What a thing is hope! I have been for two days chained in the most horrible kind of a place. Picture it--to stand all day and see low people stuffing themselves with food--the dirt and the grease and the stench and the endless hideous drudgery! And I five days out of the springing forest and the ecstasy of inspiration!--Truly, it is a thing to put one's glory to a test! But I hardly feel it--I walk on air--deep back in my soul there is an organ song, I hear it all day, all day! How soon will they write? I fly up-stairs each night, looking for a letter. Hurry up! Hurry up! --“_Pegasus im Joche_!” * * * * * July 13th. The book! The book! I go thinking about it--when I come home I throw myself down on the bed and laugh with suppressed excitement. I think all day--they are reading it now, perhaps! Ah, my book! And perhaps I'll find somebody at home there to see me about it to-night! I look at the reviews--I am interested in all the books of the day now--because The Captive is going to be among them! How will it seem to see it there, in big letters? * * * * * And how will it seem to be known? I am not a fool--I know what will help me to my peace when I am out there in the woods again--and it will not be that the newspapers have been talking about me, and that the dames of high society have asked me to their tea-parties. But there are one or two men in this world that I should like to know. Perhaps as the author of a book that is known it would be possible. * * * * * --Yes, before I was one of the mob, and now I have shown what I can do. * * * * * July 15th. The horror of that awful “eating-joint” grows on me every hour. I could not bear it much more--physically it makes me ill, and no amount of enthusiasm can make that better. I will not sell a second more of my time than I have to. I made up my mind that I would give up the place at the end of the week. The money will do me for another week after that, and by that time I will surely have heard from the publishers. * * * * * I'll have to tell them, that's all,--it is nothing to be ashamed of. They'll have to give me some money in advance. I can not live in that cesspool. * * * * * Yes, to-morrow and half of the next day,--that is all I will bear! * * * * * --I long sometimes to go and see them; but no, I can wait. * * * * * July 17th. I treated myself to a long holiday this afternoon. I went up to the park, and walked and walked. Everything was in a tumult within me--I was clear of that last prison. And all the excitement and the power of that poem are still in me. I am restless, all on fire, stern, hungry, like a wind-storm. Come not near me unless you wish for truth! Come not near me if you fear the gods!