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University of California • Berkeley
GELETT BURGESS COLLECTION
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MY LIFE AND LOVES
BY
FRANK HARRIS
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MY LIFE AND LOVES
BY
FRANK HARRIS
•
■
PRAXITELES' APHRODITE
PRIVATELY PRINTED
1922
ADDRESS THE AUTHOR, I. RUE DU HELDER: PARIS
tfflPOft
FOREWORD
to
THE STORY OF "MY LIFE AND LOVES"
"Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand:
Fear not to touch the best,
The Truth shall be thy warrant."
Sir Walter Raleigh.
Here in the blazing heat of an American August,
amid the hurry and scurry of New York, I sit down
to write my final declaration of Faith, as a preface
or foreword to the Story of my Life. Ultimately it
will be read in the spirit in which it has been written
and I ask no better fortune. My journalism during
the war and after the Armistice brought me prosecu-
tions from the Federal Government. The authorities
at Washington accused me of sedition and though the
third Postmaster General, Ex-Governor Dockery, of
Missouri who was chosen by the Department as the
Judge, proclaimed my innocence and assured me I
should not be prosecuted again, my magazine (Pear-
son's) was time and again held up in the post, and its
circulation reduced thereby to one-third. I was
brought to ruin by the illegal persecution of President
Wilson and his Arch- Assist ant Burleson, and was
VI
laughed at when I asked for compensation. The Amer-
ican Government, it appears, is too poor to pay for
its dishonorable blunders.
I record the shameful fact for the benefit of those
Rebels and Lovers of the Ideal who will surely find
themselves in a similar plight in future emergencies.
For myself I do not complain. On the whole I have
received better treatment in life than the average man
and more lovingkindness than I perhaps deserved. I
make no plaint.
If America had not reduced me to penury I should
probably not have written this book as boldly as the
ideal demanded. At the last push of Fate (I am
much nearer seventy than sixty) we are all apt to
sacrifice something of Truth for the sake of kindly
recognition by our fellows and a peaceful ending.
Being that u wicked animal", as the French say, "who
defends himself when he is attacked'' I turn at length
to bay, without any malice, I hope, but also without
any fear such as might prompt compromise. I have
always fought for the Holy Spirit of Truth and have
been, as Heine said he was, a brave soldier in the
Liberation War of Humanity: now one fight more,
the best and the last.
There are two main traditions of English writing:
the one of perfect liberty, that of Chaucer and Shake-
speare, completely outspoken, with a certain liking
for lascivious details and witty smut, a man's speech:
the other emasculated more and more by Puritanism
and since the French Revolution, gelded to tamest
propriety; for that upheaval brought the illiterate
middle-class to power and insured the domination of
girl-readers. Under Victoria, English prose litera-
ture became half childish, as in stories of "Little
Mary", or at best provincial, as anyone may see who
cares to compare the influence of Dickens, Thackeray
Vil
and Reade in the world with the influence of Balzac,
Flaubert and Zola.
Foreign masterpieces such as "Les Coxites Dro-
latiques" and "L'Assommoir 11 were destroyed in Lon-
don as obscene by a magistrate's order; even the Bible
and Shakespeare were expurgated and all books dolled
up to the prim decorum of the English Sunday-
school. And America with unbecoming humility
worsened the disgraceful, brainless example.
All my life, I have rebelled against this old maid's
canon of deportment, and my revolt has grown
st longer with advancing years.
In the "Foreword" to "The Man Shakespeare" 1
tried to show how the Puritanism that had gone out
of our morals had gone into the language, enfeebling
English thought and impoverishing English speech.
At long last I am going back to the old English
tradition. I am determined to tell the truth about my
pilgrimage through this world, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, about myself and others, and
I shall try to be at least as kindly to others as to
myself.
Bernard Shaw assures me that no one is good
enough or bad enough to tell the naked truth about
himself; but I am beyond good and evil in this respect.
French literature is there to give the cue and
inspiration: it is the freest of all in discussing matters
of sex and chiefly by reason of its constant preoccupa-
tion with all that pertains to passion and desire, it
has become the world literature to men of all races.
"Women and Love' 1 , Edmond de Goncourt writes
in his journal, "always constitute the subject of con-
versation wherever there is a meeting of intellectual
people socially brought together by eating and drink-
ing. Our talk at dinner was at first smutty (poli-
sonne) and Tourgueneff listened to us with the open-
VIII
mouthed wonder (l'etonnement un peu meduse) of a
barbarian who only makes love (fait l'amour) very
naturally (tres naturellement)".
Whoever reads this passage carefully will under-
stand the freedom I intend to use. But I shall not
be tied down even to French conventions. Just as in
painting, our knowledge of what the Chinese and
Japanese have done, has altered our whole conception
of the art, so the Hindoos and Burmese too have ex-
tended our understanding of the art of love. I re-
member going with Rodin through the British Mu-
seum and being surprised at the time he spent over
the little idols and figures of the South Sea Islanders:
"Some of them are trivial", he said, "but look at that,
and that, and that — sheer masterpieces that anyone
might be proud of — lovely things!"
Art has become coextensive with humanity, and
some of my experiences with so-called savages may
be of interest even to the most cultured Europeans.
I intend to tell what life has taught me, and if I
begin at the A. B. C. of love, it is because I was
brought up in Britain and the United States; I shall
not stop there.
Of course I know the publication of such a book
will at once justify the worst that my enemies have
said about me. For fortv years now I have chain-
pioned nearly all the unpopular causes, and have thus
made many enemies; now they will all be able to
gratify their malice while taking credit for prevision.
In itself the book is sure to disgust the "unco guid"
and the mediocrities of every kind who have always
been unfriendly to me. I have no doubt too, that
many sincere lovers of literature who would be willing
to accept such license as ordinary French writers use,
will condemn me for going beyond this limit. Yet
IX
there are many reasons why I should use perfect free-
dom in this last book.
First of all, I made hideous blunders early in life
and saw worse blunders made by other youths, out
of sheer ignorance: I want to warn the young and
impressionable against the shoals and hidden reefs of
life's ocean and chart, so to speak, at the very begin-
ning of the voyage when the danger is greatest, the
'unpath'd waters'.
On the other hand I have missed indescribable 1
pleasures because the power to enjoy and to give
delight is keenest early in life, while the understand-
ing both of how to give and how to receive pleasure
comes much later, when the faculties are already on
the decline.
I used to illustrate the absurdity of our present
system of educating the young by a quaint simile
"When training me to shoot'', I said, "my earthly
father gave me a little single-barrelled gun, and when
he saw that I had learned the mechanism and could
be trusted, he gave me a double-barrelled shot-gun.
After some years I came into possession of a magazine
gun which could shoot half a dozen times if necessary
without reloading, my efficiency increasing with my
knowledge.
My Creator, or Heavenly Father, on the other
hand, when I was wholly without experience and had
only just entered my teens, gave me, so to speak, a
magazine gun of sex, and hardly had I learned its use
and enjoyment when he took it away from me forever.
and gave me in its place a double-barrelled gun: after
a few years, he took that away and gave me a single-
barrelled gun with which I was forced to content my-
self for the best part of my life.
Towards the end the old single-barrel began to
show signs of wear and age: sometimes it would go
X
off too soon, sometimes it missed fire and shamed me,
do what I would.
I want to teach youths how to use their magazine
gun of sex so that it may last for years, and when
they come to the double-barrel, how to take such care
that the good weapon will do them liege service right
into their fifties, and the single-barrel will then give
them pleasure up to three score years and ten.
Moreover, not only do I desire in this way to
increase the sum of happiness in the world while
decreasing the pains and disabilities of men, but I
wish also to set an example and encourage other
writers to continue the work that I am sure is bene-
ficent, as well as enjoyable.
W. L. George in "A Novelist on Novels" writes:
"If a novelist Avere to develop his characters evenly
the three hundred page novel might extend to five
hundred, the additional two hundred pages would be
made up entirely of the sex preoccupations of the cha-
racters. There would be as many scenes in the bed-
room as in the drawing-room, probably more, as more
time is passed in the sleeping apartment. The
additional two hundred pages would offer pictures of
the sex side of the characters and would compel them
to become alive: at present they often fail to come to
life because they only develop, say five sides out of
six . . . Our literary characters are lop-sided because
their ordinary traits are fully portrayed while their
sex-life is cloaked, minimized or left out . . . Therefore
the characters in modern novels are all false. Thev
are megalocephalous and emasculate. English women
speak a great deal about sex .... It is a cruel position
for the English novel. The novelist may discuss any-
thing but the main preoccupation of life. ... we are
compelled to pad out with murder, theft and arson
which as everybody knows, are perfectly moral things
to write about."
Pure is the snow — till mixed with mire —
But never half so pure as fire.
There are graver reasons than any I have yet
given why the truth should be told boldly. The time
has come when those who are, as Shakespeare called
them, "God's Spies" having learned the mystery of
things, should be called to counsel, for the ordinary
political guides have led mankind to disaster: blind
leaders of the blind!
Over Niagara we have plunged, as Carlyle pre-
dicted, and as every one with vision must have fore-
seen and now like driftwood we move round and round
the whirlpool impotently without knowing whither
or why.
One thing certain: we deserve the misery into
which we have fallen. The laws of this world are
inexorable and don't cheat! Where, when, how have
we gone astray? The malady is as wide as civilization
which fortunately narrows the enquiry to time.
Ever since our conquest of natural forces began,
towards the end of the eighteenth century, and mater-
ial wealth increased by leaps and bounds, our con-
duct has deteriorated. Up to that time we had done
the gospel of Christ mouth-honor at least; and had to
some slight extent shown consideration if not love to
our fellowmen: we did not give tithes to charity; but
we did give petty doles till suddenly science appeared
to reinforce our selfishness with a new message: pro-
gress comes through the blotting out of the unfit, we
were told, and self-assertion was preached as a duty:
the idea of the Superman came into life and the Will
to Power and thereby Christ's teaching of love and
pity and gentleness was thrust into the background.
xn
At once we men gave ourselves over to wrong
doing and our iniquity took monstrous forms.
The creed we professed and the creed we practised
were poles apart. Never I believe in the world's
history was there such confusion in man's thought
about conduct, never were there so many different
ideals put forward for his guidance. It is impera-
tively necessary for us to bring clearness into this
muddle and see why we have gone wrong and where.
For the world-war is only the last of a series of
diabolical acts which have shocked the conscience of
humanity. The greatest crimes in recorded time have
been committed during the last half century almost
without protest by the most civilised nations, nations
that still call themselves Christian. Whoever has
watched human affairs in the last half century must
acknowledge that our progress has been steadily hell-
ward.
The hideous massacres and mutilations of tens of
thousands of women and children in the Congo Free
State without protest on the part of Great Britain
who could have stopped it all with one word, is
surely due to the same spirit that directed the abom-
inable blockade (continued by both England and.
America long after the Armistice) which condemned
hundreds and thousands of women and children of
our own kith and kin to death by starvation. The
unspeakable meanness and confessed fraud of the
Peace of Versailles with its tragic consequences from
Vladivostock to London and finally the shameless,
dastardly war waged by all the Allies and by America
on Russia, for money, show us that Ave have been
assisting at the overthrow of morality itself and re-
turning to the ethics of the wolf and the polity of the
Thieves' Kitchen.
XIII
And our public acts as nations are paralleled by
our treatment of our fellows within the community.
For the small minority the pleasures of living have
been increased in the most extraordinary way while
the pains and sorrows of existence have been greatly
mitigated, but the vast majority even of civilised
peoples have hardly been admitted to any share in the
benefits of our astounding material progress. The
slums of our cities show the same spirit we have dis-
played in our treatment of the weaker races. It is
no secret that over fifty per cent of English volunteers
in the war were below the pigmy physical standard
required and about one half of our American soldiers
were morons with the intelligence of children under
twelve years of age: "vae victis" has been our motto
with the most appalling results. Clearly we have
come to the end of a period and must take thought
about the future.
The religion that directed or was supposed to
direct our conduct for nineteen centuries has been
finally discarded. Even the divine spirit of Jesus
was thrown aside by Nietzsche as one throws the
hatchet after the helve or to use the better German
simile, the child was thrown out with the bath- water.
The silly sex-morality of Paul has brought discredit
upon the whole Gospel. Paul was impotent, boasted
indeed that he had no sexual desires, wished that all
men were even as he was in this respect, just as the
fox in the fable who had lost his tail, wished that all
other foxes should be mutilated in the same way in
order to attain his perfection.
I often say that the Christian churches were
offered two things: the spirit of Jesus and the idiotic
morality of Paul, and they all rejected the highest
inspiration and took to their hearts the incredibly base
and stupid prohibition. Following Paul we have
XIV
turned the Goddess of Love into a fiend and degraded
the crowning impulse of our Being into a capital sin ;
yet everything high and ennobling in our nature
springs directly out of the sexual instinct.
Grant Allan says rightly: "Its alliance is wholly
with whatever is purest and most beautiful within us.
To it we owe our love of bright colours, graceful form,
melodious sound, rhythmic motion. To it we owe the
evolution of music, of poetry, of romance, of
belles lettres, of painting, of sculpture, of
decorative art, of dramatic entertainment. To it we
owe the entire existence of our aesthetic sense which
in the last resort is a secondary sex-attribute. From
it springs the love of beauty, around it all beautiful
arts circle as their centre. Its subtle aroma pervades
all literature. And to it we owe the paternal, mater-
nal and marital relations, the growth of the affections,
the love of little pattering feet and baby laughter."
And this scientific statement is incomplete: not
only is the sexual instinct the inspiring force of all
art and literature; it is also our chief teacher of gentle-
ness and tenderness, making lovingkindness an ideal
and so warring against cruelty and harshness and that
misjudging of our fellows which we men call justice.
To my mind, cruelty is the one diabolic sin which must
be wiped out of life and made impossible.
Paul's condemnation of the body and its desires
is in direct contradiction to the gentle teaching of
Jesus and is in itself idiotic. I reject Paulism as
passionately as I accept the gospel of Christ. In
regard to the body I go back to the Pagan ideals, to
Eros and Aphrodite and
The fair humanities of old religions.
Paul and the Christian churches have dirtied
desire, degraded women, debased procreation, vulga-
rized and vilified the best instinct in us.
XV
"Priests in black gowns are going their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys and desires."
And the worst of it all is that the highest func-
tion of man has been degraded by foul words so that
it is almost impossible to write the body's hymn of
joy as it should be written. The poets have been
almost as guilty in this respect as the priests: Aristo-
phanes and Rabelais are ribald, dirty: Boccaccio
cynical while Ovid leers cold-bloodedly and Zola like
Chaucer finds it difficult to suit language to his de-
sires. Walt Whitman is better though often merely
commonplace. The Bible is the best of all; but not
frank enough even in the noble Song of Solomon
which now and then by sheer imagination manages
to convey the ineffable!
We are beginning to reject Puritanism and its
unspeakable, brainless pruderies; but Catholicism is
just as bad. Go to the Vatican Gallery and the great
Church of St. Peter in Rome and vou will find the
fairest figures of ancient art clothed in painted tin,
as if the most essential organs of the body were dis-
gusting and had to be concealed.
I say the body is beautiful and must be lifted and
dignified by our reverence: I love the body more than
any Pagan of them all and I love the soul and her
aspirations as well; for me the body and the soul are
alike beautiful, all dedicate to Love and her worship.
I have no divided allegiance and what I preach
today amid the scorn and hatred of men will be uni-
versally accepted to-morrow; for in my vision, too,
a thousand years are as one day.
We must unite the soul of Paganism, the love of
beauty and art and literature with the soul of
Christianity and its human loving-kindness in a new
synthesis which shall include all the sweet and gentle
and noble impulses in us.
VI
What we all need is more of the spirit of Jesus:
we must learn at length with Shakespeare: "Pardon's
the word for all!"
I want to set this Pagan-Christian ideal before
men as the highest and most human too.
Now one word to my own people and their pecu-
liar shortcomings. Anglo-Saxon domineering com-
bativeness is the greatest danger to Humanity in the
world today. Americans are proud of having blotted
out the red Indian and stolen his possessions and of
burning and torturing negroes in the sacred name of
equality. At all costs we must get rid of our hypoc-
risies and falsehoods and see ourselves as we are —
a domineering race, vengeful and brutal, as exempli-
fied in Haiti; we must study the inevitable effects of
our soulless, brainless selfishness as shown in the
world-war.
The Germanic ideal which is also the English
and American ideal, of the conquering male that
despises all weaker and less intelligent races and is
eager to enslave or annihilate them, must be set aside.
A hundred years ago, there were only fifteen mil-
lions of English and American folk; today there are
nearly two hundred millions and it is plain that in
another century or so, they will be the most numerous,
as they are already by far the most powerful, race on
earth.
The most numerous folk hitherto, the Chinese, has
set a good example by remaining within its own
boundaries, but these conquering, colonizing Anglo-
Saxons threaten to overrun the earth and destroy all
other varieties of the species man. Even now we
annihilate the Red Indian because he is not subser-
vient, while we are content to degrade the negro who
doesn't threaten our domination.
XVII
Is it wise to desire only one flower in this garden
of a world? Is it wise to blot out the better varieties
while preserving the inferior 1
And the Anglo-Saxon ideal for the individual
is even baser and more inept. Intent on satisfying
his own conquering lust, he has compelled the female
of the species to an unnatural chastity of thought and
deed and word. He has thus made of his wife a meek,
upper-servant or slave(die Hausfrau), who has hardly
any intellectual interests and whose spiritual being
only finds a narrow outlet in her mother-instincts.
The daughter he has labored to degrade into the
strangest sort of two-legged tame fowl ever imagined :
she must seek a mate while concealing or denying all
her strongest sex-feelings: in fine, she should be as
cold-blooded as a frog and as wily and ruthless as
an Apache on the war-path.
The ideal he has set before himself is confused
and confusing: really he desires to be healthy and
strong while gratifying all his sexual appetites. The
highest type, however, the English gentleman, has
pretty constantly in mind the individualistic ideal of
what he calls an "all-round man", a man whose body
and mind is harmoniously developed and brought to
a comparatively high state of efficiency.
He has no inkling of the supreme truth that every
man and woman possesses some small facet of the
soul which reflects life in a peculiar way or, to use the
language of religion, sees God as no other soul born
into the world, can ever see Him.
It is the first duty of every individual to develop
all his faculties of body, mind and spirit as com-
pletely and harmoniously as possible; but it is a still
higher duty for each of us to develop our special fac-
ulty to the uttermost consistent with health; for only
by so doing shall we attain to the highest self -con -
2
XVIII
sciousness or be able to repay our debt to humanity.
No Anglo-Saxon, so far as I know, has ever advocated
this ideal or dreamed of regarding it as a duty. In
fact, no teacher so far has even thought of helping
men and women to find out the particular power
which constitutes their essence and inbeing and justi-
fies their existence. And so nine men and women
out of ten go through life without realising their own
special nature: they cannot lose their souls for they
have never found them.
For every son of Adam, for every daughter of
Eve, this is the supreme defeat, the final disaster.
Yet no one, so far as I know, has ever warned of the
danger or spoken of this ideal.
That's why I love this book in spite of all its
shortcomings and all its faults: it is the first book
ever written to glorify the body and its passionate
desires and the soul as well and its sacred, climbing
sympathies.
Give and forgive, I always say, is the supreme
lesson of life.
I only wish I had begun the book five years ago,
before I had been half drowned in the brackish flood
of old age and become conscious of failing memory;
but notwithstanding this handicap, I have tried to
write the book I have always wanted to read, the first
chapter in the Bible of Humanity. And so I front
this foreword with the lovely figure of Yenus Queen,
and I close it with the face of Christ as seen by
Rubens when He forgave the adulterous woman.
Hearken to good counsel:
"Live out your whole free life, while yet on earth,
Seize the quick Present, prize your one sure boon:
Though brief, each day a golden sun has birth;
Though dim, the night is gemmed with stars and moon."
Christ and The Woman taken in Adultery
by Rubens.
MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Chapter I.
A/T emory is the Mother of the Muses, the prototype
A * of the Artist. As a rule she selects and relieves
out the important, omitting what is accidental or tri-
vial. Now and then, however, she makes mistakes
like all other artists. Nevertheless I take Memory
in the main as my guide.
I was born on the 14th of February 1855, and
named James Thomas, after my father's two
brothers: my father was in the Navy, a lieutenant
in command of a revenue cutter or gunboat, and we
children saw him only at long intervals.
My earliest recollection is being danced on the
foot of my father's brother James, the Captain of an
Indiaman, who paid us a visit in the south of Kerry
when I was about two. I distinctly remember repeat-
ing a hymn by heart for him, my mother on the other
side of the fireplace, prompting: then I got him to
dance me a little more, which was all I wanted. [
remember my mother telling him I could read, and
his surprise.
The next memory must have been about the same
time: I was seated on the floor screaming when my
father came in and asked: "What's the matter?"
"It's only Master Jim", replied the nurse crossly,
9*
2 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"he's just screaming out of sheer temper, Sir, look,
there's not a tear in his eye".
A year or so later, it must have been, I was proud
of walking up and down a long room while my
mother rested her hand on my head, and called me
her walking stick.
Later still I remember coming to her room at
night: I whispered to her and then kissed her, but
her cheek was cold and she didn't answer, and T
woke the house with my shrieking: she was dead. I
felt no grief, but something gloomy and terrible in
the sudden cessation of the usual household activities.
A couple of days later I saw her coffin carried
out, and when the nurse told my sister and me that
we would never see our mother again, I was surprised
merely and wondered why.
My mother died when I was nearly four, and
soon after we moved to Kingstown near Dublin. I
used to get up in the night with my sister Annie, four
years my senior and go foraging for bread and jam
or sugar. One morning about daybreak I stole into
the nurse's room, and saw a man beside her in bed,
a man with a red moustache. I drew my sister in
and she too saw him. We crept out again without
waking them. My only emotion was surprise, but
next day the nurse denied me sugar on my bread
and butter and I said: "I'll tell" — I don't know whv:
I had then no inkling of modern journalism.
"Tell what?" she asked.
"There was a man in your bed", I replied, "last
night."
"Hush, hush!" she said, and gave me the sugar.
After that I found all I had to do was to say
"I'll tell!" to get whatever I wanted. My sister even
wished to know one day what I had to tell, but I
would not say. I distinctly remember my feeling of
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 3
superiority over her because she had not had sense
enough to exploit the sugar mine.
When I was between four and five, I was sent
with Annie to a girl's boarding-school in Kingstown
kept by a Mrs. Frost. I was put in the class with
the oldest girls on account of my proficiency in arith-
metic, and I did my best at it because I wanted to
be with them, though I had no conscious reason for
my preference. I remember how the nearest girl
used to lift me up and put me in my high-chair and
how I would hurry over the sums set in compound
long division and proportion, for as soon as I had
finished, I would drop my pencil on the floor, and
then turn round and climb down out of my chair,
ostensibly to get it, but really to look at the girls'
legs. Why? I couldn't have said.
I was at the bottom of the class and the legs got
bigger and bigger towards the end of the long table,
and I preferred to look at the big ones.
As soon as the girl next me missed me, she would
move her chair back and call me, and I'd pretend to
have just found my slate-pencil, which I said had
rolled, and she'd lift me back into my high-chair.
One day I noticed a beautiful pair of legs on the
other side of the table, near the top. There must have
been a window behind the girl; for her legs up to the
knees were in full light and they filled me wth emo-
tion giving me an indescribable pleasure. They were
not the thickest legs, which surprised me. Up to that
moment, I had thought it was the thickest legs I liked
best; but now I saw that several girls, three anyway,
had bigger legs, but none like hers, so shapely, with
such slight ankles and tapering lines. I was enthral-
led and at the same time a little scared.
I crept back into my chair with one idea in my
little head: could I get close to those lovely legs and
4 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
perhaps touch them — breathless expectancy. I knew
I could hit my slate-pencil and make it roll up bet-
ween the files of legs. Next day I did this and crawl-
ed right up till I was close to the legs that made my
heart beat in my throat and yet gave me a strange
delight. I put out my hand to touch them; suddenly
the thought came that the girl would simply be fright-
ened by my touch and pull her legs back and I should
be discovered and — I was frightened.
I returned to my chair to think, and soon found
the solution. Next day I again crouched before the
girl's legs, choking with emotion. I put my pencil
near her toes, and reached round between her legs
with my left hand as if to get it, taking care to touch
her calf. She shrieked, and drew back her legs,
holding my hand tight between them, and cried:
"What are you doing there!"
"Getting my pencil", I said humbly, "it rolled."
"There it is", she said, kicking it with her foot.
"Thanks" I replied, overjoyed, for the feel of
her soft legs was still on my hand.
"You're a funny little fellow", she said, but I
didn't care; I had had my first taste of Paradise and
the forbidden fruit — authentic heaven!
I have no recollection of her face: it seemed
pleasant; that's all I remember. None of the girls
made any impression on me but I can still recall the
thrill of admiration and pleasure her shapely limbs
gave me.
I record this incident at length, because it stands
alone in my memory, and because it proves that sex-
feeling may show itself in early childhood.
One day about 1890 I had Meredith, Walter Pater
and Oscar Wilde dining with me in Park Lane and
the time of sex-awakening was discussed. Both Pater
and Wilde spoke of it as a sign of puberty; Pater
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 5
thought it began about 13 or 14 and Wilde to my
amazement set it as late as 16. Meredith alone was
inclined to put it earlier.
"It shows sporadically", he said, "and sometimes
before puberty".
I recalled the fact that Napoleon tells how he was
in love before he was five years old with a school-
mate called Giacominetta, but even Meredith laughed
at this and would not believe that any real sex-feeling
could show itself so early. To prove the point, I gave
my experience as I have told it here, and brought
Meredith to pause: "very interesting", he thought,
"but peculiar!"
"In her abnormalities", says Goethe, "Nature re-
veals her secrets"; here is an abnormality, perhaps as
such, worth noting.
I hadn't another sensation of sex till nearly .six
years later when I was eleven, since which time such
emotions have been almost incessant.
My exaltation to the oldest class in arithmetic got
i ue into trouble by bringing me into relations with
the headmistress, Mrs. Frost, who was very cross and
seemed to think that I should spell as correctly as I
did sums. When she found I couldn't, she used to pull
my ears and got into the habit of digging her long
thumb-nail into my ear till it bled. I didn't mind the
smart ; in fact, I was delighted, for her cruelty brought
me the pity of the elder girls who used to wipe my
ears with their pocket-handkerchiefs and say that old
Frost was a beast and a cat.
One day my father sent for me and I went with a
petty officer to his vessel in the harbor: my right ear
had bled on to my collar. As soon as my father notic-
ed it and saw the older scars, he got angry and took
me back to the school and told Mrs. Frost what he
thought of her, and her punishments.
6 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Immediately afterwards, it seems to me I was
sent to live with my eldest brother Vernon, ten years
older than myself, who was in lodgings with friends
in Galway while going to the College.
There I spent the next five years, which passed
leaving a blank. I learned nothing in those years
except how to play "tig", "hide and seek", "footer"
and ball. I was merely a healthy, strong, little animal
without an ache or pain or trace of thought.
Then I remember an interlude at Belfast where
Vernon and I lodged with an old Methodist who used
to force me to go to church with him and drew on a
little black skullcap during the Service, which filled
me with shame and made me hate him. There is a
period in life when every thing peculiar or individual,
excites dislike and is in itself an offense.
I learned here to "niitch" and lie simply to avoid
school and to play, till my brother found I was
coughing and having sent for a doctor, was informed
that I had congestion of the lungs; the truth being
that I played all day and never came home for din-
ner, seldom indeed before seven o'clock, when I knew
Vernon would be back. I mention this incident be-
cause, while confined to the house, I discovered under
the old Methodist's bed, a set of doctor's books with
colored plates of the insides and the pudenda of men
and women. I devoured all the volumes and bits of
knowledge from them stuck to me for many a year.
But curiously enough the main sex fact was not. re-
vealed to me then; but in talks a little later with boys
of my own age.
I learned nothing in Belfast but rules of games
and athletics. My brother Vernon used to go to a
gymnasium every evening and exercise and box. To
my astonishment he was not among the best; so while
he was boxing I began practicing this and that, draw-
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 7
ing myself up till my chin was above the bar, and
repeating this till one evening Vernon found I could
do it thirty times running: his praise made me proud.
About this time, when I was ten or so, we were all
brought together inCarrickfergus; my brothers and sis-
ters then first became living, individual beings to me.
Vernon was going to a bank as a clerk, and was away
all day. Willie, six years older than I was, Annie four
years my senior, and Chrissie two years my junior,
went to the same day-school, though the girls went
to the girls' entrance and had women teachers. Willie
and I were in the same class ; though he had grown to
be taller than Vernon, I could beat him in most of
the lessons. There was, however, one important branch
of learning, in which he was easily the best in the
school. The first time I heard him recite "The Battle
of Ivry" by Macaulay, I was carried off my feet. He
made gestures and his voice altered so naturally that
I was lost in admiration.
That evening my sisters and I were together and
wo talked of Willie's talent. My eldest sister was
enthusiastic, which I suppose stirred envy and emula-
tion in me, for I got up and imitated him, and to my
sisters' surprise I knew the whole poem by heart.
"Who taught you?" Annie wanted to know, and
when she heard that I had learned it just from hearing
Willie recite it once, she was astonished and must
have told our teacher, for the next afternoon he asked
me to follow Willie and told me I was very good.
From this time on, the reciting class was my chief
education. I learned every boy's piece and could imi-
tate them all perfectly, except one redheaded rascal
who could recite the "African Chief" better than
anyone else, better even than the master. It was pure
melodrama; but Red-head was a born actor and swept
us all away by the realism of his impersonation-
8 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Never shall I forget how the boy rendered the words :
"Look, feast thy greedy eyes on gold,
Long kept for sorest need;
Take it, thou askest sums untold
And say that I am freed.
Take it; my wife the long, long day
Weeps by the cocoa-tree,
And my young children leave their play
And ask in vain for me."
I haven't seen or heard the poem these fifty odd years.
It seems tawdry stuff to me now ; but the boy's accents
were of the very soul of tragedy and I realized clearly
that I couldn't recite that poem as well as he did.
He was inimitable. Every time his accents and man-
ner altered; now he did these verses wonderfully, at
another time those, so that I couldn't ape him; always
there was a touch of novelty in his intense realization
of the tragedy. Strange to say it was the only poem
he recited at all well.
An examination came and I was first in the school
in arithmetic and first too in elocution; Vernon even
praised me, while Willie slapped me and got kicked on
the shins for his pains. Vernon separated us and told
Willie he should be ashamed of hitting one only half
as big as he was. Willie lied promptly, saying I had
kicked him first. I disliked Willie; I hardly know
why, save that he was a rival in the school-life.
After this Annie began to treat me differently
and now I seemed to see her as she was and was struck
by her funny ways. She wished both Chrissie and
myself to call her "Nita"; it was short for "Anita",
she said, which was the stylish French way of pro-
nouncing Annie. She hated "Annie" — it was "com-
mon and vulgar"; I couldn't make out why.
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 9
One evening we were together and she had un-
dressed Chrissie for bed, when she opened her own
dress and showed us how her breasts had grown while-
Chrissie's still remained small, and indeed "Nita's"
were ever so much larger and prettier and round
like apples. Nita let us touch them gently and was
evidently very proud of them. She sent Chrissie to*
bed in the next room while I went on learning a
lesson beside her. Nita left the room to get something,.
I think, when Chrissie called me and I went into t he-
bedroom wondering what she wanted. She wished me
to know that her breasts would grow too, and be just
as pretty as Nita's. "Don't you think so?" she asked,,
and taking my hand put it on them, and I said, "Yes"*
for indeed I liked her better than Nita who was all
airs and graces and full of affectations.
Suddenly Nita called me, and Chrissie kissed me,
whispering "don't tell her" and I promised. I always
liked Chrissie and Vernon. Chrissie was very clever
and pretty, with dark curls and big hazel eyes, and
Vernon was a sort of hero and always very kind
to me.
I learned nothing from this happening. I had
hardly any sex-thrill with either sister, indeed, nothing
like so much as I had had, five years before,,
through the girl's legs in Mrs. Frost's school, and
1 record the incident here chiefly for another
reason. One afternoon about 1890, Aubrey
Beardsley and his sister Mabel, a very pretty-
girl, had been lunching with me in Park Lane
Afterwards we went into the Park. I accompanied
them as far as Hyde Park Corner. For some reason
or other, I elaborated the theme that men of thirty
or forty usually corrupted young girls, and women
of thirty or forty in turn corrupted youths.
"1 don't agree with you", Aubrey remarked: "It's
10 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
usually a fellow's sister who gives him his first
lessons in sex. I know it was Mabel here, who first
taught me."
I was amazed at his outspokenness ; Mabel flushed
-crimson and I hastened to add:
"In childhood girls are far more precocious; but
those little lessons are usually too early to matter."
He wouldn't have it, but I changed the subject reso-
lutely and Mabel told me some time afterwards that
she was very grateful to me for cutting short the dis-
cussion: "Aubrey", she said, "loves all sex things
<md doesn't care what he says or does".
I had seen before that Mabel was pretty: 1
realised that day when she stooped over a flower that
tier figure was beautifully slight and round. Aubrey
caught my eye at the moment and remarked mali-
ciously :
"Mabel was my first model, weren't you, Mabs?
i was in love with her figure", he went on judicially,
4 'her breasts were so high and firm and round that
I took her as my ideal". She laughed, blushing a
little, and rejoined, "Your figures, Aubrey, are not
exactly ideal".
I realised from this little discussion that most
men's sisters were just as precocious as mine and
just as likely to act as teachers in the matter of sex.
From about this time on, the individualities of
people began to impress me definitely. Vernon
suddenly got an appointment in a bank at Armagh
and I went to live with him there, in lodgings. The
lodging-house keeper I disliked: she was always
trying to make me keep hours and rules, and I was
as wild as a homeless dog, but Armagh was a wonder
city to me. Vernon made me a day-boy at the Royal
School: it was my first big school; I learned all the
lessons very easily and most of the boys and all the
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 11
masters were kind to me. The great Mall or park-
like place in the centre of the town delighted me; I
had soon climbed nearly every tree in it, tree-climbing
and reciting being the two sports in which I excelled.
When we were at Carrickfergus, my father had
had me on board his vessel and had matched me at
climbing the rigging against a cabin-boy and though
the sailor was first at the cross-trees, I caught him on
the descent by jumping at a rope and letting it slide
through my hands, almost at falling speed to the
deck. I heard my father tell this afterwards with
pleasure to Vernon, which pleased my vanity
inordinately and increased, if that were possible, my
delight in showing off.
For another reason my vanity had grown beyond
measure. At Carrickfergus I had got hold of a book
on athletics belonging to Vernon and had there
learned that if you went into the water up to your
neck and threw yourself boldly forward and tried to
swim, you would swim; for the body is lighter than
the water and floats.
The next time I went down to bathe with Ver-
non, instead of going on the beach in the shallow
water and wading out, I went with him to the end
of the pier and when he dived in, I went down the
steps and as soon as he came up to the surface I cried,
"Look! I can swim too", and I boldly threw myself
forward and, after a moment's dreadful sinking and
spluttering, did in fact swim. When I wanted to get
back I had a moment of appalling fear: "Could I
turn round!" The next moment I found it quite
easy to turn and I was soon safely back on the steps
again.
"When did you leam to swim?", asked Vernon
coming out beside me. "This minute", I replied and
as he was surprised, I told him I had read it all in
12 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Ms book and made up my mind to venture the very
next time I bathed. A little time afterwards I heard
liim tell this to some of his men friends in Armagh,
and they all agreed that it showed extraordinary
courage, for I was small for my age and always
appeared even younger than I was.
Looking back, I see that many causes combined
to strengthen the vanity in me which had already
become inordinate and in the future was destined, to
shape my life and direct its purposes. Here in Armagh
everything conspired to foster my besetting sin. I
was put among boys of my age, I think in the lower
Fourth, and the form-master finding that I knew no
Latin, showed me a Latin grammar and told me
I'd have to learn it as quickly as possible, for the
class had already begun to read Caesar: he showed
me the first declension mensa, as the example,
and asked me if I could learn it by the next day.
I said I would, and as luck would have it, the Mathe-
matical master passing at the moment, the form-
master told him I was backward and should be in
a lower form.
"He's very good indeed at figures", the Mathe-
matical master rejoined, "he might be in the Upper
Division".
"Really!" exclaimed the Form-master. "See
what you can do," he said to me, "you may find it
possible to catch up. Here's a Caesar too, you may
as well take it with you. We have done only two
or three pages".
That evening I sat down to the Latin gram-
mar, and in an hour or so had learned all the declen-
sions and nearly all the adjectives and pronouns. Next
day I was trembling with hope of praise and if the
form-master had encouraged me or said one word of
commendation, I might have distinguished myself
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 13
in the class work, and so changed perhaps my whole
life; but the next day he had evidently forgotten all
about my backwardness. By dint of hearing the
other boys answer I got a smattering of the lessons,
enough to get through them without punishment, and
soon a good memory brought me among the foremost
boys, though I took no interest in learning Latin.
Another incident fed my self-esteem and opened
to me the world of books. Vernon often went to a
clergyman's who had a pretty daughter, and I too
was asked to their evening parties. The daughter
found out I could recite, and soon it became the
custom to get me to recite some poem everywhere we
went. Vernon bought me the poems of Macaulay and
Walter Scott and I had soon learned them all bv
heart, and used to declaim them with infinite gusto:
at first my gestures were imitations of Willie's; but
Vernon taught me to be more natural and I bettered
his teaching. No doubt my small stature helped the
effect and the Irish love of rhetoric did the rest; but
every one praised me and the showing off made me
very vain and — a more important result — the learn-
ing of new poems brought me to the reading of novels
and books of adventure. I was soon lost in this new
world: though I played at school with the other boys,
in the evening I never opened a lesson-book; but
devoured Lever and Mayne Eeid, Marryat and
Fenimore Cooper with unspeakable delight.
I had one or two fights at school with boys of my
own age: I hated fighting; but I was conceited and
combative and strong and so got to fisticuffs twice
or three times. Each time, as soon as an elder boy
saw the scrimmage, he would advise us, after looking
on for a round or two, to stop and make friends. The
Irish are supposed to love fighting better than eating;
but my school-days assure me that they are not
14 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
nearly so combative or perhaps I should say, so
brutal, as the English.
In one of my fights a boy took my part and we
became friends. His name was Howard and we used
to go on long walks together. One day I wanted Mm
to meet Strangways, the Vicar's son, who was
fourteen but silly, I thought; Howard shook his head:
"he wouldn't want to know me", he said, "I am a
Roman Catholic". I still remember the feeling of
horror his confession called up in me: "A Roman
Catholic! Could anyone as nice as Howard be a
Catholic!"
I was thunderstruck and this amazement has
always illumined for me the abyss of Protestant
bigotry, but I wouldn't break with Howard who was
two years older than I and who taught me many
things. He taught me to like Fenians, though I
hardly knew what the word meant. One day I
remember he showed me posted on the Court House
a notice offering 5000 Pounds sterling as reward to
anyone who would tell the whereabouts of James
Stephen, the Fenian Head-Centre. "He's travelling
all over Ireland", Howard whispered, "everybody
knows him", adding with gusto, "but no one would
give the Head-Centre away to the dirty English". I
remember thrilling to the mystery and chivalry of the
story. From that moment Head-Centre was a sacred
symbol to me as to Howard.
One day we met Strangways and somehow or
other began talking of sex. Howard knew all about
it and took pleasure in enlightening us both.
It was Cecil Howard who first initiated Strang-
ways and me too in self-abuse. In spite of my Novel
reading, I was still at eleven too young to get much
pleasure from the practice; but I was delighted to
know how children were made and a lot of new facts
CHILDHOOD DAYS. 15
about sex. Strangways had hair about his private
parts, as indeed Howard had, also, and when he
rubbed himself and the orgasm came, a sticky milky
fluid spirted from Strangway's cock which Howard
told us was the man's seed, which must go right into
the woman's womb to make a child.
A week later, Strangways astonished us both by
telling how he had made up to the nursemaid of
his younger sisters and got into her bed at night.
The first time she wouldn't let him do anything, it
appeared, but after a night or two he managed to
touch her sex and assured us it was all covered with
silky hairs. A little later he told us how she had
locked her door and how the next day he had taken
oft' the lock and got into bed with her again. At
first she was cross, or pretended to be, he said, but he
kept on kissing her and begging her, and bit by bit
she yielded, and he touched her sex again: "it was
a slit", he said. A few nights later, he told us he had
put Ins prick into her and "Oh! by gum, it was wonder-
ful, wonderful!"
"But how did you do itf" Ave wanted to know
and he gave us his whole experience. "Girls love
kissing," he said, "and so I kissed and kissed her and
put my leg on her, and her hand on my cock and I kept
touching her breasts and her cunny (that's what she
calls it) and at last I got on her between her legs
and she guided my prick into her cunt (God it was
wonderful!) and now I go with her every night and
often in the day as well." She likes her cunt touched,
but very gently", he added, "she showed me hovv to
do it with one finger like this" and he suited the.
action to the word.
Strangways in a moment became to us not only
a hero' but a miracle-man; we pretended not to
believe him in order to make ;him tell us more, but
16 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
in our hearts we knew lie was telling us the truth,
and Ave were almost crazy with breathless desire.
I got him to invite me up to the Vicarage and I
saw Mary the nurse-girl there, and she seemed to
me almost a woman and spoke to him as "Master
Will" and he kissed her, though she frowned and
said "Leave off" and "Behave yourself", very angrily ;
but I felt that her anger was put on to prevent my
guessing the truth.
I was aflame with desire and when I told
Howard, he, too, burned with lust, and took me out
for a walk and questioned me all over again and,
under a haystack in the country we gave ourselves
to a bout of frigging which for the first time thrilled
me with pleasure.
All the time we were playing with ourselves I
kept thinking of Mary's hot slit, as Strangways had
described it, and at length a real orgasm came and
shook me; the imagining had intensified my delight.
Nothing in my life up to that moment was
comparable in joy to that story of sexual pleasure
as described, and acted for us, by Strangways.
MY FATHER.
Father was coming: I was sick with fear: he was
so strict and loved to punish. On the ship he had
beaten me with a strap because I had gone forward
and listened to the sailors taking smut: I feared him
and disliked him ever since I saw him once come
aboard drunk.
It was the evening of a regatta at Kingston. He
had been asked to lunch on one of the big yachts. I
heard the officers talking of it. They said he was
asked because he knew more about tides and currents
along the coast than anyone, more even than the
fishermen. The racing skippers wanted to get some
SCHOOL DAYS. 17
information out of him. Another added, "he knows
the slants of the wind off Howth Head, ay, and the
weather, too, better than anyone living!" All agreed
he was a first-rate sailor "one of the best, the very
best if he had a decent temper — the little devil".
"D'ye mind when he steered the gig in that race
for all? Won? av course he won, he has always won
— ah! he's a great little sailor an' he takes care of
the men's food too, but he has the divil's own temper
— an' that's the truth".
That afternoon of the Regatta, he came up the
ladder quickly and stumbled smiling as he stepped
down to the deck. I had never seen him like that;
he was grinning and w r alking unsteadily: I gazed at
him in amazement. An officer turned aside and as
he passed me he said to another: "Drunk as a lord".
Another helped my father dow T n to his cabin and came
up five minutes afterwards: "he's snoring: he'll soon
be all right: it's that champagne they give him, and
all that praising him and pressing him to give them
tips for this and that".
"No, no!" cried another, "it's not the drink; he
only gets drunk when he hasn't to pay for it", and all
of them grinned; it was true, I felt, and I despised the
meanness inexpressibly.
I hated them for seeing him, and hated him —
drunk and talking thick and staggering about; an
object of derision and pity! — my "Governor", as
Vernon called him; I despised him.
And 1 recalled other griefs I had against him.
A Lord of the Admiralty had come aboard once:
father was dressed in his best; I was very young:
it was just after I had learned to swim in Carrick-
fergus. My father used to make me undress and go
in and swim round the vessel every morning after
my lessons*
&
18 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
That morning I had come up as usual at eleven
and a strange gentleman and my father were talking
together near the companion. As I appeared my
father gave me a frown to go below but the stranger
caught sight of me and laughing called me. I came
to them and the stranger was surprised on hearing
I could. swim. "Jump in, Jim!" cried my father, "and
swim round".
Nothing loath I ran down the ladder, pulled off
my clothes and jumped in. The stranger and my
father were above me smiling and talking; my father
waved his hand and I swam round the vessel. When
I got back, I was about to get on the steps and come
aboard when my father said:
"No, no, swim on round till I tell you to stop."
Away I went again quite proud; but when I got
round the second time I was tired; I had never swum
so far and I had sunk deep in the water and a little
spray of wave had gone into my mouth; I was very
glad to get near the steps, but as I stretched out my
hand to mount them, my father waved his hand. —
"Go on, go on!" he cried, "till you're told to stop".
I went on: but now I was very tired and
frightened as well, and as I got to the bow the sailors
leant over the bulwarks and one encouraged me: "Go
slow, Jim, you'll get round all right." I saw it w T as
big Newton, the stroke-oar of my father's gig, but
just because of his sympathy I hated my father the
more for making me so tired and so afraid. ••
When I got round the. third time, I swam very
slowly and let myself sink very low, and the stranger
spoke for me to my father, and then he himself told
me to "come up". . ..
•I came eagerly, but a little scared at what my
father might do; but the stranger came over to me,.
SCHOOL DAYS. 19
saying, "he's all blue; that water's very cold, Captain:
someone should give him a good towelling".
My father said nothing but "Go down and dress"',
adding, "get warm".
The memory of my fear made me see that he was
always asking me to do too much, and I hated him
who could get drunk and shame me and make me run
races up the rigging with the cabin boys who were
grown men and could beat me. I disliked him.
I was too young then to know that it was
probably the habit of command which prevented him
from praising me, though I knew in a half-cons-
cious way that he was proud of me, because I was
the only one of his children who never got sea-sick.
A little later he arrived in Armagh, and the follow-
ing week was wretched: I had to come straight home
from school every clay, and go out for a long walk
with the "governor" and he was not a pleasant
companion. I couldn't let myself go with him as
with a chum; I might in the heat of talk use some
word or tell him something and get into an awful
row. So I walked beside him silently, taking heed
as to what I should say in answer to his simplest
question. There was no companionship!
In the evening he used to send me to bed early:
even before nine o'clock, though Vernon always let
me stay up with him reading till eleven or twelve
o'clock. One night I went up to my bedroom on the
next floor, but returned almost at once to get a book
and have a read in bed, which was a rare treat to me.
I was afraid to go into the sitting-room; but crept
into the dining-room where there were a few books,
though not so interesting as those in the parlour; the
door between the two rooms was ajar. Suddenly T
heard my father say:
"He's a little Fenian."
20 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"Fenian", repeated Vernon in amazement,
"really, Governor, I don't believe he knows the mean-
ing of the word; he's only just eleven, you must
remember."
"I tell you" broke in my father, "he talked of
James Stephen, the Fenian Head Centre, to-day with
wild admiration. He's a Fenian alright, but how
did he catch it?"
"I'm sure I don't know", replied Vernon, "he
reads a great deal and is very quick: I'll find out
about it."
"No, no!" said my father, "the thing is to cure
him: he must go to some school in England, that'll
cure him."
I waited to hear no more but got my book and
crept upstairs; so because I loved the Fenian Head-
Centre I must be a Fenian.
"How stupid Father is", was my summing up,
but England tempted me, England — life was open-
ing out.
It was at the Royal School in the summer after
my sex-experiences with Strangways and Howard
that I first began to notice dress. A boy in the sixth
form named Milman had taken a liking to me and
though he was five years older than I was, he often
went with Howard and myself for walks. He was
a stickler for dress, said that no one but "cads" (a
name I learned from him for the first time) and
common folk would wear a made-up tie: he gave me
one of his scarves and showed me how to make a
running lover's knot in it. On another occasion he
told me that only "cads" would wear trowsers
frayed or repaired.
Was it Milmans talk that made me self-conscious
or my sex-awakening through Howard and Strang-
ways? I couldn't say; but at this time I had a curious
SCHOOL DAYS. 21
and prolonged experience. My brother Vernon
hearing me once complain of my dress, got me three
suits of clothes, one in black with an Eton jacket for
best and a tall hat and the others in tweeds: he gave
me shirts, too, and ties, and I began to take great
care of my appearance. At our evening parties the
girls and young women (Vernon's friends) were
kinder to me than ever and I found myself wondering
whether I really looked "nice" as they said.
I began to wash and bathe carefully and brush
my hair to regulation smoothness (only "cads" used
pomatum, Milman said) and when I was asked to
recite, I would pout and plead prettily that I did not
want to, just in order to be pressed.
Sex was awakening in me at this time but was
still indeterminate, I imagine; for two motives ruled
me for over six months: I was always wondering how
1 looked and watching to see if people liked me. I
used to try to speak with the accent used by the
"best people" and on coming into a room I prepared
my entrance. Someone, I think it was Vernon's sweet-
heart, Monica, said that I had an energetic profile, so
I always sought to show my profile. In fact, for
some six months, I was more a girl than a boy, with
all a girl's self -consciousness and manifold affecta-
tions and sentimentalities: I often used to think that
no one cared for me really and I would weep over
my unloved loneliness.
Whenever later, as a writer, I wished to picture
a young girl, I had only to go back to this period
in my consciousness in order to attain the peculiar
view-point of the girl.
LIFE IN AN
ENGLISH GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
Chapter II.
If I tried my best, it would take a year to
describe the life in that English Grammar School
at R I had always been perfectly happy in
every Irish school and especially in the Royal School
at Armagh. Let me give one difference as briefly as
possible. When I whispered in the class-room in
Ireland, the master would frown at me and shake
his head; ten minutes later I was talking again, and
he'd hold up an admonitory finger: the third time
he'd probably say, "Stop talking, Harris, don't you
see you're disturbing your neigbourf Half an
hour later in despair he'd cry, "If you still talk, I'll
have to punish you".
Ten minutes afterwards: "You're incorrigible,
Harris, come up here" and I'd have to go and stand
beside his desk for the rest of the morning, and even
this light punishment did not happen more than
twice a week, and as I came to be head of my class,
it grew rarer.
In England, the procedure was quite different.
"That new boy there is talking; take 300 lines to
write out and keep quiet".
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 23
"Please, Sir", I'd pipe up — "Take 500 lines and
keep quiet".
"But, Sir" — in remonstrance.
"Take 1000 lines and if you answer again, I'll
send you to the Doctor" — which meant I'd get a
caning or a long talking to.
The English masters one and all ruled by
punishment; consequently I was indoors writing out
lines almost every day, and every half -holiday for the
first year. Then my father, prompted by Vernon,
complained to the Doctor that writing out lines was
ruining my handwriting.
After that I was punished by lines to learn by
heart; the lines quickly grew into pages, and before
the end of the first half year it was found that I
knew the whole school history of England by heart,
through these punishments. Another remonstrance
from my father, and I was given lines of Vergil to
learn. Thank God! that seemed worth learning and
the story of Ulysses and Dido on "the wild sea -banks"
became a series of living pictures to me, not to be
dimmed even, so long as I live.
That English school for a year and a half was
to me a brutal prison with stupid daily punishments.
At the end of that time I was given a seat by myself,
thanks to the Mathematical master; but that's
another story.
The two or three best boys of my age in Eng-
land were far more advanced than I was in Latin
and had already waded through half the Greek Gram-
mar, which I had not begun, but I was better in Math-
ematics than any one in the whole lower school.
Because I was behind the English standard in lan-
guages, the Form-master took me to be stupid and
called me "stupid", and as a result I never learned
a Latin or Greek lesson in mv two and a half years
24 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
in the Grammar School. Nevertheless, thanks to the
punishment of having to learn Vergil and Livy by
heart, I was easily the best of my age in Latin too,
before the second year was over.
I had an extraordinary verbal memory. The
Doctor, I remember, once mouthed out some lines
of the "Paradise Lost" and tokUus in his pompous
way that Lord Macaulay knew the "Paradise Lost"
by heart from beginning to end. I asked: "Is that
hard, Sir!" "When you've learned half of it", he
replied, „you'll understand how hard! Lord Ma-
caulay was a genius", and he emphasized the "Lord'
again.
A week later when the Doctor again took the
school in literature, I said at the end of the hour:
"Please, Sir, I know the 'Paradise Lost' by heart"; he
tested me and I remember how he looked at me after-
wards from head to foot as if asking himself where
I had put all the learning. This "piece of impudence",
as the older boys called it, brought me several cuffs
and kicks from boys in the Sixth, and much ill-will
from many of the others.
All English school life was summed up for me
in the "fagging". There was "fagging" in the Royal
School in Armagh, but it was kindly. If you wanted
to get out of it for a long walk with a chum, you had
only to ask one of the Sixth and you got permission
to skip it.
But in England the rule was Rhadamanthine; the
fags' names on duty were put up on a blackboard,
and if you were not on time, ay, and servile to boot,
you'd get a dozen from an ash plant on your behind
and not laid on perfunctorily and with distaste, as
the Doctor did it, but with vim so that I had painful
weals on my backside and couldn't sit down for days
without a smart.
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 25
The fags too, being young and weak, were very
often brutally treated just for fun. On Sunday mor-
nings in summer, for instance, we had an hour longer
in bed. I was one of the half dozen juniors in the
big bedroom; there were two older boys in it, one at
each end, presumably to keep order; but in reality to
teach lechery and corrupt their younger favorites.
If the mothers of England knew what goes on in
the dormitories of these boarding-schools throughout
England, they would all be closed, from Eton and
Harrow upwards or downwards, in a day. If English
fathers even had brains enough to understand that
the fires of sex need no stoking in boyhood, they too
would protect their sons from the foul abuse. But I
shall come back to this. Now I wish to speak of the
crueltv.
Every form of cruelty was practiced on the
younger, weaker and more nervous boys. I remember
one Sunday morning, the half-dozen older boys pulled
one bed along the wall and forced all the seven
younger boys underneath it, beating with sticks any
hand or foot that showed. One little fellow cried that
he couldn't breathe and at once the gang of torment-
ors began stuffing up all the apertures, saying that
they would make a "Black Hole" of it. There were
soon cries and struggiings under the bed and at
length one of the youngest began shrieking so that
the torturers ran away from the prison, fearing lest
some master should hear.
One wet Sunday afternoon in midwinter, a little
nervous "Mother's darling" from the West Indies
who always had a cold and was always sneaking near
the fire in the big schoolroom, Avas caught by two of
the Fifth and held near the flames. Two more brutes
pulled his trowsers tight over his bottom, and the
more he squirmed and begged to be let go, the tighter
26 ; MY LIFE AND LOVES.
they held the trowsers and the nearer the flames he
was pushed, till suddenly the trowsers split apart
scorched through, and as the little fellow tumbled
forward screaming, the torturers realized that they
had gone too far. The little "Nigger" as he was
called, didn't tell how he came to be so scorched but
took his fortnight in sick bay as a respite.
We read of a fag at Shrewsbury who was thrown
into a bath of boiling water by some older boys be-
cause he liked to take his bath very warm; but this
experiment turned out badly, for the little fellow died
and the affair could not be hushed up, though it was
finally dismissed as a regrettable accident.
The English are proud of the fact that they
hand over a good deal of the school discipline to the
older boys: they attribute this innovation to Arnold
of Rugby and, of course, it is possible if the super-
vision is kept up by a genius, that it may work for
good and not for evil; but usually it turns the
school into a forcing-house of cruelty and immorality.
The older boys establish the legend that only sneaks
would tell anything to the masters, and then they are
free to give rein to their basest instincts.
The two Monitors in our big bedroom in my time
were a strapping big fellow named Dick F . . . , who
tired all the little boys by going into their beds and
making them frig him till his semen came. The little
fellows all hated to be covered with his filthy slime,
but they had to pretend to like doing as he told them,
and usually he insisted on frigging them by way of
exciting himself. Dick picked me out once or twice
but I managed to catch his semen on his own night-
shirt, and so after calling me a "dirty little devil"
he left me alone.
The other monitor was Jones, a Liverpool ,bov
of about seventeen, very backward in lessons but
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 27
very strong, the "Cock" of the school at fighting. He
used always to go to one young boy's bed whom he
favored in many ways. Henry H . . . used to be able
to get off any fagging and he never let out what Jones
made him do at night, but in the long run he got to
be chums with another little fellow and it all came
out. One night when Jones was in Henry's bed,
there was a shriek of pain and Jones was heard to
be kissing and caressing his victim for nearly an
hour afterwards. We all wondered whether Jones
had had him, or what had happened. Henry's chum
one day let the cat out of the bag. It appeared that
Jones used to make the little fellow take his sex in
his mouth and frig him and suck him at the same
time. But one evening he had brought up some butter
and smeared it over his prick and gradually inserted
it into Henry's anus and this came to be his ordinary
practice. But this night he had forgotten the butter
and when he found a certain resistance, he thrust
violently forward, causing extreme pain and making
his pathic bleed. Henry screamed and so after an
interval of some weeks or months the whole proce-
dure came to be known.
If there had been no big boys as Monitors, there
would still have been a certain amount of solitary
frigging; from twelve or thirteen on, most boys and
most girls too, practice self-abuse from time to time
on some slight provocation, but the practice doesn't
often become habitual unless it is fostered by one's
elders and practiced mutually. In Ireland it was spo^
radic; in England perpetual and in English schools
it often led to dowmright sodomy as in this instance.
In my own case there were two restraining in-
fluences, and I wish to dwell on both as a hint. to
parents. I was a very eager little athlete: thanks to
instructions and photographs in a book, on athletics
28 MY LIFE AND LOYES.
belonging to Vernon, I found out how to jump and
how to run. To jump high one had to take but a
short run from the side and straighten oneself hori-
zontally as one cleared the bar. By constant prac-
tice I could at thirteen walk under the bar and then
jump it. I soon noticed that if I frigged myself the
night before, I could not jump so well, the conse-
quence being that I restrained myself, and never
frigged save on Sunday and soon managed to omit
the practice on three Sundays out of four.
Since I came to understanding, I have always
been grateful to that exercise for this lesson in self-
restraint. Besides, one of the boys was always frig-
ging himself: even in school he kept his right hand
in his trousers' pocket and continued the practice. All
of us knew that he had torn a hole in his pocket so
that he could play with his cock; but none of the
masters ever noticed anything. The little fellow grew
gradually paler and paler until he took to crying in
a corner, and unaccountable nervous tremblings shook
him for a quarter of an hour at a time. At length,
be was taken away by his parents: what became of
him afterwards, I don't know, but I do know that
till he was taught self-abuse, he was one of the
quickest boys of his age at lessons and given like
myself to much reading.
This object-lesson in consequences had little
effect on me at the time; but later it was useful as a
warning. Such teaching may have affected the Spar-
tans as we read in history that they taught their
children temperance by showing them a drunken
helot; but I want to lay stress on the fact I was first
taught self-control by a keen desire to excel in jump-
ing and in running, and as soon as I found that I
couldn't run as fast or jump as high after practicing
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND.
self-abuse, I began to restrain myself and in return
this had a most potent effect on my will-power.
I was over thirteen when a second and still strong-
er restraining influence made itself felt, and strange-
ly enough this influence grew through my very desire
for girls and curiosity about them.
The story marks an epoch in my life. We were
taught singing at school and when it was found that
I had a good alto voice and a very good ear, I was
picked to sing solos, both in school and in the church
choir. Before every church festival there was a good
deal of practice with the organist, and girls from
neighbouring houses joined in our classes. One girl
alone sang alto and she and I were separated from
the other boys and girls; the upright piano was put
across the corner of the room and we two sat of
stood behind it almost out of sight of all the other
singers; the organist, of course, being seated in front
of the piano. The girl E . . . who sang alto with me
was about my own age : she was very pretty or seemed
so to me, with golden hair and blue eyes and I always
made up to her as well as I could, in my boyish way.
One day while the organist was explaining something,
E . . . stood up on the chair and leant over the back of
the piano to hear better or see more. Seated in my
chair behind her, I caught sight of her legs; for her
dress rucked up behind as she leaned over: at once
my breath stuck in my throat. Her legs were lovely,
I thought, and the temptation came to touch them;
for no one could see,
I got up immediately and stood by the chair
she was standing on. Casually I let my hand fall
against her left leg. She didn't draw her leg away
or seem to feel my hand, so I touched her more
boldly. She never moved, though now I knew she
must have felt my hand. T began to slide my hand
30 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
up her leg and suddenly my fingers felt the warm flesh
on her thigh where the stocking ended above the knee.
The feel of her warm flesh made me literally choke
with emotion: my hand went on up, warmer and
warmer, when suddenly I touched her sex: there
was soft down on it. The heart-pulse throbbed in my
throat. I have no words to describe the intensity of
my sensations.
Thank God, E . . . . did not move or show
any sign of distaste. Curiosity was stronger even
than desire in me; 1 felt her sex all over and at once
the idea came into my head that it was like a fig
(the Italians, I learned later, call it familiarly "fica") ;
it opened at my touches and I inserted my finger
gently, as Strangways had told me that Mary had
taught him to do ; still E . . . . did not move. Gently
I rubbed the front part of her sex with my finger. I
could have kissed her a thousand times out of pas-
sionate gratitude.
Suddenly as I went on, I felt her move and then
again; plainly she was showing me where my touch
gave her most pleasure: I could have died for her in
thanks; again she moved and I could feel a little
mound or small button of flesh right in the front of
her sex, above the junction of the inner lips: of
course it was her clitoris. I had forgotten all the old
Methodist doctor's books till that moment; this frag-
ment of long forgotten knowledge came back to me:
gently I rubbed the clitoris and at once she pressed
down on my finger for a moment or two. I tried to
insert my finger into the vagina; but she drew away
at once and quickly, closing her sex as if it hurt, so
1 went back to caressing her tickler.
Sudden the miracle ceased. The cursed orga-
nist had finished his. explanation of the new plain
chant, and. as he. touched the first notes on the piano,
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 31
E drew her legs together; I took away my hand
and she stepped down from the chair: "You darling,
darling", I whispered; but she frowned, and then
just gave me a smile out of the corner of her eye
to show me she was not displeased.
Ah, how lovely, how seductive she seemed V>
me now, a thousand times lovelier and more desirable
than ever before. As we stood up to sing again, I
whispered to her: "I love you, love you, dear, dear!"
