The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 25

Their month is up. I walked down there to-day and saw them. "The ma.n.u.script is now being read--we are awaiting a second report."

A second! That made my heart go like mad. "Does that mean that the first is favorable?" I asked.

"It means that we are interested in it," the man answered; "we will let you know shortly."

Oh this waiting, this waiting!

October 8th.

Ah, G.o.d! I came home from the Park tonight, and I saw something that made my heart go down like lead. It hurt me so that I cried out!

My ma.n.u.script! It was back again!

O Christ! How the sight of it hurt me! There was a letter with it, and my hand shook as I opened it:

"We are returning you the ma.n.u.script of The Captive by messenger herewith, regretting exceedingly that we can not make you a publis.h.i.+ng offer upon it."

Is not this awful? Oh, it is terrible! It is beyond belief! A whole month gone, and only a note like that to show for it! Four weeks of yearning and hoping--of watching the mail in agony--of struggling and toiling to forget!

And then a note like this!

Oh, it drives me wild! I sat to-night in a chair motionless, forgetting that I was hungry, forgetting everything. I looked to the future; I had a feeling that I do not think I ever had in my life before--a horrible, black, yawning despair--a thing so fearful that it took my breath away.

Suppose you were standing on a bridge over an abyss, and that suddenly it gave way, and in one dreadful instant you realized that you were going down--down like a flash--and that nothing could save you!

So it is to be this, so this is to be my life! I am to send this book to publisher after publisher, and have it come back like this! And meanwhile to spend my time alternating between this room--and the wholesale-paper business!

Yes, I am getting to see the truth! I am a helpless atom, struggling to survive--a glimmering light in the darkness--and I am going out! I am losing--and what shall I do! Who will save me--who will help me?

I was talking to a friend yesterday; he predicted just what happened. "Make one rule," he said, "expect nothing of the world. When you send out a ma.n.u.script, _know_ that it is coming back!--Otherwise you go mad."

But I should go mad _that_ way. Why, what am I to do? How am I to work unless I can get free? I can not live a single day unless I have that hope.

And if these blind creatures that make money out of books keep on sending my poem back--why, it will kill me--it will turn me into a fool!

October 9th.

I did not go to bed last night until nearly daylight. I was desperate--I was crazy with perplexity. This thing had never occurred to me as the wildest possibility.

I would pace the floor for hours; and then again sink into a stupor. "They send it back! They don't want it!"--I kept on muttering.--And, poor fool that I am, I had pictured to myself how they would read it. I saw the publisher himself glancing at a line of it by chance, and then rus.h.i.+ng on.

I saw him declaiming it with excited eyes--as I used to declaim it! Poor fool!

--Well, I made another desperate attempt. I wrote last night to another poet that I respect--(the list is not very long). I wrote in the heat of my despair--I told him the whole story. I said that I was crying for the judgment of some one who had love and enthusiasm; some one who had another idea than making money out of it. I told him that I knew he had many such requests, but that he never had one from a man who had worked as I had. I pleaded that he need only read a few lines--I begged him to let me hear from him at once.

--And now I shall wait. I can't do anything else but wait!

October 10th.

I tried to read a novel to-day, but I could not fix my attention--I could not do anything.

October 11th.

"I answer your letter at once as you ask me to. In the first place let me a.s.sure you of my sympathy. You are at a stage at which all poets--or nearly all--have to pa.s.s. Do not let yourself be disheartened--keep at it--and if you work as you write you will come out the victor in the end.

"As to my reading the book, you must believe what I tell you--that I am simply crowded. I have no time to explain, but I could not possibly do it now, nor can I tell you when I could. Go ahead and try the publishers--there are enough of them. And take my advice--do not go on clinging to that book--do not pin all your hope to that--go on--go on!

Maybe it _is_ young and exaggerated--what of it? Go on!--Meanwhile your circ.u.mstances seem to you hard--but in future years when you look back at them you will see, as all men see, that it was in that struggle that you got your strength."

It is a lie! It is a lie! It is silly cant--it is brutal stupidity! What, you try to tell me that it is in contest with these degradations--these horrors--that I am to find my enthusiasm and my hope! Am I a dog that you must kick me to my task?--It is a lie, I say--it is a lie!

If you could not find time to read my work, very well; but you did not have to sugar the pill with silly plat.i.tudes such as those. "Go on, go on!" My G.o.d, what a mockery! Is it not to go on that I am panting day and night--is it not with the hunger to go on that I am mad?--You fool--do you think I wrote to you because I wanted some one to admire me--because I had the need of praise and encouragement in my work? Give me a year's freedom--give me two hundred dollars--and I'll show you how much I care for your praise.

But then you chain me here to your torture stake, and bid me "Go on! Go on!"

--And it is in that struggle that I am to get my strength! That sentence burns in my blood, it stings me! What is this struggle that you prate about, anyway? And what do you mean by "getting my strength?" Did I get my strength to write The Captive that day when those fishwives moved in next door to me? Did I get my strength to dream of my new work that day when I was chasing after an express-driver to save a quarter? Do I get it now when I am sitting here panting and ill with a headache, and with despair, and with lack of food? d.a.m.n such asininity, I say!

What do you mean, I cry--what do you mean? Would it have helped Kant to solve the problems of the universe to have had a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing about his face? Would it have helped Beethoven to compose his symphonies to have had a dance hall over his head? What ghastly farce it is! That a poet is helped to realize his dreams and his joys in this h.e.l.lish, reeking, market-place of a city! Why, I tell you, sir, that every hour that I have lived in it I have known that I have paid out unmeasured powers of my soul! And I know now, as every other poet knows, that when I am out of it I come with what pittance of strength I have been able to save from the horrible ordeal. Do you think that I am a fool that I do not know what inspires me and what degrades me? Why, sir, I sit here and watch my spirit wither like a frost-bitten plant!

Such things bring tears of indignation into my eyes.

--As a matter of simple reference, if any one wants to know what I imagine helps a poet--it is to live in the woods, to think and to dream, to read books and hear music, to eat wholesome food--and, above all, to escape from hot asphalt streets, cable-car gongs, and flaring advertis.e.m.e.nts of soaps and cigars.

October 12th.