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The war

The Romantic and scientific are so much both with me. No wonder my mind is a confused muddle. It seems the two can never stand together-- well, then, I am a walking war, and for the most part it does seem this way.

Like Shelley I am inspired by singular and absurd passions and seemingly doomed to a life of antisocial quasi-dissatisfaction, but there is this reasonable side I cannot totally deny, and to which I more and more cling, believing it will be my salvation, my claim to sanity and my vehicle to output the creative works that my very lifestyle seems aimed to discourage.

Do I feel I have no control over my life? It is absurd to say, so I never say it, the lowest, weakest complaint that well-educated, I have been put on the conveyor belt of life and altered at the appropriate stations, to output for a company, for capitalism and for the overall good of our country. What a weak, complaining thing to say when I am a free woman of strong constitution. Yet though I am creative I cannot think of another way to adequately support myself.

Thus comes this scientific side, this love of order, schedule and routine, this unremitting demand for perfection in all of my acts, that I believe will be the very tool to develop my humanities. How else will I ever write a novel, study literature properly, or find time to develop my creative world? The floor must be vacuumed. There's dishes in the sink. These are dangers to my time which can be easily eliminated with order and method and, if conducted at the proper time, may make me feel even more creative when the work is done.

Order and method. Benjamin Franklin and Percy Bysshe Shelley both in me. And for myself, good at many things, perhaps great at nothing. I never know if I should fight or concede to this analysis.

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