"Happy?" I pondered. "Well, after all, what is happiness?"

He took a spell of coughing then, and when it was over he put his arms
around me and was quite afectionate.

"What a queer little rat it is!" he said.

I only repeat this to show how even my father, with all his afection and
good qualities, did not understand and never would understand. My
Heart was full of a longing to be understood. I wanted to tell him my
yearnings for better things, my aspirations to make my life a great and
glorious thing. AND HE DID NOT UNDERSTAND.

He gave me five dollars instead. Think of the Tradgedy of it!

As we went along, and he pulled my ear and finaly went asleep with a
hand on my shoulder, the bareness of my Life came to me. I shook with
sobs. And outside somewhere Sis and mother made Dinner lists. Then and
there I made up my mind to work hard and acheive, to become great and
powerful, to write things that would ring the Hearts of men--and women,
to, of course--and to come back to them some day, famous and beautiful,
and when they sued for my love, to be kind and hauty, but cold. I felt
that I would always be cold, although gracious.

I decided then to be a writer of plays first, and then later on to act
in them. I would thus be able to say what came into my head, as it was
my own play. Also to arrange the seens so as to wear a variety of gowns,
including evening things. I spent the rest of the afternoon manacuring
my nails in our state room.