Part 22 (1/2)

September 1st.

”The reason for delay in replying to your letter is that it was mislaid.

I am directed by Mr. ---- to say that he has so many requests to read ma.n.u.scripts that he is compelled to make it an invariable rule to decline.

”Secretary.”

So that hope is gone!

That letter--or rather the chain of thoughts which it brought me, made me feel ill to-night. ”So many requests!” ”An invariable rule!”

So many swarming millions, helpless, useless, dying unknown and unheeded.

And I am in the midst of them--helpless, unknown, and unheeded! And now that I have done my work, I can not find any one with faith enough--interest enough--even to look at it!

How could a man who is a poet--who writes things that stir the hearts of men--how could he send such an answer to such a letter as I wrote him? I do not think that _I_ shall ever send such an answer!

Or is it really true, then, that the world is such a thing that it closes the hearts even of poets? That his ardor and his consecration, his sympathy and love and trust--he gives all to the things of his dreams and never to the men and women he meets?

Oh how shall I find one--just one--warmhearted man!

I begin the trying of the publishers once more to-morrow.

September 2d.

I am in my sixth week! Two weeks of the money is nearly gone--I had to get another pair of shoes and a necktie and to have some things laundered twice. I have to be respectable now, I can not wash my own clothes at the faucet when no one is about.

My ”room” costs me seventy-five cents a week, and my food from a dollar and a half to two dollars. At the end of the seventh week I shall have over fifty dollars clear. I have made up my mind to give up the place at the end of that time. Twelve dollars is the most I ever earned, but I can't stand it longer than that.

I shall be clear for nearly four months, and that will surely put me safe until I have found a publisher. I would go away into the country again, only I must have books. I have nothing to write now.

--Oh the heat of this dreadful city; sometimes it takes all my strength to bear that and my drudgery, and nothing else. When the night comes I am panting, and can only shut my eyes.

If I am kept here long, I tell you I shall never, as long as I live, be as strong and keen as I might have been.

So long as I was working, striving for an education, preparing myself, I could bear it. But now I have done all that I can do amid these surroundings. I cry out day and night, ”I have earned my freedom!”

September 6th.

He had no business to send me that answer! He had no business to send it!

I care not how many such requests he gets! Pain throbbed in that letter, hunger and agony were in it; and if he were a man he would have known it!