September 13th.
To-morrow is the last time I shall ever go into that hellish place! To-morrow is the last time in all my life that I shall ever have to say, “We have this same quality in ninety-pound paper at four sixty-nine!”
Throughout all this thing it seemed to me that when I came out I should no longer have a soul. But it is not so; I shall still keep at it grimly.
September 14th.
And now to-day I make my plans. I must keep near a library; but I shall hunt out a room uptown. There I can be near the Park, and I shall suffer a little less from these hideous noises. I shall go over there and spend every day—find out some place where there are not too many nurse-girls!
I can not begin any other book; I must stand or fall by The Captive. I shall be a “homo unius libri”!
But I can not attempt to write again—ever—in these circumstances. It is not that my force is spent—I am only at the beginning of my life, I see everything in the future. But I could not wrestle with these outside things again—it took all my courage and all my strength to do it once.