Part 1

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Editor Alfred Kreymborg

Associates Leonard D. Abbott Albert Boni Alanson Hartpence Adolf Wolff

Business Manager Charles Boni, Jr.

Diary of a Suicide

By

Wallace E. Baker

NEW YORK ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI 96 Fifth Avenue 1913

Copyright, 1913 By The Glebe

FOREWORD.

On Sept. 28th, 1913, Mr. B. Russell Herts, of “The International,” received the following letter:

New York, Sept. 27, 1913.

Mr. B. Russell Herts, c/o International Magazine, New York City.

Dear Mr. Herts:--Under separate cover I am sending you a record of a young man who is about to commit suicide. My only object is that it may help, if published in part or whole, to ease the way for some who come after.

If you will kindly read it through, especially the latter part, you will be able to judge whether you care to make any use of it. If not, kindly mail same to Mr. ----, Toronto, Ont.

I have cut out references to places and people here and there for their sake, because naturally I cannot be worried about myself after death.

Thanking you for giving this matter your attention, I remain,

I do not sign this, but you may verify my death by communicating with Mr. ----, whom I am writing to-day, so that he may look after my effects in New York.

The body of a well-dressed young man was found off Manhattan Beach, Sept. 28th. In his pockets a torn photograph of Strindberg and receipts for three registered letters were found. These receipts were traced to Mr. Herts and to friends in Toronto, one of whom identified the body on Oct. 2d as that of Wallace E. Baker. He was buried on Oct. 3d in Evergreen Cemetery, Brooklyn.

A. K.

Note: In cutting out his references to places and people, Baker marred some of the text. These excisions are indicated by dots, dashes or stars.

THE GLEBE is indebted to Mr. Herts and “The International” for the permission to publish the diary.

THE DIARY OF A SUICIDE

=--, January 26, 1912.= It is with mingled feelings of hope, discouragement, joy and pain that I begin the second book of my diary.

My hope springs from the fact that my outlook seems to be clearer ahead, the old uncertainty is more in the background, but there is another side to it all. My discouragement comes from my constant feeling of tiredness, less evident in the evening and for awhile at night, but exceedingly strong during every afternoon with few exceptions. This has resulted in my weak yielding to weakness at night, and only last night after my confidence that I had gained a certain mastery I was overcome. This was partly from the fact that I worked at the office until nearly ten o’clock, charging a supper with wine to the firm. Although I drink very little, now and again I have gone out and taken a decent meal with wine to get away from the monotonous boarding-house fare. A small bottle which I nearly emptied (cheap wine) resulted in making me feel good--I have never been under the influence of liquor more than to feel good, never without full possession of my faculties, but on the rare occasions when I have taken a little I have sometimes noticed a weakening of the faculties, a sort of lack of moral restraint. I had enough last night to weaken for a time my new found resolutions, but the succeeding absolute disgust and worry lead me to believe that I was not wrong in thinking that the struggle is now on a higher plane.

My salary was increased at the first of the year to $22.50 a week. Although glad of this, my old-time pleasure at the receipt of more money each pay-day is lacking. Money I must have to live, further than that it seems a pitiful waste of time to spend one’s life in a mad endeavor to obtain wealth at the price of all that counts.

=Havana, Cuba, February 29, 1912.= Leap-year and a good opportunity to enter on a bigger fight. I must date my beginning this time as February 18, being the day after my last fall from grace. The week and a half since, however, makes me feel confident once more, despite that for three or four days I have been without a night’s rest, owing to stomach trouble and the nervousness thereby engendered, but this is nothing unusual, that is, the loss of sleep, for it is long since I have had a real good night’s rest, and I know a crisis is approaching and I must get rested ere I collapse.

I have read during this time “Ibsen, the Man, His Art and His Significance,” by Haldane Macfall, and it has given me great encouragement and aroused intense enthusiasm. I feel that I am getting back my old enthusiasm, that I am recovering my ideals on a higher basis, although I am undoubtedly weaker than ever physically. But with increased moral strength I hope soon to cut down the buts, howevers, althoughs, and to stand forth with more decision, more firmness, and knowing myself, and with my ideas and ideals clarified.

