bed feeling the same way as when I wrote the above, and even felt I had
made a discovery, or rather discovered or realized an old truth in its
application to my case, namely, moderation.
Instead of going to the extreme in one direction as I have done, I said
go as far as the conditions permit, but cease before the pleasure does.
Applying this to intellect it would mean study philosophy, but don’t
overwork it--dream with the poets, but not too much. In this plan,
Strindberg, Shaw, Ibsen, and others all have their place.
Women, well the same here--quit before becoming weary, and a mental
reservation to endeavor to hold off more and more, but not to take it
to heart if not able to. This is a natural weakness, and is good if not
too much. Can I do it? That is the question. If I can tide over that
terrible reaction that comes several times a week, and sometimes night
after night, I think I can endure life, or hell, as I am coming to
regard it.
Reversing the conventional view I might say, “Life is hell, and we
have nothing to look forward to which is worse, therefore if there is
any future life, it must be better.” Whether this is logical or not, I
don’t know, but it looks good to me, even if not altogether original.
I have been reading Strindberg at the Denver Library the last few days.
I have read “Countess Julia, the Dream Play, the Link and the Dance of
Death.”
I enjoyed them, which is a matter of course, as I always understand and
enjoy deeply the work of genius, especially so-called degenerate genius.
Last night some time or other I dropped hope, only to pick her up again,
for she must be a woman--she tantalizes me so much.
=Denver, Colo., Monday, February 10, 1913.= Yesterday as the day wore
on, gloom prevailed, increasing until last night, but I clenched my
fists and grit my teeth this morning, and will go on.
Three months to a day to my birthday, I notice, who am always looking
for auspicious dates for a new start.
The principal issue is clear, I must crucify my perverted hereditary
sexual appetites. Absolute continence except under favorable conditions.
As these conditions are unlikely to occur, as I am not going looking for
them, namely, that a woman yield from pure love or passion, and the only
other alternative is marriage, I have a big fight on, but as the issue
is life with honor, or death, with or without honor, I feel that I
shall make this stand at last, after which the fight will be easier, if
without the prospect of happiness, for, after all, I must not expect
happiness; I must learn to live without it, to make my life represented
by my work, and finally I may attain a degree of peace and rest, if not
of happiness. Yes, crucify, the devil.
=New York, Sunday, February 23, 1913.= Arrived here last Tuesday night,
the 18th. Thursday on bad attack of grippe. Misery, of course, induced
exceeding pessimism, but .... although physically miserable, my mental
condition is hopeful.
Shall endeavor to remain in New York. Depends on whether I get well
quick and get work quick, as I have just $24 in cash left from the
$400 I saved in Havana, with $10 from railway refund coming sometime.
If health and work come out, then it is only a matter of being able to
keep it up.
If not pride humbled, back to ..... Apropos of this, I am not so sure
but that I made a bigger fool of myself than others whom I consigned to
that class.
Have been with old friend ----, first time in five years, with
exception of one brief day. He has changed considerably. Now is all
for experience and practicality--theories merely a sideline, and, of
course, for both of us to live it must be so.
=New York, February 28, 1913.= I leave to-morrow for ----, my last
trip. On the eve of a new month I feel indifferent. Hopelessness took
possession of me several days ago, and I pretty well decided to end it
all as planned.
However, as my money is gone I must work if I am to live even until
May 10th, and, of course, if I work again for ever so short a time in
view, I cannot say how long I may keep it up, so I say nothing.
I make no grand resolutions for beginning [of month], but the usual
sexual one, having fallen again. Even if I must die because of my
weakness physically I would like a
* * * *
=--, Sunday, March 23, 1913.= I had not intended writing in my diary
to-day, but at the end of the month. This evening, alone in the house,
everything quiet, the fire gently singing, even the cat asleep. I was
reading in the kitchen Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” I just heard
a sound and find my brother Percy asleep on the sofa in the next
room. A feeling of peace came over me as I laid down my book that I
was prompted to write in my diary, for moments of peace have been
so infrequent of late that it was a remarkable contrast to my wild
vagaries and desperately suppressed emotions.
For I am working again. I arrived here night of Saturday, March 1st,
and on Tuesday the 4th, commenced work with ---- at the fine salary of
$55 a month, with prospects. They offered $50; I suggested it ---- and
we compromised on $55. Of course, there have been openings in my line
at higher salaries, but I took the first thing and will not change, as
it seems good as business goes, unless the prospects do not materialize.
