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Title: My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4)

Author: Frank Harris

Release date: June 27, 2019 [eBook #59827]
Most recently updated: April 14, 2023

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LIFE AND
LOVES, VOL. 1 (OF 4) ***

MY LIFE AND LOVES
BY
FRANK HARRIS

MY LIFE AND LOVES
BY

FRANK HARRIS

PRAXITELES’ APHRODITE

PRIVATELY PRINTED

1922
ADDRESS THE AUTHOR, I. RUE DU HELDER: PARIS

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 prosecutions
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
(Pearson’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-Assistant Burleson, and was
laughed at when I asked for compensation. The American 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 “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 Shakespeare, 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 literature 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 and Reade in the world with
the influence of Balzac, Flaubert and Zola.
Foreign masterpieces such as “Les Contes Drolatiques” and
“L’Assommoir” were destroyed in London 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 stronger with advancing years.
In the “Foreword” to “The Man Shakespeare” I 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
preoccupation with all that pertains to passion and desire, it has become the
world literature to men of all races.
“Women and Love”, Edmond de Goncourt writes in his journal, “always
constitute the subject of conversation wherever there is a meeting of
intellectual people socially brought together by eating and drinking. Our
talk at dinner was at first smutty (polissonne) and Tourgueneff listened to us
with the open-mouthed wonder (l’étonnement un peu medusé) of a
barbarian who only makes love (fait l’amour) very naturally (très
naturellement).”
Whoever reads this passage carefully will understand 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 extended our understanding of the art of love. I remember going
with Rodin through the British Museum 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 forty years now I have
championed 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 there are many reasons why I should use
perfect freedom 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 beginning of the voyage when the danger is greatest,
the ‘unpath’d waters’.
On the other hand I have missed indescribable pleasures because the
power to enjoy and to give delight is keenest early in life, while the
understanding 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-barreled gun, and when he saw that I had
learned the mechanism and could be trusted, he gave me a double-barreled
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-barreled gun: after a few years, he took that away and gave me a
single-barreled gun with which I was forced to content myself 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 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 beneficent, as well as enjoyable.
W. L. George in “A Novelist on Novels” writes: “If a novelist were 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 characters. There would be as many scenes
in the bedroom 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. They 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 anything 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 predicted, and as every one
with vision must have foreseen 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 material wealth increased by leaps and bounds, our
conduct 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: progress 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.
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 imperatively 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 abominable 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 we have been assisting at the overthrow
of morality itself and returning to the ethics of the wolf and the polity of the
Thieves’ Kitchen.
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 displayed 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 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, maternal 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
gentleness 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, vulgarized and vilified the best instinct in us.
“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 function 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: Aristophanes and Rabelais are ribald, dirty:
Boccaccio cynical while Ovid leers cold-bloodedly and Zola like Chaucer
finds it difficult to suit language to his desires. 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 you will find the fairest figures of
ancient art clothed in painted tin, as if the most essential organs of the body
were disgusting 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 universally accepted tomorrow; 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 lovingkindness in a
new synthesis which shall include all the sweet and gentle and noble
impulses in us.

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 peculiar shortcomings.
Anglo-Saxon domineering combativeness 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
hypocrisies and falsehoods and see ourselves as we are—a domineering
race, vengeful and brutal, as exemplified 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 millions 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
subservient, while we are content to degrade the negro who doesn’t threaten
our domination.
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?
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 completely and harmoniously as possible; but it is a still
higher duty for each of us to develop our special faculty to the uttermost
consistent with health; for only by so doing shall we attain to the highest
self-consciousness 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 justifies 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 Venus 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.

