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GELETT BURGESS COLLECTION

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MY LIFE AND LOVES

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FRANK HARRIS

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MY LIFE AND LOVES

BY

FRANK HARRIS

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PRAXITELES' APHRODITE

PRIVATELY PRINTED 1922

ADDRESS THE AUTHOR, I. RUE DU HELDER: PARIS

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FOREWORD

to THE STORY OF "MY LIFE AND LOVES"

"Go, soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand:

Fear not to touch the best,

The Truth shall be thy warrant."

Sir Walter Raleigh.

Here in the blazing heat of an American August, amid the hurry and scurry of New York, I sit down to write my final declaration of Faith, as a preface or foreword to the Story of my Life. Ultimately it will be read in the spirit in which it has been written and I ask no better fortune. My journalism during the war and after the Armistice brought me prosecu- tions from the Federal Government. The authorities at Washington accused me of sedition and though the third Postmaster General, Ex-Governor Dockery, of Missouri who was chosen by the Department as the Judge, proclaimed my innocence and assured me I should not be prosecuted again, my magazine (Pear- son's) was time and again held up in the post, and its circulation reduced thereby to one-third. I was brought to ruin by the illegal persecution of President Wilson and his Arch- Assist ant Burleson, and was

VI

laughed at when I asked for compensation. The Amer- ican Government, it appears, is too poor to pay for its dishonorable blunders.

I record the shameful fact for the benefit of those Rebels and Lovers of the Ideal who will surely find themselves in a similar plight in future emergencies. For myself I do not complain. On the whole I have received better treatment in life than the average man and more lovingkindness than I perhaps deserved. I make no plaint.

If America had not reduced me to penury I should probably not have written this book as boldly as the ideal demanded. At the last push of Fate (I am much nearer seventy than sixty) we are all apt to sacrifice something of Truth for the sake of kindly recognition by our fellows and a peaceful ending. Being that uwicked animal", as the French say, "who defends himself when he is attacked'' I turn at length to bay, without any malice, I hope, but also without any fear such as might prompt compromise. I have always fought for the Holy Spirit of Truth and have been, as Heine said he was, a brave soldier in the Liberation War of Humanity: now one fight more, the best and the last.

There are two main traditions of English writing: the one of perfect liberty, that of Chaucer and Shake- speare, completely outspoken, with a certain liking for lascivious details and witty smut, a man's speech: the other emasculated more and more by Puritanism and since the French Revolution, gelded to tamest propriety; for that upheaval brought the illiterate middle-class to power and insured the domination of girl-readers. Under Victoria, English prose litera- ture became half childish, as in stories of "Little Mary", or at best provincial, as anyone may see who cares to compare the influence of Dickens, Thackeray

Vil

and Reade in the world with the influence of Balzac, Flaubert and Zola.

Foreign masterpieces such as "Les Coxites Dro- latiques" and "L'Assommoir11 were destroyed in Lon- don as obscene by a magistrate's order; even the Bible and Shakespeare were expurgated and all books dolled up to the prim decorum of the English Sunday- school. And America with unbecoming humility worsened the disgraceful, brainless example.

All my life, I have rebelled against this old maid's canon of deportment, and my revolt has grown st longer with advancing years.

In the "Foreword" to "The Man Shakespeare" 1 tried to show how the Puritanism that had gone out of our morals had gone into the language, enfeebling English thought and impoverishing English speech.

At long last I am going back to the old English tradition. I am determined to tell the truth about my pilgrimage through this world, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, about myself and others, and I shall try to be at least as kindly to others as to myself.

Bernard Shaw assures me that no one is good enough or bad enough to tell the naked truth about himself; but I am beyond good and evil in this respect.

French literature is there to give the cue and inspiration: it is the freest of all in discussing matters of sex and chiefly by reason of its constant preoccupa- tion with all that pertains to passion and desire, it has become the world literature to men of all races.

"Women and Love'1, Edmond de Goncourt writes in his journal, "always constitute the subject of con- versation wherever there is a meeting of intellectual people socially brought together by eating and drink- ing. Our talk at dinner was at first smutty (poli- sonne) and Tourgueneff listened to us with the open-

VIII

mouthed wonder (l'etonnement un peu meduse) of a barbarian who only makes love (fait l'amour) very naturally (tres naturellement)".

Whoever reads this passage carefully will under- stand the freedom I intend to use. But I shall not be tied down even to French conventions. Just as in painting, our knowledge of what the Chinese and Japanese have done, has altered our whole conception of the art, so the Hindoos and Burmese too have ex- tended our understanding of the art of love. I re- member going with Rodin through the British Mu- seum and being surprised at the time he spent over the little idols and figures of the South Sea Islanders: "Some of them are trivial", he said, "but look at that, and that, and that — sheer masterpieces that anyone might be proud of — lovely things!"

Art has become coextensive with humanity, and some of my experiences with so-called savages may be of interest even to the most cultured Europeans.

I intend to tell what life has taught me, and if I begin at the A. B. C. of love, it is because I was brought up in Britain and the United States; I shall not stop there.