I can never express the passion of gratitude I
felt to her for her goodness, her sweetness in letting
me touch her sex. E it was who opened the
Gates of Paradise to me and let me first taste the
hidden mysteries of sexual delight. Still, after more
than fifty years I feel the thrill of the joy she gave
me by her response, and the passionate reverence of
my gratitude is still alive in me.
This experience with E . . , . had the most impor-
tant and unlooked for results. The mere fact that
girls could feel sex pleasure "just as boys do" in-
creased my liking for them and lifted the whole
sexual intercourse to a higher plane in my thought.
The excitement and pleasure were so much more in-
tense than anything I had experienced before that I
resolved to keep myself for this higher joy. No
more self aburc for me; I knew something infinitely
better. One kiss was better, one touch of a girl's sex.
That kissing and caressing a girl could inculcate -
self -restraint is not taught by our spiritual guides
and masters; but is nevertheless true. Another cog-
nate experience came at this time to reinforce the
same lesson. J had read all Scott and his heroine
Di Vernon made a great impression on me. I resolved
now to keep all my passion for some Di Vernon in
the future. Thus the first experiences of passion anc*
4
32 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
the reading of a love story completely cured me of
the bad habit of self -abuse.
Naturally after this first divine experience, I was
on edge for a second and keen as a questing hawk.
I could not see E till the next music-lesson, a
week to wait; but even such a week comes to an end,
and once more we were imprisoned in our solitude
behind the piano ; but though I whispered all the sweet
and pleading words I could imagine, E . . . did nothing
but frown refusal and shake her pretty head. This
killed for the moment all my faith in girls: why did
she act so? I puzzled my brain for a reasonable
answer and found none. It was part of the damned
inscrutability of girls but at the moment it filled me
with furious anger. I was savage with disappoint-
ment.
"You're mean!" I whispered to her at long last
and I would have said more if the organist hadn't
called on me for a solo which I sang very badly, so
badly indeed that he made me come from behind
the piano and thus abolished even the chance of
future intimacies. Time and again I cursed organist
and girl, but I was always on the alert for a similar
experience. As dog fanciers say of hunting dogs, "I
had tasted blood and could never afterwards forget
the scent of it."
Twenty-five years or more later, I dined with
Frederic Chapman, the publisher of "The Fortnightly
Review", which I was then editing; he asked me some
weeks afterwards had I noticed a lady and described
her dress to me, adding, "She was very curious about
you. As soon as you came into the room she recogniz-
ed you and has asked me to tell her if you recognized
her; did you?"
I shook my head: "I'm near-sighted, you know",
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 33
I said, "and therefore to be forgiven, but when did
she know me?"
He replied, "As a boy at school; she said you
would remember her by her Christian name of E ".
"Of course I do", I cried, "Oh! please tell me her
name and where she lives. I'll call on her, I want
(and then reflection came to suggest prudence) to
ask her some questions", I added lamely.
"I can't give you her name or address", he re-
plied, "I promised her not to, but she's long been
happily married I was to tell you".
I pressed him but he remained obstinate, and on
second thoughts I came to see that I had no right to
push myself on a married woman who did not wish
to renew acquaintance with me, but oh! I longed to see
her and hear from her own lips the explanation of
what to me at the time seemed her inexplicable, cruel
change of attitude.
As a man, of course, I know she may have had
a very good reason indeed, and her mere name still
carries a glamour about it for me, an unforgettable
fascination.
My father was always willing to encourage self
reliance in me: indeed, he tried to make me act as a
man while I was still a mere child. The Christmas
holidays only lasted for four weeks; it was cheaper
for me, therefore, to take lodgings in some neigh
boring town rather than return to Ireland. Accor-
dingly the Headmaster received the request to give
me some seven pounds for my expenses and he did
so, adding moreover much excellent advice.
My first holiday I spent in the watering-place
of Rhyl in North Wales because a chum of mine,
Evan Morgan, came from the place and told me he'd
make it interesting for me. And in truth he did a
good deal to make me like the people and love the
34 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
place. He introduced me to three or four girls,
among whom I took a great fancy to one Gertrude
Hanniford. Gertie was over fifteen, tall and very
pretty, I thought, with long plaits of chestnut hair;
one of the best companions possible. She would kiss
me willingly; but whenever I tried to touch her more
intimately, she would wrinkle her little nose with
"Don't!" or "Don't be dirty!"
One day I said to her reproachfully : "You'll make
me couple 'dirty' with 'Gertie' if you go on using
it so often." Bit by bit she grew tamer, though all too
slowly for my desires; but luck was eager to help me.
One evening late we were together on some high
ground behind the town when suddenly there came a
great glare in the sky, which lasted two or three mi-
nutes: the next moment we were shaken by a sort
of earthquake accompanied by a dull thud.
"An explosion!" I cried, "on the railway: let's
go and see!" And away we set off for the railway.
For a hundred yards or so Gertie was as fast as I
was; but after the first quarter of a mile I had to
hold in so as not to leave her. Still for a girl she
was very fast and strong. We took a footpath along-
side the railway, for we found running over the
wooden ties, very slow and dangerous. We had
covered a little over a mile when we saw the blaze
in front of us and a crowd of figures moving about
before the glare.
In a few minutes we were opposite three or four
blazing railway carriages and the wreck of an
engine.
"How awful!" cried Gertie. "Let's get over the
fence", I replied, "and go close!" The next moment
I had thrown myself on the wooden paling and half
vaulted, half clambered over it. But Gertie's skirts
prevented her from imitating me. As she stood in
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 35
dismay, a great thought came to me: "Step on the
iow rail, Gertie", I cried, "and then on the upper one
and I'll lift you over. Quick!"
At once she did as she was told and while she
stood with a foot on each rail hesitating and her hand
on my head to steady herself, I put my right hand and
arm between her legs and pulling her at the same
moment towards me with my left hand, I lifted her
over safely but my arm was in her crotch and when I
withdrew it, my right hand stopped on her sex and
began to touch it:
It was larger than E . . .'s and had more hairs
and was just as soft but she did not give me time
to let it excite me so intensely.
"Don't!" she exclaimed angrily: "take your hand
away!" And slowly, reluctantly I obeyed, trying to
excite her first; as she still scowled: "Come quick!"
I cried and taking her hand drew her over to the
blazing wreck.
In a little while we learned what had happened:
a goods train loaded with barrels of oil had been at
the top of the siding; it began to glide down of its
own weight and ran into the Irish Express on its
way from London to Holyhead. When the two met,
the oil barrels were hurled over the engine of the
express train, caught fire on the way and poured in
flame over the first three carriages, reducing them
and their unfortunate inmates to cinders in a very
short time. There were a few persons burned and
singed in the fourth and fifth carriages; but not many.
Open-eyed we watched the gang of workmen lift out
charred things like burnt logs rather than men and
women, and lay them reverently in rows alongside the
rails: about forty bodies, if I remember rightly, we^e
taken out of that holocaust.
Suddenlv Gertie realised that it was late and
36 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
quickly hand in hand we made our way home: "they'll
be angry with me", said Gertie, "for being so late, it's
after midnight". "When you tell them what you've
seen!" I replied, "they won't wonder that we waited".
As we parted I said, "Gertie dear, I want to thank
you — " "What for" she said shortly. "You know",
I said cunningly, "it was so kind of you"
she made a face at me and ran up the steps into her
house.
Slowly I returned to my lodgings, only to find
myself the hero of the house when I told the story
in the morning.
That experience in common made Gertie and
myself great friends. She used to kiss me and say I
was sweet: once even she let me see her breasts when
I told her a girl (I didn't say who it was) had shown
hers to me once: her breasts were nearly as
large as my sister's and very pretty. Gertie
even let me touch her legs right up to the knee;
but as soon as I tried to go further, she would pull
down her dress with a frown. Still I was always
going higher, making progress; persistence brings
one closer to any goal; but alas, it was near the end
of the Christmas holidays and though I returned to
Rhyl at Easter, I never saw Gertie again.
When I was just over thirteen I tried mainly
out of pity to get up a revolt of the fags, and at first
had a partial success, but some of the little fellows
talked and as a ringleader I got a trouncing. The Mon-
itors threw me down on my face on a long desk:
one sixth form boy sat on my head and another on
my feet, and a third, it was Jones, laid on with an
ashplant. I bore it without a groan but I can never
describe the storm of rage and hate that boiled in me.
Do English fathers really believe that such work is
a part of education? It made me murderous. When
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 37
they let me up, I looked at Jones and if looks could
kill, he'd have had short shrift. He tried to hit me
but I dodged ilie blow and went out to plot revenge.
Jones was the head of the cricket First Eleven in
which I too was given a place just for my bowling.
Vernon of the Sixth was the chief bowler, but I was
second, the only boy in the lower school who was
in the Eleven at all. Soon afterwards a team from
some other school came over to play us: the rival
captains met before the tent, all on their best
behaviour; for some reason, Vernon not being ready
or something, I was given the new ball. A couple of
the masters stood near. Jones lost the toss and said
to the rival captain very politely, "If you're ready.
Sir! we'll go out". The other captain bowed smiling,
my chance had come:
"I'm not going to play with you, you brute!' 1 I
cried and dashed the ball in Jones's face.
He was very quick and throwing his head aside,
escaped the full force of the blow; still the seam of
the new ball grazed his cheek-bone and broke the
skin: everyone stood amazed: only people who know
the strength of English conventions can realise the
sensation. Jones himself did not know what to do
but took out his handkerchief to mop the blood, the
skin being just broken. As for me, I walked away by
myself. I had broken the supreme law of our school-
boy honour: never to give away our dissensions to a
master, still less to boys and masters from another
school; I had sinned in public, too, and before
everyone; I'd be universaly condemned.
The truth is, I was desperate, dreadfully
unhappy, for since the breakdown of the fags' revolt
the lower boys had drawn away from me and the
older boys never spoke to me if they could help it and
then it was alwavs as "Pat".
38 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
I felt myself an outcast and was utterly lonely
and miserable as only despised outcasts can be. I
was sure, too, I should be expelled and knew my
father would judge me harshly; he was always on
the side of the authorities and masters. However,
the future was not to be as gloomy as my imagination
pictured it.
The Mathematical Master was a young Cam-
bridge man of perhaps six and twenty, Stackpole by
name: I had asked him one day about a problem in
algebra and he had been kind to me. On returning to
the school this fatal afternoon about six, I happened
to meet him on the edge of the playing field and by
a little sympathy he soon drew out my whole story.
"I want to be expelled. I hate the beastly
school", was my cry. All the charm of the Irish
schools was fermenting in me : I missed the kindliness
of boy to boy and of the masters to the boys; above all
the imaginative fancies of fairies and "the little
people" which had been taught us by our nurses and
though only half believed in; yet enriched and glorified
life, — all this was lost to me. My head in especial,
was full of stories of Banshees and fairy queens and
heroes, half due to memory, half to my own shaping,
which made me a desirable companion to Irish boys
and only got me derision from the English.
"I wish I had known that you were being
fagged". Stackpole said when he had heard all, 'I
can easily remedy that", and he went with me to
the schoolroom and then and there erased my name
from the fags' list and wrote in my name in the First
Mathematical Division.
"There", he said with a smile, "you are now in
the Upper School where you belong. I think", he
added, "I had better go and tell the Doctor wliat
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 39
I've done. Don't be down-hearted, Harris", he added,
"it'll all come right."
Next day the Sixth did nothing except cut out
my name from the list of the First Eleven: I was
told that Jones was going to thrash me but I start-
led my informant by saying: "I'll put a knife into hira
if he lays a hand on me : you can tell him so."
In fact, however, I was half sent to Coventry and
what hurt me most was that it was the boys of the
Lower School who were coldest to me, the very boys
for whom I had been righting. That gave me a bitter
foretaste of what was to happen to me again and
again all through my life.
The partial boycotting of me didn't affect me
much; I went for long walks in the beautiful park
of Sir W. W near the school.
I have said many harsh things here of English
school life; but for me it had two great redeeming
features: the one was the library which was open
to every boy, and the other the physical training of
the playing fields, the various athletic exercises and
the gymnasium. The library to me for some months
meant Walter Scott. How right George Eliot was
to speak of him as "making the joy of many a young
life". Certain scenes of his made ineffaceable im-
pressions on me though unfortunately not always his
best work. The wrestling match between the Puritan,
Balfour of Burleigh and the soldier was one of my
beloved passages. Another favorite page was approv-
ed, too, by my maturer judgment, the brave suicide
of the little atheist apothecary in the "Fair Maid of
Perth". But Scott's finest work, such as the character
painting of old Scotch servants, left me cold. Dickens
I never could stomach, either as a boy or in later life-
'His "Tale of Two Cities" and "Nicholas Nickleby"
seemed to me then about the best and I've never had
40 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
any desire since to revise my judgment after reading
"David Copperfield" in my student days and finding
men painted by a name or phrase or gesture, women
by their modesty and souls by some silly catchword;
"the mere talent of the caricaturist", I said to myself,
"at his best another Hogarth".
Naturally the romances and tales of adventure
were all swallowed whole; but few affected me
vitally: "The Chase of the White Horse" by Mayne
Reid, lives with me still because of the love-scenes with
the Spanish heroine, and Marryat's "Peter Simple"
which I read a hundred times and could read again
tomorrow; for there is better character painting in
Chucks, the boatswain, than in all Dickens, in my
poor opinion. I remember being astounded ten years
later when Carlyle spoke of Marryat with contempt.
I knew he was unfair, just as I am probably unfair
to Dickens: after all, even Hogarth has one or two
good pictures to his credit, and no one survives even
three generations without some merit.
In my two years I read every book in the library,
and half a dozen are still beloved by me.
I profited, too, from all games and exercises. I
was no good at cricket ; I was shortsighted and caught
some nasty knocks through an unsuspected
astigmatism; but I had an extraordinary knack of
bowling which, as I have stated, put me in the First
Eleven. I liked football and was good at it. I took
t he keenest delight in every form of exercise : I could
jump and run better than almost any boy of my age
and in wrestling and a little later in boxing, was
among the best in the school. In the gymnasium, too.
I practiced assiduously; I was so eager to excel that
the teacher was continually advising me to go slow.
At fourteen I could pull myself up with my right
hand till mv chin was above the bar.
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 41
In all games the English have a high ideal of
fairness and courtesy. No one ever took an unfair
advantage of another and courtesy was a law. If
another school sent a team to play us at cricket or
football, the victors aways cheered the vanquished
when the game was over, and it was a rule for the
Captain to thank the Captain of the visitors for his
kindness in coming and for the good game he had
given us. This custom obtained too in the Royal
Schools in Ireland that were founded for the English
garrison, but I couldn't help noting that these-
courtesies were not practiced in ordinary Irish
schools. It was for years the only tiling in which
T had to admit the superiority of John Bull.
The ideal of a gentleman is not a very high one.
Klmerson says somewhere that the evolution of the
gentleman is the chief spiritual product of the last
two or three centuries; but the concept, it seems to
me, dwarfs the ideal. A "gentleman" to me is a thing
of some parts but no magnitude: one should be a
gentleman and much more: a thinker, guide or artist.
English custom in the games taught me the value
and need of courtesy, and athletics practiced assi-
duously did much to steel and strengthen my control
of all my bodily desires: they gave my mind and
reason the mastery of me. At the same time they
taught me the laws of health and the necessity of
obeying them.
I found out that by drinking little at meals I
could reduce my weight very quickly and was thereby
enabled to jump higher than ever; but when I went
on reducing I learned that there was a limit beyond
which, if I persisted, I began to lose strength: athlet-
ics taught me what the French call the juste milieu,
the middle path of moderation.
42 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
When I was about fourteen I discovered that to
think of love before going to sleep was to dream of
it during the night. And this experience taught me
something else; if I repeated any lesson just before
going to sleep, I knew it perfectly next morning; the
mind, it seems, works even during unconsciousness.
Often since, I have solved problems during sleep in
mathematics and in chess that have puzzled me during
the day.
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND.
Chapter III.
I n my thirteenth year the most important experience-
took place of my schoolboy life. Walking out one-
day with a West Indian boy of sixteen or so, I admit-
ted that I was going to be "confirmed" in the Church
of England. I was intensely religious at this time
and took the whole rite with appalling seriousness^
"Believe and thou shalt be saved" rang in my ears
day and night, but I had no happy conviction. Be-
lieve what? "Believe in me, Jesus". Of course I be-
lieve; then I should be happy, and I was not happy..
"Believe not" and eternal damnation and eternal
torture follow. My soul revolted at the iniquity of
the awful condemnation. What became of the myr-
iads who had not heard of Jesus? It was all a hor-
rible puzzle to me; but the radiant figure and sweet
teaching of Jesus just enabled me to believe and re-
solve to live as he had lived, unselfishly — purely.
I never liked that word "purely" and used to relegate
it to the darkest background of my thought. But I
would try to be good — I'd try at least!
"Do you believe all the fairy stories in the Bible?"
my companion asked.
"Of course I do", I replied, "It's the Word of
God, isn't it?" "Who is God?" asked the West Indian.
44 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"He made the world", I added, "alt this wonder"
— and with a gesture I included earth and sky.
"Who made God!" asked my companion.
I turned away stricken: in a flash I saw I had
•been building on a word taught to me: "who made
{jod?" I walked away alone, up the long meadow
by the little brook, my thoughts in a whirl : story after
story that I had accepted were now to me "fairy
stories". Jonah hadn't lived three days in a whale's
belly. A man couldn't get down a whale's throat.
The Gospel of Matthew began with Jesus' pedigree,
showing that he had been born of the seed of David
through Joseph, Ms father, and in the very next
chapter you are told that Joseph wasn't his father;
but the Holy Ghost. In an hour the whole fabric
of my spiritual beliefs lay in ruins about me: I be-
lieved none of it, not a jot, nor a tittle: I felt as
though I had been stripped naked to the cold.
Suddenly a joy came to me: if Christianity was
4ill lies and fairy-tales like Mahometanism, then the
prohibitions of it were ridiculous and I could kiss and
have any girl who would yield to me. At once I was
partially reconciled to my spiritual nakedness: there
was compensation.
The loss of my beliefs was for a long time very
painful to me. One day I told Stackpole of my in-
fidelity and he recommended me to read "Butler's
Analogy" and keep an open mind. Butler finished
what the West Indian had begun and in my thirst for
some certainty I took up a course of deeper reading.
In Stackpole's rooms one day I came across a book
of Huxley's Essays; in an hour I had swallowed them
and proclaimed myself an "agnostic"; that's what I
was; I knew nothing surely, but was willing to learn.
I aged ten years mentally in the next six months:
I was always foraging for books to convince me and
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 45
at length got hold of Hume's argument against mi-
racles. That put an end to all my doubts, satisfied
me finally. Twelve years later, when studying phil-
osophy in Goettingen, I saw that Hume's reasoning
was not conclusive but for the time I was cured. At
midsummer I refused to be confirmed. For weeks
before, I had been reading the Bible for the most in-
credible stories in it and the smut, which I retailed at
night to the delight of the boys in the big bedroom.
This year as usual I spent the midsummer holi-
days in Ireland. My father had made his house with
my sister Nita wherever Vernon happened to be sent
by his Bank. This summer was passed in Ballybay in
County Monaghan, I think. I remember little or
nothing about the village save that there was a noble
series of reed-fringed lakes near the place which
gave good duck and snipe shooting to Vernon in the
autumn.
These holidays were memorable to me for several
incidents. A conversation began one day at din-
ner between my sister and my eldest brother about
making up to girls and winning them. I noticed with
astonishment that my brother Vernon was very de-
ferential to my sister's opinion on the matter, so I
immediately got hold of Nita after the lunch and
asked her to explain to me what she meant by "flat-
tery". "You said all girls like flattery. What did
you mean?"
"I mean", she said, "they all like to be told they
are pretty, that they have good eyes or good teeth or
good hair, as the case may be, or that they are tall
and nicely made. They all like their good points no-
ticed and praised."
"Is that all?" I asked. "Oh no!" she said, "they
all like their dress noticed too and especially their
hat; if it suits their face, if it's very pretty and so
46 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
forth ... All girls think that if you notice their
clothes you really like them, for most men don't."
"Number two", I said to myself: "is there any-
thing elsel"
"Of course", she said, "you must say that the
girl you are with, is the prettiest girl in the room or
in the town, in fact is quite unlike any other girl,
superior to all the rest, the only girl in the world for
you. All women like to be the only girl in the world
for as many men as possible."
"Number three", I said to myself: "Don't they
like to be kissed?" I asked.
"That comes afterwards", said my sister, "lots of
men begin with kissing and pawing you about before
you even like them. That puts you off. Flattery
first of looks and dress, then devotion and afterwards
the kissing comes naturally."
"Number four!" I went over these four things
again and again to myself and began trying them
even on the older girls and women about me and soon
found that they all had a better opinion of me almost
immediately.
I remember practicing my new knowledge first
on the younger Miss Raleigh whom, I thought, Vernon
liked. I just praised her as my sister had advised:
first her eyes and hair (she had very pretty blue eyes).
To my astonishment she smiled on me at once; accor-
dingly I went on to say she was the prettiest girl in
the town and suddenly she took my head in her hands
and kissed me, saying "You're a dear boy!"
But my great experience was yet to come. There
was a very good-looking man whom I met two or
three times at parties; I think his name was Tom
Connolly: I'm not certain, though I ought not to
forget it; for I can see him as plainly as if he were
before me now: five feet ten or eleven, very handsome
A
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 47
with shaded violet eyes. Everybody was telling a
story about him that had taken place on his visit to
the Viceroy in Dublin. It appeared that the Vicereine
had a very pretty French maid and Tom Connolly
made up to the maid. One night the Vicereine was
taken ill and sent her husband up stairs to call the
maid. When the husband knocked at the maid's door,
saying that his wife wanted her, Tom Connolly re-
plied in a strong voice:
"It's unfriendly of you to interrupt a man at
such a time."
The Viceroy, of course, apologized immediately
and hurried away, but like a fool he told the story
to his wife who was very indignant and next day at
breakfast she put an aide-de-camp on her right and
Tom Connolly's place far down the table. As usual,
Connolly came in late and the moment he saw the
arrangement of the places, he took it all in and went
o\er to the aide-de-camp.
"Now, young man", he said, "you'll have many
opportunities later, so give me my place", and forth-
with turned him out of his place and took his seat by
the Vicereine, though she would barely speak to him.
At length Tom Connolly said to her: "I wouldn't
have thought it of you, for you're so kind. Fancy
blaming a poor young girl the first time she yields
to a man!"
This response made the whole table roar and esta-
blished Connolly's fame for impudence throughout
Ireland.
Everyone was talking of him and I went about
after him all through the gardens and whenever he
spoke, my large ears were cocked to hear any word
of wisdom that might fall from his lips. At length he
noticed me and asked me why I followed him about.
48 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"Everybody says you can win any woman you
like, Mr. Connolly"; I said half -ashamed : "I want to
know how you do it, what you say to them."
"Faith, I don't know", he said, "but you're a
funny little fellow. What age are you to be asking
such questions'!"
"I'm fourteen", I said boldly.
"I wouldn't have given you fourteen, but even
fourteen is too young; you must wait." So I with-
drew but still kept within earshot.
I heard him laughing with my eldest brother over
my question and so imagined that I was forgiven,
and the next day or the day after, finding me as
assiduous as ever, he said:
"You know, your question amused me and I
thought I would try to find an answer to it and here
is one. When you can put a stiff penis in her hand
and weep profusely the while, you're getting near any
woman's heart. But don't forget the tears." I found
the advice a counsel of perfection; I was unable to
weep at such a moment; but I never forgot the words.
There was a large barracks of Irish Constabulary
in Ballybay and the Sub-Inspector was a handsome
fellow of fLve feet nine or ten named Walter Raleigh.
He used to say that he was a descendant of the fam-
ous courtier of Queen Elizabeth and he pronounced
his name "Holly" and assured us that his illustrious
namesake had often spelt it in this way, which showed
that he must have pronounced it as if written with an
"o". The reason I mention Raleigh here is that his
sisters and mine were great friends and he came in
and out of our house almost as if it were his own.
Every evening when Vernon and Raleigh had
nothing better to do, they cleared away the chairs in
our back parlor, put on boxing gloves and had a set-
to. My father used to sit in a corner and watch them:
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 49
Vernon was lighter and smaller; but quicker; still I
used to think that Raleigh did not put out his full
strength against him.
One of the first evenings when Vernon was com-
plaining that Raleigh hadn't come in or sent, my
father said: "Why not try, Joel" (my nickname!)
In a jiffy I had the gloves on and got my first lesson
from Vernon who taught me at least how to hit
straight and then how to guard and side-step. I was
very quick and strong for my size; but for some time
Vernon hit me very lightly. Soon, however, it became
difficult for him to hit me at all and then I sometimes
got a heavy blow that floored me. But with constant
practice I improved rapidly and after a fortnight or
so put on the gloves once with Raleigh. His blows
were very much heavier and staggered me even to
guard them, so I got accustomed to duck or side-step
or slip every blow aimed at me while hitting back
with all my strength. One evening when Vernon and
Raleigh both had been praising me, I told them of
Jones and how he bullied me; he had really made my
life a misery to me: he never met me outside the
school without striking or kicking me and his favo-
rite name for me was "bog-trotter!" His attitude, too,
affected the whole school: I had grown to hate him as
much as I feared him.
They both thought I could beat him; but I des-
cribed him as very strong and finally Raleigh decided
to send for two pairs of four ounce gloves or fighting
gloves and use these with me to give me confidence.
In the first half-hour with the new gloves Vernon did
not hit me once and I had to acknowledge that he was
stronger and quicker even than Jones. At the end of
the holidays they both made me promise to slap
Jones's face the very first time I saw Mm in the
school.
5,
50 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
On returning to school we always met in the big
schoolroom. When I entered the room there was
silence. I was dreadfully excited and frightened, I
don't know why ; but fully resolved : "he can't kill me",
I said to myself a thousand times; still I was in a
trembling funk inwardly though composed enough in
outward seeming. Jones and two others of the Sixth
stood in front of the empty fire-place: I went up to
them: Jones nodded, "How d'ye do, Pat!"
"Fairly", I said, "but why do you take all the
room?" and I jostled him aside: he immediately
pushed me hard and I slapped his face as I had pro-
mised. The elder boys held him back or the fight
would have taken place then and there: "will you
fight V he barked at me and I replied, "as much as
you like, bully!" It was arranged that the fight
should take place on the next afternoon, which hap-
pened to be a Wednesday and half -holiday. From
three to six would give us time enough. That evening
Stackpole asked me to his room and told me he would
get the Doctor to stop the fight if I wished; I assured
him it had to be and I preferred to have it settled.
"I'm afraid he's too old and strong for you", said
Stackpole: I only smiled.
Next day the ring was made at the top of the
playing field behind the haystack so that we could not
be seen from the school. All the Sixth and nearly all
the school stood behind Jones; but Stackpole, while
ostensibly strolling about, was always close to me. I
felt very grateful to him: I don't know why; but his
presence took away from my loneliness. At first the
fight was almost like a boxing-match. Jones shot out
his left hand, my head slipped it and I countered
with my right in his face: a moment later he rushed
me but I ducked and side-stepped and hit him hard
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 51
on the chin. I could feel the astonishment of the
school in the dead silence:
"Good, good!" cried Stackpole behind me: "that's
the way." And indeed it was the "way" of the fight
in every round except one. We had been hard at it
for some eight or ten minutes when I felt Jones get-
ting weaker or losing his breath: at once I went in
attacking with all my might; when suddenly, as luck
would have it, I caught a right swing just under the
left ear and was knocked clean off my feet: he could
hit hard enough, that was clear. As I went into the
middle of the ring for the next round Jones jeered
at me:
"You got that, didn't ye, Pat!"
"Yes", I replied, "but I'll beat you black and blue
for it" and the fight went on. I had made up my
mind, lying on the ground, to strike only at his face.
He was short and strong and my body-blows didn't
seem to make any impression on him; but if I could
blacken all his face, the masters and especially the
Doctor would understand what had happened.
Again and again Jones swung, first with right
hand and then with his left, hoping to knock me down
again; but my training had been too varied and com-
plete and the knock-down blow had taught me the
necessary caution: I ducked his swings, or side-stepped
them and hit him right and left in the face till sud-
denly his nose began to bleed and Stackpole cried out
behind me in huge excitement: "that's the way, that's
the way; keep on peppering him!"
As I turned to smile at him, I found that a lot of
the fags, former chums of mine, had come round to
my corner and now were all smiling encouragement
at me and bold exhortations to "give it him hard".
I then realized for the first time that I had only to
keep on and be careful and the victory would be mine.
52 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
A cold, hard exultation took the place of nervous ex-
citement in me, and when I struck, I tried to cut with
my knuckles as Raleigh had once shown me.
The bleeding of Jones's nose took some time to
stop and as soon as he came into the middle of the
ring, I started it again with another righthander.
After this round, his seconds and backers kept him
so long in his corner that at length, on Stackpoie's
whispered advice, I went over and said to him: "Either
fight or give in: I'm catching cold". He came out at
once and rushed at me full of fight, but his face was
all one bruise and his left eye nearly closed. Every
chance I got, I struck at the right eye till it was in
an even worse case.
It is strange to me since that I never once felt
pity for him and offered to stop : the truth is, he had
bullied me so relentlessly and continually, had woun-
ded my pride so often in public that even at the end
I was filled with cold rage against him. I noticed
everything: I saw that a couple of the Sixth went
away towards the schoolhouse and afterwards retur-
ned with Shaddy, the second master. As they came
round the haystack, Jones came out into the ring;
he struck savagely right and left as I came within
striking distance, but I slipped in outside his weaker
left and hit him as hard as I could, first right, then
left on the chin and down he went on his back.
At once there was a squeal of applause from the
little fellows in my corner and I saw that Stackpole
had joined Shaddy near Jones's corner. Suddenly
Shaddy came right up to the ringside and spoke, to
my astonishment, with a certain dignity:
"This fight must stop now", he said loudly, "if
another blow is struck or word said, I'll report the
disobedience to the Doctor." Without a word I went
and put on my coat and waistcoat and collar, while
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 53
his friends of the Sixth escorted Jones to the school-
house.
I had never had so many friends and admirers in
my life as came up to me then to congratulate me and
testify to their admiration and goodwill. The whole
lower school was on my side, it appeared, and had
been from the outset, and one or two of the Sixth,
Herbert in especial, came over and praised me
warmly: "A great fight", said Herbert, "and now
perhaps we'll have less bullying: at any rate", he
added humorously, "no one will want to bully you:
you're a pocket professional: where did you learn
to box?"
I had sense enough to smile and keep my own
counsel. Jones didn't appear in school that night:
indeed, for days after he was kept in sick-bay up-
stairs. The fags and lower school boys brought me all
sorts of stories how the doctor had come and said
"he feared erysipelas: the bruises were so large and
Jones must stay in bed and in the dark!" and a host
of other details.
One thing was quite clear; my position in the
school was radically changed: Stackpole spoke to the
Doctor and I got a seat by myself in his class-room
and only went to the form-master for special lessons:
Stackpole became more than ever my teacher and
friend.
When Jones first appeared in the school, we met
in the Sixth room while waiting for the Doctor to
come in. I was talking with Herbert; Jones came
in and nodded to me: I went over and held out my
hand, "I'm glad you're all right again!" He shook
hands but said nothing. Herbert's nod and smile
showed me I had done right. "Bygones should be
bygones", he said in English fashion. I wrote the
whole story to Vernon that night, thanking him,
54 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
you may be sure, and Raleigh for the training and
encouragement they had given me.
My whole outlook on life was permanently alter-
ed: I was cock-a-hoop and happy. One night I got
thinking of E and for the first time in months
practiced Onanism. But next day I felt heavy and
resolved that belief or no belief, self-restraint was a
good thing for the health. All the next Christmas
holidays spent in Rhyl, I tried to get intimate with
some girl ; but failed. As soon as I tried to touch even
their breasts, they drew away. I liked girls fully
formed and they all thought, I suppose, that I was too
young and too small: if they had only known!
One more incident belongs in this thirteenth year,
and is worthy perhaps of record. Freed of the bullying
and senseless cruelty of the older boys who for the
most part, still siding with Jones, left me severely
alone, the restraints of school life began to irk me,
"If I were free", I said to myself, "I'd go after E
or some other girl and have a great time; as it is, I
can do nothing, hope for nothing." Life was stale, flat
and unprofitable to me. Besides, I had read nearly
all the books I thought worth reading in the school
library, and time hung heavy on my hands: I began
to long for liberty as a caged bird.
What was the quickest way out! I knew that
my father as a Captain in the Navy could give me or
get me a nomination so that I might become a Mid-
shipman. Of course I'd have to be examined before
I was fourteen; but I knew I could win a high place
in any test.
The summer vacation after I was thirteen on the
14th of February I spent at home in Ireland as I have
told, and from time to time, bothered my father to
get me the nomination. He promised he would, and
I took his promise seriously. All the autumn I stu-
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 55
died carefully the subjects I was to be examined in
and from time to time wrote to my father reminding
him of his promise. But he seemed unwilling to
touch on the matter in his letters which were mostly
filled with Biblical exhortations, that sickened me
with contempt for his brainless credulity. My un-
belief made me feel immeasurably superior to him.
Christmas came and I wrote him a serious letter,
insisting that he should keep his promise. For the
first time in my life I flattered him, saying that I
knew his word was sacred: but the time-limit was at
hand and I was getting nervous lest some official
delay might make me pass the prescribed limit of
age. I got no reply: I wrote to Vernon who said he
would do his best with the Governor. The days went
on, the 14th of February came and went: I was four-
teen. That way of escape into the wide world was
closed to me by my father. I raged in hatred of him.
How was I to get free? Where should I go?
What should I do? One day in an illustrated paper in
'68, I read of the discovery of the diamonds in the
Cape, and then of the opening of the Diamond fields.
That prospect tempted me and I read all I could about
South Africa, but one day I found that the cheapest
passage to the Cape cost fifteen pounds and I despair-
ed. Shortly afterwards I read that a steerage pas-
sage to New York could be had for five pounds; that
amount seemed to me possible to get; for there was
a prize of ten pounds for books to be given to the
second in the Mathematical scholarship exam that
would take place in the summer: I thought I could
win that, and I set myself to study Mathematics
harder than ever.
The result was — but I shall tell the result in its
proper place. Meanwhile I began reading about
America and soon learned of the buffalo and Indians
56 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
on the Great Plains and a myriad entrancing romantic
pictures opened to my boyish imagining. I wanted
to see the world and I had grown to dislike England;
its snobbery, though I had caught the disease, was
loathsome and worse still, its spirit of sordid self-in-
terest. The rich boys were favored by all the Masters,
even by Stackpole; I was disgusted with English life
as I saw it. Yet there were good elements in it which
I could not but see, which I shall try to indicate later.
Towards the middle of this winter term it was
announced that at Midsummer, besides a scene from
a play of Plautus to be given in Latin, the trial-scene
of "The Merchant of Venice" would also be played —
of course, by boys of the Fifth and Sixth form only,
and rehearsals immediately began. Naturally I took
out "The Merchant of Venice" from the school library
and in one day knew it by heart. I could learn good
poetry by a single careful reading: bad poetry or
prose was much harder.
Nothing in the play appealed to me except
Shylock and the first time I heard Fawcett of the
Sixth recite the part, I couldn't help grinning: he
repeated the most passionate speeches like a lesson
in a singsong, monotonous voice. For days I went
about spouting Shylock's defiance and one day, as
luck would have it, Stackpole heard me. We had
become great friends : I had done all Algebra with him
and was now devouring trigonometry, resolved to do
Conic Sections afterwards, and then the Calculus.
Already there was only one boy who was my superior
and he was Captain of the Sixth, Gordon, a big fellow
of over seventeen, who intended to go to Cambridge
with the eighty Pound Mathematical Scholarship that
summer.
Stackpole told the Head that I would be a good
Shylock: Fawcett to my amazement didn't want to
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 57
play the Jew: he found it difficult even to learn the
part, and finally it was given to me. I was parti-
cularly elated for I felt sure I could make a great hit.
One day my sympathy with the bullied got me a
friend. The Vicar's son Edwards was a nice boy of
fourteen who had grown rapidly and was not strong.
A brute of sixteen in the Upper Fifth was twisting
his arm and hitting him on the writhen muscle and
Edwards was trying hard not to cry. "Leave him
alone, Johnson", I said, "why do you bully ?" "You
ought to have a taste of it", he cried, letting Edwards
go, however.
"Don't try it on if you're wise", I retorted.
"Pat would like us to speak to him", he sneered
and turned away. I shrugged my shoulders.
Edwards thanked me warmly for rescuing him
and I asked him to come for a walk. He accepted and
our friendship began, a friendship memorable for
bringing me one novel and wonderful experience.
The Vicarage was a large house with a good deal
of ground about it. Edwards had some sisters but
they were too young to interest me; the French
governess, on the other hand, Mile. Lucille, was very
attractive with her black eyes and hair and quick,
vivacious manner. She was of medium height and not
more than eighteen. I made up to her at once and
tried to talk French with her from the beginning.
She was very kind to me and we got on together at
once. She was lonely, I suppose, and I began well
by telling her she was the prettiest girl in the whole
place and the nicest. She translated nicest, I
remember, as la plus chic.
The next half-holiday Edwards went into the
house for something. I told her I wanted a kiss, and
she said:
"You're only a boy, mais gentil", and she kissed
58 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
me. When my lips dwelt on hers, she took my head in
her hands, pushed it away and looked at me with
surprise.
"You are a strange boy", she said musingly.
The next holiday I spent at the Vicarage. I gave
her a little French love-letter I had copied from a
book in the school library and I was delighted when
she read it and nodded at me, smiling, and tucked it
away in her bodice : "near her heart" I said to myself,
but I had no chance even of a kiss for Edwards
always hung about. But late one afternoon he was
called away by his mother for something, and my
opportunity came.
We usually sat in a sort of rustic summerhouse
in the garden. This afternoon Lucille was seated
leaning back in an armchair right in front of the door,
for the day was sultry-close, and when Edwards went,
I threw myself on the doorstep at her feet: her dress
clung to her form, revealing the outlines of her thighs
and breasts seductively. I was wild with excitement.
Suddenly I noticed her legs were apart; I could see
her slim ankles. Pulses awoke throbbing in my
forehead and throat: I begged for a kiss and got on
my knees to take it: she gave me one; but when I
persisted, she repulsed me, saying:
"Non, non! sois sage!"
As I returned to my seat reluctantly, the thought
came, "put your hand up her clothes"; I felt sure I
could reach her sex. She was seated on the edge of
the chair and leaning back. The mere idea shook and
scared me: but what can she do, I thought: she can
only get angry. I thought again of all possible
consequences : the example with E came to en-
courage and hearten me. I leaned round and knelt in
front of her smiling, begging for a kiss, and as she
smiled in return, I put my hand boldly right up her
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 59
clothes on her sex. I felt the soft hairs and the form
of it in breathless ecstasy; but I scarcely held it when
she sprang upright: "how dare you!" she cried
trying to push my hand away.
My sensations were too overpowering for words
or act; my life was in my fingers; I held her cunt. A
moment later I tried to touch her gently with my
middle finger as I had touched E : 'twas a
mistake: I no longer held her sex and at once Lucille
whirled round and was free.
"I have a good mind to strike you", she cried;
'Til tell Mrs. Edwards", she snorted indignantly.
"You're a bad, bad boy and I thought you nice. I'll
never be kind to you again: I hate you!" she fairly
stamped with anger.
I went to her, my whole being one prayer. "Don't
please spoil it all", I cried. "You hurt so when you
are angry, dear". She turned to me hotly: "I'm
really angry, angry", she panted, "and you're a hateful
rude boy and I don't like you any more", and she
turned away again, shaking her dress straight. "Oh,
how could I help it I" I began, "You're so pretty, oh,
you are wonderful, Lucille".
"Wonderful", she repeated, sniffing disdainfully,,
but I saw she was mollified.
"Kiss me", I pleaded, "and don't be cross."
"I'll never kiss you again", she replied quickly,
"you can be sure of that". I went on begging,
praising, pleading for ever so long, till at length she
took my head in her hands, saying:
"If you'll promise never to do that again, never,
I'll give you a kiss and try to forgive you".
"I can't promise", I said, "it was too sweet; but
kiss me and I'll try to be good".
She kissed me a quick peck and pushed me away.
"Didn't you like it?" I whispered, "I did awfully.
60 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
[ can't tell you how I thrilled: oh, thank you, Lucille,
thank you, you are the sweetest girl in all the world,
and I shall always be grateful to you, you dear!"
She looked down at me musingly, thoughtfully; I
felt I was gaining ground:
"You are lovely there", I ventured in a whisper,
"please, dear, what do you call it? I saw ''chat' once:
is that right, 'pussy'!"
"Don't talk of it", she cried impatiently, "I hate
to think — "
"Be kind, Lucille", I pleaded, "you'll never be the
same to me again: you were pretty before, chic and
provoking, but now you're sacred. I don't love you,
I adore you, reverence you, darling! May I say
'pussy' !"
"You're a strange boy", she said at length, "but
you must never do that again; it's nasty and I don't
like it. I — "
"Don't say such things!" I cried, pretending in-
dignation, "you don't know what you're saying —
nasty! Look, I'll kiss the fingers that have touched
your pussy", and I suited the action to the word.
"Oh, don't!" she cried and caught my hand in
hers, "don't!" but somehow she leaned against me at
the same time and left her lips on mine. Bit by bit
my right hand went down to her sex again, this time
on the outside of her dress, but at once she tore her-
self away and would not let me come near her again.
My insane desire had again made me blunder! Yet
she had half -yielded, I knew, and that consciousness
set me thrilling with triumph and hope, but alas! at
that moment we heard Edwards shout to us as he
left the house to rejoin us.
This experience had two immediate and unlooked
for consequences: first of all, I could not sleep that
night for thinking of Lucille's sex; it was like a large
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 61
fig split in the middle, and set in a mesh of soft hairs:
I could feel it still on my fingers and my sex stood
stiff and throbbed with desire for it.
When I fell asleep I dreamed of Lucille, dreamed
that she had yielded to me and I was pushing my sex
into hers ; but there was some obstacle and while I was
pushing, pushing, my seed spirted in an orgasm of
pleasure •— and at once I awoke and, putting down
my hand, found that I was still coming: the sticky,
hot, milk-like sperm was all over my hairs and prick.
I got up and washed and returned to bed; the cold
water had quieted me; but soon by thinking of Lucille
and her soft, hot, hairy "pussy", I grew randy again
and in this state fell asleep. Again I dreamed of Lu-
cille and again I was trying, trying in vain to get
into her when again the spasm of pleasure overtook
me; I felt my seed spirting hot and — I awoke.
But lo! when I put my hand down, there was no
seed, only a little moisture just at the head of my sex
— nothing more. Did it mean that I could only
give forth seed once? I tested myself at once: while
picturing Lucille's sex, its soft hot roundnesses and
hairs, I caressed my sex, moving my hand faster up
and down till soon I brought on the orgasm of pleas-
ure and felt distinctly the hot thrills as if my seed
were spirting, but nothing came, hardly even the
moisture.
Next morning I tested myself at the high jump
and found I couldn't clear the bar at an inch lower
than usual. I didn't know what to do: why had I
indulged so foolishly?
But next night the dream of Lucille came back
again, and again I awoke after an acute spasm of
pleasure, all wet with my own seed. What was I to
do? I got up and washed and put cold water in a
sponge on my testicles and sex and all chilled crawled
62 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
back into bed. But imagination was master. Time
and again the dream came and awakened me. In the
morning I felt exhausted, washed-out and needed no
test to assure me that I was physically below par.
That same afternoon I picked up by chance a little
piece of whipcord and at once it occurred to me that
if I tied this hard cord round my penis, as soon as
the organ began to swell and stiffen in excitement,
the cord would grow tight and awake me with the
pain.
That night I tied up Tommy and gave myself up
to thoughts of Lucille's private parts: as soon as my
sex stood and grew stiff, the whipcord hurt dreadfully
and I had to apply cold water at once to reduce my
unruly member to ordinary proportions. I returned
to bed and went to sleep: I had a short sweet dream
of Lucille's beauties but then awoke in agony. I got
up quickly and sat on the cold marble slab of the
washing-stand. That acted more speedily than even
the cold water; whyl I didn't learn the reason for
many a year.
The cord was effective, did all I wanted: after
this experience I wore it regularly and within a week
was again able to walk under the bar and afterwards
jump it, able too to pull myself up with one hand till
my chin was above the bar. I had conquered temp-
tation and once more was captain of my body.
The second unsuspected experience was also a
direct result, I believe, of my sex-awakening with Lu-
cille and the intense sex-excitement. At all events it
came just after the love-passages with her that I have
described and post hoc is often propter hoc.
I had never yet noticed the beauties of nature;
indeed whenever I came across descriptions of sce-
nery in my reading, I always skipped them as weari-
some. Now of a sudden, in a moment, my eyes were
/
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 63
unsealed to natural beauties. I remember the scene
and my rapt wonder as if it were yesterday. It was a
bridge across the Dee near Overton in full sunshine;
on my right the river made a long curve, swirling deep
under a wooded height, leaving a little tawny sand-
bank half bare just opposite to me: on my left both
banks, thickly wooded, drew together and passed
round a curve out of sight. I was entranced and
speechless — enchanted by the sheer color-beauty of
the scene — sunlit water there and shadowed here,
reflecting the gorgeous vesture of the wooded height.
And when I left the place and came out again and
looked at the adjoining cornfields, golden against the
green of the hedgerows and scattered trees, the colors
took on a charm I had never noticed before: I could
not understand what had happened to me.
It was the awakening of sex-life in me, I believe,
that first revealed to me the beauty of inanimate
nature.
A night or two later I was ravished by a moon
nearly at the full that flooded our playing field with
ivory radiance, making the haystack in the corner a
thing of supernal beauty.
Why had I never before seen the wonder of the
world? the sheer loveliness of nature all about mel
From this time on I began to enjoy descriptions of
scenery in the books I read and began, too, to love
landscapes in painting.
Thank goodness! the miracle was accomplished,
at long last, and my life enriched, ennobled, trans-
figured as by the bounty of a God! From that day
on I began to live an enchanted life; for at once I
tried to see beauty everywhere, and at all times, of
day and night caught glimpses that ravished me with
delight and turned my being into a hymn of praise
and joy.
64 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Faith had left me and with faith, hope in Heaven
or indeed in any future existence: saddened and fear-
ful, I was as one in prison with an undetermined sen-
tence; but now in a moment the prison had become a
paradise, the walls of the actual had fallen away into
frames of entrancing pictures. Dimly I became con-
scious that if this life were sordid and mean, petty
and unpleasant, the fault was in myself and in my
blindness. I began then for the first time to under-
stand that I myself was a magician and could create
my own fairyland, ay and my own heaven, trans-
forming this world into the throne-room of a god!
This joy, and this belief I want to impart to
others more than almost anything else, for this has
been to me a new Gospel of courage and resolve and
certain reward, a man's creed teaching that as you
grow in wisdom and courage and kindness, all good
things are added unto you.
I find that I am outrunning my story and giving
here a stage of thought and belief that only became
mine much later; but the beginning of my individual
soul-life was this experience, that I had been blind to
natural beauty and now could see; this was the root
and germ, so to speak, of the later faith that guided all
my mature life, filling me with courage and spilling
over into hope and joy ineffable.
Very soon the first command of it came to my
lips almost every hour: "Blame your own blindness!
always blame yourself!"
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA.
Chapter IV.
parly in January there was a dress rehearsal of
^ the Trial Scene of "The Merchant of Venice".
The Grandee of the neighborhood who owned the
great park, Sir W. W. W., some M. P.'s, notably a
Mr. Whalley who had a pretty daughter and lived in
the vicinity, and the Vicar and his family were invit-
ed, and others whom I did not know; but with the
party from the Vicarage came Lucille.
The big schoolroom had been arranged as a sort
of theatre and the estrade at one end where the Head-
Master used to throne it on official occasions, was
converted into a makeshift stage and draped by a big
curtain that could be drawn back or forth at will.
The Portia was a very handsome lad of sixteen
named Herbert, gentle and kindly, yet redeemed from
effeminacy by the fact that he was the fleetest sprin-
ter in the school and could do the hundred yards in
eleven and a half seconds. The "Duke" was, of course,
J ones and the merchant "Antonio" a big fellow named
Vernon, and I had got Edwards the part of "Bassanio"
and a pretty boy in the Fourth Form was taken
as "Nerissa". So far as looks went the cast was pas-
sable; but the "Duke" recited his lines as if they had
66 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
been imperfectly learned and so the "Trial Scene"
opened badly. But the part of "Shylock" suited me
intimately and I had learned how to recite. Now be-
fore E and Lucille, I was set on doing better than
my best. When my cue came I bowed low before the
"Duke" and then bowed again to left and right of him
in silence and formally, as if I, the outcast Jew,
were saluting the whole court; then in a voice that at
first I simply made slow and clear and hard, I began
the famous reply:
"I have possessed your Grace of what I purpose;
And by our Holy Sabbath have I sworn
To have the due and forfeit of my bond."
I don't except to be believed; but nevertheless I
am telling the bare truth when I say that in my im-
personation of "Shylock" I brought in the very piece
of "business" that made Henry Irving's "Shylock"
fifteen years later, "ever memorable", according to the
papers.
When at the end, baffled and beaten, Shylock
gives in:
"I pray you, give me leave to go from hence,
I am not well: send the deed after me,
And I will sign it",
the Duke says, "Get thee gone, but do it", and Gra-
tiano insults the Jew — the only occasion, I think,
when Shakespeare allows the beaten to be insulted
by a gentleman.
On my way to the door as Shylock, I stopped,
bent low before the Duke's dismissal; but at Gra-
tiano's insult, I turned slowly round, while drawing
myself up to my full height and scanning him from
head to foot.
Irving used to return all across the stage and
folding his arms on his breast look down on him with
measureless contempt.
SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 67
When fifteen years later Irving, at the Garrick
Club one night after supper, asked me what I thought
of this new "business"; I replied that if Shylock had
done what he did, Gratiano would probably have spat
in his face and then kicked him off the stage. Shylock
complains that the Christians spat upon his gaberdine.
My boyish, romantic reading of the part, however,
was essentially the same as Irving's, and Irving's rea-
ding was cheered in London to the echo because it
was a rehabilitation of the Jew, and the Jew rules
the roost to day in all the cities of Europe.
At my first words I could feel the younger mem-
bers of the audience look about as if to see if such
reciting as mine was proper and permitted; then one
after the other gave in to the flow and flood of passion.
When I had finished everyone cheered, Whalley and
Lady W . . . enthusiastically, and to my delight, Lu-
cille as well.
After the rehearsal, everyone crowded about me:
"Where did you learn?" "Who taught youf" At
length Lucille came. "I knew you were someone",
she said in her pretty way, "quelqu'un", "but it was
extraordinary! You'll be a great actor, I'm sure."
"And yet you deny me a kiss", I whispered,
taking care no one should hear.
"I deny you nothing", she replied, turning away,
leaving me transfixed with hope and assurance of
delight. "Nothing", I said to myself, "nothing means
everything"; a thousand times I said it over to myself
in an ecstasy.
That was my first happy night in England. Mr.
Whalley congratulated me and introduced me to his
daughter who praised me enthusiastically, and best
of all the Doctor said, "We must make you Stage
Manager, Harris, and I hope you'll put some of your
fire into the other actors."
68 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
To my astonishment my triumph did me harm
with the boys. Some sneered, while all agreed that
I did it to show off. Jones and the Sixth began the
boycott again. I didn't mind much, for I had heavier
disappointments and dearer hopes.
The worst was I found it difficult to see Lucille
in the bad weather; indeed I hardly caught a glimpse
of her the whole winter. Edwards asked me fre-
quently to the Vicarage; she might have made half a
dozen meetings but she would not, and I was sick at
heart with disappointment and the regret of unful-
filled desire. It was March or April before I was
alone with her in her schoolroom at the Vicarage.
I was too cross with her to be more than polite.
Suddenly she said, "Vous me boudez". I shrugged
my shoulders.
'You don't like me", I began, "so what's the use
of my caring."
"I like you a great deal", she said, "but — "
"No, no", I said, shaking my head, "if you liked
me, you wouldn't avoid me and — "
"Perhaps it's because I like you too much — "
"Then you'd make me happy", I broke in.
"Happy", she repeated, "How can If
"By letting me kiss you, and — "
"Yes, and — " she repeated significantly.
"What harm does it do youf" I asked.
"What harm", she repeated, "Don't you know
it's wrong? One should only do that with one's hus-
band; you know that."
"I don't know anything of the sort", I cried,
"That's all silly. We don't believe that to-day."
"I believe it", she said gravely.
"But if you didn't, you'd let me", I cried, "say
that, Lucille, that would be almost as good, for it
would show you liked me a little."
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 69
"You know I like you a great deal", she replied.
"Kiss me then", I said, "there's no harm in that",
and when she kissed me I put my hand over her
breasts; they thrilled me they were so elastic-firm,
and in a moment my hand slid down her body, but
she drew away at once quietly but with resolve.
"No, no", she said, half smiling.
"Please!" I begged.
"I can't", she said, shaking her head, "I mustn't.
Let us talk of other things — How is the play getting
on?" But I could not talk of the play as she stood
there before me. For the first time I divined
through her clothes nearly all the beauties of
her form. The bold curves of hip and breast tantal-
ized me and her face was expressive and defiant.
How was it I had never noticed all the details
before 1 Had I been blind? or did Lucille dress to
show off her figure? Certainly her dresses were ar-
ranged to display the form more than English dresses,
but I too had become more curious, more observant.
Would life go on showing me new beauties I had not
even imagined!
My experience with E . . . . and Lucille made the
routine of school life almost intolerable to me. I
could only force myself to study by reminding myself
of the necessity of winning the second prize in the
Mathematical Scholarship, which would give me ten
pounds, and ten pounds would take me to America.
Soon after the Christmas holidays I had taken
the decisive step. The examination in winter was
not nearly so important as the one that ended the
summer term, but it had been epoch-making to me.
My punishments having compelled me to learn two
or three books of Vergil by heart and whole chapters
of Caesar and Livy, I had come to some knowledge
of Latin: in the examination I had beaten not only
70 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
all my class, but thanks to trigonometry and Latin
and history, all the two next classes as well. As soon
as the school reassembled I was put in the Upper
Fifth. All the boys were from two to three years
older than I was, and they all made cutting remarks
about me to each other and avoided speaking to
"Pat". All this strengthened my resolution to get
to America as soon as I could.
Meanwhile I worked as I had never worked: at
Latin and Greek as well as Mathematics; but chiefly
at Greek, for there I was backward: by Easter I had
mastered the grammar — irregular verbs and all — and
was about the first in the class. My mind, too, through
my religious doubts and gropings and through the
reading of the thinkers had grown astonishingly:
one morning I construed a piece of Latin that had
puzzled the best in the class and the Doctor nodded
at me approvingly. Then came the step I spoke of
as decisive.
The morning prayers were hardly over one bitter
morning when the Doctor rose and gave out the terms
of the scholarship Exam at Midsummer; the winner
to get eighty pounds a year for three years at Cam-
bridge, and the second ten pounds with which to buy
books. "All boys", he added, "who wish to go in for
this scholarship will now stand up and give their
names." I thought only Gordon would stand up, but
when I saw Johnson get up and Fawcett and two
or three others I too got up A sort of derisive
growl went through the school; but Stackpole smiled
at me and nodded his head as much as to say, "they'll
see", and I took heart of grace and gave my name
very distinctly. Somehow I felt that the step was
decisive.
I liked Stackpole and this term he encouraged
me to come to his rooms to talk whenever I felt in-
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 71
clined, and as I had made up my mind to use all the
half-holidays for study, this association did me a lot
of good and his help was invaluable.
One day when he had just come into his room,
I shot a question at him and he stopped, came over
to me and put his arm on my shoulder as he answered.
I don't know how I knew; but by some instinct I felt
a caress in the apparently innocent action. I didn't
like to draw away or show him that I objected; but I
buried myself feverishly in the Trigonometry and he
soon moved away.
When I thought of it afterwards, I recalled the
fact that his marked liking for me began after my
fight with Jones. I had often been on the point of
confessing to him my love-passages; but now I was
glad I had kept them strenuously to myself, for day
by day I noticed that his liking for me grew or
rather his compliments and flatteries increased. I
hardly knew what to do : working with him and in his
room was a godsend to me; yet at the same time I
didn't like him much or admire him really.
In some ways he was curiously dense; he spoke
of the school life as the happiest of all and the health-
iest; a good moral tone here, he would say, no lying,
cheating or scandal, much better than life outside. I
used to find it difficult not to laugh in his face.
Moral tone indeed! when the Doctor came down out of
temper, it was usually accepted among the boys that
he had had his wife in the night and was therefore
a little below par physically.
Though a really good mathematical scholar and
a firstrate teacher, patient and painstaking, with a
gift of clear exposition, Stackpole seemed to me stu-
pid and hidebound and I soon found that by laughing
at his compliments I could balk his desire to lavish on
me his unwelcome caresses.
72 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Once he kissed me, but my amused smile made
him blush while he muttered shamefacedly, "You're a
queer lad!" At the same time I knew quite well that
if I encouraged him, he would take further liberties.
One day he talked of Jones and Henry H . . . .
He had evidently heard something of what had taken
place in our bedroom; but I pretended not to know
what he meant and when he asked me whether none
of the big boys had made up to me, I ignored big
Fawcett's smutty excursions and said "No" adding
that I was interested in girls and not in dirty boys.
For some reason or other Stackpole seemed to me
younger than I was and not twelve years older, and
I had no real difficulty in keeping him within the
bounds of propriety till the Math Exam.
I was asked once whether I thought that
"Shaddy", as we called the House-master, had ever
had a woman. The idea of "Shaddy" as a virgin
filled us with laughter; but when one spoke of him
as a lover, it was funnier still. He was a man about
forty, tall and fairly strong: he had a degree from
some college in Manchester, but to us little snobs he
was a bounder because he had not been to either
Oxford or Cambridge. He was fairly capable, however.
But for some reason or other he had a down on
me and I grew to hate him, and was always thinking
of how I might hurt him. My new habit of forcing
myself to watch and observe everything came to my
aid. There were five or six polished oak-steps up to
the big bedroom where fourteen of us slept. "Shaddy"
used to give us half an hour to get into bed and then
would come up, and standing just inside the door
under the gas-light would ask us, "Have you all said
your prayers'?" We all answered: "Yes, sir", then
would come his "Goodnight, boys", and our stereo-
typed reply: "Good night, Sir."
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 73
He would then turn out the light and go down-
stairs to his room. The oak-steps outside were worn
in the middle and I had noticed that as one goes
downstairs one treads on the very edge of each step.
One day "Shaddy" had maddened me by giving
me one hundred lines of Vergil to learn by heart for
some trifling peccadillo. That night, having provided
myself with a cake of brown Windsor soap, I ran
upstairs before the other boys and rubbed the soap
freely on the edge of the two top steps, and then went
on to undress.
When "Shaddy" put out the light and stepped
down to the second step, there was a slip and then a
great thud as he half slid, half fell to the bottom. In
a moment, for my bed was nearest the door, I had
sprung up, opened the door and made incoherent ex-
clamations of sympathy as I helped him to get up.
"I've hurt my hip", he said, putting his hand on
it. He couldn't account for his fall.
Grinning to myself as I went back, I rubbed the
soap off the top step with my handkerchief and got
into bed again, where I chuckled over the success of
my stratagem. He had only got what he richly de-
served, I said to myself.
At length the long term wore to its end; the
Exam was held and after consulting Stackpole I was
very sure of the second prize. "I believe", he said
one day, "that you'd rather have the second prize
than the first." "Indeed I would", I replied without
thinking.
"Why?" he asked, "why?" I only just restrained
myself in time or I'd have given him the true reason.
"You'll come much nearer winning the Scholarship",
he said at length, "than any of them guesses."
After the "Exams" came the athletic games, much
more interesting than the beastly lessons. I won two*
74 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Tssprf
first prizes and Jones four, but I gained fifteen "se-
conds", a record, I believe, for according to my age
I was still in the Lower School.
I was fully aware of the secret of my success
and strange to say, it did not increase but rather
diminished my conceit. I won, not through natural
advantages but by will-power and practice. I should
have been much prouder had I succeeded through
natural gifts. For instance, there was a boy named
Reggie Miller, who at sixteen was five feet ten in
height, while I was still under five feet: do what I
would, he could jump higher than I could, though
he only jumped up to his chin while I could jump
the bar above my head. I believed that Reggie could
easily practice and then outjump me still more. I
had yet to learn in life that the resolved will to suc-
ceed was more than any natural advantage. But this
lesson only came to me later. From the beginning I
was taking the highway to success in everything by
strengthening my will even more than my body. Thus,
every handicap in natural deficiency turns out to be
an advantage in life to the brave soul, whereas every
natural gift is surely a handicap. Demosthenes had a
difficulty in his speech, practising to overcome this,
made him the greatest of orators.
The last day came at length and at eleven o'clock
all the school and a goodly company of guests and
friends gathered in the school-room to hear the results
of the examinations and especially the award of the
scholarships. Though most of the boys were early
at the great blackboard where the official figures were
displayed, I didn't even go near it till one little boy
told me shyly: "You're head of your Form and sure
of your remove".
I found this to be true, but wasn't even elated. A
Cambridge professor, it appeared, had come down in
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 75
person to announce the result of the "Math" Scholar-
ship.
He made a rather long talk, telling us that the
difficulty of deciding had been unusually great, for
there was practical equality between two boys: indeed
he might have awarded the scholarship to No. 9 (my
number) and not to No. 1, on the sheer merit of the
work, but when he found that the one boy was under
fifteen while the other was eighteen and ready for
the University, he felt it only right to take the view
of the Head-Master and give the Scholarship to the
older boy, for the younger one was very sure to
win it next year and even next year he would still be
too young for University life. He therefore gave the
Scholarship to Gordon and the second prize of ten
pounds to Harris. Gordon stood up and bowed his
thanks while the whole school cheered and cheered
again: then the Examiner called on me. I had taken
in the whole situation. I wanted to get away with all
the money I could and as soon as I could. My cue was
to make myself unpleasant: accordingly, I got up and
thanked the Examiner, saying that I had no doubt of
his wish to be fair, "but", I added, "had I known the
issue was to be determined by age, I should not have
entered. Now I can only say that I will never enter
again", and I sat down.
