For seven years I have borne poverty and meanness, sickness, heat, cold, toil--that I might make myself an artist. The indignities, the degradations--I could not tell them, if I spent all the time I have in writing a journal. I have lived in garrets--among dirty people--vulgar people--vile people; I have worn rags and unclean things; I have lived upon bread and water and things that I have cooked myself; I have seen my time and my strength wasted by a thousand hateful impertinences--I have been driven half mad with pain and rage; I have gone without friends--I have been hated by every one; I have worked at all kinds of vile drudgery--or starved myself sick that I might avoid working. But I have said, “I will be an artist!” Day and night I have dreamed it; day and night I have fought for it. I have plotted and planned--I have plotted to save a minute. I have done menial work that I might have my brain free--all the languages that I know I have worked at at such times. I have calculated the cost of foods--I have lived on a third of the pittance I earned, that I might save two-thirds of my time. I once washed dishes in a filthy restaurant because that took only two or three hours a day. I have said, “I will be an artist! I will fix my eyes upon the goal; I will watch and wait, and fight the fight day by day. And when at last I am strong, and when my message is ripe, I will earn myself a free chance, and then I will write a book. All the yearning, all the agony of this my life I will put into it; every hour of trial, every burst of rage. I will make it the hope of my life, I will write it with my blood--give every ounce of strength that I have and every dollar that I own; and I will win--I will win! “So I will be free, and the horror will be over.” I have done that--I am doing that now. I mean to finish it if it kills me.-- But I was sitting on the edge of the bed to-night, and the tears came into my eyes and I whispered: “But oh, you must not ask me to do anymore! I can not do any more! It will leave me broken!” Only so much weight can a man carry. The next pound breaks his back. * * * * * April 22d. I am happy to-night; I am a little bit drunk. To-day was one day in fifty. Why should it be? Sometimes I have but to spread my wings to the wind. Yesterday I might have torn my hair out, and that glory would not have come to me. But to-day I was filled with it--it lived in me and burned in me--I had but to go on and go on. The Captive! It was the burst of rage--the first glow in the ashes of despair. I was walking up and down the room for an hour, thundering it to myself. I have not gotten over the joy of it yet: _“Thou in thy mailèd insolence!”_ I wonder if any one who reads those thirty lines will realize that they meant eight hours of furious toil on my part! * * * * * Stone by stone I build it.