—I said to myself to-night, “If I perish in this world it will be because I was too far ahead of my environment—that and that only. It will be because I was pure, single-hearted, consecrated, and because of such you neither know nor care.” Do I fear to say that? I am done with shame—I think that I am dying—let me speak the truth.
—And I have really said the word then—the word that can not be recalled—that my hope is dead, that I give up—that I can not live my life? Nay—I do not have to say the word, the word says itself.
March 6th.
To-day I shook myself together. I could not stand such wretchedness. I said, I will get a novel, and I will put myself into it—grimly—I will read in spite of everything.
And such a book as I lighted on by chance!—Once I had whole yawning vistas of books toward which I stretched out my arms; but somehow I had forgotten them all to-day. I could do no better than pick up a book by chance.—
I picked up Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and I found myself in the midst of the same misery that haunts me here. I read it, but it did not help me.