The sensation caused by my little speech was a
thousand times greater than I had expected. There
was a breathless silence and mute expectancy. The
Cambridge Professor turned to the Head of the school
and talked with him very earnestly, with visible
annoyance, indeed, and then rose again.
"I must say", he began, "I have to say", repeating
himself, "that I feel the greatest sympathy with
Harris. I was never in so embarrassing a position. I r
I must leave the whole responsibility with the Head-
76 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Master. I can't do anything else, unfortunately!'' and
he sat down, evidently annoyed.
The Doctor got up and made a long hypocritical
speech: It was one of those difficult decisions one
is forced sometimes to make in life: he was sure that
everyone would agree that he had tried to act fairly,
and so far as he could make it up to the younger boy,
he certainly would: he hoped next year to award him
the Scholarship with as good a heart as he now gave
him his cheque; and he fluttered it in the air.
The Masters all called me and I went up to the
platform and accepted the cheque, smiling with
delight, and when the Cambridge Professor shook
hands with me and would have further excused him-
self, I whispered shyly, "it's all right, Sir, I'm glad
that you decided as you did". He laughed aloud with
pleasure, put his arm round my shoulder and said:
"I'm obliged to you, you're certainly a good loser,
or winner perhaps I ought to have said, and altogether
a remarkable boy. Are you really under sixteen?" I
nodded smiling, and the rest of the prize-giving went
off without further incident, save that when I
appeared on the platform to get the Form prize of
books, he smiled pleasantly at me and led the cheering.
I 've described the whole incident, for it illustrates
to me the English desire to be fair: it is really a guiding
impulse in them, on which one may reckon, and so far
as my experience goes, it is perhaps stronger in them
than in any other race. If it were not for their
religious hypocrisies, childish conventions and above
all, their incredible snobbishness, their love of fair
play alone would make them the worthiest leaders
•of humanity. All this I felt then as a boy as clearly
.as I see it to day.
I knew that the way of my desire was open to me.
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 77
Next morning I asked to see the Head; be was very
amiable; but I pretended to be injured and
disappointed. "My father", I said, "reckons, I think,
on my success and I'd like to see him before he hears
the bad news from anyone else. Would you please
give me the money for my journey and let me go to-
day*? It isn't very pleasant for me to be here now."
"I'm sorry", said the Doctor (and I think he was
sorry), "of course I'll do anything I can to lighten
your disappointment. It's very unfortunate but you
must not be down-hearted: Professor S says that
your papers ensure your success next year, and I —
well, I'll do anything in my power to help you."
I bowed: "Thank you, Sir. Could I go today!
There's a train to Liverpool at noon?"
"Certainly, certainly, if you wish it", he said,
"I'll give orders immediately" and he cashed the
cheque for ten pounds as well, with only a word that
it was nominally to be used to buy books with, but he
supposed it did not matter seriously.
By noon I was in the train for Liverpool with
fifteen pounds in my pocket, five pounds being for
my fare to Ireland. I was trembling with excitement
and delight; at length I was going to enter the real
world and live as I wished to live. I had no regrets,
no sorrows, I was filled with lively hopes and happy
presentiments.
As soon as I got to Liverpool, I drove to the
Adelphi Hotel and looked out the steamers and soon
found one that charged only four pounds for a steer-
age passage to New York, and to my delight this
steamer was starting next day about two o' clock. By
four o' clock I had booked my passage and paid for
it. The Clerk said something or other about bedding;
but I paid no attention. For just on entering his
office I had seen an advertisement of "The Two
78 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Roses", a "romantic drama" to be played that night,
and I was determined to get a seat and see it. Do
you know what courage that act required? More than
was needed to cut loose from everyone I loved and
go to America. For my father was a Puritan of the
Puritans and had often spoken of the theatre as the
"open door to Hell".
I had lost all belief in Hell or Heaven, but a cold
shiver went through me as I bought my ticket and
time and again in the next four hours I was on the
point of forfeiting it without seeing the play. What
if my father was right? I couldn't help the fear that
came over me like a vapour.
I was in my seat as the curtain rose and sat for
three hours enraptured; it was just a romantic love-
story but the heroine was lovely and affectionate and
true and I was in love with her at first sight. When
the play was over T went into the street, resolved to
keep myself pure for some girl like the heroine: no
moral lesson I have received before or since can
compare with that given me by that first night in
a theatre. The effect lasted for many a month and
made self-abuse practically impossible to me ever
afterwards. The preachers may digest this fact at
their leisure.
The next morning I had a good breakfast at the
Adelphi Hotel and before ten was on board the
steamer, had stowed away my trunk and taken my
station by my sleeping place traced in chalk on the
deck. About noon the Doctor came round, a yonng
man of good height with a nonchalant manner, red-
dish hair, roman nose and easy, unconventional w.iys
"Whose is this berth?" he asked, pointing to mine.
"Mine, Sir" I replied.
'Tell your father or mother", he said curtly, "that
<<m.
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 79
you must have a mattress like this", and he pointed to
one, "and two blankets", he added.
"Thank you, Sir", I said and shrugged my
shoulders at his interference. In another hour he
eame round again.
"Why is there no mattress here and no blanket!"
he asked.
"Because I don't need 'em", I replied.
"You must have them", he barked, "it's the rule,
d'ye understand f and he hurried on with his in-
spection. In half an hour he was back again.
"You haven't the mattress yet", he snarled.
"I don't want a mattress", I replied.
"Where's your father or mother", he asked.
"Haven't got any", I retorted.
"Do they let children like you go to .America" he
•fried, "What age are you?"
I was furious with him for exposing my youth
there in public before everyone. "How does it matter
to youf 1 I asked disdainfully. "You're not responsible
for me, thank God!"
"I am though", he said, "to a certain degree at
least. Are you really going t© America on your
own!"
"I am", I rejoined casually and rudely.
"What to do!" was his next query.
"Anything I can get" I replied.
"Hum", he muttered, "I must see to this".
Ten minutes later he returned again. "Come
with me", he said, and I followed him to his cabin —
a comfortable stateroom with a good berth on the right
of the door as you entered, and a good sofa opposite.
"Are you really alone f he asked.
I nodded, for I was a little afraid he might have
the power to forbid me to go and I resolved to say
as little as possible.
7
80 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"What age are you?" was his next question.
"Sixteen", I lied boldly.
"Sixteen!", he repeated, "you don't look it but yon
speak as if you had been well educated". I smiled;
I had already measured the crass ignorance of the
"peasants in the steerage.
"Have you any friends in America!" he asked.
"What do you want to question me for?" I
demanded, "I've paid for my passage and I'm doing
no harm".
"I want to help y;u", ne said, "will you stay
here until we draw out and I get a little timet"
"Certainly", I said, "I'd rather be here than with
those louts and if I might read your books — "
I had noticed that there were two little oak book-
cases, one on eaoh side of the washing-stand, and
smaller books and pictures scattered about.
"Of course you may", he rejoined and threw open
the door of the bookcase. There was a Macau lay
staring at me.
"I know his poetry", I said, seeing that the book
contained his "Essays" and was written in prose.
"I'd like to read this".
"Go ahead", he said smiling, "in a couple of hours
I'll be back'" When he returned he found me curled
upon his sofa, lost in fairyland. I had just come to
the end of the essay on Olive and was breathless.
"You like it?" he asked. "I should just think I did",
I replied, "it's better even than his poetry", and
suddenly I closed the book and began to recite:
"With all his faults, and they were neither few
nor small, only one cemetery was" worthy to contain
his remains. In the Great Abbey — "
The Doctor took the book from me where I
held it.
"Are you reciting from Olive?" he asked.
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 81
"Yes", I said, "but the essay on Warren Hastings
its just as good", and I began again:
"He looked like a great man, and not like a bad
one. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving
dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated
deference to the Court, indicated also habitual self-
possession and self-respect. A high and intellectual
forehead; a brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth
of inflexible decision, a face on which was written as
legibly as under the great picture in the Council
Chamber of Calcutta, Mens aequo, in arduis: such w:<
the aspect with which the great proconsul presented
himself to his judges."
"Have you learned all this by heart!" cried the
Doctor laughing.
"I don't have to learn stuff like that", I replie ; .
"one reading is enough".
He stared at me.
"I was surely right in bringing you down here",
he began, "I wanted to get you a bertli in the Inter-
mediate; but there's no room: if you could put up with
that sofa, I'd have the steward make up a bed for
you on it".
"Oh, would you!" I cried, "how kind of you, ar.d
you'll let me read your books ?" "Everyone of 'em", he
replied, adding, "I only wish I could make as good
use of them".
The upshot of it was that in an hour he had drawn
some of my story from me and we were great friends.
His name was Keogh. "Of course he's Irish", I said
to myself, as I w T ent to sleep that night: "no one else
would have been so kind".
The ordinary man will think I am bragging here
about my memory. He's mistaken. Swinburne's
memory especially for poetry was far, far better than
mine, and I have always regretted the fact that a good
82 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
memory often prevents one thinking for oneself. I
shall come back to this belief of mine when I later
explain how want of books gave me whatever
originality I possess. A good memory and books at
command are two of the greatest dangers of youth
and form by themselves a terrible handicap, but
like all gifts a good memory is apt to make yon
friends among the unthinking, especially when you
are very young.
As a matter of fact, Doctor Keogh went about
bragging of my memory and power of reciting, until
some of the Cabin passengers became interested in the
extraordinary schoolboy. The outcome was that I was
asked to recite one evening in the First Cabin and
afterwards a collection was taken up for me and a
iirst-class passage paid and about twenty dollars over
and above was given to me. Besides, an old gentleman
offered to adopt me and play second father to me.
but I had not got rid of one father to take on another.
so I kept as far away from him as I decently could.
1 am again, however, running ahead of my story.
The second evening of the voyage, the sea got up a
little and there was a great deal of sickness. Doctor
Keogh was called out of his cabin and while he was
away, someone knocked at the door. T opened it and
found a pretty girl.
"Where's the Doctor?" she asked. I told her he
had been called to a cabin passenger.
"Please tell him", she said, "when he returns, that
Jessie Kerr, the chief Engineer's daughter, would like
to see him".
"I'll go after him now if you wish, Miss Jessie".
I said. "I know where he is".
"It isn't important", she rejoined, "but I feel
giddy and he told me he could cure it".
! Coming up on deck is the best cure". 1 declared :
t(n.
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. S3
"the fresh air will soon blow the sick feeling away.
You'll sleep like a top and tomorrow morning you'll
he alright. Will you come? ,? She consented readily
and in ten minutes admitted that the slight nausea had
disappeared in the sharp breeze. As we walked up
and down the dimly lighted deck I had now and then
to support her, for the ship was rolling a little under
a sou-wester. Jessie told me something about herself;
how she was going to New York to spend some months
with an elder married sister and how strict her father
was. In return she had my whole story and could
hardly believe I was only sixteen. Why she was over
sixteen, and she could never have stood up and recited
piece after piece as T did in the Cabin: she thought
it "wonderful".
Before she went down, I told her she was the
prettiest girl on board and she kissed me and promised
to come up the next evening and have another walk.
'If you've nothing better to do 1 ' she said at parting,
"you might come forward to the little Promenade Deck
of the Second Cabin and I'll get one of the men to
arrange a seat in one of the boats for us". "Of
course", I promised gladly and spent the next after-
noon with Jessie in the stern-sheets of the great
launch where we were out of sight of everyone, and
out of hearing as well.
There we were, tucked in with two rugs and
cradled, so to speak, between sea and sky, while the
keen air whistling past increased our sense of solitude.
Jessie, though rather short, was a very pretty girl
with large hazel eyes and fair complexion.
1 soon got my arm round her and kept kissing
her till she told me she had never known a man so
greedy of kisses as 1 was. It was delicious flattery
to me to speak of me as a man and in return I raved
about her eyes and mouth and form; caressing her
84 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
left breast I told her I could divine the rest and knew
she had a lovely body. But when I put my hand up
her clothes, she stopped me when I got just above her
knee and said:
"We'd have to be engaged before I could let you
do that. Do you really love mef
Of course I swore I did, but when she said she'd
have to tell her father that we were engaged to be
married, cold shivers went down my back.
"I can't marry for a long time yet", I said, "I'll
have to make a living first and I'm not very sure
where I'll begin". But she had heard that an old
man wished to adopt me and everyone said that he
was very rich, and even her father admitted that I'd
be "well fixed".
Meanwhile my right hand was busy: I had got
my fingers to her warm flesh between the stockings
and the drawers and was wild with desire; soon mouth
on mouth I touched her sex.
What a gorgeous afternoon we had! I had learned
enough now to go slow and obey what seemed to be
her moods. Gently, gently I caressed her sex with
my finger till it opened and she leaned against me
and kissed me of her own will, while her eyes turned
up and her whole being was lost in thrills of ecstasy.
When she asked me to stop and take my hand away,
I did her bidding at once and was rewarded by being-
told that I was a "dear boy" and "a sweet" and soon
the embracing and caressing began again. She moved
now in response to my lascivious touchings and when
the ecstasy came on her, she clasped me close and
kissed me passionately with hot lips and afterwards
in my arms wept a little and then pouted that she
was cross with me for being so naughty. But her
eyes gave themselves to me even while she tried to
scold.
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. So
The dinner bell rang and she said she'd have to
go, and we made a meeting for afterwards on the
top deck; but as she was getting up, she yielded
again to my hand with a little sigh and T found her
sex all wet, wet!
She got down out of the boat by the main rigging
and I waited a few moments before following her.
At first our caution seemed likely to be rewarded,
chiefly, I have thought since, because everyone
believed me to be too young and too small to be taken
seriously. But everything is quickly known on
seaboard at least by the sailors.
I went down to Dr. Keogh's cabin, once more
joyful and grateful as I had been with E . . . . My
fingers were like eyes gratifying my curiosity, and
the curiosity was insatiable. Jessie's thighs were
smooth and firm and round: T took delight in recalling
the touch of them, and her bottom was firm like
warm marble. I wanted to see her naked and study
her beauties one after the other. Her sex too was
wonderful, fuller even than Lucille's and her eyes
were finer. Oh, Life was a thousand times better than
school. I thrilled with joy and passionate wild hopes
— perhaps Jessie would let me, perhaps — T was
breathless.
Our walk on deck that evening was not so
satisfactory: the wind had gone down and there were
many other couples and the men all seemed to know
Jessie, and it was Miss Kerr here, and Miss Kerr
there, till I was cross and disappointed; I couldn't
get her to myself, save at moments, but then I had to
admit she was as sweet as ever and her Aberdeen
accent even was quaint and charming to me.
I got some long kisses at odd moments and just
before we went down I drew her behind a boat in the
davits and was able to caress her little breasts and.
86 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
when she turned her back to me to go, I threw my
arms round her hips and drew them against me and
felt her sex and she leant her head back over her
shoulder and gave me her mouth with dying eyes.
The darling! Jessie was apt at all Love's lessons.
The next day was cloudy and rain threatened, but
we were safely ensconced in the boat by two o'clock,
as soon as lunch was over, and we hoped no one had
seen us. An hour passed in caressings and fondlings,
in love's words and love's promises : I had won Jessie
to touch my sex and her eyes seemed to deepen as she
caressed it.
"I love you, Jessie, won't you let it touch yours V'
She shook her head. "Not here, not in the open",
she whispered and then, "wait a little till we get to
New York, dear", and our mouths sealed the compact.
Then I asked her about New York and her sister's
house, and we were discussing where we should meet,
when a big head and beard showed above the gunwale
of the boat and a deep Scotch voice said: "I want ye,
Jessie, I've been luiking everywhere for ye".
"Awright, father", she said, "I'll be down in a
minute".
"Come quick", said the voice as the head
disappeared.
"I'll tell him we love each other and he won't be
angry for long", whispered Jessie; but I was doubtful.
As she got up to go my naughty hand went up her
dress behind and felt her warm, smooth buttocks. Ah,
the poignancy of the ineffable sensations; her eyes
smiled over her shoulder at me and she was gone —
and the sunlight with her.
I still remember the sick disappointment as I sat
in the boat alone. Life then like school had its
chagrins, and as the pleasures were keener, the balks
and blights were bitterer. For the first time in my
FROM SO WOOL TO AMERICA. 87
life vague misgivings came over me, a heartshaking
suspicion that everything delightful and joyous in
life had to be paid for — I wouldn't harbor the
fear. If I had to pay, I'd pay; after all, the memory
of the ecstasy could never be taken away while the
sorrow was fleeting. And that faith I still hold.
Next day the Chief Steward allotted me a berth
in a cabin with an English midshipman of seventeen
going out to join his ship in the West Indies. William
Ponsonby was not a bad sort, but he talked of nothing
but girls from morning till night and insisted that
negresses were better than white girls: they were
far more passionate, he said.
He showed me his sex; excited himself before me,
while assuring me he meant to have a Miss LeBreton,
a governess who was going out to take up a position
in Pittsburg.
"But suppose you put her in the family way .'" I
asked.
"That's not my funeral", was Ins answer, and
seeing that the cynicism shocked me, he went on to
say there was no danger if you withdrew in time.
Ponsonby never opened a book and was astound-
ingiy ignorant: he didn't seem to care to learn
anything that hadn't to do with sex. He introduced
me to Miss LeBreton the same evening. She was
rather tall, with fair hair and blue eyes, and she
praised my reciting. To my wonder she was a woman
and pretty, and I could see by the way she looked
at Ponsonbv that she was more than a little in love
with him. He was above middle height, strong and
good-tempered, and that was all I could see in him.
Miss Jessie kept away the whole evening and
when I saw her father on the "upper deck", he
glowered at me and went past without a word. That
night 1 told Ponsonby my story, or part of it, and he
88 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
declared he would find a sailor to carry a note to
Jessie next morning if I'd write it.
Besides, he proposed we should occupy the cabin
alternate afternoons; for example, he'd take it next
day and I mustn't come near it, and if at any time
one of us found the door locked, he was to respect
his chum's privacy. I agreed to it all with enthusiasm
and went to sleep in a fever of hope. Would Jessie
risk her father's anger and come to me? Perhaps
she would: at any rate I'd write and ask her and I
did. In one hour the same sailor came back with
her reply. It ran like this: "Dear love, father is
mad, we shall have to take great care for two or three
days: as soon as it's safe, I'll come — your loving
Jess", with a dozen crosses for kisses.
That afternoon, without thinking of my compact
with Ponsonby, I went to our cabin and found the door
locked: at once our compact came into my head and
J went quietly away. Had he succeeded so quickly?
and was she with him in bed? The half certainty
made my heart beat.
That evening Ponsonby could not conceal his
success but as he used it partly to praise his mistress.
1 forgave him.
"She has the prettiest figure you ever saw", he
declared, "and is really a dear. We had just finished
when you came to the door. I said it was some
mistake and she believed me. She wants me to marry
her but I can't marry. If I were rich I'd marry quick
enough. It's better than risking some foul disease*",
and he went on to tell about one of his colleagues,
John Lawrence, who got Black Pox, as he called
syphilis, caught from a negress.
"He didn't notice it for three months", Ponsonby
went on, "and it got into his system; his nose got bad
and he was invalided home, poor devil. Those black
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 89
girls are four', he continued, "they give everyone the
clap and that's bad enough, I can tell you; they're
dirty devils". His ruttish sorrows didn't interest me
muck, for I had made up my mind never at any time to
go with any prostitute.
I came to several such uncommon resolutions on
hoard that ship, and I may set down the chief of
them here very briefly. First of all, I resolved that
I would do every piece of work given to me as well
as I could, so that no one coming after me could do
it better. I had found out at school in the last term
that if you gave your whole mind and heart to
anything, you learned it very quickly and thoroughly.
I was sine even before the trial that my first job
would lead me straight to fortune. 1 had seen men at
work and knew it would be easy to beat any of them.
I was only eager for the trial.
I remember one evening I had waited for Jessie
and she never came and just before going to bed,
1 went up into the bow of the ship where one was
alone with the sea and sky, and swore to myself this
great oath, as I called it in my romantic fancy : what-
ever I undertook to do, I would do it to the uttermost
in me.
If 1 have had any success in life or clone any
good work, it is due in great part to that resolution.
1 could not keep my thoughts from Jessie; if i
tried to put her out of my head, I'd either get a little
note from her, or Ponsonby would come begging me to
leave him the cabin the whole day: at length in
despair I begged her for her address in New York,
for I feared to lose her forever in that maelstrom. 1
added that 1 would alwavs be in my cabin and alone
from one to half past if she could ever come.
That day she didn't come, and the old gentleman
who said he would adopt me, got hold of me, told me
90 MY LIFE AND LOVES,
he was a banker and would send me to Harvard, the
University near Boston; from what the Doctor had
said of me, he hoped I would do great things. He
was really kind and tried to be sympathetic, but he
had no idea that what I wanted chiefly was to prove
myself, to justify my own high opinion of my powers
in the open fight of life. I didn't want help and I
absolutely resented his protective airs.
Next day in the cabin came a touch on the door
and Jessie all flustered was in my arms. "I can only
stay a minute", she cried, "Father is dreadful, says
you are only a child and won't have me engage myself
and he watches me from morning to night. I could
only get away now because he had to go down to the
machine-room."
Before she had finished, 1 had locked the cabin
door.
"Oh, I must go", she cried, "I must really: I
only came to give you my address in New York, here
it is", and she handed me the paper that I put at once
in my pocket. And then I put both my arms under
her clothes and my hands were on her warm hips,
and I was speechless with delight; in a moment my
right hand came round in front and as I touched her
sex our lips clung together and her sex opened at
once, and my finger began to caress her and we kissed
and kissed again. Suddenly her lips got hot and while
I was still wondering why, her sex got wet and her
eyes began to flutter and turn up. A moment or two
later she tried to get out of my embrace.
"Really, dear, I'm frightened: he might come and
make a noise and I'd die; please let me go now: we'll
have lots of time in New York" — but I could not bear
to let her go. "He'd never come here where there are
two men", I said, "never, he might find the wrong one",
and I drew her to me, but seeing' she was only half
FROM SCHOOL TO AMERIKA.
91
reassured, I said while lifting her dress, "Let mine
just touch yours, and I'll let you go r ' and the next mo-
ment my sex was against hers and almost in spite of
herself she yielded to the throbbing warmth of it; but
when I pushed in, she drew away and down on it a
little and I saw anxiety in her eyes that had grown
very dear to me.
At once I stopped and put away my sex and let
her clothes drop. "You're such a sweet, Jess", I said,
"who could deny you anything; in New York then,
but now one long kiss."
She gave me her mouth at once and her lips were
hot. I learned that morning that when a girl's lips
>w hot. her sex is hot first and she is ready to give
herself and ripe for the embrace.
■ Cii
i-X
THE GREAT NEW WORLD!
Chapter V.
A stolen kiss and fleeting caress as we met on
^"^ the deck at night were all I had of Jessie for
the rest of the voyage. One evening landlights
flickering in the distance drew crowds to the deck;
the ship began to slow down. The cabin passengers
went below as usual, but hundreds of immigrants sat
up as I did and watched the stars slide down the sky
till at length dawn came with silver lights and start-
ling revelations.
I can still recall the thrills that overcame me
when I realized the great waterways of that land-
locked harbor and saw Long Island Sound stretching
away on one hand like a sea and the magnificent
Hudson River with its palisades on the other, while
before me was the East River, nearly a mile in width.
What an entrance to a new world! A magnificent
and safe ocean port which is also the meeting place
of great water paths into the continent.
No finer site could be imagined for a world ca-
pital; I was entranced with the spacious grandeur,
the manifest destiny of this Queen City of the Waters.
The Old Battery was pointed out to me and Gov-
ernor's Island and the prison and where the bridge
•>
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 9:
was being built to Brooklyn: suddenly Jessie passed
on her father's arm and shot me one radiant, linger-
ing glance of love and promise.
I remember nothing more till we landed and the
old banker came up to tell me he had had my little
box taken from the "H's" where it belonged and put
with his luggage among the "S's".
"We are going , he added, "to the Fifth Avenue
Hotel away up town in Madison Square: we'll be
comfortable there", and he smiled self-complacently.
I smiled too, and thanked him; but I had no intention
of going in his company. I went back to the ship and
thanked Dr. Keogh with all my heart for his great
goodness to me; he gave me his address in New York
and incidentally I learned from him that if I kept
the key of my trunk, no one could open it or take it
away; it would be left in charge of the Customs till
I called for it.
In a minute I was back in the long shed on the
dock and had wandered nearly to the end when 1
perceived the stairs: "Is that the way into the town !"
I asked and a man replied, "Sure". One quick glance
around to see that I was not noticed and in a moment
I was down the stairs and out in the street: I raced
straight ahead of me for two or three blocks and then
asked and was told that Fifth Avenue was right
in front. As I turned up Fifth Avenue, I began to
breathe freely; "no more fathers for me". The old
Greybeard who had bothered me was consigned to
oblivion without regret. Of course, I know now that
he deserved better treatment. Perhaps indeed I
should have done better had I accepted his kindly,
generous help, but I'm trying to set down the plain,
unvarnished truth, and here at once I must say that
children's affections are much slighter than most pa-
rents imagine. I never wasted a thought on my
94 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
father; even my brother Vernon who had always
been kind to ine and fed my inordinate vanity , was
not regretted: the new life called me: I was in a
flutter of expectancy and hope.
Some way up Fifth Avenue I came into the great
Square and saw the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but I only
grinned and kept right on till at length I reached
Central Park. Near it, I can't remember exactly
where, but I believe it was near where the Plaza
Hotel stands today, there was a small wooden house
with an outhouse at the other end of the lot. While
I stared a woman came out with a bucket and went
across to the outhouse. In a few moments she came
back again and noticed me looking over the fence.
"Would you please give me a drink V I asked.
*\Sure I will", she replied with a strong Irish brogue.
"Come right in" and I followed her into her kitchen.
"You're Irish", I said, smiling at her. "I am",
she replied, "how did ye guess?" "Because I was
born in Ireland too", I retorted. "You were not!"
she cried emphatically, more for pleasure than to con-
tradict. "I was bom in Galway", I went on and at
once she became very friendly and poured me out
some milk warm from the cow, and when she heard
1 had had no breakfast and saw I was hungry, she
pressed me to eat and sat down with me and soon
heard my whole story or enough of it to break out
in wonder again and again.
In turn she told me how she had married Mike
Mulligan, a longshoreman who earned good wages
and was a good husband but took a drop too much
now and again, as a man will when tempted by one
of "thiin saloons". It was the saloons, I learned, that
were the ruination of all the best Irishmen and "they
were the best men anyway, an' — an" — " and the
kindly, homely talk flowed on, charming me.
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 95
When the breakfast was over and the things
cleared away I rose to go with many thanks but Mrs.
Mulligan wouldn't hear of it. "Ye're a child' , , she
said, "an' don't know New York: it's a terrible place
and you must wait till Mike comes home an' — "
"But I must find some place to sleep", I said,
"I have money."
"You'll sleep here", she broke in decisively, "and
Mike will put ye on yer feet; sure he knows New
York like his pocket, an' yer as welcome as the flowers
in May, an' — "
What could I do but stay and talk and listen to
all sorts of stories about New York, and "toughs" that
were "hard cases" and "gunmen" an' "wimmin that
were worse — bad scran to them".
In due time Mrs. Mulligan and I had dinner to-
gether, and after dinner I got her permission to go
into the Park for a walk, but "mind now and be home
by six or I'll send Mike after ye", she added laughing.
I walked a little way in the Park and then star-
ted down town again to the address Jessie had given
me near the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a mean street,
I thought, but I soon found Jessie's sister's house
and went to a nearby restaurant and wrote a little
note to my love, that she could show if need be, saying
that I proposed to call on the 18th, or two days after
the ship we had come in was due to return to Liver-
pool. After that duty which made it possible for me
to hope all sorts of things on the 18th, 19th or 20th r
I sauntered over to Fifth Avenue and made my way
up town again. At any rate I was spending nothing
in my present lodging.
When I returned that night I was presented to
Mike: I found him a big, good-looking Irishman who
thought his wife a wonder and all she did perfect.
"Mary", he said, winking at me, "is one of the best
8
96 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
cooks in the wurrld and if it weren't that she's down
on a man when he has a drop in him, she'd be the best
gurrl on God's earth. As it is, I married her and I've
never been sorry: have I Mary?" "Ye've had no
cause, Mike Mulligan."
Mike had nothing particular to do next morning
and so he promised he would go and get my little
trunk from the Custom House. I gave him the key.
He insisted as warmly as his wife that I should stay
with them till I got work: I told them how eager I
was to begin and Mike promised to speak to his chief
and some friends and see what could be done.
Next morning I got up about five-thirty as soon
as I heard Mike stirring, and went down Seventh
Avenue with him till he got on the horse-car for
down-town and left me. About seven-thirty to eight
o'clock a stream of people began walking down-town
to their offices. On several corners were bootblack
shanties. One of them happened to have three custom-
ers in it and only one bootblack.
"Won't you let me help you shine a pair or twot" f
I asked. The bootblack looked at me: "I don't mind",
he said and I seized the brushes and went to work.
I had done the two just as he finished the first: he
whispered to me "halves" as the next man came in
and he showed me how to use the polishing rag or
cloth. I took off my coat and waistcoat and went to
work with a will; for the next hour and a half we
both had our hands full. Then the rush began to
slack off but not before I had taken just over a, dollar
and a half. Afterwards we had a talk and Allison,
the bootblack, told me he'd be glad to give me work
any morning on the same terms. I assured him I'd
be there and do my best till I got other work. I had
earned three shillings and had found out I could
get good board for three dollars a week, so in a
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 97
couple of hours I had earned my living. The last
anxiety left me.
Mike had a day off, so he came home for dinner
at noon and he had great news. They wanted men
to work under water in the iron caissons of Brooklyn
Bridge and they were giving from five to ten dollars
a day.
"Five dollars", cried Mrs. Mulligan, "it must be
dangerous or unhealthy or somethin' — sure, you'd
never put the child to work like that."
Mike excused himself, but the danger, if danger
there was, appealed to me almost as much as the big
pay: my only fear was that they'd think me too small
or too young. I had told Mrs. Mulligan I was six-
teen, for I didn't want to be treated as a child and
now I showed her the eighty cents I had earned that
morning bootblacking, and she advised me to keep on
at it and not go to work under the water; but the
promised five dollars a day won me.
Next morning Mike took me to Brooklyn Bridge
soon after five o'clock to see the Contractor: he wan-
ted to engage Mike at once but shook his head over
me. "Give me a trial", I pleaded, "You'll see, I'll
make good." After a pause, "0. K.", he said, "four
shifts have gone down already underhanded; you
may try."
I've told about the work and its dangers at some
length in my novel "The Bomb", but here I may add
some details just to show what labor has to suffer.
In the bare shed where we got ready the men told
me no one could do the work for long without getting
the "bends"; the "bends", it appeared, were a sort of
convulsive fit that twisted one's body like a knot and
often made you an invalid for life. They soon ex-
plained the whole procedure to me. We worked, it
appeared, in a huge bell-shaped caisson of iron that
8"
98 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
went to the bottom of the river and was pumped full
of compressed air to keep the water from entering it
from below: the top of the caisson is a room called
the "material chamber" into which the stuff dug out
of the river passes up and is carted away. On the
side of the caisson is another room, called the "air-
lock", into which we were to go to be "compressed".
As the compressed air is admitted, the blood keeps
absorbing the gasses of the air till the tension of the
gasses in the blood becomes equal to that in the air:
when this equilibrium has been reached, men can
work in the caisson for hours without serious dis-
comfort if sufficient pure air is constantly pumped
in. It was the foul air that did the harm, it appeared;
"if they'd pump in good air, it would be 0. K.: but
that would cost a little time and trouble and men's
lives are cheaper." I saw that the men wanted to
warn me, thinking I was too young, and accordingly
I pretended to take little heed.
When we went into the "airlock" and they turned
on one aircock after another of compressed air, the
men put their hands to their ears and I soon imitated
them for the pain was very acute. Indeed, the drums
of the ears are often driven in and burst if the com-
pressed air is brought in too quickly. I found that
the best way of meeting the pressure was to keep
swallowing air and forcing it up into the middle ear
where it acted as an air-pad on the inner side of the
drum and so lessened the pressure from the outside.
It took about half an hour or so to "compress"
us and that half an hour gave me lots to think about.
When the air was fully compressed, the door of the
airlock opened at a touch and we all went down to
work with pick and shovel on the gravelly bottom.
My headache soon became acute. The six of us were
working naked to the waist in a small iron chamber
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 99
with a temperature of about 180 Fahrenheit: in five
minutes the sweat was pouring from us and all the
while we were standing in icy water that was only
kept from rising by the terrific air-pressure. No
wonder the headaches were blinding. The men didn't
work for more than ten minutes at a time, but I plugged
on steadily, resolved to prove myself and get con-
stant employment; only one man, a Swede named
Anderson, worked at all as hard. I was overjoyed
to find that together we did more than the four
others. The amount done each week was estimated,
he told me, by an inspector. Anderson was known to
the Contractor and received half a wage extra as
head of our gang. He assured me I could stay as
long as I liked, but he advised me to leave at the end
of a month: it was too unhealthy: above all, I mustn't
drink and should spend all my spare time in the open.
He was kindness itself to me as indeed were all the
others. After two hours' work down below we went
up into the airlock room to get gradually "decom-
pressed", the pressure of air in our veins having to be
brought down gradually to the usual air pressure.
The men began to put on their clothes and passed
round a bottle of Schnaps; but though I was soon
as cold as a wet rat and felt depressed and weak to
boot, I would not touch the liquor. In the shed above
I took a cupful of hot cocoa with Anderson which
stopped the shivering and I was soon able to face the
afternoon's ordeal.
I had no idea one could feel so badly when being
"decompressed" in the airlock, but I took Anderson's
advice and got into the open as soon as I could, and
by the time I had walked home in the evening and
changed, I felt strong again, but the headache didn't
leave me entirely and the earache came back every
100 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
now and then and to this day a slight deafness re-
minds me of that spell of work under water.
I went into Central Park for half an hour; the
first pretty girl I met reminded me of Jessie: in one
week I'd be free to see her and tell her I was making
good and she'd keep her promise, I felt sure; the
mere hope led me to fairyland. Meanwhile nothing
could take away the proud consciousness that with
my five dollars I had earned two weeks' living in a
day: a month's work would make me safe for a year.
When I returned I told the Mulligans I must
pay for my board, said "I'd feel better, if you'll let
me" and finally they consented, though Mrs. Mulli-
gan thought three dollars a week too much. I was
glad when it was settled and went to bed early to
have a good sleep. For three or four days things
went fairly well with me but on the fifth or sixth day
we came on a spring of water or "gusher" and were
wet to the waist before the air pressure could be in-
creased to cope with it. As a consequence a dreadful
pain shot through both my ears: I put my hands to
them tight and sat still a little while. Fortunately
the shift was almost over and Anderson came with
me to the horse-car. "You'd better knock off", he
said, "I've known 'em go deaf from it."
The pain had been appalling but it was slowly
diminishing and I was resolved not to give in. "Could
I get a day offl" I asked Anderson: he nodded, "of
course: you're the best in the shift, the best I've ever
seen, a great little pony."
Mrs. Mulligan saw at once something was wrong
and made me try her household remedy — a roasted
onion cut in two and clapped tight on each ear with
a flannel bandage. It acted like magic : in ten minutes
I was free of pain: then she poured in a little warm
sweet oil and in an hour I was walking in the Park
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 101
as usual. Still the fear of deafuess was on me and
I was very glad when Anderson told me he had com-
plained to the Boss and we were to get an extra thou-
sand feet of pure air. It would make a great diffe-
rence, Anderson said, and he was right, but the im-
provement was not sufficient.*
One day just as the "decompression" of an hour
and a half was ending, an Italian named Manfredi
fell down and writhed about, knocking his face on
the floor till the blood spurted from his nose and
mouth. When we got him into the shed, his legs
were twisted like plaited hair. The surgeon had him
taken to the hospital. I made up my mind that a
month would be enough for me.
At the end of the first week I got a note from
Jessie saying that her father was going on board
that afternoon and she could see me the next evening.
I went and was introduced to Jessie's sister who, to
my surprise, was tall and large but without a trace
of Jessie's good looks.
"He's younger than you, Jess", she burst out
laughing. A week earlier I'd have been hurt to the
soul, but I had proved myself, so I said simply, "I'm
earning five dollars a day, Mrs. Plummer, and money
talks." Her mouth fell open in amazement. "Five
dollars", she repeated, "I'm sorry, I — I — "
"There, Maggie", Jessie broke in, "I told you,
you had never seen anyone like him; you'll be great
friends yet. Now come and we'll have a walk", she
added and out we went.
To be with her even in the street was delightful
*) In Germany I have since learned the State requires that
ten times as much pure air must be suppled as we had and in
consequence the serious illnesses wh ch with us amounted to
eigh y per cent in three months have been reduced to eight.
Paternal Government, it appears, has certain good points.
102 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
and I had a lot to say, but making love in a New
York street on a summer evening is difficult and I
was hungry to kiss and caress her freely. Jessie,
however, had thought of a way: if her sister and hus-
band had theatre tickets, they'd go out and we'd be
alone in the apartment; it would cost two dollars,
however, and she thought that a lot. I was delighted :
I gave her the bills and arranged to be with her next
night before eight o'clock. Did Jessie know what
was going to happen? Even now I'm uncertain,
though I think she guessed.
Next night I waited till the coast was clear and
then hurried to the door. As soon as we were alone
in the little parlor and I had kissed her, I said,
"Jessie, I want you to undress. I'm sure your figure
is lovely, but I want to know it".
"Not at once, eh?" she pouted, "talk to me first.
I want to know how you are?" and I drew her to the
big armchair and sat down with her in my arms.
"What am I to tell you?" I asked, while my hand
went up her dress to her warm thighs and sex. She
frowned but I kissed her lips and with a movement or
two stretched her out on me so that I could use my
finger easily. At once her lips grew hot and I went
on kissing and caressing till her eyes closed and she
gave herself to the pleasure. Suddenly she wound
herself upon me and gave me a big kiss. "You don't
talk", she said.
"I can't", I exclaimed, making up my mind.
"Come", and I lifted her to her feet and took her into
the bedroom. "I'm crazy for you", I said, "take off
your clothes, please." She resisted a little but when I
began loosening her dress, she helped me and took it
off. Her knickers, I noticed, were new. They soon
fell off and she stood in her chemise and black
stockings. "That's enough, isn't it?" she said, "Mr.
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 103
Curious", and she drew the chemise tight about her.
"No", I cried, "beauty must unveil, please!" The
next moment the chemise slipping down caught for a
moment on her hips and then slid circling round her
feet.
Her nakedness stopped my heart; desire blinded
me: my arms went round her, straining her soft form
to me: in a moment I had lifted her on to the bed,
pulling the bed clothes back at the same time. The
foolish phrase of being in bed together deluded me:
I had no idea that she was more in my power just
lying on the edge of the bed; in a moment I had torn
off my clothes and boots and got in beside her. Our
warm bodies lay together: a thousand hot pulses beat-
ing in us: soon I separated her legs and lying on her
tried to put my sex into hers, but she drew away
almost at once. "0 — O, it hurts" she murmured and
each time I tried to push my sex in, her "O's" of pain
stopped me.
My wild excitement made me shiver; I could have
struck her for drawing away; but soon I noticed that
she let my sex touch her clitoris with pleasure and I
began to use my cock as a finger, caressing her with it.
In a moment or two I began to move it more quickly
and as my excitement grew to the height, I again
tried to slip it into her pussy, and now as her love-dew
came, I got my sex in a little way which gave me
inexpressible pleasure; but when I pushed to go
further, she drew away again with a sharp cry of
pain. At the same moment my orgasm came on for
the first time and seed like milk spurted from my
sex. The pleasure thrill was almost unbearably
keen: I could have screamed with the pang of it; but
Jessie cried out, "Oh, you're wetting me" and drew
away with a frightened "Look, look!" And there,
sure enough, on her round white thighs were patches
104 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
of crimson blood. "Oh! I'm bleeding", she cried,
"what have you done?"
"Nothing", I answered, a little sulky, I'm afraid^
at having my indescribable pleasure cut short, "no-
thing" and in a moment I had got out of bed, and
taking my handkerchief soon wiped away the tell-
tale traces.
But when I wanted to begin again, Jessie
wouldn't hear of it at first:
"No, no", she said. "You've hurt me really, Jim,
(my Christian name, I had told her, was James) and
I'm scared, please be good". I could only do her will,
till a new thought struck me. At any rate I could see
her now and study her beauties one by one, and so
still lying by her I began kissing her left breast and
soon the nipple grew a little stiff in my mouth.
Why, I didn't know and Jessie said she didn't, but
she liked it when I said her breasts were lovely and
indeed they were, small and firm while the nipples
pointed straight out. Suddenly the thought came,
surprising me: it would have been much prettier if
the circle surrounding the nipples had been rose-
red instead of merely umber brown. I was thrilled
by the bare idea. But her flanks and belly were
lovely; the navel like a curled sea-shell, I thought,
and the triangle of silky brown hairs on the Mount
of Venus seemed to me enchanting, but Jessie kept
covering her beauty-place. "It's ugly", she said,
"please, boy", but I went on caressing it and soon
I was trying to slip my sex in again; though Jessie's
"O's" of pain began at once and she begged me to
stop.
"We must get up and dress", she said, "they'll
soon be back", so I had to content myself with just
lying in her arms with my sex touching hers. Soon
she began to move against my sex, and to kiss me,
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 105
and then she bit my lips just as my sex slipped into
hers again; she left it in for a long moment and then
as her lips grew hot: "it's so big", she said, "but
you're a dear". The moment after she cried: "We
must get up, boy! if they caught us, I'd die of shame".
When I tried to divert her atteution by kissing her
breasts, she pouted, "That hurts too. Please, boy,
stop and don't look", she added as she tried to
rise, covering her sex the while with her hand, and
pulling a frowning face. Though I told her she was
mistaken and her sex was lovely, she persisted in
hiding it, and in truth her breasts and thighs excited
me more, perhaps because they were in themselves
more beautiful.
I put my hand on her hips; she smiled, "Please r
boy" and as I moved away to give her room, she got
up and stood by the bed, a perfect little figure in
rosy, warm outline. I was entranced, but the cursed
critical faculty was awake. As she turned, I saw she
was too broad for her height; her legs were too short,
her hips too stout. It all chilled me a little. Should
I ever find perfection 1 ?
Ten minutes later she had arranged the bed and
we were seated in the sitting-room but to my wonder
Jessie didn't want to talk over our experience. "What
gave you most pleasure?" I asked. "All of it", she
said, "you naughty dear; but don't let's talk of it".
I told her I was going to work for a month, but
I couldn't talk to her: my hand was soon up her
clothes again playing with her sex and caressing it,
and we had to move apart hurriedly when we heard
her sister at the door.
I didn't get another evening alone with Jessie
for some time. I asked for it often enough, but Jessie
made excuses and her sister was very cold to me. I
soon found out it was by her advice that Jessie
106 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
guarded herself. Jessie confessed that her sister
accused her of letting me "act like a husband: she
must have seen a stain on my chemise", Jessie added,
'"when you made me bleed, you naughty boy; any
way something gave her the idea and now you must
be good".
That was the conclusion of the whole matter.
If I had known as much then as I knew ten years
later, neither the pain nor her sister's warnings could
have dissuaded Jessie from giving herself to me.
Even at the time I felt that a little more knowledge
would have made me the arbiter.
The desire to have Jessie completely to myself
again, was one reason why I gave up the job at the
Bridge as soon as the month was up. I had over a
hundred and fifty dollars clear in my pocket and I
had noticed that though the pains in my ears soon
ceased, I had become a little hard of hearing. The
first morning I wanted to he in bed and have one
.great lazy day, but I awoke at five as usual, and it
.suddenly occurred to me that I should go down and
see Allison, the bootblack, again. I found him busier
than ever and I had soon stripped off and set to work.
About ten o'clock we had nothing to do, so I told him
of my work under water; he boasted that his "stand"
brought him in about four dollars a day: there wasn't
much to do in the afternoons, but from six to seven
again he usually earned something more.
I was welcome to come and work with him any
morning on halves and I thought it well to accept his
offer.
That very afternoon I took Jessie for a walk in
the Park, but when we had found a seat in the shade
she confessed that her sister thought we ought to be
engaged, and as soon as I got steady work we could
be married: "A woman wants a home of her own",
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 107
she said, "and oh, Boy! I'd make it so pretty! and
we'd go out to the theatres and have a gay old
time".
I was horrified; married at my age, no, Sir! It
seemed absurd to me and with Jessie. I saw she was
pretty and bright, but she knew nothing, never had
read anything: I couldn't marry her. The idea made
me snort. But she was dead in earnest, so I agreed
to all she said, only insisting that first I must got
regular work; I'd buy the engagement ring too: but
first we must have another great evening. Jessie
didn't know whether her sister would go out, but
she'd see. Meanwhile we kissed and kissed and her
lips grew hot and my hand got busy, and then we-
walked again, on and on, and finally went into the
great Museum.
Here I got one of the shocks of my life..
Suddenly Jessie stopped before a picture represent-
ing, I think, Paris choosing the Goddess of Beauty ,>
Paris being an ideal figure of youthful manhood.
"Oh, isn't he splendid!" cried Jessie, "just like
you", she added with feminine wit, pouting out her
lips as if to kiss me. If she hadn't made the personal
application, I might not have realized the absurdity
of the comparison. But Paris had long, slim legs
while mine were short and stout, and his face was
oval and his nose straight, while my nose jutted out
with broad, scenting nostrils.
The conviction came to me in a flash: I was ugly
with irregular features, sharp eyes and short squat
figure: the certainty overpowered me: I had learned
before that I was too small to be a great athlete, now
I saw that I was ugly to boot: my heart sank: I can
not describe my disappointment and disgust.
Jessie asked; what was the matter and at length
I told her. She wouldn't have it: "You've a lovely
108 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
white skin", she cried, "and you're quick and strong:
no one would call you ugly! — the idea!" But the
knowledge was in me indisputable, never to leave me
again for long. It even led me to some erroneous in-
ferences then and there: for example, it seemed clear
to me that if I had been tall and handsome like Paris,
Jessie would have given herself to me in spite of her
sister; but further knowledge of women makes me
inclined to doubt this: they have a luscious eye for
good looks in the male, naturally; but other qualities,
such as strength and dominant self-confidence have
an even greater attraction for the majority,
especially for those who are richly endowed sexually
and I am inclined to think that it was her sister's
warnings and her own matter-of-fact hesitation
before the irrevocable that induced Jessie to withhold
her sex from complete abandonment. But the
pleasure I had experienced with her, made me keener
than ever, and more enterprising. The conviction of
my ugliness, too, made me resolve to develope my
mind and all other faculties as much as I could.
Finally, I saw Jessie home and had a great hug
and long kiss and was told she had had a bully after-
noon and we made another appointment.
I worked at bootblacking every morning and soon
got some regular customers, notably a young, well-
dressed man who seemed to like me. Either Allison,
or he himself, told me his name was Kendrick and he
came from Chicago. One morning he was very silent
and absorbed. At length I said, "Finished" and
""Finished", he repeated after me: "I was thinking of
something else", he explained. "Intent", I said
smiling. "A business deal", he explained, "but why
do you say intent 1" "The Latin phrase came into
my head", I replied without thinking, 'Intentique ore
tenebant', Vergil says."
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 109
"Good God!" he cried, "fancy a bootblack quoting
Vergil. You're a strange lad, what age are you! 1 "
"Sixteen", I replied. "You don't look it", he said,
"but now I must hurry; one of these days we'll have
a talk". I smiled, "Thank you, Sir", and away he
hastened.
The very next day he was in still greater haste:
"I must get down town", he said, "I'm late already;
just give me a rub or two", he cried impatiently, "I
must catch that train" and he fumbled with some
bills in his hand. "It's all right", I said, and
smiling added; "Hurry! I'll be here tomorrow". He
smiled and went off without paying, taking me at my
word.
The next day I strolled down-town early; for
Allison had found that a stand and lean-to were to
be sold on the corner of 13th Street and Seventh
Avenue, and as he was known, he wanted me to
go and have a look at the business done from seven
to nine. The Dago who wished to sell out and go
back to Dalmatia, wanted three hundred dollars for
the outfit, asserting that the business brought in four
dollars a day. He had not exaggerated unduly, I
found, and Allison was hot that we should buy it
together and go fifty-fifty. "You'll make five or six
dollars a day at it", he said, "if the Dago makes
four. It's one of the good pitches and with three
dollars a day coming in, you'll soon have a stand
of your own".
While we were discussing it, Kendrick came up
and took his accustomed seat. "What were you so hot
about?" he asked, and as Allison smiled, I told him,
"Three dollars a day seems good", he said, "but
bootblacking's not your game. How would you like
to come to Chicago and have a place as night-clerk
110 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
in my hotel? I've got one with my uncle", he added,
"and I think you'd make good".
"I'd do my best", I replied, the very thought of
Chicago and the Great West drawing me, "Will you
let me think it over?"
"Sure, sure!", he replied, "I don't go back till
Friday; that gives you three days to decide".
Allison stuck to his opinion, that a good stand
would make more money; but when I talked it over
with the Mulligans, they were both in favor of the
hotel. I saw Jessie that same evening and told her
of the "stand" and begged for another evening, but
she stuck to it that her sister was suspicious and cross
with me and would not leave us alone again.
Accordingly, I said nothing to her of Chicago.
I had already noticed that sexual pleasure is in
its nature profoundly selfish. So long as Jessie
yielded to me and gave me delight, I was attracted
by her; but as soon as she denied me, I became
annoyed and dreamed of more pliant beauties. I was
rather pleased to leave her without even a word;
"that'll teach her!" my wounded vanity whispered,
"she deserves to suffer a little for disappointing me".
But parting with the Mulligans was really
painful: Mrs. Mulligan was a dear, kind woman who
would have mothered the whole race if she could;
one of those sweet Irish women whose unselfish
deeds and thoughts are the flowers of our sordid
human life. Her husband too was not unworthy of
her; very simple and straight and hard-working,
without a mean thought in him, a natural prey to
good fellowship and songs and poteen.
On Friday afternoon I left New York for
Chicago with Mr. Kendrick. The country seemed
to me very bare, harsh and unfinished, but the great
distances enthralled me; it was indeed a land to be
/
m a
/■
\
\
V,
r
V
THE GREAT NEW WORLD. Ill
proud of, every broad acre of it spoke of the future
and suggested hope.
My first round, so to speak, with American life
was over. What I had learned in it remains with
me still. No people is so kind to children and no life
so easy for the handworkers; the hewers of wood
and drawers of water are better off in the United
States than anywhere else on earth. To this one
class and it is by far the most numerous class, the
American democracy more than fulfills its promises.
It levels up the lowest in a most surprising way. I
believed then with all my heart what so many believe
today, that all deductions made, it was on the whole,
the best civilization yet known among men.
In time, deeper knowledge made me modify this
opinion more and more radically. Five years later
I was to see Walt Whitman, the noblest of all
Americans, living in utter poverty at Camden,
dependent upon English admirers for a change of
clothes or a sufficiency of food, and Poe had suffered
in the same way.
Bit by bit the conviction was forced in upon me
that if the American democracy does much to level
up the lowest class, it is still more successful in
levelling down the highest and best. No land on
earth is so friendly to the poor illiterate toilers,
no land so contemptuous-cold to the thinkers and
artists, the guides of humanity. What help is there
here for men of letters and artists, for the seers and
prophets f Such guides are not wanted by the idle
rich and are ignored by the masses, and after all the
welfare of the head is more important even than
that of the body and feet.
What will become of those who stone the prophet?
and persecute the teachers'? The doom is written in
flaming letters on every page of history.
9
LIFE IN CHICAGO!
Chapter VI.
HP he Fremont House, Kendrick's hotel was near the
Michigan Street Depot. In those days when
Chicago had barely 300,000 inhabitants, it was an
hotel of the second class. Mr. Kendrick had told me
that Ms uncle, a Mr. Cotton really owned the House,
but left him the chief share in the management,
adding "What uncle says, goes always." In the
course of time, I understood the nephew's loyalty;
for Mr. Cotton was really kindly and an able man of
business. My duties as night-clerk were simple;
from eight at night till six in the morning, I was
master in the office and had to apportion bedrooms
to the incoming guests and give bills and collect the
monies due from the outgoing public. I set myself
at once to learn the good and bad points of the
hundred odd bedrooms in the house and the arrival
and departure times of all the night trains. When
guests came in, I met them at the entrance, found
out what they wanted and told this or that porter
or bell-boy to take them to their rooms. However
curt or irritable they were, ] always tried to smoothe
them down and soon found 1 was succeeding. In
a week Mr. Kendrick told me that he had heard
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 113
golden opinions of me from a dozen visitors. "You
have a dandy night-clerk," he was told; "Spares no
pains . . . pleasant manners . . . knows everything
. . "some" clerk; yes, sir!"
My experience in Chicago assured me that if one
does his very best, he comes to success in business in
a comparatively short time; so few do all they can.
Going to bed at six, I was up every day at I o'clock
for dinner as it was called and after dinner I got
into the habit of going inte the billiard-room at one
end of which was a large bar. By five o'clock or so,
the billiard-room was crowded and there was no one
to superintend things, so I spoke to Mr. Kendrick
about it and took the job on my own shoulders. I
had little to do but induce newcomers to await their
turn patiently and to mollify old customers who
expected to find tables waiting for them. The result
of a little courtesy and smiling promises was so
marked that at the end of the very first month the
bookkeeper, a man named Curtis, told me with a grin
that I was to get sixty dollars a month and not
forty dollars as I had supposed. Needless to say the
extra pay simply quickened my desire to make
myself useful. But now I found the way up barred by
two superiors, the bookkeeper was one and the
steward, a dry taciturn Westerner named Payne was
the other. Payne bought everything and had control
of the dining-room and waiters while Curtis ruled
the office and the bell-boys. I was really under
Curtis; but my control of the billiard-room gave me
a sort of independent position.
I soon made friends with Curtis; got into the
habit of dining with him and when he found that my
handwriting was very good, he gave me the day-book
to keep and in a couple of months had taught me
bookkeeping while entrusting me with a good deal
1U MY LIFE AND LOVES.
of it. He was not lazy; but most men of forty like
to have a capable assistant. By Christmas that year
I was keeping all the books except the ledger and I
knew, as I thought, the whole business of the hotel.
The dining room, it seemed to me was very badly
managed; but as luck would have it, I was first to
get control of the office. As soon as Curtis found
out that I could safely be trusted to do his work, he
began going out at dinner time and often stayed
away the whole day. About New Year he was away
for five days and confided in me when he returned,
that he had been on a "bust". He wasn't nappy
with his wife, it appeared, and he used to drink to
drown her temper. In February he was away for
ten days; but as he had given me the key of the safe
I kept everything going. One day Kendrick found
me in the office working and wanted to know about
Curtis: "how long had he been away! v "A day or
two," I replied. Kendrick looked at me and asked
for the ledger: "it's written right up!" he exclaimed,
"did you do it!" I had to say I did; but at once I
sent a bellboy for Curtis. The boy didn't find him
at his house and next day I was brought up before Mr.
Cotton. I couldn't deny that I had kept the books
and Cotton soon saw that I was shielding Curtis out
of loyalty. When Curtis came in next day, he gave
the whole show away; he was half-drunk still and
rude to boot. He had been unwell, he said; but his
work was in order. He was 'fired' there and then
by Mr. Cotton and that evening Kendrick asked me
to keep things going properly till he could persuade
his uncle that I was trustworthy and older than I
looked.
In a couple of days I saw Mr. Cotton and Mr.
Kendrick together. "Can you keep the books and be
night-clerk and take care of the billiard-room?" Mr.
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 115
Cotton asked me sharply. "I think so" T replied,
"I'll do my best." "Hm!" he grunted: "what pay do
you think you ought to have!" "I'll leave that to
you sir,' 1 I said, "I shall be satisfied whatever you
give me." "The devil you will," he said grumpily,
"suppose I said, keep on at your present rate?" I
smiled; "0. K. Sir."
"Why do you smile f" he asked. "Because, sir,
pay like water tends to find its level!" "What the
devil d'ye mean by its level V "The level," I went
on, "is surely the market price; sooner or later it'll
rise towards that and I can wait." His keen grey
eyes suddenly bored into me. "I begin to think you're
much older, than you look, as my nephew here tells
me," he said. "Put yourself down at a hundred a
month for the present and in a little while we'll per-
haps find the 'level, 1 ' and he smiled. I thanked him
and went out to my work.
It seemed as if incidents were destined to crowd
my life A day or so after this the taciturn
steward, Payne, came and asked me if I'd go out
with him to dinner and some theatre or other? I had
not had a day off in five or six months so I said "Yes."
He gave me a great dinner at a famous French restau-
rant (I forget the name now) and wanted me to drink
champagne. But I had already made up my mind
not to touch any intoxicating liquor till I was twenty
one and so I told him simply that I had taken the
pledge. He beat about the bush a great deal, but at
length said that as I was bookkeeper in place of
Curtis, he hoped we should get along as he and Curtis
had done. I asked him just what he meant but he
wouldn't speak plainly which excited my suspicions.
A day or two afterwards I got into talk with a butcher
in another quarter of the town and asked him what
h« would supply seventy pounds of beef and fifty
116 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
pounds of mutton for, daily for a hotel; he gave me a
price so much below the price Payne was paying that
my suspicions were confirmed. I was tremendously
excited. In my turn I invited Payne to dinner and
led up to the subject. At once he said "of course
there's a 'rake-off' and if you'll hold in with me, I'll
give you a third as I gave Curtis. The f rake-ofP
don't hurt anyone," he went on, "for I buy below
market-price." Of course I was all ears and eager
interest when he admitted that the 'rake-off' was on
everything he bought and amounted to about 20 per
cent, of the cost. By this he changed his wages from
two hundred dollars a month into something like two
hundred dollars a week.
As soon as I had all the facts clear, I asked the
nephew to dine with me and laid the situation before
him. I had only one loyalty — to my employers and
the good of the ship. To my astonishment he seemed
displeased at first; "more trouble," he began, "why
can't you stick to your own job and leave the others
alone? What's in a commission after all?" When he
came to understand what the commission amounted to
and that he himself could do the buying in half an
hour a day, he altered his tone. "What will my uncle
say now?" he cried and went off to tell the owner his
story. There was a tremendous row two days later
for Mr. Cotton was a business man and went to the
butcher we dealt with and ascertained for himself
how important the 'rake-off' really was. When I was
called into the uncle's room Payne tried to hit me ; but
he found it was easier to receive than to give punches
and that "the damned kid" was not a bit afraid of him.
Curiously enough, I soon noticed that the "rake-
off" had had the secondary result of giving us an infer-
ior quality of meat; whenever the butcher was left
with a roast he could not sell, he used to send it to us
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 117
confident that Payne wouldn't quarrel about it. The
negro cook declared that the meat now was far better ;
all that could be desired in fact, and our customers
too were not slow to show their appreciation.
One other change the discharge of Payne brought
about; it made me master of the dining room. I soon
picked a smart waiter and put him as chief over the
rest and together we soon improved the waiting and
discipline among the waiters out of all comparison.
For over a year I worked eighteen hours out of the
twenty four and after the first six months or so, I
got one hundred and fifty dollars a month and saved
practically all of it.
Some experience in this long, icy-cold winter in
Chicago enlarged my knowledge of American life and
particularly of life on the lowest level. I had been
about three months in the hotel when I went out one
evening for a sharp walk, as I usually did, about seven
o'clock. It was bitterly cold, a western gale raked
the streets with icy teeth, the thermometer was about
ten below zero. I had never imagined anything like
the cold. Suddenly I was accosted by a stranger, a
small man with red moustache and stubbly unshaven
beard :
"Say, mate, can you help a man to a mean" The
fellow was evidently a tramp: his clothes shabby and
dirty: his manner servile with a backing of trncu-
lence. I was kindly and not critical. Without a
thought, I took my roll of bills out of my pocket. I
meant to take off a dollar bill. As the money came
to view the tramp with a pounce grabbed at it, but
caught my hand as well. Instinctively I held on to
my roll like grim Death, but while I was still under
the shock of surprise the hobo hit me viciously in the
face and plucked at the bills again. I hung on all
the tighter, and angry now, struck the man in the
118 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
face with my left fist. The next moment we had
clenched and fallen. As luck and youth would have
it, I fell on top. At once I put out all my strength,
struck the fellow hard in the face and at the same
time tore my bills away. The next moment I was on
my feet with my roll deep in my pocket and both
fists ready for the next assault. To my astonishment
the hobo picked himself up and said confidingly:
"I'm hungry, weak, or you wouldn't have downed
me so easy." And then he went on with what to me
seemed incredible impudence:
"You should peel me off a dollar at least for
hittin' me like that," and he stroked his jaw as if to
ease the pain.
"I've a good mind to give you in charge," said I,
suddenly realizing that I had the law on my side.
"If you don't cash up," barked the hobo, "I'll
call the cops and say you've grabbed my wad/'
"Call away," I cried: "we'll see who'll be be-
lieved."
But the hobo knew a better trick. In a familiar
wheedling voice he began again:
"Come, young fellow, you'll never miss one dollar
and I'll put you wise to a good many things here in
Chicago. You had no business to pull out a wad like
that in a lonely place to tempt a hungry man . . . ."
"I was going to help you," I said hesitatingly.
"I know," replied my weird acquaintance, "but I
prefer to help myself," and he grinned. "Take me
to a hash-house: I'm hungry and I'll put you wise to
many things; you're a tenderfoot and show it."
Clearly the hobo was the master of the situation
and somehow or other his whole attitude stirred my
curiosity.
"Where are we to gof" I asked. "I don't know
any restaurant near here except the Fremont House."
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 119
"Hell," cried the hobo, "only millionaires and
fools go to hotels. I follow my nose for grub," and
he turned on Ms heel and led the way without another
word down a side street and into a German dive set
out with bare wooden tables and sanded floor.
Here he ordered hash and I, hot coffee and when
I came to pay I was agreeably surprised to find that
the bill was only forty cents and we could talk in our
corner undisturbed as long as we liked.