M emory is the Mother of the Muses, the prototype of the Artist. As a rule
she selects and relieves out the important, omitting what is accidental
or trivial. 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 repeating 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. I 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, “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 I
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 why: 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 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 arithmetic, 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 to 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 with emotion 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
enthralled 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 perhaps touch them—breathless expectancy. I
knew I could hit my slate-pencil and make it roll up between the files of
legs. Next day I did this and crawled 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 frightened 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 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 reveals 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 me 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 noticed 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.
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 “mitch” 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 dinner, seldom indeed before seven o’clock,
when I knew Vernon would be back. I mention this incident because, 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 revealed 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, drawing 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 in
Carrickfergus; my brothers and sisters 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 we talked of Willie’s
talent. My eldest sister was enthusiastic, which I suppose stirred envy and
emulation 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 imitate 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. 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 manner 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 pronouncing Annie. She hated “Annie”—it was
“common and vulgar”; I couldn’t make out why.
One evening we were together and she had undressed 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 the 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 I 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.
“I don’t agree with you”, Aubrey remarked: “It’s 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
resolutely and Mabel told me some time afterwards that she was very
grateful to me for cutting short the discussion: “Aubrey”, she said, “loves
all sex things and doesn’t care what he says or does.”
I had seen before that Mabel was pretty: I realised that day when she
stooped over a flower that her figure was beautifully slight and round.
Aubrey caught my eye at the moment and remarked maliciously:
“Mabel was my first model, weren’t you, Mabs? I was in love with her
figure”, he went on judicially, “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 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 Vernon, 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 learn 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 his book and made up my mind to venture the very next time I bathed. A
little time afterwards I heard him 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 Mathematical
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 Mathematical 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 grammar, and in an hour or so had
learned all the declensions 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 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 by 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 learning 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 Reid, 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 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
him 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 Strangways 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 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 off 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 his prick into
her and “Oh! by gum, it was wonderful, wonderful!”
“But how did you do it!” we 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
how 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 in
our hearts we knew he was telling us the truth, and we 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 talking 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 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 walking 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 down 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 I 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 Carrickfergus. My father used to
make me undress and go in and swim round the vessel every morning after
my lessons.
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 was 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, 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-conscious
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 following week was wretched:
I had to come straight home from school every day, 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 I heard my
father say:
“He’s a little Fenian.”
“Fenian”, repeated Vernon in amazement, “really, Governor, I don’t
believe he knows the meaning 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, today 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 opening 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 Milman’s talk that made me self-conscious or my sex-awakening
through Howard and Strangways? T couldn’t say; but at this time I had a
curious 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 I 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 sweetheart,
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 affectations 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 neighbour?” 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.”
“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 England were far more advanced
than I was in Latin and had already waded through half the Greek
Grammar, which I had not begun, but I was better in Mathematics than any
one in the whole lower school. Because I was behind the English standard
in languages, 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 my two and a half
years 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 told us 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 Macaulay 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 afterwards 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.
The fags too, being young and weak, were very often brutally treated just
for fun. On Sunday mornings 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 cruelty.
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 tormentors
began stuffing up all the apertures, saying that they would make a “Black
Hole” of it. There were soon cries and strugglings 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, was 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 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 because 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 supervision 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 nightshirt, and so after calling me a “dirty little devil” he
left me alone.
The other monitor was Jones, a Liverpool boy of about seventeen, very
backward in lessons but 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 procedure 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 sporadic;
in England perpetual and in English schools it often led to downright
sodomy as in this instance.
In my own case there were two restraining influences, 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 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 horizontally as one cleared
the bar. By constant practice 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 consequence 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 frigging 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, he 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
Spartans 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 jumping and in running, and

as soon as I found that I couldn’t run as fast or jump as high after practicing
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 stronger restraining influence
made itself felt, and strangely 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 or 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, I began to slide my hand
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; I 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 passionate 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 fragment 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 I went back to caressing her tickler.

Sudden the miracle ceased. The cursed organist had finished his
explanation of the new plain chant, and as he touched the first notes on the
piano, 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 to 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 important and unlooked for
results. The mere fact that girls could feel sex pleasure “just as boys do”
increased 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 intense than anything I had experienced before that I resolved to keep
myself for this higher joy. No more self-abuse 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
cognate experience came at this time to reinforce the same lesson. I 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 and 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
disappointment.

“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 recognized you and has asked me to tell her if you recognized her;
did you?”
I shook my head: “I’m near-sighted, you know”, 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 replied, “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 neighboring town rather than return to

Ireland. Accordingly 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 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
minutes: 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 alongside
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 dismay, a great thought came to me: “Step on
the low 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, were taken out of that holocaust.
Suddenly Gertie realised that it was late and 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 Monitors 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 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 the 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!” 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 schoolboy honor: 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 universally 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
always as “Pat.”
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 Cambridge 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 what
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 startled

my informant by saying: “I’ll put a knife into him 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 fighting. 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 impressions 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
approved, 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 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
the 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 my chin was above the bar.
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
always 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 thing in which I had to admit the
superiority of John Bull.
The ideal of a gentleman is not a very high one. Emerson 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 assiduously 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: athletics taught me what the French call the juste
milieu, the middle path of moderation.
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 admitted 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. Believe what? “Believe in me, Jesus.”
Of course I believe; 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
myriads who had not heard of Jesus? It was all a horrible puzzle to me; but
the radiant figure and sweet teaching of Jesus just enabled me to believe
and resolve 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.
“He made the world”, I added, “all 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 God?” 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, his 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 believed 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 all 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 infidelity 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 at length got hold of Hume’s argument
against miracles. That put an end to all my doubts, satisfied me finally.
Twelve years later, when studying philosophy 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 incredible 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 holidays 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 dinner 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 deferential 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 “flattery.” “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 noticed 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
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 anything else?”
“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; accordingly 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 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 replied 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 over to the aide-de-
camp.
“Now, young man”, he said, “you’ll have many opportunities later, so
give me my place”, and forthwith 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 established 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.
“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 withdrew 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 five feet nine or ten named Walter
Raleigh. He used to say that he was a descendant of the famous courtier of
Queen Elizabeth and he pronounced his name “Rolly” 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: 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 complaining that Raleigh
hadn’t come in or sent, my father said: “Why not try, Joe?” (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 favorite

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 described 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 him in the school.
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
promised. The elder boys held him back or the fight would have taken place
then and there: “will you fight?” 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 happened 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 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 getting 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
complete 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 suddenly 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. A cold, hard exultation took the place of nervous
excitement 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 right-hander.
After this round, his seconds and backers kept him so long in his corner that
at length, on Stackpole’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
wounded 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 returned 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 his friends of the
Sixth escorted Jones to the schoolhouse.
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
upstairs. 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,
you may be sure, and Raleigh for the training and encouragement they had
given me.
My whole outlook on life was permanently altered: 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
Midshipman. 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 studied 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 unbelief 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
fourteen. 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 despaired. Shortly
afterwards I read that a steerage passage 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
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-interest. 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 play the Jew: he found it difficult even to learn
the part, and finally it was given to me. I was particularly 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, Mlle. 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 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 encourage 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 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; “I’ll 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 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. I 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 indignation, “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 herself 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 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 Lucille 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—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 pleasure 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 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; why? 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 temptation and once more was captain
of my body.
The second unsuspected experience was also a direct result, I believe, of
my sex-awakening with Lucille 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 scenery in my reading, I always skipped them as
wearisome. Now of a sudden, in a moment, my eyes were 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 sandbank 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 me? 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, transfigured 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.
Faith had left me and with faith, hope in Heaven or indeed in any future
existence: saddened and fearful, I was as one in prison with an
undetermined sentence; 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 conscious 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 understand that I myself was a magician and could
create my own fairyland, ay and my own heaven, transforming 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.

