The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 23

What could I do, besides? And who would give me a chance? I could not review books--I know nothing about modern books, and still less about modern book standards. Neither do I know anything to write that any magazines would want.

--And besides, in four days more, shall I not have fifty or sixty dollars?

And what shall I want then?

Ah, how I count the days! And when I am out of this place, how I will run away from it! The very books I read while I was there will always be painful to me.

--They will be glad to get rid of me, too. Poor me--I have given up trying to be understood. All these things pa.s.s. My business is with G.o.d.

Cicero thinks that the remembering of past sorrows is a pleasure. Yes, when the sorrows are beautiful, n.o.ble. But I have sorrows in my life, the thoughts of which send through my whole frame--literally and physically--a _spasm_.

September 11th.

I told the bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner to-day that I was going to leave. He seemed surprised--offered me a "raise." I told him I was going out of New York.

--I am a liar. Sometimes I philosophize about that. I am an unprincipled idealist. I have not the least respect for fact; I am doing my work. If I could help my work, I would lie serenely in all the six languages I know.

And if I were caught, I would say, "Why, yes, of course!"

I think I would rather have a finger cut off than say to a New York business man, "I am a poet!"

September 12th.

I have been forcing myself to read Gibbon, but half of him was all I could stand. I think with astonishment of the reputation of this history, a bare recital of facts, without the least interest or importance, and a recital by the shallowest of men!

The vulgarity of his character is more evident than ever since the repressed parts of his biography have appeared. It is comical. And this man, who has no more understanding of spirituality than a cow, to tell the story of the greatest movement of the soul of man in history!

There is not one gleam of the Christian superst.i.tion left in me. I have nothing to fear from the sneers of Gibbon any more than I have from those of Voltaire; but I do not care to hear lectures on the steam-engine by a man who does not believe in steam.

--Some of these days--the last thing that I can see on the horizon of my future--I am going to write a tragedy called Jesus. The time is past, it seems to me, when an artist must leave alone the greatest art-theme of the ages.

Is it not the greatest? Is there any story in history more sublime than the story of this man? A humble, ignorant peasant he was, and out of the faith of his soul he made the future of the world for centuries! It is a thing that makes your brain reel.

I write it casually, but I have shuddered over it far into the deep, deep night. I have dreamed of two acts--one of them Gethsemane, and the other Calvary.--Poor fool, perhaps I shall never write them!

I have burrowed into that soul, seeking out the truths of it; the truths, as distinguished from the ten thousand fancies of men. When I write that drama I shall deal with those truths.

The climax of the scene in the garden of Gethsemane will be a vision in which looms up before him the whole history of Christianity; and that will be the last agony. It will be then that he sweats blood.

That will be something, I think.

September 13th.

To-morrow is the last time I shall ever go into that h.e.l.lish place!

To-morrow is the last time in all my life that I shall ever have to say, "We have this same quality in ninety-pound paper at four sixty-nine!"

Throughout all this thing it seemed to me that when I came out I should no longer have a soul. But it is not so; I shall still keep at it grimly.

September 14th.

And now to-day I make my plans. I must keep near a library; but I shall hunt out a room uptown. There I can be near the Park, and I shall suffer a little less from these hideous noises. I shall go over there and spend every day--find out some place where there are not too many nurse-girls!

I can not begin any other book; I must stand or fall by The Captive. I shall be a "h.o.m.o unius libri"!

But I can not attempt to write again--ever--in these circ.u.mstances. It is not that my force is spent--I am only at the beginning of my life, I see everything in the future. But I could not wrestle with these outside things again--it took all my courage and all my strength to do it once.

There is no reason why I should worry about that. I have fifty-six dollars, and I am free for four months, barring accidents. And surely I shall have found some one to love my book by that time!

And so I set to work reading.

September 15th.

A slight preliminary, of course. I spent a ghastly day hunting for a room.

I found one in a sufficiently dirty and cheap place, and then I spent another hour finding a man who would take my trunk for a quarter. Having succeeded in that, I walked up there to save five cents; and when the trunk came the driver tried to charge me fifty cents!

Picture me haggling and arguing on the steps--"Didn't know it was so far--Man didn't understand"--G.o.d knows what else! And then he tries to carry off the trunk--and I rushing behind, looking for a policeman! Again more arguing, and a crowd, of course. At last it appears that I have to pay him what he asks and go down to the City Hall and make my complaint--hadn't told him how many steps there were, etc. So finally I agree to carry it up the steps myself, if he'll only leave it for a quarter!

Next you must picture me breaking my back and tearing my fingers and the d.a.m.ned wall paper--while the d.a.m.ned frowsy-headed landlady yells and the d.a.m.ned frowsy-headed boarders stick out their heads! And so in the end I get into my steaming hot room and shut the door and fall down on the bed and burst into tears.