In ten minutes' chat the hobo had upset all my
preconceived ideas and given me a host of new and in-
teresting thoughts. He was a man of some reading if
not of education and the violence of his language
attracted me almost as much as the novelty of his
point of view.
All rich men were thieves, all workmen, sheep and
fools, was his creed. The workmen did the work,
created the wealth, and the employers robbed them
of nine-tenths of the product of their labor and so got
rich. It all seemed simple. The tramp never meant
to work; he lived by begging and went wherever h.%
wanted to go.
"But how do you get about 1" I cried.
"Here in the middle west," he replied, "I steal
rides in freight cars and box-cars and on top of coal
wagons, but in the real west and south I get inside
the cars and ride, and when the conductor turns me
off I wait for the next train. Life is full of happen-
ings — some of 'em painful," he added, thoughtfully
rubbing his jaw again.
He appeared to be a tough little man whose on«
object in life it was to avoid work and in spite of
himself, he worked hard in order to do nothing.
The experience had a warning, quickening effect
on me. T resolved to save all T could.
120 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
When I stood up to go the hobo grinned ami-
cably :
"I guess I've earned that dollar?" I could not
help laughing. "I guess you have," I replied, but
took care to turn aside as I stripped off the bill.
"So long," said the tramp as we parted at the
door and that was all the thanks I ever got.
Another experience of this time told a sadder
story. One evening a girl spoke to me ; she was fairly
well-dressed and as we came under a gas-lamp I saw
she was good looking with a tinge of nervous anxiety
in her face.
"I don't buy love," I warned her: "but how much
do you generally get?" "From one dollar to five,"
she replied ; "but tonight I want as much as I can get."
"I'll give you five," I replied; "but you must tell
me all I want to know."
"All right," she said eagerly, "I'll tell all I know:
it's not much," she added bitterly; "I'm not twenty
yet; but you'd have taken me for more, now wouldn't
you?" "No," I replied, "you look about eighteen: in
a few minutes we were climbing the stairs of a tene-
ment house. The girl's room was poorly furnished
and narrow, a hall bedroom just the width of the cor-
ridor, perhaps six feet by eight. As soon as she had
taken off her thick cloak and hat, she hastened out of
the room saying she'd be back in a minute. In the
silence, I thought I heard her running up the stairs;
a baby somewhere near cried; and then silence again,
till she opened the door, drew my head to her and
kissed me:
"I like you," she said, "though you're funny/'
"Why funny?" I asked.
"It's a scream," she said, "to give five dollars to
a girl and never touch her: but I'm glad for I was
tired tonight and anxious."
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 121
"Why anxious ?" I queried, "and why did you go
out if you were tired 1" "Got to," she replied through
tightly closed lips. "You don't mind if I leave you
again for a moment ?" she added and before I could
answer she was out of the room again. When she
returned in five minutes I had grown impatient and
put on my overcoat and hat.
"Goinf" she asked in surprise:
"Yes", I replied, "I don't like this empty cage
while you go off to someone else."
"Someone else" she repeated and then as if des-
perate: "it's my baby if you must know: a friend
takes care of her when I'm out or working."
"Oh, you poor thing," I cried, "fancy you with
a baby at this life!"
"I wanted a baby", she cried defiantly. "I wouldn't
be without her for anything! I always wanted a
baby: there's lots of girls like that."
"Eeallyf I cried astounded.
"Do you know her father V I went on.
"Of course I do," she retorted. "He's working
in the stock yards; but he's tough and won't keep
sober."
"I suppose you'd marry him if he would go
straight*?" I asked.
"Any girl would marry a decent feller!" she
replied.
"You're pretty," I said.
"D'ye think so?" she asked eagerly pushing her
hair back from the sides of her head. "I used to be
but now — this life — " and she shrugged her
shoulders expressively.
"You don't like it!" I asked.
"No," she cried; "though when you get a nice
feller, it's not so bad; but they're scarce," she went
on bitterly, "and generally when they're nice, they've
122 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
no bucks. The nice fellers are all poor or old," she
added reflectively.
I had had the best part of her wisdom, so I
stripped off a five dollar bill and gave it to her.
"Thanks," she said, "you're a dear and if you want
to come an' see me any time, just come an' I'll try
to give you a good time." — Away I went. I
had had my first talk with a prostitute and in her
room! The idea that a girl could want a baby was
altogether new to me: her temptations very different
from a boy's, very!
For the greater part of my first year in Chicago
I had no taste of love: I was often tempted by this
chambermaid or that ; but I knew 1 should lose
prestige if I yielded and I simply put it all out of my
head resolvedly as I had abjured drink. But towards
the beginning of the summer temptation came to me
in a new guise. A Spanish family, named Vidal,
stopped at the Fremont House.
Senor Vidal was like a French officer, middle
height, trim figure, very dark with grey moustache
waving up at the ends. His wife, motherly but stout,
with large dark eyes and small features; a cousin, a
man of about thirty, rather tall with a small black
moustache, like a tooth brush, I thought, and sharp
imperious ways. At first I did not notice the girl
who was talking to her Indian maid. I understood
at once that the Vidals were rich and gave them
the best rooms: "all communicating — except yours,"
I added, turning to the young man : "it is on the other
side of the corridor, but large and quiet." A shrug
and contemptuous nod was all I got for my pains
from Senor Arriga. As I handed the keys to the
bellboy, the girl threw back her black mantilla.
"Any letters for usl" she asked quietly. For a
minute I stood dumbfounded, enthralled, then "I'll
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 123
see," I muttered and went to the rack, but only to give
myself a countenance — I knew there were none.
"None, I'm sorry to say," I smiled watching the
girl as she moved away.
"What's the matter with me 1 ?" I said to myself
angrily. "She's nothing wonderful, this Miss Vidal;
pretty, yes, and dark with fine dark eyes, but nothing
extraordinary." But it would not do; I was shaken
in a new way and would not admit it even to myself.
In fact the shock was so great that my head took
sides against heart and temperament at once as if
alarmed. "All Spaniards are dank," I said to myself,
trying to depreciate the girl and so regain self-con-
trol; "besides her nose is beaked a little." But there
was no conviction in my criticizm. As soon as I re-
called the proud grace of carriage and the magic of
her glance, the fever-fit shook me again: for the first
time my heart had been touched.
Next day I found out that the Vidals had come
from Spain and were on their way to their hacienda
near Chihuahua in Northern Mexico. They meant
to rest in Chicago for three or four days because
Seiiora Yidal had heart trouble and couldn't stand
much fatigue. I discovered besides that Seiior Arriga
was either courting his cousin or betrothed to her and
at once I sought to make myself agreeable to the man.
Senor Arriga was a fine billiard player and I took
the nearest way to his heart by reserving for him the
best table, getting him a fair opponent and compli-
menting him upon his skill. The next day Arriga
opened his heart to me: "What is there to do in this
dull hole? Did I know of any amusement? Any
pretty women?"
I could do nothing but pretend to sympathize and
draw him out and this I easily accomplished, for
Senor Arriga loved to boast of his name and position
124 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
in Mexico and his conquests. "Ah, you should have
seen her as I led her in the baile (dance) — an angel!"
and he kissed his fingers gallantly.
"As pretty as your cousin f I ventured. Sefior
Arriga flashed a sharp suspicious glance at me, but
apparently reassured by my frankness, went on:
"In Mexico we never talk of members of our
family," he warned: "The Seiiorita is pretty, of
course, but very young; she has not the charm of
experience, the caress of — I know so little Ameri-
can, I find it difficult to explain."
But I was satisfied. "He doesn't love her", I
said to myself; "loves no one except himself."
In a thousand little ways I took occasion to com-
mend myself to the Vidals. Every afternoon they
drove out and I took care they should have the best
buggy and the best driver and was at pains to find
out new and pretty drives, though goodness knows
the choice was limited. The beauty of the girl grew
on me in an extraordinary way: yet it was the pride
and reserve in her face that fascinated me more even
than her great dark eyes or fine features or splendid
coloring. Her figure and walk were wonderful; I
thought: I never dared to seek epithets for her eyes,,
or mouth or neck. Her first appearance in evening
dress was a revelation to me : she was my idol, enskied
and sacred.
It is to be presumed that the girl saw how it was
with me and was gratified. She made no sign, be-
trayed herself in no way, but her mother noticed that
she was always eager to go downstairs to the lounge
and missed no opportunity of making some inquiry
at the desk.
"I want to practice my English," the girl said once-
and the mother smiled: "Los ojos, you mean your
eyes, my dear," and added to herself: "But why nott
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 125
Youth — " and sighed for her own youth now fore-
gone, and the petals already fallen.
One little talk I got with my goddess: she came
to the office to ask about reserving a Pullman draw-
mg-room for El Paso. I undertook at once to see
to everything, and when the dainty little lady added
in her funny accent: "We have so many baggage,
twenty-six bits;" I said as earnestly as if my life de-
pended on it:
"Please trust me. I shall see to everything. I
only wish," I added, "I could do more for you."
"That's kind," said the coquette: "very kind,"
looking full at me. Emboldened by despair at her
approaching departure I added: "I'm so sorry you're
going. I shall never forget you, never."
Taken aback by my directness, the girl laughed
saucih "Never means a week, I suppose."
"You will see," I went on hurriedly as if driven,
as indeed I was. "If I thought I should not see you
again and soon, I should not wish to live."
"A declaration", she laughed merrily, still looking
me brightly in the face.
"Not of independence," I cried, "but of — " as
I hesitated between "affection" and "love" the girl
put her finger to her lips.
"Hush, hush," she said gravely, "you are too
young to take vows and I must not listen", but seeing
my face fall, she added: "You have been very kind.
I shall remember my stay in Chicago with pleasure,"
and she stretched out her hand. I took it and held it
treasuring every touch.
Her look and the warmth of her fingers I gar-
nered up in my heart as purest treasure.
As soon as she had gone and the radiance with
her, 1 cudgelled my brains to find some pretext for
another talk. "She goes tomorrow," hammered in my
126 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
brain and my heartache choked me, almost prevented
my thinking. Suddenly the idea of flowers came to
me. I'd buy a lot. No; everyone would notice them
and talk. A few would be better. How many! I
thought and thought.
When they came into lounge next day ready
to start I was watching my opportunity, but the girl
gave me a better one than I could have picked. She
waited till her father and Arriga had left the hall
and then came over to the desk.
"You have ze checks!" she asked.
"Everything will be given you at the train," I
said, "but I have these for you. Please accept them!"
and I handed her three splendid red rosebuds,
prettily tied up with maiden hair fern.
"How kind!" she exclaimed, coloring, "and how
pretty," she added, looking at the roses. "Just
three!"
"One for your hair," I said with love's cunning,
"one for your eyes and one for your heart — will
you remember!" I added in a low voice intensely.
She nodded and then looked up sparkling: "As
long — as ze flowers last," she laughed, and was back
with her mother.
I saw them into the omnibus and got kind words
from all the party, even from Senor Arriga, but
cherished most her look and word as she went out
of the door.
Holding it open for her, I murmured as she
passed, for the others were within hearing: "I shall
come soon."
The girl stopped, at once, pretending to look at
the tag on a trunk the porter was carrying. "El
Paso is far away," she sighed, "and the hacienda ten
leagues further on. When shall we arrive — when!"
she added glancing up at me.
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 127
"When?" was the significant word to me for
many a month; her eyes had filled it with meaning.
I've told of this meeting with Miss Vidal at
length, because it marked an epoch in my life; it was
the first time that love had cast her glamor over me
making beauty superlative, intoxicating. The passion
rendered it easier for me to resist ordinary temp-
tation, for it taught me there was a whole gorgeous
world in Love's Kingdom that I had never imagined,
much less explored. I had scarcely a lewd thought
of Gloria. It was not till I saw her bared shoulders
in evening dress that I stripped her in imagination
and went almost wild in uncontrollable desire.
Would she ever kiss me? What was she like un-
dressed? My imagination was still untutored: I could
picture her breasts better than her sex and I made
up my mind to examine the next girl I was lucky
enough to see naked, much more precisely.
At the back of my mind was the fixed resolve to
get to Chihuahua somehow or other in the near
future and meet my charmer again and that resolve
in due course shaped my life anew.
In early June, that year, three strangers came
to the Hotel, all cattlemen I was told, but of a new
sort: Keece and Dell and Ford, the "Boss", as he was
called. Reece was a tall dark Englishman or rather
Welshman, always dressed in brown leather riding
boots, Bedford Cord breeches and dark tweed cuta-
way coat: he looked a prosperous gentleman farmer;
Dell was almost a copy of him in clothes, about middle
height and sturdier — in fact an ordinary English-
man. The Boss was fully six feet, taller even than
Reece with a hatchet-thin, bronzed face and eagle
profile — evidently a Western cattle-man from head
to foot. The headwaiter told me about them and as
10
128 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
soon as I saw them I had them transferred to a shady-
cool table and saw that they were well waited on.
A day or two afterwards we had made friends
and a little later, Reece got me measured for two
pairs of cord-breeches and had promised to teach
me how to ride. They were cowpunchers, he said,
with his strong English accent and were going down
to the Eio Grande to buy cattle and drive 'em back
to market here or in Kansas City. Cattle, it appeared,
could be bought in South Texas for a dollar a head
or less and fetched from fifteen to twenty dollars each
in Chicago.
"Of course we don't always get through unscath-
ed" Reece remarked, "The Plain Indians — Chero-
kees, Blackfeet and Sioux — take care of that; but
one herd in two gets through and that pays big."
I found they had brought up a thousand head of
cattle from their ranche near Eureka, Kansas and
a couple of hundred head of horses.
To cut a long story short, Reece fascinated me:
he told me that Chihuahua was the Mexican province
just across the Rio Grande from Texas and at once, I
resolved to go on the Trail with these cowpunchers
if they'd take me. In two or three days Reece told
me I shaped better at riding than anyone he had
ever seen, though, he added "when I saw your thick
short legs I thought you'd never make much of a
hand at it." But I was strong and had grown nearly
six inches in my year in the States and I turned in
my toes as Reece directed and hung on to the English
saddle by the grip of my knees till I was both tired
and sore. In a fortnight Reece made me put five
cent pieces between my knees and the saddle and
keep them there when galloping or trotting.
This practice soon made a rider of me so far as
the seat was concerned and I had already learned that
LIFE IN CHICAGO. 129
Recce was a pastmaster in the deeper mysteries of
the art for he told me he used to ride colts in the
hunting field in England and "that's how you learn
to know horses" he added significantly.
One day I found out that Dell knew some poetry,
literature too, and economics and that won me
completely; when I asked them would they take me
with them as a cowboy, they told me I'd have to ask
the Boss, but there was no doubt he'd consent, and
he consented, after one sharp glance.
Then came my hardest task: I had to tell
Kendrick and Mr. Cotton that I must leave. Thev
were more than astonished: at first they took it to
be a little trick to extort a rise in salary: when they
saw it was sheer boyish adventure-lust they
argued with me but finally gave in. I promised to
return to them as soon as I got back to Chicago or
got tired of cowpunching. I had nearly eighteen
hundred dollars saved, which, by Mr. Cotton's advice,
I transferred to a Kansas City bank he knew well.
LIFE ON THE TRAIL.
On the tenth of June, we took train to Kansas
City, the Gate at that time of the "Wild West". In
Kansas City I became aware of three more men
belonging to the outfit: Bent, Charlie and Bob, the
Mexican. Charlie, to begin with the least important,
was a handsome American youth, blue-eyed and fair-
haired, over six feet in height, very strong, careless,
light-hearted: I always thought of him as a big, kind,
Newfoundland dog, rather awkward but always well-
meaning. Bent was ten years older, a war- veteran,
dark, saturnine, purposeful; five feet nine or ten in
height with muscles of whipcord and a mentality that
was curiously difficult to fathom. Bob, the most
peculiar and original man I had every met up to
10*
130 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
that time, was a little dried up Mexican, hardly five
feet three in height, half Spaniard, half Indian, I
believe, who might be thirty or fifty and who seldom
opened his mouth except to curse all Americans
in Spanish. Even Eeece admitted that Bob could ride
"above a bit" and knew more about cattle than
anyone else in his world. Reece's admiration
directed my curiosity to the little man and I took
every opportunity of talking to him and of giving
him cigars — a courtesy so unusual that at first he
was half inclined to resent it.
It appeared that these three men had been left
in Kansas City to dispose of another herd of cattle
and to purchase stores needed at the ranch. They
were all ready, so the next day we rode out of Kansas
City, about four o'clock in the morning; our course
roughly south by west. Everything was new and
wonderful to me. In three days we had finished with
roads and farmsteads and were on the open prairie;
in two or three days more, the prairie became the
great plains which stretched four or five thousand
miles from north to south with a breadth of some
seven hundred. The plains wore buffalo grass and
sage-brush for a garment, and little else save in the
river-bottoms, trees like the cottonwood; everywhere
rabbits, prairie chicken, deer and buffalo abounded.
We covered about thirty miles a day: Bob sat
in the wagon and drove the four mules, while Bent
and Charlie made us coffee and biscuits in the
morning and cooked us sow-belly and any game
we might bring in for dinner and supper. There was
a small keg of rye whisky on the wagon; but we kept
it for snake-bite or some emergency.
I became the hunter to the outfit, for it was soon
discovered that by some sixth sense I could always
find my way back to the wagon on a bee-line, and
LIFE ON THE TRAIL. 131
only Bob of the whole party possessed the same
instinct. Bob explained it by muttering "No
Americano!" The instinct itself which has stood
me in good stead more times than I can count, is in
essence inexplicable: I feel the direction; but the vague
feeling is strengthened by observing the path of the
sun and the way the halms of grass lean, and the
bushes grow. But it made me a valuable member of
the outfit instead of a mere parasite midway between
master and man, and it was the first step to Bob's
liking which taught me more than all the other haps
of my early life. I had bought a shotgun and and a
Winchester rifle and revolver in Kansas City and
Reece had taught me how to get weapons that would
fit me and this fact helped to make me a fair shot
almost at once. But soon to my grief I found that
I would never be a great shot; for Bob and Charlie
and even Dell could see things far beyond my range
of vision. I was shortsighted in fact through
astimatism and even glasses I discovered later, could
not clear my blurred sight.
It was the second or third disappointment of my
life the others being the conviction of my personal
ugliness and the fact that I should always be too
short and small to be a great fighter or athlete.
As I went on in life I discovered more serious
disabilities but they only strengthened my deep-
seated resolve to make the most of any qualities I
might possess and meanwhile the life was divinely
new and strange and pleasureful.
After breakfast, about five o'clock in the
morning, I would ride away from the wagon till it
was out of sight and then abandon myself to the joy
of solitude, with no boundary between plain and sky.
The air was brisk and dry, as exhilarating as cham-
pagne and even when the sun reached the zenith and
132 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
became blazing hot, the air remained lightsome and
invigorating. Mid Kansas is 2000 odd feet above sea-
level and the air is so dry that an animal when killed,
dries up without stinking and in a few months the
hide's filled with mere dust. Game was plentiful,
hardly an hour would elapse before I had got half
a dozen ruffed grouse or a deer and then I would
walk my pony back to the midday camp with perhaps
a new wild flower in hand whose name I wished
i
to learn.
After the midday meal I used to join Bob in the
wagon and learn some Spanish words or phrases
from him or question him about his knowledge of
cattle. In the first week we became great friends:
I found to my amusement that Bob was just as
voluble in Spanish as he was tongue-tied in English,
and his command of Spanish oaths, objurgations and
indecencies was astounding. Bob despised all things
American with an unimaginable ferocity and this
interested me by its apparent unreason.
Once or twice on the way down we had a race;
but Reece on a big Kentucky thoroughbred called
'Shiloh' won easily. He told me however, that there
was a young mare called 'Blue Devil' at the ranch
which was as fast as Shiloh and of rare stay and
stamina: "You can have her, if you can ride her,"
he threw out carelessly and I determined to win the
'Devil' if I could.
In about ten days we reached the ranch near
Eureka; it was set in five thousand acres of prairie,
a big frame dwelling, that would hold twenty men;
but it wasn't nearly so well-built as the great, brick
stable, the pride of Reece's eye, which would house
forty horses and provide half a dozen with good loose
boxes besides, in the best English style.
LIFE ON THE TRAIL. 133
The house and stable were situated on a long
billowy rise perhaps three hundred yards away from
a good-sized creek which I soon christened Snake-
Creek for snakes of all sorts and sizes simply
swarmed in the brush and woodland of the banks.
The big sitting room of the ranch was decorated with
revolvers and rifles of a dozen different kinds and
pictures, strange to say, cut out of the illustrated
papers: the floor was covered with buffalo and bear
rugs and rarer skins of mink and beaver hung here
and there on the wooden walls. We got to the ranch
late one night and I slept in a room with Dell, he
taking the bed while I rolled myself in a rug on the
couch. But I slept like a top and next morning was
out before sunrise to take stock so to speak. An
Indian lad showed me the stable and as luck would
have it Blue Devil in a loose box, all to herself and
very uneasy.
"What's the matter with her!" I asked, and the
Indian told me she had rubbed her ear raw where
it joins the head and the flies had got on it and
plagued her: I went to the house and got Peggy, the
mulatto cook to fill a bucket with warm water and
with this bucket and a sponge I entered the loose
box: Blue Devil came for me and nipped my shoulder
but as soon as 1 clapped the sponge with warm
water on her ear, she stopped biting and we soon
became friends. That same afternoon, I led her
out in front of the ranch saddled and bridled, got on
her and walked her off as quiet as a lamb. "She's
yours!" said Reece; "but if she ever gets your foot
in her mouth, you'll know what pain is!"
It appeared that that was a little trick she had,
to tug and tug at the reins till the rider let them go
loose and then at once she would twist her head
round, get the rider's toes in her mouth and bite like
134 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
a fiend. No one she disliked could mount her; for
she fought like a man with her fore- feet; but I never
had any difficulty with her and she saved my life
more than once. Like most feminine creatures she
responded immediately to kindness and was faithful
to affection.
I'm compelled to notice that if I tell the other
happenings in this eventful year at as great length
as I've told the incidents of the fortnight that
brought me from Chicago to the ranch at Eureka,
I'd have to devote at least a volume to them, so I
prefer to assure my readers that one of these days if I
live, I'll publish my novel "On the Trail" which
gives the whole story in great detail. Now I shall
content myself with saying that two days after
reaching the ranch we set out, ten men strong and
two wagons filled with our clothes and provender and
dragged by four mules each, to cover the twelve
hundred miles to Southern Texas or New Mexico
where we hoped to buy 5000 or 6000 head of cattle at
a dollar a head and drive them to Kansas City, the
nearest train point.
When we got on the Great Trail a hundred miles
from Port Dodge, the days passed in absolute
monotony. After sunset a light breeze usually sprang
up to make the night pleasantly cool and we would sit
and chat about the camp-fire for an hour or two.
Strange to say the talk usually turned to bawd or
religion or the relations of capital and labor. It was
curious how eagerly these rough cattle-men would
often discuss the mysteries of this unintelligible
world, and as a militant sceptic I soon got a
reputation among them; for Dell usually backed me
up and his knowledge of books and thinkers seemed
to us extraordinary.
LIFE ON THE TRAIL. 135
These constant evening discussions, this perpetual
arguing, had an unimaginable effect on me. I had no
books with me and I was often called on to deal with
two or three different theories in a night: I had to
think out the problems for myself and usually I
thought them out when hunting by myself in the
daytime. It was as a cowpuncher that I taught myself
how to think: — a rare art among men and seldom
practised. Whatever originality I possess comes from
the fact that in youth, while my mind was in process
of growth, I was confronted with important modern
problems and forced to think them out for myself
and find some reasonable answer to the questionings
of half a dozen different minds.
For example, Bent asked one night what the
proper wage should be of the ordinary workman 1 I
could only answer that the workman's wage should
increase at least in measure as the productivity of
labor increased; but I could not then see how to
approach this ideal settlement. When I read Herbert
Spencer ten years later in Germany, I was delighted
to find that I had divined the best of his sociology
and added to it materially. His idea that the amount
of individual liberty in a country depends on "the
pressure from the outside", I knew to be only half-
true. Pressure from the outside is one factor but
not even the most important: the centripetal force
in the society itself is often much more powerful:
how else can one explain the fact that during the
world-war, liberty almost disappeared in these
States in spite of the First Amendment to the
Constitution. At all times indeed there is much
less regard for liberty here than in England or even
in Germany or in France: one has only to think of
prohibition to admit this. The pull towards the
centre in every country is in direct proportion to
136 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
the mass and accordingly the herd-feeling in America
is unreasonably strong.
If we were not arguing or telling smutty stories,
Bent would be sure to get out cards and the gambling
instinct would keep the boys busy till the stars paled
in the eastern sky.
One incident I must relate here, for it broke the
monotony of the routine in a curious way.
Our fire at night was made up of buffalo "chips"
as the dried excrement was called, and Peggy had
asked me, as I got up the earliest, always to replenish
the fire before riding away. One morning I picked
up a chip with my left hand and as luck would have
it, disturbed a little prairie rattlesnake that had been
attracted probably by the, heat of the camp-fire. As
I lifted the chip, the snake struck me on the back
of my thumb, then coiled up in a flash and began to
rattle. Angered I put my right foot on him and
killed him, and at the same moment bit out the place
on my thumb where I had been stung, and then, still
unsatisfied, rubbed my thumb in the red embers,
especially above the wound. I paid little further
attention to the matter; it seemed to me that the
snake was too small to be very poisonous; but on
returning to the wagon to wake Peggy, he cried out
and called the Boss and Reece and Dell and was
manifestly greatly perturbed and even anxious.
Reece too agreed with him that the bite of the little
prairie rattlesnake was just as venomous as that of
his big brother of the woods.
The Boss produced a glass of whisky and told
me to drink it: I didn't want to take it; but he
insisted and I drank it off. "Did it burn?" he asked:
"No, 'twas just like water!" I replied and noticed
that the Boss and Reece exchanged a meaning look.
At once the Boss declared I must walk up and
LIFE ON THE TRAIL. 137
down and each taking an arm they walked me
solemnly round and round for half an hour. At the
end of that time I was half asleep; the Boss stopped
and gave me another jorum of whisky: for a moment
it awakened me, then I began to get numb again and
deaf. Again they gave me whisky: I revived but
in five minutes I sagged down and begged them to
let me sleep.
"Sleep be d d!" cried the Boss, "you'd never
wake. Pull yourself together," and again I was
given whisky. Then, dimly I began to realise that
I must use my will power and so I started to jump
about and shake off the overpowering drowsiness.
Another two or three drinks of whisky and much
frisking about occupied the next couple of hours,
when suddenly I became aware of a sharp, intense
pang of pain in my left thumb.
"Now you can sleep," said the Boss, "if you're
minded to; I guess whisky has wiped out the rattler!"
The pain in my burnt thumb was acute: I found
too I had a headache for the first time in my life.
But Peggy gave me hot water to drink and the
headache soon disappeared. In a day or two I was
as well as ever, thanks, to the vigorous regimen of
the Boss; in the course of a single year we lost two
young men just through the little prairie snakes that
seemed so insignificant.
The days passed quickly till we came near the
first towns in southern Texas: then every man
wanted his arrears of salary from the Boss and
proceeded to shave and doll up in wildest excitement.
Charlies was like a madman. Half an hour after
reaching the chief saloon in the town, everyone of
them save Bent was crazy drunk and intent on
finding some girl with whom to spend the night.
I didn't even go to the saloon with them and begged
138 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Charlie in vain not to play the fool. "That's what I
live for", he shouted, and raced off.
I had got accustomed to spend all my spare time
with Keece, Dell, Bob or the Boss, and from all of
them I learned a good deal. In a short time I had
exhausted the Boss and Reece; but Dell and Bob
each in his own way was richly equipped, and while
Dell introduced me to literature and economics, Bob
taught me some of the mysteries of cow-punching and
the peculiar morals of Texan cattle. Every little
herd of those half-wild animals had its own leader,
it appeared and followed him fanatically. When we
brought together a few different bunches in our
corral, there was confusion worse confounded till
after much hooking and some fighting a new leader
would be chosen whom all would obey. But some-
times we lost five or six animals in the mellay. I
found that Bob could ride his pony in among the
half-savage brutes and pick out the future leader for
them. Indeed, at the great sports held near Taos,
he went in on foot where many herds had been
corralled and led out the leader amid the triumphant
cheers of his compatriots who challenged los
Americanos to emulate that feat. Bob's knowledge
of cattle was uncanny and all I know I learned
from him.
For the first week or so, Reece and the Boss were
out all day buying cattle; Reece would generally take
Charlie and Jack Freeman, young Americans, to
drive his purchases home to the big corral; while the
Boss called indifferently first on one and then on
-another to help him. Charlie was the first to lay
off: he had caught a venereal disease, the very first
night and had to lie up for more than a month. One
after the other, all the younger men fell to the same
plague. I went into the nearest town and consulted
LIFE ON THE TRAIL. 139
doctors and did what I could for them; but the cure
was often slow for they would drink now and again
to drown care and several in this way, made the
disease chronic. I could never understand the tempta-
tion; to get drunk was bad enough; but in that state
to go with some dirty Greaser woman, or half-breed
prostitute was incomprehensible to me.
Naturally I enquired about the Vidals; but no
one seemed to have heard of them and though I did
my best, the weeks passed without my finding a trace
of them. I wrote, however, to the address Gloria
had given me before leaving Chicago so that I might
be able to forward any letters; but I had left Texas
before I heard from her: indeed her letter reached me
in the Fremont House when I got back to Chicago.
She simply told me that they had crossed the Rio
Grande and had settled in their hacienda on the
other side, where perhaps, she added coyly, I would
pay them a visit some day. I wrote thanking her
and assuring her that her memory transfigured the
world for me — which was the bare truth: I took
infinite pains to put this letter into good Spanish
though I fear that in spite of Bob's assistance it had
a dozen faults. But I'm outrunning my story.
Rapidly the herd was got together. Early in
July we started northwards driving before us some
6000 head of cattle which certainly hadn't cost five
thousand dollars. That first year everything went
well with us; we only saw small bands of Plain
Indians and we were too strong for them. The Boss
had allowed me to bring 500 head of cattle on my own
account: he wished to reward me, he said, for my
incessant hard work; but I was sure it was Reece
and Dell who put the idea into his head.
The fact that some of the cattle were mine made
me a most watchful and indefatigable herdsman.
140 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
More than once my vigilances sharpened by Bob's
instinct, made a difference to our fortunes. When
we began to skirt the Indian Territery, Bob warned
me that a small band or even a single Indian might
try some night to stampede the herd. About a week
later, I noticed that the cattle were uneasy:
"Indians!" said Bob when I told him the signs,
"cunning beasts!" That night I was off duty, but
was on horseback circling round as usual, when
about midnight, I saw a white figure leap from the
ground with an unearthly yell. The cattle began to
run together so I threw my rifle up and fired at the
Indian and though I didn't hit him, he thought it
better to drop the sheet and decamp. In five minutes
we had pacified the cattle again and nothing unfor-
tunate happened that night or indeed till we reached
Wichita which was then the outpost of civ-
ilization. In ten days more we were in
Kansas City entraining, though we sold a
fourth of our cattle there at about fifteen dollars
a head. We reached Chicago about the first of
October and put the cattle in the yards about the
Michigan St. Depot. Next day we sold more than
half the herd and I was lucky enough to get a
purchaser at fifteen dollars a head for three
hundred of my beasts. If it hadn't been for
the Boss who held out for three cents a pound,
I should have sold all I had. As it was I came out
with more than five thousand dollars in the Bank and
felt myself another Croesus. My joy, however, was
shortlived.
Of course I stayed in the Fremont, and was
excellently received. The management had slipped
back a good deal, I thought, but I was glad that I
was no longer responsible and could take my ease in
my inn. But my six months on the Trail had marked
LIFE ON THE TRAIL.
141
my very being. It made a workman of me and above
all, it taught me that tense resolution, will-power
was the most important factor of success in life. I
made up my mind to train my will by exercise as I
would train a musele and each day I proposed to my-
self a new test. For example I liked potatoes so I
resolved not to eat one for a week, or again I fore-
swore coffee that I loved, for a month, and I was care-
ful to keep to my determination. I had noticed a
French saying that intensified my decision, celui qui
veut, celui- la, peut: — 'he who wills, can.' My mind
should govern me, not my appetites, I decided.
THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO.
Chapter VII.
J wish I could persuade myself that I was capable
of picturing the events of the week after we
reached Chicago.
We arrived, if I remember rightly, on a Wednes-
day and put our cattle and horses in the stockyards
near the Michigan Street depot. As I have related,
we sold on Thurday and Friday about three-fifths of
the cattle. I wanted to sell all, but followed the judg-
ment of the Boss and sold three hundred head and
put a little over fiwe thousand dollars in my banking
account.
On Saturday night the alarm bells began to ring
and awoke me. I slipped into my breeches, shirt and
boots and a youthful curiosity exciting me, I raced
down-stairs, got Blue Devil from the stable and rode
out to the fire. I was infinitely impressed by the rap-
idity with which the firemen acted and the marvel-
lous efficiency of the service. Where in England
there would have been perhaps half a dozen fire-
engines, the Americans sent fifty, but they all found
work and did it magnificently. At one o'clock the fire
was out and I returned to the hotel through two or
three miles of uninjured streets. Of course, I told
Keece and Ford all about it the next day. To my
astonishment, no one seemed to pay much attention;
THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO. 143
a lire was so common a thing in the wooden shanties
on the outskirts of American towns that nobody cared
to listen to my epic.
Next night, Sunday, the alarm bell began ringing
about eleven o'clock: I was still dressed in my best.
I changed into my working clothes, I do not know
why, put my belt about me with a revolver in it and
again took out the mare and rode to the fire. When
still a quarter of a mile away, I realized that this fire
was much more serious than that of the previous
night: first of all, a gale of wind was blowing right
down on the town. Then, when I wondered why
there were so few fire-engines, I was told that there
were two other fires and the man with whom I talked
did not scruple to ascribe them to a plot and determi-
nation to burn down the town! "Them damned for-
eign anarchists are at the bottom of it," he said,
"three fires do not start on the very outskirts of the
town with a gale of wind blowing, without some
reason."
And indeed, it looked as if he were right. In
spite of all the firemen could do, the fire spread with
incredible rapidity. In half an hour I saw they were
not going to master it soon or easily and I rode back
to get Reece, who had told me that he would have
come with me the previous night if he had known
where the fire was. When I got back to the hotels
Reece had gone out on his own and so had Dell and
the Boss. I went back to the fire. It had caught on
in the most extraordinary way. The wooden streets
now were all blazing; the fire was swallowing block
after block and the heat was so tremendous that the
fire-engines could not get within two hundred yards
of the blaze. The roar of the fire was unearthly.
Another thing I noticed almost immediately: the
heat was so terrific that the water decomposed into its
144 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
elements and the oxygen gas in the water burned
vehemently on its own account. The water, in fact,
added fuel to the flames. As soon as I made sure of
this, I saw that the town was doomed and walked my
pony back a block or two to avoid flying sparks.
This must have been about three or four o'clock
in the morning. I had gone back about three blocks
when I came across a man talking to a group of men
at the corner of a street. He was the one man of in-
sight and sense I met that night. He seemed to me a
typical, down-east Yankee: he certainly talked like
one. The gist of his speech was as follows:
"I want you men to come with me right now to
the Mayor and tell him to give orders to blow up at
least two blocks deep all along this side of the town;
then, if we drench the houses on the other side, the
flames will be stopped : there's no other way."
"That's sense", I cried, "that's what ought to be
done at once. There's no other way of salvation; for
the heat is disintegrating the water and the oxygen in
the water is blazing fiercely, adding fuel to the
flames."
"Gee! that's what I have been preaching for the
last hour", he cried.
A little later fifty or sixty citizens went to the
Mayor, but he protested that he had no power to
blow up houses and evidently, too, shirked the respon
sibility. He decided, however, to call in some of the
councilmen and see what could be done. Meanwhile
I went off and wandered towards the Randolph Street
bridge and there saw a scene that appalled me.
Some men had caught a thief, they said, plunder-
ing one of the houses and they proceeded to string
the poor wretch up to a lamp-post.
In vain I pleaded for his life, declared that he
ought to be tried, that it was better to let off ten
THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO. 145
guilty men than hang one innocent one, but my for-
eign accent robbed my appeal, I think, of any weight
and before my eyes the man was strung up. It filled
me with rage; it seemed to me a dreadful thing to
have done: the cruelty of the executioners, the hard
purpose of them, shut me away from my kin. Later I
was to see these men from a better angle.
By the early morning the fire had destroyed over
a mile deep of the town and was raging with un-
imaginable fury. I went down on the lakeshore just
before daybreak. The scene was one of indescribable
magnificence: there were probably a hundred and
fifty thousand homeless men, women and children
grouped along the lake shore. Behind us roared the
fire; it spread like a red sheet right up to the zenith
above our heads, and from there was borne over the
sky in front of us by long streamers of fire like
rockets: vessels four hundred yards out in the bay
were burning fiercely, and we were, so to speak, roofed
and walled by flame. The danger and uproar were
indeed terrifying and the heat, even in this October
night, almost unbearable.
I wandered along the lake shore, noting the kind
way in which the men took care of the women and
children. Nearly every man was able to erect some
sort of shelter for his wife and babies, and everyone
was willing to help his neighbor. While working at
one shelter for a little while, I said to the man i
wished I could get a drink.
"You can get one", he said, "right there", and he
pointed to a sort of makeshift shanty on the beach.
I went over and found that a publican had managed
to get four barrels down on the beach and had rigged
up a sort of low tent above them; on one of the bar-
rels he had nailed his shingle, and painted on it were
the words, "What do you think of our hell? No
n*
146 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
drinks less than a dollar!" The wild humor of the
thing amused me infinitely and the man certainly did
a roaring trade.
A little later it occurred to me that our cattle
might possibly burn, so I went out and hurried back
to the Michigan Street stockyards. An old Irishman
was in charge of the yard, but though he knew me per-
fectly well, he refused to let me take out a steer. The
cattle were moving about wildly, evidently in a state
of intense excitement. I pleaded with the man and
begged him, and at length tied my mare up to the
lamp-post at the corner and went back and got into
the stockyard when he wasn't looking. I let down
two or three of the bars and the next moment started
the cattle through the opening. They went crazy wild
and choked the gateway. In five minutes there were
ten or twelve dead cattle in the entrance and the rest
had to go over them. Suddenly, just as I got through
the gap, the mad beasts made a rush and carried away
the rails on both sides of the gateway. The next
moment I was knocked down and I had just time to
drag myself through the fence and so avoid their
myriad trampling heels.
A few minutes later, I was on Blue Devil, trying
to get the cattle out of the town and on to the prairie.
The herd broke up at almost every corner but I mana-
ged to get about six hundred head right out into the
country.
I drove them on the dead run for some miles. By
this time it was daybreak and at the second or third
farmhouse I came to, I found a farmer willing to take
in the cattle. I bargained with him a little and at
length told him I would give him a dollar a head if
he kept them for the week or so we might want to
leave them with him. In two minutes he brought out
his son and an Irish helper and turned the cattle bacJi
THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO. 147
and into his pasture. There were six hundred and
seventy-six of them, as near as I could count, out of
practically two thousand head.
By the time I had finished the business and re-
turned to the hotel, it was almost noon and as I could
get nothing to eat, I wandered out again to see the
progress of the fire. Already I found that relief
trains were being sent in with food from all neigh-
boring towns and this was the feature of the next
week in starving Chicago.
Strangely enough, at that time the idea was gen-
erally accepted that a man or woman could only live
three days without food. It was years before Dr.
Tanner showed the world that a man could fast for
forty days or more. Everyone I met acted as if he
believed that if he were fully three days without food,
he must die incontinently. I laughed at the idea
which seemed to me absurd, but so strong was the
universal opinion and the influence of the herd-sen-
timent, that on the third day I too felt particularly
empty and thought I had better take my place in the
bread line. There were perhaps five thousand in front
of me and there were soon fifty or sixty thousand be-
hind me. We were five deep moving to the depot
where the bread trains were discharging, one after
the other. When I got pretty close to the food
wagons, I noticed that the food supply was coming
to an end, and next moment I noticed something else.
Again and again women and girls came into our
bread line and walked through the lines of waiting
men, who, mark you, really believed they were going
to die that night if they could not get food, but in-
stead of objecting they one and all made way for the
women and girls and encouraged them: "Go right on,
Madam, take all you want:" "This way, Missee, you
won't be able to carry much, I'm afraid"; — proof on
148 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
proof, it seemed to me, of courage, good humor and
high self-abnegation. I wenfinto that bread line an
Irish boy and came out of it a proud American, but
I did not get any bread that night or the next. In
fact, my first meal was made when I ran across Reece
on the Friday or Saturday after: Reece, as usual, had
fallen on his feet and found a hotel where they had
provisions — though at famine prices.
He insisted that I should come with him and soon
got me my first meal. In return, I told him and Ford
of the cattle I had saved. They were, of course, de-
lighted and determined next day to come out and
retrieve them. "One thing is certain," said Ford,
six hundred head of cattle are worth as much today
in Chicago as fifteen hundred head were worth before
the fire, so we hain't lost much."
Next day I led Reece and the Boss straight to
the farmer's place, but to my surprise he told me that
I had agreed to give him two dollars a head, whereas
I had bargained with him for only one dollar. His
son backed up the farmer's statement and the Irish
helper declared that he was sorry to disagree with me,
but I was mistaken; it was two dollars I had said.
They little knew the sort of men they had to deal
with. "Where are the cattle?" Ford asked, and we
went down to the pasture where they were penned.
"Count them, Harris," said Ford, and I counted six
hundred and twenty head. Fifty odd had disappeared,
but the farmer wanted to persuade me that I had
counted wrongly.
Ford went about and soon found a rough lean-to
stable where there were thirty more head of Texan
cattle. These were driven up and soon disappeared
in the herd; Reece and I began to move the herd to-
wards the entrance. The farmer declared he would
not let us go, but Ford looked at him a little while
THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO. 149
and then said very quietly, "You have stolen enough
cattle to pay you. If you bother with us, I will make
meat of you — see! — cold meat", and the farmer
moved aside and kept quiet.
That night we had a great feast and the day after
Ford announced that he had sold the whole of the
cattle to two hotel proprietors and got nearly as much
money as if we had not lost a hoof.
My five thousand dollars became six thousand,
five hundred.
The courage shown by the common people in the
fire, the wild humor coupled with the consideration
for the women, had won my heart. This ,is the
greatest people in the world, I said to myself, and
was proud to feel at one with them.
ON THE TRAIL!
Chapter VIII.
F) romp ted by Dell, before leaving Chicago I bought
* some books for the winter evenings, notably
Mill's "Political Economy"; Carlyle's "Heroes and
Hero Worship" and "Latter Day Pamphlets"; Col.
Hay's "Dialect Poems", too and three medical books,
and took them down with me to the ranch. We had
six weeks of fine weather, during which I broke in
horses under Reece's supervision, and found out that
gentleness and especially carrots and pieces of sugar
were the direct way to the heart of the horse; dis-
covered, too, that a horse's bad temper and obstinacy
were nearly always due to fear. A remark of Dell
that a horse's eye had a magnifying power and that
the poor, timid creatures saw men as trees walking,
gave me the clue and soon I was gratified by Reece
saying that I could "gentle" horses as well as aryone
on the ranch, excepting Bob.
As winter drew down and the bitter frost came,
outdoor work almost ceased. I read from morning
till night and not only devoured Mill, but saw through
the fallacy of his Wage-Fund theory. I knew from
my own experience that the wages of labor depended
primarily on the productivity of labor. I liked Mill
for his humanitarian sympathies with the poor; but
T realized clearly that he was a second-rate intellig-
ON THE TRAIL. 151
ence, just as I felt pretty sure that Carlyle was one
of the Immortals. I took Carlyle in small doses, for
I wanted to think for myself. After the first chapters
I tried to put down first, chapter by chapter, what I
thought or knew about the subject treated, and am
still inclined to believe that that is a good way to read
in order to estimate what the author has taught
you.
Carlyle was the first dominant influence in my
life and one of the most important: I got more from
him than from any other writer. His two or three
books learned almost by heart, taught me that Dell's
knowledge was skimpy and superficial and I was soon
Sir Oracle among the men on all deep subjects. For
the medical books, too, turned out to be excellent and
gave me almost the latest knowledge on all sex-mat-
ters. I was delighted to put all my knowledge at the
disposal of the boys, or rather to show off to them
how much I knew.
That fall brought me to grief: early in October I
was taken by ague ; "chills and fever" as it was called-
I suffered miseries and though Reece induced me to
ride all the same and spend most of the daytime in
the open, I lost weight till I learned that arsenic was
a better specific even than quinine. Then I began to
mend, but, off and on, every fall and spring after-
wards, so long as I stayed in America, I had to take
quinine and arsenic toward off the debilitating attacks.
I was very low indeed when we started down on
the Trail; the Boss being determined, as he said, to
bring up two herds that summer. Early in May he
started north from near St. Anton' with some five
thousand head, leaving Reece, Dell, Bob, Peggy the
cook, Bent, Charlie and myself to collect another herd.
I never saw the Boss again; understood, however,
from Reece's cursing that he had got through safely,
152 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
sold the cattle at a good price and made off with all
the proceeds, though he owed Keece and Dell more
than one-half.
Charlie's love-adventure that ended so badly
didn't quiet him for long. In our search for cheap
cattle we had gone down nearly to the Rio Grande
and there, in a little half- Mexican town, Charlie met
his fate.
As it so happened, I had gone to the saloon with
him on his promise that he would only drink one glass,
and though the glass would be full of forty-rod
whisky, I knew it would have only a passing effect
on Charlie's superb strength. But it excited him
enough to make him call up all the girls for a drink:
they all streamed laughing to the bar, all save one.
Naturally Charlie went after her and found a very
pretty blond girl, who had a strain of Indian blood
in her, it was said. At first she didn't yield to
Charlie's invitation, so he turned away angrily,
saying :
"You don't want to drink probably because you
want to cure yourself or because you're ugly where
women are usually beautiful". Answering the
challenge the girl sprang to her feet, tore off her
jacket and in a moment was naked to her boots and
stockings.
"Am I ugly?" she cried, pushing out her breasts,
"or do I look ill, you fool!" and whirled around to
give us the back view!
She certainly had a lovely figure with fair youth-
ful breasts and peculiarly full bottom and looked the
picture of health. The full cheeks of her behind
excited me intensely, I didn't know why: therefore, it
didn't surprise me when Charlie, with a half-articulate
shout of admiration, picked her up bodily in his arms
and carried her out of the room.
ON THE TRAIL. 153
When I remonstrated with him afterwards, he
told me he had a sure way of knowing whether the
girl, Sue, was diseased or not.
I contradicted Mm and found that this was his
infallible test: as soon as he was alone with a girl r
he pulled out ten or twenty dollars, as the case might
be, and told her to keep the money. "I'll not give
you more in any case", he would add: "now tell me,
dear, if you are ill and we'll have a last drink and
then I'll go. If she's ill, she's sure to tell you —
see!" and he laughed triumphantly.
"Suppose she doesn't know she's ill?" I asked:
but he replied: "they always know and they'll tell
the truth when their greed is not against you".
For some time it looked as if Charlie had enjoyed
his Beauty without any evil consequences, but a
month or so later he noticed a lump in his right groin
and soon afterwards a syphilitic sore showed itself
just under the head of his penis. We had already
started northwards, but I had to tell Charlie the plain
truth.
"Then it's serious", he cried in astonishment, and
I replied.
"I'm afraid so, but not if you take it in time
and go under a rigorous regimen".
Charlie did everything he was told to do and
always bragged that gonorrhea was much worse, as
it is certainly more painful, than syphilis; but the
disease in time had its revenge.
As he began to get better on the Trail, thanks to
the good air, regular exercise and absence of drink,
he became obstreperous from time to time and I at
any rate forgot about his ailment.
The defection of the Boss made a serious
difference to us; Reece and Dell with three or four
Mexicans and Peggy went on slowly buying cattle;
iu4 Ml LIFE AiNiD LOVES.
but Bob and Bent put a new scheme into my head.
Bent was always preaching that the Boss's defection
had ruined Keece and that if I would put in, say five
thousand dollars, I could be Keeee's partner and make
a fortune with him. Bob, too, was keen on this and
told me incidentally that he could get cattle from the
Mexicans for nothing. I had a talk with Keece who
said he'd have to be content with buying 3000 head
for cattle had gone up in price twofold and the Boss's
swindle had crippled him. If I would pay Bent's,
Charlie's and Bob's wages, he'd be delighted, he said,
to join forces with me: on Bob's advice, I consented
and with his help, I managed to secure three thousand
head for little more than three thousand dollars. And
this is how we managed it.
For some reason or other, perhaps, because I had
learnt a few words of Spanish, Bob had taken a fancy
to me and was always willing to help me except when
he was mad with drink. He now assured me that if
I would go with him down the Eio Grande a hundred
miles or so, he'd get me a thousand head of cattle for
nothing. I consented, for Bent, too, and Charlie, were
on Bob's side.
The next morning before sunrise we started out
and rode steadily to the southeast. We carried enough
food for two or three days. Bob saw to that without
any question, but generally he brought us about eight
o'clock near some house or other where we could get
food and shelter. His knowledge of the whole frontier
was as uncanny as his knowledge of cattle.
On the fourth or fifth day about nine in the morn-
ing he stopped us by a little wooded height looking
over a gorge of the river. To the left the river spread
out almost to a shallow lake, and one did not need to
be told that a little lower down there must be one or
ON THE TRAIL. 155
more fords where cattle could cross almost without
wetting themselves.
Bob got off his horse in a clump of Cottonwood
trees which he said was a good place to camp without
being seen. I asked him where the cattle were and he
told me "across the river". Within two or three miles,
it appeared, there was a famous hacienda with great
herds. As soon as it got dark he proposed to go across
and find out all about it and bring us the news. We
were to be careful not to be seen and he hoped that
we would not even make a fire but lie close till he re-
turned.
We were more than willing, and when we got
tired of talking Bent produced an old deck of cards
and we would play draw poker or euchre or casino for
two or three hours. The first night passed quickly
enough. We had been in the saddle for ten hours a
day for four or five days and slept a dreamless sleep.
Bob did not return that day or the next and on the
third day Bent began to curse him, but I felt sure he
had good reason for the delay and so waited with
what patience I could muster. On the third night he
was suddenly with us just as if he had come out of
the earth.
"Welcome back", I cried. "Everything right V
"Everything", he said: "It was no good coming
sooner; they have brought some cattle within four
miles of the river; the orders are to keep 'em away
seven or eight miles, so that they could not be driven
across without rousing the whole country; but Don
Jose is very rich and carefree and there is a herd of
fifteen hundred that will suit us not three miles from
the river in a fold of the prairie guarded only by two
men whom I'll make so very drunk that they'll hear
nothing till next morning. A couple of bottles of
156 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
aguardiente will do the bizness, and I'll come back
for you tomorrow night by eight or nine o'clock."
It all turned out as Bob had arranged. The next
night he came to us as soon as it was dark. We rode
some two miles down the river to a ford, splashed
through the rivulets of water and came out on the
Mexican side. In single file and complete silence we
followed Bob at a lope for perhaps twenty minutes
when he put up his hand and we drew down to a walk.
There below us between two waves of prairie were
the cattle.
In a few words Bob told Bent and Charlie what
they were to do. Bent was to stay behind and shoot
in case we were followed — unlikely but always pos-
sible. Charlie and I were to move the cattle towards
the ford, quietly all the way if we could, but if we
were pursued, then as hard as we could drive them.
For the first half hour all went according to pro-
gram. Charlie and I moved the cattle together and
drove them over the waves of prairie towards the
river; it all seemed as easy as eating and we had
begun to push the cattle into a fast walk when sud-
denly there was a shot in front and a sort of stampede!
At once Charlie shot out on the left as I shot out
on the right and using our whips, we quickly got the
herd into motion again, the rear ranks forcing the
front ones on; the cattle were soon pressed into a
shuffling trot and the difficulty seemed overcome. Just
at that moment I saw two or three bright flames half
a mile away on the other side of Charlie and suddenly
I heard the zipp of a bullet pass my own head and
turning, saw pretty plainly a man riding fifty yards
away from me. I took very careful aim at his horse
and fired and was delighted to see horse and man come
down and disappear. I paid no further attention to
Jiim and kept on forcing the pace of the cattle. But
ON THE TRAIL. 157
Charlie was very busily engaged for two or three min-
utes because the fusilade was kept up from behind
till he was joined by Bent and shortly afterwards by
Bob. We were all now driving the cattle as hard as
they could go, straight towards the ford. The shots
behind us continued and even grew more frequent, but
we were not further molested till three quarters of an
hour later we reached the Rio Grande and began
urging the cattle across the ford. There progress was
necessarily slow. We could scarcely have got across
had it not been that about the middle Bob came up
and made his whip and voice a perfect terror to the
beasts in the rear.
When we got them out on the other side I began
to turn them westwards towards our wooded knoll,
but the next moment Bob was beside me shouting —
"Straight ahead, straight ahead; they are following
us and we shall have to fight. You get on with the
herd always straight north and I'll bring Charlie back
to the bank so as to hold 'em off."
Boylike, I said I would rather go and fight, but
he said: "You go on. If Charlie killed, no matter. I
want you." And I had perforce to do what the little
devil ordered.
When Texan cattle have been brought up together
the largest herd can be driven like a small bunch.
They have their leader and they follow him religiously
and so one man can drive a thousand head with very
little trouble.
For two or three miles I kept them on the trot
and then I let them gradually get down to a walk. I
did not want to lose any more of them; some fat cows
had already died in their tracks through being driven
so fast.
About two o'clock in the morning I passed a log-
bouse and soon an American rode up beside me and
158 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
wanted to know who I was, where I had brought the
cattle from and where I was going*? I told him the
owner was behind me, and the boys and I were driving
them straight ahead because some greasers had been
interfering with us.
"That's the shooting I heard", he said. "You have
driven them across the river: haven't you?"
"I've driven them from the river," I replied;
"some of them were getting a drink."
I could feel him grin though I was not looking
at him.
"I guess I'll see your friends pretty soon," he said,
"but this raiding is bad business. Them greasers '11
come across and give me trouble. We border-folk
don't want a fuss, hatched up by you foreigners!"
I placated him as well as I could ; but at first was
unsuccessful. He didn't say much but he evidently
intended to come with me to the end because wherever
I rode, I found him right behind the herd when I re-
turned.
Day had broken when I let the cattle halt for the
first time. I reckoned I had gone twelve miles from
the ford and the beasts were foot-sore and very tired;
more and more of them requiring the whip in order to
keep up even a walk. I bunched them together and
came back to my saturnine acquaintance.
"You are young to be at this game", he said.
"Who is your Boss?"
"I don't keep a boss", I answered, taking him in
with hostile scrutiny. He was a man of about forty,
tall and lean with an enormous quid of tobacco in his
left cheek — a typical Texan.
His bronco interested me; instead of being an In-
dian pony of thirteen hands or so it was perhaps
fifteen and a half and looked to be three-quarters bred.
"A good horse you have there", I said.
ON THE TRAIL. 159
"The best in the hull country," he replied, "easy."
"That's only your conceit", I retorted. "The mare
I am on right now can give him a hundred yards in
a mile."
"You don't want to risk any money on that, do
you?" he remarked.
"Oh, yes", I smiled.
"Well, we can try it out one of these days, but
here comes your crowd", and indeed, although I had
not expected them, in five minutes Bent and Bob and
Charlie rode up.
"Get the cattle going", cried Bob, as he came
within earshot. "We must go on. The Mexicans have
gone back but they will come right after us again.
Who is this?" he added, ranging up beside the Texan.
"My name is Locker", said my acquaintance; "and
I guess your raiding will set the whole border boiling.
Can't you buy cattle decently, like we all have to?"
"How do you know how decently we paid for
them?" cried Bent, thrusting forward his brown face
like a weasel's, his dog teeth showing.
"I guess Mr. Locker is all right", I cried laughing;
"I propose he should help us and take two or three
hundred head as payment, or the value of them — "
"Now you're talking", said Locker. "I call that
sense. There is a herd of mine about a mile further
on; if two or three hundred of your Jose steers join
it, I can't hinder 'em; but I'd rather have dollars; cash
is scarce!"
"Are they herded?" asked Bob.
"Sure", replied Locker. "I am too near the river
to let any cattle run round loose though nobody has
interfered with me in the last ten years."
Bob and I began moving the cattle on leaving
Bent with Locker to conclude the negotiations. In an
hour we had found Locker's herd that must have num-
12
160 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
bered at least six thousand head and were guarded by
three herdsmen.
Locker and Bent had soon come to a working
agreement. Locker it turned out had another herd
some distance to the east from which he could draw
three or four herdsmen. He had also a couple of boys,
sons of his, whom he could send to rouse some of the
neighboring farmers if the need was urgent. It turn-
ed out that we had done well to be generous to hi m
for he knew the whole of the countryside like a book
and was a good friend in our need.
Late in the afternoon, Locker was informed by
one of his sons, a youth of about sixteen, that twenty
Mexicans had crossed the river and would be up to us
in a short time. Locker sent him after the younger
boy to round up as many Texans as posible but before
they could be collected, a bunch of greasers, twenty
or so, in number, rode up and demanded the return of
the cattle. Bent and Locker put them off and as luck
would have it, while they were arguing, three or four
Texans came up, and one of them, a man of about
forty years of age named Eossiter, took control'of the
whole dispute. He told the Mexican leader, who said
lie was Don Luis, a son of Don Jose, that if he stayed
any longer he would probably be arrested and put in
prison for raiding American territory and threatening
people.
The Mexican seemed to have a good deal of pluck,
and declared that he would not only threaten but carry
out his threat. Rossiter told him to wade right in.
The loud talk began again, and a couple more Texans
came up and the Mexican leader realizing that unless
he did something at once he would be too late, started
to circle round the cattle, no doubt thinking that if
he did some thing his superior numbers would
scare us.
ON THE TRAIL. 161
in five minutes the fight had begun. In ten more
it was all over. Nothing could stand against the
deadly shooting of the Westerners. In five minutes
one or two of the Mexicans had been killed and several
wounded; half a dozen horses had gone down; it was
perfectly evident that the eight or ten of us were more
than a match for the twenty Mexicans, for except Don
Luis none of them scorned to have any stomach for
the work, and Luis got a bullet through his arm in the
first five minutes. Finally they drew off threatening
and yelling and we saw no more of them.
After the battle we all adjourned to Locker's and
had a big drink. Nobody took the fight seriously:
whipping Greasers was nothing to brag about; but
Rbssiter thought that a claim should be made against
the Mexican Government for raiding United States
territory: said he was going to draw up the papers
and send them to the State District Attorney al
Austin. The proposal was received with whoops and
cheers. The idea of punishing the Mexicans for get-
ting shot trying to recapture their own cattle appealed
to us Americans as something intensely humorous.
All the Texans gave their names solemnly as wit-
nesses, and Rossiter swore he would draw up the doc-
ument. Years afterwards Bent whom I met by
chance, told me that Rossiter had got forty thousand
dollars on that claim.
Three days latin- we began to move our cattle east-
ward to rejoin Reece and Dell. I gave one hundred
dollars as a reward to Locker's two boys who had
helped us from start to finish most eagerly.
A week or so later we got hack to the main camp.
Reece and Dell had their herd ready and fat, and after
a talk we resolved to go each on his own and join
afterwards for the fall and winter on the ranch, if it
pleased us. We took three weeks to get our bunch of
12"
162 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
cattle into condition and so began driving North in
July. I spent every night in the saddle and most of
the day, even though the accursed fever was shak-
ing me.
All went well with us at first: I promised my
three lieutenants a third share in the profits and a
small wage besides : they were as keen as mustard and
did all men could do. As soon as we reached the lati-
tude of the Indian territory our troubles began. One
wild night Indians, who wore sheets and had smeared
their hands with phosphorus, stampeded the cattle and
though the boys did wonders we lost nearly a thou-
sand head and some hundred horses all of them broken
in carefully.
It was a serious loss but not irreparable. The
Plain Indians, however, were as persistent that sum-
mer as mosquitoes. I never went out after game but
they tried to cut me off and once at least nothing but
the speed and stamina of Blue Devil saved me. I had
to give up serious shooting and depend on luck bring-
ing us near game. Gradually the Indians following
us grew more numerous and bolder. We were attacked
at nightfall and daybreak three or four days running
and the half wild cattle began to get very scarey.
Bob did not conceal his anxiety. "Bad Injuns!
very mean Injuns — !" One afternoon they followed
us openly; there were at one time over a hundred in
view; evidently they were getting ready for a serious
attack. Bob's genius got us a respite. While Charlie
was advising a pitched battle, Bob suddenly remem-
bered that there was a scrub-oak forest some five miles
further on to our right that would give us a refuge.
Charlie and Bent, the best shots, lay down and began
to shoot and soon made the Indians keep out of sight.
In three hours we reached the scrub-oak wood and the
bay or bight in it where Bob said the cattle would be
ON THE TRAIL. 163
safe; for nothing could get through scrub-oak and as
soon as we had driven the cattle deep into the bay and
brought our wagon to the centre, on the arc of the
bight, so to speak, no Indians could stampede the
cattle without blotting us out first. For the moment
we were safe and as luck would have it, the water in
a little creek near by was drinkable. Still we were
besieged by over a hundred Indians and those odds
were heavy as even Bob admitted.
Days passed and the siege continued: the Indians
evidently meant to tire us out and get the herd, and
our tempers didn't improve under the enforced idle-
ness and vigilance. One evening Charlie was spraw-
ling at the fire taking up more than his share of it,
when Bent who had been looking after the cattle, came
in. "Take up your legs, Charlie," he said roughly,
"you don't want the whole fire." Charlie didn't hear or
paid no attention: the next moment Bent had thrown
himself down on Charlie's long limbs. With a curse
Charlie pushed him off: the next moment Bent had
hurled himself on Charlie and had shoved his head
down in the fire. After a short struggle Charlie got
free and in spite of all I could do, struck Bent.
Bent groped for his gun at once; but Charlie was
at him striking and swinging like a wild man and Bent
had to meet the attack.