During the last two months the first step in this attempted regeneration has been becoming more and more a determination, emerging from a mere unsettled idea--must return home for various reasons. First, I am played out physically and need rest. More important should be the fact that my mother is getting old, has been constantly calling to me to return, worries about me, needs me to put my shoulder to the wheel more than I have done. True, I have systematically put apart for my mother a certain amount every month for a long time and have sent it without fail even when only earning $10 a week back in the early part of 1910. This at least has kept me in constant touch with my dear old home, full of strife though it was.

While I have at frequently recurring periods thought of returning home during the past year and a half, my resolution did not crystallize until I began to feel the compelling necessity of a rest, bodily, mentally, and, I might say, morally. Hot and cold by turns, lonely, sleepless, tired and generally run down, I have not been able to look at things in their true proportion, and I must get away for awhile from the daily struggle, keeping up the mental and moral one, however. To this end I have practically cut out all amusement. Night after night I come home tired out, read a little, generally till lights are out at 10:30, and then to my disturbed sleep. Getting up early as to-day (7:00 to 7:30 being early for me) I either read, study, write as to-day, or work on my story which I started last August and of which I will write more later. This elimination of outside distractions is helping to strengthen me, helping me to look forward to a life of service without the necessity of foolish excitement, and the money I am saving by this closeness in everything except necessities I hope to enable me to go home, rest, think, exercise, and study calmly and sanely for a year, paying my mother a regular weekly amount; and I hope at the end of the year to have sufficiently found myself to go ahead on my work with more collected ideas as to what I want and what I should want, and all to the better interests of my mother, myself and the good of others with whom I may come in contact. By the middle of this year I hope to take the first step by returning home.

=Havana, Sunday, March 17, 1912.= The 15th ushered in a new start, and the 16th was a very important day. On the 14th I had been thinking very intently about future plans and went very carefully over the ground of a possible college course. I picked up my Self Educators and looked into the various subjects for study, estimated the time I would have to spend on a college course; the financial difficulties, my mother’s need of my help, my temperament and pronounced predilection for certain things and as pronounced aversion for others, my nervousness and constant mental struggle; the result of all this was to confirm what I wrote on January 8, that I had about given up the idea. The only hope, or rather possibility I have in view now, is that I may take a course in certain special subjects--literature, drama, philosophy, logic and sociology, but I hate mathematics. I pick up a book of algebra with extreme distaste and, although my enthusiasm in New York caused me to study this subject fairly assiduously, I see it was a mistake.

I have a distinct tendency and deep enthusiasm for literature, gradually awakening from my first boyish effusions at the age of 10, and it was a waste of time to neglect what I can excel in for the sake of a mistaken idea that a college education means so much.

The reason that the 15th of this month was an important day is that, following my decision of the previous day re college and subsequent weakness, I made a big step towards finding myself on the 15th. While I had known for some time that I did not care for mathematics, Latin, Greek, and probably several other subjects, I still cherished the idea that I wanted to go deep into philosophy and possibly biology, and, of course, study sociology, logic and perhaps economics seriously. This was sufficient to cause me to put in considerable wasted time on the subjects I did not like, especially algebra.

On the day mentioned, but two days ago, I looked into this matter in the view of a special college course, eliminating mathematics. Then I realized that I liked the subjects as long as they did not become too abstruse or mathematical. I saw that biology as soon as one gets past the popular books on the subject and the “Origin of Species” becomes a subject of much mathematics and dry science, as evidenced by Huxley’s Essays, which I unsuccessfully endeavored to digest with enthusiasm. Now I know that I merely want to study biology in a general way for the sake of culture and because of a thirst for knowledge, which, however, is not sufficient to make me go into the dry details. I am interested, however, very much in the question of heredity, but not to specialize in. The realization of this in regard to biology, coming suddenly and sharply, caused a sort of awakening. I began to search my other tendencies and realized that I did not like the dry, obstruse details of philosophy either, nor economics, but that by way of working out a philosophy of life or conduct and hope for future, I was very greatly, more, vitally, interested in the subject. I like to read and study philosophy as giving a basis for a plan of life, but when you get to the brain wearying works of Kant and the like it is different. For instance, in reading of Ibsen and Tolstoy and their philosophy of anarchism, or their mystic-realism as it has been described, I am intensely interested. I imagine Nietzsche would be of great interest to me, possibly Schopenhauer and others--I intend to look into Bergson’s divine impulse, but to go deep into a mass of details, no! I am looking for light, for a philosophy of life, and I might mention James and his Pragmatism as another one to look into.

