—I have just nine dollars left of my money. I can not possibly make it do more than three or four weeks; and meanwhile I sit and brood and watch them go by in blank despair.
April 28th.
I fight with myself—I must get that hellish thing out of my head! I went to a publisher's to-day—I didn't have the heart to go in, but I gave it to the clerk.
It will take two or three weeks. This will be the eighth publisher.
I said to-day: “I will force myself to read, I will get myself together; I will not let myself be stamped to the mud by this man.”
There is nothing I can do about it—I only poison my whole soul thinking of it. I must put it out of my mind—I must work!