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The Journal of Arthur Stirling: "The Valley of the Shadow", a novel by Upton Sinclair |
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Part 2. Seeking A Publisher - December 2d. -- December 31st. |
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_ PART II. SEEKING A PUBLISHER December 2d. -- December 31st. "I have received your letter, and I regret very much that I can not grant the request you make. The pressure upon my time is such that I can not possibly undertake to read your book. There would be no use in my doing so, anyhow, for I tell you frankly it seems to me the situation you are in is just what you need. My advice to you is to be a man and face it. I do not see any reason why one person should be set free from the labor which all of us have to share; and I assure you that you are entirely mistaken if you think that an artist has nothing to expect but ruin from contact with the world, and with suffering and toiling humanity." Isn't that a slap in the face for you? Great God, I think that is the most insulting thing that has ever happened to me in all my days. "Set free from the labor which all of us have to share!"--What do you think I am--a tramp, or a loafer, you hound! "A high challenge from an artist's soul!" I think I never had so much hatred in my heart in all my life as I have to-day. Oh, my God, what a thing this world is! What stupid, blind brutality, what hideous vulgarity! This man a _clergyman_! And this is his faith, his nobility, his understanding! Why, I came out of the forest with my naked heart in my hands! I came out quivering with emotion, melting with love and with trust for all men! I came all sensitive and raw--hungering for sympathy and kindness! And oh, my soul!--my God!--you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur! Had I not offered up my heart for a sacrifice? Had I not burned it with fire? Had I not made all my being one consecration? And all for men, for men! For men I had torn myself--lashed myself--killed myself--for men I had forgotten what self was--yes, literally that--forgotten what self was! So little self had I left that I was willing to ask favors! So much consecration had I, so much trust, that I would beg! I had wept--I had suffered--I had starved! I had dreamed and sung, toiled until I set fire to my very brain! And you have beaten me and kicked me as if I were a filthy cur! Those thoughts turn my whole soul into one wild curse! Have done with laying bare your heart to men, have done with telling your life to men! Why should you go on trying to be a poet, go on putting your secret soul into books, to be spurned at by the rabble? Your soul is your own--it is your God's--and what have the rabble to do with it! And all its tenderness! all its shrinking ecstasy! all its holiest consecration!--You will take them out to sell them to the rabble! When will you get back into yourself, you fool? When will you have learned your lesson, and let this hellish world boot you out of its way no more? Let ever any man know a gleam of your heart again!--see one trace of your joy! * * * * * --And I came to it on my knees--to this world--crouching, cringing, begging! Oh, oh!--I scream it--Oh! --And after that I sank down by the bed and hid my face and sobbed: "Oh, Shelley! Oh, my Shelley!" * * * * * December 3d. --I saw myself a business man to-day, clearing a path for myself! But it does not last--I am not that kind of a man. My folly is my being--rest assured that I shall climb back to the heights again where I am willing to bear any insult. * * * * * But it will be a long time before I write any more letters. I have come to understand the world's point of view. I suppose busy men get thousands of letters from cranks; they will get no more from me. * * * * * December 5th. I was reading an essay on Balzac to-day. I read about Balzac's fondness for _things_; and I put the book down and spent an hour of perplexity. I fear I am a very narrow person in my sympathies and understandings. Why should a man care about _things_! About all sorts of houses and furniture, and pictures, and clothes, and jewels! I can understand a man's caring about love and joy and aspiration. But _things_! I can understand a child's caring about things, or a fool's caring; I see millions of such; but an artist? A thinker? A _man_? * * * * * I am reading novels nowadays--reading all sorts of things that _entertain_. I have not read a poem for a long time, I have no interest in reading unless I can _go_ with it. I have been studying some of the French novelists--some of Maupassant yesterday. What a strange creature is a Frenchman! A nervous, hysterical, vain, diseased creature! * * * * * "The Gallic disease!" Let that be a phrase. * * * * * The Gallic disease is this: to see only one thing in life, to know only one purpose, to understand only one pleasure; to have every road lead to that, every thought, every phrase. To know that every character in a book is thinking it; to know that every man who is introduced is looking for a woman! And that as soon as he finds her, they must forthwith--whatever be their age, rank, character, and position at the moment--begin to burn with unclean desires! That is what one might call the _convention_ of French fiction. It gets very monotonous when you are used to it; it takes all of the interest out of the story. For there is but one ending to such a story. One's whole being is lowered by contact with that incessant animal appeal. * * * * * December 8th. I have discovered another trouble--as