—That is some of Nietzsche!
January 8th.
To-day it snowed hard, and it occurred to me that I might add to my money. I bought a second-hand shovel and went out to shovel snow. It is not so bad, I said, you are out of doors, and also you can think of Nietzsche.
I made a dollar and a half, but I fear I did not think very much. My hands were cold, for one thing, and my shoes thin, for another.
There is nothing that brings me down like physical toil. It is madness to believe that you can do anything else—you drudge and drudge, and your mind is an absolute blank while you do it. It is a thing that sets me wild with nervousness and impatience. I hate it! I hate it!
And I find myself crying out and protesting against it; and then I see other men not minding it, and I hear the words of my dear clergyman friend: “The labor which all of us have to share.” So I say to myself: Perhaps I am really an idler then! A poor unhappy fool that can not face life's sternness, that is crying out to escape his duty!
That I could say such a thing—O God, what sign is that of how far I have fallen! Of how much I have yielded!—