The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 29

In two days more it will be three months since I gave up my situation.

I count my little h.o.a.rd day by day, as a castaway might, or a besieged garrison. I have begun to try to get along on cheap foods again--(that is the reason of my indigestion). Yesterday I burned a mess of oatmeal, and now I shall live on burned oatmeal for I know not how long. I was cooking a large quant.i.ty to save time.

I count my store. I have come the last month on eleven dollars! I have been doing my own washing, and reading the newspapers at a library. I buy nothing but food--chiefly bread and milk and cereals. Why is it that everything that is cheap has no taste?

Sometimes I am angry because I can not have anything good to eat, but I only write my dignified sentiments here.

I am getting down to the limit again; I sit shuddering. I shall have to get some work again; I can not bear to think of it! What shall I do? If I go to that slavery again it will be the death of my soul, for I have no hope, and I can not fight as I did before.

And I can only try one or two publishers more. Oh, take it! Take it!

December 14th.

I went down to see them to-day. The ma.n.u.script mislaid--very sorry--had written readers to examine it at once--expecting report any instant--will write me--etc.

And so I walked home again.

Yes, elegant ladies and gentlemen, I am a poor poet; and my overcoat is out at one elbow, and I am sick. I look preoccupied, too; would you like, perhaps, to know what is in my mind? I will tell you five minutes of it to-day:

"Bang! Bang! Look out of the way there, you fool!--Use Casey's Corn Cure!--Extry! Extry! Evening Slop-Bucket and Swill-Barrel, six o'clock edition!--And it was at seventy-two and the market--Cab! Cab!--Try Jones's Little Five-cent Cigars!--Brown's elite Tonsorial and Shaving Parlors!--Have you seen Lucy Legs in the High Kicker? The Daily Hullabaloo says--Shine, boss?--But she wouldn't cut it on the bias, because she thought--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! Five hundred million copies sold every year! We rake all the mud-gutters and it only costs you one cent! The Slop-Bucket is the paper of the people!--Move along, young man, don't block up the pa.s.sage! Bang! Bang! Hurry up there, if you want to get aboard--Come along, my honey-baby girl! (hand-organ)--If you will try Superba Soap--Simpkins's Whisky is all the rage!--Isaac Cohenstein's Cash Clothing Store, Bargains in Gents' Fall Overcoats! Look at these! Walk in, sir!

Cash! Cash!--The most elegant topaz brooches, with little--Read the Daily Swill-Barrel!--Extry! Extry! He Cut Her Throat with a Carving-Knife!--Bang!

Bang!--Toodles' Teething Sirup--Look at my elegant hat with the flamingo on it!--O'Reilly's Restaurant--walk in and gorge yourself, if you can pay us.

Walk in!--Get out of the way there!--Have you read the Pirate's Pledge! The Literary Sensation--Cash! Cash!--Just come and see our wonderful display of newly imported--Smith and Robinson, Diamonds and Jewelry, latest and most elegant--Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder! _Use Tompkins's Tooth Powder!!_ USE TOMPKINS'S--Read the Evening Slop-Bucket! We rake all the mud-gutters!--Murphy's Wines and Liquors--Try Peerless c.o.c.ktails--Levy's High-Cla.s.s Clothing Emporium!--Come in and buy something--anything--we get down on our knees--we beg you!--Cab, sir? Cab!--Bargains! Bargains!--Cash!

Cash!--_Yein, yein, yein_!"

So it keeps up for hours! And I put my fingers in my ears and run.

December 17th.

To-day I happened to read in one of the magazines an article on a literary subject by a college professor of some reputation. It was a fine piece of work, I thought, very true; and I got to thinking of him, wondering if _he_ might not be the man.

I have no hope that these last publishers will take the book, and so I made up my mind to write to him.

I wrote what I had written to all the others; I told him how I had struggled, and how I was living. Perhaps he is less busy than the rest.

December 19th.

The ma.n.u.script came back to-day. The letter was simple--the old, meaningless form. I am waiting to hear from the professor.

December 20th.

"I reply to your letter somewhat against my rule--chiefly because of what you tell me about your circ.u.mstances. I will read your ma.n.u.script if you still think it worth while to send it to me; but I must tell you at the outset that I consider the chances very unfavorable, as regards my finding the work what you believe it. I a.s.sure you that the literary situation is not in the least what you picture it; the book-market was never more wide-awake than it is now, the publishers are all as eager as possible for the least sign of new power; and besides that, the magazines afford outlet--not only for talent, but for mediocrity as well. You are entirely mistaken in your idea that literary excellence is not equivalent to commercial availability. If you could write one paragraph as n.o.ble as the average of Dr. ----, or one stanza as excellent as the average of Professor ----, you would find an instant and hearty welcome.

"Moreover, I believe that you are entirely wrong in your ideas of what you need. You will not make yourself a great artist by secluding yourself from men--go out into the world, young man, go out into the world and see what men are!

"As I say, it is not my rule to answer letters such as yours. The cry of the suffering is in the air every instant, if we heeded it we should never get our work done. But I am willing to read your poem, if this letter has not chilled your ardor."

--Last night I read The Captive again, and it brought the tears into my eyes; and so my ardor is not chilled, good professor--and I will send you the poem.

--But as for going out into the world--I think I am learning what men are pretty fast!

December 23d.

My poem stirs me, but it does not last. My whole habit of mind seems to me to be changed--a deep, settled melancholy has come over me; I go about mournful, haunted. I read--but all the time I am as if I had forgotten something, and as if half my mind were on that. I have lost all my ardor--I look back at what I was, and it brings the tears into my eyes. It is gone!

It is gone! It will not ever come back!

And each day I am drawing nearer to the rapids--to the ghastly prospect of having to drag myself back to work!

Oh my G.o.d, what shall I do?--tell me anything, and I will do it! Give me a hope--any hope--even a little one!

The last day I can stretch my miserable pittance to is the first of February.

December 25th.

Christmas Day--and I have no news, except that I am hungry, and that I am sitting in my room with a blanket around me, and with a miserable cold in my head.

It is the agony of an unheated room, an old acquaintance of mine, that comes with each bitter winter. I live in a house full of noisy people and foul odors; and so I keep my door shut while I try to read, and so my room is like a barn.

I could not accomplish anything to-day--I could not read. I felt like a little child. I wanted nothing but to hide my head on some one's shoulder and sob out all my misery.