if I did not have enough! I am to suffer from indigestion! It plagues me continuously--I can not do anything for an hour after a meal, no matter what simplest thing I have eaten. And so all through my life I am to be hindered in my work by having to wrestle with this handicap! Just as if I had not been a clean man, but some vulgar _bon vivant_. * * * * * December 10th. This is my fifth publisher. They said they thought it would take two weeks, but it has been three already, and they have not even answered my letter of inquiry. I see you can put no reliance on them in the matter of time. * * * * * December 11th. In two days more it will be three months since I gave up my situation. I count my little hoard 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 quantity 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 manuscript 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 passage! 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 Cocktails--Levy's High-Class 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 manuscript 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 circumstances. I will read your manuscript 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 assure 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 noble 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 God, 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. I am nothing but a forlorn child, anyway, lost in this great, cruel city. --I am not much at pathos; but it was Christmas night, and I had one kind of cold in my head, and another kind in my feet. * * * * * December 27th. I tell you that my salvation was my impatience! My salvation was that I wasted not an instant, that I fought--that I fought! And each hour that I am forced to submit--that I am forced to endure and be still--that is an hour of ruin! It was those fearful seven weeks that began it--and now I shall have to go back to that again! Oh my God, how can I bear it? What can I do? The pain of it heaps itself up in my soul--I am desperate--I will go mad! Tell me what to do! Tell me what to do! * * * * * December 28th. I had a strange adventure to-night, a long, long adventure. I was free for once in my life! Free and glorious--and delivered from earth! It happened all in a dream; I sat crouching in the corner, thinking. * * * * * I had been walking down the street during the day and had seen a flower in a window, and had been made happy for a minute, thinking of last spring. My step had grown light, and I had forgotten the street around me. But then I had heard two little girls, sitting in a doorway, whisper excitedly: "Oh, look--he's laughing!" And instantly all my soul had shrunk up, and my dream had fled, and I had hurried past and turned the corner. * * * * * Is it not a strange thing? I mused--this as I sat by the window--that deep instinct of secrecy--that cowardice! Why is it that I would die before I would let any man see the life of my soul? What are these people to me? I know them not at all, and never shall. But I crouch back--I put on a mask--yes, think of it, I even _give_ up the life of my soul, rather than that any man should see me acting differently than himself! Somehow all at once that thought took hold of me with an overwhelming power--I saw the truth as I had never seen it before in my life. I saw how we live in society; and how social convention and triviality have us in such a grasp that it never even dawns upon us that the laws it dictates are not eternal and necessary! "You must be dignified, and calm, and commonplace," say social convention and triviality. --But I am _not_ dignified--I am _not_ calm!--I am _not_ commonplace! Well, then, you must _seem_ so. You must walk quietly; you must gaze around indifferently; you must keep a vacant face; you must try to look innocent of a thought. If you can't manage that--if you really want to think--why then you must flee away to the woods, where you are sure no one will come upon you and find you out. And if you can't do that--why then there's nothing for you to do but give up thinking, give up living, become like everybody else! * * * * * That idea shook me all of a sudden, it made me quite wild--it made me dig my nails into my hands. It was the truth--I saw that--it was the truth! Here I was, a miserable, pining, starving wretch--and for no reason in the world but that I was a coward, but that I was a coward--a blind fool! Because I had not let the empty-headed and sodden, the placid and smug, the fat and greasy citizens of our great metropolis, tell _me_--the servant of the muses--how I ought to look, how I ought to act, what I ought to be! The very breath of my body is prayer--is effort--is vision; to dwell in my own light, to behold my own soul, to know my own truth--that is my one business in this world! To assert my own force--to be what I like--that is my duty, that is my hope, my one hope in all the world! And I do not, I can not, I dare not do it! I am sick and starved and dying, and I crouch in corners while I pray for help, and if a gleam of sunshine comes from a flower to me, it goes because a child sees me laughing! I sat burning with the rage of that. What am I to do? I cried. How is it to be changed? Shall I live my life in spite of all men? And then I heard one of my devils--my commonplace devil--say, "But people would think you were crazy!" "What do I care what people think?" I burst out. Then came another of my devils--my facetious devil--and he made me laugh. "By all means," said he, "let us get together a few eager poets, and establish a Society