Though I hated to acknowledge it to myself, I needed to get back to
work more than anything else to save me. I had my opportunity, or
rather I saved up $400 by sacrifices in Havana, and then sat down and
did nothing until half was gone, afterwards wasting the rest in a wild
goose chase after my destiny.
However, I entered into my work with a spirit of hopeful resignation.
Being inevitable, and for the first time in my work, acknowledging it,
I will not say I attend to it more conscientiously, but I grip myself
when a wave of the old dissatisfaction passes over me and work, work.
At night I sleep, but at intervals during day and evening, and in the
morning I find it a great effort not to fly off the handle in protest
of it all, but keep on just the same.
I have had several passionate weak outbursts during the month, several
times I have made a fool of myself by venting my temper on those around
me, but generally I hold myself in better and am more conscious of
having command of myself.
As for my ideas and ambition. It is still alive. The will to live is
stronger than any misery as a force for life as against death. Taking
this as a mere basis, I must of necessity have some larger view than
the mere cramping effect of a clerkship.
I work, because I must and under protest, but I try to do my best, and
I work honestly and I earn my salary and more, as much as I can under
the circumstances.
I am just getting settled and am getting my books together. I am
now going in for drama and I still have a soft spot in my heart for
philosophy, although I am still at the beginning of Kant’s Critique.
I read a little of it to-day.
I still feel the call of a larger mission, but I feel more like going
about it in a practical, business-like way, because I realize I must.
I acknowledge that. Experience has had to push facts down my throat
before I would face them with the aid of Bernard Shaw.
I feel more sincere now. A tendency I have noted to theatricalism I
will sternly suppress. I sometimes act cruelly after a mental struggle
and I just hold myself by calling on Neitzsche and the philosophy of
the superman, and then woe betide the one who crosses me.
While I will not force it, and avoid self-pity, I cannot help feeling
at bottom the tragedy of life to me. It is such an effort to live,
there is so little to look back on, no youth, no sweetheart, no love
except that of the children, and the mistaken love of a weak mother.
The short peace to-night stands out but as soon as I became conscious
of it I said to myself that I must cultivate that frame of mind to do
the best work and find out the truth quickest.
=--, Sunday, June 1, 1913.= This morning, the beginning of week and
month, and the first real spring Sunday of the season, I once more
start on a process of rehabilitation. For three years I have been
fighting my sexual passions. Previous to May 21, 1910, as I note from
that date in my diary, I was clean absolutely, as I have said before.
Three years of the fiercest action and reaction. Despair to the verge
of suicide, exultation to such heights of ecstasy that Heaven opened
its gates almost. And in between indifference, or simply dull care,
daily monotonous, hopeless toil, restless, tired nights.
I lived over the date set for my suicide, May 10th, this year. Every
month I determined to start in anew, practically every month for
these three years. At the first of the years 1911, 1912 and 1913; at
birthdays May 10, 1911, 1912 and 1913, Leap-year, February 29, 1912,
and after every despair I started in anew with the determination to not
only conquer that weakness, but to restrain myself in speech and act
sufficiently .... ahead and accomplish something.
Failure has been the result every time. I ask myself why, and the
answers are many and various, according to the last disappointment.
In a large measure it has been due to that emptiness of my life, to
the lack of affection and a definite ambition, and to my not being
more positive instead of attempting to be merely negatively virtuous
or self-controlled (as I don’t like the word virtuous), combined with
nervousness, strong passions and emotional qualities with no proper
outlet for them when they became so put up as to threaten to overflow.
To-day I begin on a new ground, that of being positive and rigidly
self-controlled until I feel I can relax with impunity. I have tried
relaxing before after a week, two weeks, but one relaxation in word or
act has been followed by others until the circle has been completed
by a blind unreasoning yield to the sexual impulse under conditions
of mental chaos and physical exhaustion, and then new resolutions and
reaction set in.
I would go far to state that it is different now, but so repeatedly
and in such a series of shocks has the lesson been driven home, that
I have simply in desperation put suicide on one side and restraint on
the other, and, realizing that it is impossible to go on as I have been
doing, I have, with all the remaining strength, passion, love, honor,
or whatever is left in me, ambition and enthusiasm, and the like,
determined once and for all and for one year at least to be absolutely
ascetic as the first step. To restrain myself all around is, of course,
the next, and I will succeed fairly well.