About the same applies to psychology. Sociology I am still doubtful of, but all social questions and matters of world-wide importance interest me.

But when I turn to literature and the drama, it is no longer a matter of doubt. On March 15, as I was in my room thinking over these questions and had come to the conclusions above, I realized in a flash that my temperament was more artistic than scientific, the latter coming from my German heredity, and undoubtedly being strong, however. The little details of literary work do not bore me. Of course, I like the dreams best and lately find it great pleasure to sit down and write, write. I spend hours collecting scraps of books, authors, drama, and also philosophy and psychology, sociology, etc., but principally literature, drama and allied branches. Even the details of grammar do not seem tiresome any more, and, compared to my aversion for algebra, I can see that the worst in the pursuit of literature is a pleasure compared to the best in other things, especially business.

Of course, I have much to find out yet, but it was a great step to relieve myself of so many doubts and make literature my pursuit through thick and thin, as I have determined to do, knowing it is my one line. I am not sure whether I can write best short stories, novels or dramas. Short stories only appeal to me as means of expressing myself where I have not a big enough idea for something bigger and better, but I love to write them just the same. (I have only written one of 8,000 or more words, but I have taken numerous notes, written many articles of various kinds and recorded incidents and anecdotes, which I shall use fully later, and all this with an enthusiasm and pleasure not gauged by thought of profit or even publication in all cases.)

On the other hand, novels are an unknown quantity. I do not know whether I am a good descriptive writer, whether character drawing is my forte, or narration is a strong point with me, although I find I can write along without hesitation in writing of occurrences, and I notice the peculiarities and little foibles of my fellow boarders and see what good material there is here for character drawing, but I do not find it so easy to put this down on paper with that human touch which makes one like to read some authors, notably Dickens.

Again, the drama has always made a powerful appeal to me. I always liked a strong drama, enjoyed Shakespeare both in reading and acting, eagerly devoured dramatic criticisms and I have thought lately very much about this, and I know I should like to write strong dramas of our modern life. However, I shall have to study Ibsen, Strindberg, Brieux, Shaw, and others before I can come to any conclusion as to this.

However, a sea of doubts are now behind and the vista before me is bright.

Yesterday, however, while a day of great interest, was also one of misery, which perhaps accounts for my optimism to-day,--action and reaction being very often equal and opposite with me.

=Havana, Sunday, March 24, 1912.= Another beginning to-day and I hope a good one. The unfinished story of the 16th, Saturday, which I failed to relate last Sunday, was the burial of the Maine. Deciding at the last moment to witness this, I boarded the Purisima Concepcion at about 1 o’clock. After a short time, while looking overboard at the struggling crowds, a lot of rope and tackle came down on me from overhead and took half of the day’s pleasure away in the shape of my glasses. Thereafter I witnessed all the events with my one remaining lense held over one eye and tied to a handkerchief covering the other and tied behind my ear. It was a miserable subterfuge, and to add to it all I had a beautiful headache; cold, and the fear of glass in my eye--for one lense was smashed right over my eye. However, a day’s strain was all that happened, and when it was all over I voted that the day’s pleasure was worth it.

The sea was very rough and many people were sea-sick, but I enjoyed it very much. About 5 o’clock we were all lined up, the United States naval vessels, North Carolina and Birmingham, the Maine in between, and beyond on the side opposite us the diminutive Cuban navy. The sea cocks were opened and we all looked with intense interest, I straining my one eye with everything forgotten. For twenty minutes the Maine did not seem to be filling very rapidly. At 5:20, however, the sinking was noticeable; then as we stared she settled deeper and deeper, the stern, where the bulkhead was, sinking first; then suddenly she turned, the stern went under, the forward was up in the air at an angle of 45 degrees or more; it was a thrilling sight. Then with gathering momentum she went down. At 5:27 the waters of the gulf covered the last vestiges of one of the great tragedies of history. It was a grand sight; Nature herself seemed in mourning; for the day, bright and clear in the forenoon and early afternoon, had gradually become darker, and she disappeared with the sky overcast and a solemn hush over everything. I know this was the way it impressed me, and all my petty troubles were forgotten in the grand scene before me.