for the Propagation of Lunacy. Let us break down these conventions and confound the eyes of the fat and greasy citizens, and win freedom for our souls at any price. Let us wear strange clothes, and recite our poetry upon the streets. Let us--" But I was not in a mood for my facetious devil--I flung him aside and sprang up and fled out to the street (this in thought, of course). What do I need with others? I exclaimed--with others to help me dare? This has to do with _me_! And it has to do with me _now_--with this moment! Am I to give up and let myself go down for such a phantom as this! For such a dread as that wooden-headed men and women will think me "queer"! Am I to stay in a prison such as that--to be bound by a chain such as _that_? I--I, who go about trying to persuade myself that this world is nothing to me--that this world is nothing to any one--that it is a phantom--that the soul is truth! When I say that the soul is truth, do I mean it? Do I _mean_ it? And if I do mean it, will I act by it--will I act by it now--_now_, while I see it? Will I fling off this nightmare, will I tear my way through these wrappings that have choked me? Will I say, once and for all time, that I will be myself--that I will live my life--and that no man shall stop me--that no man shall make me afraid? Will I take the battle upon me and win it--win it _now_--fling off the last rag of it--put the world straight behind me--_now_--_here_? Spread the wings of my soul and take my flight into the far spaces of myself! And dwell there--stay there--hold to the task and give it not up though it kill me--now--_now_! These thoughts took hold of me--they made my brain reel--and I cried aloud in excitement. I had not been so much awake since the day I came out of the woods! I said the word--I said it--the mad word that I had not heard for six long months--that I had not heard since I wrote the last lines of my poem and came back to the haunts of men. And I clinched my hands, and stamped upon the ground, and shouted: "Come on! Come on!"--to the legions of my spirit. And it was like the taking flight of a great swarm of birds within me--a rushing of wings and a surging upward, a singing for joy as of a symphony. And there was singing in my soul, the surge of it caught me--and I waved my arms and went striding on, shouting still, "Come on! Come on!-- "Now! _now_! We will have it out with them--here--_here_! We will fight our fight and win it, and they shall not turn us back--no, by God, they shall not! And they may take it as they please--my soul is free--_free_ once again! Away! _Away!_" And I felt the breeze of the mountains about me, and heard the rushing of the storm-wind and the trampling of the thunder. There awoke the old rush in my heart, the old Valkyrie music that flies over the forests and mountains. And I laughed as I sang it; I heard the war-horses neighing, and yelled to them--faster and faster--higher and higher--away from earth and all men!-- * * * * * And then suddenly I felt some one seize me by the shoulder and shake me, and heard a gruff voice say: "Here! Here! What's the matter with you?" And I stared, half-dazed. It was a big policeman, and around me I saw a sea of staring faces, wild-eyed children, women gazing in fright, boys jeering; and the windows were filled with yet another crowd! "What's the matter with you?" demanded the policeman again. "Are you drunk, or crazy!" And then I realized. But the fire was still blazing in me, and a wild rage whirled over me. "Then it is by this that I am to be stopped!" I gasped. "By _this_! It is not possible after all, it seems; and I'm to be dragged back after all!--By Heaven, we'll see!" And so I gave the cry again--the cry of the Valkyrs that is madness to me! Do you not hear it?--and I was away again and free! What does a man want for his soul, if it be not just to strive, and to be resisted, and still to strive? What difference makes anything else--time, place or conditions? I was myself again--and what else did I care about? I felt the policeman take me by the collar and march me down the street; but I hardly knew that--I was on the mountains, and I laughed and sang. The very hatefulness of what was about me was my desperation--I would make head against such things or I would die in the attempt! I would be free!--I would live! I would live my life; and not the life of these people about me! I would fight and win, I would hold fast my heart, I would be true though the heavens fell! I would have it out, then and there, as I said--I would not come back to earth until I was master of myself. And so when I stood in the station-house and the sergeant asked me my name, I said: "Desire is my name, and the soul is my home!" And then because they shook me and worried me, I stretched forth my arms and cried out: "O God, my Father--thou who art my help and my life--thou soul of my soul--shall I go back for these things?--Shall I fear for these things? No, no--while I have life I will not! I will live for the truth, I will be crushed no longer!" They led me to a cell, and when I heard the door shut I laughed like a madman for joy. And then--ah, then--who can tell it? They came--all my angels and all my demons! All my muses and all my nymphs! And the bases of the earth rocked and the heavens danced and sang; and I mounted on the wings of the ages, and saw the joys of the systems and the dancing of the young suns. Until I could bear it no more, and fell down and sobbed, and cried out to my soul that it was enough, enough! * * * * * And afterward I sat there on the stone floor, and ate bread and water and ambrosial peace; and a doctor came in to see me, and asked me who I was. And I laughed--oh, who ever laughed like that? And I said, _"I am the author of The Captive!"