—, April 19, 1912, 9:10 P. M.
It is just ten days since my terrible night of agony, and I now hope again. Following that night I had almost a week of peace, a nervous sort of calm which, however, was better than the other. Then another fall, and the last one to-night, I really hope the last. It certainly has been my salvation that I always come back strong in the fight again after a blow, but there are several things which have weakened me, and it is in spirit only that I recover; the physical weakness remains and increases. Nerves, as a strong man mentally I should hesitate to confess it, but I am worse than the average woman in my hysterical nervous state lately, and, moreover, I feel very often that there is something vitally wrong deeper, either that, or I am considerably run down, so much so, in fact, that a good night’s sleep is a Godsend; a calm, quiet day—joy; and yet I would not want too many of the latter, for my adventurous spirit defies my body and says, “Be up and doing.” Now, to-night I am feeling calm and hopeful and I must win out on one thing at least. This will help me with others.
True, I have by no means found myself yet. I still am pulled in many directions, but a hopeful sign is the abhorrence nearly always with me now of the low, common and vulgar. I could overlook in myself a little laxness in many things, but I never forgive myself the vulgar act and speech, despite my lack of moral code at present and my artistic indifference, to which is added lately, but only temporarily, I hope, a lethargic indifference, born of that ever-recurring tired feeling.
An idea which has gradually been forming in my mind I hope to begin to put into definite form just four weeks from to-night, and I then hope to have four clean weeks behind me as a start for my year’s abstention from passion. During this time, while endeavoring to obtain a foothold in the magazine field with short stories, my big idea is to write a novel of the various struggles and emotions of an ambitious, erratic youth, with a premature weariness, and unless pre-empted by another, I shall very probably call this “A Youth Who Was Prematurely Tired,” suggested by a criticism of Mademoiselle de Maupin, but this is to be altogether different, and is to touch the depths of agony and despair contrasted with the heights of ecstasy and the fierce, hungry longings, terrible disappointments, unrelieved passion, loneliness, ambition, morbidity, deep poetic feeling, and the other emotions of a sensitive, over-nervous youth of artistic temperament and large insight tempered by many paradoxes in character.
I have found myself enough to see the necessity of one course at least, that is, to preserve a dignified silence. The coarse, vulgar familiarity of the fellows I have met has jarred on me more and more, and I see that my only escape in the future is to maintain a reserve and a dignity beyond which no man may penetrate. Anything I reveal will be by writing, not by speech. I have made considerable progress, but still have to fight a foolish talkativeness on occasions.
Another policy I expect I will follow later, at least, will be the cultivation of courtesy and a more gentlemanly treatment of others, friends and otherwise.
I only have to overcome one or two little weaknesses, and to recover what I have lost physically to be able to win out—and I will.