Part 2. Seeking A Publisher - July 8th. -- July 31st.

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_ PART II. SEEKING A PUBLISHER July 8th. -- July 31st.

July 8th.

To-day I took it to the publisher's!

* * * * *

I had been pondering for a week who were the best publishers. To-day I hardly had the courage to go in--I know nothing about such things--and my hands shook so I could hardly hold the package.

* * * * *

I asked to see the manager. I told him I had a manuscript to submit. He looked at me--I guess I must look rather seedy. "What sort of a manuscript?" he asked. "A blank verse drama!"

Then he took it and glanced over it. "Blank verse dramas are difficult things to publish," he said.

"You had best read it, I think," I answered, "you will find it worth while."

"Very well, if you wish," said he, "we always read everything that is offered to us."

"How soon shall you be able to let me know?"

"Oh, in a week or ten days."

* * * * *

And then I went out--shuddering with excitement. A week or ten days! Well--I can wait. I have done all _my_ duty, at any rate.

* * * * *

July 9th.

I have certainly played a bold game with my poem! At the publisher's at last--and I, having paid my room-rent, have just a dollar in my pocket!

* * * * *

I have been tramping about all day to-day, looking for some work. I don't care what it is--I can do anything to keep alive for a week or ten days.--I wonder if they will advance me some money at once.

* * * * *

They all stare at me suspiciously. I think some of the wildness of the woods must still hang about me.--Anyway, I walk along on air, I fear nothing. I could hug all the passers-by. My book is at the publisher's! I could beg, I think, if I had to, and do it serenely, exultingly. I have only a dollar--but have I not all the stars?

* * * * *

I was thinking to-day about Carlyle, and that ghastly accident to his manuscript. Let others blame Carlyle for his sins--for those days of agony and horror I forgive him all things, and love him.

I have the original manuscript of The Captive put safely away. If that poem were destroyed it would kill me. I can think of anything else in the world but such a thing as that.

* * * * *

July 10th.

What will they write me about it? I picture to myself all the emotions of a publisher when he discovers a poem like that! Ah yes, good publisher, I have scanned your lists for many months back; but you have published nothing like The Captive.

And then I shall taste my first drop of success.

--I do not want it for myself--it is not that--I want it for the book! I want people to love it--I want it to stir their souls! I want brothers and friends and lovers in that great glory of mine! That is why I want all the world to shake with it.

* * * * *

And then I can go on!

* * * * *

--I wonder if they will write to me sooner, when they find out what it is.--

* * * * *

I have been picturing myself with some money! It is all over now--and I can do that--will it not be strange to have some money! I have been thinking where I should live, and what I should do.

The first thing I shall do is to get somebody to teach me music. And then all the concerts that I long for! How long has it been since I have heard a note of music?

* * * * *

I think that is all I want. I want no toys in my life. I want my freedom, and my soul, and the forest once again.--

* * * * *

I read some of the psalms to-night--far, far into the morning. My heart is a psalm.

* * * * *

--I have gotten something to do! I am a waiter in a restaurant on Sixth Avenue! I got the place this morning. Ugh!--it is nasty beyond words. But I do not care, it will keep me alive.

* * * * *

July 11th.

What a thing is hope! I have been for two days chained in the most horrible kind of a place. Picture it--to stand all day and see low people stuffing themselves with food--the dirt and the grease and the stench and the endless hideous drudgery! And I five days out of the springing forest and the ecstasy of inspiration!--Truly, it is a thing to put one's glory to a test! But I hardly feel it--I walk on air--deep back in my soul there is an organ song, I hear it all day, all day!

How soon will they write? I fly up-stairs each night, looking for a letter. Hurry up! Hurry up!

--"_Pegasus im Joche_!"

* * * * *

July 13th.

The book! The book! I go thinking about it--when I come home I throw myself down on the bed and laugh with suppressed excitement. I think all day--they are reading it now, perhaps! Ah, my book! And perhaps I'll find somebody at home there to see me about it to-night!

I look at the reviews--I am interested in all the books of the day now--because The Captive is going to be among them! How will it seem to see it there, in big letters?

* * * * *

And how will it seem to be known? I am not a fool--I know what will help me to my peace when I am out there in the woods again--and it will not be that the newspapers have been talking about me, and that the dames of high society have asked me to their tea-parties. But there are one or two men in this world that I should like to know. Perhaps as the author of a book that is known it would be possible.

* * * * *

--Yes, before I was one of the mob, and now I have shown what I can do.

* * * * *

July 15th.

