My thoughts have lately been occupied with death and with the life after this. Yesterday I read Plato's _Timæus_ and _Phædo_. At present I write a work called _The Island of the Dead_. In it I describe the awakening after death, and what follows. But I hesitate, for I am frightened at the boundless misery of mere life. Lately I burned a drama; it was so sincere, that I shuddered at it. What I do not understand is this: ought one to hide the misery, and flatter men? I _wish_ to write cheerfully and beautifully, but ought not, and cannot. I conceive it as a terrible duty to be truthful, and life is indescribably hideous. Now the clock strikes eleven, and at twelve o'clock is the rehearsal. The same day at 8 P.M. I have seen the rehearsal of the _Dream Play_, and suffered greatly. I received the impression that this piece ought not to be played. It is presumptuous, and certainly blasphemous (?). I am disturbed and alarmed. I have had no midday meal; at seven o'clock I ate some cold food out of the basket in the kitchen. During the religious broodings of my last forty days I read the Book of Job, saying to myself certainly at the same time that I was no righteous man like him. Then I came to the 22nd chapter, in which Eliphaz the Temanite unmasks Job: "Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.... Is not thy wickedness great and thine iniquities infinite?" Then the whole comfort of the Book of Job vanished, and I stood again forlorn and irresolute. What shall a poor man hold on to? What shall I believe? How can he help thinking perversely? Yesterday I read Plato's _Timæus_ and _Phædo._ There I found so much self-contradictory wisdom, that in the evening I threw my devotional books away and prayed to God out of a full heart. "What will happen now? God help me! Amen." The stage-manager visited me yesterday evening. We both felt, in despair.... The night was quiet. _April 16, 1907_.--Read the proof of the _Black Flags_,[1] which I wrote in 1904. I asked myself whether the book was a crime, and whether it ought to be published. I opened the Bible, and came on the prophet Jonah, who was compelled to prophesy although he hid himself. That quieted me. But it is a terrible book! _April 17_.--To-day the _Dream Play_ will be performed for the first time. A gentle fall of snow in the morning. Read the last chapter of Job: God punishes Job because he presumed to wish to understand His work. Job prays for pardon, and is forgiven. Quiet grey weather till 3 P.M. Then G. came with a piece of good news.