E arly 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
invited, 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
sprinter in the school and could do the hundred yards in eleven and a half
seconds. The “Duke” was, of course, Jones 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 passable; but the “Duke” recited his lines as if they had
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 before 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 expect to be believed; but nevertheless I am telling the bare truth
when I say that in my impersonation 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 Gratiano 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 Gratiano’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.
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 reading was cheered in London to the echo
because it was a rehabilitation of the Jew, and the Jew rules the roost today
in all the cities of Europe.
At my first words I could feel the younger members 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, Lucille as well.
After the rehearsal, everyone crowded about me: “Where did you learn?”
“Who taught you?” 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.”
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 frequently 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 unfulfilled 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 I?”
“By letting me kiss you, and—”

“Yes, and—” she repeated significantly.
“What harm does it do you?” I asked.
“What harm”, she repeated, “Don’t you know it’s wrong? One should
only do that with one’s husband; you know that.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort”, I cried, “That’s all silly. We don’t
believe that today.”
“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.”
“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 tantalized me
and her face was expressive and defiant.
How was it I had never noticed all the details before? Had I been blind?
or did Lucille dress to show off her figure? Certainly her dresses were
arranged 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 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 Cambridge, 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 inclined, 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 healthiest; 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 first-rate teacher,
patient and painstaking, with a gift of clear exposition, Stackpole seemed to
me stupid and hidebound and I soon found that by laughing at his
compliments I could balk his desire to lavish on me his unwelcome
caresses.
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 stereotyped reply: “Good night, Sir.”
He would then turn out the light and go downstairs 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 exclamations 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 deserved, 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 first prizes and Jones four, but I gained
fifteen “seconds”, 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 succeed 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 schoolroom 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 person to announce the result of the “Math”

Scholarship.
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,
I must leave the whole responsibility with the Head-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 himself, 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 today.
I knew that the way of my desire was open to me. Next morning I asked
to see the Head; he 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 today? 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
steerage 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 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 I
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 young man of good height with a nonchalant manner,
reddish hair, roman nose and easy, unconventional ways.
“Whose is this berth?” he asked, pointing to mine.
“Mine, Sir” I replied.
“Tell your father or mother”, he said curtly, “that 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 came 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?” and
he hurried on with his inspection. 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 cried, “What age are
you?”
I was furious with him for exposing my youth there in public before
everyone. “How does it matter to you?” 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
to 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?” 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.
“What age are you?” was his next question.
“Sixteen”, I lied boldly.

“Sixteen!”, he repeated, “you don’t look it but you 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 you”, he said, “will you stay here until we draw out and I
get a little time?”
“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 bookcases, one on each 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 Macaulay 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 Clive 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 Clive?” he asked.
“Yes”, I said, “but the essay on Warren Hastings is 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 aequa in
arduis: such was 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 replied, “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 berth in the Intermediate; 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, and 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 went 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 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 you 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 first-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.

I 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. I 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”, I declared: “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 I 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” 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 afternoon 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.
I 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 I 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 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 me?”
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.
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 I 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: I
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—I
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 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?”
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 life vague misgivings
came over me, a heart-shaking 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 his 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 astoundingly 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 Ponsonby 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 I told Ponsonby my story, or part of it, and he 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 I 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. I 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 girls are foul”, 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 much, for I had made up my mind never at any time to go with
any prostitute.
I came to several such uncommon resolutions on board 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 sure even before the trial that my first
job would lead me straight to fortune. I 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, I 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: whatever I undertook to do, I would do it to the
uttermost in me.
If I have had any success in life or done any good work, it is due in great
part to that resolution.
I 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. I added that I would always 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 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, I 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 reassured, I said while lifting her dress, “Let
mine just touch yours, and I’ll let you go” and the next moment 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 grow hot, her sex is hot first and she is ready
to give herself and ripe for the embrace.

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 startling 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 capital; 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 Governor’s Island and the
prison and where the bridge was being built to Brooklyn: suddenly Jessie
passed on her father’s arm and shot me one radiant, lingering 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 I 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 parents imagine. I
never wasted a thought on my father; even my brother Vernon who had
always been kind to me 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?” 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 contradict. “I was born 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 I 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 “thim 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.
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 together, 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 started 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 Liverpool. After that duty which made it
possible for me to hope all sorts of things on the 18th, 19th or 20th, 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 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 customers in it and
only one bootblack.
“Won’t you let me help you shine a pair or two?”, 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
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 sixteen, for I didn’t

want to be treated as a child and now I showed her the eighty cents I had
earned that morning boot-blacking, 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 wanted 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, “O.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 explained the whole procedure to me. We
worked, it appeared, in a huge bell-shaped caisson of iron that 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
“airlock”, 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 discomfort 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 O.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 compressed 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 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 constant 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
“decompressed”, 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 Schnapps; 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 now and then and to this day a slight deafness reminds 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.
Mulligan 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 increased 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 off?” 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 as usual. Still the fear of deafness was on me and I was
very glad when Anderson told me he had complained to the Boss and we
were to get an extra thousand feet of pure air. It would make a great
difference, Anderson said, and he was right, but the improvement was not
sufficient.[1]
1. In Germany I have since learned the State requires that ten times as much pure air must be
supplied as we had and in consequence the serious illnesses which with us amounted to eighty
per cent in three months have been reduced to eight. Paternal Government, it appears, has
certain good points.