Till the trial came, everyone would have said that
Charlie was far and away the better man, younger too
and astonishingly powerful. But Bent evidently was
no novice at the game. He side-stepped Charlie's rush
and hit out straight and hard and Charlie went down;
but was up again like a flash, and went for his man in
a wild rush: soon he was down again and everyone
realized that sooner or later Bent must win. Fighting,
however, has a large element of chance in it and as
luck would have it just when Bent seemed most cer-
164 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
tain of winning, one of Charlie's wild swings caught
him on the 'point of the jaw and to onr amazement he
went, down like a log and could not be brought to for
some ten minutes. Tt was the first time I had seen
this blow and naturally we all exaggerated the force
of it not knowing that a light blow up against the chin
jars the spinal cord and knocks any man insensible.
In fact, in many cases, such a blow results in partial
paralysis and life-long weakness.
Charlie was inclined to brag of his victory but
Bob told him the truth and on reflection Bent's pur-
pose and fighting power made the deeper impression
on all of us and he himself took pains next day to warn
Charlie:
"Don't get in my way again", he said to him drily,
"or I'll make meat of you."
The dire menace in his hard, face was convincing.
"Oh, Hell", replied Charlie, "who wants to get in
your way!"
Reflection teaches me that all the worst toughs
on the border in my time were ex-soldiers: it was the
Civil Avar that had bred those men to violence and the
use of the revolver; it was the civil war that produced
the "Wild Bills" and Bents who forced the good-hum-
ored Westerners to hold life cheaply and to use their
guns instead of fists.
One evening we noticed a large increase in the
force of Indians besieging us: one chief too on a pie-
bald mustang appeared to be urging an immediate
attack and soon we found some of the "braves" steal-
ing down the creek to outflank us, while a hundred
others streamed past us at four hundred yards'
distance firing wildly. Bob and I went under the
creek banks to stop the flankers while Bent and Char-
lie and Jo brought down more than one horse and man
ON THE TRAIL, 165
and taught the band of Indians that a direcl attack
would surely cost them many lives.
Still there were only five of us and a chance bullet
or two might make the odds against us desperate.
Talking it over we came to the conclusion that one
man should ride to Fort Dodge for help and 1 was
selected as the lightest save Bob and altogether the
worst shot besides being the only man who would cer-
tainly find his way. Accordingly T brought up Blue
Devil at once, took some pounds of jerked beef with
me and a goat-water skin 1 had bought in Taos; a
girth and stirrups quickly turned a blanket into a
makeshift, light saddle and 1 was ready.
it was Bob's uncanny knowledge both of the Trail
and of Indian ways that gave me my chance. All the
rest advised me to go North out of our bay and then
ride for it. He advised me to go south where the large
bodv of Indians had stationed themselves. w>r [ nev'll
not look for you there", he said and "you may get
through unseen; half an hour's riding more will take
you round them; then you have one hundred and fifty
miles north on the Trail — you may pick up a herd
and then one hundred and twenty miles straight west.
You ought to be in Dodge in five days and back here
in iivQ more; you'll find us", he added significantly.
The little man padded Blue Devil's hooves with some
old garments he cut up and insisted on leading her
away round the bight and far to the south, and I
verily believe beyond the Indian cam]).
There he took off the mare's pads, while I tightened
the girths and started to walk keeping the mare bet-
ween me and the Indians and my ears cocked for the
slightest sound. But I heard nothing and saw nothing
and in an hour more had made the round and was on
the Trail for the north determined in my own mind
io do the two or three hundred miles in four days at
166 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
most On the fourth day I got twenty troopers
from the Fort with Lieutenant Winder and was lead-
ing them in a bee-line to our Refuge. We got there
in six days; but in the mean time the Indians had
been busy.
They cut a way through the scrub-oak brush that
we regarded as impassable and stampeded the cattle
one morning just at dawn and our men were only able
to herd off about six or seven hundred head and pro-
tect them in the extreme north corner of the bend.
The Indians had all drawn off the day before I arrived
with the U. S. Cavalry troopers Next morn-
ing we began the march northwards and I had no
difficulty in persuading Lieutenant Winder to give us
his escort for the next four or five days
A week later we reached Wichita where we de-
cided to rest for a couple of days and there we en-
countered another piece of bad luck. Ever since he
had caught syphilis, Charlie seemed to have lost his
gay temper: he became gloomy and morose and we
could do nothing to cheer him up. The very first
night he had to be put to bed at the gambling saloon
in Wichita where he had become speechlessly drunk.
And next day he was convinced that he had been
robbed of his money by the man who kept the bank
and went about swearing that he would get even with
him at all costs. By the evening he had infected Bent
and Jo with his insane determination and finally I
went along hoping to save him, if I could, from some
disaster.
Already I had asked Bob to get another herdsman
and drive the cattle steadily towards Kansas City: he
consented and for hours before we went to the saloon,
Bob had been trekking north. I intended to rejoin him
some five or six miles further on and drive slowly for
ON THE TRAIL. 167
the rest of the night. Somehow or other, I felt that
the neighborhood was unhealthy for us.
The gambling saloon was lighted by three power-
ful oil lamps : two over the faro-table and one over the
bar. Jo stationed himself at the bar while Bent and
Charlie went to the table: I walked about the room
trying to play the indifferent among the twenty or
thirty men scattered about. Suddenly about 10 o'clock
Charlie began disputing with the banker: they both
rose, the banker drawing a big revolver from the table
drawer in front of him. At the same moment Charlie
struck the lamp above him and I saw him draw his gun
just as all the lights went out leaving us in pitch
darkness.
I ran to the door and was carried through it in a
sort of mad stampede. A minute afterwards Bent
joined me and then Charlie came rushing out at top
speed with Jo hard after him. In a moment we were
at the corner of the street where we had left our
ponies and were off: one or two shots followed; I
thought we had got off scot free; but I was mistaken.
We had ridden hell for leather, for about an hour
when Charlie without apparent reason pulled up and
swaying fell out of his saddle: his pony stopped dead
and we all gathered round the wounded man :
"I'm finished", said Charlie in a weak voice, "but
I've got my money back and I want you to send it to
my mother in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. It's about a
thousand dollars, I guess".
"Are you badly hurt?" I asked.
"He drilled me through the stomach first go off"
Charlie said pointing, "and I guess I've got it at least
twice more through the lungs : I'm done".
"What a pity, Charlie!" I cried, "you'll get more
than a thousand dollars from your share of the cattle :
I've told Bob, that I intend to share equally with all
168 MY LIFE AND LOVER.
of you: this money must go back; but the thousand
shall be sent to your mother I promise you:" —
"Not on your life!", cried the dying man, lifting
himself up on one elbow: "This is my money: it shan't
go back to that oily sneak thief": the effort had ex-
hausted him; even in the dim light we could see that
his face was drawn and gray: he must have under-
stood this himself for I could just hear his last words:
"Good-bye, boy.-!"* his head fell back, his mouth
opened: the brave boyish spirit was gone.
I couldn't control my tears: the phrase came t<»
me: "I better could have lost a better man." for
Charlie was at heart a good fellow!
1 left Bent to carry back the money and arrang
for Charlie's burial, leaving Jo to guard the body: in
an hour I was again with Bob and had told him every-
thing. Ten days later we were in Kansas City where
I was surprised by unexpected news.
My second brother Willie, six years older than 1
was, had come out to America and hearing of me in
Kansas had located himself in Lawrence as a real-
estate agent; he wrote asking me to join him. This
quickened my determination to have nothing more t«»
do with cowpunching. Cattle too, Ave found, had fallen
in price and we were lucky to get ten dollars or so a
head for our bunch which made a poor showing from
the fact that the Indians had netted all the best.
There was about six thousand dollars to divide: Jo
got five hundred dollars and Bent. Bob, Charlie's
mother and myself divided the rest. Bob told me 1
was a fool: J should keep it all and go down south
again; but what had I gained by my two years of
cowpunching? I had lost money and caught malarial
fever; I had won a certain knowledge of ordinary men
and their way of living and had got more than a
smattering of economics and of medicine, but 1 was
\ THE TRAIL.
led with an iirfi: - for a merely physical
What ? I 1
.-:■ up my mi
*
\
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE.
Chapter IX.
That railway journey to Lawrence, Kansas, is as
vivid to me now as if it had taken place yester-
day yet it all happened more than fifty years ago.
It was a blazing hot day and in the seat opposite to
me was an old grey -haired man who appeared to be
much troubled by the heat: he moved about restlessly,
mopped his forehead, took off his vest and finally
went out probably to the open observation platform,
leaving a couple of books on his seat. I took
one of them up heedlessly — it was "The Life
and Death of Jason", by William Morris. I read
a page or two, was surprised by the easy flow of the
verse; but not gripped, so I picked up the other
volume: — "Laus Veneris: Poems and Ballads" by
Algernon Charles Swinburne. It opened at the
Anactoria and in a moment, I was carried away
entranced as no poetry before or since has ever
entranced me. Venus, herself, spoke in the lines:
"Alas! that neither rain nor snow nor dew
Nor all cold things can purge me wholly through,
Assuage me nor allay me, nor appease,
Till supreme sleep shall bring me bloodless ease,
Till Time wax faint in all her periods,
Till Fate undo the bondage of the Gods
To lay and slake and satiate me all through,
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 171
Lotus and Lethe on my lips like dew,
And shed around and over and under me
Thick darkness and the insuperable sea."
I haven't seen the poem since and there may be verbal
inaccuracies in my version; but the music and passion
of the verses enthralled me and when I came to "The
Leper", the last stanzas brought hot tears to my
eyes and in the "Garden of Proserpine", I heard my
own soul speaking with divine if hopeless assurance.
Was there ever such poetry? Even the lighter verses
were, charming:
"Remembrance may recover
And time bring back to time
The name of your first lover,
The ring of my first rhyme:
But rose-leaves of December,
The storms of June shall fret;
The day that you remember,
The day that I forget.
And then the gay defiance:
In the teeth of the glad salt weather,
In the blown wet face of the sea;
While three men hold together,
Their Kingdoms are less by three.
And the divine songs to Hugo and to Whitman
and the superb "Dedication": the last verse of it a.
miracle :
Though the many lights dwindle to one light,
There is help if the Heavens have one;
Though the stars be discrowned of the sunlight
And the earth dispossessed of the Sun:
They have moonlight and sleep for repayment:
When refreshed as a bride and set free;
With stars and sea-winds in her raiment
Night sinks on the sea."
172 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
My very soul was taken: I had no need to read them
twice: I've never seen them since: I shall not forget
them so long as this machine lasts. They flooded my
eyes with tears, my heart with passionate admiration.
In this state the old gentlemen came hack and found
me, a cowboy to all appearance, lost, tear-drowned in
Swinburne.
."I think that's my book", he said calling me back
to dull reality. "Surely", I replied bowing; "but what
magnificent poetry and I never heard of Swinburne
before." "This is his first book I believe", said the
old gentleman, "but I'm glad you like his verses;
"Like", I cried, "who could help adoring them!" and
1 let myself go to recite the Proserpine:
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever Gods may be
That no life lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
"Why you've learned it by heart!", cried the old man
in wonder; "learned'', I repeated, "I know half the
book by heart: if you had stayed away another half
hour, I'd have known it all and I went on reciting for
the next ten minutes.
"I never heard of such a thing in my life", he
cried: "fancy a cowboy who learns Swinburne by
merely reading him. It's astounding! Where are you
going!" "To Lawrence," I replied. "We're almost
there," he added and then, "1 wish you would let me
give you the book. I can easily get another copy and
I think it ought to be yours".
I thanked him with all my heart and in a few
minutes more got down at Lawrence station then as
STUDENT Lr'lFE AND LOVE. 178
now far outside the little town clasping my Swinburne
in my hand.
I record this story not to brag of my memory for
all gifts are handicaps in life; but to show how land
Western Americans were to young folk and because
the irresistible, unique appeal of Swinburne to youth
has never been set forth before, so far as 1 know.
In a comfortable room at the Eld. ridge House, in
the chief street of Lawrence, I met my brother: Willie 1
seemed woefully surprised by my appearance: "You're
as yellow as a guinea; but how you've grown", lie
cried. "You may be tall yet but you look ill, very ill!"
He was the picture of health and even better-
looking than I had remembered him: a man of five
feet ten or so with good figure and very handsome
dark face: hair, small moustache and goatee beard
jet black, straight thin nose and superb long hazel
eyes with black lashes: he might have stood for the
model of a Greek god were it not that his forehead
was narrow and his eyes set close.
In three months he had become enthusiastically
American, "America is the greatest country in the
world", he assured me from an abyssmal ignorance;
"any young man who works can make money here;
if I had a little capital I'd be a rich man in a very few
years; it's some capital I need, nothing more". Having
drawn my story out of me especially the last phase
when 1 divided up with the boys, he declared I must
be mad. "With five thousand dollars", he cried, k "l
could be rich in three years, a millionaire in ten.
You must be mad; don't you know that everyone is
for himself in this world: good gracious! I never
heard of such insanity: if I had only known!"
For some days I watched him closely and came
to believe that he was perfectly suited to his
surroundings, eminently fitted to succeed in them.
174 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
He was an earnest Christian, I found, who had been
converted and baptised in the Baptist Church; he had
a fair tenor voice and led the choir; he swallowed all
the idiocies of the incredible creed; but drew some
valuable moral sanctions from it; he was a teetotaler
and didn't smoke; a Nazarene, too, determined to
keep chaste as he called a state of abstinence from
women, and weekly indulgence in self-abuse which he
tried to justify as inevitable.
The teaching of Jesus himself had little or no
practical effect on him; he classed it all together as
counsels of an impossible perfection, and like the vast
majority of Americans, accepted a childish Pauline-
German morality while despising the duty of forgive-
ness and scorning the Gospel of Love.
A few days after our first meeting, Willie pro-
posed to me that I should lend him a thousand dollars
and he would give me twenty- five per cent for the
use of the money. When I exclaimed against the
usurious rate, twelve per cent being the State limit,
he told me he could lend a million dollars if he had it,
at from three to five per cent a month on perfect
security. "So you see," he wound up, "that I can
easily afford to give you two hundred and fifty dollars
a year for the use of your thousand: one can buy
real estate here to pay fifty per cent a year; the
country is only just beginning to be developed", and
so forth and so on in wildest optimism: the end of
it being that he got my thousand dollars, leaving
me with barely five hundred, but as I could live in
a good boarding house for four dollars a week, I
reckoned that at the worst I had one carefree year
before me and if Willie kept his promise, I would be
free to do whatever I wanted to do for years to come.
It was written that I was to have another experi-
ence in Lawrence much more important than anything
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 175
to do with my brother. "Coming events cast their
shadows before", is a poetic proverb, singularly inept;
great events arrive unheralded, were truer.
One evening I went to a political meeting at
Liberty Hall near my hotel. Senator Ingalls was
going to speak and a Congressman on the Granger
movement, the first attempt of the Western farmers
to react politically against the exploitation of Wall
Street. The hall was packed: just behind me sat a
man between two pretty grey-eyed girls. The man's
face attracted me even at first sight: I should be able
to picture him for even as I write his face comes
before me as vividly as if the many long years that
separate us, were but the momentary closing of my
eyes.
At the end of this chapter I reproduce a perfect
portrait of him and need only add the coloring and
expression: the large eyes were hazel and set far
apart under the white, over-hanging brow; the hair
and whiskers were chestnut-brown tinged with
auburn ; but it was the eyes that drew and fascinated
me for they were luminous as no other eyes that I
have ever seen; frank too, and kind, kind always.
But his dress, a black frock coat, with low stand-
up white collar and a narrow black silk tie excited my
snobbish English contempt. Both the girls, sisters
evidently, were making up to him for all they were
worth, or so it seemed to my jaundiced envious eyes*
Senator Ingalls made the usual kind of speech:
the farmers were right to combine; but the money-
lords were powerful and after all farmers and bankers
alike were Americans: — Americans first and last and
all the time! (great cheering!) The Congressman fol-
lowed with the same brand of patriotic piffle and then
cries arose from all parts of the hall for Professor
Smith! I heard eager whispering behind me and
!3
176 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
turning half round guessed that the good looking
young man was Professor Smith for his two girl-
admirers were persuading him to go on the platform
and fascinate the audience.
In a little while he went up amid great applause;
a good figure of a man, rather tall, about five feet
ten, slight with broad shoulders. He began to speak
in a thin tenor voice: "there was a manifest conflict
of interests," he said, "between the manufacturing
Eastern States that demanded a high tariff on all
imports and the farming West that wanted cheap
goods and cheap rates of transport.
"In essence, it's a mere matter of arithmetic, a
mathematical problem, demanding a compromise; for
every country should establish its own manufacturing
industries and be self-supporting. The obvious reform
was indicated; the Federal government should take
over the railways and run them for the farmers, while
competition among American manufacturers would
ultimately reduce prices".
No one in the hall seemed to understand this
"obvious reform"; but the speech called forth a
hurricane of cheers and I concluded that there were
a great many students from the State University in
the audience.
I don't know what possessed me but when Smith
returned to his seat behind me between the two girls
and they praised him to the skies, I got up .and
walked to the platform. I was greeted with a tempest
of laughter and must have cut a ludicrous figure. I
was in cowpuncher's dress as modified by Reece and
Dell: I wore loose Bedford cord breeches, knee-high
brown boots and a sort of buckskin shirt and jacket
combined that tucked into my breeches. But rains and
sun had worked their will on the buckskin which
had shrunk down my neck and up my arms.
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 177
Spurred on by the laughter I went up the four
steps to the platform and walked over to the Mayor
who was Chairman:
"May I speak 1" I asked:
"Sure", he replied "your name ?"
"My name is Harris" I answered and the Mayor
manifestly regarding me as a great joke announced
that a Mr. Harris wished to address the meeting and
he hoped the audience would give him a fair hearing
even if his doctrines happened to be peculiar. As I
faced them, the spectators shrieked with laughter:
the house fairly rocked. I waited a full minute and
then began: "How like Americans and Democrats", I
said, "to judge a man by the clothes he wears and
the amount of hair he has on his face or the dollars
in his jeans."
There was instantaneous silence, the silence of
surprise at least, and I went on to show what I had
learned from Mill that open competition was the law
of life, another name for the struggle for existence;
that each country should concentrate its energies on
producing the things it was best fitted to produce
and trade these off against the products of other
nations; this was the great economic law, the law
of the territorial division of labor.
"Americans should produce corn and wheat and
meat for the world", I said, and exchange these
products for the cheapest English woolen goods and
French silks and Irish linen. This would enrich the
American farmer, develop all the waste American
land and be a thousand times better for the whole
country than taxing all consumers with high import
duties to enrich a few Eastern manufacturers who
were too inefficient to face the open competition of
Europe. "The American farmers," I went on, "should
organize with the laborers, for their interests are
13*
178 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
identical and fight the Eastern manufacturer who is
nothing but a parasite living on the brains and work
of better men".
And then, I wound up: "this common sense pro-
gram won't please your Senators or your Congress-
men who prefer cheap claptrap to thought, or your
superfine Professors who believe the war of classes is
"a mere arithmetical problem" (and I imitated the Pro-
fessor's thin voice), but it may nevertheless be accep-
ted by the American farmer tired of being milked
by the Yankee manufacturer and it should stand as
the first chapter in the new Granger gospel".
I bowed to the Mayor and turned away but the
audience broke into cheers and Senator Ingalls came
over and shook my hand saying he hoped to know
me better and the cheering went on till I had gotten
back to my place and resumed my seat. A few minutes
later and I was touched on the back by Professor
Smith. As I turned round he said smiling "you gave
me a good lesson: I'll never make a public speaker and
what I said doubtless sounded inconsequent and ab-
surd; but if you'd have a talk with me, I think I could
convince you that my theory will hold water".
"I've no doubt you could," I broke in, heartily
ashamed of having made fun of a man I didn't know;
"I didn't grasp your meaning but I'd be glad to have
a talk with you."
"Are you free tonight?" he went on: I nodded:
"Then come with me to my rooms. These ladies live
out of town and we'll put them in their buggy and
then be free. This is Mrs he added presenting
me to the stouter lady and this, her sister, Miss
Stevens." I bowed and out we went, I keeping myself
resolutely in the background till the sisters had driven
away: then we set off together to Professor Smith's
rooms, for our talk.
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 179
If I could give a complete account of that talk,
this poor page would glow with wonder and admi-
ration all merged in loving reverence. We talked or
rather Smith talked for I soon found he knew infinit-
ely more than I did, was able indeed to label my
creed as that of Mill, "a bourgeois English economist"
he called him with smiling disdain.
Ever memorable to me, sacred indeed, that first
talk with the man who was destined to reshape my
life and inspire it with some of his own high purpose.
He introduced me to the communism of Marx and
Engels and easily convinced me that land and its
products, coal and oil, should belong to the whole
community which should also manage all industries
for the public benefit.
My breath was taken by his mere statement of the
case and I thrilled to the passion in his voice and
manner though even then I wasn't wholly convinced.
Whatever topic we touched on, he illumined ; he knew
everything, it seemed to me, German and French and
could talk Latin and Classic Greek as fluently as
English. I had never imagined such scholarship and
when I recited some verses of Swinburne as ex-
pressing my creed he knew them too and his Pantheis-
tic Hymn to Hertha, as well. And he wore his know-
ledge lightly as the mere garment of his shining
spirit! And how handsome he was, like a Sun-god!
I had never seen anyone who could at all compare
with him.
Day had dawned before we had done talking:
then he told me he was the Professor of Greek in the
State University and hoped I would come and study
with him when the schools opened again in October.
'To think of you as a cowboy" he said, "is impossible.
Fancy a cowboy knowing books of Vergil and poems
180 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
of Swinburne by heart; it's absurd: you must give
your brains a chance and study."
"I've too little money" I said, beginning to regret
my loan to my brother.
"I told you I am a Socialist," Smith retorted
smiling: "I have three or four thousand dollars in
the Bank, take half of it and come to study" and
his luminous eyes held me: then it was true, after all;
my heart swelled, jubilant, there were noble souls in
this world who took little thought of money and lived
for better things than gold.
"I won't take your money", I said, with tears
burning: "every herring should hang by its own head
in these democratic days; but if you think enough of
me to offer such help, I'll promise to come though
I fear you'll be disappointed when you find how
little I know; how ignorant I am. I've not been in
school since I was fourteen."
"Come, we'll soon make up the time lost" he said.
"By the bye where are you staying?" "The Eldridge
House," I replied.
He brought me to the door and we parted; as I
turned to go I saw the tall slight figure and the
radiant eyes and I went away into a new world that
was the old, feeling as if I were treading on air.
Once more my eyes had been opened as on Overton
Bridge to the beauties of nature; but now to the
splendor of an unique spirit. What luck! I cried to
myself to meet such a man! It really seemed to me as
if some God were following me with divine gifts!
And then the thought came: This man has chosen
and called you very much as Jesus called his dis-
ciples: — Come, and I wilt make you fishers of men f
Already I was dedicate heart and soul to the new
Gospel.
But even that meeting with Smith, wherein I
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 181
reached the topmost height of golden hours, was set
off, so to speak, by another happening of this wonder-
week. At the next table to me in the dining-room I
had already remarked once or twice a little, middle-
aged, weary looking man who often began his break-
fast with a glass of boiling water and followed it up
with a baked apple drowned in rich cream. Brains,
too, or sweetbreads he would eat for dinner and rice,
not potatoes: when I looked surprise, he told me he
had been up all night and had a weak digestion.
Mayhew, he said, was his name and explained that if
T ever wanted a game of faro or euchre or indeed
anything else, he'd oblige me. I smiled; I could
ride and shoot, I replied; but I was no good
at cards.
The day after my talk with Smith, Mayhew and
I were both late for supper: I sat long over a good
meal and as he rose, he asked me if I would come
across the street and see his "lay-out!" I went wil-
lingly enough, having nothing to do. The gambling-
saloon was on the first floor of a building nearly
opposite the Eldridge House: the place was well-kept
and neat, thanks to a colored bar-tender and colored
waiter and a nigger of all work. The long room too
was comfortably furnished and very brightly lit —
altogether an attractive place.
As luck would have it, while he was showing me
round, a lady came in; Mayhew after a word or two
introduced me to her as his wife: Mrs. Mayhew was
then a woman of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, with
tall, lissom slight figure and interesting rather than
pretty face: her features were all good, her eyes even
were large and blue-gray: she would have been lovely
if her coloring had been more pronounced: give her
golden hair or red or black and she would have been
a beauty: she was always tastefully dressed and had
182 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
appealing, ingratiating manners. I soon found that
she loved books and reading and as Mayhew said he
was going to be busy, I asked if I might see her home.
She consented smiling and away we went. She lived
in a pretty frame house standing alone in a street that
ran parallel to Massachusetts Street, nearly opposite
to a large and ugly church.
As she went up the steps to the door, I noticed
that she had fine, neat ankles and I divined shapely
limbs. While she was taking off her light cloak and
hat, the lifting of her arms stretched her bodice and
showed small round breasts: already my blood was
lava and my mouth parched with desire.
"You look at me strangely!" she said swinging
round from the long mirror with a challenge on her
parted lips. I made some inane remark: I couldn't
trust myself to speak frankly; but natural sympathy
drew us together. I told her I was going to be a stu-
dent and she wanted to know whether I could dance:
I told her I could not, and she promised to teach me:
"Lily Robins, a neighbor's girl, will play for us any
afternoon. Do you know the steps'?" she went on and
when I said "No": she got up from the sofa, held up
her dress and showed me the three polka steps which
she said were the waltz steps too, only taken on a
glide. "What pretty ankles! you have", I ventured;
but she appeared not to hear me. We sat on and on
and I learned that she was very lonely: Mr. Mayhew
away every night and nearly all day and nothing to
do in that little dead-and-alive place. "Will you let
me come in for a talk sometimes?" I asked: "Whenever
you wish", was her answer. As I rose to go and we
were standing opposite to each other by the door, I
said: "You know, Mrs. Mayhew, in Europe when a
man brings a pretty woman home, she rewards him
jvith a kiss — "
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 183
"Really*" she scoffed, smiling, "That's not a
custom here".
Are you less generous than they are!" I asked
and the next moment I had taken her face in my
hands and kissed her on the lips. She put her hands
on my shoulders and left her eyes on mine: "We're
going to he friends", she said, "I felt it when I saw
you: don't stay away too long!"
"Will you see me tomorrow afternoon?" I asked:
"I want that dance lesson!" "Surely" she replied,
"I'll tell Lily in the morning." And once more our
hands met: I tried to draw her to me for another
kiss; but she held back with a smiling — "To morrow
afternoon!" "Tell me your name", I begged, "so that
I may think of it". "Lorna" she replied, "you funny
boy!" and I went my way with pulses hammering,
blood aflame and hope in my heart.
Next morning I called again upon Smith; but the
pretty servant, "Rose", she said her name was, told
me that he was nearly always out at Judge Stevens'
"five or six miles out," she thought it was; "they
always come for him in a buggy", she added. So I
said I'd write and make an appointment and I did
write and asked him to let me see him next morning.
That same morning Willie recommended to me
a pension kept by a Mrs. Gregory, an English-
woman, the wife of an old Baptist clergyman, who
would take good care of me for four dollars a week.
Immediately I went with him to see her and was de-
lighted to find that she lived only about a hundred
yards from Mrs. Mayhew on the opposite side of
the street. Mrs. Gregory was a large, motherly
woman evidently a lady, who had founded this board-
ing-house to provide for a rather feckless husband
and two children, a big pretty girl, Kate and a
lad, a couple of years younger. Mrs. Gregory was
184 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
delighted with my English accent, I believe, and
showed me special favor at once by giving me a
large outside room with its own entrance and steps
into the garden.
In an hour I had paid my bill at the Eldridge
House and had moved in: I showed a shred of pru-
dence by making Willie promise Mrs. Gregory that
he would turn up each Saturday with the five
dollars for my board; the dollar extra was for the
big room.
In due course I shall tell how he kept his pro-
mise and discharged his debt to me. For the moment
everything was easily, happily settled. I went out
and ordered a decent suit of ordinary tweeds and
dressed myself up in my best blue suit to call upon
Mrs. Mayhew after lunch. The clock crawled but
on the stroke of three, I was at her door: a colored
maid admitted me.
"Mrs. Mayhew", she said in her pretty singing
voice, "will be down right soon: I'll go call Miss
Lily".
In five minutes Miss Lily appeared, a dark
slip of a girl with shining black hair, wide laughing
mouth, temperamental thick red lips and grey eyes
fringed with black lashes: she had hardly time to
speak to me when Mrs. Mayhew came in: "I hope
you two'll be great friends", she said prettily ; "you're
both about the same age" she added .
In a few minutes Miss Lily was playing a waltz
on the Stein way and with my arm round the slight,
flexible waist of my inamorata I was trying to
waltz. But alas! after a turn or two I became giddy
and in spite of all my resolution had to admit that
I should never be able to dance.
"You have got very pale", Mrs. Mayhew said,
"you must sit down on the sofa a little while". Slowly
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 185
the giddiness left me: before I had entirely recovered
Miss Lily with kindly words of sympathy had gone
home and Mrs. Mayhew brought me in a cup of
excellent coffee: I drank it down and was well at
once.
"You shoulid go in and lie down", said Mrs.
Mayhew still full of pity, "see" and she opened a
door, '"there's the guest bedroom all ready". I saw
my chance and went over to her: "if you'd come too",
I whispered and then, "the coffee has made me quite
well: won't you, Lorna, give me a kiss? You don't
know how often I said your name last night, you
dear!" and in a moment I had again taken her face
and put my lips on hers. She gave me her lips this
time and my kiss became a caress; but in a little
while she drew away and said, "let's sit and talk, I
want to know all you are doing". So I seated myself
beside her on the sofa and told her all my news. She
thought I would be comfortable with the Gregorys.
"Mrs. Gregory is a good woman", she added, "and
I hear the girl's engaged to a cousin: do you think
her pretty?"
"I think no one pretty but you, Lorna", I said
and I pressed her head down on the arm of the sofa
and kissed her. Her lips grew hot: I was certain.
At once I put my hand down on her sex; she strug-
gled a little at first, which I took care should bring
our bodies closer and when she ceased struggling I
put my hands up her dress and began caressing her
sex: it was hot and wet, as I knew it would be, and
opened readily.
But in another moment she took the lead:
"Some one might find us here," she whispered, "I've
let the maid go: come up to my bedroom" and she
took me upstairs. I begged her to undress: I wanted
to see her figure; but she only said, "I have no
186 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
-corsets on, I don't often wear them in the house.
Are you sure you love me, dear!" "You know I
do!" was my answer. The next moment I lifted
her on to the bed, drew up her clothes, opened her
legs and was in her. There was no difficulty and
in a moment or two I came; but went right on
poking passionately; in a few minutes her breath
went and came quickly and her eyes fluttered and
she met my thrusts with sighs and nippings of her
sex. My second orgasm took some time and all
the while Lorna became more and more responsive,
till suddenly she put her hands on my bottom and
drew me to her forcibly while she moved her sex
up and down awkwardly to meet my thrusts with a
passion I had hardly imagined. Again and again I
came and the longer the play lasted, the wilder was
her excitement and delight. She kissed me hotly
foraging and thrusting her tongue into my mouth.
Finally she pulled up her chemise to get me further
into her and at length with little sobs she suddenly
got hysterical and panting wildly, burst into a storm
of tears.
That stopped me: I withdrew my sex and took
her in my arms and kissed her; at first she clung
to me with choking sighs and streaming eyes, but as
soon as she had won a little control, I went to the toil-
ette and brought her a sponge of cold water and
bathed her face and gave her some water to drink
— that quieted her. But she would not let me leave
her even to arrange my clothes.
"Oh, you great, strong dear," she cried, with her
arms clasping me, "oh, who would have believed
such intense pleasure possible: I never felt anything
like it before: how could you keep on so long! Oh;
how I love you, you wonder and delight!
"i am all yours," she added gravely, "you shall
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 187
do what you like with me: I am your mistress, your
slave, your plaything and you are my God and my
love! Oh, Darling! oh!"
There was a pause while I smiled at her extra-
vagant praise, then suddenly she sat up and got out of
bed: "You wanted to see my figure", she exclaimed,,
"here it is, I can deny you nothing; I only hope it
may please you" and in a moment or two she showed
herself nude from head to stocking.
As I had guessed, her figure was slight and
lissom, with narrow hips but she had a great bush
of hair on her Mount of Venus and her breasts were
not so round and firm as Jessie's: still she was very
pretty and well - formed with the fines attaches
(slender wrists and ankles) which the French are so
apt to over-estimate. They think that small bones
indicate a small sex; but I have found that the
exceptions are very numerous, even if there is any
such rule.
After I had kissed her breasts and navel, and
praised her figure, she disappeared in the bathroom
but was soon with me again on the sofa which we
had left an hour or so before.
"Do you know" she began, "my husband assured
me that only the strongest young man could go
twice with a woman in one day? I believed him- r
aren't we women fools! You must have come a
dozen times'?"
"Not half that number", I replied smiling.
"Aren't you tired?" was her next question, "even
I have a little headache" she added: "I never was so
wrought up: at the end it was too intense: but you
must be tired out." "No," I replied, "I feel no fatigue,
indeed I feel the better for our joy ride!"
"But surely you're an exception V she went on;-
"most men have finished in one short spasm and leave
188 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
the woman utterly unsatisfied, just excited and no
more".
"Youth", I said, "that, I believe, makes the chief
difference".
"Is there any danger of a child!" she went on,
"I ought to say 'hope'," she added bitterly, "for I'd
love to have a child, your child" and she kissed me.
"When were you ill last?" I asked.
"About a fortnight ago", she replied, "I often
thought that had something to do with it".
"Why!" I asked: "tell truth!" I warned her and
she began: "I'll tell you anything; I thought the time
had something to do with it for soon after I am well
each month my "pussy" that's what we call it, often
burns and itches intolerably; but after a week or so
I'm not bothered any more till next time. Why is
that?" she added.
"Two things I ought to explain to you" I said,
"your seed is brought down into your womb by the
menstrual blood: it lives there a week or ten days
and then dies and with its death your desires de-
crease and the chance of impregnation. But near
the next monthly period, say within three days, there
is a double danger again; foi* the excitement may
bring your seed down before the usual time and in
any case, my seed will live in your womb about three
days, so if you wish to avoid pregnancy, wait for
ten days after your monthly flow is finished and
stop say four days before you expect it again, then
the danger of getting a child is very slight."
"Oh, you wise boy!" she laughed, "don't you see
you are skipping the time I most desire you, and that's
not kind to either of us; is it?"
"There's still another way of evasion", I said,
u get me to withdraw before I come the first time,
or get up immediately and syringe yourself with
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 189
water thoroughly: water kills my seed as soon as it
touches it — "
"But how will that help if you go on half a
dozen times more?" she asked.
"Doctors say," I replied, "that what comes from
me afterwards is not virile enough to impregnate a
woman: I'll explain the process to you if you like;
but you can take it, the fact is as I state it".
"When did you learn all this?" she asked.
"It has been my most engrossing study," I
laughed, "and by far the most pleasureful!"
"You dear, dear," she cried, "I must kiss you for
that".
"Do you know you kiss wonderfully?" she went
on reflectingly, "with a lingering touch of the inside
of the lips and then the thrust of the tongue: that's
what excited me so the first time" and she sighed as
if delighted with the memory.
"You didn't seem excited," I said half reproach-
fully, "for when I wanted another kiss, you drew
away and said 'to-morrow'! Why are women so
coquettish, so perverse?" I added, remembering Lu-
cille and Jessie.
"I think it is that we wish to be sure of being
desired," she replied, "and a little too that we want
to prolong the joy of it, the delight of being wanted,
really wanted! It is so easy for us to give and so
exquisite to feel a man's desire pursuing us! Ah how
rare it is", she sighed passionately, "and how quickly
lost! You'll soon tire of your mistress", she added,
"now that I am all yours and thrill only for you"
and she took my head in her hands and kissed me
passionately, regretfully.
"You kiss better than I do, Lorna! Where did
you acquire the art, Madame?" I asked, "I fear that
you have been a naughty, naughty girl!"
190 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"If you only knew the truth," she exclaimed, "if
you only knew how girls long for a lover and burn and
itch in vain and wonder why men are so stupid and
cold and dull as not to see our desire.
"Don't we try all sorts of tricks? Aren't we
haughty and withdrawn at one moment and affec-
tionate, tender, loving at another? Don't we conceal
the hook with every sort of bait only to watch the
fish sniff at it and turn away. Ah, if you knew —
I feel a traitor to my sex even in telling you — if
you guessed how we angle for you and how clever
we are, how full of wiles! There's an expression I
once heard my husband use which describes us women
exactly or nine out of ten of us. I wanted to know
how he kept the office warm all night: he said, we
damp down the furnaces and explained the process:
that's it, I cried to myself, I'm a damped-down fur-
nace: that's surely why I keep hot so long! Did you
imagine", she asked, turning her flower-face all pale
with passion half aside, "that I took off my hat that
first day before the glass and turned slowly round
with it held above my head, by chance? You dear
innocent! I knew the movement would show my
breasts and slim hips and did it deliberately hoping
it would excite you and how I thrilled when I saw
it did.
'Why did I show you the bed in that room?" she
added, "and leave the door ajar when I came back
here to the sofa, but to tempt you and how heart-
glad I was to feel your desire in your kiss. I was
giving myself before you pushed my head back on
the sofa-arm and disarranged all my hair!" she added
pouting and patting it with her hands to make sure
it was in order.
"You were astonishingly masterful and quick,"
she went on: "how did you know that I wished you
•=
*
%
V
X
N.
\
STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE. 191
to touch me then'? Most men would have gone on
kissing and fooling, afraid to act decisively. You
must have had a lot of experience? You naughty
lad!"
"Shall I tell you the truth?" I said, "I will, just
to encourage you to be frank with me. You are the
first woman T have ever spent my seed in or had pro-
perly — "
"Call it improperly, for God's sake," she cried
laughing aloud with joy, "you darling virgin, you!
Oh! how I wish I was sixteen again and you were my
first lover. You would have made me believe in
God. Yet you are my first lover", she added quickly,
"I have only learned the delight and ecstasy of love
in your arms ■ — "
Our love-talk lasted for hours till suddenly I
guessed it was late and looked at mv watch: it was
nearly seven- thirty : I was late for supper which star-
ted at half -past six!
"I must go," 1 exclaimed, "or I'll get nothing
to eat".
"I could give you supper," she added, "my lips
too, that long for you and — and — but you know"
she added regretfully, "he might come in and I want
to know you better first before seeing you together:
a young God and a man! — and the man in God's
likeness, yet so poor an imitation!"
"Don't, don't," I said, "you'll make life harder
for yourself — "
"Harder" she repeated with a sniff of contempt,
"Kiss me, my love and go if you must. Shall I see
you tomorrow? There!" she cried as with a curse,
4 Tve given myself away: I can't help it, oh how I
want you always: how I shall long for you and count
the dull dreary hours! Go, go or I'll never let you" —
and she kissed and clung to me to the door.
14
192 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"Swept — tomorrow", I said and tore off.
Of course it is manifest that my liaison with Mrs.
Mayhew had little or nothing to do with love. It was
demoniac youthful sex-urge in me and much the
same hunger in her and as soon as the desire was
satisfied my judgment of her was as impartial, cool
as if she had always been indifferent to me. But
with her I think there was a certain attachment and
considerable tenderness. In intimate relations between
the sexes it is rare indeed that the man gives as much
to love as the woman.
Professor Byron. C. Smith: 1872.
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE.
Chapter X.
^ upper at the Gregory's was almost over when I
^^ entered the dining-room: Kate and her mother
and father and the boy Tommy were seated at the end
of the table, taking their meal: the dozen guests had
all finished and disappeared. Mrs. Gregory hastened
to rise and Kate got up to follow her mother into the
neighbouring kitchen.
"Please don't get up!" I cried to the girl, "I'd
never forgive myself for interrupting you: 111 wait
on myself or on voir*, I added smiling, "if you wish
anything — "
She looked at me with hard, indifferent eyes and
sniffed scornfully: "If you'll sit there'', she said,
pointing to the other end of the table, "I'll bring
you supper: do you take coffee or tea T'
"Coffee, please," I answered and took the seat
indicated, at once making up my mind to be cold to
her while winning the others. Soon the boy began
asking me had I ever seen any Indians — "in war-
paint and armed, I mean" he added eagerly.
"Yes and shot at them, too", I replied smiling.
Tommy's eyes gleamed — "Oh tell us!" he panted
and I knew I could always count on one good lis-
tener!
14*
194 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
UT1,
'I've lots to tell, Tommy," I said, "but now I
must eat my supper at express rate or your sister'll be
angry — " I added as Kate came in with some steam-
ing food: she pulled a face and shrugged her shoul-
ders with contempt.
"Where do you preach f I asked the grey-haired
father, "my brother says you're really eloquent — "
"Never eloquent," he replied deprecatingly, "but
sometimes very earnest perhaps, especially when
some event of the day comes to point the Gospel
story — " he talked like a man of fair education and
I could see he was pleased at being drawn to the
front.
Then Kate brought me fresh coffee and Mrs. Gre-
gory came in and continued her meal and the talk
became interesting, thanks to Mr. Gregory who
couldn't help saying how the fire in Chicago had
stimulated Christianity in his hearers and given him
a great text. I mentioned casually that I had been
in the fire and told of Randolph Street Bridge and
the hanging and what else I saw there and on the
lakefront that unforgettable Monday morning.
At first Kate went in and out of the room remov-
ing dishes as if she were not concerned in the story,
but when I told of the women and girls half-naked
at the lakeside while the flames behind us reached
the zenith in a red sheet that kept throwing flame-
arrows ahead and started the ships burning on the
water in front of us, she too stopped to listen.
At once I caught my cue, to be liked and admired
by all the rest; but indifferent, cold to her. So I rose
as if her standing enthralled had interrupted me
and said:
"I'm sorry to keep you: I've talked too much,
forgive me!" and betook myself to my room in spite
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 195
of the protests and prayers to continue of all the rest.
Kate just flushed; but said nothing.
She attracted me greatly: she was infinitely
desirable, very good-looking and very young (only
sixteen, her mother said later) and her great hazel
eyes were almost as exciting as her pretty mouth
or large hips and good height. She pleased me intim-
ately but I resolved to win her altogether and felt
I had begun well: at any rate she would think about
me and my coldness.
I spent the evening in putting out my half-dozen
books, not forgetting my medical treatises, and then
slept, the deep sleep of sex recuperation.
The next morning I called on Smith again where
he lived with the Reverend Mr. Kellogg, who was the
Professor of English History in the University,
Smith said. Kellogg was a man of about forty, stout
and well-kept, with a faded wife of about the same
age. Rose, the pretty servant, let me in: I had <\
smile and warm word of thanks for her: she was
astonishingly pretty, the prettiest girl I had seen in
Lawrence: medium height and figure with quite lovely
face and an exquisite rose-leaf skin! She smiled
at me; evidently my admiration pleased her.
Smith, I found, had got books for me, Latin and
Greek-English dictionaries, a Tacitus too and Xeno-
p lion's Memorabilia with a Greek grammar: I in-
sisted on paying for them all and then he began to
talk. Tacitus he just praised for his superb phrases
and the great portrait of Tiberius — "perhaps the
greatest historical portrait ever painted in words."
I had a sort of picture of King Edward the Fourth
in my romantic head, but didn't venture to trot it
out. But soon, Smith passed to Xenophon and his
portrait of Socrates as compared with that of Plato.
I listened all ears while he read out a passage from
196 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Xenophon, painting Socrates with little human
touches: I got him to translate every word literally
and had a great lesson, resolving when I got home,
I'd learn the whole page by heart. Smith was more
than kind to me: he said I'd be able to enter the
Junior Class and thus have only two years to gra-
duation. If Willie gave me back even five hundred
dollars, I'd be able to get through without care or
work.
Then Smith told me how he had gone to Germany
after his American University: how he had studied
there and then worked in Athens at ancient Greek for
another year till he could talk classic Greek as easily
as German. "There were a few dozen Professors and
students" he said, "who met regularly and talked
nothing but classic Greek: they were always trying
to make the modern tongue just like the old." He
gave me a translation of "Das Kapital" of Marx, and
in fifty ways inspired and inspirited me to renewed
effort.
I came back to the Gregorys for dinner and dis-
cussed in my own mind whether I should go to
Mrs. Mayhew's as I had promised or work at Greek:
I decided to work and then and there made a vow
always to prefer work, a vow more honored in the
breach, I fear, than in the observance. But at least I
wrote to Mrs. Mayhew excusing myself and promising
her the next afternoon. Then I set myself to learn
by heart the two pages in the "Memorabilia".
That evening I sat near the end of the table;
the head of it was taken by the University Pro-
fessor of Physics, a dull pedant!
Every time Kate came near me I was ceremon-
iously polite: "Thank you very much! It is very kind
of you!" and not a word more. As soon as I could,
I went to my room to work.
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 197
Next day at three o'clock I knocked at Mrs.
Mayhew's: she opened the door herself: I cried, ''how
kind of you" and once in the room drew her to me
and kissed her time and time again: she seemed
cold and numb.
For some moments she didn't speak, then: "I
feel as if I had passed through fever", she said,
putting her hands through her hair, lifting it in a
gesture I was to know well in the days to come:
"Never promise again if you don't come: I thought
1 should go mad: waiting is a horrible torture! Who
kept you? — some girl?" and her eyes searched mine.
I excused myself; but her intensity chilled me.
At the risk of alienating my girl-readers, I must
confess this was the effect her passion had on me.
When I kissed her, her lips were cold. But by the
time we had got upstairs, she had thawed: she shut
the door after us gravely and began: "See how ready
I am for you!" and in a moment she had thrown
back her robe and stood before me naked: she tossed
the garment on a chair; it fell on the floor: she
stooped to pick it up with her bottom to me: I kissed
her soft bottom and caught her up by it wih my hand
on 'her sex. She turned her head over her shoulder:
"I've washed and scented myself for you, Sir:
how do you like the perfume? and how do you like
this bush of hairl" and she touched her Mount
with a grimace; "1 was so ashamed of it as a girl:
1 used to shave it off: that's what made it grow so
thick. I believe: one dav ray mother saw it and made
me stop shaving; oh, how ashamed of it \ was: it's
animal, ugly: — don't you hate it? Oh! tell the truth!"
she cried, "or rather, don't; tell me you love it".
"I love it," 1 exclaimed, "because it's yours!"
4, Oh you dear Lover," she smiled, ' 4 you always find
the right word, the Battering salve for the sore!"
198 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"Are you ready for me?" I asked, "ripe-ready
or shall I kiss you first and caress pussy?"
"Whatever you do, will be right," she said, "you
know I am rotten-ripe, soft and wet for you always f 1
All this while I was taking off my clothes: now
I too was naked.
"I want you to draw up your knees," I said:
"I want to see the Holy of Holies, the shrine of my
idolatry".
At once she did as I asked. Her legs and bottom
were well-shaped without being statuesque; but her
clitoris was much more than the average button: it
stuck out fully half an inch and the inner lips of
her vulva hung down a little below the outer lips.
I knew I should see prettier pussies. Kate's was better
shaped, I felt sure, and the heavy, madder-brown lips
put me off a little.
The next moment I began caressing her red
clitoris with my hot, stiff organ : Lorna sighed deeply
once or twice and her eyes turned up ; slowly I pushed
my prick in to the full and drew it out again to the
lips, then in again and I felt her warm love-juice?
gush as she drew up her knees even higher to let
me further in: "Oh, it's divine", she sighed, "better
even than the first time", and when my thrusts grew
quick and hard as the orgasm shook me, she writhed
down on my prick as I withdrew, as if she would
hold it, and as my seed spirted into her, she bit my
shoulder and held her legs tight as if to keep my
sex in her. We lay a few moments bathed in bliss.
Then as I began to move again to sharpen the sen-
sation, she half rose on her arm: "Do you know", she
said, "I dreamed yesterday of getting on you and
doing it to you: do you mind, if I try — " "No, indeed!"
I cried, "go to it: I am your prey!" She got up
smiling and straddled kneeling across me and put my
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 199
cock into her pussy and sank down on me with a
deep sigh. She tried to move up and down on my
organ and at once came up too high and had to use
her hand to put my Tommy in again; then she sank
down on it as far as possible: "I can sink down all
right", she cried smiling at the double meaning, "but
T cannot rise so well! What fools we women are,
we can't master even the act of love; we are so
awkward!"
'Your awkwardness, however, excites me," I said.
"Does it ?" she cried, "then I'll do my best", and
for some time she rose and sank rhythmically; but
as her excitement grew, she just let herself lie on
me and wiggled her bottom till we both came. She
was flushed and hot and I couldn't help asking her a
question:
"Does your excitement grow to a spasm of
pleasure?" I asked, "or do you go on getting more
and more excited continually?"
"I get more and more excited," she said, "till the
other day with you for the first time in my life the
pleasure became unbearably intense and I was hys-
terical, you wonder-lover!"
Since then I have read lascivious books in halt
a dozen languages and they all represent women
coming to an orgasm in the act, as men do, followed by
a period of content; which only shows that the books
are all written by men and ignorant, insensitive men
at that. The truth is hardly one married woman in
a thousand is ever brought to her highest pitch of
feeling: usually, just when she begins to feel, her hus-
band goes to sleep. If the majority of husbands sat-
isfied their wives occasionally, the Woman's Revolt
would soon move to another purpose: women want
above all a lover who loves to excite them to the top
of their bent. As a rule men through economic con-
200 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
ditions marry so late that they have already half
exhausted their virile power before they marry. And
when they marry young they are so ignorant and so
self-centered that they imagine their wives must be
satisfied when they are. Mrs. Mayhew told me that
her husband had never excited her really. She denied
that she had ever had any acute pleasure from his
embraces.
"Shall I make you hysterical again!" I asked, out
of boyish vanity, "I can, you know!"
"You mustn't tire vourself! she warned, "my
husband taught me long ago that when a woman tires
a man, he gets a distaste for her and I want your
love, your desire, dear, a thousand times more even
that the delight you give me — "
"Don't be afraid", I broke in, "you are sweet, you
couldn't tire me: turn sideways and put your left
]eg up, and I'll just let my sex caress your clitoris
back and forth gently; every now and then I'll let it
go right in until our hairs meet." I kept on this game
perhaps half an hour until she first sighed and
sighed and then made awkward movements with her
pussy which I sought to divine and meet as she
wished when suddenly she cried:
"Oh! Oh! hurt me, please! hurt me, or I'll bite
you! Oh God, oh, oh" — panting, breathless till again
the tears poured down!
"You darling!" she sobbed, "how you can love!
Could you go on forever!"
For answer I put her hand on my sex: "Just as
naughty as ever", she exclaimed, "and I am choking,
breathless, exhausted! Oh, I'm sorry", she went on,
"but we should get up, for I don't want my help to
know or guess: niggers talk — "
I got up and went to the windows; one gave on
the porch but the other directly on the garden. "What
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 201
are you looking at?" she asked coming to me. "I was
just looking for the best way to get out if ever we
were .surprised", I said, "if we leave this window open
i can always drop into the garden and get away
quickly."
"You would hurt yourself', she cried.
"Not a bit of it", I answered, "I could drop half
as far again without injury, the only thing is, I must
have boots on and trousers, or those thorns of yours
would give me gip !".... "You boy", she exclaimed
laughing: "I think after your strength and passion.
it is your boyishness T love best" — and she kissed me
again and again.
"I must work", I warned her, "Smith has given
me a lot to do." "Oh, my dear", she said, her eyes
filling with tears, "that means you won't come tomor-
row or", she added hastily, "even the day after.'"
"I can't possibly", I declared, "I have a good
week's work in front of me; but you know I'll come
the first afternoon I can make myself free and I'll let
you know the day before, sweet!" She looked at me
with tearful eyes and quivering lips: "love is its own
torment!" she sighed while I dressed and got away
quickly.
The truth was I was already satiated: her passion
held no tiling new in it: she had taught me all she
could and had nothing more in her, I thought; while
Kate was prettier and much younger and a virgin.
Why shouldn't I confess it! It was Kate's virginity
attracted me irresistibly: I pictured her legs to my-
self, her hips and thighs and her sex: she wouldn't
have a harsh bush of hairs; already I felt the silken
softness of her triangle: would it be brown or have
strands of gold in it like her hair!
The next few days passed in reading the books
Smith had lent me, especially "Das Kapital", the se-
202 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
cond book of which, with its frank exposure of the
English factory system, was simply enthralling: I
read some of Tacitus, too, and Xenophon with a crib
and learned a page of Greek every day by heart, and
whenever I felt tired of work, I laid siege to Kate.
That is, I continued my plan of campaign: one day
I called her brother into my room and told Mm true
stories of buffalo hunting and of fighting with Ind-
ians; another day I talked theology with the father
or drew the dear mother out to tell of her girlish days
in Cornwall: "I never thought I'd come down to work
like this in my old age; but then children take all and
give little; I was no better as a girl; I remember" —
and I got a scene of her brief courtship!
I had won the whole household long before I said
a word to Kate beyond the merest courtesies. A week
or so passed like this till one day I held them all after
dinner while I told the story of our raid into Mexico.
I took care, of course, that Kate was out of the room.
Towards the end of my tale, Kate came in: at once
I hastened to the end abruptly and after excusing my-
self, went into the garden.
Half an hour later I saw she was in my room
tidying up; I took thought and then went up the out-
side steps. As soon as I saw her, I pretended sur-
prise: "I beg your pardon", I said, "I'll just get a book
and go at once; please don't let me disturb you!" and
I pretended to look for the book.
She turned sharply and looked at me fixedly:
"Why do you treat me like this?" she burst out,
shaking with indignation.
"Like what?" I repeated, pretending surprise.
You know quite well", she went on angrily, hastily:
at first I thought it was chance, unintentional; now
I know you mean it. Whenever you're talking or
telling a story, as soon as I come into the room you
4<V
SOME STUDY, MOKE LOVE. 203
stop and hurry away as if you hated me. Why?
Why?" she cried with quivering lips, "What have I
done to make you dislike me so?" and the tears
gathered in her lovely eyes.
I felt the moment had come: I put my hands on
her shoulders and looked with my whole soul into her
eyes: "Did you never guess, Kate, that it might be
love, not hate?" I asked.
"No, no!" she cried, the tears falling, "love doesn't
act like that!"
"Fear to miss love does, I can assure you", I
cried, "I thought at first that you disliked me and al-
ready I had begun to care for you", (my arms went
round her waist and I drew her to me) "to love you
and want you. Kiss me, dear" and at once she gave
me her lips while my hand got busy on her breasts
and then went down of itself to her sex. Suddenly
she looked at me gaily, brightly while heaving a big-
sigh of relief. "I'm glad, glad!" she said, "if you only
knew how hurt I was and how I tortured myself; one
moment I was angry, then I was sad. Yesterday I
made up my mind to speak, but today I said to my-
self, I'll just be obstinate and cold as he is and now"
— and of her own accord she put her arms round my
neck and kissed me, "you are a dear, dear! Any way ?
I love you!"
"You mustn't give me those bird-pecks!" I ex-
claimed, "those are not kisses: I want your lips to
open and cling to mine" and I kissed her while my
tongue darted into her mouth and I stroked her sex
gently. She flushed, but at first didn't understand,,
then suddenly she blushed rosy red as her lips grew
hot and she fairlv ran from the room.
I exulted: I knew I had won: I must be very
quiet and reserved and the bird would come to the
lure; I felt exultingly certain!
204 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Meanwhile I spent nearly every morning with
Smith: golden hours! Always, always before we part-
ed, he showed me some new beauty or revealed some
new truth: he seemed to me the most wonderful crea-
ture in this strange, sunlit world. I used to hang en-
tranced on his eloquent lips! (Strange! I was sixty-
five before I found such a hero-worshipper as I was
to Smith, who was then only four or five and twenty!)
He made me know all the Greek dramatists: Aeschv-
lus, Sophocles and Euripides and put them for me in
a truer light than English or German scholars have
set them yet. He knew that Sophocles was the greatest
and from his lips I learned every chorus in the Oedi-
pus Rex and Colonos before I had completely mas-
tered the Greek grammar; indeed, it was the supreme
beauty of the literature that forced me to learn the
language. In teaching me the choruses, he was care-
ful to point out that it was possible to keep the meas-
ure and yet mark the accent too: in fact, he made
classic Greek a living language to me, as living as
English. And he would not let me neglect Latin: in
the first year with him I knew poems of Catullus by
heart, almost as well as I knew Swinburne. Thanks
to Professor Smith I had no difficulty in entering the
Junior Class at the University; in fact, after my first
three or four months' work I was easily the first in
the class, which included Ned Stevens, the brother of
Smith's inamorata. I soon discovered that Smith
was heels over head in love with Kate Stevens, shot
through the heart as Mercutio would say, with a fair
girl's blue eye!
And small wonder, for Kate was lovely; a little
above middle height with slight, rounded figure and
most attractive face: the oval, a thought long, rather
than round, with dainty, perfect features, lit up by
a pair of superlative grey-blue eyes, eyes by turns
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 20:>
delightful and reflective and appealing that mirrored
a really extraordinary intelligence. She was in the
Senior Class and afterwards for years held the po-
sition of Professor of Greek in the University. I shall
have something to say of her in a later volume of this
history, for I met her again in New York nearly fifty
years later. But in 1872 or 73, her brother Ned, a
handsome lad of eighteen who was in my class, inter-
ested me more. The only other member of the Senior
Class of that time was a fine fellow, Ned Bancroft,
who later came to France with me to study.
At this time, curiously enough, Kate Stevens was
by way of being engaged to Ned Bancroft; but al-
ready it was plain that she was in love with Smith
and my outspoken admiration of Smith helped her,
I hope, as I am sure it helped him, to a better mutual
understanding. Bancroft accepted the situation with
extraordinary self-sacrifice, losing neither Smith's nor
Kate's friendship: I have seldom seen nobler self-
abnegation: indeed his high-mindedness in this crisis
was what first won my admiration and showed me his
other fine qualities.
Almost in the beginning 1 had serious disquie-
tude: every little while Smith was ill and had to
keep his bed for a day or two. There was no ex-
planation of this illness which puzzled me and
caused me a certain anxiety.
One day in mid- winter there was a new deve-
lopment. Smith was in doubt how to act and con-
fided in me. He had found Professor Kellogg, in
whose house he lived, trying to kiss the pretty help,
Rose entirely against her will: Smith was emphatic
on this point, the girl was struggling angrily to free
herself, when by chance he interrupted them.
I relieved Smith's solemn gravity a little by
roaring with laughter: the idea of an old Professor
206 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
and clergyman trying to win a young girl by force
filled me with amusement: "What a fool the man
must be!" was my English judgment; Smith took
the American high moral tone at first.
'Think of his disloyalty to his wife in the same
house", he cried, "and then the scandal if the girl
talked and she's sure to talk!"
"Sure not to talk", I corrected, "girls are afraid
of the effect of such revelations; besides a word
from you asking her to shield Mrs. Kellogg will
ensure her silence."
"Oh, I cannot advise her", cried Smith, "I will
not be mixed up in it: I told Kellogg at the time,
I must leave the house, yet I don't know where to
go! It's too disgraceful of him! His wife is really
a dear woman!"
For the first time I became conscious of a rooted
difference between Smith and myself: his high moral
condemnation on very insufficient data seemed to
me childish; but no doubt many of my readers will
think my tolerance a proof of my shameless
libertinism! However I jumped at the opportunity
of talking to Rose on such a scabrous matter and at
the same time solved Smith's difficulty by proposing
that he should come and take room and board with
the Gregorys — a great stroke of practical diplomacy
on my part, or so it appeared to me; for thereby I
did the Gregorys, Smith and myself an immense, an
incalculable service. Smith jumped at the idea,
asked me to see about it at once and let him know
and then rang for Rose.
She came half scared, half angry, on the defen-
sive, I could see; so I spoke first, smiling: "Oh Rose",
I said, "Professor Smith has been telling me of your
trouble: but you ought not to be angry: for you are
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 207
so pretty that no wonder a man wants to kiss you:
you must blame your lovely eyes and mouth" —
Rose laughed outright: she had come expecting
reproof and found sweet flattery.
"There's only one thing, Rose", I went on: "the
story would hurt Mrs. Kellogg if it got out and she's
not very strong, so you must say nothing about it,
for her sake: that's what Professor Smith wanted to
say to you", I added. "I'm not likely to tell", cried
Rose: "I'll soon forget all about it: but I guess I'd
better get another job: he's liable to try again though
I gave him a good hard slap", and she laughed
merrily.
"I'm so glad for Mrs. Kellogg's sake", said Smith
gravely, "and if I can help you to get another place,
please call upon me".
"I guess I'll have no difficulty", said Rose
flippantly with a shade of dislike of the Professor's
solemnity: "Mrs. Kellogg will give me a good
character" and the healthy young minx grinned;
"besides I'm not sure but I'll go stay home a spell:
I'm fed up with working and would like a holiday,
and mother wants me — "
"Where do you live, Rosef I asked with a keen
eye for future opportunities; "On the other side of
the river", she replied, "next door to Elder Conklin's,
where your brother boards — " she added smiling.
When Rose went I begged Smith to pack his boxes
for I would get him the best room at the Gregory's
and I assured him it was really large and comfortable
and would hold all his books, etc., and off I went to
make my promise good. On the way I set myself to
think how I could turn the kindness I was doing the
Gregorys to the advantage of my love. I decided to
make Kate a partner in the good deed, or at least
a herald of the good news. So when I got home I
15
208 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
rang the bell in my room and as I had hoped, Kate
answered it. When I heard her footsteps I was
shaking, hot with desire and now I wish to describe
a feeling I then first began to notice in myself. I
longed to take possession of the girl, so to speak,
abruptly, ravish her in fact, or at least thrust both
hands up her dress at once and feel her bottom and
sex altogether; but already I knew enough to
realise certainly that girls prefer gentle and court-
eous approaches: why? Of the fact I'm sure. So
I said, "Come in, Kate!" gravely; "I want to ask
you whether the best bedroom is still free and if you'd
like Professor Smith to have it, if I could get him to
come here?"
"I'm sure Mother would be delighted", she ex-
claimed.