In an endeavor to discover my feelings of a day, from the 10th to the 15th, I kept a short record by way of finding out how much I could count on myself in my struggle, and the result showed me that I lack exercise, am too nervous and over-strung to put forth my best efforts, all of which confirms the wisdom of my decision to return home to find myself after a rest.

Sunday, March 10--Fair in morning; depressed later.

Monday, March 11--Fine until middle of afternoon, then tired and nervously depressed. Night, cheerful again; bedtime, terribly nervous, depressed, wakeful, worried and despairing.

Tuesday, March 12--Tired from previous night’s depths of gloom; calm later, fair night.

Wednesday, March 13--Calm and enthusiastic; tired, but not depressed, later restless in bed.

Thursday, March 14--Quiet and calm, exhausted from previous flurries; later, storm again, very bad, and depths of morbid despair.

Friday, March 15--Ambitious and determined--fine all day--restless night.

The above pretty well represents my struggle for a long time, but through it all I have had a confidence in the final triumph and a constant return to my ideals and ambition, and I am noticing a gradual elimination of some weaknesses. The blue moods I am beginning to check before going too far, and the ecstasy I am also holding in an endeavor to preserve a calm, ceaselessly persistent demeanor, neither too hot nor too cold.

To-day I hope to be a model one, one of steady work, writing, studying, arranging papers; no time for self-consciousness, worrying or anything else. So far, from 6:25 to 8:25, it has been ideal.

=--, March 24, 1912, 9:53 P. M.= After another despicable fall following on a good and bad day, I am almost desperate and realize that the fight for life must come to a head soon. I wrote the preceding from 7:35 to 8:25 this morning. Following that I started in on my scraps and about 11 o’clock my plan for a hard day’s work came to naught, because of a disturbed mind due, as I know, to too much of one thing. I simply have not the capacity to stick to one thing very long, although the things I like are always fresh after diversion. Going out for a change, some of the boys asked me to cross the river for a good walk. I consented, and after dinner (almuerzo or breakfast here), we took bum boat to landing near Morro, walked to Cojimar, across country, along shore and on roads, and thence to Regla. The hot sun and dusty roads tired me, and to-night, tired and wearied, I fell. Too much is killing for me. I must hold off, and simply cannot stand any day too much of anything. There simply has got to be a readjustment or I shall go crazy or become desperate. Below all this I feel the fight welling up in me, however, and to-morrow must hold forth better promise.

=Havana, Tuesday, April 9, 1912, 12:30 A. M.= Somebody has said, “War is hell.” I say, “Life is Hell,” with a capital H. God! but I would not have believed it possible a few years ago that a man could go through such prolonged mental agony. Am I a degenerate? Is there some insidious form of insanity slowly creeping over me? Gautier has said that nothing is beyond words. I deny this--I could be as eloquent as ever man was, have as fine a command of language, be as fluent, brilliant as the best of the masters; but I could not describe the agony of the past few weeks.

It is not alone the nervousness, loneliness, and the old tired feeling; the sudden bursts of enthusiasm, followed by strange periods of peculiar calmness, now peaceful, now raging, now with an unholy joy in I know not what; then black despair seemingly without cause, it is more than this. Self-consciousness to an extreme, fight it as I will, and yet a deep absorption in anything which really interests me so that I lose my identity in it. Thus my deep love for the theatre, even moving picture dramas, for the strong stories of love, passion and mental states of the French writers, little as I have read of them. If I could always find something to interest me the solution might be at hand, but with the same dreary prospect of day after day of hell, hell, hell (the other word for business to an artistic temperament), how can I get a night’s rest? I lie awake and go through all the hot passions, wild enthusiasms, ecstatic feelings, morbid thoughts, wrath at the existing order of things. I damn everything, and yet I realize how futile my scheme of life would be for others.