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 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 husband 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. 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 beating 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. “O—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 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, “nothing” and in a moment I had got out of
bed, and taking my handkerchief soon wiped away the telltale 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, 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 attention 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, 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?

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 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 lie 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”, 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 representing, 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 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 inferences 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
develop 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 afternoon and we made another appointment.
I worked at boot-blacking 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?” “The Latin phrase came into my
head”, I replied without thinking, “‘Intentique ore tenebant’, Vergil says.”
“Good God!” he cried, “fancy a bootblack quoting Vergil. You’re a
strange lad, what age are you?” “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 boot-blacking’s not
your game. How would you like to come to Chicago and have a place as
night-clerk 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 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 leveling 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? 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.

LIFE IN CHICAGO!

Chapter VI.

T 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 his 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
bellboy to take them to their rooms. However curt or irritable they were, I
always tried to smooth them down and soon found I was succeeding. In a
week Mr. Kendrick told me that he had heard 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 1 o’clock for dinner as
it was called and after dinner I got into the habit of going into 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 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 happy 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!” “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. Cotton asked me sharply. “I think so” I 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,” 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; “O.K. Sir.”
“Why do you smile?” he asked. “Because, sir, pay like water tends to
find its level!” “What the devil d’ye mean by its level?” “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 perhaps find the ‘level,’” 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
restaurant (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 he would supply seventy
pounds of beef and fifty 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 ‘rake-
off’ 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 inferior quality of meat; whenever the
butcher was left with a roast he could not sell, he used to send it to us
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 meal?” The fellow was evidently a
tramp: his clothes shabby and dirty: his manner servile with a backing of
truculence. 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 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 believed.”
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 go!” I asked. “I don’t know any restaurant near here
except the Fremont House.”
“Hell,” cried the hobo, “only millionaires and fools go to hotels. I follow
my nose for grub,” and he turned on his 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 interesting 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 he wanted to go.
“But how do you get about?” 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 happenings—some of ’em painful,” he added,
thoughtfully rubbing his jaw again.
He appeared to be a tough little man whose one 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. I resolved to
save all I could.

When I stood up to go the hobo grinned amicably:
“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 tenement house. The girl’s room was
poorly furnished and narrow, a hall bedroom just the width of the corridor,
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.”
“Why anxious?” I queried, “and why did you go out if you were tired?”
“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.
“Goin?” 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 desperate: “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.”
“Really?” I cried astounded.
“Do you know her father?” 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 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 I 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.
Señor 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
Señor Arriga. As I handed the keys to the bellboy, the girl threw back her
black mantilla.
“Any letters for us?” she asked quietly. For a minute I stood
dumbfounded, enthralled, then “I’ll 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?” 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-control; “besides her nose is beaked a little.” But there was no
conviction in my criticism. As soon as I recalled 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 Señora Vidal had
heart trouble and couldn’t stand much fatigue. I discovered besides that
Señor Arriga was either courting his cousin or betrothed to her and at once I
sought to make myself agreeable to the man. Señor 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 complimenting 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 Señor Arriga loved to boast of his name and
position 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?” I ventured. Señor 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
Senorita is pretty, of course, but very young; she has not the charm of
experience, the caress of—I know so little American, 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 commend 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, betrayed 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
not? Youth—” and sighed for her own youth now foregone, and the petals
already fallen.

One little talk I got with my goddess: she came to the office to ask about
reserving a Pullman drawing-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
depended 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 saucily, “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 garnered up in my heart as
purest treasure.
As soon as she had gone and the radiance with her, I cudgeled my brains
to find some pretext for another talk. “She goes tomorrow,” hammered in
my 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 Señor 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.
“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 temptation, 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 undressed? 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: Reece 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 cutaway 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 Englishman. 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
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 Rio 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 unscathed” Reece remarked,
“The Plain Indians—Cherokees, 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 ranch
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 Reece was a past-master 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. They 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 ever met up to 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 Reece 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 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
astigmatism 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 champagne and even when the sun reached the zenith
and 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 wildflower in hand whose
name I wished 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.
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 I
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 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 Fort 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.

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? 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 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 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. Charlie 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 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 Reece, 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 cowpunching 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 sometimes 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
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 temptation; 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. More than once my vigilances sharpened by Bob’s
instinct, made a difference to our fortunes. When we began to skirt the
Indian Territory, 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 unfortunate happened that night or indeed till we
reached Wichita which was then the outpost of civilization. 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 short-
lived.
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 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 muscle and each day I proposed to myself a new
test. For example I liked potatoes so I resolved not to eat one for a week, or
again I foreswore coffee that I loved, for a month, and I was careful to keep
to my determination. I had noticed a French saying that intensified my
decision, celui qui veut, celui-là peut:—‘he who wills, can.’ My mind
should govern me, not my appetites, I decided.

THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO.

Chapter VII.

I 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 Wednesday and put our cattle and
horses in the stockyards near the Michigan Street depot. As I have related,
we sold on Thursday and Friday about three-fifths of the cattle. I wanted to
sell all, but followed the judgment of the Boss and sold three hundred head
and put a little over five 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 downstairs, got Blue Devil from the stable and rode out to the fire. I
was infinitely impressed by the rapidity with which the firemen acted and
the marvelous 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 Reece and Ford all about it the next day. To my astonishment,
no one seemed to pay much attention; a fire 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 determination to burn down the town! “Them damned foreign

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 hotel, 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 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 insight 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
responsibility. 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, plundering 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 guilty men than hang one innocent one, but my foreign
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 unimaginable 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 barrels he had nailed his shingle, and
painted on it were the words, “What do you think of our hell? No 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 perfectly 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 managed 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 back 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 returned 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 neighboring towns and this was the feature of the next
week in starving Chicago.
Strangely enough, at that time the idea was generally 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-sentiment, 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
behind 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 instead 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 proof, it seemed to me, of
courage, good humor and high self-abnegation. I went into 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, delighted 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 towards the
entrance. The farmer declared he would not let us go, but Ford looked at
him a little while 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.

P rompted 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;
discovered, 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 anyone 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 I
realized clearly that he was a second-rate intelligence, 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-matters. 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 afterwards, so
long as I stayed in America, I had to take quinine and arsenic to ward 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, sold the cattle at a good
price and made off with all the proceeds, though he owed Reece 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 youthful 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.
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 him and found that this was his infallible test: as soon as
he was alone with a girl, 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;

but Bob and Bent put a new scheme into my head. Bent was always
preaching that the Boss’s defection had ruined Reece and that if I would put
in, say five thousand dollars, I could be Reece’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 Reece 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 Rio 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 morning 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 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 returned.

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?”
“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 José 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 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 possible. 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 program. 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 suddenly 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 zip 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 him and kept on forcing the pace of the cattle.
But Charlie was very busily engaged for two or three minutes because the
fusillade 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-house and soon an
American rode up beside me and 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’ll 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 returned.
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 Indian 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.
“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 José 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 numbered 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 turned out that we had done well to be generous to him 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 possible 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 Rossiter, took control of the whole dispute.
He told the Mexican leader, who said he was Don Luis, a son of Don José,
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.
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 seemed 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
Rossiter 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 at Austin. The
proposal was received with whoops and cheers. The idea of punishing the
Mexicans for getting shot trying to recapture their own cattle appealed to us
Americans as something intensely humorous. All the Texans gave their
names solemnly as witnesses, and Rossiter swore he would draw up the
document. Years afterwards Bent whom I met by chance, told me that
Rossiter had got forty thousand dollars on that claim.

Three days later we began to move our cattle eastward 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 back 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 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 shaking 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 latitude 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 thousand 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 summer 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 bringing 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 scary.
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
remembered 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 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
idleness and vigilance. One evening Charlie was sprawling 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 certain of winning, one of Charlie’s wild swings caught him on the
point of the jaw and to our amazement he went, down like a log and could
not be brought to for some ten minutes. It 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 purpose 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 war 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-humored 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 piebald mustang appeared to be urging an immediate
attack and soon we found some of the “braves” stealing 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 Charlie and Jo brought down more than one horse
and man and taught the band of Indians that a direct 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 I was selected as the lightest save Bob and
altogether the worst shot besides being the only man who would certainly
find his way. Accordingly I brought up Blue Devil at once, took some
pounds of jerked beef with me and a goat-water skin I had bought in Taos; a
girth and stirrups quickly turned a blanket into a makeshift, light saddle and
I 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 body of
Indians had stationed themselves. “They’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 five 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
camp.
There he took off the mare’s pads, while I tightened the girths and started
to walk keeping the mare between 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 to do the two or three hundred miles in four days at most....
On the fourth day I got twenty troopers from the Fort with Lieutenant
Winder and was leading 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 protect 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 morning 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 decided to rest for a couple of
days and there we encountered 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 the rest of the night. Somehow
or other, I felt that the neighborhood was unhealthy for us.
The gambling saloon was lighted by three powerful 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 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
exhausted him; even in the dim light we could see that his face was drawn
and gray: he must have understood this himself for I could just hear his last
words: “Good-bye, boys!” his head fell back, his mouth opened: the brave
boyish spirit was gone.
I couldn’t control my tears: the phrase came to me: “I better could have
lost a better man,” for Charlie was at heart a good fellow!
I left Bent to carry back the money and arrange for Charlie’s burial,
leaving Jo to guard the body: in an hour I was again with Bob and had told

him everything. Ten days later we were in Kansas City where I was
surprised by unexpected news.
My second brother Willie, six years older than I 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 to do with cowpunching. Cattle too, we
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 I was a fool: I 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 I was filled with an infinite disgust for a
merely physical life. What was I to do now? I’d see Willie and make up my
mind.

STUDENT LIFE AND LOVE.

Chapter IX.

T hat railway journey to Lawrence, Kansas, is as vivid to me now as if it
had taken place yesterday 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,
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.”

