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:

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.

THE DIARY OF A SUICIDE

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.

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.