The horror of that awful "eating-joint" grows on me every hour. I could not bear it much more--physically it makes me ill, and no amount of enthusiasm can make that better. I will not sell a second more of my time than I have to. I made up my mind that I would give up the place at the end of the week. The money will do me for another week after that, and by that time I will surely have heard from the publishers.

* * * * *

I'll have to tell them, that's all,--it is nothing to be ashamed of. They'll have to give me some money in advance. I can not live in that cesspool.

* * * * *

Yes, to-morrow and half of the next day,--that is all I will bear!

* * * * *

--I long sometimes to go and see them; but no, I can wait.

* * * * *

July 17th.

I treated myself to a long holiday this afternoon. I went up to the park, and walked and walked. Everything was in a tumult within me--I was clear of that last prison. And all the excitement and the power of that poem are still in me. I am restless, all on fire, stern, hungry, like a wind-storm. Come not near me unless you wish for truth! Come not near me if you fear the gods!

To-day my thoughts went surging into the future. I shall have money!--I shall be free!--And what shall I do next? I counted up what I might have--even a slight success for the book would mean a fortune such as turned my head to think of. What would I do?

My mind pounced upon a new work--a work that I have dreamed of often. Would it be my next work? I thought--would I be able--would I dare? It is a grand thing.

I went on, and got to thinking of it; I almost forgot that I was not still in the woods. What a sweeping thing I see it!

The American! It would have to be a three-volume novel, I fear--it would be as huge as Les Miserables!

It is the Civil War! I am haunted by that fearful struggle. Is there anything more fearful in history, any more tremendous effort of the human spirit? And so far it has not made one great poem, one great drama, one great novel!

* * * * *

It was the furnace-fire in which this land was forged--this land which holds in its womb the future of the world--this land that is to give laws to the nations and teach mankind its destiny. I search the ages, and I find no struggle so fraught with meaning, with the woe and the terror and the agony of a desperate hope.

It must be all put into an art-work, I say! There is no theme that could thrill the men of this country more, that could lift them more, that could do more to make their hearts throb with pride. We sent all the best that we had--armies and armies of them--and they toiled and suffered, they rotted upon a thousand fields of horror. And their souls cry out to me, that it must not be for naught, that the fearful consecration must not be for naught.

The world is filled with historical fiction; it is the cant and the sham of the hour.--Bah!

* * * * *

--This is what I long to do; to take the agony of that struggle and live it and forge it into an art-work; to put upon a canvas the soul of it; to put it there, living and terrible, that the men of this land might know the heritage that is come down to them.

It would take years of toil, it would take money, too--I should have to go down there. But some day I shall do it!

I saw some of it to-day, and it made my blood go!

I saw a poet, young, sensitive, throbbing at the old, old wrong, at the black shame of our history; I saw him drawn into that fearful whirlpool of blood and passion, driven mad with the pain and the horror of it; and I saw him drilled and hammered to a grim savageness, saw him fighting, day by day, with his spirit, forging it into an iron sword of war. He was haggard and hollow-eyed, hard, ruthless, desperate. He saw into the future, he saw the land he loved, the land he dreamed of--the Union! She stretched out her arms to him; she cried with the voices of unborn ages, she wrung her hands in the agony of her despair. And for her his heart beat, for her he was a madman, for her he marched in sun and in snow, for her he was torn and slashed, for her he waded through fields of slaughter. Of her he dreamed and sung--sung to the camps in the night-time, till armies were thrilled with his singing.

* * * * *

This was the thing of which he sang, the gaunt, grim poet: There is a monster, huge beyond thought, terrible, all-destroying; the name of it is Rebellion, and the end of it is Death! Day by day you grapple with it, day by day you hammer it, day by day you crush it. Down with it, down with it! Finish it!

I heard that as a battle-cry: "Finish it!" I saw a man, wild and war-frenzied, riding a war-frenzied horse; he rode at the head of a squadron, bare-headed, sword in hand, demon-like--thundering down-hill upon a mass of men, stabbing, slashing, trampling, scattering! Above the roar of it all I heard his cry: "Finish it! Finish it!"

And afterward he staggered from his horse and knelt by the men he had killed, and wept.

* * * * *

--I saw him again. It was when the man of the hour had come at last; when the monster had met his master; when, day by day, they hammered it, the fire-spitting, death-dealing monster; when they closed with it in death-grapple in a tangled wilderness, where armies fought like demons in the dark, and the wounded were burned by the thousands. I saw companies of fainting, starving, agonized men, retreating, still battling, day by day; and I saw the wild horseman galloping on their track, slashing, trampling--and still with the battle-yell: "Finish it! Finish it!"

