April 2, 1930

If the old Border Lakes [Outfitting Co., of which Olson is now manager and one-third owner] could only get on a paying basis so that I could put in my whole winter writing, I know that I could accomplish much. I want to write and the only road to hapiness for me is to keep on writing until all of the feelings and longings within me have been expressed. No happiness can come until I have told the world how I feel about nature. Many before me have felt the same and have followed their star through great suffering and privation. Think of the happiness that must have been theirs however when at last their dreams have come true. This wanting to write has grown upon me until it is more of an obsession than anything else. It must be satisfied and if I fail in accomplishing that something within me will be atrophied. Only through arriving at the goal which is still dim to me will I be satisfied that I have not lived in vain.

If I can show the world what my love of nature has meant to me; if I can show that there is still much of loveliness in nature despite the inroads of explaining science; if I can show that the old mysticism still exists, that nature is still animistic; and that all that is necessary is for a man to be open minded and uncluttered with worldly things, I will have done something worthwhile, of only one man gets a change of heart therefrom. Today in this machine age there is so much of the other and so little of the real thrill that comes from intimate and understanding contact with nature that anyone who can at all show the way will not have lived in vain. I can only believe that the world is waiting for my message and that once I arrive will acclaim the old truth it has always known but so long lived without.

I have just read "My Pagan Boyhood" by Daniels, a beautiful thing and so much like my own. Some day I will write my boyhood and it will be fully as good. My experiences are just as interesting and more imbued with mysticism than his. If I cannot write a better story of my early years, I will be mightily disappointed.

There will be little time left for writing this summer [because of his working managing the outfitting business]. I will have to give up my dreams for a wild summer of making money but I will not forget and the instant the let up comes, I will be back at my desk trying it again.

The day after tomorrow, I will be thirty one. I am getting along in years. I am almost middle aged and have accomplished nothing yet. But this I have and that is the open heart and my life has been filled with the experiences that only a love of nature knows and values. I have a background of material that once I reach the point where I am accepted by the reading world will prove a gold mine to me.

The only thing that worries me is how to mix my scientific studies with my writing. It will be a case of give up one or the other and I know that I cannot give up my writing. That means too much to me. I must write in order to be happy. Of course my happiness is a small thing but then it is my life and if a man feels seriously enough that he has work to do and he do it well and try his best to reach the goal he has set, why that is compensation enough. Some day, I know that it will come. I have only to think of the others who have struggled and been disappointed and finally come through to cheer me.