The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 10

June 5th.

Deep in my soul I was convinced that the room would be let to something worse. But now it appears that the landlady's sister is to occupy it.

--So now I will get to work!

--Moving is noisy; I can't complain. I have been walking about the streets.

I am hungry for the work; but still, I had much to think of. It is a wonderful thing--a glorious thing, this story--it will make men's hearts leap.

June 6th.

I have plenty of time to write journals, if I feel like it. There is the sister, and there is the landlady, and there is another woman, and they have been jabbering about dresses all of the morning. I have been like a crazy man--I was all on fire this morning, too! O G.o.d, it is too cruel!

I could dress those three hags with broomsticks.

--How long is this to continue, I want to know. Here it is afternoon and they are still chattering. Every time I have tried to compose my thoughts they have come back and begun chattering again. And so I can only pace about, and then rush out into the street--and wear myself sick. I call this simply monstrous. That my soul should be tied down to such vulgarity as this--is it not maddening? Here I am--with all my load of woe--at this fearful crisis! And I am to be shattered and wrecked and ruined by _this_! Just as long as they choose to sit there, just so long I am helpless. Was it for this that I have borne all the pain?

It seems to me that I hear jeering laughter around me from a swarm of little demons. I hide my face and flee, but they follow me.

But what can you expect? Have they not a right to talk?--Yes--all the world has a right to be as hideous as it can. And I have no right but to suffer and to choke in my rage.

Three vile, ignorant serving-women! Serving-women--ah yes, and if they were _my_ servants! If I could pay them!--But who serves me! Of what consequence am I!

These things goad me, they are like poisoned thorns in my flesh. The infinite degradation of it all, the shame, the outrage!

It has burned a brand deep into my flesh, and never while I live will it come out. Ah, you rich men! You who rule us, who own the treasures, the opportunities, the joys! You who trample the fair gardens of life like great blind beasts!

Do you think it is nothing to me that the inspiration and the glory of my whole lifetime is to be trampled into nothingness for lack of what others spend upon one dress? Yes, of my whole lifetime! My whole lifetime! Give me but what another will spend upon one foolish gimcrack that he never looks at again, and I will live for a whole lifetime! And I will write such music--Bah! What am I doing?

--Sometimes when I think of these things a black shadow stalks over my heart. I hear a voice, "Fool, and do you still think that you are ever to escape from this? Do you not perceive that this sordid shame is your _lot_? Do you not perceive that you may writhe and twist, struggle and pant, toil and serve, till you foam at the lips? Who will heed you! Who will hear you! Who cares anything about you!--Who wants your Art! Who wants your work! Who wants your _life_!--Fool!"

--Of course this thing could not go on. And so of course,--stammering and writhing, as I always do when I have my nose pushed into this kind of filth--I had to speak to the landlady about it to-night.--

And of course the landlady was astonished. "Why, Mr. Stirling, can't a body talk in a body's own room?" Yes, a body can talk, but then other bodies have to move away.

Now she's going to speak to her sister about it. And here I sit, writhing and trembling. Oh my G.o.d, suppose I have to move! Oh merciful Father, have pity on me--I can't bear much of this! To go tramping around this hot and horrible city, to go into some new and perhaps yet more dirty place! And oh, the agony, the shame--suppose _that_ will not do, and I have to keep on searching! Dragging this fearful burden with me! And I have only eighteen dollars left!

If I think of it any longer I shall scream with nervousness.

June 7th.

And now it is all settled. A body has to talk in a body's own room, and a body's nose has to turn up with indignation as a body announces the fact.

And so here I sit, waiting for the expressman to come for my trunk.

Now that it is over it does not seem so bad. I am like a snail--once back in my sh.e.l.l, I do not care what happens. I have given up trying to write The Captive, and so nothing bothers me any more.--I have forgotten all about it now, it is years behind me.

But I have seen it all; I can get it back in good time. I do not fear.

I have rolled up a little bundle, a tooth-brush and some ma.n.u.scripts princ.i.p.ally; and I send the rest to a friend's house. I have had an inspiration. Why should I stay in this hot and steaming place?--Why should I be "barricaded evermore within the walls of cities?" _Ich will ins Land!_

Why did I not think of this in the beginning? I am going now to see the springtime!--"the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing--hey ding-a-ding!"

That was a real idea. I do not know where I am going; but I will walk and get somewhere--there will be woods. I'll sleep in hay-ricks if it can't be managed any other way.

Away, away from men and towns, To the wildwood and the downs!

I could have been through in three weeks now, I believe. But it was not to be. We have to take what comes to us--

Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate.

I'm glad I don't have to write poetry like _that_!

June 8th.

Howdy-do, Brother Bobolink! How in the world did you guess I was coming this way?

--Es ist nun einmal so.

Kein Dichter reist incognito!

Ah, to be out in the open air again, to see the world green and beautiful; to run with the wind and look at the flowers and listen to the birds! I am sitting by a spring; I have eaten my dinner.

I turned my steps Jerseyward.

--I have been walking all day. I must find some place to stop very soon.

I can not think of the country with this burden on me. I am like a sick animal--I seek a hiding-place. I fancied I might think of my work on the way, but I can not. The world is happy; my work is not happy.

My hope is all in the end of the journey, and the walking is drudgery. And then, my money is going! I must find some sort of a hut--a tumble-down house, an old barn--anything.