Swounds, show me what thou'lt do: Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast? Woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou!-- “This is mere madness,” observes the queen. Tone it down! * * * * * August 12th. I sat last night brooding over this thing till almost dawn. I could not bring myself to the thought of offering my work again to be judged by such people. I made up my mind to take a different course--I sat and wrote a long letter to a certain poet whom I love and honor. He is known as a critic--he will know. I told him the whole story, and asked him to read the poem. It was something that I had never thought about, the effect of The Captive upon commonplace people. I was so full of my own rapture--I made my audience out of my own fancy. And now these snuffy little men come peering at it! My appeal is not to the reading public--my appeal is to great minds and heroic hearts--to the ages that will come when I have gone. --And can it be that I am to repeat the old, old story--will every one laugh at me and leave me to starve? * * * * * --I will get myself together and prepare for a siege. I will find an opening somewhere. You can not shut up a volcano. * * * * * August 16th. There seems to be little use of struggling. I can not control myself. I wander around, restless, unhappy. That horrible prison that I am pent in--God, how I hate it! Such heart-sickening waiting--waiting!--and meanwhile that intolerable treadmill! It drives me wild! I am so full of life, of passion; and to be dragged back--and back--and stamped on! Each day I feel myself weaker; each day my power and my joy are going. Let me go--let me go! Is my inspiration of no value at all, my ardor, my tenderness, my faith,--all nothing? You treat me as if I were an ox! * * * * * It is like being chained in the galleys! The dust and the heat, the jostling crowds, the banging and rattling, the bare, hideous streets--and above it all the wild, rampant vulgarity--the sordidness, the cheapness, the chaffering! My eyes stare at advertisements and signs until they burn me in my head. Oh, the hell of egotism and vulgarity that is a city! --“Why so much trouble? Other men bear dust and heat, and do their work without complaining!” Ah, yes!--but they do not have to write poems in the bargain! * * * * *