But I was not in a mood for my facetious devil--I flung him aside and sprang up and fled out to the street (this in thought, of course). What do I need with others? I exclaimed--with others to help me dare? This has to do with _me_! And it has to do with me _now_--with this moment! Am I to give up and let myself go down for such a phantom as this! For such a dread as that wooden-headed men and women will think me “queer”! Am I to stay in a prison such as that--to be bound by a chain such as _that_? I--I, who go about trying to persuade myself that this world is nothing to me--that this world is nothing to any one--that it is a phantom--that the soul is truth! When I say that the soul is truth, do I mean it? Do I _mean_ it? And if I do mean it, will I act by it--will I act by it now--_now_, while I see it? Will I fling off this nightmare, will I tear my way through these wrappings that have choked me? Will I say, once and for all time, that I will be myself--that I will live my life--and that no man shall stop me--that no man shall make me afraid? Will I take the battle upon me and win it--win it _now_--fling off the last rag of it--put the world straight behind me--_now_--_here_? Spread the wings of my soul and take my flight into the far spaces of myself! And dwell there--stay there--hold to the task and give it not up though it kill me--now--_now_! These thoughts took hold of me--they made my brain reel--and I cried aloud in excitement. I had not been so much awake since the day I came out of the woods! I said the word--I said it--the mad word that I had not heard for six long months--that I had not heard since I wrote the last lines of my poem and came back to the haunts of men. And I clinched my hands, and stamped upon the ground, and shouted: “Come on! Come on!”--to the legions of my spirit. And it was like the taking flight of a great swarm of birds within me--a rushing of wings and a surging upward, a singing for joy as of a symphony. And there was singing in my soul, the surge of it caught me--and I waved my arms and went striding on, shouting still, “Come on! Come on!-- “Now! _now_! We will have it out with them--here--_here_! We will fight our fight and win it, and they shall not turn us back--no, by God, they shall not! And they may take it as they please--my soul is free--_free_ once again! Away! _Away!_” And I felt the breeze of the mountains about me, and heard the rushing of the storm-wind and the trampling of the thunder. There awoke the old rush in my heart, the old Valkyrie music that flies over the forests and mountains. And I laughed as I sang it; I heard the war-horses neighing, and yelled to them--faster and faster--higher and higher--away from earth and all men!-- * * * * *