Let me writhe and falter with pain; let me go mad--but oh, worldful of people--for the love of your God--give me out of this seething darkness only one beautiful human hand to touch mine with _love_, one beautiful human heart to know the aching sad loneliness of mine, one beautiful, human soul to mingle with mine in long, long Rest. Oh, for a human being, my soul wails--a human being to love me! Oh, to know--just once--what it is to be loved! Nineteen years without one faint shadow of love is mouldy, crumbling age--is gray with the dust of centuries. How long have I lived? How long must I live? I am shrieking at you, cold, stupid world. Oh, the long, long waiting! The millions of human beings! I am a human being and there is no one--no one--no one. Who can know this that has not felt it? You do not know--you can not know. Surely I do not ask too much. But whether or not it is too much I can not go through the years without it--oh, I can not! You have lived your nineteen years, fine world, and you have lived through some after years. But in your nineteen years there was some one to love you. It is that that counts. Since you have had that some one, in your nineteen years, can you understand what life is to me--me--in my loneliness? My wailing, waiting soul burns with but one desire: _to be loved--oh, to be loved_. March 29. I am making the world my confessor in this Portrayal. My mind is fairly bursting with egotism and pain, and in writing this I find a merciful outlet. I have become fond of my Portrayal. Often I lay my forehead and my lips caressingly upon the pages. And I wish to let you know that there is in existence a genius--an unhappy genius, a genius starving in Montana in the barrenness--but still a genius. I am a creature the like of which you have never before happened upon. You have never suspected that there is such a person. I know that there is not such another. As I said in the beginning, the world contains not my parallel. I am a fantasy--an absurdity--a genius! Had I been one of the beasts that perish I had been likewise a fantasy. I think I should have been a small animal composite of a pig, a leopard, and a skunk: an animal that I fancy would be uncanny to look upon but admirable for a pet. However, I am not one of the beasts that perish. I am human. That is another remarkable point. I have heard persons say they can hardly believe I am quite human. I am the most human creature that ever was placed on the earth. The geniuses are always more human than the herd. Almost a perfection of humanness is reached in me. This by itself makes me extraordinary. The rarest thing in the world, I find, is the quality of humanness. Humanity and humaneness are much less rare.