The big questions of sex I leave open. I must get an impersonal view
away from the conflict first.
Philosophy I also leave open, tentatively adopting the simple formula
from that of the superman, the will to live because life is painful and
the will to power, endeavoring to thrust out everything that makes for
weakness.
=Friday, June 13, 1913.= Just writing to-day because it happens to be
Friday the 13th--13th more because I have nothing but contempt for the
silly superstition.
Have maintained my resolution as far as sex is concerned easily enough
to date, but otherwise I am not satisfied with self-control attained,
that is, in speech and temper, but time will tell. I’ll pull through
a full year on the one thing in any case, and I am still fighting for
all around control, and a settled scheme of work towards becoming a
successful playwright.
=Saturday, July 26, 1913.= Nearly two months passed since June 1st, and
I have failed to keep my good resolutions and also to commit suicide
after several failures. It seems a silly business all around, these
writings included, but I must keep on for awhile in this strain.
The only thing is to try again. I only realize the more keenly the
utter hopelessness of the easiest way. Self-control, and the thought
as I look ahead of giving up things is harder, but the other is
impossible. I hesitate to express myself so confidently as to my
ability to be a superman and a genius, but I can still fight on for a
time at least. The end is not yet. What it will be I don’t know. The
depths have been deep and the heights might have been higher, but there
is a fair middle course possible and I’ll try to do my best.
At twenty-three I have to go back to the self-consciousness of youth
before I can cast it all off and face life as it is. I often realize
the apparent priggishness and silliness of this diary, but I at least
try to be sincere sometimes, and after the shocks of the realization of
life I may write as a man. Things cannot go on as they have been doing.
Circumstances will force me to sink or swim, either to rise from this
slough and weakness or collapse utterly, and this knowledge will help
me. I may be silent for a long time now, because I am about to cast off
my romantic youth and be a man, and the break will appear more sudden
than it is. Up to now this diary does not show the vast progress
towards disillusioned manhood I have taken. In reality they are so big
that I have at times bridged the gulf and said, “All is illusion.” I
have felt the utter pettiness of this struggle and seen things from the
impersonal and even transcendental viewpoint. The difficulty is, after
making the jump, to come back to where I left off and take up the daily
struggle. It is hard after realizing that finally one will say, “All is
illusion, whether it be worldly success--money and honor, or artistic
success and the personal satisfaction of work well done.” However, I
must come back in order to live at all, and if I find it too much and
after repeated attempts some day give it up as hopeless, then it will
be necessary to take the jump at once from youth to death and leave out
what comes in between.
=New York, September 27, 1913.= Suicide again presenting itself as the
only way out, I was prompted to read over my diaries. As a result my
sense of humor caused me to destroy the first one, dating from 1905, my
fifteenth year. Full of childish struggles and events, at least until
my eighteenth year, I could not let it live after my death. After my
eighteenth year in New York, I began to face reality, but yet I could
not allow even that part of the record to survive.
True, from my fifteenth year I have been in a bad way, but until several
years ago a solution seemed bound to come. Suicide never entered my
thoughts in those days.
Sex worried me, however, from fourteenth or fifteenth year. Mentally,
only until my twentieth, but thinking without acting didn’t strengthen
me.
However as this is a sort of last testament I must not waste time on
those days. I hardly know how to begin and what to say, but something
seems necessary.
I could not write the greater part of this even now, because I have
realized since that it is altogether foreign to the spirit prevailing
among the Anglo-Saxon, so-called, at least, and I myself am sufficiently
contaminated with their spirit to feel cynical about it.
If these writings do come to print I can imagine cynical and damn
foolish newspapermen writing about weaklings and degenerates in line
with silly editorial in New York _Times_ recently about suicide and
another in the _World_ on occasion of suicide of a girl who was
tired of 20 cent dinners, to say nothing about those arch idiots and
hypocrites, the Hearst hirelings with their talks about the idle rich
and the good thing it is most of us have to work for little.
Of course, I do not compare myself to the average man. If I had no
sense of humor I would have persisted and made myself a genius in spite
of the hell life has been. Nietzsche could never have been if he was
born in England or the States.