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 back 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 I 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,
“I 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 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 kind 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 I know.
In a comfortable room at the Eldridge House, in the chief street of
Lawrence, I met my brother: Willie seemed woefully surprised by my
appearance: “You’re as yellow as a guinea; but how you’ve grown”, he
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 abysmal
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 I divided up with the boys, he declared I must be mad. “With five
thousand dollars”, he cried, “I 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. 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 forgiveness and scorning the Gospel of Love.
A few days after our first meeting, Willie proposed 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 boardinghouse 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 experience in Lawrence much
more important than anything 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 followed 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 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.
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?” 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 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 program won’t please your
Senators or your Congressmen 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 Professor’s thin voice), but it may
nevertheless be accepted 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 absurd; 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.
If I could give a complete account of that talk, this poor page would glow
with wonder and admiration all merged in loving reverence. We talked or
rather Smith talked for I soon found he knew infinitely 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 expressing my creed he
knew them too and his Pantheistic Hymn to Hertha, as well. And he wore
his knowledge 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 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 disciples:—Come, and I will make you fishers of
men! Already I was dedicate heart and soul to the new Gospel.
But even that meeting with Smith, wherein I 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 breakfast 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 I 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 willingly 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 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 student 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 with a kiss—”

“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 be 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—“tomorrow 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 Englishwoman, 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 delighted 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 boardinghouse 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 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 prudence 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 promise 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 Steinway 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 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 should 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 struggled 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 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 toilette 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 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 extravagant 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; 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?” she went on; “most men have finished
in one short spasm and leave 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 decrease and the chance of
impregnation. But near the next monthly period, say within three days,
there is a double danger again; for 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, “get me to withdraw before
I come the first time, or get up immediately and syringe yourself with 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 reproachfully, “for when I wanted
another kiss, you drew away and said ‘tomorrow’! Why are women so
coquettish, so perverse?” I added, remembering Lucille 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!”
“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 affectionate, 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 furnace: 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 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 I have ever spent my seed in or had
properly—”
“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 my watch; it was nearly seven-thirty: I was late for supper which
started at half-past six!
“I must go,” I 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,
“I’ve 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.
“Sweet—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.

S 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: I’ll wait on myself or on you”, 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?”
“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 warpaint 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
listener!
“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 steaming food: she pulled a face and shrugged her shoulders with
contempt.
“Where do you preach?” 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. Gregory 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 removing 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 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 intimately 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 a 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 Xenophon’s Memorabilia with a Greek
grammar: I insisted 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 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 graduation. 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 discussed 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 Professor of Physics, a dull pedant!
Every time Kate came near me I was ceremoniously 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.
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 I 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 with 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 hair?” and she touched her
Mount with a grimace; “I was so ashamed of it as a girl: I used to shave it
off: that’s what made it grow so thick, I believe: one day my mother saw it
and made me stop shaving; oh, how ashamed of it I 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,” I exclaimed, “because it’s yours!” “Oh you dear lover,” she
smiled, “you always find the right word, the flattering salve for the sore!”
“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!”
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 sensation, 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
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 I 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
hysterical, you wonder-lover!”
Since then I have read lascivious books in half 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 husband goes to sleep. If the
majority of husbands satisfied 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 conditions 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 yourself!” 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 leg 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 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 I 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
tomorrow 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 nothing 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 myself, 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 book Smith had lent me,
especially “Das Kapital”, the second 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 him true stories of buffalo hunting and of fighting with Indians;
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 myself,
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 outside steps. As soon as I saw her, I pretended
surprise: “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 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 already 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 myself, 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! Anyway, I love you!”
“You mustn’t give me those bird-pecks!” I exclaimed, “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 fairly 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!
Meanwhile I spent nearly every morning with Smith: golden hours!
Always, always before we parted, he showed me some new beauty or
revealed some new truth: he seemed to me the most wonderful creature in
this strange, sunlit world. I used to hang entranced 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: Aeschylus, 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 Oedipus Rex and Colonos before I had completely mastered
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
careful to point out that it was possible to keep the measure 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 delightful and reflective and
appealing that mirrored a really extraordinary intelligence. She was in the
Senior Class and afterwards for years held the position 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, interested 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 already 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 I had serious disquietude: every little while
Smith was ill and had to keep his bed for a day or two. There was no
explanation of this illness which puzzled me and caused me a certain
anxiety.
One day in mid-winter there was a new development. Smith was in doubt
how to act and confided 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 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 defensive, 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 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, Rose?” 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 Gregorys’ 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 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 courteous 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 exclaimed.
“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 answered 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 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 arranged 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 corsets
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 trowsers, anointed my prick
with the cream and then parting her legs and getting her to pull her knees
up, 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 obstacle, 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: “O—O” 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 minute 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 possible; but I knew from Mrs. Mayhew 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
experience 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, passing 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 relaxed 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 incarnadined, 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 unaffected: “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
afterwards.” 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 ablutions 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 told her what I had told Mrs. Mayhew and something
more: how my seed was composed of tens of thousands 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 qualities 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 tadpole to the man. Till the fifth month the
foetus is practically a four-legged animal.
I told her that it was accepted today 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 contraries: 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: “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!” I 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 crammed 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 today if possible. Lorna.”
I replied at once, saying I would come on the morrow, that I was
installing Smith in my boardinghouse 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 entiére à sa proie attachèe.

Chapter XI.

I 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 heightened 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 separated 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 happenings while
recording chiefly the important—fortunately 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 think, Latin comparatively unimportant: the
nearest to a great man the Latins ever produced being Tacitus 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
Aristophanes, 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 emphasize 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 believe 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 eternal 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 obedience 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
conscious 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
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.
“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 me?”
“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 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 and 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
causelessly?”

