THIS is not a diary. It is a Portrayal. It is my inner life shown in its nakedness. I am trying my utmost to show everything—to reveal every petty vanity and weakness, every phase of feeling, every desire. It is a remarkably hard thing to do, I find, to probe my soul to its depths, to expose its shades and half-lights.
Not that I am troubled with modesty or shame. Why should one be ashamed of anything?
But there are elements in one's mental equipment so vague, so opaque, so undefined—how is one to grasp them? I have analyzed and analyzed, and I have gotten down to some extremely fine points—yet still there are things upon my own horizon that go beyond me.
There are feelings that rise and rush over me overwhelmingly. I am helpless, crushed, and defeated, before them. It is as if they were written on the walls of my soul-chamber in an unknown language.
My soul goes blindly seeking, seeking, asking. Nothing answers. I cry out after some unknown Thing with all the strength of my being; every nerve and fiber in my young woman's-body and my young woman's-soul reaches and strains in anguished unrest. At times as I hurry over my sand and barrenness all my life's manifold passions culminate in utter rage and woe. Waves of intense, hopeless longing rush over me and envelop me round and round. My heart, my soul, my mind go wandering—wandering; ploughing their way through darkness with never a ray of light; groping with helpless hands; asking, longing, wanting things: pursued by a Demon of Unrest.
I shall go mad—I shall go mad, I say over and over to myself.
But no. No one goes mad. The Devil does not propose to release any one from a so beautifully-wrought, artistic damnation. He looks to it that one's senses are kept fully intact, and he fastens to them with steel chains the Demon of Unrest.
It hurts—oh, it tortures me in the days and days! But when the Devil brings me my Happiness I will forgive him all this.
When my Happiness is given me, the Unrest will still be with me, I doubt not, but the Happiness will change the tenor of it, will make it an instrument of joy, will clasp hands with it and mingle itself with it,—the while I, with my wooden heart, my woman's-body, my mind, my soul, shall be in transports. I shall be filled with pleasure so deep and pain so intense that my being's minutest nerve will reel and stagger in intoxication, will go drunk with the fullness of Life.
When my Happiness is given me I shall live centuries in the hours. And we shall all grow old rapidly,—I and my wooden heart, and my woman's-body, and my mind, and my soul. Sorrow may age one in some degree. But Happiness—the real Happiness—rolls countless years off from one's finger-tips in a single moment, and each year leaves its impress.
It is true that life is a tragedy to those who feel. When my Happiness is given me life will be an ineffable, a nameless thing.
It will seethe and roar; it will plunge and whirl; it will leap and shriek in convulsion; it will guiver in delicate fantasy; it will writhe and twist; it will glitter and flash and shine; it will sing gently; it will shout in exquisite excitement; it will vibrate to the roots like a great oak in a storm; it will dance; it will glide; it will gallop; it will rush; it will swell and surge; it will fly; it will soar high—high; it will go down into depths unexplored; it will rage and rave; it will yell in utter joy; it will melt; it will blaze; it will ride triumphant; it will grovel in the dust of entire pleasure; it will sound out like a terrific blare of trumpets; it will chime faintly, faintly like the remote tinkling notes of a harp; it will sob and grieve and weep; it will revel and carouse; it will shrink; it will go in pride; it will lie prone like the dead; it will float bouyantly on air; it will moan, shiver, burst—oh, it will reek with Love and Light!
The words of the English language are futile. There are no words in it, or in any other, to express an idea of that thing which would be my life in its Happiness.
The words I have written describe it, it is true,—but confusedly and inadequately.
But words are for everyday use.
When it comes my turn to meet face to face the unspeakable vision of the Happy Life I shall be rendered dumb.
But the rains of my feeling will come in torrents!