The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 21

August 20th.

I thought that I would surely have heard from my poet by now. I am not a good waiter.

The senior-partner's nephew is a young German, over to learn the language.

He is on a furlough from the army. He has close-cropped hair, a low forehead, and two front teeth like a squirrel's. When he smiles he makes you think of a horse. He has opinions, commercial and political, which he enunciates in a loud voice. Think of listening to Prussian opinions!

And there is another clerk who was meant for a variety-show specialist.

He hums comic songs and cracks jokes, and conducts witty pantomime incessantly. He is very popular. He is never quiet. Sometimes he slaps you on the back.

I wrestle with my soul all day; the rage of it is like to burst me. The infinite pettiness of it--that is the thing! I am bitten and stung by a swarm of poisonous flies!

August 24th.

Another twelve dollars yesterday! I gasp with relief as if I were hauling a load up successive slopes; here is so much gained, so much safe. I have gotten along on twelve dollars; I have a little over thirty-five.

I believe these things are more wearing than the toil of writing; I know I find it so. Then I accomplish something; here I work myself into nervous frenzies, and chafe and pant for nothing. I can feel how it weakens me; I can feel that I have less elasticity, less _elan_ every day. Ah, G.o.d, let me go!

August 25th.

Why doesn't he answer my letter?

August 27th.

To-day I took myself off in a corner. I said: "Am I not here, have I not this thing to _do_? The power that I have in my soul--it is to be used for the doing of _this_; if I am to save my soul, it must be by the doing of _this_! And I am a fool that I do not face the fact. I shall be free some day--that I know--I have only to bide my time and wait.

Meanwhile I am to stay here--or until I have money enough; and now I will turn my soul to iron, and do it! I am going to study what I can in this place, and at night I am going to speed home and get into a book. I will never stop again, and never give up--and above all never think, and never feel! I will get books of fact to read--I will read histories, and no more poetry. I will read Motley, and Parkman, and Prescott, and Gibbon, and Macaulay.--Macaulay will not afflict me with wild yearnings, I guess."

--Is there any author in the world more vulgar than Macaulay?--unless it be Gibbon. Or possibly Chesterfield.

I have heard Chesterfield's letters referred to as a "school for gentlemen." When the world is a little bit civilized, men will read them as they now read Machiavelli's Prince.

--All these resolutions while I was selling wholesale-paper! I fought quite a battle, and heard some of the old-time music. What a task for a poet,--to fight _not_ to live!

August 30th.

I have still heard nothing from my poet! I wrote to him to-day to ask him if he had received my letter. Eighteen whole days gone by, and I watching every mail, with The Captive lying idle in a drawer! I can not stand waiting like this--Why do not people answer my letters promptly?

August 31st.

I have been reading George Moore's Evelyn Innes for the last two days. He is striving toward deeper things; but the mark of the beast is in the fiber.

The spiritual struggles of a young lady with two sloppy lovers at once! Of a young and beautiful girl whose first walk on the street with a baronet is a "temptation." And who turns nun at last and worships the Holy Virgin, in order to forget her nastiness! A Gallicized novelist ought to deal with Gallic characters. While I was reading Evelyn Innes, I could never get away from the impression that I was reading the career of a chambermaid.

And the whole story hinges upon the fact that a woman can not sing the sacred ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde without being a harlot!

I read the Confessions of a Young Man, and I felt the vigor of it, and the daring; but it was a very cheap kind of daring. The fundamental laws of life are occasionally enunciated by commonplace people, and that gives an opportunity to be startling. But I leave it for small boys to gape at such fireworks; my interest is in the stars.

The last chapter runs into absolute brutality. I am accustomed to say that Gautier is a ruffian author, but if there is any ruffianism in Gautier more savage than that sentiment about the "skinful of champagne," I do not know where to find it.

About such stuff as that I would say that it makes me sick, but it is not worth that--it simply makes me tired. One would not call it impudent, because it is so silly--it is the driveling of a fool. He will get me off in a corner now, will he, and probe my soul? "Out with it!--Why not confess that you'd like to live a life of dissipation if you only had the money!"

Why, you poor fool, before I would live such a life, I'd have my eyes torn out, and my ears torn off, and my fingers, and my hands, and my feet. "Why not confess the wild joys of getting drunk on champagne!" Poor fool, I have never tasted champagne.

--"Perhaps that is just the reason," you add. When the folly of a fool reaches its climax, the fool becomes a wit. But possibly that is it, I never was drunk.

--And yet I know something about drunkenness. I once buried a drunkard. He was my father. He died in a delirium.

There must be something young about my att.i.tude--men smile at me. But I do not find it easy to imagine evil of men. I do not mean the crowd--I do not philosophize about the crowd. But I mean the artists. I was looking at a picture of Musset the other day; it was a n.o.ble face--the face of a man; and in the face of a man I read dignity and power--high things that I love and bow before. Here are lips,--and lips are things that speak of beauty; here are eyes,--and eyes are things that seek the light. And now to gaze upon that face and say: "This man lived in foulness; he was the slave of hateful l.u.s.t--he died rotten, and sodden with drink."--I say that I do not find it easy.

I have nothing to do with any artist who has anything to do with sin--anything, one way or the other. If a man must still think about sin, let him go back, and let him go down,--let him be a Christian. Let him wrestle with his body, overcome himself, obey laws, and learn fear. To such men and to such ways I can only say: "I have nothing to do with you." My life is for free men--my words are for free men--for men defying law and purged of fear, for men mad with righteousness. What right have foul men in the temple of my muse? The thought of them is insult to me--away with them--in their presence I will not speak of what I love. For I am a drunkard--yes, and I am drunk all night and all day! And I am a lover--a free lover--knowing no law and defying all restraint. And how can I say such things in the presence of foul men?

Let not any man think that he can feel the love-clasp of my muse while he hides a satyr's body underneath his cloak. Free is my muse, and bold, fearing not the embrace of man, fearing not pa.s.sion, nor the words of pa.s.sion,--not the throbbing heart, nor the burning brow, nor the choking voice. But the warmth of her breath and the fire of her eyes, they were kindled at a shrine of which the beast does not know. Let not any man think that he can kiss the lips of my muse while his breath is tainted with the fumes of wine!

An artist is a man with one pleasure--and it is not self-indulgence; an artist is a man with one virtue--and it is not self-restraint. Sweetly and simply will I and my muse take all temptation, knowing not that it tempts, and wondering at the clamor of men. I will eat and drink that I may be nourished, I will sleep that I may be rested, I will dress that I may be warm. When I go among men it shall be to speak the truth, and when I press a woman to my heart, it shall be that a man may be born into the world.

There is but one sin that I know, and that is dulness; there is but one virtue, and that is fire. And for the rest, I love pleasure, and hold it sweetest and holiest of all the words I know; the guide-post of all righteousness is pleasure--which whoso learns to read may follow all his days.