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 comparing 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 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 be! The servant? or—?
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!” 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 introduced 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 his head; but in spite of all he could do, he
had love-dreams that came to an orgasm and ended in emissions 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 witnessed 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 I could tie on the whipcord every night for a month or
two, he put on weight and gained strength surprisingly.
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 I
imagine—but as it is the finest, most highly strung natures that are most apt
to suffer in this way, I will tell what happened 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, I 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, whispering “When am I to see you naked,
Kate? I want to; when?” “You’ve seen most of me!” and she laughed
joyously!
“All right,” I said, turning away, “if you are resolved to make fun of me
and be mean to me—”
“Mean to you!” she cried, catching me and swinging me round, “I could
easier be mean to myself. I’m glad you want to see me, glad and proud, and
tonight, 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?” 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

compact, 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 replica of the woman’s. In
reality the two were completely different. Mrs. Mayhew’s feelings long
repressed 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 suggestion 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 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 superiority 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 I 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 imprinted on me!”

The next moment, she stood there naked, the flickering flame of the
candle throwing quaint arabesques 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—sex? 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.
Soon she grew warm and I pulled off my nightshirt 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
and took place beside her:
“I cannot bear to hurt you,” I said, “love’s pleasure 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 it?” 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 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 movements
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 convulsively.
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?”
“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
shortsighted I hadn’t recognized her till she was within ten yards of me; but
her glance pierced me. She bowed with a look that took 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 indifferently 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 I’m 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 represent my life’s happenings for this whole
year from seventeen to eighteen, with this solitary qualification 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 months 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 promise 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
beforehand with need: besides it gave me a good excuse for not visiting her
even weekly. “I must work!” I kept repeating though I was ashamed of the
lie.
“Don’t whip me, dear!” she pleaded; “my impotence 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 cold’, 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 I 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—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 evening 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 midnight.”
“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 believe
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
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, dear?” I 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.
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?” I 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 suppose 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 myself! 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
holidays. It must be gorgeous there in summer six thousand odd feet above
sea-level: I’d delight in it.”
“If I send you the money, you’ll come?” 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 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 commanded, “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 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?
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

precepts 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.

S 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 Gregorys 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.
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, unfeignedly
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 American 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 Reserve 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 product of three years’ hard work and
successful speculation 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 purchase 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:
henceforth 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 preferred to cancel his debt to the Gregorys.
Next day he came and assured me he had promised 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 Dingwall 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 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 University. 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 accommodate 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 afternoon till seven, and did
my best to let it advantageously 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.
“This old one-hoss shay of a town”, he cried, “should wear grave-
clothes.”
“What’s the matter!” I asked. “Matter!” he repeated 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 advertising 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 out 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 leave five thousand dollars with you: I’ve no
right to, but I like you and I’ll risk it.”
I took him 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 hoardings 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 contract 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 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 came to the
conclusion that his Marxian communism was only half the truth and
probably the least important 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 I 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 entreaties
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 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 undress 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 satisfaction as bit by bit it slipped home.
After the first ecstasy I got her to use the syringe 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—choking!”
Strange to say, her words excited me more than the act: I felt my spasm
coming and roughly, savagely 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 you!” 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 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 you? sweet!” Naturally 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 the station.
I returned to Lawrence the same day, wondering what Fortune had in
store for me! I was soon to find out that life could be disagreeable.
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 religious
teaching of any kind in the University, still 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 a slave-state and these Yankees were all
fanatical so-called Christians belonging to every known sect; but all
distinguished or rather deformed by an intolerant bigotry in matters of
religion and sex. Their honesty was by 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, I 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 prayers, 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 only a makeshift
structure 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, I was expelled from the
University and was free to turn all my attention to law. Judge Stevens told
me he 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 I 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 beginning induced Barker of
Barker & Sommerfeld 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. Sommerfeld 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 compatriots in their early
struggling days.
It was an admirable partnership: Sommerfeld had the clients and
prepared the briefs; while Barker did the talking in court with a sort of
invincible good humor 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
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? 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
I 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 consented.
It was early in summer but already warm, and when we went into the parlor
and Lily took a seat on 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. Mayhew’s bedroom”, I asked,
“when I had gone up for a book?” 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 I was really ill”, I
said, “so I naturally believed that you disliked me though I thought you
lovely!”
“I’m not lovely,” she said, “my mouth’s too big and I’m too slight.”
“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 I cudgeled 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, I 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
movement 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 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. I didn’t
scruple then to let my seed come, only withdrawing to the lips and rubbing
her clitoris the while, and as soon as my spirting ceased, my root glided
again into her and continued the 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 I 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 I became aware of something
childish in her mind which matched the childish outlines of her lovely, half-
formed hips and pussy.
“I thought that you were in love with Mrs. Mayhew,” she confessed, “and
I couldn’t make out why she made such funny noises; but now I know”, she
added, “you naughty dear; for I felt my heart fluttering just now and I 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 I knew I could bring her to my room at the Gregory’s in a
minute, and then I went home, for it was late and I didn’t particularly want
to meet her folks.
The next night I 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 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 American slang, tossing her head.
“I’ll give you two,” 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 Venuses!
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 uncontrollably. I continued the slow
movements for a few minutes; but once she moved her sex quickly down on
mine as I 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, I 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?” I 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 conquest after conquest and little or no difficulty in
my efforts to win love. In reality my half dozen victories were spread out
over nearly as many years, and time and again I 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 qualities smooth the way; but that man who
pursues them 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 winning for me, for women have finer senses for suitability 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 professor to lecture for forty-
five minutes, thus leaving each student fifteen minutes at least free to go
back to his private class-room to prepare for the next lecture. All the
students took turns to use these classrooms 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 interfere with me or molest me in
any 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 were 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 I
had made the passage clear to her. She thanked me prettily and I said, “If
you ever want anything I can do, I’ll be happy to make it clear to you, Miss
Weldon; 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 I 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 I could not get her to yield.
The curious thing was I could not even soothe the smart to my vanity
with the belief that she was physically cold: on the contrary she was very
passionate; 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: I 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 easy; to confess it to your priest is for many women an
absolute deterrent.