_ He left me and I sat there, shaking my head and pounding the stone floor for joy. And I sang again, and sang again. Yes, the author of The Captive! And captive myself, and free at last! It was far into the night when I stopped singing; and then I lay down and never before had I known such peace; for I had found the way--I had seen the light--I was delivered from all fear and dulness for the rest of my days! I was so excited I could not sleep--when I fell asleep at last it was from sheer exhaustion. And when they roused me the next morning I bounded to my feet like a shot, and shouted to my soul, and was up and away through the forest like a startled deer again! They tried their very best to catch me, but they could not. I had not lived in the woods for nothing, I knew the paths, I knew where the mountains were. And when they thought they had me in court, I was on the very summits--and laughing and drunk with the mountain air! I have a keen sense of humor,--and of course I am never so drunk that I do not know I'm drunk, and know just what I'm drunk about--else how could I write poems about it? Do you think that when Shakespeare cried out his "Blow ye winds and crack your cheeks!" he did not know just what he was saying? Ah!--And when I saw all these queer little men about me, staring and wondering--and so solemn!--I laughed the inextinguishable laughter of Olympus, and shouted so that they dragged me out of court in a hurry. * * * * * And then there came the end! They took me to the insane asylum, and I sat down on the floor of a cell and gazed at myself in amazement and panted: So there _is_ a way you can live, after all! There _is_ a way you can make them support you! There _is_ a way you can do all your work in peace, and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! I could scarcely believe it all--it took half an hour for me to realize it. And then I shouted that I was saved!--and fell to work at shaping that mad Song of the West Wind I had been so full of. * * * * * And then suddenly I heard a muffled voice say: "What in the dickens are you making all that rumpus for?" And I stared about me and saw that I was still crouching by the window in my room! And I shrank back and quivered with rage, because I knew that I had been making a noise and that some one out in the hall had been listening to me! * * * * * And that was the end of my long adventure. * * * * * December 30th. "I am pleased to be able to tell you that your poem is a great deal better than I expected to find it. I am forced to write briefly by reason of pressure of business; but you have very considerable literary gifts. The work is clearly made whole of sincerity; it shows a considerable command of expression, and a considerable understanding of style. It has qualities of imagination and of emotional insight, and is obviously the fruit of a wide reading. But besides these things, it is exactly as I expected, and as I told you--the work is very narrow in the range of its appeal; you can not in the least blame the publishers for declining it, because it is true that very few people would care for it. My own judgment is hardly capable in the matter, because I myself am not an idealist. Recording my own opinion, I found the poem monotonous, and not especially interesting; but then, I say that of much that some other people consider great poetry. "My advice to you is just what it was before--that you go out into the world and become acquainted with life. Not knowing you personally, I could not counsel you definitely, but I should think that what would benefit you most would be a good stiff course in plain, every-day newspaper reporting. Newspaper reporters have many deficiencies, but at least they learn to keep in touch with their audiences, and to write in a way that takes hold of the people. You may not welcome this advice--but we seldom welcome what is good for us." * * * * * I am not dead yet, and I have not lost the power of getting angry. Such things as that do me good, they make me fight, they get all my soul in arms. Great God, the blindness, the asininity of it! It is enough if you can classify a man; give him a name--and then it's all out of the way. If he have faith and fire and aspiration and worship--and you have not--why, say that he is an idealist, and that you are something else, and let it go at that. * * * * * December 31st. The poem came back to-day, and I trudged off to another publisher's--the sixth. I have no hope now, however; I send it as a matter of form. I shudder at the prospect of to-morrow's coming; for it will be just a month more to the time I said I should have to go to work! And New Year's day--my soul, if I had foreseen this last New Year's! I thank Heaven for that blessing, at least. Who are these men that I should submit to their judgments? These men and their commonplace lives--are they not that very world out of which I have fought my way, by the toil of nights and days?--And now I must come back and listen to their foolish judgments about my song! --You felt what was in it, you poor, stupid man! But it did not take you with it, for you are not a poet; you have not kept the holy fire burning, you are not still "strenuous for the bright reward." And so you found it monotonous! Some men find nature monotonous. And some men find music monotonous. _ |
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