alone in his castle. It seems to me
that each class has its own peculiar misfortunes and that money breeds
about as much trouble as it kills. To my mind once a man earns enough
to buy himself a little food, put any sort of a roof over his head,
and keep himself warm, he has everything for which money is absolutely
essential. This much he can always get at the bottom. And this much is
all the ammunition a man needs for as good a fight as it's in him to
put up. It gives him a chance for an extra million over his nine
dollars a week if he wants it. But the point I learned down here is
that the million _is_ extra--it isn't essential. Its possession
doesn't make a Paradise free from sickness and worry and hard luck,
and the lack of it doesn't make a Hell's Kitchen where there is
nothing but sickness and trouble and where happiness cannot enter.

As I say, I consider this first year the big year because it taught me
these things. In a sense the value of my diary ends here. Once I was
able to understand that I had everything and more that the early
pioneers had and that all I needed to do to-day was to live as they
did and fight as they did, I had all the inspiration a man needs in
order to live and in order to _feel_ that he's living. In looking back
on the suburban life at the end of this first twelve months, it seemed
to me that the thing which made it so ghastly was just this lack of
inspiration that comes with the blessed privilege of fighting. That
other was a waiting game and no help for it. I was a shadow living in
the land of shadows with nothing to hit out at, nothing to feel the
sting of my fist against. The fight was going on above me and below me
and we in the middle only heard the din of it. It was as though we had
climbed half way up a rope leading from a pit to the surface. We had
climbed as far as we could and unless they hauled from above we had to
stay there. If we let go--poor devils, we thought there was nothing
but brimstone below us. So we couldn't do much but hold on and
kick--at nothing.

But down here if a man had any kick in him, he had something to kick
against. When he struck out with his feet they met something; when he
shot a blow from the shoulder he felt an impact. If he didn't like one
trade he could learn another. It took no capital. If he didn't like
his house, he could move; he wasn't tearing up anything by the roots.
If he didn't like his foreman, he could work under another. It didn't
m