* * * * *

I saw him yet a third time. It was done, it was finished; and he lay wounded in a dark room, listening. Outside in the streets of Washington a great endless army marched by, the army of victory, of salvation; and the old war-flags waved, and the old war-songs echoed, and he heard the trampling of ten thousand feet--the rumbling of the old cannon--and the ocean-roaring of the vast throngs of men! A wild delirium of victory throbbed in his soul,--burned him up, as he lay there alone, dying of his passion and his wounds. Born of the joy that throbbed in the air about him, born of the waving banners and the clashing trumpets and the trampling hosts and the shouting millions--a figure loomed up before him--a figure with eyes of flame and a form that towered like the mountains--with arms outstretched in rapture and robes that touched the corn-fields as she sped--angel, prophetess, goddess!--Liberty!

* * * * *

--And at her feet he sobbed out his life.

* * * * *

--The American!

* * * * *

July 18th.

Still another day, and no news from the publisher's. The time is nearly up--I can not wait much longer.

* * * * *

They have rejected The Captive! They have rejected The Captive! In God's name, what does it mean? They have rejected The Captive!

I stared at the paper in blank consternation! I couldn't realize the words, I couldn't understand what they meant. Such a thing never occurred to me in my wildest moment.

What is the matter with them--are they mad? Great God, that any human creature!--And without a line about it!

--"We have carefully considered the MS. which you have kindly offered us, and regret that we are not advised to undertake its publication. We are returning the MS. with thanks for your courtesy in submitting it."

* * * * *

That letter came to me like a blow in the face.--I have spent hours to-night pacing the streets, almost speechless. Fools!

--But I will not let such a thing disturb me for an instant. Yes, they are a great publishing-house--but such things as I have seen them publish! And they "regret." Well, you _will_ regret, some day, never fear!

* * * * *

July 19th.

The manuscript arrived this morning. I took it up-stairs and sat down, trembling, and read it all again.

I wish that I could see the man or woman who read that poem and rejected it--just that I might see what kind of looking person it is. Oh, the wildness of it, the surge and the roar of it! The glory of it!

* * * * *

I can not afford to waste my time worrying about such things. I only say "Fools!"

* * * * *

--I took it to another publisher. I don't know any in particular, but I will try the best. This publisher didn't seem very anxious to read it. Go ahead, try it!--Or are you a fool too?

--Of course I shall have to begin tramping around, looking for some work again. I must find something better than the last.

* * * * *

July 20th.

Nervous, impatient--it is so that I have lived. Never to waste an instant has been my passion. I have struggled, watched, fought for a minute. If ever I were held back or kept idle it drove me wild, and I burst through everything. It has always been a torture to me not to be thinking something.

But less of that torture than I have now, I think I never had; it seems as if I had won the mastery--I mind nothing any more. I walk upon the air, and I never tire. Thoughts--endless thoughts--come to me without ever the asking; nothing disturbs me, nothing hinders me--I take everything along with me.--I am full of impulse, of life, of energy!--

I am the owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Casar's hand and Plato's brain!--

And this when I have spent all the day looking for work!--answering advertisements, and tramping to this place and that! Discouraging?--what does the word mean?

* * * * *

--I am the man who has never learned to shiver and shake!

* * * * *

I thought of a young Irishman I worked with a long time ago. "Once I went into a place, and says I, 'I'd like to be havin' a job.' An' he looked me over, an' he says, says he, 'Git oot!' An' so I thought I'd better git oot!"

* * * * *

It might take me some time to find a publisher, I was thinking to-day. I do not know anything about publishers. But once get it before the world, that is the thing! I fear nothing, I can wait. It is done, that is all I can think of. --The rest "must follow, as the night the day."

* * * * *

July 21st.

To-night I sat by the bedside trembling, thinking of what I had learned. Oh, this faith that I have gained, it must go forth among men! A prayer welled up in my soul--I have learned what I can do--I have learned that I can do what I will! I have seen the infinite heights that lie beyond--oh, let me not fail! The hopes of unborn generations are in my soul.

* * * * *

--That is true. What systems shall come of this vision of mine, what new ways of beauty, what new happiness and new freedom! That thought has shaken the very depths of my soul.

It makes me leap up--it makes me wish to go! Why should I not start now? Why should I waste to-day?

* * * * *

July 22d.

I have been making plans. I must get to work. I was racing through all sorts of vast schemes to-day as I walked about the streets hunting for something to do. I will make my Greek perfect first--I can do that while I am walking.

I made an athlete of myself pacing up and down with The Captive! I honestly think I walked ten or twelve hours some days. I have walked all day to-day, but I do not feel tired. I answered advertisements in the papers.

