Such things bring tears of indignation into my eyes. * * * * * --As a matter of simple reference, if any one wants to know what I imagine helps a poet--it is to live in the woods, to think and to dream, to read books and hear music, to eat wholesome food--and, above all, to escape from hot asphalt streets, cable-car gongs, and flaring advertisements of soaps and cigars. * * * * * October 12th. I had an adventure to-day. I woke up with a headache, dull, sick, discouraged. I cared no more about anything. I got out The Captive and made ready to take it to the publishers. And then I thought I would read a little of it. I sat down in the corner--I forgot the publishers--I sat reading--reading--and my heart beat fast, and my hands shook, and all my soul rose in one hymn of joy! Oh world, do your worst, I do not care! You may turn me off--but the gates of heaven are open! I will go on--I will bear anything--bear all things! I will wait and live and learn meanwhile, knowing with all my soul what this book is and what it must bring. So long as I can read it, I can wake my soul again. * * * * * It is at the publishers'. I will read books meantime and be happy. I saw a manuscript clerk this time. She was very airy. I fear I am a sad-looking poet--my buttonholes are beginning to wear out. “We never read manuscripts out of turn,” she said. “It will take them three or four weeks.” * * * * * --Yes, good poet, that is my answer to you. I can not take your advice--I will cling to my book--I will pin all my hopes to it! I will toil and strive for it, I will haunt men with it, I will shout it from the housetops. No other book--no future book--_this_ book! It is a great book--a great book--it is--it _is_! * * * * * I am not ignorant of the price it costs to do that; it is my fate that I have to pay it. I can see, for instance, how Wordsworth paid it--Wordsworth, our greatest, our noblest poet since Milton. He had his sacred inspiration, and the world laughed at it; and so, grimly, systematically, he set to work to teach them--to say to all men--to say to himself--to say day and night--“It _is_ poetry! It is _great_ poetry! It is--_it is_!” And of course at last he made them believe him; and when they believed him, he--Wordsworth--was a matter-of-fact, self-centered, dull and poor old man. * * * * * --It all rests with you, good world! How long must I stand here and knock at the door? * * * * * October 18th. I am reading, reading--and trying to forget meanwhile! When I get through my long list of histories I shall go back to my Greek dramatists again. My Greek is getting better now--I expect to have a happy time with Aristophanes.--He is the funniest man that ever lived, Aristophanes.