But I only feel at home when I read men of genius. Always without a
friend, the average man is a stranger to me. Women have killed me,
because with all my temperament and passion I have been too shy to
ever have any love or outlet to my passion.
It is hard to say that if things had been different that such and such
would be the case. Sometimes I have thought absolutely sincerely that
if I had had enough money to be able to dispense with the daily grind,
which, with its necessity of strong excitement as a reaction, has so
impaired my will-power as to bring me from supreme egoism of imagining
and believing myself to be a genius to a miserable death alone and away
from home by my own hand.
At other times I have said that if I question myself honestly that with
money I would have simply degenerated into a good for nothing vicious
idler of the Thaw class.
Now, when about to die, I will be honest and say that the latter would
have probably been the outcome, but it is by no means certain. After
all I have been outraged and disgusted in the past after every fall
from a certain standard and my love of books does die while I live.
Who knows but that I might have got down to study and work and done
something? Undoubtedly, I would have had affairs with women (had time
and money permitted) under any circumstances, but drink and drug has
never appealed to me, even in imagination.
I have been honest and sincere, particularly to the fine point on
matters of honor, at least until I began to lose my grip on life. While
I never got down and faced things, it was because I was incurably
romantic, and when I finally began to realize life it came to me in
such a series of shocks that independence would have probably made me
a Baudelaire, without his creative work to balance the scale. With such
an impractical, childish mother and failure of a father, uncongenial
brothers and sisters, almost hating each other, with bad heredity
on both sides and a hellish environment, a shy nervous, suspicious
disposition, extremes of ecstasy and despair, ungratified passions,
alone and friendless, how could I end otherwise than a suicide?
I claim that any man who commits suicide of necessity suffers more
than any who continues to live. I don’t want to die. I cannot make any
outsider realize by anything I can write how I have tried to avoid
this step. I have tried every subterfuge to fool myself, to kid myself
along that life wasn’t so bad after all. This record does not show up
my humorous side, but I laugh as much as I feel like crying. I enjoy a
comedy as well as a tragedy, am tickled by the very things that amuse
the average American, and at a baseball game I actually feel like one
of the boys, but where I differ is in my tragic and morbid side, and my
keen sensitiveness.
Things which pass over most men afflict me with terrible force. My
pride has stood in the way of my hope of success under conditions which
exist in this country at present. I cannot indefinitely pretend as I
apply for work that I am just like the rest. I cannot always conceal
the resentment and scorn I feel as I interview business men and stand
or sit before them as a mere stenographer. I, a fellow in spirit with
men of genius, must show my references, call and beg and implore, for
a miserable salary which I despise, must haggle for a few dollars more,
the price of a meal.
The indignity of it all. I, an aristocrat at heart, of the aristocracy
of brains and sentiment, must elbow with the ignorant vulgar bourgeois
who could not for an instant understand if they would.
What is the use? Death only holds forth relief. I cannot look back on a
really happy day. Light-hearted and merry have I been on occasions, but
seldom a day without morbid thoughts sometime or other, generally at
night. If I could have had a mistress things might have been different.
When I have gone out and had sexual intercourse with a woman who pleased
my imagination I have slept well--seldom otherwise.
Sex has been my Nemesis, and to-day if I had money I would continue to
live. Without it, the whole dreary past and prospective future is too
much for me. With it I could dispense with the grind and do work after
my own heart.
Of course, others have the grind, also; but the fact that they continue
to live shows that they can stand it much better, and were born to it.
I wasn’t. My whole nature is outraged by the life I have had to lead.
Empty, cold, dismal, hellish.
Let the cynical hirelings of the newspaper whom Bernard Shaw well
shows his contempt for, laugh and write editorials. The day will
come when men will be allowed to live, not rot, the New York _Times_
notwithstanding.
If a thousand men could be persuaded to commit suicide in protest, the
powers that be would sit up and take notice.
Arise you Americans who have some blood in you and get rid of your
Comstocks, Bryans, religious hypocrites and grafters, and let the
so-called degenerates and insane men have a say, and if you do not live
bigger and better, then you deserve what you get.
The majority is always wrong, and the minority of supermen and
degenerates--Zolas, Ibsens, etc.--must band together and overthrow the
whole damn system which drives the best, the most sincere and honest to
suicide or starvation.
The December issue of THE GLEBE will present “The Azure Adder,” a
one-act comedy by Charles Demuth.
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