I am fundamentally, organically egotistic. My vanity and self-conceit have attained truly remarkable development as I’ve walked and walked in the loneliness of the sand and barrenness. Not the least remarkable part of it is that I know my egotism and vanity thoroughly--thoroughly, and plume myself thereon. These are the ear-marks of a genius--and of a fool. There is a finely-drawn line between a genius and a fool. Often this line is overstepped and your fool becomes a genius, or your genius becomes a fool. It is but a tiny step. There’s but a tiny step between the great and the little, the tender and the contemptuous, the sublime and the ridiculous, the aggressive and the humble, the paradise and the perdition. And so is it between the genius and the fool. I am a genius. I am not prepared to say how many times I may overstep the finely-drawn line, or how many times I have already overstepped it. ’Tis a matter of small moment. I have entered into certain things marvelously deep. I know things, I know that I know them, and I know that I know that I know them, which is a fine psychological point. It is magnificent of me to have gotten so far, at the age of nineteen, with no training other than that of the sand and barrenness. Magnificent--do you hear? Very often I take this fact in my hand and squeeze it hard like an orange, to get the sweet, sweet juice from it. I squeeze a great deal of juice from it every day, and every day the juice is renewed, like the vitals of Prometheus. And so I squeeze and squeeze, and drink the juice, and try to be satisfied. Yes, you may gaze long and curiously at the portrait in the front of this book. It is of one who is a genius of egotism and analysis, a genius who is awaiting the Devil’s coming,--a genius, with a wondrous liver within. I shall tell you more about this liver, I think, before I have done. January 25. I can remember a time long, oh, very long ago. That is the time when I was a child. It is ten or a dozen years ago. Or is it a thousand years ago? It is when you have but just parted from your friend that he seems farthest from you. When I have lived several more years the time when I was a child will not seem so far behind me. Just now it is frightfully far away. It is so far away that I can see it plainly outlined on the horizon. It is there always for me to look at. And when I look I can feel the tears deep within me--a salt ocean of tears that roll and surge and swell bitterly in a dull, mad anguish, and never come to the surface. I do not know which is the more weirdly and damnably pathetic: I when I was a child, or I when I am grown to a woman, young and all alone. I weigh the question coldly and logically, but my logic trembles with rage and grief and unhappiness.