"You see", I went on, "I'm trying to serve you
all I can, yet you don't even kiss me of your own
accord": she smiled and so I drew her to the bed
and lifted her up on it: I saw her glance and answer-
ed it: "The door is shut, dear", and half lying on
her I began kissing her passionately while my hand
went up her clothes to her sex. To my delight she
wore no drawers, but at first she kept her legs tight
together, frowning: "love denies nothing, Kate", I
said gravely; slowly she drew her legs apart, half
pouting, half smiling, and let me caress her sex. When
her love-juice came I kissed her and stopped: "It's
dangerous here", I said, "that door you came in by
is open; but I must see your lovely limbs" and I turned
up her dress. I hadn't exaggerated; she had limbs
like a Greek statue and her triangle of brown hair
lay in little silky curls on her belly and then — the
sweetest cunny in the world: I bent down and
kissed it.
In a moment Kate was on her feet, smoothing
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 209
her dress down: "What a boy you are", she exclaimed,
"but that's partly why I love you; oh, I hope you'll
love me half as much. Say you will, Sir, and I'll do
anything you wish!"
"I will", I replied, "but oh, I'm glad you want
love: can you come to me to night? I want a couple
of hours with you uninterrupted." "This afternoon",
she said, "I'll say I'm going for a walk and I'll come
to you, dear! They are all resting then or out and I
shan't be missed."
I could only wait and think. One thing was fixed
in me, I must have her, make her mine before Smith
came: he was altogether too fascinating, I thought, to
be trusted with such a pretty girl; but I was afraid
she would bleed and I did not want to hurt her this
first time, so I went out and bought a syringe and a
pot of cold cream which I put beside my bed.
Oh, how that dinner lagged! Mrs. Gregory
thanked me warmly for my kindness to them all
(which seemed to me pleasantly ironical!) and Mr.
Gregory followed her lead; but at length everyone
had finished and I went to my room to prepare. First
I locked the outside door and drew down the blinds:
then I studied the bed and turned it back and arran-
ged a towel along the edge: happily the bed was just
about the right height! Then I loosened my trowsers,
unbuttoned the front and pulled up my shirt: a little
later Kate put her lovely face in at the door and
slipped inside. I shot the bolt and began kissing her :
girls are strange mortals: she had taken off her cor-
sets just as I had put a towel handy. I lifted up her
clothes and touched her sex, caressing it gently while
kissing her; in a moment or two her love-milk came.
I lifted her up on the bed, pushed down my trow-
sers, anointed my prick with the cream and then par-
ting her legs and getting her to pull her knees up,
15'
210 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
I drew her bottom to the edge of the bed: she frowned
at that but I explained quickly, "It may give you a
little pain, at first, dear; and I want to give you as
little as possible" and I slipped the head of my cock
gently, slowly into her. Even greased her pussy was
very tight and at the very entrance, I felt the ob-
stacle, her maidenhead in the way: I lay on her and
kissed her and let her or Mother Nature help me.
As soon as Kate found that I was leaving it to
her, she pushed forward boldly and the obstacle
yielded: "0 — 0" she cried and then pushed forward
again roughly and my organ went in her to the hilt
and her clitoris must have felt my belly. Resolutely
I refrained from thrusting or withdrawing for a min-
ute or two and then drew out slowly to her lips and
as I pushed Tommy gently in again, she leaned up
and kissed me passionately. Slowly with extremest
care I governed myself and pushed in and out with
long, slow thrusts though I longed, longed to plunge
it in hard and quicken the strokes as much as pos-
sible; but I knew from Mrs. May hew that the long,
gentle thrusts and slow withdrawals were the aptest
to excite a woman's passion and I was determined to
win Kate.
In two or three minutes she had again let down a
flow of love- juice or so I believed and I kept right
on with the love-game, knowing that the first exper-
ience is never forgotten by a girl and resolved to
keep on to dinner-time if necessary to make her first
love- joust ever memorable to her. Kate lasted longer
than Mrs. Mayhew: I came ever so many times, pas-
sing ever more slowly from orgasm to orgasm before
she began to move to me; but at length her breath
began to get shorter and shorter and she held me to
her violently, moving her pussy the while up and
down harshly against my manroot. Suddenly she re-
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE. 211
laxed and fell back: there was no hysteria; but plainly
I could feel the mouth of her womb fasten on my cock
as if to suck it. That excited me fiercely and for the
first time I indulged in quick, hard thrusts till a
spasm of intensest pleasure shook me and my seed
spirted or seemed to spirt for the sixth or seventh
time.
When I had finished kissing and praising my
lovely partner and drew away, I was horrified: the
bed was a sheet of blood and some had gone on my
pants: Kate's thighs and legs even were all incarnid-
ined, making the lovely ivory white of her skin, one
red. You may imagine how softly I used the towel
on her legs and sex before I showed her the results of
our love-passage. To my astonishment she was un-
affected: "You must take the sheet away and burn
it", she said, "or drop it in the river: I guess it won't
be the first."
"Did it hurt very much", I asked.
"At first a good deal", she replied, "but soon the
pleasure overpowered the smart and I would not even
forget the pain: I love you so: I am not even afraid
of consequences with you: I trust you absolutely and
love to trust you and run whatever risks you wish."
"You darling!" I cried, "I don't believe there
will be any consequences; but I want you to go to the
basin and use this syringe: I'll tell you why after-
wards." At once she went over to the basin: "I feel
funny, weak", she said, "as if I were — I can't
describe it — shaky on my legs. I'm glad now I don't
wear drawers in summer: they'd get wet." Her ablu-
tions completed and the sheet withdrawn and done up
in paper, I shot back the bolt and we began our talk. I
found her intelligent and kindly but ignorant and ill-
read; still she was not prejudiced and was eager to
know all about babies and how they were made. I
212 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
told her what I had told Mrs. May hew and something
more: how my seed was composed of tens of thou-
sands of infinitesimal tadpole-shaped animalculae —
Already in her vagina and womb these infinitely little
things had a race: they could move nearly an inch in
an hour and the strongest and quickest got up first to
where her egg was waiting in the middle of her womb.
My little tadpole, the first to arrive, thrust his head
into her egg and thus having accomplished his work
of impregnation, perished, love and death being twins.
The curious thing was that this indescribably
small tadpole should be able to transmit all the qual-
ities of all his progenitors in certain proportions; no
such miracle was ever imagined by any religious
teacher. More curious still the living foetus in the
womb passes in nine months through all the chief
changes that the human race has gone through in
countless aeons of time in its progress from the tad-
pole to the man. Till the fifth month the foetus is
practically a four-legged animal.
I told her that it was accepted to-day that the
weeks occupied in the womb in any metamorphosis
corresponded exactly to the ages it occupied in reality.
Thus it was upright, a two-legged animal, ape and
then man in the womb for the last three months and
this corresponded nearly to one third of man's whole
existence on this earth. Kate listened enthralled, I
thought, till she asked me suddenly:
"But what makes one child a boy and another a
girl?"
"The nearest we've come to a law on the matter",
I said, "is contained in the so-called law of contra-
ries: that is, if the man is stronger than the woman,
the children will be mostly girls; if the woman is
greatly younger or stronger, the progeny will be
chiefly boys. This bears out the old English proverb:
SOME STUDY, MORE LOVE.
213
"Any weakling can make a boy, it takes a man to
make a girl."
Kate laughed and just then a knock came to the
door. "Come in!" T cried and the colored maid came
in with a note: "a lady's just been and left it", said
Jenny. I saw it was from Mrs. Mayhew, so I cram-
med it into my pocket saying regretfully: "I must
answer it soon." Kate excused herself and after a
long, long kiss went to prepare supper while I read
Mrs. Mayhew's note, which was short if not exactly
sweet.
"Eight days and no Frank, and no news; you
cannot want to kill me: come to-day if possible.
Lorna."
I replied at once, saying I would come on the
morrow, that I was installing Smith in my boarding-
house and was so busy I didn't know where to turn,
but would be with her sure on the morrow and I
signed "Your Frank".
That afternoon at five o'clock Smith came and I
helped to arrange his books and make him comfy.
MY FIRST VENUS.
Venus toute entiere a sa proie attchee.
Chapter XI.
meant to write nothing but the truth in these
pages; yet now I'm conscious that my memory
has played a trick on me: it is an artist in what
painters call foreshortening: events, that is, which
took months to happen, it crushes together into days,
passing, so to speak, from mountain top to mountain
top of feeling, and so the effect of passion is height-
ened by the partial elimination of time. I can do
nothing more than warn my readers that in reality
some of the love passages I shall describe were se-
parated by weeks and sometimes by months, that the
nuggets of gold were occasional "finds" in a desert.
After all, it cannot matter to my "gentle readers"
and my good readers will have already divined the
fact, that when you crush eighteen years into nine
chapters, you must leave out all sorts of minor hap-
penings while recording chiefly the important — for-
tunately these carry the message.
It was with my knowledge as with my passions:
day after day I worked feverishly: whenever I met
a passage such as the building of the bridge in
Caesar, I refused to burden my memory with the
dozens of new words because I thought, and still
MY FIRST VENUS. 215
think, Latin comparatively unimportant: the nearest
to a great man the Latins ever produced being Ta-
citus or Lucretius. No sensible person would take
the trouble to master a language in order to gain
acquaintance with the second-rate. But new words in
Greek were precious to me like new words in English
and I used to memorize every passage studded with
them save choruses like that of the birds in Aristo-
phanes, where he names birds unfamiliar to me in life.
Smith, I found, knew all such words in both
languages. I asked him one day and he admitted that
he had read everything in ancient Greek, following
the example of Hermann, the famous German scholar,
and believed he knew almost every word.
I did not desire any such pedantic perfection. I
make no pretension to scholarship of any sort and
indeed learning of any kind leaves me indifferent
unless it leads to a fuller understanding of beauty
or that widening of the spirit by sympathy that is
another name for wisdom. But what I wish to em-
phasize here is that in the first year with Smith I
learned by heart dozens of choruses from the Greek
dramatists and the whole of the "Apologia" and
"Crito" of Plato, having guessed then and still be-
lieve that the "Crito" is a model short story, more
important than any of even Plato's speculations.
Plato and Sophocles! it was worth while spending
five years of hard labor to enter into their intimacy
and make them sister-spirits of one's soul. Didn't
Sophocles give me Antigone, the prototype of the new
woman for all time, in her sacred rebellion against
hindering laws and thwarting conventions, the eter-
nal model of that dauntless assertion of love that is
beyond and above sex, the very heart of the Divine!
And the Socrates of Plato led me to that high
place where man becomes God, having learned obed-
216 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
lence to law and the cheerful acceptance of Death;
but even there I needed Antigone, the twin sister of
Bazaroff, at least as much, realising intuitively that
my life-work, too, would be chiefly in revolt and that
the punishment Socrates suffered and Antigone dared,
would almost certainly be mine; for I was fated to
meet worse opponents; after all, Creon was only
stupid whereas Sir Thomas Horridge was malevolent
to boot and Woodrow Wilson unspeakable!
Again I am outrunning my story by half a
century !
But in what I have written of Sophocles and
Plato, the reader will divine, I hope, my intense love
and admiration for Smith who led me, as Vergil led
Dante, into the ideal world that surrounds our earth
as with illimitable spaces of purple sky, wind-swept
and star-sown!
If I could tell what Smith's daily companionship
now did for me, I would hardly need to write this
book; for like all I have written, some of the best
of it belongs as much to him as to me. In his presence
for the first year and a half, I was merely a sponge,
absorbing now this truth, now that, hardly cons-
cious of an original impulse. Yet all the time, too,
as will be seen, I was advising him and helping him
from my knowledge of life. Our relation was really
rather like that of a small, practical husband with
some wise and infinitely learned Aspasia! I want to
say here in contempt of probability that in all our
years of intimacy, living together for over three
years side by side, I never found a fault in him of
character or of sympathy, save the one that drew him
to his death.
Now I must leave him for the moment and turn
again to Mrs. Mayhew. Of course I went to her that
next afternoon even before three. She met me
MY FIRST VENUS. 217
without a word so gravely that I did not even kiss
her: but began explaining what Smith was to me and
how I could not do enough for him who was
everything to my mind as she was (God help me!) to
my heart and body, and I kissed her cold lips while
she shook her head half sadly.
"We have a sixth sense, we women, when we
are in love", she began: "I feel a new influence in
you; I scent danger in the air you bring with you:
don't ask me to explain: I can't; but my heart is
heavy and cold as death ... If you leave me, there'll
be a catastrophe: the fall from such a height of
happiness must be fatal ... If you can feel pleasure
away from me, you no longer love me. I feel none
except in having you, seeing you, thinking of you
— none. Oh! why can't you love like a woman loves,
No! like I love: it would be heaven; for you and you
alone satisfy the insatiable; you leave me bathed in
bliss, sighing with satisfaction, happy as the Queen
of Heaven!"
"I have much to tell you, new things to say", I
began in haste.
"Come upstairs," I broke in interrupting myself
"I want you as you are now, with the color in your
cheeks, the light in your eyes, the vibration in your
voice, come!"
And she came like a sad sybil. "Who gave you
the tact?" she began while we were undressing, "the
tact to praise always?" I seized her and stood naked
against her body to body: "What new thing have
you to tell me?" I asked, lifting her into the bed
and getting in beside her, cuddling up to her warmer
body.
"There's always something new in my love," she
cried, cupping my face with her slim hands and taking
my lips with hers.
218 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"Oh, how I desired you yesternoon, for I took the
letter to your house myself and I heard you talking
in your room perhaps with Smith", she added,
sounding my eyes with hers; "I'm longing to believe
it; but when I heard your voice, or imagined I did,
I felt the lips of my sex open and shut and then it
began to burn and itch intolerably. I was on the point
of going in to you; but instead, turned and hurried
away, raging at you and at myself — "
"I will not let you even talk such treason," I
cried, separating her soft thighs, as I spoke, and
sliding between them. In a moment my sex was in
her and we were one body, while I drew it out slowly
and then pushed it in again, her naked body straining
to mine.
"Oh" she cried, "as you draw out, my heart follows
your sex in fear of losing it and as you push in
again, it opens wide in ecstasy and wants you all,
all — " and she kissed me with hot lips.
"Here is something new," she exclaimed, "food
for your vanity from my love! Mad as you make me
with your love-thrusts, for at one moment I am hot
and dry with desire, the next wet with passion, bathed
in love, I could live with you all my life without
having you, if you wished it, or if it would do you
good. Do you believe mef '
"Yes," I replied, continuing the love-game: but
occasionally withdrawing to rub her clitoris with my
sex and then slowly burying him in her cunt again
to the hilt.
"We women have no souls but love," she said
faintly, her eyes dying as she spoke:
"I torture myself to think of some new pleasure
for you, and yet you'll leave me, I feel you will, for
some silly girl who can't feel a tithe of what I feel
or give you what I give — " she began here to breathe
MY FIRST VENUS. 219
quickly: "I've been thinking how to give you more
pleasure; let me try. Your seed, darling, is dear to
me: I don't want it in my sex; I want to feel you
thrill and so I want your sex in my mouth, I want
to drink your essence and I will — " and suiting the
action to the word she slipped down in the bed and
took my sex in her mouth and began rubbing it up
nnd down till my seed spirted in long jets, filling her
mouth while she swallowed it greedily.
"Now do I love you, Sir!" she exclaimed,
drawing herself up on me again and nestling against
me: "wait till some girl does that to you and you'll
know she loves you to distraction or better still to
self-destruction."
"Why do you talk of any other girl!" I chided
her, "I don't imagine you going with any other man,
why should you torment yourself just as cause-
lessly 1"
She shook her head: "My fears are prophetic",
she sighed, "I'm willing to believe it hasn't happened
yet though — Ah God, the torturing thought! the
mere dread of your going with another drives me
crazy; I could kill her, the bitch: why doesn't she
get a man of her own? How dare she even look at
you?" and she clasped me tightly to her. Nothing
loath, I pushed my sex into her again and began
the slow movement that excited her so quickly and
me so gradually for even while using all my skill to
give her the utmost pleasure, I could not help compar-
ing and I realised surely enough that Kate's pussy
was smaller and firmer and gave me infinitely more
pleasure; still I kept on for her delight. And now
again she began to pant and choke and as I continued
ploughing her body and touching her womb with
every slow thrust she began to cry inarticulately with
little short cries growing higher in intensity till
220 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
suddenly she squealed like a shot rabbit and then
shrieked with laughter, breaking down in a storm
of sighs and sobs and floods of tears.
As usual, her intensity chilled me a little; for her
paroxysm aroused no corresponding heat in me,
tending even to check my pleasure by the funny,
irregular movements she made!
Suddenly I heard steps going away from the
door, light stealing steps: who could it bel The
servant? or — 1
Lorna had heard them too, and though still
panting and swallowing convulsively, she listened
intently while her great eyes wandered in thought.
I knew I could leave the riddle to her: it was my task
to reassure and caress her.
I got up and went over to the open window for
a breath of air and suddenly I saw Lily run quickly
across the grass and disappear in the next house:
so she was the listener! When I recalled Lorna's
gasping cries, I smiled to myself. If Lily tried to
explain them to herself, she would have an uneasy
hour, I guessed.
When Lorna had dressed, and she dressed quickly,
and went downstairs hastily to convince herself, I
think, that her darky had not spied on her, I waited
in the sitting-room: I must warn Lorna that my
"studies" would only allow me to give one day a week
to our pleasures.
"Oh!" she cried, turning pale as I explained,
"didn't I know it!"
"But Lorna," I pleaded, "didn't you say you
could do without me altogether if 'twas for my good!"
"No, no, no! a thousand times no!" she cried,
"I said if you were with me always, I could do without
passion; but this starvation fare once a week! Go,
go!" she cried, "or I'll say something I'll regret. Go!"
MY FIRST VENUS. 221
and she pushed me out of the door and thinking it
better in view of the future, I went.
The truth is, I was glad to get away: novelty is
the soul of passion. There's an old English proverb:
"fresh cunt, fresh courage". On my way home I
thought oftener of the slim, dark figure of Lily than
of the woman every hill and valley of whose body was
now familiar to me, whereas Lily with her narrow
hips and straight flanks must have a tiny sex I
thought ; — "D n Lily" and I hastened to Smith.
We went down to supper together and I intro-
duced Smith to Kate: they were just polite; but when
she turned to me she scanned me curiously, her brows
lifting in a gesture of "I know what I know" which
was to become familiar to me in the sequel.
After supper I had a long talk with Smith in his
room, a heart to heart talk which altered our relations.
I have already mentioned that Smith got ill every
fortnight or so. I had no inkling of the cause, no
notion of the scope of the malady. This evening he
grew reminiscent and told me everything.
He had thought himself very strong, it appeared,
till he went to Athens to study. There he
worked prodigiously and almost at the beginning of
his stay came to know a Greek girl of a good class
who talked Greek with him and finally gave herself
to him passionately. Being full of youthful vigor
always quickened by vivid imaginings, he told me
that he usually came the first time almost as soon
as he entered and that in order to give his partner
pleasure, he had to come two or three times and this
drained and exhausted him. He admitted that he had
abandoned himself to this fierce love-play day after
day in and out of season. When he returned to the
United States, he tried to put his Greek girl out of
222 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
his head; but in spite of all he could do, he had love-
dreams that came to an orgasm and ended in emiss-
ions of seed about once a fortnight. And after a year
or so these fortnightly emissions gave him intense
pains in the small of his back which lasted some
twenty-four hours, evidently till some more seed had
been secreted. I could not imagine how a fortnightly
emission could weaken and distress a young man of
Smith's vigor and health; but as soon as I had wit-
nessed his suffering I set my wits to work and told
him of the trick by which I had brought my wet-
dreams to an end in the English school.
Smith at once consented to try my remedy and
as the fortnight was about up, I went at once in
search of whipcord, and tied up his unruly member
for him night after night. For some days the remedy
worked, then he went out and spent the afternoon and
night at Judge Stevens' and he was ill again. Of
course, there had been no connection: indeed, in my
opinion, it would have been much better for Smith
if there had been, but the propinquity of the girl
he loved and, of course, the kissings that are always
allowed to engaged couples by American custom, took
place unchecked and when he went to sleep, his
dreaming ended in an orgasm. The worst of it was
that my remedy having prevented his dreaming from
reaching a climax for eighteen or twenty days, he
dreamed a second time and had a second wet dream,
which brought him to misery and even intenser pain
than usual.
I combatted the evil with all the wit I possessed.
I got Ned Stevens to lend the Professor a horse; I
had Blue Devil out and we went riding two or three
times a week. I got boxing gloves too and soon either
Ned or I had a bout with Smith every day: gradually
these exercises improved his general health; and when
#
r *
\
MY FIRST VENUS. 223
I could tie on the whipcord every night for a month
or two, he put on weight and gained strength sur-
prisingly.
The worst of it was that this improvement in
health always led to a day or two spent with his
betrothed, which undid all the good. I advised him
to marry and then control himself rigorously; but he
wanted to get well first and be his vigorous self again.
I did all I knew to help him but for a long time I
had no suspicion that an occasional wet-dream could
have serious consequences. We used to make fun
of them as schoolboys: how could 1 imagine — but
as it is the finest, most highly strung natures that are
most apt to suffer in this way, I will tell what hap-
pened step by step: suffice it to say here that he was
in better health when staying with me at the
Gregory's than he had been before and I continually
hoped for a permanent improvement.
After our talk that first night in Gregory's, I
went downstairs to the dining-room, hoping to find
Kate alone: I was lucky: she had persuaded her
mother, who was tired, to go to bed and was just
finishing her tidying up.
"I want you so, Kate," I said, trying to kiss her:
she drew her head aside: "That's why you've kept
away all afternoon" I suppose; and she looked at me
with sidelong glance. An inspiration came to me:
"Kate", I exclaimed, "I had to be fitted for my new
clothes!" "Forgive me", she cried at once, that excuse
being valid: "I thought, T feared — oh I'm suspicious
without reason, I know, am jealous without cause,
there! I confess!" and the great hazel eyes turned on
me full of love.
I played with her breasts, whispnng "When
am J to see you naked, Katel 1 want to; when?"
"You've seen most of me!" and she laughed joyously!
16
ii-
u
224 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"All right," I said, turning away, "if you are re-
solved to make fun of me and be mean to me — "
"Mean to you!" she cried, catching me and swing-
ing me round, "I could easier be mean to myself. I'm
glad you want to see me, glad and proud, and to-night,
if you'll leave your door open, I'll come to you: mean,
oh - -' and she gave her soul in a kiss.
'Isn't it risky 1" I asked.
'I tried the stairs this afternoon," she glowed,
"they don't creak: no one will hear, so don't sleep
or I'll surprise you" — By way of sealing the com-
pact, I put my hand up her clothes and caressed her
sex; it was hot and soon opened to me.
"There now, Sir, go!" she smiled, "or you'll make
me very naughty and I have a lot to do!"
"How do you mean 'naughty'," I said, "tell me
what you feel? please!"
"I feel my heart beating", she said, "and, and —
oh! wait till tonight and I'll try to tell you, dear!" and
she pushed me out of the door.
For the first time in my life I notice here that
the writer's art is not only inferior to reality in
keenness of sensation and emotion; but also more
same, monotonous even, because incapable of showing
the tiny, yet ineffable differences of the same feeling
which difference of personality brings with it. I seem
to be repeating myself in describing Kate's love after
Mrs. Mayhew's, making the girl's feelings a fainter re-
plica of the woman's. In reality the two were com-
pletely different. Mrs. Mayhew's feelings long re-
pressed flamed with the heat of an afternoon in July
or August; while in Kate's one felt the freshness and
cool of a summer morning, shot through with the sug-
gestion of heat to come. And this comparison even is
inept because it leaves out of the account, the effect
of Kate's beauty, the great hazel eyes, the rosied
MY FIRST VENUS. 225
skin, the superb figure. Besides there was a glamour
of the spirit about Kate: Lorna Mayhew would never
give me a new note that didn't spring from passion;
in Kate I felt a spiritual personality and the thrill of
undeveloped possibilities. And still using my utmost
skill, I haven't shown my reader the enormous super-
iority of the girl and her more unselfish love. But I
haven't finished yet.
Smith had given me "The Mill on the Floss" to
read; I had never tried George Eliot before and T
found that this book almost deserved Smith's praise.
I had read till about one o'clock when my heart heard
her; or was it some thrill of expectance! The next
moment my door opened and she came in with the
mane of hair about her shoulders and a long dressing
gown reaching to her stockinged feet. I got up like
a flash; but she had already closed the door and bolted
it; I drew her to the bed and stopped her from
throwing off the dressing-gown: "let me take off your
stockings first", I whispered, "I want you all imprint-
ed on me!"
The next moment, she stood there naked, the
flickering flame of the candle throwing quaint arabes-
ques of light and shade on her beautiful ivory body:
I gazed and gazed: from the navel down she was
perfect; I turned her round and the back too, the
bottom even was faultless though large; but alas!
the breasts were far too big for beauty, too soft to
excite! I must think only of the bold curve of her
hips, I reflected, the splendor of the firm thighs, the
flesh of which had the hard outline of marble and her
— sext I put her on the bed and opened her thighs:
her pussy was ideally perfect.
At once I wanted to get into her; but she pleaded:
"please, dear, come into bed : I'm cold and want you."
So in I got and began kissing her.
16*
226 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Soon she grew warm and I pulled off my night-
shirt and my middle finger was caressing her sex
that opened quickly: "E — E!" she said drawing
in her breath quickly: "it still hurts." I put my sex
gently against hers, moving it up and down slowly
till she drew up her knees to let me in; but as soon
as the head entered, her face puckered a little with
pain and' as I had had a long afternoon, I was the
more inclined to forbear and accordingly I drew away
pjid took place beside her:
"I cannot bear to hurt you," I said, "love's plea-
sure must be mutual".
"You're sweet!" she whispered, "I'm glad you
stopped; for it shows you really care for me and not
just for the pleasure!" and she kissed me lovingly.
"Kate, reward me," I said, "by telling me just
what you felt when I first had you" and I put her
hand on my hot stiff sex to encourage her.
"It's impossible," she said, flushing a little, "there
was such a throng of new feelings; why, this evening
waiting in bed for the time to pass and thinking
of you, I felt a strange prickling sensation in the
inside of my thighs that I never felt before and now"
— and she hid her glowing face against my neck,
"I feel it again!"
"Love is funny, isn't itf" she whispered the next
moment: "now the pricking sensation is gone and
the front part of my sex burns and itches, Oh! I must
touch it!"
"Let me," I cried, and in a moment I was on her,
working my organ up and down on her clitoris, the
porch, so to speak, of Love's temple. A little later
she herself sucked the head into her hot, dry pussy
and then closed her legs as if in pain to stop me
going further; but I began to rub my sex up and
down on her tickler, letting it slide right in, every
MY FIRST VENUS. 227
now and then, till she panted and her love-juice came
and my weapon sheathed itself in her naturally. I
soon began the very slow and gentle in-and-out move-
ments which increased her excitement steadily while
giving her more and more pleasure, till I came and
immediately she lifted my chest up from her breasts
with both hands and showed me her glowing face.
"Stop, boy," she gasped, "please: my heart's
fluttering so! I came too, you know, just with you"
and indeed I felt her trembling all over convul-
sively.
I drew out and for safety's sake got her to use
the syringe, having already explained its efficacy to
her; she was adorably awkward and when she had
finished I took her to bed again and held her to me,
kissing her. "So you really love me, Kate!"
"Really," she said, "you don't know how much!"
"I'll try never to suspect anything or be jealous
again," she went on, "it's a hateful feeling, isn't it?
But I want to see your class-room: would you take
me up once to the University f '
"Why, of course", I cried, "I should be only too
glad; I'll take you tomorrow afternoon, or better
still", I added, "come up the hill at four o'clock and
I'll meet you at the entrance."
And so it was settled and Kate went back to
her room as noiselessly as she had come.
The next afternoon I found her waiting in the
University Hall ten minutes before the hour; for our
lectures beginning at the hour always stopped after
forty-five minutes to give us time to be punctual at
any other class-room. After showing her everything
of interest, we walked home together laughing and
talking, when, a hundred yards from Mrs. Mayhew's,
we met that lady, face to face. I don't know how I
looked, for being a little short-sighted I hadn't re-
228 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
cognized her till she was within ten yards of me; but
her glance pierced me. She bowed with a look that
look us both in, I lifted my hat and we passed on.
"Who's that?" exclaimed Kate, "what a strange
look she gave us!"
"She's the wife of a gambler," I replied as in-
differently as I could, "he gives me work now and
then" I went on, strangely forecasting the future.
Kate looked at me probing, then: "I don't mind; but
Tin glad she's quite old!"
"As old as both of us put together!" I added
traitorously, and we went on.
These love-passages with Mrs. Mayhew and Kate,
plus my lessons and my talks with Smith, fairly re-
present my life's happenings for this whole year
from seventeen to eighteen, with this solitary quali-
fication that my afternoons with Lorna became less
and less agreeable to me. But now I must relate
happenings that again affected my life.
I hadn't been four mouths with the Gregorys
when Kate told me that my brother Willie had ceased
to pay my board for more than a fortnight ; she added
sweetly :
"It doesn't matter, dear, but I thought you ought
to know and I'd hate any one to hurt you, so I took it
on myself to tell you". I kissed her, said it was sweet
of her, and went to find Willie; he made excuses
voluble but not convincing and ended up by giving
me a cheque while begging me to tell Mrs. Gregory
that he, too, would come and board with her.
The incident set me thinking. I made Kate pro-
mise to tell me if he ever failed again to pay what
was due and I used the happening to excuse myself to
Lorna. I went to see her and told her that I must
think at once of earning my living. I had still some
five hundred dollars left but I wanted to be before-
MY FIEST VENUS. 229
hand with need: besides it gave me a good excuse for
not visiting her even weekly. "I must work!' 1 I
kept repeating though I was ashamed of the lie.
"Don't whip me, dear!" she pleaded; "my impot-
ence to help you is painful enough; give me time to
think. I know Mayhew is quite well off: give me a
day or two, but come to me when you can. You see,
I've no pride where you are concerned: I just beg
like a dog for kind treatment for my love's sake. I
wouldn't have believed that I could be so transformed.
I was always so proud: my husband calls me 'proud
and cohT, me cold! It's true I shiver when I hear
your voice, but it's the shivering of fever. When you
came in just now unexpectedly and kissed me, waves
of heat swept over me: my womb moved inside me.
I never felt that till 1 had loved you and now, of
course, my sex burns — I wish I were cold: a cold
woman could rule the world —
"But no! I wouldn't change. Just as I never
wished to be a man, never; though other girls used to
say they would like to change their sex; I, never!
And since I've been married, less than ever. What's
a man? His love is over before ours begins — "
"Really!" I broke in grinning.
"Not you, my beloved !" she cried, "oh, not you;
but then you are more than man! Come, don't let us
waste time in talk. Now I have you, take me to our
Heaven. I'm ready, 'ripe-ready' is your word: I go
to our bed as to an altar. If I'm only to have you
even less than once a week, don't come again for ten
days: I shall be well again then and you can surely
come to me a few days running: I want to reach the
heights and hug the illusion, cramming one hot week
with bliss and then death for a fortnight. What rags
we women are! Come, dear, I will be your sheath
and you shall be the sword and drive right into me —
230 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
But I'll help you", she cried suddenly: "Was it that
girl told you, you owed money for food? (I nodded
and she glowed.) Oh, I'll help, never fear! I never
liked that girl: she's brazen and conceited and —
Oh! Why did you walk with her?"
"She wanted to see the University", I said, "and
I could not well refuse her." "Oh, pay her" she cried,
"but don't walk with her. She's a common thing,
fancy her mentioning money to you, my dear!"
That same evening I got a note from Lorna,
saying her husband wanted to see me.
I met the little man in the sitting-room and he
proposed that I should come to his rooms every eve-
ning after supper and sit in a chair near the door
reading; but with a Colt's revolver handy so that no
one could rob him and get away with the plunder.
"I'd feel safer", he ended up, "and my wife tells
me you're a sure shot and used to a wild life: what
do you say? I'd give you sixty dollars a month and
more than half the time you'd be free before mid-
night."
"It's very kind of you", I exclaimed with hot
cheeks, "and very kind of Mrs. Mayhew too: I'll do
it and I beg you to believe that no one will bother
you and get away with a whole skin", and so it was
settled.
Aren't women wonderful! In half a day she had
solved my difficulty and I found the hours spent in
Mayhew's gambling rooms were more valuable than
I had dreamed. The average man reveals himself in
gaming more than in love or drink and I was astonished
to discover that many of the so-called best citizens had
a flutter with Mayhew from time to time. I don't be-
lieve they had a fair deal, he won too constantly for
that; but it was none of my business so long as the
clients accepted the results: and he often showed
MY FIRST VENUS. 231
kindness by giving back a few dollars after he had
skinned a man of all he possessed.
Naturally the fact that I was working with her
husband threw me more into Mrs. Mayhew's society:
twice or so a week I had to spend the afternoon with
her, and the constraint irked me. Kate, too, objected
to my visits: she had too much pride to speak openly
but one day she had seen me go in to Mrs. Mayhew's
and I think divined the rest; for at first she was cold
to me and drew away even from my kisses: "you've
chilled me", she cried, "I don't think I shall ever love
you again entirely." But when I got into her and
really excited her, she suddenly kissed me fervently
and her glorious eyes had heavy tears in them. "Why
do you cry, dearl" 1 asked. "Because I cannot make
you mine as I am all yours!" she cried. "Oh!" she
went on, clutching me to her, "I think the pleasure
is increased by the dreadful fear — and the hate —
oh, love me and me only, love mine!" Of course, I
promised fidelity; but I was surprised to feel that my
desire for Kate, too, was beginning to cool.
The arrangement with the Mayhews came to an
unexpected and untimely end. Mayhew now and then
had a tussle with another gambler and after I had
been with him about three months, a gambler from
Denver had a great contest with him and afterwards
proposed that they should join forces and Mayhew
should come to Denver. "More money to be made
there in a week", he declared, "than in Lawrence in
a month." Finally he persuaded Mayhew, who was
wise enough to say nothing to his wife till the whole
arrangement was fixed. She raved but could do
nothing save give in, and so we had to part. Mayhew
gave me one hundred dollars as a bonus, and Lorna
one unforgettable, astonishing afternoon which I must
now try to describe.
232 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
I did not go near the Mayhews' the day after his
gift, leaving Lorna to suppose that I looked upon
-everything as ended. But the day after that I got a
word from her, an imperious:
"Come at once, I must see you!"
Of course I went though reluctantly.
As soon as I entered the room she rose from the
sofa and came to me: "if I get you work in Denver,
will you come out*?"
"How could I?" 1 asked in absolute astonishment,
"you know I'm bound here to the University and then
I want to go into a law-office as well: besides I could
not leave Smith: I've never known such a teacher: I
don't believe his equal can be found anywhere."
She nodded her head: "I see", she sighed, "I sup-
pose it's impossible; but I must see you", she cried,
"if I haven't the hope, what do I say! the certainty
•of seeing you again, I shan't go. I'd rather kill my-
self! I'll be a servant and stay with you, my darling,
and take care of you! I don't care what I do so long
as we are together: I'm nearly crazed with fear that
I shall lose you."
"It's all a question of money", I said quietly, for
the idea of her staying behind scared me stiff: "if I
can earn money, I'd love to go to Denver in my holi-
days. It must be gorgeous there in summer six thou-
sand odd feet above sea-level: I'd delight in it."
"If I send you the money, you'll cornel" she asked
briefly.
I made a face: "I can't take money from — a
love", (I said "love" instead of "woman": it was not
so ugly) I went on, "but Smith says he can get me
work and I have still a little: I'll come in the holidays."
"Holy days they'll be to me!" she said solemnly,
and then with quick change of mood, "I'll make a
beautiful room for our love in Denver; but you must
MY FIRST VENUS. 233
come for Christmas, I could not wait till midsummer:
oh, how I shall ache for you — ache!"
"Come upstairs", I coaxed and she came, and we
went to bed: I found her mad with desire; but after
I had brought her in an hour to hysteria and she lay
In my arms crying, she suddenly said: "he promised
to come home early this afternoon and I said I'd have
a surprise for him. When he finds us together like
this, it'll be a surprise, won't it?"
"But you're mad!" I cried, getting out of bed in
a flash, "I shall never be able to visit you in Denver
if we have a row here!"
"That's true", she said as if in a dream, "that's
true: it's a pity: I'd love to have seen his foolish face
stretched to wonder; but you're right. Hurry!" she
cried and was out of the room in a twinkling.
When she returned, I was dressed.
"Go downstairs and wait for me", she comman-
ded, "on our sofa. If he knocks, open the door to
him; that'll be a surprise, though not so great a one
as I had planned", she added, laughing shrilly.
"Are you going without kissing me?" she cried
when I was at the door, "Well, go, it's all right, go!
for if I felt your lips again, I might keep you."
I went downstairs and in a few moments she
followed me. "I can't bear you to go!" she cried,
"how partings hurt!" she whispered. "Why should
we part again, love mine?" and she looked at me
with rapt eyes.
"This life holds nothing worth having but love;
let us make love deathless, you and I, going together
to death. What do we lose? Nothing! This world
is an empty shell! Come with me, love, and we'll
meet Death together!"
"Oh, I want to do such a lot of things first", I
exclaimed, "Death's empire is eternal; but this brief
234 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
taste of life, the adventure of it, the change of it, the
huge possibilities of it beckon me — I can't leave it.'*
"The change!" she cried with dilating nostrils
while her eyes darkened, "the change!"
"You are determined to misunderstand me," I
cried, "is not every day a change?"
"I am weary", she cried, "and beaten: I can only
beg you not to forget your promise to come — ah!"
and she caught and kissed me on the mouth: "I shall
die with your name on my lips", she said, and turned
to bury her face in the sofa cushion. I went: what
else was there to do 1 ?
I saw them off at the station: Lorna had made
me promise to write often, and swore she would write
every day and she did send me short notes daily for
a fortnight: then came gaps ever lengthening:
"Denver society was pleasant and a Mr. Wilson, a
student, was assiduous: he comes every day", she
wrote. Excuses finally, little hasty notes, and in two
months her letters were formal, cold; in three months
they had ceased altogether.
The break did not surprise me: I had taught
her that youth was the first requisite in a lover for
a woman of her type: she had doubtless put my pre-
cepts into practice: Mr. Wilson was probably as near
the ideal as I was and very much nearer to hand.
The passions of the senses demand propinquity
and satisfaction and nothing is more forgetful than
pleasures of the flesh. If Mrs. Mayhew had given me
little, I had given her even less of my better self.
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES.
Chapter XII.
^o far I had had more good fortune than falls to the
*^ lot of most youths starting in life; now I was
to taste ill-luck and be tried as with fire. I had been
so taken up with my own concerns that I had hardly
given a thought to public affairs ; now I was forced to
take a wider view.
One day Kate told me that Willie was heavily in
arrears: he had gone back to Deacon Conkling's to
live on the other side of the Kaw River and I had
naturally supposed that he had paid up everything
before leaving. Now I found that he owed the Gre-
gorys sixty dollars on his own account and more than
that on mine.
I went across to him really enraged. If he had
warned me, I should not have minded so much; but to
leave the Gregorys to tell me, made me positively
dislike him and I did not know then the full extent
of his selfishness. Years later my sister told me that
he had written time and again to my father and got
money from him, alleging that it was for me and that
I was studying and couldn't earn anything: "Willie
kept us poor, Frank", she said, and I could only bow
my head; but if I had known this fact at the time, it
would have changed all my relations with Willie.
236 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
As it was, I found him in the depths. Carried
away by his optimism, he had bought real estate in
1871 and 1872, mortgaged it for more than he gave
and as the boom continued, he had repeated this game
time and again till on paper and in paper he reckoned
he had made a hundred thousand dollars. This he
had told me and I was glad of it for his sake, un-
feignedly glad.
It was easy to see that the boom and inflation
period had been based at first on the extraordinary
growth of the country through the immigration and
trade that had followed the Civil War. But the
Franco-German war had wasted wealth prodigiously,
deranged trade too, and diverted commerce into new
channels. France and then England first felt the
shock : London had to call in monies lent to American
railways and other enterprises. Bit by bit even Ame-
rican optimism was overcome for immigration in 1871
and 1872 fell off greatly and the foreign calls for cash
exhausted our banks. The crash came in 1873; nothing
like it was seen again in these States till the slump
of 1907 which led to the founding of the Federal Re-
serve Bank.
Willie's fortune melted almost in a moment: this
mortgage and that, had to be met and could only be
met by forced sales with no buyers except at minimum
values. When I talked to him, he was almost in
despair; no money: no property: all lost; the pro-
duct of three years' hard work and successful specu-
lation all swept away. Could I help him? If not,
he was ruined. He told me then he had drawn all
he could from my father : naturally I promised to help
him; but first I had to pay the Gregorys and to my
astonishment he begged me to let him have the money
instead. "Mrs. Gregory and all of 'em like you", he
pleaded, "they can wait, I cannot; I know of a pur-
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 237"
chase that could be made that would make me rich
again!"
I realised then that he was selfish through and
through, conscienceless in egotistic greed. I gave up
my faint hope that he would ever repay me: hence-
forth he was a stranger to me and one that I did not
even respect, though he had some fine, ingratiating
qualities.
I left him to walk across the river and in a few
blocks met Rose. She looked prettier than ever and
I turned and walked with her, praising her beauty
to the skies and indeed she deserved it; short green
sleeves, I remember, set off her exquisite, plump,
white arms. I promised her some books and made
her say she would read them; indeed I was astonished
by the warmth of her gratitude: she told me it was
sweet of me, gave me her eyes and we parted the best
of friends, with just a hint of warmer relationship
in the future.
That evening I paid the Gregorys, Willie's debt
and my own and — did not send him the balance of
what I possessed as I had promised; but instead, a
letter telling him I had prefered to cancel his debt to
the Gregorys.
Next day he came and assured me he had promis-
ed monies on the strength of my promise, had bought
a hundred crates, too, of chickens to ship to Denver
and had already an offer from the Mayor of Denver
at double what he had given. I read the letters and
wire he showed me and let him have four hundred
dollars, which drained me and kept me poor for
months; indeed, till I brought off the deal with Ding-
wall which I am about to relate which put me on my
feet again in comfort.
I should now tell of Willie's misadventure with
his car-load of chickens: it suffices here to say that
238 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
he was cheated by his purchaser and that I never saw
a dollar of all I had loaned him.
Looking back I understand that it was probably
the slump of 1873 that induced the Mayhews to go to
Denver; but after they left, I was at a loose end for
some months. I could not get work though I tried
everything: I was met everywhere with the excuse:
"hard times: hard times!" At length I took a place
as waiter in the Eldridge House, the only job I could
find that left most of the forenoon free for the Uni-
versity. Smith disliked this new departure of mine
and told me he would soon find me a better post, and
Mrs. Gregory was disgusted and resentful — partly
out of snobbishness, I think. From this time on I
felt her against me and gradually she undermined my
influence with Kate: I soon knew I had fallen in
public esteem too, but not for long.
One day in the fall Smith introduced me to a
Mr. Rankin, the cashier of the First National Bank,
who handed over to me at once the letting of Liberty
Hall, the one hall in the town large enough to accomo-
date a thousand people: it had a stage, too, and so
could be used for theatrical performances. I gave up
my work in the Eldridge House and instead used to
sit in the box-office of the Hall from two every after-
noon till seven, and did my best to let it advantage-
ously to the advance agents of the various travelling
shows or lecturers. I received sixty dollars a month
for this work and one day got an experience which
has modified my whole life, for it taught me how
money is made in this world and can be made by any
intelligent man.
One afternoon the advance agent of the Hatherly
Minstrels came into my room and threw down his
card.
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 239
"This old one-hoss shay of a town", he cried,
"should wear grave-clothes."
"What's the matter?" I asked. "Matter !" he re-
peated scornfully, "I don't believe there's a place in
the hull God d — d town big enough to show our
double-crown Bills! Not one: not a place. And I
meant to spend ten thousand dollars here in adver-
tising the great Hatherly Minstrels, the best show on
earth: they'll be here for a hull fortnight and by God,
you won't take my money: you don't want money in
this dead and alive hole!"
The fellow amused me: he was so convinced and
outspoken that I took to him. As luck would have it
I had been at the University till late that day and had
not gone to the Gregory's for dinner: I was healthily
hungry: I asked Mr. Dingwall whether he had dined?
"No, Sir", was his reply, "Can one dine in this
place?"
"I guess so'', I replied, "if you'll do me the honor
of being my guest, I'll take you to a good porterhouse
steak at least" and I took him across to the Eldridge
House, a short distance away, leaving a young friend,
Will Thomson, a doctor's son whom I knew, in my
place.
I gave Dingwall the best dinner I could and drew
him out: he was, indeed, "a live wire" as he phrased
it and suddenly inspired by his optimism the idea
came to me that if he would deposit the ten thousand
dollars he had talked of, I could put up hoardings on
all the vacant lots in Massachusetts Street and make
a good thing ont of exhibiting the bills of the various
travelling shows that visited Lawrence. It wasn't
the first time I had been asked to help advertise this
or that entertainment. I put forward my idea
timidly, yet Dingwall took it up at once: "if you can
find good security, or a good surety", he said, "I'll
!/
240 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
leave five thousand dollars with vou: Fve no right
to, but I like you and 111 risk it.''
I took Mm across to Mr. Rankin, the banker, who
listened to me benevolently and finally said:
"Yes", he'd go surety that I'd exhibit a thousand
bills for a fortnight all down the chief street on hoard-
ings to be erected at once, on condition that Mr.
Dingwall paid five thousand dollars in advance, and
he gave Mr. Dingwall a letter to that effect and then
told me pleasantly he held five thousand and some
odd dollars at my service.
Dingwall took the next train west, leaving me to
put up hoardings in a month, after getting first of all
the permission from the lot-owners. To cut a long
story short, I got the permission from a hundred
lot-owners in a week through my brother Willie, who
as an estate agent knew them all. Then I made a con-
tract with a little English carpenter and put the
hoardings up and got the bills all posted three days
before the date agreed upon. Hatherly's Minstrels
had a great fortnight and everyone was content. From
that time on, I drew about fifty dollars a week as my
profit from letting the hoardings, in spite of the
slump.
Suddenly Smith got a bad cold: Lawrence is
nearly a thousand feet above sea-level and in winter
can be as icy as the Pole. He began to cough, a
nasty, little, dry hacking cough: I persuaded him to
see a doctor and then to have a consultation, the result
being that the specialists all diagnosed tuberculosis
and recommended immediate change to the milder
east. For some reason or other, I believe because an
editorial post on the "Press" in Philadelphia was
offered to him, he left Lawrence hastily and took up
his residence in the Quaker City.
His departure had notable results for me. First
HAKD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 241
of all, the spiritual effect astonished me. As soon as
he went, I began going over all he had taught me,
especially in economics and metaphysics: bit by bit I
fame to the conclusion that his Marxian communism
was only half the truth and probably the least im-
portant half: his Hegelianism, too, which I have
hardly mentioned, was pure moonshine in my opinion:
extremely beautiful at moments, as the moon is when
silvering purple clouds: "history is the development
of the Spirit in time: Nature is the projection of the
idea in space", sounds wonderful; but it's moon-
shiney, and not very enlightening.
In the first three months of Smith's absence, my
own individuality sprang upright, like a sapling that
has long been bent almost to breaking, so to speak,
by a superincumbent weight and I began to grow with
a sort of renewed youth. Now for the first time,
when about nineteen years of age, I came to self-
consciousness as Frank Harris and began to deal
with life in my own way and under this name, Frank.
As soon as 1 returned from the Eldridge House
to lodge with the Gregorys again, Kate showed herself
just as kind to me as ever; she would come to my
bedroom twice or thrice a week and was always
welcome; but again and again I felt that her mother
was intent on keeping us apart as much as possible
and at length she arranged that Kate should pay a
visit to some English friends who were settled in
Kansas City. Kate postponed the visit several times:
but at length she had to yield to her mother's entreat-
ies and advice. By this time my hoardings were
bringing me in a good deal and so I proposed to
accompany Kate and spend the whole night with her
in some Kansas City hotel.
We got to the hotel about ten and bold as brass
I registered as Mr. and Mrs. William Wallace and
242 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
went up to our room with Kate's luggage, my heart
beating in my throat: Kate, too, was "all of a quiver*'
as she confessed to me a little later; but what a night
we had! Kate resolved to show me all her love and
gave herself to me passionately; but she never took
the initiative, I noticed, as Mrs. Mayhew used to do.
At first I kissed her and talked a little; but as
soon as she had arranged her things, I began to un-
dress her: when her chemise fell, all glowing with
my caressings she asked: "You really like that?"
and she put her hand over her sex, standing there
naked like a Greek Venus. "Naturally", I exclaimed,
"and these too" and I kissed and sucked her nipples
till they grew rosy-red.
"Is it possible to do it — standing up?" she asked
in some confusion. "Of course", I replied, "let's try!
But what put that into your head?
I saw a man and girl once behind the Church
near our house!" she whispered, "and I wondered
how — " and she blushed rosily. As I got into her,
I felt difficulty: her pussy was really small and this
time seemed hot and dry : I felt her wince and at once
withdrew: "does it still hurt, Kate?" I asked.
"A little at first,' she replied; "but I don't mind",
she hastened to add, "I like the pain!"
By way of answer I slipped my arms around her
under her bottom and carried her to the bed: "I will
not hurt you tonight", I said, "I'll make you give
down your love- juice first and then there'll be no
pain". A few kisses and she sighed: "I'm wet now",
and I got into bed and put my sex against hers.
"I'm going to leave everything to you", I said, "but
please don't hurt yourself". She put her hand down
to my sex and guided it in sighing a little with satis-
faction as bit by bit it slipped home.
After the first ecstasy I got her to use the syringe
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 243
while I watched her curiously. When she came back
to bed, "No danger now", I cried, "no danger, my love
is queen!"
"You darling lover!" she cried, her eyes wide as
if in wonder, "my sex throbs and itches and oh! I
feel prickings on the inside of my thighs : I want you
dreadfully, Frank", and she stretched out as she
spoke, drawing up her knees.
I got on top of her and softly, slowly let my sex
slide into her and then began the love-play. When
my second orgasm came, I indulged myself with
quick, short strokes, though I knew that she preferred
the long, slow movement, for I was resolved to give
her every sensation this golden night. When she
felt me begin again the long slow movement she
loved, she sighed two or three times and putting her
hands on my buttocks drew me close; but otherwise
made little sign of feeling for perhaps half an hour.
I kept right on: the slow movement now gave me
but little pleasure: it was rather a task than a joy;
but I was resolved to give her a feast. I don't know
how long the bout lasted: but once I withdrew and
began rubbing her clitoris and the front of her sex,
and panting she nodded her head and rubbed herself
ecstatically against my sex, and after I had begun
the slow movement again: "please, Frank!" she
gasped, "I can't stand more: I'm going crazy — chok-
ing!
!"
Strange to say, her words excited me more than
the act: I felt my spasm coming and roughly, sava-
gely I thrust in my sex at the same time kneeling
between her legs so as to be able to play back and
forth on her tickler as well. "I'll ravish vou!" I cried
and gave myself to the keen delight. As my seed
spirted, she didn't speak, but lay there still and white:
I jumped out of the bed, got a spongeful of cold water
244 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
and used it on her forehead. At once to my joy she
opened her eyes: "I'm sorry", she gasped, and took
a drink of water, "but I was so tired, I must have
slept. You dear heart!" When I had put down the
sponge and glass, I slipped into her again and in a
little while she became hysterical: "I can't help
crying, Frank love", she sighed, "I'm so happy, dear!
You'll always love me? Won't youl sweet!" Nat-
urally I reassured her with promises of enduring
affection and many kisses; finally I put my left arm
round her neck and so fell asleep with my head on her
soft breast.
In the morning we ran another course, though
sooth to say, Kate was more curious than passionate.
"I want to study you!" she said and took my
sex in her hands and then my balls: "What are they
for?" she asked and I had to explain that that was
where my seed was secreted: she made a face, so I
added, "You have a similar manufactory, my dear;
but it's inside you, the ovaries they are called, and
it takes them a month to make one egg whereas my
balls make millions of tadpoles in an hour. I often
wonder why!"
After getting Kate an excellent breakfast, I put
her in a cab and she reached her friend's house just
at the proper time; but the girl-friend could never
understand how they had missed each other at me
station.
I returned to Lawrence the same day, wondering
what Fortune had in store for me! 1 was soon to find
out that life could be disageeable.
The University of Kansas had been established
by the first Western outwanderers and like most
pioneers they had brains and courage and accordingly
they put in the statutes that there should be no reli-
gious teaching of any kind in the University, still
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 2+5
less should religion ever be exalted into a test or
qualification.
But in due course Yankees from New England
swarmed out to prevent Kansas from being made into
n slave-state and these Yankees were all fanatical
so-called Christians belonging to every known sect;
but all distinguished or rather deformed by an intol-
erant bigotry in matters of religion and sex. Their
honesty was bv no means so pronounced: each sect
had to have its own professor; thus history got an
Episcopalian clergyman who knew no history, and
Latin a Baptist who, when Smith greeted him in
Latin, could only blush and beg him not to expose
his shameful ignorance; the lady who taught French
was a joke but a good Methodist, 1 believe, and so
forth and so on: education degraded by sectarian
jealousies.
As soon as Professor Smith left the University,
the Faculty passed a resolution establishing "College
Chapel" in imitation of an English University custom.
At once I wrote to the Faculty protesting and citing
the Statutes of the Founders. The Faculty did not
answer my letter; but instituted roll-call instead of
chapel and when they got all the students assembled
for roll-call, they had the doors locked and began
]> ravers, ending with a hymn.
After the roll-call I got up and walked to the
door and tried in vain to open it. Fortunately the
door on this side the hall was onlv a makeshift struc-
ture of thin wooden planks. I stepped back a pace
or two and appealed again to the Professors seated
on the platform: when they paid no heed. I ran and
jumped with my foot against the lock; it sprang and
the door flew open with a crash.
Next day by an unanimous vote of the Faculty,
] was expelled from the University and was free to
246 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
turn all my attention to law. Judge Stevens told
me lie would bring action on my behalf against the
Faculty if I wished and felt sure he'd get damages
and reinstate me. But the University without Smith
meant less than nothing to me and why should 1
waste time fighting brainless bigots? I little knew
then that that would be the main work of my life;
but this first time I left my enemies the victory and
the field, as I probably shall at long last.
I made up my mind to study law and as a begin-
ning induced Barker of Barker & Sommerfelcl to let
me study in his law office. I don't remember how
I got to know them; but Barker, an immensely fat
man, was a famous advocate and very kind to me
for no apparent reason. Sommerfelcl was a tall, fair,
German-looking Jew, peculiarly inarticulate, almost
tongue-tied, indeed, in English; but an excellent
lawyer and a kindly, honest man who commanded the
respect of all the Germans and Jews in Douglas
County partly because his fat little father had been
one of the earliest settlers in Lawrence and one of
the most successful tradesmen. He kept a general
provision store and had been kind to all his compa-
triots in their early struggling days.
It was an admirable partnership: Sommerfelcl
had the clients and prepared the briefs; while Barker
did the talking in court with a sort of invincible
goodhumor which I never saw equalled save in the
notorious Englishman, Bottomley. Barker before a
jury used to exude good-nature and commonsense and
thus gain even bad cases. Sommerfeld, I'll tell more 1
about in due time.
A little later I got depressing news from Smith:
his cough had not diminished and he missed our
companionship: there was a hopelessness in the letter
which hurt my very heart: but what could I do?
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 247
I could only keep on working hard at law, while
using every spare moment to increase my income by
adding to my hoardings in two senses.
One evening I almost ran into Lily. Kate was
still away in Kansas City, so 1 stopped eagerly
enough to have a talk, for Lily had always interested
me. After the first greetings she told me she was
going home: "they are all out, I believe", she added.
At once I offered to accompany her and she consent-
ed. It was early in summer but already warm, and
when we went into the parlor and Lily took a seat
en the sofa, her thin white dress defined her slim
figure seductively.
"What do you do?" she asked mischievously,
"now that dear Mrs. Mayhew's gone? You must
miss her!" she added suggestively.
"I do," I confessed boldly; "I wonder if you'd
have pluck enough to tell me the truth?" I went on.
"Pluck?" She wrinkled her forehead and pursed
her large mouth; "Courage, I mean", I said.
'"Oh, I have courage!" she rejoined.
"Did you ever come upstairs to Mrs. May hew V
bedroom", I asked, "when I had gone up for a book V
The black eyes danced and she laughed knowingly.
"Mrs. Mayhew said that she had taken you
upstairs to bathe your poor head after dancing", she
retorted disdainfully, "but I don't care: it's nothing
to do with me what you do!"
"It has too," I went on, carrying the war into her
country. "How?" she asked.
"Why, the first day you went away and left me
though 1 was really ill", I said, "so I naturally be-
lieved that you disliked me though J thought you
lovely!"
"I'm not lovely," she said, "my mouth's too big
and I'm too slight".
248 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"Don't malign yourself," I replied earnestly,
"that's just why you are seductive and excite a man."
"Really?" she cried, and so the talk went on while
1 cudgelled my brains for an opportunity but found
none and all the while was in fear lest her father and
mother should return. At length angry with myself,
1 got up to go on some pretext and she accompanied
me to the stoop. I said "Good-bye" on the top step
and then jumped down by the side with a prayer
in my heart that she'd come a step or two down and
she did. There she stood, her hips on a level with
my mouth; in a moment my hands went up her dress,
the right to her sex, the left to her bottom behind
to hold her: the thrill as I touched her half-fledged
sex was almost painful in intensity. Her first move-
ment brought her sitting down on the step above me
and at once my finger was busy in her slit.
"How dare you!" she cried, but not angrily, "take
your hand away!"
"Oh, how lovely your sex is!" I exclaimed as if
astounded, "Oh, I must see it and have you, you
miracle of beauty!" and my left hand drew down
her head for a long kiss while my middle finger still
continued its caress. Of a sudden her lips grew hot
and at once I whispered.
"Won't you love me, dear? I want you so: I'm
burning and itching with desire (I knew she was!)
Please, I won't hurt you and I'll take care; please,
love, no one will know", and the end of it was that
right there on the porch I drew her to me and put
my sex against hers and began the rubbing of her
tickler and front part of her sex that I knew would
excite her. In a moment she came and her love-dew
wet my sex and excited me terribly; but I kept on
frigging her with my manroot while restraining
myself from coming by thinking of other things, till
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 249
she kissed me. of her own accord and suddenly moving
forward pushed my prick right into her pussy.
To my astonishment, there was no obstacle, no
maidenhead to break through, though her sex itself
was astonishingly small and tight. T didn't scruple
then to let my seed come, only withdrawing to the
lips and nibbing her clitoris the while, and as soon
as my spirting ceased, my root glided again into her
and continued tin 4 slow in-and-out movement till she
panted with her head on my shoulder and asked me
to stop. I did as she wished, for I knew 1 had won
another wonderful mistress.
We went into the house again for she insisted I
should meet her father and mother, and while we
were waiting she showed me her lovely tiny breasts,
scarcely larger than small apples, and 1 became
aware of something childish in her mind which match-
ed the childish outlines of her lovely, half-formed hips
and pussy.
"I thought that you were in love with Mrs. Mav-
hew," she confessed, "and I couldn't make out whv
she made such funny noises; but now T know", she
added, "you naughty dear; for T felt my heart flutter-
ing just now and T was nearly choking — "
I don't know why; but that ravishing of Lily
made her dear to me: I resolved to see her naked
and to make her thrill to ecstasy as soon as possible,
and then and there we made a meeting-place on the
far side of the church, whence T knew T could bring
her to my room at the Gregory's in a minute, and
then I went home, for it was late and T didn't partic-
ularly want to meet her folks.
The next night 1 met Lily by the church and took
her to my room: she laughed aloud with delight as
we entered; for indeed she was almost like a boy of
250 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
bold, adventurous spirit. She confessed to me that
my challenge of her pluck had pleased her intimately :
"I never took a 'dare'!" she cried in her Ameri-
can slang, tossing her head.
"I'll give you two, 11 I whispered, "right now: the
first is, I dare you to strip naked as I'm going to do,
and I'll tell you the other when we're in bed". Again
she tossed her little blue-black head: "pooh!" she
cried, "I'll be undressed first", and she was. Her
beauty made my pulses hammer and parched my
mouth. No one could help admiring her: she was
very slight, with tiny breasts, as I have said, flat
belly and straight flanks and hips: her triangle was
only brushed in, so to speak, with fluffy soft hairs,
and as I held her naked body against mine, the look
and feel of her exasperated my desire. I still admired
Kate's riper, richer, more luscious outlines; her figure
was nearer my boyish ideal; but Lily represented a
type of adolescence destined to grow on me mightily.
In fact as my youthful virility decreased, my love
of opulent feminine charms diminished, and I grew
more and more to love slender, youthful outlines with
the signs of sex rather indicated than pronounced.
What an all-devouring appetite Rubens confesses with
the great, hanging breasts and uncouth fat pink
bottoms of his Yenuses!
I lifted Lily on to the bed and separated her legs
to study her pussy. She made a face at me; but as I
rubbed my hot sex against her little button that I
could hardly see, she smiled and lay back contentedly.
In a minute or two her love- juice came and I got into
bed on her and slipped my root into her small cunt:
even when the lips were wide open it was closed to the
eye and this and her slim nakedness excited me uncon-
trollably. I continued the slow movements for a few
minutes; but once she moved her sex quickly down
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 251
on mine as 1 drew out to the lips, and gave me an
intense thrill: I felt my seed coming and I let myself
go in short, quick thrusts that soon brought on my
spasm of pleasure and I lifted her little body against
mine and crushed my lips on hers: she was strangely
tantalizing, exciting like strong drink.
I took her out of bed and used the syringe in her,
explaining its purpose, and then went to bed again
and gave her the time of her life! Lying between her
legs but side by side an hour later, 1 dared her to tell
me how she had lost her maidenhead. I had to tell
her first what it was. She maintained stoutly that no
"feller" had ever touched her except me and I
believed her, for she admitted having caressed herself
ever since she was ten : at first she could not even get
her forefinger into her pussy she told me. "What are
you now!" T asked. "I shall be sixteen next April",
was her reply.
About eleven o'clock she dressed and went home ?
after making another appointment with me.
