The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 18

--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.

G.o.d, 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 clas.h.i.+ng 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.

August 2d.

Oh what a horrible thing is "business"! Here, where I am,--this is _the world_. An industrial era!

This is a wholesale-paper house, and the three partners who run it call themselves, with unconscious irony, "wholesale-paper MEN"! They live their lives in wholesale-paper,--they talk it--they dream it--they plan it--they have no hope in the world except to find people to buy wholesale-paper! And the manager--keen and hungry--he is planning to be a wholesale-paper man himself. And here are twenty-five men and youths apparently having but one virtue in the world, the possibility of consecrating their souls to wholesale-paper!