Journal of Arthur Stirling

Journal of Arthur Stirling (The
Valley of the Shadow) [with
accents]

Project Gutenberg's The Journal of Arthur Stirling, by Upton Sinclair
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Title: The Journal of Arthur Stirling "The Valley of the Shadow"
Author: Upton Sinclair
Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7774] [Yes, we are more than one

year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 16, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING ***

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THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING
("THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW")
[by Upton Sinclair]
REVISED AND CONDENSED WITH AN INTRODUCTORY
SKETCH

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The matter which is given to the public in this book will speak with a
voice of its own; it is necessary, however, to say a few words in
advance to inform the reader of its history.
The writer of the journal herein contained was not known, I believe, to
more than a dozen people in this huge city in which he lived. I am quite
certain that I and my wife were the only persons he ever called his
friends. I met him shortly after his graduation from college, and for the
past few years I knew, and I alone, of a life of artistic devotion of such
passionate fervor as I expect never to meet with again.
Arthur Stirling was entirely a self-educated man; he had worked at I
know not how many impossible occupations, and labored in the
night-time like the heroes one reads about. He taught himself to read
five languages, and at the time when I saw him last he knew more great
poetry by heart than any man of letters that I have ever met. He was the
author of one book, a tragedy in blank verse, called The Captive; that
drama forms the chief theme of this journal. For the rest, it seems to me

enough to quote this notice, which appeared in the New York Times for
June 9, 1902.
STIRLING.--By suicide in the Hudson River, poet and man of genius,
in the 22d year of his age, only son of Richard T. and Grace Stirling,
deceased, of Chicago. Chicago papers please copy.
Arthur Stirling was in appearance a tall, dark-haired boy--he was really
only a boy--with a singularly beautiful face, and a strange wistful
expression of the eyes that I think will haunt me as long as I live. I
made him, somewhat externally and feebly, I fear, one of the characters
in a recently published novel. That he was a lonely spirit will be plain
enough from his writings; he lived among the poverty-haunted
thousands of this city, without (so he once told me) ever speaking to a
living soul for a week. Pecuniarily I could not help him--for though he
was poor, I was scarcely less so. At the time of his frightful death I had
not seen him for nearly two months--owing to circumstances which
were in no way my fault, but for which I can nevertheless not forgive
myself.
The writing of The Captive, as described in these papers, was begun in
April, 1901. I was myself at that time in the midst of a struggle to have
a book published. It was not really published until late in that year--at
which time The Captive was finished and already several times rejected.
It was an understood thing between us that should my book succeed it
would mean freedom for both of us, but that, unfortunately, was not to
be.
Early in April of 1902 I had succeeded in laying by provisions enough
to last me while I wrote another book, and I fled away to put up my tent
in the wilderness. The last time that I ever saw Arthur Stirling was in
his room the night before I left. He smiled very bravely and said that he