The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 33

"As I lay in sleep a sheep ate up the ivy crown of my head--ate and then said: 'Zarathustra is no more a scholar.'

"Said it and went strutting away, and proud. A child told it to me....

"This is the truth. I am gone out of the house of the scholars, and have slammed to the door behind me....

"I am too hot, and burning with my own thoughts; oft will it take away my breath. I must into the open and out of all dusty rooms.

"But they sit cool in cool shadows; they wish in all things to be but spectators, and guard themselves lest they sit where the sun burns the steps.

"Like those who stand upon the street and stare at the people who go by; so they wait also and stare at the thoughts that others have thought.

"If one touches them with the hands, they make dust around them like meal-sacks, and involuntarily; _but who could guess that their dust comes from corn and the golden rapture of the summer fields?_"

"Too far away into the future I flew; a horror overcame me. And as I looked around me, there was Time my only companion.

"Then I flew backward, homeward--and ever faster: so I came to you, men of the present, and to the Land of Culture.

"For the first time I brought an eye for you, and good wishes; truly, with longing in my heart I came.

"And what happened to me? Frightened as I was--I had to laugh. Never had my eyes seen anything so color-besprinkled!

"I laughed and laughed while my foot still trembled, and my heart too: 'Here is the home of all paint-pots!' said I.

"Painted over with fifty spots in face and limbs; so sat ye there, to my amazement, ye men of the present!...

"Written all over with the signs of the past, and also these signs painted over with new signs; so you have hidden yourself well from all sign-readers!...

"All Times and Principles look piebald out of your coverings; all Customs and Faiths speak piebald out of your features....

"How _could_ ye believe, ye color-besprinkled!--who are pictures of everything that ever was believed!...

"Ah, whither shall I go now with my longing?"

"Who are pictures of everything that ever was believed! Who are pictures of everything that ever was believed!" I read that and I slapped my knees and I lay back and laughed like a very Falstaff. "Pictures of everything that ever was believed!" Ho, ho, ho!

--That is some of Nietzsche!

January 8th.

To-day it snowed hard, and it occurred to me that I might add to my money.

I bought a second-hand shovel and went out to shovel snow. It is not so bad, I said, you are out of doors, and also you can think of Nietzsche.

I made a dollar and a half, but I fear I did not think very much. My hands were cold, for one thing, and my shoes thin, for another.

There is nothing that brings me down like physical toil. It is madness to believe that you can do anything else--you drudge and drudge, and your mind is an absolute blank while you do it. It is a thing that sets me wild with nervousness and impatience. I hate it! I hate it!

And I find myself crying out and protesting against it; and then I see other men not minding it, and I hear the words of my dear clergyman friend: "The labor which all of us have to share." So I say to myself: Perhaps I am really an idler then! A poor unhappy fool that can not face life's sternness, that is crying out to escape his duty!

That I could say such a thing--O G.o.d, what sign is that of how far I have fallen! Of how much I have yielded!--

A vapor, heavy, hueless, formless, cold!

Leave it to time! Leave it to time!

--I hear that, and I hear around me the laughter of mocking demons. It startles my soul--but no longer to rage as it used to. I sit and stare at it with a great, heavy numbness possessing me.

January 12th.

I am still reading Nietzsche. I think I shall read all that he has written.

I am always kept aware of the limitations, but he is a tremendous man. Can you guess how this took hold of me?--

THE GRAVE-SONG

"There lies the island of graves, the silent; there are also the graves of my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life."

Thus resolving in my heart, I went over the sea.--

Oh ye visions and apparitions of my youth! Oh all ye glances of love, ye G.o.dlike moments! How swiftly you died in me! I remember you to-day as my dead.

From you, my dearest dead, there comes to me a sweet odor, heart-melting, tear-melting. Truly it shakes and melts the heart of the lonely seaman.

Still am I the richest and the most to be envied--I, the most lonely. For I _had_ you, and you have me still; say, to whom fell, as to me, such rose-apples from the trees?...

_Me_ to kill, they strangled you, you song-birds of my hopes. Yea, at you, the dearest, shot wickedness its arrows--to strike my heart!...

This word will I speak to my enemies: "What is all murder of man beside that which ye did to me?"

Thus, in the good hour, spake my purity: "G.o.dlike shall all being be to me."

Then ye fell upon me with your foul spirits; ah, whither now hath the good hour fled?

"All days shall be holy to me"--so spake once the wisdom of my youth; truly the speech of a happy wisdom.