* * * * *

--Why are men impolite? I do not believe I could ever learn to speak rudely.

* * * * *

July 23d.

The impossible occupations that I have thought of, in trying to solve my problem! To-day I saw myself a lighthouse-keeper! What does a lighthouse-keeper do, anyway? And could I manage to get such a place where I could be alone by myself?

* * * * *

--But no, some one would have to attend to the light!--

* * * * *

I thought of being a hall-boy. But you are not paid very much.--I said, however, that I would at least get some sort of a place up-town. I could not stand it down in the "business" world.

* * * * *

God, how horrible it is! All that seething effort--and for what? All this "business"--is it really necessary to the developing of the souls of men? Does each man in that rushing mob need more money yet, to begin developing his soul?

* * * * *

--Another occupation! I saw myself a lonely hunter, living by a mountain lake, and shooting game for a living! I wonder if that wouldn't be possible. I never shot any game, but I could learn.

It would suit me perfectly to sit by a mountain lake and read Greek and watch for ducks.

* * * * *

July 27th.

I was getting down pretty close to the limit again, but I got something to do to-day. I had to take what I could find; it is what would be called a good position, I suppose; I am in a wholesale-paper store. I get twelve dollars, and that is quite something.

* * * * *

The business of the will is to face the things that come--not any other things. Now I have to drill and discipline myself anew, to learn to save my soul alive in a wholesale-paper store!

It is a great, dingy place, full of chaffering, hungry-looking men. They are all desperately serious; it is a great "business house," I believe; the very atmosphere of it is deadly poison.

--Oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner, that didst gaze at me over black-rimmed spectacles--so I have "an opportunity to rise," have I?

Yes,--I shall rise upon wings of a sapphire sheen, and toss myself up in the wind and shake down showers of golden light into thy wondering eyes, oh bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner!

* * * * *

--It is my business to show samples of paper. I shall learn all about them in a few days, and then I shall go at the Greek.

* * * * *

July 28th.

Whenever I feel weary I run off into a corner and whisper into my ear, "It is done! Be not afraid!" Instantly my heart goes up like swift music.

* * * * *

July 31st.

Twelve days since I left The Captive; they said it would take three weeks.

* * * * *

Something strange flashed over me to-day, something that sent a shudder through me; I have done a strange thing to myself this summer, not in metaphor, but in fact. I have seen a ghost; I have drunk a potion; I have gazed upon a nymph; I have made myself mad!

* * * * *

I am no longer a man among men--I am "the reed that grows never more again"!

* * * * *

--I try to lose myself in a book, but the book does not hold me. Nothing satisfies me as it used to,--I am restless, hungry, ill at ease. Why should I read this man's weak efforts--what profits me that man's half-truths?

* * * * *

--And all the time I know too well what I want--I want to fight!

I want to get back into the woods again! I want that vision again! That work again! I want _myself_!

* * * * *

--And here I am, a bird in a cage, beating the bars. What folly to say that I can be strong and endure this thing! That I can endure anything, dare anything. Yes, so I can--if I can strive! Put me out there alone, and set me a task, and I will do it though it kill me. But how can I conquer when I can not strive?

Here I am, tied! I am tied--not hand and foot--but tied in soul. Tied in time! Tied in attention! How can I be anything but beaten and wretched? How can I expect anything but defeat and ruin? A song comes to me, it calls me--and I can not go! I must stare at it and watch it leave me!--How can that not drive me wild?

The great wings of my soul begin to beat--I go up, I am wild for the air,--and then suddenly I am struck back by the hideous impertinences of the wholesale-paper business! How can I endure such things as that--how can I _conquer_ Why, it is like the clashing in my ears of twenty trumpets out of tune!

* * * * *

Do not keep me here long! Do not keep me here long!

* * * * *

--It is something that I find very strange and curious to watch--how spontaneously, and instinctively, all young men dislike me. Have I a brand upon my forehead?

* * * * *

It is not my habit to stand upon the pedestal of my inspiration, and gaze down upon those that I meet. Sympathy is my life--I can sympathize even with men who aspire to rise in business. But I have to live many lives, and new lives; and I can brook no delay.

I will make no compromises; I have sworn a vow against idle words--they may dislike me as they will. I give my work, for which I am paid; I can not give my soul. _

Read next: Part 2. Seeking A Publisher: August 2d. -- August 31st.

Read previous: Part 1. Writing A Poem: July 1st. -- July 7th.

Table of content of Journal of Arthur Stirling: "The Valley of the Shadow"


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