* * * * * July 31st. Twelve days since I left The Captive; they said it would take three weeks. * * * * * Something strange flashed over me to-day, something that sent a shudder through me; I have done a strange thing to myself this summer, not in metaphor, but in fact. I have seen a ghost; I have drunk a potion; I have gazed upon a nymph; I have made myself mad! * * * * * I am no longer a man among men--I am “the reed that grows never more again”! * * * * * --I try to lose myself in a book, but the book does not hold me. Nothing satisfies me as it used to,--I am restless, hungry, ill at ease. Why should I read this man's weak efforts--what profits me that man's half-truths? * * * * * --And all the time I know too well what I want--I want to fight! I want to get back into the woods again! I want that vision again! That work again! I want _myself_! * * * * * --And here I am, a bird in a cage, beating the bars. What folly to say that I can be strong and endure this thing! That I can endure anything, dare anything. Yes, so I can--if I can strive! Put me out there alone, and set me a task, and I will do it though it kill me. But how can I conquer when I can not strive? Here I am, tied! I am tied--not hand and foot--but tied in soul. Tied in time! Tied in attention! How can I be anything but beaten and wretched? How can I expect anything but defeat and ruin? A song comes to me, it calls me--and I can not go! I must stare at it and watch it leave me!--How can that not drive me wild? The great wings of my soul begin to beat--I go up, I am wild for the air,--and then suddenly I am struck back by the hideous impertinences of the wholesale-paper business! How can I endure such things as that--how can I _conquer_ Why, it is like the clashing in my ears of twenty trumpets out of tune! * * * * * Do not keep me here long! Do not keep me here long! * * * * * --It is something that I find very strange and curious to watch--how spontaneously, and instinctively, all young men dislike me. Have I a brand upon my forehead? * * * * * It is not my habit to stand upon the pedestal of my inspiration, and gaze down upon those that I meet. Sympathy is my life--I can sympathize even with men who aspire to rise in business. But I have to live many lives, and new lives; and I can brook no delay. I will make no compromises; I have sworn a vow against idle words--they may dislike me as they will. I give my work, for which I am paid; I can not give my soul. * * * * * August 2d. Oh what a horrible thing is “business”! Here, where I am,--this is _the world_. An industrial era! * * * * *