Now I am reading history; it gives me the nightmare, but one has to read it.
Every night when I put down my book, I flee in thought to my own land as to a city of refuge. A history where everything counts! A history that is not a mad, blind chaos of blood and horror! A history that has other meaning than the drunken lust and the demon pride of a Napoleon or a Louis le Grand!
—Some day the ages will discern two movements in history: the first, the Christian dispensation, and the second the American.
There is a great deal in knowing how to read, especially with such books as history. I try to read as I write; to lash my author, to make him fill my mind. If he gets sluggish I am soon through with him—I read whole paragraphs in a sentence, and whole volumes in an hour.
September 25th.
The third week of the publisher's month has gone by. God, how cruel is waiting! I wonder if their readers knew how hungry I am if they would not hurry a little!
I say to myself—“There has been enough of this nonsense! Oh, surely there will not be any more, surely these men must take it!”
September 28th.