The haste of this narrative has many unforeseen
drawbacks: it makes it appear as if I had had con-
quest after conquest and little or no difficulty in my
efTorts to win love. In reality my half dozen victorias
were spread out over nearly as many years, and time
and again T met rebuffs and refusals quite sufficient
to keep even my conceit in decent bounds. But I
want to emphasize the fact that success in love, like
success in every department of life, falls usually to
the tough man unwearied in pursuit. Chaucer was
right when he makes his Old Wyfe of Bath confess:
And by a close attendance and attention
Are we caught, more or less the truth to mention.
It is not the handsomest man or the most virile
who has most success with women, though both qual-
ities smooth the way; but that man who pursues them
252 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
«
most assiduously, flatters them most constantly and
cleverly, and always insists on taking the girl's "No"
for consent, her reproofs for endearments and even
a little crossness for a new charm.
Above all, it is necessary to push forward after
every refusal, for as soon as a girl refuses, she is apt
to regret and may grant then what she expressly
denied the moment before. Yet I could give dozens
of instances where assiduity and flattery, love-looks
and words were all ineffective, so much so that I
should never say with Shakespeare: "he's not a man
who cannot win a woman". I have generally found,
too, that the easiest to win were the best worth win-
ning for me, for women have finer senses for suitabil-
ity in love than any man.
Now for an example of one of my many failures
which took place when I was still a student and had
fair opportunity to succeed.
It was a custom in the University for every pro-
fessor to lecture for forty-five minutes, thus leaving
each student fifteen minutes at least free to go back
to his private classroom to prepare for the next lect-
ture. All the students took turns to use these class-
rooms for their private pleasure. For example, from
11:45 to noon each day I was supposed to be working
in the Junior Class-room and no student would inter-
fere with me or molest me in anv way.
One day, a girl Fresher, Grace Weldon by name,
the daughter of the owner of the biggest department
store in Lawrence, came to Smith when Miss Stevens
and I w r ere with him, about the translation of a
phrase or two in Xenophon.
"Explain it to Miss Weldon, Frank!" said Smith
and in a few moments T had made the passage clear to
her. She thanked me prettily and I said, "If you
ever want anything T can do, I'll t>e happy to make
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 253
it clear to you, Miss Weldbn; I'm in the Junior Class-
room from 11:45 to noon always.?'
She thanked me and a day or two later came to
me in the class-room with another puzzle and so our
acquaintance ripened. Almost at once she let me kiss
her; but as soon as 1 tried to put my hand up her
clothes, she stopped me. We were friends for nearly
a year, close friends, and I remember trying all I
knew one Saturday when I spent the whole day with
her in our class-room, till dusk came and 1 could not
get her to 3 iekl.
The curious thing was 1 could not even soothe the
smart to my vanity with the belief that she was
physically cold: on the contrary she was very passion-
ate; but she had simply made up her mind and
would not change.
That Saturday in the class-room she told me
if she yielded she would hate me: 1 could see no sense
in this, even though I was to find out later what a
terrible weapon the Confessional is as used by Irish
Catholic Priests. To commit a sin is easv: to confess
it to vour priest is for many women an absolute de-
terrent.
A few davs later, I think, 1 got a letter from
Smith that determined me to go to Philadelphia as
soon as my hoardings provided me with sufficient
money. T wrote and told him I'd come and cheered
him up: I had, not long to wait.
Early that fall Bradlaugh came to lecture in Lib-
erty Hall on the French Revolution — a giant of
a man with a great head, rough-hewn, irregular fea-
tures and stentorian voice: no better figure of a rebel
could be imagined. I knew he had been an English
private soldier for ;i dozen years; but I soon found
that in spite of his passionate revolt against the
Christian religion and all its cheap moralistic con-
254 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
ventions, he was a convinced individualist and saw
nothing wrong in the despotism of Money which had
already established itself in Britain, though condemn-
ed by Carlyle at the end of his "French Eevolution"
as the vilest of all tyrannies.
Bradlaugh's speech taught me that a notorious
and popular man, earnest and gifted, too, and intellec-
tually honest might be fifty years before his time in
one respect and fifty years behind the best opinion
of the age in another province of thought. In the
great conflict of our day between the "Haves" and the j
"Have-nots", Bradlaugh played no part whatever:
he wasted his great powers in a vain attack on the
rotten branches of the Christian tree, while he should
have assimilated the spirit of Jesus and used it to
gild his loyalty to truth.
About this time Kate wrote that she would not
be back for some weeks: she declared she was feeling
another woman; I felt tempted to write, "So am I.
stay as long as you please"; but instead I wrote an
affectionate, tempting letter; for I had a real affection
for her, I discovered.
When she returned a few weeks later, I felt a;:
if she were new and unknown and I had to win hei
again: but as soon as my hand touched her sex, tht
strangeness disappeared and she gave herself to mt
with renewed zest.
I teased her to tell me just what she felt and ai
length she consented. "Begin with the first time'"
I begged, "and then tell what you felt in Kansas
City".
"It will be very hard", she said, "I'd rather writ
it for you". "That'll do just as well", I replied, anc
here is the story she sent me the next day.
"I think the first time you had me," she began
"I felt more curiosity than desire: I had so often trie
HARD TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 255
to picture it all to myself. When I saw your sex, I
was astonished, for it looked very big to me and I
wondered whether you could really get it into my sex
which I knew was just big enough for my finger to
go in. Still I did want to feel your sex pushing into
me, and your kisses and the touch of your hand on
my sex made me even more eager. When you slipped
the head of your sex into mine, it hurt dreadfully;
it was almost like a knife cutting into me, but the
pain for some reason seemed to excite me and I pushed
forward so as to get you further in me; I think that's
what broke my maidenhead. At first I was disappoint-
ed because I felt no thrill, only the pain; but when
my sex became all wet and open and yours could slip
in and out easily, I began to feel real pleasure. 1
liked the slow movement best; it excited me to feel
the head of your sex just touching the lips of mine
and when you pushed in slowly all the way, it gave
me a gasp of breathless delight; when you drew your
sex out, I wanted to hold it in me. And the longer
you kept on, the more pleasure you gave me. For
hours afterwards my sex was sensitive; if I rubbed
it ever so gently, it would begin to itch and burn.
"But that night in the hotel at Kansas City I
really wanted you and the pleasure you gave me then
was much keener than the first time. You kissed and
caressed me for a few minutes and I soon felt my
love-dew coming and the button of my sex began to
throb. As you thrust your shaft in and out of me, I
felt such a strange sort of pleasure: every little nerve
on the inside of my thighs and belly seemed to thrill
and quiver: it was almost a feeling of pain. At first
the sensation was not so intense, but when you stop-
ped and made me wash, I was shaken by quick, short
spasms in my thighs and my sex was burning and
throbbing; I wanted you more than ever.
is
256 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"When you began the slow movement again, I felt
the same sensations in my thighs and belly, only
more keenly, and as you kept on, the pleasure became
so intense that I could scarcely bear it. Suddenly
you rubbed your sex against mine and my button
began to throb: I could almost feel it move. Then
you began to move your sex quickly in and out of me;
in a moment I was breathless with emotion and I felt
so faint and exhausted that I suppose I fell asleep for
a few minutes, for I knew nothing more till I felt the
cold water trickling down my face. When you began
again, you made me cry; perhaps because I was all
dissolved in feeling and too, too happy. Ail, love is
divine: isn't itl"
Kate was really of the highest woman-type,
mother and mistress in one. She used to come down
and spend the night with me oftener than ever and
on one of these occasions she found a new word for
her passion: she declared she felt her womb move in
yearning for me when I talked my best or recited
poetry to her in what I had christened her Holy
Week. Kate, it was, who taught me first that women
could be even more moved and excited by words than
by deeds: once, I remember, when I had talked senti-
mentally, she embraced me of her own accord and
we had each other with wet eyes.
Another effect of Smith's absence was important;
for it threw me a good deal with Miss Stevens. I
soon found that she had inherited the best of her
father's brains and much of his strength of character.
If she had married Smith, she might have done some-
thing noteworthy: as it was, she was very attractive
and well-read as a girl and would have made Smith,
I am sure, a most excellent wife.
Once and once only I tried to hint to her that her
sweetness to Smith might do him harm physically;
HAED TIMES AND NEW LOVES. 257
but the suspicion of reproof made her angry and she
evidently couldn't or wouldn't understand what I
meant without a physical explanation, which she
would certainly have resented. I had to leave her to
what she would have called her daimon; for she
was as prettily pedantic as Tennyson's Princess, or
any other mid- Victorian heroine.
Her brother Ned, too, I came to know pretty well.
He was a tall, handsome youth with fine grey eyes:
a good athlete, but of commonplace mind.
The father was the most interesting of the whole
family, were it only for his prodigious conceit. He
was of noble appearance: a large, handsome head
with silver grey hairs setting off a portly figure well
above middle height. In spite of his assumption of
superiority, I felt him hide-bound in thought; for he
accepted all the familiar American conventions, be-
lieving or rather knowing that the American people,
""the good old New England stock in particular, were
the salt of the earth, the best breed to be seen any- ,
where . . ."
It showed his brains that he tried to find a reason
for this belief. "English oak is good", he remarked
one day sententiously, "but American hickory is
tougher still. Reasonable, too, this belief of mine",
he added, "for the last glacial period skinned all the
good soil off of New England and made it bitterly
hard to get a living and the English who came out
for conscience sake were the pick of the Old Country
and they were forced for generations to scratch a
living out of the poorest kind of soil with the worst
<climate in the world, and hostile Indians all round
to sharpen their combativeness and weed out the
weaklings and wastrels."
There was a certain amount of truth in his con-
tention; but this was the nearest to an original
15*
258
MY LIFE AND LOVES.
thought I ever heard him express and his intense
patriotic fervor moved me to doubt his intelligence.
I was delighted to find that Smith rated him just
as I did: "a first-rate lawyer, I belie ve", was his
judgment, "a sensible, kindly man".
"A little above middle height", I interpreted and
Smith add^d smiling, "and considerably above aver-
age weight: he would never have done anything no-
table in literature or thought."
As the year wore on, Smith's letters called for me
more and more insistently and at length I went to
join him in Philadelphia.
NEW EXPERIENCES.
Emerson, Walt Whitman, Bret Harte.
Chapter XIII.
^mith met me at the station: he was thinner than
^-^ ever and the wretched little cough shook him very
often in spite of some lozenges that the doctor had
given him to suck: I began to be alarmed about him
and I soon came to the belief that the damp climate
of the Quaker City was worse for him than the thin,
dry Kansas air. But he believed in his doctors!
He boarded with a pleasant Puritan family in
whose house he had also got me a room and at once
we resumed the old life. But now I kept constant
watch on him and insisted on rigorous self restraint,
tying up his unruly organ every night carefully with
thread, which was still more efficient (and painful)
than the whipcord. I also put a lump of ice near
bis bed so that he could end at once any thrill of sex.
But now he didn't improve quickly: it was a month
before I could find any of the old vigor in him; but
soon afterwards the cough diminished and he began
to be his bright self again.
One of our first evenings I described to him the
Bradlaugh lecture in much the same terms I have
used in this narrative. Smith said: "Why don't you
write it-1 You ought to: the "Press" would take it»
260 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
You've given me an extraordinary, life-like portrait
of a great man, blind, so to speak, in one eye, a sort
of Cyclops. If he had been a Communist, how much
greater he'd have been."
I ventured to disagree and we were soon at it*
hammer and tongs. I wanted to see both principles
realised in life, individualism and Socialism, the cen-
trifugal as well as the centripetal force and was con-
vinced that the problem was how to bring these oppo-
sites to a balance which would ensure an approx-
imation to justice and make for the happiness of all.
Smith on the other hand argued at first as an
out-and-out Communist and follower of Marx; but
he was too fair-minded to shut his eyes for long to
the obvious. Soon he began congratulating me on my
insight, declaring I had written a new chapter in
economics.
His conversion made me feel that I was at long
last his equal as a thinker, in any field where his
scholarship didn't give him too great an advantage:
I was no longer a pupil but an equal and his quick
recognition of the fact increased, I believe, our mut-
ual affection. Though infinitely better read he put
me forward in every company with the rarest gener-
osity, asserting that I had discovered new laws in
sociology. For months we lived very happily together
but his Hegelianism defied all my attacks: it corre-
sponded too intimately with the profound idealism of
his own character.
As soon as I had written out the Bradlaugh story,
Smith took me down to the "Press" office and intro-
duced me to the chief editor, a Captain Forney: in-
deed the paper then was usually called "Forney's
Press" though already some spoke of it as "The Phil-
adelphia Press". Forney liked my portrait of Brad-
laugh and engaged me as a reporter on the staff and
NEW EXPERIENCES. 261
occasional descriptive writer at fifty dollars a week,
which enabled me to save all the money coming to
me from Lawrence.
One day Smith talked to me of Emerson and con-
fessed he had got an introduction to him and had sent
it on to the philosopher with a request for an inter-
view. He wished me to accompany him to Concord:
I consented, but without any enthusiasm: Emerson
was then an unknown name to me; Smith read me
some of his poetry and praised it highly though I
could get little or nothing out of it. When young
men now show me a similar indifference, my own
experience makes it easy for me to excuse them.
They know not what they do! is the explanation and
excuse for all of us.
One bright fall day Smith and I went over to
Concord and next day visited Emerson. He received
us in the most pleasant, courteous way: made us sit
and composed himself to listen. Smith went off at
score, telling him how greatly he had influenced his
life and helped him with brave encouragement: the
old man smiled benignantly and nodded his head,
ejaculating from time to time: "Yes, yes!" Gradually
Smith warmed to his work and wanted to know why
Emerson had never expressed his views on sociology
or on the relations between Capital and Labor. Once
or twice the old gentleman cupped his ear with his
hand; but all he said was: "Yes, Yes! or I think so"
with the same benevolent smile.
I guessed at once that he was deaf; but Smith
had no inkling of the fact for he went on probing,
probing while Emerson auswered pleasant nothings
quite irrelevantly. I studied the great man as closely
as I could. He looked about five feet nine or ten in
height, very thin, attenuated even, and very scru-
pulously dressed: his head was narrow though long,
262 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
his face bony; a long, high, somewhat beaked nose
was the feature of his countenance: — a good conceit
of himself, I concluded, and 1 considerable will-power,
for the chin was well-defined and large; but I got
nothing more than this and from his clear steadfast
gray eyes, an intense impression of kindness and good
will, and why shouldn't I say M of sweetness even, as
of a soul lifted high above earth's carking cares and
strugglings.
"A nice old fellow", I said to myself, "but deaf
as a post."
Many years later his deafness became to me the
symbol and explanation of his genius. He had always
lived "the life removed" and kept himself unspotted
from the world: that explains both his narrowness of
sympathy and the height to which he grew! His
harrow, pleasantly smiling face comes back to me
whenever I hear his name mentioned.
But at the time I was indignant with his deaf-
ness and out of temper with Smith because he didn't
notice it and seemed somehow to make himself cheap.
When we went away, I cried: "The old fool is as deaf
as a post!" "Ah, that was the explanation then of
his stereotyped smile and peculiar answers", cried
Smith, "how did you divine it?"
'He put his hand to his ear more than once,", I
replied.
"So he did", Smith exclaimed, "how foolish of
me not to have drawn the obvious inference!"
It was in this fall, I believe, that the Gregorys went
off to Colorado. I felt the loss of Kate a good deal
at first; but she had made no deep impression on
my mind and the new life in Philadelphia and my
journalistic work left me but little time for regrets
and as she never wrote to me, following doubtless her
mother's advice, she soon drifted out of my memory.
NEW EXPERIENCES. 263
Moreover, Lily was quite as interesting a lover and
Lily too had begun to pall on me. The truth is,
the fever of desire in youth is a passing malady that
intimacy quickly cures. Besides, I was already in
pursuit of a girl in Philadelphia who kept me a long-
time at arm's length, and when she yielded I found
her figure commonplace and her sex so large and loose
that she deserves no place in this chronicle. She was
modest, if you please, and no wonder. I have always
since thought that modesty is the proper fig-leaf of
ugliness.
In the spring of this year 1875, I had to return to
Lawrence on business connected with my hoardings.
In several cases the owners of the lots refused to
allow me to keep up the hoardings unless they had
a reasonable share in the profits. Finally I called them
all together and came to an amicable agreement to
divide twenty five percent of my profit among them,
year by year.
I had also to go through my examination and get
admitted to the Bar. I had already taken out my
first naturalization papers and Judge Bassett of the
District Court appointed the lawyers Barker and Hut-
chin gs to examine me. The examination was a mere
form: they each asked me three simple questions: I
answered them and we adjourned to the Eldridge
House for supper and they drank my health in cham-
pagne. I was notified by Judge Bassett that I had
passed the examination and told to present myself
for admission on the 15th of June, I think, 1875.
To my surprise the court was half full. Judge
Stevens even was present, whom I had never seen in
court before. About eleven the Judge informed the
audience that I had passed a satisfactory examina-
tion, had taken out my first papers in due form and
unless some lawyer wished first to put questions to
284 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
me to test my capacity, he proposed to call me with-
in the Bar. To my astonishment Judge Stevens rose:
"With the permission of the Court", he said,
"I'd like to put some questions to this candidate who
comes to us with high University commendation."
(No one had heard of my expulsion though he knew
of it.) He then began a series of questions which
soon plumbed the depths of my abyssmal ignorance.
I didn't know what an action of account was at old
English common law: I don't know now, nor do I
want to. I had read Blackstone carefully and a book
on Koman law; Chitty on Evidence, too, and someone
on Contracts — half a dozen books and that was all.
For the first two hours Judge Stevens just exposed
my ignorances: it was a very warm morning and my
conceit was rubbed raw when Judge Bassett proposed
an adjournment for dinner. Stevens consented and
we all rose. To my surprise Barker and Hutchings
and half a dozen other lawyers came round to encour-
age me: "Stevens is just showing off", said Hut-
chings, "I myself couldn't have answered half his
questions!" Even Judge Bassett sent for me to his
room and practically told me I had nothing to fear,
so I returned at two o'clock, resolved to do my best
and at all costs to keep smiling.
The examination continued in a crowded court
till four o'clock and then Judge Stevens sat down,
I had done better in this session; but my examiner
had caught me in a trap on a moot point in the law
of evidence and I could have kicked myself. But
Hutchings rose as the senior of .my two examiners
who had been appointed by the Court, and said simply
that now he repeated the opinion he had already had
the honor to convey to Judge Bassett, that I was a
fit and proper person to practice law in the State of
Kansas.
NEW EXPERIENCES. 265
"Judge Sevens", he added, "has shown us how
widely read he is in English common law; but some
of us knew that before and in any case his erudition
should not be made a purgatory to candidates: it
looks", he went on, "as if he wished to punish Mr.
Harris for his superiority to all his classmates in the
University.
"Impartial persons in this audience will admit", he
concluded, "that Mr. Harris has come brilliantly out
of an exceedingly severe test and I have the pleasant
task of proposing, your Honor, that he now be admit-
ted within the Bar, though he may not be able to
practice till he becomes a full citizen two years hence,"
Everyone expected that Barker would second
this proposal ; but while he was rising, Judge Stevens
began to speak.
"I desire", he said, "to second that proposal; and
I think I ought to explain why I subjected Mr. Harris
to a severe examination in open court. Since I came
to Kansas from the State of New York twenty-five
years ago, I have been asked a score of times to exam-
ine one candidate or another. I always refused: I
did not wish to punish Western candidates by putting
them against our Eastern standards. But here at
long last appears a candidate who has won honor in
the University to whom, therefore, a stiff examination
in open court can only be a vindication, and accord-
ingly I examined Mr. Harris as if he had been in the
State of New York; for surely Kansas too has come
of age and its inhabitants cannot wish to be humored
as inferiors.
"This whole affair", he went on, "reminds me of
a story told in the east of a dog-fancier. The father
lived by breeding and training bull-dogs. One day
he got an extraordinarily promising pup and the
father and son used to hunker down, shake their arms
266 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
at the pup and thus encourage him to seize hold of
their coatsleeves and hang on. While engaged in this
game once, the bull-pup, grown bold by constant
praise, sprang up and seized the father by the nose.
Instinctively the old man began to choke him off but
the son exclaimed:
"'Don't, father, don't, for God's sake! it may be
hard on you, but it'll be the making of the pup'. So
my examination, I thought, might be hard on Mr.
Harris; but it would be the making of him."
The Court roared and I applauded merrily. Judge
Stevens continued: "I desire, however, to show my
self not an enemy but a friend of Mr. Harris whom
I have known for some years. Mr. Hutchings evi-
dently thinks that Mr. Harris must wait two years in
order to become a citizen of the United States. I am
glad from my reading of the Statute laws of my
country to be able to assure him that Mr. Harris need
not wait a day. The law says that if a minor has
lived three years in any state, he may on coming of
age choose to become a citizen of the United States,
and if Mr. Harris chooses to be one of us, he can be
admitted at once as a citizen and if your Honor ap-
prove, be allowed also to practice law tomorrow."
He sat down amid great applause, in which I
joined most heartily. So on that day I was admitted
to practice law as a full-fledged citizen. Unluckily
for me, when I asked the Clerk of the Court for my
full papers, he gave me the certificate of my admission
to practice law in Lawrence, saying that as this could
only be given to a citizen, it in itself was sufficient.
Forty odd years later the government of
Woodrow Wilson refused to accept this plain proof
of my citizenship and thus put me to much trouble
by forcing me to get naturalized again!
But at the moment in Lawrence I was all cock-a
NEW EXPERIENCES. 267
hoop and forthwith took a 'room on the same first
floor where Barker & Sommerfeld had their offices,
and put out my shingle.
I have told this story of my examination at great
length because I think it shows as in a glass the
amenities and deep kindness of the American cha-
racter.
A couple of days later I was again in Phila-
delphia.
Towards the end of this year 1875, I believe, or
the beginning of 1876, Smith drew my attention to an
announcement that Walt Whitman, the poet, was
going to speak in Philadelphia on Thomas Paine, the
notorious infidel, who according to Washington had
done more to secure the independence of the United
States than any other man. Smith determined to go
to the meeting and if Whitman could rehabilitate
Paine against the venomous attacks of Christian
clergymen who had asserted without contradiction
that Paine was a notorious drunkard and of the
loosest character, he would induce Forney to let him
write an exhaustive and forceful defence of Paine
in "The Press".
I felt pretty sure that such an article would
never appear but I would not pour cold water on
Smith's enthusiasm. The day came, one of those
villainous days common enough in Philadelphia in
every winter: the temperature was about zero with
snow falling whenever the driving wind permitted.
In the afternoon Smith finally determined that he
must not risk it and asked me to go in his stead. I
consented willingly and he spent some hours in read-
ing to me the best of Whitman's poetry, laying
especial stress, I remember, on "When lilacs last in
the dooryard bloomed". He assured me again and
again that Whitman and Poe were the two greatest
268 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
poets these States had ever produced and he hoped
I would be very nice to the great man.
Nothing could be more depressing than the aspect
of the Hall that night: ill-lit and half -heated, with
perhaps thirty persons scattered about in a space
that would have accommodated a thousand. Such
was the reception America accorded to one of its
greatest spirits, though that view of the matter did
not strike me for many a year.
I took my seat in the middle of the first row,
pulled out my notebook and made ready. In a few
minutes Whitman came on the platform from the left:
he walked slowly, stiffly, which made me grin for I
did not then know that he had had a stroke of para-
lysis and I thought his peculiar walk, a mere pose.
Besides, his clothes were astonishingly ill-fitting and
ill-suited to his figure. He must have been nearly
six feet in height and strongly made, yet he wore a
short jacket which cocked up behind in the perkiest
way. Looked at from the front, his white collar was
wide open and discovered a tuft of grey hairs, while
his trousers that corkscrewed about his legs had
parted company with his vest and disclosed a margin
of dingy white shirt. His appearance filled me —
poor little English snob that I was — with contempt:
he recalled to my memory irresistibly an old Cochin-
China rooster I had seen when a boy; it stalked across
the farm-yard with the same slow, stiff gait and car-
ried a stubby tail cocked up behind.
Yet a second look showed me Whitman as a fine
figure of a man with something arresting in the per-
fect simplicity and sincerity of voice and manner.
He arranged his notes in complete silence and began
to speak very slowly, often pausing for a better word
or to consult his papers, sometimes hesitating and
repeating himself — clearly an unpracticed speaker
NEW EXPERIENCES. 269
who disdained any semblance of oratory. He told us
simply that in his youth he had met and got to know
very well a certain Colonel in the army who had
known Thomas Paine intimately. This Colonel had
assured him more than once that all the accusations
against Paine's habits and character were false — a
mere outcome of Christian bigotry. Paine would
drink a glass or two of wine at dinner like all well-
bred men of that day; but he was very moderate and
in the last ten years of his life the Colonel asserted
that Paine never once drank to excess. The Colonel
cleared Paine, too, of looseness of morals in much the
same decisive way and finally spoke of him as in-
variably well-conducted, of witty speech and a vast
fund of information, a most interesting and agreeable
companion. And the Colonel was an unimpeachable
witness. Whitman assured us, a man of the highest
honor and most scrupulous veracity.
Whitman spoke with such uncommon slowness
that I was easily able to take down the chief sentences
in longhand: he was manifestly determined to say
just what he had to say, neither more nor less —
which made an impression of singular sincerity and
truthfulness.
When he had finished, I went up on the platform
to see him near at hand ; and draw him out if possible.
I showed him my card of the "Press" and asked him
if he would kindly sign and thus authenticate the
sentences on Paine he had used in his address.
"Aye, aye!" was all he said; but he read the half
dozen sentences carefully, here and there correcting
a word.
I thanked him and said Professor Smith, an
Editor of the "Press", had sent me to get a word-for-
word report of his speech for he purposed writing
270 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
an article in the "Press" on Paine, whom he greatly
admired.
"Aye, aye!" ejaculated Whitman from time to
time while his clear grey eyes absorbed all that 1
said. I went on to assure him that Smith had a
profound! admiration for him (Whitman), thought
him the greatest American poet and regretted deeply
that he was not well enough to come out that night
and make his personal acquaintance.
"I'm sorry, too", said Whitman slowly, "for your
friend Smith must have something large in him to
be so interested in Paine and in me." Perfectly simple
and honest Walt Whitman appeared to me, even in
his self -estimate — an authentic great man!
I had nothing more to say, so hastened home to
show Smith Whitman's boyish signature and to give
him a description of the man. The impression Whit-
man left on me was one of transparent simplicity and
sincerity: not a mannerism in him, not a trace of
affectation, a man simply sure of himself, most careful
in speech; but careless of appearances and curiously,
significantly free of all afterthoughts or regrets: a
new type of personality which, strangely enough, has
grown upon me more and more with the passing of
the years and now seems to me to represent the very
best in America, the large unruffled soul of that great
people manifestly called and chosen to exert an in-
creasingly important influence on the destinies of
mankind. I would die happy if I could believe that
America's influence would be anything like as manful
and true and clear-eyed as Whitman's in guiding
humanity; but alas! —
It would be difficult to convey to European
readers any just notion of the horror and disgust with
which Walt Whitman was regarded at that time in
the United States on account merely of the sex-poems
NEW EXPERIENCES. 271
in "Leaves of Grass". The poems to which objection
could be taken, don't constitute five per cent of the
book and my objection to them is that in any normal
man, love and desire take up a much larger proportion
of life than five per cent. Moreover the expression
of passion is tame in the extreme: nothing in the
"Leaves of Grass" can compare with half a dozen
passages in the Song of Solomon: think of the
following verse:
"I sleep but my heart waketh: it is the voice of
my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my
sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my
head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops
of the night
"My beloved put his hand in by the hole of
the door and my bowels were moved for him."
And then the phrases: "her lips are like a thread
of scarlet" "her love like an army with banners" ;
but American puritanism is more timid even than
its purblind teachers.
It was commonly said at the time that Whitman
had led a life of extraordinary self-indulgence: rumor
attributed to him half a dozen illegitimate children
and perverse tastes to boot. I think such statements
exaggerated or worse: they are no more to be trusted
than the stories of Paine's drunkenness. At any rate,
Horace Traubel later declared to me that Whitman's
life was singularly clean and his own letter to John
Addington Symonds must be held to have disproved
the charge of homo-sexuality. But I dare swear he
loved more than once not wisely but too well, or he
would not have risked the reprobation of the "unco
guid". In any case, it is to his honor that he dared
to write plainly in America of the joys of sexual in-
tercourse. Emerson, as Whitman himself tells us, did
his utmost all one long afternoon to dissuade him from
19
272 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
publishing the sex-poems; but fortunately all his ar-
guments served only to confirm Whitman in his pur-
pose. From certain querulous complaints later, it is
plain that Whitman was too ignorant to guage the
atrocious results to himself and his reputation of his
daring; but the same ignorance that allowed him to
use scores of vile neologisms, in this one instance
stood him in good stead. It was right of him to speak
plainly of sex; accordingly he set down the main facts,
disdainful of the best opinion of his time. And he
was justified; in the long run, it will be plain to all
that he thus put the seal of the Highest upon his
judgment. What can we think and what will the
future think of Emerson's condemnation of Rabelais
whom he dared to liken to a dirty little boy who
scribbles indecencies in public places and then runs
away and his contemptuous estimate of Shakespeare
as a ribald playwright, when in good sooth he was
"the reconciler" whom Emerson wanted to acclaim
and had not the brains to recognize.
Whitman was the first of great men to write
frankly about sex and five hundred years hence, that
will be his singular and supreme distinction.
Smith seemed permanently better though, of
course, for the moment disappointed because his care-
ful eulogy of Paine never appeared in the "Press", so
one day I told him I'd have to return to Lawrence to
go on with my law work, though Thompson, the
doctor's son, kept all my personal affairs in good order
and informed me of every happening. Smith at this
time seemed to agree with me, though not
enthusiastically, and I was on the point of starting
when I got a letter from Willie, telling me that my
eldest brother Vernon was in a New York hospital,
having just tried to commit suicide and I should go
to see him.
NEW EXPERIENCES. 273
I went at once and found Vernon in a ward in
bed: the surgeon told me that he had tried to shoot
himself and that the ball had struck the jaw-bone at
such an angle that it went all round his head and was
taken out just above his left ear: "it stunned him and
that was all; he can go out almost any day now". The
first glance showed me the old Vernon: he cried:
"Still a failure, you see, Joe: could not even kill
myself though I tried!" I told him I had renamed
myself, Frank; he nodded amicably smiling.
I cheered him up as well as I could, got lodgings
for him, took him out of hospital, found work for him
too and after a fortnight saw that I could safely
leave him. He told me that he regretted having taken
so much money from my father, "your share, I'm
afraid, and Nita's; but why did he give it me? He
might just as well have refused me years ago as let
me strip him; but I was a fool and always shall be
about money: happy go lucky, I can take no thought
for the morrow".
That fortnight showed me that Vernon had only
the veneer of a gentleman; at heart he was as selfish
as Willie but without Willie's power of work. I had
over-estimated him wildly as a boy, thought him
noble and well-read; but Smith's real nobility, culture
and idealism showed me that Vernon was hardly
silver-gilt. He had nice manners and good temper
and that was about all.
I stopped at Philadelphia on my way to Law-
rence just to tell Smith all I owed him, which the
association with Vernon had made clear to me. We
had a great night and then for the first time he ad-
vised me to go to Europe to study and make myself
a teacher and guide of men. I assured him he
overestimated me, because I had an excellent verbal
memory; but he declared that I had unmistakeable
274 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
originality and singular fairness of judgment, and
above all, a driving power of will that he had never
seen equalled: "Whatever you make up your mind
to do", he concluded, "you will assuredly accomplish,
for you are inclined to underrate yourself". At the
time I laughed, saying he didn't even guess at my
unlimited conceit, but his words and counsel sank
into my mind and in due course exercised a decisive,
shaping influence on my life.
I returned to Lawrence, put up a sofa-bed in my
law-room and went to the Eldridge House nearby for
my meals. I read law assiduously and soon had a
few clients, "hard cases" for the most part, sent to me,
I found out, by Judge Stevens and Barker, eager to
foist nuisances on a beginner.
An old mulatto woman kept our offices tidy and
clean for a few dollars monthly from each of us, and
one night I was awakened by her groans and cries:
she lived in a garret up two flights of stairs and was
evidently suffering from indigestion and very much
frightened, as colored folk are apt to be when any-
thing ails them: "I'm gwine to die!" she told me a
dozen times. I treated her with whisky and warm
water, heated on my little gas-heater and sat with
her till at length she fell asleep. She declared
next day I had saved her life and she'd never forget
it "Nebber, fo sure!" I laughed at her and forgot
all about it.
Every afternoon I went over to Liberty Hall for
an hour or so to keep in touch with events, though I
left the main work to Will Thompson. One day I
was delighted to find that Bret Harte was coming to
lecture for us: his subject "The Argonauts of '49":
I got some of his books from the bookstore kept by
a lame man named Crew, I think, on Massachusetts
Street, and read him carefully. His poetry did not
NEW EXPERIENCES. 275
make much impression on me, mere verse, I thought
it; but "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" and other stories
seemed to me almost masterpieces in spite of their
romantic coloring and tinge of melodrama. Espec-
ially the description of Oakhurst, the gambler, stuck
in my mind : it will be remembered that when crossing
the "divide", Oakhurst advised the party of outcasts
to keep on travelling till they reached a place of safe-
ty. But he did not press his point: he decided it
was hopeless and then came Bret Harte's extra-
ordinary painting phrase: "life to Oakhurst was at
best an uncertain sort of game and he recognized the
usual percentage in favor of the dealer". There is
more humor and insight in the one sentence than in
all the ridiculously overpraised works of Mark Twain.
One afternoon I was alone in the box-office of
Liberty Hall when Rose came in, as pretty as ever.
I was delighted to renew our acquaintance and more
delighted still to find that she would like tickets for
Bret Harte's lecture. "I didn't know that you cared
for reading, Rose?" I said, a little surprised.
"Professor Smith and you would make anybody
read," she cried, "at any rate you started me". I
gave her the tickets and engaged to take her for a
buggy-ride next day. I felt sure Rose liked me; but
she soon surprised me by showing a stronger virtue
than I usually encountered.
She kissed me when I asked her in the buggy but
told me at the same time that she didn't care much
for kissing: "all men", she said, "are after a girl for
the same thing; it's sickening; they all want kisses
and try to touch you and say they love you; but they
can't love and I don't want their kisses".
"Rose, Rose," I said, "you mustn't be too hard
on us: we're different from you girls and that's all".
"How do you mean?" she asked. "I mean that
276 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
mere desire", I said, "just the wish to kiss and enjoy
you, strikes the man first; but behind that lust is
often a good deal of affection, and sometimes a deep
and sacred tenderness comes to flower; whereas the
girl begins with the liking and affection and learns
to enjoy the kissing and caressing afterwards".
"I see", she rejoined quietly, "I think I under-
stand : I'm glad to believe that".
Her unexpected depth and sincerity impressed
me and I continued:
"We men may be so hungry that we will eat very
poor fruit greedily because it's at hand; but that
doesn't prove that we don't prefer good and sweet and
nourishing food when we can get it". She let her
eyes dwell on mine: "I see", she said, "I see!"
And then I went on tell her how lovely she was
and how she had made a deathless impression on me
and I ventured to hope she liked me a little and would
yet be good to me and come to care for me, and I was
infinitely pleased to find that this was the right sort
of talk and I did my best in the new strain. Three
or four times a week I took her out in a buggy and
in a little while I had taught her how to kiss and won
her to confess that she cared for me, loved me indeed
and bit by bit she allowed me the little familiarities
of love.
One day I took her out early for a picnic and said,
"I'll play Turk and you must treat me" and I stretched
myself out on a rug under a tree. She entered into the
spirit of the game with zest, brought me food and
at length, as she stood close beside me, I couldn't
control myself; I put my hand up her dress on her
firm legs and sex. Next moment I was kneeling
beside her: "Love me, Rose", I begged, "I want you
so: I'm hungry for you, dear!"
She looked at me gravely with wide-open eyes:
NEW EXPERIENCES. 277
"I love you too' 1 , she said, "but oh! T'm afraid: be
patient with me!" she added like a little girl. I was
patient but persistent and I went on caressing her
till her hot lips told me that I had really excited her.
My fingers informed me that she had a perfect sex
and her legs were wonderfully firm and tempting,
and in her yielding there was the thrill of a conscious
yielding out of affection for me, which I find it hard
to express. I soon persuaded her to come next day
to my office. She came about four o'clock and I kissed
and caressed her and at length in the dusk got her
to strip. She had the best figure I had ever seen
and that made me like her more than I would have
believed possible; but I soon found when I got into
her that she was not nearly as passionate as Kate
even, to say nothing of Lily. She was a cool mistress
but would have made a wonderful wife, being all
self-sacrifice and tender, thoughtful affection: T have
still a very warm corner in my heart for that lovely
child-woman and am rather ashamed of having se-
duced her, for she was never meant to be a plaything
or pastime.
But incurably changeable, I had Lily a day or
two afterwards and sent Rose a collection of books
instead of calling on her. Still I took her out every
week till I left Lawrence and grew to esteem her
more and more.
Lily, on the other hand, was a born "daughter
of the game" to use Shakespeare's phrase and tried
to become more and more proficient at it: she wanted
to know when and how she gave me most pleasure
and really did her best to excite me. Besides, she
soon developed a taste in hats and dresses and when
I paid for a new outfit, she would dance with delight.
She was an entertaining, light companion too and
often found odd little naughty phrases that amused
278 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
me. Her pet aversion was Mrs. Mayhew: she called
her always "the Pirate", because she said Lorna only
liked "stolen goods" and wanted every man "to walk
the plank into her bedroom". Lily insisted that Lorna
could cry whenever she wished; but had no real
affection in her and her husband filled Lily with con-
tempt: "a well-matched pair", she exclaimed one day,
"a mare and a mule, and the mare, as men say, in
heat — all wet", and she wrinkled her little nose in
disgust.
At the Bret Harte lecture both Rose and Lily had
seats and they both understood that I would go and
talk with the great man afterwards.
I expected to get a great deal from the lecture
and Harte's advance agent had arranged that the
hero of the evening should receive me in the Eldridge
House after the address.
I was to call for him at the Hotel and take him
across to the Hall. When I called, a middle-sized
man came to meet me with a rather good-looking,
pleasant smile and introspective, musing eyes. Harte
was in evening dress that suited his slight figure and
as he seemed disinclined to talk, I took him across
to the Hall at once and hastened round to the front
to note his entrance. He walked quite simply to the
desk, arranged his notes methodically and began in
a plain, conversational tone, "The Argonauts" and
he repeated it, "The Argonauts of '49".
I noticed that there was no American nasal twang-
in his accent; but with the best of will, I can give no
account of the lecture, just as I can give no portrait of
the man. I reeall only one phrase but think it prob-
ably the best: referring to the old-timers crossing the
Great Plains, he said, "I am going to tell you of a new
Crusade, a Crusade without a cross, an exodus without
a prophet!"
NEW EXPERIENCES. 279
I met him ten years later in London when I had
more self-confidence and much deeper understanding
both of talent and genius; but I could never get any-
thing of value out of Bret Harte, in spite of the fact
that I had then and still keep a good deal of admir-
ation for his undoubted talent. In London later I
did my best to draw him out, to get him to say what
he thought of life, death and the undiscovered
country; but he either murmured commonplaces or
withdrew into his shell of complete but apparently
thoughtful silence.
The monotonous work and passionate interludes
of my life were suddenly arrested by a totally unex-
pected happening. One day Barker came into my
little office and stood there hiccoughing from time
to time: "did I know any remedy for hiccoughs'?"
I only knew a drink of cold water usually stopped it.
"I've drunk every sort of thing," he said, "but
I reckon I'll give it best and go home and if it con-
tinues, send for the doctor!" I could only acquiesce:
next day I heard he was worse and in bed. A week
later Sommerfeld told him I ought to call on poor
Barker for he was seriously ill.
That' same afternoon I called and was horrified
at the change: the constant hiccoughing had shaken
all the unwieldy mass of flesh from his bones; the
skin of his face was flaccid, the bony outline showing
under the thin folds. I pretended to think he was
better and attempted to congratulate him; but he
did not try even to deceive himself. "If they can't
stop it, it'll stop me", he said, "but no one ever heard
of a man dying of hiccoughs and I'm not forty yet".
The news came a few days later that he was dead
— that great fat man!
His death changed my whole life, though I didn't
dream at the time it could have any effect upon me.
280 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
One day I was in court arguing a case before Judge
Bassett. Though I liked the man, he exasperated me
that day by taking what I thought was a wrong view.
I put my point in every light I could; but he wouldn't
come round and finally gave the case against me.
When I had collected my papers and looked up, he
was smiling:
'I shall take this case to the Supreme Court at my
own expense", I explained bitterly, "and have your
decision reversed."
"If you want to waste your time and money," he
remarked pleasantly, "I can't hinder you".
I went out of the court and suddenly found
Sommerfeld beside me:
"You fought that case very well", he said, "and
you'll win it in the Supreme Court, but you shouldn't
have told Bassett so, in his own — " "domain", I
suggested, and he nodded.
When we got to our floor and I turned towards
my office, he said, "Won't you come in and smoke
a cigar, I'd like a talk — "
Sommerfeld's cigars were uniformly excellent and
I followed him very willingly into his big, quiet
office at the back that looked over some empty lots.
I was not a bit curious; for a talk with Sommerfeld
usually meant a rather silent smoke. This time,
however, he had something to say and said it very
abruptly :
"Barker's gone," he remarked in the air, and then :
"Why shouldn't you come in here and take his place?''
4 As your partner?" I exclaimed. "Sure", he re-
plied, "I'll make out the briefs in the cases as I did
for Barker and you'll argue them in court. For in-
stance", he added in his slow way, "there is a decision
of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio that decides
your case today almost in your words, and if you
NEW EXPERIENCES. 281
had cited it, you'd have convinced Bassett", and he
turned and read out the report.
"The State of Ohio," he went on, "is one of the
four States, as you know, (I didn't know it) that have
adopted the New York Code — New York, Ohio, Kan-
sas and California" — he proceeded, "the four States
in a line across the continent; no one of these high
courts will contradict the other. So you can be sure
of your verdict — well, what do you say?" he con-
cluded.
"I shall be delighted," I replied at once, "indeed
1 am proud to work with you: T could have wished no
better fortune".
He held out his hand silently and the thing was
settled.
Sommerfeld smoked a while in silence and then
remarked casually, "I used to give Barker a hundred
dollars a week for his household expenses: will that
suit you?"
"Perfectly, perfectly", I cried, "I only hope I shall
earn it and justify your good opinion — "
"You are a better advocate than Barker even
now," he said, "but you have one — drawback" —
he hesitated.
"Please go on," I cried, "don't be afraid, I can
stand any criticism and profit by it — I hope".
"Your accent is a little English, isn't it?" he said,
"and that prejudices both judge and jury against
you, especially the jury: if you had Barker's accent,
you'd be the best pleader in the State — "
"I'll get the accent," I exclaimed, "you're dead
right: I had already felt the need of it; but I was
obstinate, now I'll get it: you may bet on that, get
it within a week" and I did.
There was a lawyer in the town named Hoysradt
who had had a fierce quarrel with my brother Willie.
282
MY LIFE AND LOVES.
He had the most pronounced Western American
accent I had ever heard and I set myself the task
every morning and evening of imitating Hoysradt's
accent and manner of speech. I made it a rule too,
to use the slow Western enunciation in ordinary
speech and in a week, no one would have taken me
for any one but an American.
Sommerfeld was delighted and told me he had
fuller confidence in me than ever and from that time
on our accord was perfect, for the better I knew him,
the more highly I esteemed him: he was indeed able,
hardworking, truthful and honest — a compact of
all the virtues, but so modest and inarticulate that
he was often his own worst enemy.
WORK AND SOPHY.
Chapter XIV.
XTow began for me a most delightful time. Sommer-
feld relieved me of nearly all the office work:
I had only to get up the speeches, for he prepared
the cases for me. My income was so large that I only
slept in my office-room for convenience sake, or rather
for my lechery's sake.
I kept a buggy and horse at a livery stable and
used to drive Lily or Rose out nearly every day. As
Rose lived on the other side of the river, it was easy
to keep the two separate and indeed neither of them
ever dreamed of the other's existence. I had a very
soft spot in my heart for Rose: her beauty of face
and form always excited and pleased me and her
mind, too, grew quickly through our talks and the
books I gave her. I'll never forget her joy when
I first bought a small bookcase and sent it to her
home one morning, full of the books I thought she
would like and ought to read.
In the evening she came straight to my office, told
me it was the very thing she had most wanted and
she let me study her beauties one by one; but when
I turned her round and kissed her bottom, she wanted
me to stop: "You can't possibly like or admire that",
was her verdict.
"Indeed I do," I cried; but I confessed to myself
284 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
that she was right; her bottom was adorably dimpled;
but it was a little too fat, and the line underneath it
was not perfect. One of her breasts, too, was prettier
than the other, though both were small and stuck
out boldly; my critical sense could find no fault with
her triangle or her sex; the lips of it were perfect,
very small and rose-red and her clitoris was like a
tiny, tiny button. I often wished it were half an inch
long like Mrs. Mayhew's. Only once in our inter-
course did I try to bring her to ecstasy and only half
succeeded; consequently I used simply to have her,
just to enjoy myself and only now and then went
on to a second orgasm so as really to warm her to
the love-play ; Rose was anything but sensual, though
invariably sweet and an excellent companion. How
she could be so affectionate though sexually cold was
always a puzzle to me.
Lily, as I have said, was totally different: a merry
little grig and born child of Venus : now and then she
gave me a really poignant sensation. She was always
deriding, Mrs. Mayhew; but curiously enough, she was
very like her in many intimate ways — a sort of
understudy of the older and more passionate woman,
with a child's mischievous gaiety to boot and a
childish joy in living,
But a great and new sensation was now to come
into my life. One evening a girl without a hat on
and without knocking came into my office. Sommer-
feld had gone home for the night and I was just
putting my things straight before going out; she took
my breath; she was astoundingly good-looking, very
dark with great, black eyes and slight, girlish figure:
"I'm Topsy", she announced and stood there smiling,
as if the mere name told enough.
"Come in", I said, "and take a seat: I've heard of
you!" and I had.
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 285
She was a privileged character in the town: she
rode on the street-cars and railroads too without
paying; those who challenged her were all "pore white
trash", she said, and some man was always eager to
pay for her: she never hesitated to go up to any man
and ask him for a dollar or even five dollars — and
invariably got what she wanted: her beauty was as
compelling to men as her scornful aloofness. I had
often heard of her as "that d — d pretty nigger girl!"
but I could see no trace of any negro characteristic in
her pure loveliness.
She took the seat and said with a faint Southern
accent I found pleasing, "You' name Harris?"
"That's my name", I replied smiling: "You here
instead Barker f she went on: "he sure deserved to
die hiccuppin': pore white trash!"
"What's your real name!" I asked.
"They call me 'Topsy'," she replied, "but ma real
true name is Sophy, Sophy Beveridge: you was very
kind to my mother who lives upstairs: yes", she went
on defiantly, "she's my mother and a mighty good
mother too and don't you fergit it!" she added,
tossing her head in contempt of my astonishment.
"Your father must have been white!" I couldn't
help remarking for I couldn't couple Topsy with the
old octaroon, do what I would. She nodded,
"he was white all right: that is, his skin was!" and
she got up and wandered about the office as if it be-
longed to her. "I'll call you, 'Sophy'," I said; for I
felt a passionate revolt of injured pride in her. She
smiled at me with pleasure.
I didn't know what to do. I must not go with
a colored girl: though 1 could see no sign of black
blood in Sophy and certainly she was astonishingly
good-looking even in her simple sprigged gown.
As she moved about I could not but remark the lithe
286 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
panther-like grace of her and her little breasts stuck
out against the thin cotton garment with a most pro-
vocative allurement: my mouth was parching when
she swung round on me; "You ondressing me", she
said smiling, "and I'se glad, 'cause my mother likes
you and I loves her — sure pop!"
There was something childish, direct, innocent
even about her frankness that fascinated me and her
good looks made sunshine in the darkening room.
"I like you, Sophy", I said, "but anyone would
have done as much for your mother as I did. She
was ill!"
"Hoo!" she snorted indignantly, "most white folk
would have let her die right there on the stairs: I
know them: they'd have been angry with her for
groaning: I hate 'em!" and her great eyes glowered.
She came over to me in a flash:
"If you'd been American, I couldn't never have
come to you, never! I'd rather have died, or saved
and stole and paid you — " the scorn in her voice
was bitter with hate: evidently the negro question
had a side I had never realised.
"But you're different", she went on, "an' I just
came — " and she paused, lifting her great eyes to
mine, with an unspoken offer in their lingering regard.
"I'm glad", I said lamely, staving off the temp-
tation, "and I hope you'll come again soon and we'll
be great friends — eh, Sophy!" and I held out my
hand smiling; but she pouted and looked at me with
reproach or appeal or disappointment in her eyes. I
could not resist: I took her hand and drew her to me
and kissed her on the lips, slipping my right hand the
while up to her left breast: it was as firm as india-
rubber: at once I felt my sex stand and throb: resolve
and desire fought in me, but I was accustomed to
make my will supreme:
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 287
"You are the loveliest girl in Lawrence", I said,
"but I must really go now: I have an appointment
and I'm late."
She smiled enigmatically as I seized my hat and
went, not stopping even to shut or lock the office door.
As I walked up the street, my thoughts and feel-
ings were all in a whirl: "Did I want her? Should
I have her! Would she come again*?
"Oh Hell! women are the very devil and he's not
so black as he's painted! Black?"
That night I was awakened by a loud knocking
at my office door; I sprang up and opened without
thinking and at once Sophy came in laughing.
"What is it?" I cried half asleep still.
"I'se tired waiting", she answered cheekily, "and
anyways I just came." I was about to remonstrate
with her when she cried: "You go right to bed" and
she took my head in her hands and kissed me. My
wish to resist died out of me. "Come quickly!" I
said getting into bed and watching her as she stripped.
In a hand's turn she had undressed to her chemise: "I
reckon this'll do", she said coquettishly.
"Please take it off", I cried and the next moment
she was in my arms naked. As I touched her sex, she
wound her arms round my neck and kissed me
greedily with hot lips. To my astonishment her sex
was well- formed and very small: I had always heard
that negroes had far larger genitals than white people;
but the lips of Sophy's sex were thick and firm,
"Have you ever been had, Sophy?" I asked.
"No, sir!" she replied, "I liked you because you
never came after me and you was so kind and I thot
that I'd be sure to do it sometime, so I'd rather let
you have me than anyone else: I don't like colored
men", she added, "and the white men all look down
20
288 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
on me and despise me and I — I love you", she
whispered, burying her face on my neck.
"It'll hurt you at first, Sophy, I'm afraid"; but
she stilled all scruples with "Shucks, I don't care: if
I gives you pleasure, I'se satisfied" and she opened
her legs, stretching herself as I got on her. The next
moment my sex was caressing her clitoris and of her-
self she drew up her knees and suddenly with one
movement brought my sex into hers and against the
maiden barrier. Sophy had no hesitation: she moved
her body lithely against me and the next moment I
had forced the passage and was in her. I waited a
little while and then began the love game. At once
Sophy followed my movements, lifting her sex up to
me as I pushed in and depressing it to hold me as
I withdrew. Even when I quickened, she kept time
and so gave me the most intense pleasure, thrill on
thrill, and as I came and my seed spirted into her,
the muscle inside her vagina gripped my sex, height-
ening the sensation to an acute pang; she even kissed
me more passionately than any other girl, licking the
inside of my lips with her hot tongue. When I went
on again with the slow in-and-out movements, she
followed in perfect time and her trick of bending
her sex down on mine as I withdrew and gripping it
at the same time excited me madly: soon, of her own
accord, she quickened while gripping and thrilling
me till again we both spent together in an ecstasy.
"You're a perfect wonder!" I cried to her then,
panting in my turn, "but how did you learn so
quickly?"
"I loves you", she said, "so I do whatever I think
you'd like and then I likes that too, see?" And her
lovely face glowed against mine.
I got up to show her the use of the syringe and
found we were in a bath of blood. In a moment she
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 289
had stripped the sheet off: "111 wash that in the
morning" she said laughing while doubling it into a
ball and throwing it in the corner. I turned the gas
on full : never was there a more seductive figure. Her
skin was darkish, it is true; but not darker than that
of an ordinary Italian or Spanish girl, and her form
had a curious attraction for me: her breasts, small
and firm as elastic, stood out provocatively; her hips,
however, were narrower than even Lily's though the
cheeks of her bottom were full; her legs too were
well-rounded, not a trace of the sticks of the negro;
her feet even were slender and high-arched.
"You are the loveliest girl I've ever seen!" I
cried as I helped to put in the syringe and wash
her sex.
"You're mah man!" she said proudly, "an' I want
to show you that I can love better than any white
trash; they only gives themselves airs!"
"You are white", 1 cried, "don't be absurd!" She
shook her little head: "if you knew!" she said, "when
I was a girl, a child, old white men, the best in town,
used to say dirty words to me in the street and try
to touch me — the beasts!" I gasped: I had had no
idea of such contempt and persecution.
When we were back in bed together: "tell me,
Sophy dear, how you learned to move with me in
time as you do and give me such thrills!"
"Hoo!" she cried, gurgling with pleased joy,
"that's easy to tell. I was scared you didn't like me,
so this afternoon I went to wise ole niggah woman and
&sk her how to make man love you really! She told
me to go right to bed with you and do that", and she
smiled.
"Nothing more?" I asked: her eyes opened
brightly, "Shu!" she cried, "if you want to do love
again, I show you!" The next moment I was in her
20*
290 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
and now she kept even better time than at first and
somehow or other the thick, firm lips of her sex
seemed to excite me more than anyone had ever ex-
cited me. Instinctively the lust grew in me and I
quickened and as I came to the short, hard strokes,
she suddenly slipped her legs together under me and
closing them tightly held my sex as in a firm grip
and then began "milking" me — no other word conveys
the meaning — with extraordinary skill and speed,
so that in a moment I was gasping and choking with
the intensity of the sensation and my seed came in hot
jets while she continued the milking movement, tire-
less, indefatigable!
"What a marvel you are!" I exclaimed as soon
as I got breath enough to speak, "the best bedfellow
I've ever had, wonderful, you dear, you!"
All glowing with my praise, she wound her arms
about my neck and mounted me as Lorna Mayhew had
done once; but now what a difference! Lorna was
so intent on gratifying her own lust that she often
forgot my feelings altogether and her movements were
awkward in the extreme; but Sophy thought only of
me and, whereas Lorna was always slipping my sex
out of her sheath, Sophy in some way seated herself
on me and then began rocking her body back and
forth while lifting it a little at each churning move-
ment, so that my sex in the grip of her firm, thick
lips had a sort of double movement. When she felt
me coming as I soon did, she twirled half round on
my organ half a dozen times with a new movement
and then began rocking herself again, so that my seed
was dragged out of me, so to speak, giving me inde-
scribably acute, almost painful sensations. I was
breathless thrilling with her every movement.
"Had you any pleasure, Sophy f I asked as soon
as we were lying side by side again.
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 291
"Skuah!" she said smiling, "you're very strong,
and you — " she asked, "was you pleased?"
"Great God!" I cried, "I felt as if all the hairs
of my head were travelling down my backbone like
an army! You are extraordinary, you dear!"
"Keep me with you, Frank", she whispered, "if
you want me, I'll do anything, everything for you: I
never hoped to have such a lover as you. Oh, this
child's real glad her breasties and sex please you.
You taught me that word, instead of the nasty word
all white folk use; 'sex' is good word, very good!" and
she crowed with delight. "What do colored people
call it!" I asked: "Coozie", she replied smiling,
Coozie! good word too, very good!
Long years later I heard an American story
which recalled Sophy's performance vividly.
An engineer with a pretty daughter had an as-
sistant who showed extraordinary qualities as a
machinist and was quiet and well behaved to boot.
The father introduced his helper to his daughter and
the match was soon arranged. After the marriage,
however, the son-in-law drew away and 'twas in
vain that the father-in-law tried to guess the reason
of the estrangement. At length he asked his son-in-
law boldly for the reason: "I meant right, Bill", he
began earnestly, "but if I've made a mistake I'll be
sorry: waren't the goods accordin' to specification?
Warn't she a virgin?"
"It don't matter nothin'!" replied Bill, frowning.
"Treat me fair, Bill", cried the father, "war she
a virgin?"
"How can I tell?" exclaimed Bill, "all I can say
is, I never know'd a virgin before that had that
cinder-shifting movement."
Sophy was the first to show me the "cinder-shif-
ting" movement and she surely was a virgin!
292 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
As a mistress Sophy was perfection perfected and
the long lines and slight curves of her lovely body
came to have a special attraction for me as the very
highest of the pleasure-giving type.
Lily first and then Rose were astonished and
perhaps a little hurt at the sudden cooling off of my
passion for them. From time to time I took Rose out
or sent her books and I had Lily anywhere, any when;
but neither of them could compare with Sophy as a
bedfellow and her talk even fascinated me more, the
better I knew her. She had learned life from the
streets, from the animal side first; but it was aston-
ishing how quickly she grew in understanding: love
is the only magical teacher! In a fortnight her speech
was better than Lily's; in a month she talked as well
as any of the American girls I had had; her desire
of knowledge and her sponge-like ease of acquirement
were always surprising me. She had a lovelier figure
than even Rose and ten times the seduction even of
Lily: she never hesitated to take my sex in her hand
and caress it; she was a child of nature, bold with an
animal's boldness and had besides a thousand endear-
ing familiarities. I had only to hint a wish for her
to gratify it. Sophy was the pearl of all the girls I
met in this first stage of my development and I only
wish I could convey to the reader a suggestion even
of her quaint, enthralling caresses. My admiration of
Sophy cleansed me of any possible disdain I might
otherwise have had of the negro people, and I am
glad of it; for else I might have closed my heart
against the Hindu and so missed the best part of
my life's experiences.
I have had a great artist make the sketch of her
back which I reproduce at the end of this chapter: it
conveys something of the strange vigor and nerve-
force of her lovely firm body.
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 293
But it was written that as soon as I reached ease
and content, the Fates would reshuffle the cards and
deal me another hand.
First of all, there came a letter from Smith,
telling me how he had got a bad wetting one night
and had caught a severe cold. The cough then had
returned and he was losing weight and heart. He
had come to the conclusion, too, that I had reached,
that the moist air of Philadelphia was doing him harm
and the doctors now were beginning to urge him to
go to Denver, Colorado: all the foremost specialists
agreeing that mountain air was the best for his lung-
weakness. If I couldn't come to him, I must wire him
and he'd stop in Lawrence to see me on his way West,
he had much to say —
A couple of days later he was in the Eldridge
House and I went to see him. His appearance shocked
me: he had grown spectre thin and the great eyes
seemed to burn like lamps in his white face. I knew
at once that he was doomed and could scarcely control
my tears.
We passed the whole day together and when he
heard how I spent my days in casual reading and
occasional speaking and my Topsy-turvey nights, he
urged me to throw up the law and go to Europe to
make myself a real scholar and thinker. But I could
not give up Sophy and my ultra-pleasant life. So
I resisted, told him he overrated me: I'd easily
be the best advocate in the State, I said, and make a
lot of money and then I'd go back and do Europe
and study as well.
He warned me that I must choose between God
and Mammon; I retorted lightly that Mammon and
my senses gave me much that God denied: "I'll serve
both", I cried, but he shook his head.
"I'm finished, Frank", he declared at length, "but
294 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
I'd regret life less if I knew that you would take up
the work I once hoped to accomplish, won't you?"
I couldn't resist his appeal: "All right", I said,
after choking down my tears, "give me a few months
and I'll go, round the world first and then to Germany
to study".
He drew me to him and kissed me on the fore-
head: I felt it as a sort of consecration.
A day or so afterwards he took train for Denver
and I felt as if the sun had gone out of my life.
I had little to do in Lawrence at this time except
read at large and I began to spend a couple of hours
«very day in the town library. Mrs. Trask, the
librarian, was the widow of one of the early settlers
who had been brutally murdered during the Quantrell
raid when Missourian bandits "shot up" the little
town of Lawrence in a last attempt to turn Kansas
into a slave-owning state.
Mrs. Trask was a rather pretty little woman who
had been made librarian to compensate her in some
sort for the loss of her husband. She was well-read
in American literature and I often took her advice
as to my choice of books. She liked me, I think, for
she was invariably kind to me and I owe her many
pleasant hours and some instruction.
After Smith had gone West I spent more and
more time in the library for my law-work was
becoming easier to me every hour. One day about a
month after Smith had left, I went into the library
and could find nothing enticing to read. Mrs. Trask
happened to be passing and I asked her: "What am
I to read?"
'Have you read any of that?" she replied
pointing to Bonn's edition of Emerson in two volumes.
"He's good!"
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 295
"I saw him in Concord", I said, "but he was deaf
and made little impression on me."
"He's the greatest American thinker", she
retorted, "and you ought to read him".
Automatically I took down the volume and it
opened of itself at the last page of Emerson's advice
to the scholars of Dartmouth College. Every word
is still printed on my memory: I can see the left-
hand page and read again that divine message: I
make no excuse for quoting it almost word for word:
"Gentlemen, I have ventured to offer you these
considerations upon the scholar's place and hope,
because I thought that standing, as many of you now
do, on the threshold of this College, girt and ready
to go and assume tasks, public and private, in your
country, you would not be sorry to be admonished
of those primary duties of the intellect whereof you
will seldom hear from the lips of your new
companions. You will hear every day the maxims
of a low prudence. You will hear that the first duty
is to get land and money, place and name. 'What
is this Truth you seek? what is this beauty!' men
will ask, with derision. If nevertheless God have
called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be
bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As
others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it,
my early visions ; I must eat the good of the land and
let learning and romantic expectations go, until a
more convenient season'; — then dies the man in
you; then once more perish the buds of art, and
poetry, and science, as they have died already in a
thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is
the crisis of your history, and see that you hold your-
self fast by the intellect. It is this domineering
temper of the sensual world that creates the extreme
need of the priests of science ... Be content with a
296 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
little light, so it be your own. Explore, and explore.
Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position
of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize, nor accept
another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your
right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for
the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barnf
Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make
yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will
give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as
shall not take away your property in all men's
affections, in art, in nature, and in hope."
The truth of it shocked me: "then perish the
buds of art and poetry and science in you as they
have perished already in a thousand, thousand men!"
That explained why it was that there was no
Shakespeare, no Bacon, no Swinburne in America
where, according to population and wealth there
should be dozens.
