The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 9

Will you imagine me to-day, kneeling by the bedside, shuddering; my face hidden, the tears streaming down my cheeks--and I crying aloud: "I will--oh, I will!"

I can not tell any more.

May 29th.

I am coming to the last scenes. I hear them rumbling in my soul--far, far off--like a distant surf on a windless night.

I am coming, step by step: I mean to fight it out on this line.

I know a man who always rose to the occasion. Never was he challenged that he did not dare and triumph. Oh, if instead of being hungry and pining, I had but the music of that divine inspirer!--

h.e.l.ler schallend, mich umwallend, sind es Wellen sanfter Lufte?

Sind es Wogen wonniger Dufte?

Wie sie schwellen, mich umrauschen, soll ich athmen, soll ich lauschen?

Soll ich schlurfen, untertauchen, suss in Duften mich verhauchen?

May 30th.

To-day. I had a spiritual experience--a revelation; to-day, in a flash of insight, I understood an age--whole centuries of time, whole nations of men.

I had been writing one of the great hymns, one of the great victories; and I had been drunk with it, it had come with a surge and a sweep, it had set everything about me in motion--huge phantom shapes--all life and all being gone mad.

And then, when I had written it, I went out into the dark night; I walked and walked, not knowing where, still tingling with excitement. And, suddenly, I stood spellbound--the cathedral!

There it was--there it was! I saw it, alive and real before me--all of it--all that I had seen and known! I cried out for joy, I stretched out my arms to it--the great, dark surging presence; and all my soul went with it, singing, singing--up into the misty night!

June 1st.

I sat to-night by the river again. It was moonlight, and the water lay s.h.i.+mmering. A little yacht, gleaming with lights, sped by; it was very close, and I saw a group of people on it, I heard them laughing; and one of them--a woman--was singing.

O G.o.d, what a voice! So rich, so exquisite! It soared upward and died again, quivering like the reflection of the stars on the water. It went in--in to the very depths of my soul; it loosed all the woe of my spirit, it made the tears gush into my eyes. And then it died away, away in the distance; and I sat with my hands clasped.

Sail on--sail on--oh heavenly voice! Far-off vision of brightness and beauty! Your lot is not my lot.

--There is something within me that weeps yet, at the echo of that music.

Oh, what would I not give for music! How much of my bitterness, how many of my sorrows have melted into tears at one strain!

And I can not have it! Oh, you who do have it, do you know what you have?

Oh beautiful voice, do you hear yourself?

All things else I can make for myself--friends.h.i.+p and love--nature and books and prayer; all things but music!

Can you not hear that voice dying--dying--"over the rolling waters"?

June 2d.

I shall come out of this a man--a man! I shall know how to live all my days! I shall have memories that will always haunt me, memories that I can build the years by!

June 3d.

From the time that I began The Captive it has been almost two months; it is just six weeks from the day I wrote that I had ten or twelve weeks in which to finish. I have done well financially--I have twenty-one dollars left, and I have paid for my typewriting.

It is not a fortune. But enough is as good as a fortune.

And I am coming on! I have been counting the scenes--I am really within sight of the end.

--That day when I crouched by the bed I saw all of the end. I have seen the whole thing. It will leave me a wreck, but I can do it. And it will take me about three weeks.

Think of my being able to say that!--Five or six hundred lines at least I shall have to do, and still I dare to say that. But I am full of this thing, I mount with it all the time. I am finding my wings.

Nothing can stop me now; I feel that I shall hold myself to it. I become more grim every day.

No one can guess what it means to me to find that I have hold of the whole of this thing! It is like strong wine to me--I scarcely know where I am.

June 4th.

I am sitting down by the window, and first I kick my heels against my old trunk, and then I write this. Hi! Hi! I think of a poem that I used to recite about Santa Claus--"Ho, Castor! ho, Pollux!"--and then ho a lot of other things--a Donner and a Blitzen I remember in particular. I want a reindeer--a Pegasus--a Valkyrie--an anything--to carry me away up into the air where I can exult without impropriety!

Come blow your horn, hunter, Come blow your horn on high!

In yonder room there lieth a 'cello player, And now he's going to move away!

Come blow your horn--

That's an old Elizabethan song. I heard them come up for his trunk just now, and they've dragged it down-stairs, and I hear the landlady fuming because they are tearing the wall paper. I have never loved the sound of the landlady's voice before.

--The world is divinely arranged, there is no question about it.