August 5th.
To-day I made a resolution, that I must stop this chafing, this panting, this beating my wings to pieces. A man's inspiration must be under his control, to stop it, as well as to start it. I can not write or dream poetry while I am in this slavery, and somehow I have to realize it. When I go home I will get to some work, and not wander around hungering.
After my glimpse of the forest it is frightful to be penned in this steaming city. To have to work in an office all day—sometimes it makes me reel. And then at night too, when I try to read, the room gets suffocating.
Then I go out among the tenement-house crowds, carrying my little note-book. I stop at a lamp-post and look at a couple of words and then walk on and learn them! So I go for hours.
—Hurry up, publishers!—I wrote to them to-night.
August 7th.
“In answer to your letter of the 5th instant, we beg to inform you that your manuscript is now in the hands of our readers, and that you may expect a report upon it in a week.”