All My Life, As Down An Abyss

The Notion Of Making Money By Popular Work, And Then Retiring To Do Good Work, Is The Most Familiar Of All The Devil's Traps For Artists.

Friends Such As We Desire Are Dreams And Fables, Yet We Never Quite Give Up The Hope Of Finding Them.

The Lusts And Greeds Of The Body Scandalize The Soul; But It Has To Come To Heel.

What Things There Are To Write, If One Could Only Write Them! My Mind Is Full Of Gleaming Thought; Gay Moods And Mysterious, Moth-like Meditations Hover In My Imagination, Fanning Their Painted Wings. But Always The Rarest, Those Streaked With Azure And The Deepest Crimson, Flutter Away Beyond My Reach.

What Shall I Compare It To, This Fantastic Thing I Call My Mind? To A Waste-paper Basket, To A Sieve Choked With Sediment, Or To A Barrel Full Of Floating Froth And Refuse? No, What It Is Really Most Like Is A Spider's Web, Insecurely Hung On Leaves And Twigs, Quivering In Every Wind, And Sprinkled With Dewdrops And Dead Flies. And At Its Centre, Pondering Forever The Problem Of Existence, Sits Motionless The Spider-like And Uncanny Soul.