Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Journal of Arthur Stirling : the Valley of the Shadow by Upton Sinclair
page 15 of 310 (04%)

My heart leaps when I think of my one big step. I have put those pages
away--I shall not look at them again for a month. Then I can judge them.

* * * * *

April 13th.

A cable-car conductor and a poet! I think that will be a story worth
telling.

I have tried many and various occupations, but I have not found one so
favorable to the study of poetry as my last. I should have made out very
well--if I had not been haunted by The Captive.

With everything else you do you are more or less hampered by having to sell
your brain; and also by having to obey some one. But a cable-car is an
unlimited monarchy; and all you have to do is to collect fares and pull
the bell, both of which duties are quite mechanical. And besides that you
receive princely wages--and can live off one-third of them, if you know
how; and that means that you need only work one-third of the time, and can
write your poetry the rest of it!

This sounds like jesting, but it is not. I have only been a cable-car
conductor six months, but in that time I have taught myself to read Greek
with more than fluency. All you need is good health and spirits, a will of
iron, and a very tiny note-book in the palm of your hand, full of the words
you wish to learn. And then for ten or twelve hours a day you go about
running a car with your body--and with your mind--hammering, hammering!
It is excellent discipline--it is fighting all day, "_Pous, podos_,
DigitalOcean Referral Badge