Cicero thinks that the remembering of past sorrows is a pleasure. Yes, when the sorrows are beautiful, noble. But I have sorrows in my life, the thoughts of which send through my whole frame—literally and physically—a spasm.
September 11th.
I told the bald-headed, grim-visaged senior-partner to-day that I was going to leave. He seemed surprised—offered me a “raise.” I told him I was going out of New York.
—I am a liar. Sometimes I philosophize about that. I am an unprincipled idealist. I have not the least respect for fact; I am doing my work. If I could help my work, I would lie serenely in all the six languages I know. And if I were caught, I would say, “Why, yes, of course!”
I think I would rather have a finger cut off than say to a New York business man, “I am a poet!”
September 12th.
I have been forcing myself to read Gibbon, but half of him was all I could stand. I think with astonishment of the reputation of this history, a bare recital of facts, without the least interest or importance, and a recital by the shallowest of men!