The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 30

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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sert 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 s.p.a.ces 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d, 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d, 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 m.u.f.fled voice say: "What in the d.i.c.kens 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!