The Story of Mary MacLane/March 29
I AM making the world my confessor in this Portrayal. My mind is fairly bursting with egotism and pain, and in writing this I find a merciful outlet. I have become fond of my Portrayal. Often I lay my forehead and my lips caressingly upon the pages.
And I wish to let you know that there is in existence a genius—an unhappy genius, a genius starving in Montana in the barrenness—but still a genius. I am a creature the like of which you have never before happened upon. You have never suspected that there is such a person. I know that there is not such another. As I said in the beginning, the world contains not my parallel.
I am a fantasy—an absurdity—a genius!
Had I been one of the beasts that perish I had been likewise a fantasy. I think I should have been a small animal composite of a pig, a leopard, and a skunk: an animal that I fancy would be uncanny to look upon but admirable for a pet.
However, I am not one of the beasts that perish.
I am human.
That is another remarkable point.
I have heard persons say they can hardly believe I am quite human.
I am the most human creature that ever was placed on the earth. The geniuses are always more human than the herd. Almost a perfection of humanness is reached in me. This by itself makes me extraordinary. The rarest thing in the world, I find, is the quality of humanness.
Humanity and humaneness are much less rare.
"It is a brave thing to understand something of what we see." Indeed it is. An exceeding brave thing. The one who said that had surely gone out on the highways and byways and found how little he could understand.
To understand oneself is not so brave a thing. To go in among the hidden gray shadows of the deep things is a fool's errand. It is not from choice that I do it. No one carries a mill-stone around her neck from choice. When I see what is among the hidden gray shadows—when I see a vision of Myself—I am seized with a strange, sick terror.
A fool's errand—but one that I must need go—and for that matter I myself am a fool.
Yet to know oneself well is a rare fine art.
I analyze myself now. I analyzed myself when I was three years old.
The only difference is that at the age of three I was not aware that I analyzed. It is true, that is a great difference. Now I know that I am analyzing at nineteen, and now I know that I analyzed at three.
And at the age of nineteen I know that I am a genius.
A genius who does not know that he is a genius is no genius. A drunken man might stagger up to a piano and accidentally play music that vibrates to the soul—that touches upon the mysteries. But he does not know his power, and he is no genius, though men awaken and go mad therefrom.
I know that I am a genius more than any genius that has lived.
I have a feeling that the world will never know this.
And as I think of it I wonder if angels are not weeping somewhere because of it.