And then suddenly I heard a muffled voice say: “What in the dickens are you making all that rumpus for?” And I stared about me and saw that I was still crouching by the window in my room! And I shrank back and quivered with rage, because I knew that I had been making a noise and that some one out in the hall had been listening to me!
And that was the end of my long adventure.
December 30th.
“I am pleased to be able to tell you that your poem is a great deal better than I expected to find it. I am forced to write briefly by reason of pressure of business; but you have very considerable literary gifts. The work is clearly made whole of sincerity; it shows a considerable command of expression, and a considerable understanding of style. It has qualities of imagination and of emotional insight, and is obviously the fruit of a wide reading. But besides these things, it is exactly as I expected, and as I told you—the work is very narrow in the range of its appeal; you can not in the least blame the publishers for declining it, because it is true that very few people would care for it. My own judgment is hardly capable in the matter, because I myself am not an idealist. Recording my own opinion, I found the poem monotonous, and not especially interesting; but then, I say that of much that some other people consider great poetry.
“My advice to you is just what it was before—that you go out into the world and become acquainted with life. Not knowing you personally, I could not counsel you definitely, but I should think that what would benefit you most would be a good stiff course in plain, every-day newspaper reporting. Newspaper reporters have many deficiencies, but at least they learn to keep in touch with their audiences, and to write in a way that takes hold of the people. You may not welcome this advice—but we seldom welcome what is good for us.”
I am not dead yet, and I have not lost the power of getting angry. Such things as that do me good, they make me fight, they get all my soul in arms. Great God, the blindness, the asininity of it!
It is enough if you can classify a man; give him a name—and then it's all out of the way. If he have faith and fire and aspiration and worship—and you have not—why, say that he is an idealist, and that you are something else, and let it go at that.