Chapter XXIII

by Jack London

　　My cruise in the salmon boat lasted a week, and I returned readyto enter the university. During the week's cruise I did not drinkagain. To accomplish this I was compelled to avoid looking up oldfriends, for as ever the adventure-path was beset with JohnBarleycorn. I had wanted the drink that first day, and in thedays that followed I did not want it. My tired brain hadrecuperated. I had no moral scruples in the matter. I was notashamed nor sorry because of that first day's orgy at Benicia, andI thought no more about it, returning gladly to my books andstudies.

　　Long years were to pass ere I looked back upon that day andrealised its significance. At the time, and for a long timeafterward, I was to think of it only as a frolic. But stilllater, in the slough of brain-fag and intellectual weariness, Iwas to remember and know the craving for the anodyne that residesin alcohol.

　　In the meantime, after this one relapse at Benicia, I went on withmy abstemiousness, primarily because I didn't want to drink. Andnext, I was abstemious because my way led among books and studentswhere no drinking was. Had I been out on the adventure-path, Ishould as a matter of course have been drinking. For that is thepity of the adventure-path, which is one of John Barleycorn'sfavourite stamping grounds.

　　I completed the first half of my freshman year, and in January of1897 took up my courses for the second half. But the pressurefrom lack of money, plus a conviction that the university was notgiving me all that I wanted in the time I could spare for it,forced me to leave. I was not very disappointed. For two years Ihad studied, and in those two years, what was far more valuable, Ihad done a prodigious amount of reading. Then, too, my grammarhad improved. It is true, I had not yet learned that I must say"It is I"; but I no longer was guilty of a double negative inwriting, though still prone to that error in excited speech.

　　I decided immediately to embark on my career. I had fourpreferences: first, music; second, poetry; third, the writing ofphilosophic, economic, and political essays; and, fourth, andlast, and least, fiction writing. I resolutely cut out music asimpossible, settled down in my bedroom, and tackled my second,third, and fourth choices simultaneously. Heavens, how I wrote!Never was there a creative fever such as mine from which thepatient escaped fatal results. The way I worked was enough tosoften my brain and send me to a mad-house. I wrote, I wroteeverything--ponderous essays, scientific and sociological shortstories, humorous verse, verse of all sorts from triolets andsonnets to blank verse tragedy and elephantine epics in Spenserianstanzas. On occasion I composed steadily, day after day, forfifteen hours a day. At times I forgot to eat, or refused to tearmyself away from my passionate outpouring in order to eat.

　　And then there was the matter of typewriting. My brother-in-lawowned a machine which he used in the day-time. In the night I wasfree to use it. That machine was a wonder. I could weep now as Irecollect my wrestlings with it. It must have been a first modelin the year one of the typewriter era. Its alphabet was allcapitals. It was informed with an evil spirit. It obeyed noknown laws of physics, and overthrew the hoary axiom that likethings performed to like things produce like results. I'll swearthat machine never did the same thing in the same way twice.Again and again it demonstrated that unlike actions produce likeresults.

　　How my back used to ache with it! Prior to that experience, myback had been good for every violent strain put upon it in a nonetoo gentle career. But that typewriter proved to me that I had apipe-stem for a back. Also, it made me doubt my shoulders. Theyached as with rheumatism after every bout. The keys of thatmachine had to be hit so hard that to one outside the house itsounded like distant thunder or some one breaking up thefurniture. I had to hit the keys so hard that I strained my firstfingers to the elbows, while the ends of my fingers were blistersburst and blistered again. Had it been my machine I'd haveoperated it with a carpenter's hammer.

　　The worst of it was that I was actually typing my manuscripts atthe same time I was trying to master that machine. It was a featof physical endurance and a brain storm combined to type athousand words, and I was composing thousands of words every daywhich just had to be typed for the waiting editors.

　　Oh, between the writing and the typewriting I was well a-weary. Ihad brain and nerve fag, and body fag as well, and yet the thoughtof drink never suggested itself. I was living too high to standin need of an anodyne. All my waking hours, except those withthat infernal typewriter, were spent in a creative heaven. Andalong with this I had no desire for drink because I still believedin many things--in the love of all men and women in the matter ofman and woman love; in fatherhood; in human justice; in art--inthe whole host of fond illusions that keep the world turningaround.

　　But the waiting editors elected to keep on waiting. Mymanuscripts made amazing round-trip records between the Pacificand the Atlantic. It might have been the weirdness of thetypewriting that prevented the editors from accepting at least onelittle offering of mine. I don't know, and goodness knows thestuff I wrote was as weird as its typing. I sold my hard-boughtschool books for ridiculous sums to second-hand bookmen. Iborrowed small sums of money wherever I could, and suffered my oldfather to feed me with the meagre returns of his failing strength.

　　It didn't last long, only a few weeks, when I had to surrender andgo to work. Yet I was unaware of any need for the drink anodyne.I was not disappointed. My career was retarded, that was all.Perhaps I did need further preparation. I had learned enough fromthe books to realise that I had only touched the hem ofknowledge's garment. I still lived on the heights. My wakinghours, and most of the hours I should have used for sleep, werespent with the books.