The Light is shown me and I reach after it, but it is placed high
out of my reach.
I see the promises in the Light. Oh, why--_why_ does it promise
these things! Is not the burden of life already greater than I can
bear? And there is the story of the Christ. It is beautiful. It is
damningly beautiful. It draws the tears of pain and soft anguish
from me at the sense of beauty. And when every nerve in me is
melted and overflowing, then suddenly I am conscious that it is a
lie--a _lie_.
Everywhere I turn there is Nothing--Nothing.
My soul wails out its grief in loneliness.
My soul wanders hither and thither in the dark wilderness and asks,
asks always in blind, dull agony, How long?--how long?
February 22.
Life is a pitiful thing.
February 23.
I stand in the midst of my sand and barrenness and gaze hard at
everything that is within my range of vision--and ruin my eyes
trying to see into the darkness beyond.
And nearly always I feel a vague contempt for you, fine, brave
world--for you and all the things that I see from my barrenness.
But I promise you, if some one comes from among you over the sunset
hill one day with love for me, I will fall at your feet.
I am a selfish, conceited, impudent little animal, it is true, but,
after all, I am only one grand conglomeration of Wanting--and when
some one comes over the barren hill to satisfy the wanting, I will
be humble, humble in my triumph.
It is a difficult thing--a most difficult thing--to live on as one
year follows another, from childhood slowly to womanhood, without
one single sharer of your life--to be alone, always alone, when
your one friend is gone. Oh, yes, it is hard! Particularly when one
is not high-minded and spiritual, when one’s near longing is not a
God and a religion, when one wants above all things the love of a
human being--when one is a woman, young and all alone. Doubtless you
know this. After all, fine brave world, there are some things that
you know very well. Whether or not you care is a quite different
matter.
You have the power to take this wooden heart in a tight, suffocating
grasp. You have the power to do this with pain for me, and you have
the power to do it with ravishing gentleness. But whether or not
you will is another matter.
You may think evil of me before you have finished reading this.
You will be very right to think so--according to your standards.
But sometimes you see evil where there is no evil, and think evil
when the only evil is in your own brains.
My life is a dry and barren life. You can change it.
“Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away.”
Yes, you can change it. Stranger things have happened. Again,
whether you will--that is a quite different thing.
No doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you. I do not
question that. I will admit and believe anything you may assert
about yourselves. I do not want your wisdom, your judgment. I want
some one to come up over the barren sunset hill. My thoughts are
the thoughts of youth, which are said to be long, long thoughts.
Your life is multi-colored and filled with people. My life is of
the gray of sand and barrenness, and consists of Mary MacLane, the
longing for Happiness, and the memory of the anemone lady.
This Portrayal is my deepest sincerity, my tears, my drops of red
blood. Some of it is wrung from me--wrung by my ambition to tell
_everything_. It is not altogether good that I should give you all
this, since I do not give it for love of you. I am giving it in
exchange for a few gayly-colored things. I want you to know all
these passions and emotions. I give them with the utmost freedom. I
shall be furious indeed if you do not take them. At the same time,
the fact that I am exchanging my tears and my drops of red blood
for your gayly-colored trifles is not a thing that thrills me with
delight.
But it’s of little moment. When the Devil comes over the hill with
Happiness I will rush at him frantically headlong--and nothing else
will matter.
February 25.
Mary MacLane--what are you, you forlorn, desolate little creature?
Why are you not of and in the galloping herd? Why is it that you
stand out separate against the background of a gloomy sky? Why can
you not enter into the lives and sympathies of other young creatures?
There have been times when you strained every despairing nerve to
do so--before you realized that these things were not for you, that
the only sympathy for you was that of Mary MacLane, and the only
things for you were those you could take yourself--not which were
given you. And your things are few, few, you starved, lean little
mud-cat--you worn, youth-weary, obscure little genius!
Oh, it is a wearisome waiting--for the Devil.
February 28.
To-day when I walked over my sand and barrenness I felt Infinite
Grief.
Everything is beyond me.
Nothing is mine.
My single friendship shines brightly before me, and is fascinating--and
always just out of my reach.
I want the love and sympathy of human beings, and I repel human
beings.
Yes, I repel human beings.
There is something about me that faintly and finely and unmistakably
repels.
When my Happiness comes, shall I be able to have it? Shall I ever
have anything?
This repellent power is not an outward quality. It is something
that comes from deeply, deeply within. It is something that was
there in the Beginning. It is a thing from the Original.
There is no ridding myself of it. There is no ridding myself of
it. There is no ridding myself of it.
Oh, I am damned--damned!
There is not one soul in the world to feel for me and with me--not
one out of all the millions. No one can understand--_no one_.
You are saying to yourself that I imagine this.
What right have you to say so? You don’t know anything about me. I
know all about me. I have studied all the elements and phases in
my life for years and years. I do not imagine anything. I am even
fool enough to shut my eyes to some things until, inevitably, I
know I must meet them. I am racked with the passions of youth, and
I am young in years. Beyond that I am mature--old. I am not a child
in anything but my passions and my years. I feel and recognize
everything thoroughly. I have not to imagine anything. My inner
life is before my eyes.
There is something about me that no one can understand. Can there
ever be any one to understand? Shall I not always walk my barren
road alone?
This follows me incessantly. It is burning like a smouldering fire
every hour of my life.
Oh, deep black Despair!
How I suffer, how I suffer--just in being alive.