The thing struck terror into the last chambers of my soul. I stood stock still; I felt my flesh quiver, I felt my very hair move. I saw a pair of demon eyes glaring into mine--I saw all the wildness and the fearfulness of life in that one instant. “I wrote a book, I tried to make it true--and, oh, my God, how have I succeeded!” I do not know what I did, I was half-crazed, as in a nightmare. I fought and struggled; but I was in the grip of a truth, and though it set my brain on fire, I had to face it. I was The Captive! I was The Captive! And I was crying out against circumstances--I was crying out against my fate--and all the time there it stood and faced me--the truth, the iron truth: * * * * * --_I was to die!_ * * * * * A sudden fury swept over me--my whole being flamed with wrath. “What!” I cried. “I shall go on in this servitude--in this degradation! I shall go on playing the lackey to the filthy pleasures of men, cringing, crouching before any insult--begging for my bread--begging to keep my miserable self alive! And I shall see one by one my virtues die in me, my powers, my consecrations! I shall sink into a beast of burden, into a clod of the earth, into a tool of men! “And I, who wrote The Captive--my God, who wrote The Captive! I, who stood upon that height, drank in that glory, sang with those angels and gods! I, who was noble and high-born--pure and undefiled--seer and believer--I! I walked with Truth--and now I am a slave; a whimpering, beaten hound! They have made a eunuch of me, they have cut away my manhood! They have put me with their swine, they have fed me upon husks, they have bid me drink their swill! And I bear it, by God, I bear it! And why?--” * * * * * “_I bear it that I may live!_” * * * * * “Come here, come here! Look at this!” The thing seized me by the shoulders and shook me, the thing with the fiery eyes. “Did you _mean_ it, all that you wrote in that book--did you mean it, those vows that you swore in the forest? Were they the truth of your soul as you faced your God--or were they shams that you dallied with to please your vanity? Answer me! _Answer_!” * * * * * I sank down upon the ground as I heard that voice. I was shuddering with fear; and I moaned aloud: “I don't want to die! I want to live, I want to do my work!”--And then I heard the voice say, “You hound!” And so I shut my hands like a vise; and I panted: “No, no! Come! Take me! I will go!” I think it must have been hours that I lay there, wrestling in horrible agony. I cried again and again: “Yes, yes,--I will do it! I will do it!” I fled on breathlessly, whispering, panting to myself. Before I knew it I was saying part of The Captive--the first fearful lines of the struggle: Spirit or fiend that led me to this way! Oh, tell me, was ever poet so taken at his word before?