It is true that my whole life has been a practise for the writing of this book, that this book is the climax of my whole life. I have toiled--learned--built up a mind--found a conviction; but I have never written anything, or tried to write anything, to be published. I have said, “Wait; it is not time.” And now it _is_ time. If there is anything of use in all that I have done, it is in this book. Yes; and also it is a climax in another way. It is my goal and my salvation.--Ah, how I have toiled for it! * * * * * April 19th. I saw my soul to-day. It was a bubble, blown large, palpitating, whirling over a stormy sea; glorious with the rainbow hues it was, but perilous, abandoned.--Do you catch the _feeling_ of my soul? Something perilous--I do not much care what. A traveler scaling the mountains, leaping upon dizzy heights; a gambler staking his fortune, his freedom, his life--upon a cast! I will tell you about it. It began when I was fifteen. My great-uncle, my guardian, is a wholesale grocer in Chicago; he has a large palace and a large waistcoat. “Will you be a wholesale grocer?” said he. “No,” said I, “I will not.” I might have been a partner by this time, had I said Yes, and had a palace and a large waistcoat too. “Then what will you be?” asked the great-uncle. “I will be a poet,” said I. “You mean you will be a loafer?” said he. “Yes,” said I--disliking argument--“I will be a loafer.” And so I went away, and while I went I was thinking, far down in my soul. And I said: “It must be everything or nothing; either I am a poet or I am not. I will act as if I were; I will burn my bridges behind me. If I am, I will win--for you can not kill a poet; and if I am not, I will die.” Thus is it perilous. I fight the fight with all my soul; I give every ounce of my strength, my will, my hope, to the making of myself a poet. And when the time comes I write my poem. Then if I win, I win empires; and if I lose-- “You put all your eggs into one basket,” some one once said to me. “Yes,” I replied, “I put all my eggs into one basket--and then I carry the basket myself.” Now I have come to the last stage of the journey--the “one fight more, and the last.” And can I give any idea of what is back of me, to nerve me to that fight? I will try to tell you.