I have done nothing for two days but wander around and stare at things. It is all gone, every gleam of it! And I can not bring it back—I know not what to do, where to turn. I stopped in one of the hardest parts of the whole thing—in the very midst of it; and how in the world am I to begin? I walk around, I sit down, I get up again; I try to put my thoughts upon it, I bring them back again and again. But I can not do it—I have let every thread of it go. What has tramping over the country and delight in houses got to do with my work?
I have nothing to write—the whole thing is a blank to me. And here I am, eating up my provisions!—This shows me what I am—what a child.
—But how am I to get up on those fearful heights again? How am I to take the first step toward those fearful heights again? I cry that all day!
June 20th.
Oh, the joy of being out in the woods! I never knew of it before—I never dreamed it!
It is better than an orchestra. To be able to stretch your arms! To have a place to walk! To be able to talk aloud!—to laugh—to shout—to do what you please!—to be free from all men, and the thought of all men!
And to hear your own poetry aloud!—I cried out to-day that I would go back and do the whole of The Captive over again, so that I could hear it out loud. It made me quite wild yesterday when I first realized that I was alone!
—Last night there was a gale, and the clouds sped over the moon, and the wind roared in the trees—and I roared too!
—“For I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set!”