The poet! You make him go out into the market and chaffer for his bread! You subject him to the same law to which you subject your loafers and your louts--that he who will not work can not eat! Your drones, and your drunkards--and your poets! Every man must earn for himself, every man must pay his way! No man must ask favors, no man must be helped, no man shall be any different from other men! For shame! For shame! * * * * * And you love letters! You love poetry! You are civilized, you are liberal, you are enlightened! You are fools! * * * * * I tell you the agony of this thing is in me yet--it has heaped itself up in my soul all my days. It was my life, it was my _life_ that cried out! And now that I can not save my own self--oh, let me at least save the others! O God, let me not die till I have said one word that reaches their hearts, till I have done something to change this ghastly thing! The voices of the ages cry out to me. Not only the hundreds who have gone before--but the hundreds and the thousands who are to come! What are _we_ to do? they cry--who shall save _us_? Are we to share the same fate--are we too to struggle and die in vain? And in this world that is civilized! In this world that seeks progress! In this world that wants nothing but light! Not to the mob I speak, not to those who once mocked me; if none but they lived, I should hold my tongue and go. But you men who are leaders, you men who stand upon the top, you men who see!--can I not find some word to reach _you_? You men who really love books--who have money--who want nothing but to put it to use!--can I not find some word to reach _you_? O God! And it is all so simple. * * * * * I tell you this land will never be civilized, this land will never lead mankind, it will never be anything but the torture-house that I have found it, until it makes some provision for its men of _Genius_! Until this simple fundamental thing be true--that a man may know that if he have _Genius_--that the day he shows he has _Genius_--he will be honored and protected by society and not trampled and kicked like a dog. That he will not have to go out into the market-place and vend his wares! That he will not have to make sick his soul haggling for his bread! That if he turns his strength to higher things, and exposes himself to the world thereby, he will not be trodden down in the struggle for existence! That he will not have to bear indignities and insults; that he will not have to write till he be ripe, or be stunted and deformed by early deprivation. * * * * * Genius. And am I not to die now?--And what matters the world?