soul.
With this equipment I have gone my way through the last two years. But my life, though unsatisfying and warped, is no longer insipid. It is fraught with a poignant misery - the misery of Nothingness.
I have no particular thing to occupy me. I write every day. Writing is a necessity - like eating. I do a little housework, and on the whole am rather fond of it - some parts of it. I dislike dusting chairs, but I have no aversion to scrubbing floors. Indeed, I have gained much of my strength and gracefulness of body from scrubbing the kitchen floor - to say nothing of some fine points of philosophy. It brings a certain energy to one’s body and to one’s brain.
But mostly I take walks far away in the open country. Butte and its immediate vicinity present as ugly an outlook as one could wish to see. It is so ugly indeed that it is near the perfection of ugliness. And anything perfect, or nearly so, is not to be despised. I have reached some astonishing subtleties of conception as I have walked for miles over the sand and barrenness among the little hills and gulches. Their utter desolateness is an inspiration to the long, long thoughts and to the nameless wanting. Every day I walk over the sand and barrenness.
And so then my daily life seems an ordinary life enough, and possibly, to an ordinary person, a comfortable life.
That’s as may be.
To me it is an empty damned weariness.
I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.
Next day, I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.
Again I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.
Truly an exalted, soulful life!
What it does for me, how it affects me, I am now trying to portray.
January 14
I have in me the germs of intense life. If I could live, and if I could succeed in writing out my living, the world itself would feel the heavy intensity of it.
I have the personality, the nature, of a Napoleon, albeit a feminine translation. And therefore I do not conquer; I do not even fight. I manage only to exist.
- Poor little Mary MacLane, - what might you not be? What wonderful thing might you not do? But held down, half-buried, a seed fallen in barren ground, alone, uncomprehended, obscure - poor little Mary MacLane! - Weep, world, - why don’t you - for poor little Mary MacLane.
Had I been born a man I would by now have made a deep impression of myself on the world - on some part of it. But I am a woman, and God, or the Devil, or Fate, or whosoever it was, has flayed me of the thick outer skin and thrown me out into the midst of Life - has left me a lonely damned thing filled with the red, red blood of ambition and desire, but afraid to be touched, for there is no thick skin between my sensitive flesh and the world’s fingers.
But I want to be touched.
Napoleon was a man and though sensitive his flesh was safely covered.
But I am a woman, awakening, and upon awakening and looking about me, I would fain turn and go back to sleep.
There is a pain that goes with these things when one is a woman, young and all alone.
- I am filled with an ambition. I wish to give to the world a naked Portrayal of Mary MacLane: her wooden heart, her good young woman’s-body, her mind, her soul.
I wish to write, write, write!
I wish to acquire that beautiful benign gentle satisfying thing - Fame. I want it - oh, I want it! I wish to leave all my obscurity, my misery, - my weary unhappiness behind me forever.
I am deadly, deadly tired of my unhappiness.
I wish this Portrayal to be published and launched into that deep salt sea - the world. There are some there surely who will understand it and me.
Can I be that thing which I am - can I be possessed of a peculiar rare genius, and yet drag my life out in obscurity in
With this equipment I have gone my way through the last two years. But my life, though unsatisfying and warped, is no longer insipid. It is fraught with a poignant misery - the misery of Nothingness.
I have no particular thing to occupy me. I write every day. Writing is a necessity - like eating. I do a little housework, and on the whole am rather fond of it - some parts of it. I dislike dusting chairs, but I have no aversion to scrubbing floors. Indeed, I have gained much of my strength and gracefulness of body from scrubbing the kitchen floor - to say nothing of some fine points of philosophy. It brings a certain energy to one’s body and to one’s brain.
But mostly I take walks far away in the open country. Butte and its immediate vicinity present as ugly an outlook as one could wish to see. It is so ugly indeed that it is near the perfection of ugliness. And anything perfect, or nearly so, is not to be despised. I have reached some astonishing subtleties of conception as I have walked for miles over the sand and barrenness among the little hills and gulches. Their utter desolateness is an inspiration to the long, long thoughts and to the nameless wanting. Every day I walk over the sand and barrenness.
And so then my daily life seems an ordinary life enough, and possibly, to an ordinary person, a comfortable life.
That’s as may be.
To me it is an empty damned weariness.
I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.
Next day, I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.
Again I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.
Truly an exalted, soulful life!
What it does for me, how it affects me, I am now trying to portray.
January 14
I have in me the germs of intense life. If I could live, and if I could succeed in writing out my living, the world itself would feel the heavy intensity of it.
I have the personality, the nature, of a Napoleon, albeit a feminine translation. And therefore I do not conquer; I do not even fight. I manage only to exist.
- Poor little Mary MacLane, - what might you not be? What wonderful thing might you not do? But held down, half-buried, a seed fallen in barren ground, alone, uncomprehended, obscure - poor little Mary MacLane! - Weep, world, - why don’t you - for poor little Mary MacLane.
Had I been born a man I would by now have made a deep impression of myself on the world - on some part of it. But I am a woman, and God, or the Devil, or Fate, or whosoever it was, has flayed me of the thick outer skin and thrown me out into the midst of Life - has left me a lonely damned thing filled with the red, red blood of ambition and desire, but afraid to be touched, for there is no thick skin between my sensitive flesh and the world’s fingers.
But I want to be touched.
Napoleon was a man and though sensitive his flesh was safely covered.
But I am a woman, awakening, and upon awakening and looking about me, I would fain turn and go back to sleep.
There is a pain that goes with these things when one is a woman, young and all alone.
- I am filled with an ambition. I wish to give to the world a naked Portrayal of Mary MacLane: her wooden heart, her good young woman’s-body, her mind, her soul.
I wish to write, write, write!
I wish to acquire that beautiful benign gentle satisfying thing - Fame. I want it - oh, I want it! I wish to leave all my obscurity, my misery, - my weary unhappiness behind me forever.
I am deadly, deadly tired of my unhappiness.
I wish this Portrayal to be published and launched into that deep salt sea - the world. There are some there surely who will understand it and me.
Can I be that thing which I am - can I be possessed of a peculiar rare genius, and yet drag my life out in obscurity in
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