May 8th.
I am getting down again; my poor hoard is going! I sit and count it—I calculate it—I lay out my bill of fare. Oh, where shall I go, what can I do? Can I write anything? I ask. I have nothing in me but a naked, shivering longing.
I dread to be in the desperate fix I was the last time I could find no work. And yet I can not make up my mind to do anything until I hear from this one publisher more.
May 9th.
I walked over there to-day to save a postage-stamp. They had not heard from the reader yet.
—I sit down and try to study. Then I get up and say I ought not to put it off any longer. Then again I think: “Wait until to-morrow, at any rate.”