—And when I wrote that I sank down and burst into tears. It can not be helped. It is very hard for me.—
Oh, but come face this thing—you that are responsible!
—“But who is responsible?” I hear a voice. Every single man is responsible—every single man who has money, who loves letters, and who faces these facts—you—YOU—are responsible!
Perhaps you are weary of my pleading, you think that I perish of my own weakness. But come and tell me, if you can, what it is that I have not done? What expedient is there that I have not tried, what resource, what hope? Have I not been true enough, have I not worked enough? Have I been extravagant, have I been dissipated? Did I not make my work my best? Come and reason with me—I shall be dead when you read this, but let us talk it over calmly. Put yourself here in my place and tell me what you would do. Have I not tried the publishers, the critics, the editors, the poets, the clergymen, the professors? Have I not waited—until I am sick, crazy? Have I not borne indignities enough? Have I not gotten myself kicked enough for my efforts?
—But you say: “I know nothing about The Captive!” Yes—so it is—then let us go back to Shelley. A fair test would be Queen Mab or The Revolt of Islam—he was my age then; but I will go ten years later and take Prometheus Bound. Would he have found any one to publish it? Did he find any one to read it? Why, ten or twenty years after Shelley died, Browning (then a boy) records that he searched all England for a copy of that queer poet's works! Why, Shelley's poetry was a byword and a mockery; and Shelley himself—first of all he was insane, of course, and afterward he was exile, atheist, adulterer, and scoundrel. They took his children away from him, because he was not fit to take care of them!