October 18th.
I am reading, reading—and trying to forget meanwhile! When I get through my long list of histories I shall go back to my Greek dramatists again. My Greek is getting better now—I expect to have a happy time with Aristophanes.—He is the funniest man that ever lived, Aristophanes.
Then I am coming back to read the French novelists. There are many of them I do not know. (I do not expect to like them—I do not like Frenchmen.)
October 22d.
I was glancing to-day over a volume of Shelley's, and the memory of old glories thrilled in me. Ah, let me not forget what Shelley was to me in my young struggling days! Let me not forget while I am wrestling with a dull world—let me not forget what a poet is to young men hungering for beauty! Let me not forget!
Yes, it is to such that my appeal is, it is by such that I will be judged! It is for such that I toil! For hearts upon whom the cold world has not laid its hand! For the poets and the seekers of all ages! Oh come to me, poets and seekers of all ages—dwell in my memory and strengthen my soul! That I go not down altogether—that I be not overcome by the dull things about me!
These thoughts are not becoming to a reader of history. But I am not a good reader of history—the old beasts are still growling within me. Something starts a longing in me—I cry out that I am getting dull, that I am going down, that I am putting off—I, who never put off before! And so the old storms rise and the great waves come rolling again!