it is almost the first line of blank verse I ever wrote in my life.

I have read about the French artists, the great masters of style, and how they give ten years of their lives to writing things that are never published. But I have noticed that when they are masters at last, and when they do begin to publish--they very seldom have anything to say that I care in the least to hear.

--My soul is centered upon _the thing_!

Let it be a test.

I am trying to be an artist; but I have never been able to study style. I believe that the style of this great writer came from what he had to say.

You think about how he said it; but he thought about what he was saying.

It seemed strange to me when I thought of it. With all my trembling eagerness, with all my preparation, such an idea as "practise" never came to me. How could I cut the path until I had come to the forest?

All my soul has been centered upon _living_. Since this book first took hold of me--eighteen months ago--I could not tell with what terrible intensity I have lived it. They said to me, "You are a poet; why don't you write verses for the magazines?" But I was not a writer of verses for the magazines.

It has been a shrine that I have kept in the corner of my heart, and tended there. I have never gone near it, except upon my knees. There were days when I did not go near it at all, when I was weak, or distraught. But I knew that every day I was closer to the task, that every day my heart was more full of it. It was like wild music--it came to a climax that swept me away in spite of myself.

To get the mastery of your soul, to hold it here, in your hands, at your bidding, to consecrate your life to that, to watch and pray and toil for that, to rouse yourself and goad yourself day and night for that; to thrill with the memory of great consecrations, of heroic sufferings and aspirations; to have the power of the stars in your heart, of nature, of history and the soul of man; _that_ is your "practise."

April 17th.

It is true that my whole life has been a practise for the writing of this book, that this book is the climax of my whole life. I have toiled--learned--built up a mind--found a conviction; but I have never written anything, or tried to write anything, to be published. I have said, "Wait; it is not time." And now it _is_ time. If there is anything of use in all that I have done, it is in this book.

Yes; and also it is a climax in another way. It is my goal and my salvation.--Ah, how I have toiled for it!

April 19th.

I saw my soul to-day. It was a bubble, blown large, palpitating, whirling over a stormy sea; glorious with the rainbow hues it was, but perilous, abandoned.--Do you catch the _feeling_ of my soul?

Something perilous--I do not much care what. A traveler scaling the mountains, leaping upon dizzy heights; a gambler staking his fortune, his freedom, his life--upon a cast!

I will tell you about it.

It began when I was fifteen. My great-uncle, my guardian, is a wholesale grocer in Chicago; he has a large palace and a large waistcoat.

"Will you be a wholesale grocer?" said he.

"No," said I, "I will not."

I might have been a partner by this time, had I said Yes, and had a palace and a large waistcoat too.

"Then what will you be?" asked the great-uncle.

"I will be a poet," said I.

"You mean you will be a loafer?" said he.

"Yes," said I--disliking argument--"I will be a loafer."

And so I went away, and while I went I was thinking, far down in my soul.

And I said: "It must be everything or nothing; either I am a poet or I am not. I will act as if I were; I will burn my bridges behind me. If I am, I will win--for you can not kill a poet; and if I am not, I will die."

Thus is it perilous.

I fight the fight with all my soul; I give every ounce of my strength, my will, my hope, to the making of myself a poet. And when the time comes I write my poem. Then if I win, I win empires; and if I lose--

"You put all your eggs into one basket," some one once said to me.

"Yes," I replied, "I put all my eggs into one basket--and then I carry the basket myself."

Now I have come to the last stage of the journey--the "one fight more, and the last." And can I give any idea of what is back of me, to nerve me to that fight? I will try to tell you.

For seven years I have borne poverty and meanness, sickness, heat, cold, toil--that I might make myself an artist. The indignities, the degradations--I could not tell them, if I spent all the time I have in writing a journal. I have lived in garrets--among dirty people--vulgar people--vile people; I have worn rags and unclean things; I have lived upon bread and water and things that I have cooked myself; I have seen my time and my strength wasted by a thousand hateful impertinences--I have been driven half mad with pain and rage; I have gone without friends--I have been hated by every one; I have worked at all kinds of vile drudgery--or starved myself sick that I might avoid working.