Part 35 (1/2)

I thought to-day if I only had a little money--if I could only publish that book myself! I can not believe that men would not love it--I can not--no, you may crush me all you please, but I can not! And I would take it and shout it from the housetops--I would peddle it on the streets--I would _make_ the world hear me!

--And then I sink back, and I hear the world say, ”You poor fool!”

January 28th.

I have only a dollar and a half left! I have sat, shuddering and waiting, all that I dare; the end is come now, I must look for work to-morrow. It is like a death-sentence to me. I could do nothing to-night.

January 29th.

Providence came to help me to-night for once! It snowed to-day and I have been hard at work again.

January 30th.

Some more snow. My hands were nearly frost-bitten, but I keep at it; for at least it is out in the air, and it gives me a little longer respite.

In the afternoon I made up my mind to go and see the publishers and ask them if they could not read the story at once--it has been a month. I saw their literary manager; he said he was going to read it himself.

January 31st.

More snow again to-day. And I have made over five dollars. But I have come out of it more dead than alive--dulled, dispirited, utterly worn out.

If I could only be an animal for a time. But each day of the drudgery only makes me wilder with nervousness.

February 1st.

They regret, of course, and hold the MS. at my disposal. I went up to get it this afternoon, and half by accident I met the man I had seen before. I had a talk with him. He was a very curious personage.

He seemed to have been interested in The Captive. ”I'll tell you,” he said, ”you know there's really some extraordinary work in that poem. I believe that you have it in you to make some literature before you get through, Mr.

Stirling.”

”Do you?” I said.

”Yes,” he replied, ”I feel pretty sure of it. You ask me to tell you about it--so you mustn't mind if I speak frankly. And of course it's very crude.

You haven't found your voice yet, you're seeking for mastery, and your work is obviously young. Anybody can see in a few lines that it's young--it's one of those things like Goetz von Berlichingen, or Die Rauber--you tear a pa.s.sion to tatters, you want to rip the universe up the back. But of course that wears off by and by; it isn't well to take life too seriously, you know, and I don't think it'll be long before you come to feel that The Captive isn't natural or possible--or desirable either.”

The publisher was smoking a cigar. He puffed for a moment and then he asked, ”What are you doing now?”

”Nothing just at present,” said I.

”I should have supposed you'd be writing another poem,” he replied,--”though of course as a matter of fact the wisest thing you can do is to wait and learn. Your next book will be entirely different, you can be quite sure--you won't be so anxious to get hold of all the world and make it go your way.”