And there is that kind of happiness which is of the red sunset sky.
There is something terrible in the thought of this indescribable mad
Happiness. What a thing it is for a human being to be _happy_--with
the red, red Happiness of the sunset sky!
It’s like a terrific storm in summer with rain and wind, beating quiet
water into wild waves, bending great trees to the ground,--convulsing
the green earth with delicious pain.
It’s like something of Schubert’s played on the violin that stirs
you within to exquisite torture.
It’s like the human voice divine singing a Scotch ballad in a manner
to drag your soul from your body.
But there are no words to tell it. It is something infinitely above
and beyond words. It is the kind of Happiness the Devil will bring
to me when he comes,--to me, to _me_! Oh, why does he not come now
when I am in the midst of my youth! Why is he so long in coming?
Often you hear a dozen stories of how the Devil was most ready
and willing to take all from some one and give him his measure of
Happiness. And sometimes the person was innately virtuous and so
could not take the Happiness when it was offered. But Happiness is
its own justification, and it should be eagerly grasped when it
comes.
A world filled with fools will never learn this.
And so here I stand in the midst of Nothingness waiting and longing
for the Devil, and he doesn’t come. I feel a choking, strangling,
frenzied feeling of waiting--oh, why doesn’t my Happiness come! I
have waited so long--so long.
There are persons who say to me that I ought not to think of the
Devil, that I ought not to think of Happiness--Happiness for me
would be sure to mean something wicked (as if Happiness could ever
be wicked!); that I ought to think of being good. I ought to think
of God. These are persons who help to fill the world with fools. At
any rate their words are unable to affect me. I can not distinguish
between right and wrong in this scheme of things. It is one of the
lines of reasoning in which I have gotten to the edge, the end. I
have gotten to the point to which all logic finally leads. I can
only say, What is wrong? What is right? What is good? What is evil?
The words are merely words, with word-meanings.
Truth is Love, and Love is the only Truth, and Love is the one
thing out of all that is real.
The Devil is really the only one to whom we may turn, and he exacts
payment in full for every favor.
But surely he will come one day with Happiness for me.
Yet, oh, how can I wait!
To be a woman, young and all alone, is hard--_hard_!--is to want
things, is to carry a heavy, heavy weight.
Oh, damn! damn! damn! Damn every living thing, the world!--the
universe be damned!
Oh, I am weary, weary! Can’t you see that I am weary and pity me
in my own damnation?
January 22.
It is night. I might well be in my bed taking a needed rest. But
first I shall write.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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