A few days later, I think, I got a letter from Smith that determined me to
go to Philadelphia as soon as my hoardings provided me with sufficient
money. I 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 Liberty Hall on the French
Revolution—a giant of a man with a great head, rough-hewn, irregular
features and stentorian voice: no better figure of a rebel could be imagined.
I knew he had been an English private soldier for a dozen years; but I soon
found that in spite of his passionate revolt against the Christian religion and
all its cheap moralistic conventions, he was a convinced individualist and
saw nothing wrong in the despotism of Money which had already
established itself in Britain, though condemned by Carlyle at the end of his
“French Revolution” as the vilest of all tyrannies.
Bradlaugh’s speech taught me that a notorious and popular man, earnest
and gifted, too, and intellectually 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 “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 as if she were new and
unknown and I had to win her again; but as soon as my hand touched her
sex, the strangeness disappeared and she gave herself to me with renewed
zest.
I teased her to tell me just what she felt and at 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 write it for you.” “That’ll do
just as well”, I replied, and 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 tried 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 disappointed 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. I 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 stopped 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.
“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. Ah, love
is divine: isn’t it?”
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
sentimentally, 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 something 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; 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, believing 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 anywhere....”
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 contention; but this was the
nearest to an original 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 believe”, was his judgment, “a sensible, kindly man.”
“A little above middle height”, I interpreted and Smith added smiling,
“and considerably above average weight: he would never have done
anything notable 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.

S 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 his 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? You ought to: the ‘Press’ would take it. 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 centrifugal as well as the centripetal force and was convinced that the
problem was how to bring these opposites to a balance which would ensure
an approximation 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 mutual affection. Though infinitely better read he
put me forward in every company with the rarest generosity, asserting that I
had discovered new laws in sociology. For months we lived very happily
together but his Hegelianism defied all my attacks: it corresponded 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 introduced me to the chief editor, a Captain Forney:
indeed the paper then was usually called “Forney’s Press” though already
some spoke of it as “The Philadelphia Press.” Forney liked my portrait of
Bradlaugh and engaged me as a reporter on the staff and 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 confessed he had got an
introduction to him and had sent it on to the philosopher with a request for
an interview. 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 answered 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
scrupulously dressed: his head was narrow though long, his face bony; a
long, high, somewhat beaked nose was the feature of his countenance:—a
good conceit of himself, I concluded, and 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 it? of sweetness even, as of a soul lifted high
above earth’s carking cares and stragglings.
“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 narrow, pleasantly smiling face comes
back to me whenever I hear his name mentioned.
But at the time I was indignant with his deafness 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.
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 Hutchings 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 champagne. 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 examination, had taken out my
first papers in due form and unless some lawyer wished first to put
questions to me to test my capacity, he proposed to call me within 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
abysmal 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 Roman 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 encourage me: “Stevens is just showing off”, said Hutchings, “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.
“Judge Stevens”, 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 admitted 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 examine 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 accordingly 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 at the pup and thus encourage him to seize
hold of their coat-sleeves 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 myself not an enemy but a friend of Mr. Harris
whom I have known for some years. Mr. Hutchings evidently 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 approve, 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-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

character.
A couple of days later I was again in Philadelphia.
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 reading 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 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 paralysis 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 carried 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 perfect 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 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
invariably 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
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 I 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
Whitman 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 increasingly 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 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
intercourse. Emerson, as Whitman himself tells us, did his utmost all one
long afternoon to dissuade him from publishing the sex-poems; but
fortunately all his arguments served only to confirm Whitman in his
purpose. From certain querulous complaints later, it is plain that Whitman
was too ignorant to gauge 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 careful 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.
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 Lawrence 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 advised 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 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 anything 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 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. Especially 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 safety. But he did not press his point: he decided it was hopeless and then
came Bret Harte’s extraordinary 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 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 understand: 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: “I love you too”, she
said, “but oh! I’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: I have still a very warm
corner in my heart for that lovely child-woman and am rather ashamed of
having seduced 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 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 contempt: “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 recall only one phrase but think it probably 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!”

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
anything of value out of Bret Harte, in spite of the fact that I had then and
still keep a good deal of admiration 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 unexpected 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 continues, 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. 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?”
“As your partner?” I exclaimed. “Sure”, he replied, “I’ll make out the
briefs in the cases as I did for Barker and you’ll argue them in court. For
instance”, 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 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,
Kansas 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 concluded.
“I shall be delighted,” I replied at once, “indeed I am proud to work with
you: I 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. 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.

N ow began for me a most delightful time. Sommerfeld 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 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
intercourse 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