Having willed to live at the moment of despair, I must needs live with sincerity and without conforming; a little more forbearance will do me good, and certainly the events of the past few weeks have been a sore trial. I have undoubtedly made a fool of myself, but still acknowledging my ideal, feel determined as ever, if chastened. I candidly must say or write that .... questions are still open, but I intend to get right down to action towards a literary career, meanwhile gradually attaining the thing which I have been struggling for--not peace of mind exactly, but the feeling that I am doing my best in a sincere manner under the circumstances, namely, that I must go through life with health impaired to a greater or less extent; that I am inclined to extremes, pessimistic or very cheerful, even childish, by turns; that life appeals to me when I think as terribly inevitable that I have a tendency to degeneracy at times (which I feel I can overcome to a certain extent by heroic measures); that the happiness of a home and children of my own may be denied me. With these prospects before me, my fighting blood is up and I simply have got to go on and up or disintegrate altogether--there is no halfway measure for me, and I would have it so. I write with absolute sincerity now. =--, October 2, 1912.= Another month rolls on,--despite my having writen that I do not count by dates now, I find it convenient to note whether or not I have made any progress in this way. I have. The same old struggle between passion and intellect was continued, at one time intellectual and philosophical calmness animating me and then low passion, but the net is surely but slowly (faster now) closing. I came home, loafed around the house, read, dreamed, did nothing. Then in a burst of energy purchased a typewriter, an unabridged dictionary, supplies, taking some $70 from my scanty savings. Later I repented of this, why all this preliminary to a conventional, routine existence? Why not go away, gamble, attempt to gain all by a single throw? Why struggle to no end? But deep down something always says, “Go on, you have it in you.” Well, I recovered myself again, calling on Nietzsche as my guide, not that I had read his works, but I had read about him and his philosophy of the Superman--will to live because it is painful, and I will take a fierce joy in life. It is hard to drop those passionate dreams born of romance, but I know that happiness is not for me, not the happiness of convention or even sex unconventionally, but perhaps a certain amount of intellectual satisfaction and the thrill that comes from reading the master minds which respond in me, the thrill as I feel willing to make any sacrifice for my ideals, reaffirmed by a perusal of several of Ibsen’s plays within the last few days, Schopenhauer’s “Studies in Pessimism,” and a part re-perusal of Haldane Macfall’s book about Ibsen.