There flashed on me the realization of the truth,
that just because wealth was easy to get here, it
exercised an incomparable attraction and in its pur-
suit "perished a thousand, thousand" gifted spirits
who might have steered humanity to new and nobler
accomplishment.
The question imposed itself: "Was I too to sink
to fatness! wallow in sensuality, degrade myself for
a nerve-thrill V J
"No!" I cried to myself, "ten thousand times, no!
No! I'll go and seek the star-lit deserts of Truth or
die on the way!"
I closed the book and with it and the second
volume of it in my hand went to Mrs. Trask.
"I want to buy this book", I said, "it has a mes-
sage for me that I must never forget!"
"I'm glad", said the little lady smiling, "what
is it?"
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 297
I read her a part of the passage: "I see", she
exclaimed, "but why do you want the books 1"
"I want to take them with me", I said, "I mean to
leave Lawrence at once and go to Germany to study!"
"Good gracious!" she cried, "how can you do that?
I thought you were a partner of Sommerf eld's; you
can't go at once!"
"I must", I said, "the ground burns under my
feet: if I don't go now, I shall never go: I'll be out
of Lawrence tomorrow!"
Mrs. Trask threw up her hands and remonstrated
with me: such quick decisions were dangerous; "why
should I be in such a hurry!"
I repeated time and again: "If I don't go at once,
I shall never go: 'the ignoble pleasures' will grow
sweeter and sweeter to me and I shall sink gradually
and drown in the mud-honey of life."
Finally seeing I was adamant and my mind fixed :
she sold me the books at full price with some demur,
then she added:
"I almost wish I had never recommended Emer-
son to you!" and the dear lady looked distressed,
almost on the verge of tears.
"Never regret that!" I cried, "I shall remember
you as long as I live because of that and always be
grateful to you. Professor Smith told me I ought to
go; but it needed the word of Emerson to give me
the last push! The buds of poetry and science and
art shall not perish in me as they have 'perished
already in a thousand, thousand men!' Thanks to
you!" I added warmly, "all my best heart-thanks;
you have been to me the messenger of high fortune."
I clasped her hands, wished to kiss her, but
foolishly feared to hurt her and so contented myself
with a long kiss on her hand and went out at once to
find Sommerfeld.
298 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
He was in the office and forthwith I told him the
whole story, how Smith had tried to persuade me and
how I had resisted till this page of Emerson had
convinced me: "I am sorry to leave you in the lurch,"
I explained; but "I must go and go at once".
He told me it was madness : I could study German
right there in Lawrence; he would help me with it
gladly. "You mustn't throw away a livelihood just
for a word", he cried, "it is madness, I never heard
a more insane decision!"
We argued for hours: I couldn't convince him
any more than he could persuade me ; he tried his best
to get me to stay two years at any rate and then go
with full pockets: "you can easily spare two years",
he cried, but I retorted, "not even two days: I'm
frightened of myself."
When he found that I wanted the money to go
round the world with first, he saw a chance of delay
and said I must give him some time to find out what
was coming to me; I told him I trusted him utterly
(as indeed I did) and could only give him the Satur-
day and Sunday, for I'd go on the Monday at the
latest. He gave in at last and was very kind.
I got a dress and little hat for Lily and' lots of
books beside a chinchilla cape for Eose and broke
the news to Lily next morning, keeping the after-
noon for Eose. To my astonishment I had most
trouble with Lily: she would not hear any reason:
"There is no reason in it", she cried again and again,
and then she broke down in a storm of tears: "What
will become of met" she sobbed, "I always hoped you'd
marry me!" she confessed at last, "and now you go
away for nothing, nothing — on a wild-goose chase —
to study", she added in a tone of absolute disdain,
"just as if you couldn't study here!"
"I'm too young to marry, Lily," I said, "and — "
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 299
"You were not too young to make me love you'\
she broke in, "and now what shall I do? Even Mamma
said that we ought to be engaged and I want you so,
— oh! oh!" and again the tears fell in a shower.
I could not help saying at last that I would
think it all over and let her know and away I went
to Rose. Rose heard me out in complete silence and
then with her eyes on mine in lingering affection,
she said:
"Do you know, I've been afraid often of some
decision like this. I said to myself a dozen times,
'why should he stay here? the wider world calls him'
and if I feel inclined to hate my work because it
prevents my studying, what must it be for him in
that horrible court, fighting day after day? I always
knew I should lose you, dear!" she added, "but you
were the first to help me to think and read, so I must
not complain. Do you go soon?"
"On Monday," I replied, and her dear eyes grew
sombre and her lips quivered. "You'll write?" she
asked, "please do, Frank! No matter what happens
I shall never forget you: you've helped me, encourag-
ed me more than I can say. Did I tell you, I've got
a place in Crew's bookstore? When I said I had
learned to love books from you, he was glad and said
'if you get to know them as well as he did, or half as
well, you'll be invaluable'; so you see, I an following
in your footsteps, as you are following in Smith's."
"If you knew how glad I am that I've really help-
ed and not hurt you, Rose?" I said sadly, for Lily's
accusing voice was still in my ears.
"You couldn't hurt anyone," she exclaimed, almost
as if she divined my remorse, "you are so gentle and
kind and understanding".
Her words were balm to me and she walked with
me to the bridge where I told her she would hear
300 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
from me on the morrow. I wanted to know what she
would think of the books and cape. The last thing
I saw of her was her hand raised as if in benediction.
I kept the Sunday morning for Sommerfeld and
my friend Will Thompson and the rest of the day for
Sophy.
Sommerfeld came to the office before nine and
told me the firm owed me three thousand dollars: I
didn't wish to take it; could not believe he had meant
to go halves with me but he insisted and paid me.
"I don't agree with your sudden determination,"
he said, "perhaps because it was sudden; but I've no
doubt you'll do well at anything you take up. Let
me hear from you now and again and if you ever need
a friend, you know where to find me!"
As we shook hands I realised that parting could
be as painful as the tearing asunder of flesh.
Will Thompson, I found, was eager to take over
the hoardings and my position in Liberty Hall; he had
brought his father with him and after much bar-
gaining I conveyed everything I could, over to him
for three thousand five hundred dollars, and so after
four year's work I had just the money I had had in
Chicago four years earlier!
I dined in the Eldridge House and then went
back to the office to meet Sophy who was destined
to surprise me more even than Lily or Kose: "I'm
coming with you," she announced coolly, "if you're
not ashamed to have me along; you goin' Frisco, —
so far anyway — " she pleaded divining my surprise
and unwillingness.
"Of course, I'll be delighted," I said, "but — "
I simply could not refuse her.
She gurgled with joy and drew out her purse:
"I've four hundred dollars", she said proudly, "and
that '11 take this child a long way".
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 301
I made her put the money away and promise me
she wouldn't spend a cent of her money while we
were together and then I told her how I wished to
dress her when we got to Denver, for I wanted to
stop there for a couple of days to see Smith who had
written approving of everything I did and adding,
to my heart's joy, that he was much better.
On the Monday morning Sophy and I started
westwards: she had had the tact to go to the depot first
so that no one in Lawrence ever coupled our names.
Sommerfeld and Judge Bassett saw me off at the de-
pot and wished me "all luck!" And so the second
stage of my life came to an end.
Sophy was a lively sweet companion; after leaving
Topeka, she came boldly into my compartment and
did not leave me again. May I confess it? I'd rather
she had stayed in Lawrence; I wanted the adventure
of being alone and there was a girl in the train whose
long eyes held mine as I passed her seat, and I passed
it often: I'd have spoken to her if Sophy had not been
with me.
When we got to Denver, I called on Smith, leaving
Sophy in the hotel. I found him better, but divined
that the cursed disease was only taking breath, so to
speak, before the final assault. He came back with
me to my hotel and as soon as he saw Sophy, he de-
clared I must go back with him, he had forgotten to
give me something I must have. I smiled at Sophy
to whom Smith was very courteous-kind and accom-
panied him. As soon as we were in the street, Smith
began in horror:
"Frank, she's a colored girl: you must leave her
at once or you'll make dreadful trouble for yourself
later". "How did you know she was colored?" I
asked. "Look at her nails!" he cried, "and her eyes:
302 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
no Southerner would be in doubt for a moment. You
must leave her at once, please!"
"We are going to part at Frisco", I said. And
when he pressed me to send her back at once, I re-
fused. I would not put such shame upon her and
even now I'm sure I was right in that resolve.
Smith was sorry but kind to me and so we parted
forever.
He had done more for me than any other man
and now after fifty years I can only confess my in-
commensurable debt to him and the hot tears come
into my eyes now as they came when our hands met
for the last time : he was the dearest, sweetest, noblest
spirit of a man I have met in this earthly pilgrimage.
Ave atque vale.
As the time drew on to the day when the boat was
to start, Sophy grew thoughtful. I got her a pretty
corn-colored dress that set off her beauty as golden
sunlight a lovely woodland, and when she thanked
and hugged me, I wanted to put my hand up her
clothes for she had made a mischievous, naughty
remark that amused me and reminded me we had
driven all the previous day and I had not had her.
To my surprise she stopped me: "I've not washed
since we came in", she explained.
"Do you wash so often?" "Shuah," she replied,
fixing me.
"Why?" I asked, searching her regard.
"Because I'm afraid of nigger-smell," she flung
out passionately —
"What nonsense!" I exclaimed.
"Tain't either", she contradicted me angrily, "My
mother took me once to negro-church and I near
choked: I never went again; 1 just couldn't: when
they get hot, they stink — pah!" and she shook her
head and made a face in utter disgust and contempt.
\
LAW WORK AND SOPHY. 303
"That's why you goin' to leave me", she added
after a long pause, with tears in her voice; "if it
wasn't for that damned nigger blood in me, I'd never
leave you: I'd just go on with you as servant or
anything: ah God, how I love you and how lonely
this Topsy'll be!" and the tears ran down her quivering
face. "If I were only all white or all black," she
sobbed: "I'm so unhappy!" My heart bled for her.
If it had not been for the memory of Smith's
disdain, I would have given in and taken her with
me. As it was, I could only do my best to console
her by saying: "a couple of years, Sophy, and I'll re-
turn; they'll pass quickly: I'll write you often, dear!"
But Sophy knew better and when the last night
came, she surpassed herself. It was warm and we
went early to bed: "it's my night!" she said: "you
just let me show you, you dear! I don't want you
to go after any whitish girl in those Islands till you
get to China and you won't go with those yellow,
slit-eyed girls — that's why I love you so, because
you keep yourself for those you like: — but you're
naughty to like so many — ma man!" and she kissed
me with passion: she let me have her almost without
response, but after the first orgasm she gripped my
sex and milked me, and afterwards mounting me made
me thrill again and again till I was speechless and
like children we fell asleep in each other's arms,
weeping for the parting on the morrow.
I said "Good-bye!" at the hotel and went on
board the steamer by myself: my eyes set on the
Golden Gate into the great Pacific and the hopes
and hazards of the new life. At length I was to see
the world: what would I find in it? I had no idea then
that I should find little or much in exact measure to
what I brought and it is now the saddest part of
these Confessions that on this first trip round the
21
304 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
world, I was so untutored, so thoughtless that I got
practically nothing out of my long journeying.
Like Odysseus I saw many cities of men; but
scenes seldom enrich the spirit: yet one or two places
made a distinct impression on me, young and hard
though I was : Sidney Bay and Heights, Hong Kong,
too; but above all, the old Chinese gate leading into
the Chinese City of Shanghai so close to the European
town and so astonishingly different. Kioto, too, im-
printed itself on my memory and the Japanese men
and girls that ran naked out of their hot baths in
order to see whether I was really white all over.
But I learned nothing worth recalling till I came
to Table Bay and saw the long line of Table Moun-
tain four thousand feet above me, a cliff cutting the sky
with an incomparable effect of dignity and grandeur.
I stayed in Cape Town a month or so, and by good
luck I got to know Jan Hofmeyr there who taught me
what good fellows the Boers really were and how
highly the English Premier Gladstone was esteemed
for giving freedom to them after Majuba: "we
look on him with reverence" said my friend,
Hofmeyr, "as the embodied conscience of England";
but alas! England could not stomach Majuba and
had to spend blood and treasure later to demonstrate
the manhood of the Boers to the world. But thank
God, England then gave freedom and self-government
again to South Africa and so atoned for her shame-
ful "Concentration Camps". Thanks to Jan Hofmeyr
I got to know and esteem the South African Boer
even on this first short acquaintance.
When I went round the world for the second time
twenty years later, I tried to find the Hofmeyrs of
every country and so learned all manner of things
worthful and strange that I shall tell of, I hope, at
the end of my next volume. For the only short cut to
LAW WORK AND SOPHY 305
knowledge is through intercourse with wise and
gifted men.
Now I must confess something of my first six
months of madness and pleasure in Paris and then
speak of England again and Thomas Carlyle and Ms
incomparable influence upon me and so lead you,
gentle render, to my, later prentice years in Germany
and Greece.
There in Athens I learned new sex-secrets which
may perchance interest even the Philistines though
they can be learned in Paris as well, and will be set
forth simply in the second volume of these
"Confessions", which will tell the whole "art of love"
as understood in Europe and perhaps contain my
second voyage round the world and the further
instruction in the great art which I received from the
Adepts of the East — unimaginable refinements, for
they have studied the body as deeply as the soul.
21*
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES.
Chapter XV.
T returned to Europe touching at Bombay and
* getting just a whiff of the intoxicating perfume of
that wonder-land with its noble, though sad, spiri-
tual teaching which is now beginning through the
Rig Veda to inform the best European thought.
I stopped too at Alexandria and ran up to Cairo
for a week to see the great Mosques: I admired their
splendid rhetoric; but fell in love with the desert
and its Pyramids and above all with the Sphinx and
her eternal questioning of sense and outward things.
Thus by easy, memorable stages that included Genoa
and Florence and their storied palaces and churches
and galleries, I came at length to Paris.
I distrust first impressions of great places or
events or men. Who could describe the deathless
fascination of the mere name and first view of Paris
to the young student or artist of another race! If
he has read and thought, he will be in a fever; tears
in his eyes, heart thrilling with joyful expectancy,
he will wander into that world of wonders!
I got to the station early one summer morning
and sent my baggage at once by fiacre to the Hotel
Meurice in the rue Rivoli; the same old hotel that
Lever the novelist had praised, and then I got into
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 307
a little Victoria and drove to the Place de la Bastille.
The obvious cafe life of the people did not appeal to
me; but when I saw the Glory springing from tin*
Column of July, tears flooded my eyes, for T re-
called Carlyle's description of the taking of the prison.
1 paid the eocher and wandered up the rue Rivoli,
past the Louvre, past the blackened walls with the
sightless windows of the Tuileries palace — a regret
in their desolate appeal, and so to the Place de la
Grevo with its memories of the guillotine and the
great revolution, now merged in the Place de la Con-
corde. Just opposite I could distinguish the gilt dome
of the Church of the Invalides where the body of
Napoleon lies as he desired: "On the banks of the
Seine, in the midst of that French people 1 have loved
so passionately!"
And there were the horses of Marly ramping at
the entrance to the Champs Elysees and at the far
end of the long hill, the Arch! The words came to
my lips:
Up the long dim road where thundered
The army of Italy onward
By the great pale arch of the Star.
It was the deep historic sense of this great people
that first won me and their loving admiration of
their poets and artists and guides. I can never
describe the thrill it gave me to find on a small house
a marble plaque recording the fact that poor de Mxis
set had once lived there, and another on the house
wherein he died. Oh, how right the French are to
have a Place Malherbe, and Avenue Victor Hugo, an
Avenue de la Grande Armee too, and an Avenue de
L'Imperatrice as well, though it has since been chan-
ged prosaically into the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne.
From the Place de la Concorde I crossed the
Seine and walked down the quays to the left, and
308 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
soon passed the Conciergerie and Ste Chapelle with
its gorgeous painted glass- windows of a thousand
years ago and there before me on the He de la Cite.
Lie twin towers of Notre Dame caught my eyes and
breath and finally, early in the afternoon T turned
up the Boul' Mich and passed the Sorbonne and then
somehow or other lost myself in the old rue St.
Jacques that Dumas pere and other romance-writers
had described for me a thousand times.
I little tired at length having left the Luxem-
burg gardens far behind with their statues which T
promised myself soon to study more closely, I turned
into a little wine-shop restaurant kept by a portly
and pleasant lady whose name I soon learned was
Marguerite. After a most excellent meal I engaged
a large room on the first floor looking on the street,
for forty francs a month, and if a friend came to live
with me, why Marguerite promised with a large smile
io put in another bed for an additional ten francs
monthly and supply us besides with coffee in the
morning and whatever meals we wanted at most rea-
sonable prices: there I lived gaudy, golden days for
some three heavenly weeks.
I threw myself on French like a glutton and this
was my method, which I don't recommend but simply
record, though it brought me to understand every-
thing said by the end of the first week. I first spent
five whole days on the grammar, learning all the verbs,
especially the auxiliary and irregular verbs by heart,
till I knew them as I knew my Alphabet. I then read
Hugo's Hernani with a dictionary in another long day
of eighteen hours and the next evening went to the
gallery in the Comedie Francaise to see the play
acted by Sarah Bernhardt as Doha Sol and Mounet
Sully as Hernani. For a while the rapid speech and
strange accent puzzled me; but after the first act I
EUROPE AND THE OARLYLES. 309
began to understand what was said on the stage and
after the second act I caught every word and to my
delight when I came out into the streets, I understood
everything said to me After that golden night with
Sarah's grave, traiaante voire in my ears, I made
rapid because unconscious progress.
Next day in the restaurant I picked up a dirty
toj'u copy of Madame Bo vary that lacked the first
eighty pages. I took it to my room and swallowed
it in a couple of breathless hours, realising at once
that it was a masterwork; but marking a hundred
and fifty new words to turn out in my pocket diction-
ary afterwards. I learned these words carefully by
heart and have never given myself any trouble about
French since.
What I know of it and J know it fairly well now,
has come from reading and speaking it for thirty odd
years. I still make mistakes in it chiefly of gender.
1 regret to say, and my accent is that of a foreigner,
but taking it by and large I know it and its literature
and speak it better than most foreigners and that suf-
fices me.
After some three weeks Ned Bancroft came from
the States to live with me. He was never particu-
larly sympathetic to me and I cannot account for our
companionship save by the fact that I was peculi-
arly heedless and full of human, unreflecting kind-
ness. I have said little of Ned Bancroft who was in
love with Kate Stevens before she fell for Professoi
Smith; but 1 have just recorded the unselfish way
he withdrew while keeping intact his friendship
both for Smith ami the girl: I thought that very
fine of him.
He left Lawrence and the University shortly after
we first met and by "pull" obtained a good position
on the railroad at Columbus, Ohio.
310 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
He was always writing to me to come to visit him
and on my return from Philadelphia, in 1875 I think,
T stopped at Columbus and spent a couple of days
with him. As soon as he heard that I had gone to
Europe and had reached Paris, he wrote to me that
he wished I had asked him to come with me and so
I wrote setting forth my purpose and at once he threw
up his good prospects of riches and honor and came
to me in Paris. We lived together for some six months :
he was a tall, strong fellow, with pale face and gray
eyes; a good student, an honorable, kindly, very in-
telligent man; but we envisaged life from totally
different sides and the longer we were together, the
less we understood each other.
In everything we were antipodes; he should have
been an Englishman for he was a born aristocrat with
imperious, expensive tastes, while I had really become
a Western American, careless of dress or food or pos-
ition, intent only on acquiring knowledge and, if
possible, wisdom in order to reach greatness.
The first evening we dined at Marguerite's and
spent the night talking and swapping news. The very
next afternoon Ned would go into Paris and we dined
in a swell restaurant on the Grand Boulevard. A
few tables away a tall, splendid-looking brunette of
perhaps thirty was dining with two men: I soon saw
that Ned and she were exchanging looks and making
signs. He told me he intended to go home with
her: I remonstrated but he was as obstinate as Charlie,
and when I told him of the risks he said he'd never
do it again; but this time he couldn't get out of it.
"I'll pay the bill at once", I said, "and let's go!" but
he would not, desire was alight in him and a feeling
of false shame hindered him from taking my advice.
Half an hour later the lady made a sign and he went
out with the party and when she entered her Vic-
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 311
toria, lie got in with her; the pair on the sidewalk,
he said, bursting into laughter as he and the womn:;
drove away together.
Next morning he was back with me early, only
saying that he had enjoyed himself hugely and was
not even afraid. Her rooms were lovely, he declared;
he had to give her a hundred francs: the bath and
toilette arrangements were those of a queen: there
was no danger. And he treated me to as wild a
theory as Charlie had cherished: told me that the
great cocottes who make heaps of money took as
much care of themselves as gentlemen. "Go with a
common prostitute and you'll catch something; go
with a real topnotcher and she's sure to be all right!'
And perfectly at ease he went to work with a will.
Bancroft's way of learning French even was to-
tally different from mine: he went at the grammar
and syntax and mastered them: he could write excel-
lent French at the end of four months; but spoke it
very haltingly and with a ferocious American accent.
When I told him I was going to hear Taine lecture
on the Philosophy of Art and the Ideal in Art, he
laughed at me; but I believe I got more from Taine
than he got from his more exact knowledge of French.
When I came to know Taine and was able to call on
him and talk to him, Bancroft too wanted to know
him. 1 brought them together; but clearly Taine was
not impressed, for Ned out of false shame hardly
opened his mouth. But I learned a good deal from
Taine and one illustration of his abides with me as
giving a true and vivid conception of art and its ideal.
In a lecture he pointed out to his students that a lion
was not a running beast; but a great jaw set on four
powerful springs of short, massive legs. The artist,
he went on, seizing the idea of the animal may
exaggerate the size and strength of the jaw a little,
312 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
emphasize too the springing power in his loins and
legs and the tearing strength of his front paws and
claws; but if he lengthened his legs or diminished his
jaw, he would denaturalize the true idea of the beast
and would produce an abortion. The ideal, however,
should only be indicated. Taine's talks, too, on litera-
ture and the importance of the environment even on
great men, all made a profound impression on me.
After listening to him for some time I began to see
my way up more clearly. T shall never forget, too,
some of his thought-inspiring words. Talking one
day of the convent of Monte Casino, where a hundred
generations of students, freed from all the sordid
cares of existence, had given night and day to study
and thought and had preserved besides the priceless
manuscripts of long past ages and so paved the way
for a Renascence of learning and thought, he added
gravely :
"I wonder whether Science will ever do as much
for her votaries as Religion has done for hers: in
other words, I wonder will there ever be a laic Monte
( Visino!"
Taine was a great teacher and I owe him much
kindly encouragement and even enlightenment.
I add this last word, because his French freedom
of speech came as pure spring water to my thirsty
soul. A dozen of us were grouped about him one day,
talking when one student with a remarkable gift for
vague thought and highfalutin' rhetoric, wanted to
know what Taine thought of the idea that all the
worlds and planets and solar systems were turning
round one axis and moving to some divine fulfillment
(acconiplissement). Taine, who always disliked windy
rhetoric, remarked quietly: "The only axis in my
knowledge round which everything moves to some
accomplishment is a woman's cunt (le con d'une
EUROPE AND THE OARLYLES. 313
femme). r They laughed, but not as if the hold word
had astonished them. He used it when it was needed,
as I have often heard Anatole France use it since.
and no one thought anything of it.
In spite of the gorgeous installation of his bru-
nette, Ned at the end of a week found out how-
Messed are those described in Holy Writ, who fished
all night and caught nothing. He had caught a dread-
ful gonorrhea and was forbidden spirits or wine or
coffee till he got well. Exercise, too, was only to be
In ken in small doses, so it happened that when 1 went
out, he had to stay at home and the outlook on the rue
St. Jacques was anything but exhilarating. This nat-
urally increased Ids desire to get about and see
things, and as soon as he began to understand spoken
French and to speak it a little, he chafed against the
confinement and a room without a bath; he longed for
the centre, ['or the opera and the Boulevards, and
nothing would do but we should take rooms in the
heart of Paris: he would borrow money from his folks,
lie said.
Like a fool ! was willing and so we took rooms
one day in a quiet street just behind the Madeleine,
at ten times the price we were paying Marguerite. I
soon found that my money Avas melting; but the life
was very pleasant. We often drove in the Bois, went
Frequently to the Opera, the theatres and music-halls
c\\\(\ appraised; too, the great restaurants, the Cafe
Anglais and the Trois Fibres as if we had been
millionaires.
As luck would have it, Ned's venereal disease and
the doctors became a heavy additional expense that I
could ill afford. Suddenly one day I realised that I
had onlv six hundred dollars in the bank: at once 1
made up my mind to stop and make a fresh start.
I told mv resolution to Bancroft: he asked me to wait:
314 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"lie had written to his people for money", he said, "he
would soon pay his debt to me'' ; but that wasn't what
I wanted: I felt that I had got off the right road be-
cause of Mm and was angry with myself for having
wasted my substance in profligate living and worst
of all in silly luxury and brainless showing off.
I declared I was ill and was going to England at
once; I must make a new start and accumulate some
more money and a few mornings later I bade Bancroft
"Good-bye" and crossed the Channel and went on to
my sister and father in Tenby, arriving there in a
severe shivering lit with a bad headache and every
symptom of ague.
I was indeed ill and played out: I had taken
double doses of life and literature, had swallowed all
the chief French writers from Rabelais and Montaigne
to Flaubert, Zola and Balzac, passing by Pascal and
Vauvenargues, Renan and Hugo, a glutton's feast for
six months. Then, too, I had nosed out this artist's
studio and that; had spent hours watching Rodin at
work and more hours comparing this painter's model
with that: these breasts and hips with those.
My love of plastic beauty nearly brought me to
grief at least once and perhaps I had better record the
incident, though it rather hurt my vanity at the time.
One day I called at Manet's old studio which was
rented now by an American painter named Alexan-
der. He had real power as a craftsman but only a mo-
derate brain and was always trying by beauty or
something remarkable in his model to make up for
his own want of originality. On this visit I noticed
an extraordinary sketch of a young girl standing
where childhood and womanhood meet: she had cut
her hail* short and her chestnut-dark eyes lent her a
startling distinction.
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 315
"You like it?" asked Alexander. "She has the
most perfect figure I have ever seen!"
"I like it", I replied; "I wonder whether the magic
is in the model or in your brush?" "You'll soon see",
he retorted, a little piqued, "she's due here already"
and almost as he spoke she came in with quick, alert
step. She was below medium height; but evidently
already a woman. Without a word she went behind
the screens to undress, when Alexander said: "Well?"
I had to think a moment or two before answering.
"God and you have conspired together!" I ex-
claimed, and indeed his brush had surpassed itself.
He had caught and rendered a childish innocence in
expression that I had not remarked and he had blocked
in the features with superb brio:
"It is your best work to date", I went on, "and
almost anyone would have signed it."
At this moment the model emerged with a sheet
about her and probably because of my praise Alexan-
der introduced me to Mile. Jeanne and said I was a
distinguished American writer. She nodded to me
saucily, flashing white teeth at me, mounted the
estrade, threw off the sheet and took up her pose —
all in a moment. I was carried off my feet; the more
I looked, the more perfections I discovered. For the
first time I saw a figure that I could find no fault
with. Needless to say I told her so in my best French
with a hundred similes. Alexander also I conciliated
by begging him to do no more to the sketch but sell
it to me and do another. Finally he took four hundred
and fifty francs for it and in an hour had made
another sketch.
My purchase had convinced Mile. Jeanne that
I was a young millionaire and when I asked her if I
might accompany her to her home, she consented more
than readily. As a matter of fact, I took her for a
316 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
drive in the Bois de Boulogne and from there to
dinner in a private room at the Cafe Anglais. During
the meal I had got to like her: she lived with her
mother, Alexander had told me; though by no means
prudish, still less virginal, she was not a coureuse.
I thought I might risk connection; but when I got
her to take off her clothes and began to caress her sex,
she drew away and said quite as a matter of course:
"Why not faire minette?"
When I asked her what she meant, she told me
frankly: "We women do not get excited in a moment
as you men do; why not kiss and tongue me there
for a few minutes, then I shall have enjoyed
myself and shall be ready "
I'm afraid I made rather a face for she remarked
coolly: "Just as you like, you know. I prefer
in a meal tho hors d'oeuvres to the piece de resistance
like a good many other women : indeed I often content
myself with the hors d'oeuvres and don't take
any more. Surely you understand that a woman
goes on getting more and more excited for an hour
or two and no man is capable of bringing her to the
highest pitch of enjoyment while pleasing himself."
"I'm able", I said stubbornly, "I can go on all
night if you please me, so we should skip appetizers."
"No, no!" she replied, laughing, "let us have a
banquet then, but begin with lips and tongue!"
The delay, the bandying to and fro of argument
and above all, the idea of kissing and tonguing her
sex, had brought me to coolness and reason. Was
I not just as foolish as Bancroft if I yielded to her-
an unknown girl.
I replied finally, "No, little lady, your charms are
not for me", and I took my seat again at the table and
poured myself out some wine. I had the ordinary
American or English youth's repugnance to what
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 317
seemed like degradation, never guessing that Jeanne
was giving me the second lesson in the noble art of
seduction, of which my sister had taught me long ago
the rudiments.
The next time I was offered minette,! had
grown wiser and made no scruples ; but that's another
story. The fact is that in my first visit to Paris I
kept perfectly chaste, thanks in part to the example of
Ned's blunder; thanks, too, to my dislike of going
with any girl sexually whom I didn't really care for,
and I didn't care for Jeanne: she was too imperious
and imperiousness in a girl is the quality I most dis-
like, perhaps because I suffer from an overdose of the
humor. At any rate, it was not sexual indulgence
that broke my health in Paris; but my passionate
desire to learn that had cut down my hours of sleep
and exasperated my nerves: I took cold and had a
dreadful recurrence of malaria. I wanted rest and
time to take breath and think.
The little house in a side-street in the lovelv
Welsh watering-place was exactly the haven of rest
I needed. I soon got well and strong and for the
first time learned to know my father. He came for
long walks with me, though he was over sixty. After
his terrible accident seven years before (he slipped
and fell thirty feet into a drydock while his ship was
being repaired), one side of his hair and moustache
had turned white while the other remained jet black. I
was astonished first by his vigor: he thought nothing
of a ten-mile walk and on one of our excursions I
asked him why he had not given me the nomination
I wanted as midshipman.
He was curiously silent and waved the subject
aside with: "The Navy for yout No!" and he shook
his head. A few days afterwards, however, he came
back to the subject of his own accord.
318 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
"You asked me", he began, "why I didn't send you
the nomination for the midshipman's examination.
Now I'll tell you. To get on in the British Navy and
make a career in it, you should either be well-born
or well-off: you were neither. For a youth without
position or money, there are only two possible roads
up: servility or silence, and you were incapable of
both."
"Oh, Governor, how true and how wise of you!"
1 cried, "but why, why didn't you tell met I'd have
understood then as well as now and thought the more
of you for thwarting me."
"You forget", he went on, "that I had trained
myself in the other road of silence: it is difficult for
me even now to express myself", and he went on with
bitterness in voice and accent:
"They drove me to silence: if you knew what 1
endured before I got my first step as lieutenant. If it
hadn't been that I was determined to marry your
mother, I could never have swallowed the countless
humiliations of my brainless superiors! What would
have happened to you I saw as in a glass. You were
extraordinarily quick, impulsive and high- tempered:
don't you know that brains and energy and will-
power are hated by all the wastrels and in this world
they are everywhere in the vast majority. Some lieu-
tenant or captain would have taken an instantaneous
dislike to you that would have grown on every mani-
festation of your superiority: he would have laid traps
for you of insubordination and insolence probably for
months and then in some port where he was powerful,
he would have brought you before a courtmartial and
you would have been dismissed from the Navy in
disgrace anad perhaps your whole life ruined. The
British Navy is the worst place in the world for
genius."
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 319
That scene began my reconciliation with my
father; one more experience completed it.
I got wet through on one of our walks and next
day had lumbago; I went to a pleasant Welsh doctor
I had become acquainted with and he gave me a bottle
of belladonna mixture for external use: "I have not got
a proper poison bottle", he added, "and I've no busi-
ness to give you this" (it is forbidden to dispense
poisons in Great Britain save in rough octagonal bott-
les which betray the nature of their contents to the
touch). "I'll not drink it", I said laughing. "Well,
if you do", he said, "don't send for me, for there's more
than enough here to kill a dozen men!" I took the
bottle and curiously enough, we talked belladonna and
its effects for some minutes. Richards, (that was his
name) promised to send me a black draught the same
evening and he assured me that my lumbago would
soon be cured and he was right: but the cure was not
effected as he thought it would be.
My sister had a girl of all work at this time called
Eliza, Eliza Gibby, if I remember rightly. Lizzie, as
we called her, was a slight, red-haired girl of perhaps
eighteen with really large chestnut-brown eyes and a
cheeky pug nose, and freckled neck and arms. I really
don't know what induced me first to make up to her;
but soon I was kissing her; when I wanted to touch
her sex however, she drew away confiding to me that
she was afraid of the possible consequences. I ex-
plained to her immediately that I would withdraw
after the first spasm, and then there would be no
more risk. She trusted me and one night she came to
my room in her night-dress. I took it off with many
kisses and was really astounded by her ivory white
skin and almost perfect girlish form. I laid her on
the edge of my bed, put her knees comfortably under
my arm-pits and began to rub her clitoris: in a
22
320 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
moment the brown eyes turned up and I ventured to
slip in the head of my sex; to my surprise there was
no maidenhead to break through and soon my sex had
slipt into the tightest cunt I had ever met. Very
soon I played Onan and like that Biblical hero "spilt
my seed upon the ground" — which in my case was
a carpet.
I then got into bed with her and practiced the
whole art of love as I understood it at that time. A
couple of hours of it brought me four or five orgasms
and Lizzie a couple of dozen, to judge by hurried
breathings, inarticulate cries and long kissings that
soon became mouthings.
Lizzie was what most men would have thought a
perfect bedfellow; but I missed Sophy's science and
Sophy's passionate determination to give me the ut-
most thrill conceivable. Still in a dozen pleasant
nights we became great friends and I began to notice
that by working in and out very slowly I could after
the first orgasm go on indefinitely without spending
again. Alas! I had no idea at the time that this
control simply marked the first decrease of my sexual
power. If I had only known, I would have cut out
all the Lizzies that infested my life and reserved my-
self for the love that was soon to oust the mere sex-
urge.
Next door to us lived a doctor's widow with two
daughters, the eldest a medium-sized girl with large
head and good grey eyes, hardly to be called pretty
though all girls were pretty enough to excite me for
the next ten years or more. This eldest girl was called
Molly — a pet name for Maria. Her sister Kathleen
was far more attractive physically: she was rather
tall and slight, with a lithe grace of figure that was
intensely provocative. Yet though I noted all Kath-
leen's feline witchery, I fell prone for Molly. She
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 321
seemed to me both intelligent and witty: she had read
widely too and knew both French and German; she
was as far above all the American girls I had met in
knowledge of books and art as she was inferior to
the best of them in bodily beauty. For the first time
my mind was excited and interested and I thought J
was in love and one late afternoon or early evening
on Castle Hill I told her I loved her and we oecame
engaged. Oh, the sweet folly of it all! When she
asked me how we should live, what I intended to do,
I had no answer ready save the perfect self-confidence
of the man who had already proved himself in the
struggle of life. Fortunately for me, that didn't seem
very convincing to her: she admitted that she was
three years older than I was and if she had said four,
she would have been nearer the truth, and she was
quite certain I would not find it so easy to win in
England as in America: she underrated both my
brains and my strength of will. She confided to me
that she had a hundred a year of her own: but that,
of course, was wholly inadequate. So though she
kissed me freely and allowed me a score of little pri-
vacies, she was resolved not to give herself completely.
Her distrust of my ability and her delightfully
piquant reserve heightened my passion and once 1
won her consent to an immediate marriage. At her
best Molly was astonishingly intelligent and frank.
One night alone together in our sitting-room which my
father and sister left to us, I tried my best to get her
to give herself to me. But she shook her head: "it
would not be right, dear, till we are married", she
persisted.
"Suppose we were on a desert island", I said,
"and no marriage possible?" "My darling!" she said
kissing me on the mouth and laughing aloud, "don't
you know, I should yield then without your urging:
22*
322 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
you dear! I want you, Sir, perhaps more than you
want me." But she wore closed drawers and I didn't
know how to unbutton them at the sides and though
she grew intensely and quickly excited, I could not
break down the final barrier. In any case, before 1
could win, Fate used her shears decisively.
One morning I reproached Lizzie for not bringing
me up a black draught Doctor Eichards had promised
to send me. "It's on the mantle-piece in the dining-
room", I said, "but don't trouble, I'll get it myself",
and I ran down as I was. An evening or two later
I left the belladonna mixture the doctor had made
up for me on the chimney piece! Like the black
draught it was dark brown in color and in a similar
bottle.
Next morning Lizzie woke me and offered me a
glassful of dark liquid: "Your medicine" she said and
half asleep still, I told her to leave the breakfast tray
on the table by my bed and then drained the glass
she offered to me. The taste awoke me: the drink had
made my whole mouth and throat dry: I sprang out
of bed and went to the looking-glass, yes! yes! the
pupils of my eyes were unnaturally distended: had
she given me the whole draught of belladonna instead
of a black draught? I still heard her on the stairs but
why waste time in asking her. I went over to the
table, poured out cup after cup of tea and draine^d
them: then I ran down to the dining-room where my
sister and father were at breakfast. I poured out
their tea and drank cups full of it in silence: then I
asked my sister to get me mustard and warm water
and met my father's question with a brief explanation
and request. "Go to Dr. Richards and tell him to
come at once: I'we drunk the belladonna mixture by
mistake; there's no time to lose." My father was
already out of the house! My sister brought me the
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 323
mustard and I mixed a strong dose with hot water
and took it as an emetic; but it didn't work. I went
upstairs to my bedroom again and put my fingers
down my throat over the bath: I retched and retched
but nothing came: plainly the stomach was paralysed.
My sister came in crying. "I'm afraid there's no hope,
Nita", I said, "the Doctor told me there was enough
to kill a dozen men and I've drunk it all fasting; but
you've always been good and kind to me, dear, and
death is nothing."
She was sobbing terribly, so to give her something
to do, I asked her to fetch me a kettle full of hot
water; she vanished downstairs to get it and I stood
before the glass to make up my accounts with my own
soul. I knew now it was the belladonna I had taken,
all of it on an empty stomach: no chance; in ten
minutes I should be insensible, in a few hours dead:
dead! was I afraid? I recognized with pride that I
was not one whit afraid or in any doubt. Death is
nothing but an eternal sleep, nothing! Yet I wished
that I could have had time to prove myself and show
what was in me! Was Smith right! Could I indeed
have become one of the best heads in the world?
Could I have been with the really great ones had I
lived? No one could tell now but I made up my mind
as at the time of the rattle-snake bite, to do my best
to live. All this time I was drinking cold water: now
my sister brought the jug of warm water, saying, "It
may make you throw up, dear" and I began drinking
it in long draughts. Bit by bit I felt it more difficult
to think, so I kissed my sister, saying, "I had better
get into bed while I can walk, as I'm rather heavy!"
And then as I got into bed I said, "I wonder whether
I shall be carried out next feet-foremost while they
chant the Miserere! Never mind, I've had a great
draught of life and I'm ready to go if go I must!"
324 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
At this moment Dr. Richards came in: "Now how,
how in Goodness' name, man, after our talk and all,
how did ye come to take it?" His fussiness and
strong Welsh accent made me laugh: "give me the
stomach pump, doctor, for I'm full of liquid to the
gullet", I cried. I took the tube and pushed it down,
sitting up in bed, and he depressed it; but only a
brownish stream came: I had absorbed most of the
belladonna. That was nearly my last conscious thought,
only in myself I determined to keep thinking as long
as I could. I heard the Doctor say: "I'll give him
opium — a large dose", and I smiled to myself at the
thought that the narcotic opium and the stimulant
belladonna would alike induce unconsciousness, the
one by exciting the heart's action, the other by
slackening it
Many hours afterwards I awoke: it was night,
candles were burning and Dr. Richards was leaning
over me: "do you know mel" he asked and at once
I answered: "Of course I know you, Richards", and I
went on jubilant to say: "I'm saved: I've won through.
Had I been going to die, I should never have recovered
consciousness." To my astonishment his brow wrink-
led and he said, "drink this and then go to sleep again
quietly: it's all right", and he held a glass of whitish
liquid to my lips. I drained the glass and said joy-
ously: "Milk! how funny you should give me milk;
that's not prescribed in any of your books." He told
me afterwards it was Castor-oil he had given me and
I had mistaken it for milk. I somehow felt that my
tongue was running away with me even before he laid
his hand on my forehead to quiet me saying: "There
please! don't talk, rest! please!" and I pretended to
obey him; but couldn't make out why he shut me up?
I could not recall my words either — why?
A dreadful thought shook me suddenly: had I
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 325
been talking nonsense! My father's face too appeared
to be dreadfully perturbed while I was speaking.
"Could one think sanely and yet talk like a mad-
man? What an appalling fate!" I resolved in that
case to use my revolver on myself as soon as I knew
that my state was hopeless: that thought gave me
peace and I turned at once to compose myself. In a
few minutes more I was fast asleep.
The next time I awoke, it was again night and
again the Doctor was beside me and my sister: "Do
you know me?" he asked again, and again I replied:
■"Of course I know you and Sis here as well."
"That's great", he cried joyously, "now you'll soon
be well again."
"Of course I shall", I cried joyously, "I told you
that before: but you seemed hurt; did I wander in
my mind?"
"There, there", he cried, "don't excite yourself and
you'll soon be well again!"
"Was it a near squeak!" I asked.
'You must know it was", he replied, "you took
sixty grains of belladonna fasting and the books give
at most quarter of a grain for a dose and declare one
grain to be generally fatal. I shall never be able to
brag of your case in the medical journals", he went on
smiling, "for no one would ever believe that a heart
could go on galloping far too fast to count, but cer-
tainly two hundred odd times a minute for thirty odd
hours without bursting. You've been tested", he
concluded, "as no one was ever tested before and have
come back safe! But now sleep again", he said, "sleep
is Nature's restorative."
Next morning I awoke rested but very weak: the
Doctor came in and sponged me in warm water and
changed my linen: my nightshirt and a great part
of the sheet were quite brown. "Can you make
326 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
water!" he asked, handing me a bed-dish: I tried and
at once succeeded.
"The wonder is complete!!" he cried, "I'll bet, you
have cured your lumbago too", and indeed I was com-
pletely free of pain.
That evening or the next my father and I had a
great, heart-to-heart talk. I told him all my ambitions
and he tried to persuade me to take one hundred
pounds a year from him to continue my studies. I told
him I couldn't, though I was just as grateful. "I'll get
work as soon as I am strong", I said; but his unselfish
affection shook my very soul and when he told me
that my sister, too, had agreed he should make me the
allowance, I could only shake my head and thank
him. That evening I went to bed early and he came
and sat with me: he said that the doctor advised that
I should take a long rest. Strange colored lights kept
sweeping across my sight every time I shut my eyes:
so I asked him to lie beside me and hold my hand. At
once he lay down beside me and with his hand in
mine, I soon fell asleep and slept like a log till seven
next morning. I awoke perfectly well and refreshed
and was shocked to see that my father's face was
strangely drawn and white and when he tried to get
off the bed, he nearly fell. I saw then that he had
lain all the night through on the brass edge of the
bed rather than risk disturbing me to give him more
room. From that time to the end of his noble and
unselfish life, some twenty-five years later, I had only
praise and admiration for him.
As soon as I began to take note of things, I
remarked that Lizzie no longer came near my room.
One day I asked my sister what had become of her.
To my astonishment my sister broke out in passionate
dislike of her: "while you were lying unconscious",
she cried, "and the doctor was taking your pulse every
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 327
few minutes, evidently frightened: he asked me could
he get a prescription made up at once: he wanted to
inject morphia, he said, to stop or check the racing
of your heart. He wrote the prescription and I sent
Lizzie with it and told her to be as quick as she could
for your life might depend on it. When she didn't
come back in ten minutes, I got the Doctor to write
it out again and sent Father with it. He brought it
back in double-quick time. Hours passed and Lizzie
didn't return: she had gone out before ten and didn't
get back till it was almost one. I asked her where
she had been? Why she hadn't got back sooner? She
replied coolly that she had been listening to the Band.
I was so shocked and angry I wouldn't keep her
another moment. I sent her away at once. Think of
it! I have no patience with such heartless brutes!"
Lizzie's callousness seemed to me even stranger
than it seemed to my sister. I have often noticed that
girls are less considerate of others than even boys,
unless their affections are engaged, but I certainly
thought I had half won Lizzie at least! However,
the fact is so peculiar that I insert it here for what
it may be worth.
During my convalescence which lasted three
months, Molly went for a visit to some friends : at the
time I regretted it; now looking back I have no
doubt she went away to free herself from an engage-
ment she thought ill-advised. Missing her I went
about with her younger, prettier sister Kathleen who
was more sensuous and more affectionate than Molly.
A little later, Molly went to Dresden to stay with
an elder married sister: thence she wrote to me to set
her free and I consented as a matter of course very
willingly. Indeed I had already more real affection
for Kathleen than Molly had ever called to life in me.
As I got strong again I came to know a young
328 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Oxford man who professed to be astonished at my
knowledge of literature and one day he came to me
with the news that Grant Allen, the writer, had thrown
up his job as Professor of Literature at Brighton
College: "why should you not apply for it: it's about
two hundred pounds a year and they can do no worse
than refuse you."
I wrote to Taine at once, telling him of the posi-
tion and my illness and asking him to send me a letter
of recommendation if he thought I was fit. By return
of post I got a letter from him recommending me in
the warmest way. This letter I sent on to Dr. Bigge,
the Headmaster, together with one from Professor
Smith of Lawrence and Dr. Bigge answered by asking
me to come to Brighton to see him. Within twenty-
four hours I went and was accepted forthwith, though
he thought I looked too young to keep discipline. He
soon realised that his fears were merely imaginary:
I could have kept order in a cage of hyenas.
A long book would not exhaust my year as a
Master in Brighton College; but only two or three
happenings require notice here as affecting my cha-
racter and its growth. First of all, I found in every
class of thirty lads, five or six of real ability, and in
the whole school three or four of astonishing minds,
well graced, too in manners and spirit. But six out
of ten were both stupid and obstinate and these I left
wholly to their own devices.
Dr. Bigge warned me by a report of my work ex-
hibited on the notice-board of the Sixth Form that
while some of my scholars displayed great improve-
ment, the vast majority showed none at all. I went to
see him immediately and handed him my written
resignation to take place at any moment he pleased.
"I cannot bother with the fools who don't even wish to
learn", I said, "but I'll do anything for the others."
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 329
Most of the abler boys liked me, I believe, and a
little characteristic incident came to help me. There
was a Form-master named Wolverton, an Oxford
man and son of a well-known Archdeacon, who some-
times went out with me to the theatre or the roller-
skating rink in West Street. One night at the rink
he drew my attention to a youth in a straw hat going
out accompanied by a woman.
"Look at that", said Wolverton, "there goes So
and So in our colors and with a woman! Did you see
him!"
"I didn't pay much attention", I replied, "but
surely there's nothing unusual in a Sixth Form boy
trying his wings outside the nest."
At the next Masters' Meeting, to my horror,
Wolverton related the circumstance and ended up by
declaring that unless the boy could give the name of
the woman, he should be expelled. He called upon me
as a witness to the fact.
I got up at once and said that I was far too short-
sighted to distinguish the boy at half the distance
and I refused to be used in the matter in any way.
Dr. Bigge thought the offence very grave: "the
morals of a boy", he declared, "were the most impor-
tant part of his education: the matter must be probed
to the bottom: he thought that on reflection I would
not deny that I had seen a College boy that night in
colors and in suspicious company.
I thereupon got up and freed my soul; the whole
crew seemed to me mere hypocrites.
"In the Doctor's own House", I said, "where I
take evening preparation, I could give him a list of
boys who are known as lovers, notorious even, and
so long as this vice is winked at throughout the
school, I shall be no party to persecuting anybody
for yielding to legitimate and natural passion." I
330 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
had hardly got out the last words when Cotteril, the
son of the Bishop of Edinburgh, got up and called
upon me to free his House from any such odious and
unbearable suspicion.
I retorted immediately that there was a pair in
his house known as "The Inseparables" and went on
to state that my quarrel was with the whole boarding-
house system and not with individual masters who,
I was fain to believe, did their best.
The Vice-principal, Dr. Newton, was the only
one who even recognized my good motives: he came
away from the meeting with me and advised me to
consult with his wife. After this I was practically
boycotted by the masters : I had dared to say in public
what Wolverton and others of them had admitted to
me in private a dozen times.
Mrs. Newton, the vice-principal's wife, was one
of the leaders of Brighton society: she was what the
French call une maitresse femme, and a born leader
in any society. She advised me to form girls' classes
in literature for the half -holidays each week; was good
enough to send out the circulars and lend her drawing-
room for my first lectures. In a week I had fifty
pupils who paid me half a crown a lesson and I soon
found myself drawing ten pounds a week in addition
to my pay. I saved every penny and thus came in a
year to monetary freedom.
At every crisis in my life I have been helped by
good friends who have aided me out of pure kindness
at cost of time and trouble to themselves. Smith
helped me in Lawrence and Mrs. Newton at Brighton
out of bountiful human sympathy.
Before this even I had got to know a man named
Harold Hamilton, manager of the London & County
Bank, I think, at Brighton. It amused him to see how
quickly and regularly my balance grew: soon I con-
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 331
fided my plans to him and my purpose: he was all
sympathy. I lent him books and his daughter Ada
was assiduous at all my lectures.
In the nick of time for me the war broke out
between Chili and Peru: Chilian bonds dropped from
90 to 60: I saw Hamilton and assured him that Chili
if left alone, could beat all South America: he advised
me to wait and see. A little later Bolivia threw in
her lot with Peru and Chilian bonds fell to 43 or 44.
At once I went to Hamilton and asked him to buy
Chilians for all I possessed on a margin of three or
four. After much talk he did what I wished on a
margin of ten: a fortnight later came the news of the
first Chilian victory and Chilians jumped to 60 odd
and continued to climb steadily: I sold at over 80 and
thus netted from my first five hundred pounds over
two thousand pounds and by Christmas was free once
more to study with a mind at case. Hamilton told me
that he had followed my lead a little later but had
made more from a larger investment.
The most important happening at Brighton I
must now relate. I have already told in a pen-
portrait of Carlyle published by Austin Harrison
in the "English Review" some twelve years ago how
I went one Sunday morning and called upon my
hero, Thomas Carlyle in Chelsea. T told there,
too, how on more than one Sunday I used
to meet him on his morning walk along the Chelsea
embankment, and how once at least he talked to me
of his wife and admitted his impotence.
I only gave a summary of a few talks in my
portrait of him; for the traits did not call for
strengthening by repetition; but here I am inclined
to add a few details, for everything about Carlyle at
his best, is of enduring interest!
When I told him how I had been affected by read-
332 MY LIFE) AND LOVES.
ing Emerson's speech to the students of Dartmouth
College and how it had in a way forced me to give up
my law-practice and go to Europe to study, he broke
in excitedly:
"I remember well reading that very page to my
wife and saying that nothing like it for pure nobility
had been heard since Schiller went silent. It had a
great power with it . . . And so that started you off
and changed your way of life? ... I don't wonder
it was a great Call."
After that Carlyle seemed to like me. At our final
parting too, when I was going to Germany to study
and he wished me "God speed and Goodspeed! on
the way that lies before ye", he spoke again of Emer-
son and the sorrow he had felt on parting with him,
deep, deep sorrow and regret, and he added, laying
his hands on my shoulders, "sorrowing most of all
that they should see his face no more forever." I
remembered the passage and cried:
"Oh, Sir, I should have said that, for mine is the
loss, mine the unspeakable misfortune now", and
through my tears I saw that his eyes too were full.
He had just given me a letter to Froude, "good,
kindly Froude", who, he was sure, would help me in
any way of commendation to some literary position
"if I have gone, as is most likely", and in due time
Froude did help me as I shall tell in the proper place.
My pen-portrait of Carlyle was ferociously at-
tacked by a kinsman, Alexander Carlyle, who evi-
dently believed that I had got my knowledge of Car-
lyle's weakness from Froude's revelations in 1904.
But luckily for me, Sir Charles Jessel remembered a
dinner in the Garrick Club given by him in 1886 or
1887, at which both Sir Richard Quain and myself
were present. Jessel recalled distinctly that I had
that evening told the story of Carlyle's impotence as
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 333
explaining the sadness of his married life and had
then asserted that the confession came to me from
Carlyle himself.
At that dinner Sir Richard Quain said that he
had been Mrs. Carlyle's physician and that he would
tell me later exactly what Mrs. Carlyle had confessed
to him. Here is Quain's account as he gave it me that
night in a private room at the Garrick. He said:
"I had been a friend of the Carlyles for years: he
was a hero to me, one of the wisest and best of men:
she was singularly witty and worldlywise and pleased
me even more than the sage. One evening I found her
in great pain on the sofa: when I asked her where
the pain was, she indicated her lower belly and I
guessed at once that it must be some trouble connected
with the change of life.
"I begged her to go up to her bedroom and I
would come in a quarter of an hour and examine her,
assuring her the while that I was sure I could give
her almost immediate relief. She went upstairs. In
about ten minutes I asked her husband, would he come
with me? He replied in his broadest Sootch accent,
always a sign of emotion with him:
'I'll have naething to do with it. Ye must just
arrange it yerselves'.
"Thereupon I went upstairs and knocked at Mrs.
Carlyle's bedroom door: no reply: I tried to enter:
the door was locked and unable to get an answer I
went downstairs in a huff and flung out of the house.
"I stayed away for a fortnight but when I went
back one evening I was horrified to see how ill Mrs.
Carlyle looked stretched out on the sofa, and as pale
as death. 'You're worse!' I asked.
'Much worse and weaker!' she replied.
'You naughty obstinate creature!' I cried.
'I'm your friend and your doctor and anything
334 MY LIFE AND LOVES.
but a fool: I'm sure I can cure you in double-quick
time and you prefer to suffer. It's stupid of you and
worse — Come up now at once and think of me only
as your doctor', and I half lifted, half helped her to
the door: I supported her up the stairs and at the
door of her room, she said:
'Give me ten minutes, Doctor, and I'll be ready.
I promise you I won't lock the door again.'
"With that assurance I waited and in ten minutes
knocked and went in.
"Mrs. Carlyle was lying on the bed with a woolly-
white shawl round her head and face. I thought it
absurd affectation in an old married woman, so I
resolved on drastic measures: I turned the light full
on, then I put my hand under her dress and with one
toss threw it right over her head. I pulled her legs
apart, dragged her to the edge of the bed and began
inserting the speculum in her vulva: I met an obstacle:
I looked — and immediately sprang up : 'Why, you're
a virgo intacta' (an untouched virgin!) I exclaimed.
She pulled the shawl from her head and said:
'What did you expect V
'Anything but that', I cried, 'in a woman married
these five and twenty years!'
"I soon found the cause of her trouble and cured
it or rather did away with it: that night she rested
well and was her old gay, mutinous self when I called
next day.
"A little later she told me her story.
"After the marriage", she said, "Carlyle was
strange and out of sorts, very nervous, he seemed,
and irritable. When we reached the house we had
supper and about eleven o'clock I said I would go to
bed, being rather tired: he nodded and grunted some-
thing. I put my hands on his shoulders as I passed
him and said "Dear, do you know that you haven't
\
V-.
\
EUROPE AND THE CARLYLES. 335
kissed me once, all day — this day of days!" and I
bent down and laid my cheek against his. He kissed
me; but said: "You, women are always kissing — I'll
be up soon!" Forced to be content with that I went
upstairs, undressed and got into bed: he hadn't even
kissed me of his own accord, the whole day!
"A little later he came up, undressed and got into
bed beside me. I expected him to take me in his arms
and kiss and caress me.
'"Nothing of the sort, he lay there, jiggling like',
("I guessed what she meant", said Quain, "the poor
devil in a blue funk was frigging himself to get a
cock-stand.") 'I thought for some time', Mrs. Carlyle
went on, 'one moment I wanted to kiss and caress him ;
the next moment I felt indignant. Suddenly it occur-
red to me that in all my hopes and imaginings of a
first night, I had never got near the reality: silent,
the man lay there jiggling, jiggling. Suddenly I
burst out laughing: it was all too wretched! too ab-
surd!'
" 'At once he got out of bed with the one scornful
word 'Woman!' and went into the next room: he
never came back to my bed.
"'Yet he's one of the best and noblest men in the
world and if he had been more expansive and told
me oftener that he loved me, I could easily have for-
given him any bodily weakness ; silence is love's worst
enemy and after all he never really made me jealous
save for a short time with Lady Ashburnham. I
suppose I've been as happy with him as I could have
been with anyone yet — '
"That's my story", said Quain in conclusion, "and
I make you a present of it: even in the Elysian Fields
I shall be content to be in the Carlyles' company. They
were a great pair! ,,
23
336
MY LIFE AND LOVES.
Just one scene more. When I told Carlyle how
1 had made some twenty-five hundred pounds in the
year and told him besides how a banker offered me
almost the certainty of a great fortune if I would
buy with him a certain coal-wharf at Tunbridge
Wells (it was Hamilton's pet scheme), he was greatly
astonished. "I want to know", I went on, "if you
think I'll be able to do good work in literature; if
so I'll do my best. Otherwise I ought to make money
and not waste time in making myself another second-
rate writer."
"No one can tell you that", said Carlyle slowly,
"You'll be lucky if you reach the knowledge of it
yourself before ye die! I thought my Frederic was
great work; yet the other day you said I had buried
him under the dozen volumes and you may be right;
but have I ever done anything that will live? — "
"Sure", I broke in, heartsore at my gibe, "Sure,
your French Revolution must live and the "Heroes
and Hero Worship", and "Latter Day Pamphlets"
and, and — "
"Enough", he cried, "You're sure?"
"Quite, quite sure", I repeated. Then he said,
"You can be equally sure of your own place; for we
can all reach the heights we are able to oversee."
AFTERWORD TO THE FIRST
VOLUME OF MY LIFE'S STORY.
T had hardly written "Finis" at the end of this book
when the faults in it, faults both of omission and
commission, rose in swarms and robbed me of my joy
in the work.
It will be six or seven years at least before I
shall know whether the book is good and life-worthy
or not and yet need drives me to publish it at once.
Did not Horace require nine years to judge his
work?
I, therefore, want the reader to know my inten-
tion; I want to give him the key, so to speak, to this
chamber of my soul.
First of all I wished to destroy or, at least, to
qualify the universal opinion that love in youth is
all romance and idealism. The masters all paint it
crowned with roses of illusion: Juliet is only fourteen:
Romeo, having lost his love, refuses life: Goethe
follows Shakespeare in his Mignon and Marguerite:
even the great humorist Heine and the so-called rea-
list, Balzac, adopt the same convention. Yet to me it
is absolutely untrue in regard to the male in boyhood
and early youth, say from thirteen to twenty: the sex-
urge, the lust of the flesh was so overwhelming in
me that I was conscious only of desire. When the
rattlesnake's poison-bag is full, he strikes at every-
thing that moves, even the blades of grass; the poor
brute is blinded and in pain with the overplus. In
my youth I was blind, too, through excess of semen.
I often say that I was thirty-five years of age
before I saw an ugly woman, a woman that is, whom
I didn't desire. In early puberty, all women tempted
me; and all girls still more poignantly.
From twenty to twenty-three, I began to distin-
guish qualities of the mind and heart and soul; to my
amazement, I preferred Kate to Lily, though Lily
gave me keener sensations : Rose excited me very little
yet I knew she was of rarer, finer quality than even
Sophy who seemed to me an unequalled bed-fellow.
From that time on the charms of spirit, heart and
soul, drew me with ever-increasing magnetism, over-
powering the pleasures of the senses though plastic
beauty exercises as much fascination over me to-day
as it did fifty years ago. I never knew the illusion of
love, the rose-mist of passion till I was twenty-seven
and I was intoxicated with it for years ; but that story
will be for my second volume.
Now strange to say, my loves till I left America
just taught me as much of the refinements of passion,
as is commonly known in these States.
France and Greece made me wise to all that
Europe has to teach; that deeper knowledge too is for
the second volume in which I shall relate how a
French girl surpassed Sophy's art as far as Sophy
surpassed Rose's ingenuous yielding.
But it was not till I was over forty and had made
my second journey round the world that I learned in
India and Burmah, all the high mysteries of sense and
the profounder artistry of the immemorial East. I
hope to tell it all in a third volume, together with my
vision of European and world-politics. Then I may
tell in a fourth volume of my breakdown in health
and how I won it back again and how I found a pearl
of women and learned from her what affection really
means, the treasures of tenderness, sweet-thoughted-
wisdom and self-abnegation that constitute the wo-
man's soul. Vergil may lead Dante through Hell and
Purgatory: it is Beatrice alone who can show him
Paradise and guide him to the Divine. Having learned
the wisdom of women — to absorb and not to reason
— having experienced the irresistible might of gentle-
ness and soul-subduing pity, I may tell of my begin-
nings in literature and art and how I won to the front
and worked with my peers and joyed in their achieve-
ments, always believing my own to be better. Withou;
this blessed conviction how could I ever have under-
gone the labor or endured the shame or faced the lone-
liness of the Garden, or carried the cross of my own
Crucifixion; for every artist's life begins in joy and
hope and ends in the shrouding shadows of doubt and
defeat and the chill of everlasting night.
In these books as in my life, there should be a
crescendo of interest and understanding: I shall win
the ears of men first and their senses, and later their
minds and hearts and finally their souls; for I shall
show them all the beautiful things 1 have discovered
in Life's pilgrimage, all the sweet and lovable things
too and so encourage and cheer them and those after-
comers, my peers, whose sounding footsteps already I
seem to hear, and I shall say as little as may be of
defeats and downfalls and disgraces save by way of
warning; for it is courage men need most in life,
courage and lovingkindness.
Is it not written in the book of Fate that he who
gives most receives most and do we not all, if we
would tell the truth, win more love than we give: Are
we not all debtors to the overflowing bounty of God?
Frank Harris.
The Catskills Mts., this 25th doy of August 1922.
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