I feel at the moment that the universe is a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime. They alone are the Real Things.
Take anything at any point and deceive yourself into thinking that you are happy with it. But look at it heavily; dig down underneath the layers and layers of rose-colored mists and you will find that your Thing is a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime.
A struggle or two, a fight, an agony, a passing—and then the only Real Things: a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime.
Damn everything! Afterward you will find that you have done all your damning for naught. For there is nothing worthy of damnation except a Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime—and they are not damnable. They have never harmed you, and moreover they alone are the Real Things.
Julius Caesar made many wars. Sir Francis Drake went sailing over the seas. It was all child’s play and counts for nothing. Here are the Pile of Stones and a Barrel of Lime.
And so this is how it is early in the evening just before dinner, when I sit in the uncomfortable chair with my elbows on the window-sill and my head resting on one hand.
I have two pictures of Marie Bashkirtseff high upon my wall. Often I lean my head on the back of the chair with my feet on the bureau—always with my feet on the bureau—and look at these pictures.
In one of them she is eighteen years old and wears a green frock which is extremely becoming—of which fact the person inside of it seems fully aware. The other picture is taken from her last photograph, when she was twenty-four.
Marie Bashkirtseff is a very beautiful creature. And evidently she is not obliged to arrange a moreen petticoat over her plumpness. She has a wonderfully voluptuous look for a woman of eighteen years. In the later picture vanity is written in every line of her graceful form and in every feature of that charming face. The picture fairly yells: “I am Marie Bashkirtseff—and, oh, I am splendid!”
And as I look at the pictures I am glad. For though she was admirable and splendid, and all, she was no such genius as I. She had a genius of her own, it is true. But the Bashkirtseff, with her voluptuous body and her attractive personality, is after all a bit ordinary. My genius, though not powerful, is rare and deep, and no one has ever had or ever will have a genius like it.