The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 39

--Understand what I mean--poor fools, do not think it is for myself that I fear. If I wanted to fight a way for myself--I could do it yet--never fear.

But ah, you will save the mother and not her child! What I weep for, what I die for, is my ART!

My vision, my life, my joy, my fire! These are the things that are dying!

And when the soul is dead do you think that I shall care about the body? Do you think that I will stay in this world a sh.e.l.l, a mockery, a corpse? Stay either to putrefy with pleasure or to be embalmed in dulness? Nay, you do not know me!

--I said to myself to-night, "If I perish in this world it will be because I was too far ahead of my environment--that and that only. It will be because I was pure, single-hearted, consecrated, and because of such you neither know nor care." Do I fear to say that? I am done with shame--I think that I am dying--let me speak the truth.

--And I have really said the word then--the word that can not be recalled--that my hope is dead, that I give up--that I can not live my life? Nay--I do not have to say the word, the word says itself.

March 6th.

To-day I shook myself together. I could not stand such wretchedness. I said, I will get a novel, and I will put myself into it--grimly--I will read in spite of everything.

And such a book as I lighted on by chance!--Once I had whole yawning vistas of books toward which I stretched out my arms; but somehow I had forgotten them all to-day. I could do no better than pick up a book by chance.--

I picked up Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I found myself in the midst of the same misery that haunts me here. I read it, but it did not help me.

--It is strange what poverty has ground into my soul. I find myself reading such a book with but one feeling, one idea crying out in me. I discover that my whole being is reduced to the great elemental, primitive instinct of self-preservation. Love is dead in me, generosity, humanity, imagination is dead,--everything but one wild-beast pa.s.sion; and I find myself panting as I read: "Get some money! Get some money! Hold on to it!"

--After a while I think suddenly: "And I am a poet!" That brings a moan from me and I sit shuddering.

March 7th.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most unconvincing books I ever read. I neither believed in it nor cared about it in the slightest.

I am shown a "pure woman," and by and by I learn, to my perplexity, that she has been seduced; after which she continues the "pure woman" again, and I am asked to agonize over her troubles! But all the time I keep saying, "This is not a woman that you are showing me at all--a woman with a soul; it is a puppet figure that you suppose 'seduced' for the sake of the story."

It is our absurd English ideas of "propriety" that make possible such things. If the author had had to show the seduction of "Tess" the weakness of the thing would have been plain in an instant. That he did not show it was his lack of conscience. There is no propriety in art but truth.

March 8th.

I took the ma.n.u.script to the editor again to-day. He told me to come in on Monday.

Deep in my soul I can have no more disappointments about it. I take it about from habit. I sat and looked it over last night, but one can not read emotional things in cold blood. I said, Is this true? Is it natural? Is there any _use_ in it?

I was tempted to cut out one or two things; but I decided to let it stay as it was.

March 10th.

I have been sitting to-night in my room, half-dazed, or pacing about the streets talking to myself in a frenzy. I can hardly believe that it is true, I can hardly realize it! I laugh with excitement, and then I cry.

I went to-day to get back my ma.n.u.script. And the editor said: "Mr.

Stirling, it is a most extraordinary piece of work. It is a most interesting thing, I like it very much."

I stared at him gasping. Then I waited to hear him say--"But I regret"--But he didn't!

"I can't tell you anything definite about it," he said. "I want to submit it to the firm. I wouldn't undertake to accept any such unusual thing for the magazine without consulting them, and especially seeing if they will bring it out afterward--"

"You are thinking of using it in the magazine!" I cried.

"As I tell you, I can't say positively. I can only tell you what I think of it. I will have them read it at once--"

"I will take it to them to-day!" I put in.

"No," he said, "you need not, for I am going there this afternoon, and I will take it, and ask them to read it immediately."

I can't remember what else he said. I was deaf, crazy! I rushed home, talking to myself incoherently. I remember sitting here in a chair and saying aloud, "Oh, it can't be! It is impossible! That it should be good enough to publish in a magazine like that! It is some mistake--it will all come to nothing. It's absurd!"

So I sat, and I thought what such a thing would mean to me--it would make my reputation in a day--I should be free--_free_! But I thought of it and it did not make me happy; I only sat staring at myself, shuddering. The endless mournfulness that is in my heart surged up in me like a tide, and suddenly I began to cry like a child.

"It has come to me too late," I exclaimed, "too late! I can't believe it--it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care anything about it--I mean the poem! _I don't believe in it myself_!"

G.o.d, do you know I said that, and _meant_ it? I said more--I sat and whispered it to myself: "Let them take it, yes, let them! I don't care--it will set me free--I shall have some money! But they're fools to do it, they're fools!"

March 11th.

I tremble with excitement all the day, dreaming about that thing. I go about half-mad. "Oh, just think of it," I whisper, "just think of it!"

I linger about it hungrily! He spoke as if he really meant to make them take it.

March 13th.