Of course I know the publication of such a book will at once justify the worst that my enemies have said about me. For fortv years now I have chain- pioned nearly all the unpopular causes, and have thus made many enemies; now they will all be able to gratify their malice while taking credit for prevision. In itself the book is sure to disgust the "unco guid" and the mediocrities of every kind who have always been unfriendly to me. I have no doubt too, that many sincere lovers of literature who would be willing to accept such license as ordinary French writers use, will condemn me for going beyond this limit. Yet

IX

there are many reasons why I should use perfect free- dom in this last book.

First of all, I made hideous blunders early in life and saw worse blunders made by other youths, out of sheer ignorance: I want to warn the young and impressionable against the shoals and hidden reefs of life's ocean and chart, so to speak, at the very begin- ning of the voyage when the danger is greatest, the 'unpath'd waters'.

On the other hand I have missed indescribable1 pleasures because the power to enjoy and to give delight is keenest early in life, while the understand- ing both of how to give and how to receive pleasure comes much later, when the faculties are already on the decline.

I used to illustrate the absurdity of our present system of educating the young by a quaint simile "When training me to shoot'', I said, "my earthly father gave me a little single-barrelled gun, and when he saw that I had learned the mechanism and could be trusted, he gave me a double-barrelled shot-gun. After some years I came into possession of a magazine gun which could shoot half a dozen times if necessary without reloading, my efficiency increasing with my knowledge.

My Creator, or Heavenly Father, on the other hand, when I was wholly without experience and had only just entered my teens, gave me, so to speak, a magazine gun of sex, and hardly had I learned its use and enjoyment when he took it away from me forever. and gave me in its place a double-barrelled gun: after a few years, he took that away and gave me a single- barrelled gun with which I was forced to content my- self for the best part of my life.

Towards the end the old single-barrel began to show signs of wear and age: sometimes it would go

X

off too soon, sometimes it missed fire and shamed me, do what I would.

I want to teach youths how to use their magazine gun of sex so that it may last for years, and when they come to the double-barrel, how to take such care that the good weapon will do them liege service right into their fifties, and the single-barrel will then give them pleasure up to three score years and ten.

Moreover, not only do I desire in this way to increase the sum of happiness in the world while decreasing the pains and disabilities of men, but I wish also to set an example and encourage other writers to continue the work that I am sure is bene- ficent, as well as enjoyable.

W. L. George in "A Novelist on Novels" writes: "If a novelist Avere to develop his characters evenly the three hundred page novel might extend to five hundred, the additional two hundred pages would be made up entirely of the sex preoccupations of the cha- racters. There would be as many scenes in the bed- room as in the drawing-room, probably more, as more time is passed in the sleeping apartment. The additional two hundred pages would offer pictures of the sex side of the characters and would compel them to become alive: at present they often fail to come to life because they only develop, say five sides out of six . . . Our literary characters are lop-sided because their ordinary traits are fully portrayed while their sex-life is cloaked, minimized or left out . . . Therefore the characters in modern novels are all false. Thev are megalocephalous and emasculate. English women speak a great deal about sex .... It is a cruel position for the English novel. The novelist may discuss any- thing but the main preoccupation of life. ... we are compelled to pad out with murder, theft and arson

which as everybody knows, are perfectly moral things to write about."

Pure is the snow — till mixed with mire — But never half so pure as fire.

There are graver reasons than any I have yet given why the truth should be told boldly. The time has come when those who are, as Shakespeare called them, "God's Spies" having learned the mystery of things, should be called to counsel, for the ordinary political guides have led mankind to disaster: blind leaders of the blind!

Over Niagara we have plunged, as Carlyle pre- dicted, and as every one with vision must have fore- seen and now like driftwood we move round and round the whirlpool impotently without knowing whither or why.

One thing certain: we deserve the misery into which we have fallen. The laws of this world are inexorable and don't cheat! Where, when, how have we gone astray? The malady is as wide as civilization which fortunately narrows the enquiry to time.

Ever since our conquest of natural forces began, towards the end of the eighteenth century, and mater- ial wealth increased by leaps and bounds, our con- duct has deteriorated. Up to that time we had done the gospel of Christ mouth-honor at least; and had to some slight extent shown consideration if not love to our fellowmen: we did not give tithes to charity; but we did give petty doles till suddenly science appeared to reinforce our selfishness with a new message: pro- gress comes through the blotting out of the unfit, we were told, and self-assertion was preached as a duty: the idea of the Superman came into life and the Will to Power and thereby Christ's teaching of love and pity and gentleness was thrust into the background.

xn

At once we men gave ourselves over to wrong doing and our iniquity took monstrous forms.

The creed we professed and the creed we practised were poles apart. Never I believe in the world's history was there such confusion in man's thought about conduct, never were there so many different ideals put forward for his guidance. It is impera- tively necessary for us to bring clearness into this muddle and see why we have gone wrong and where.

For the world-war is only the last of a series of diabolical acts which have shocked the conscience of humanity. The greatest crimes in recorded time have been committed during the last half century almost without protest by the most civilised nations, nations that still call themselves Christian. Whoever has watched human affairs in the last half century must acknowledge that our progress has been steadily hell- ward.

The hideous massacres and mutilations of tens of thousands of women and children in the Congo Free State without protest on the part of Great Britain who could have stopped it all with one word, is surely due to the same spirit that directed the abom- inable blockade (continued by both England and. America long after the Armistice) which condemned hundreds and thousands of women and children of our own kith and kin to death by starvation. The unspeakable meanness and confessed fraud of the Peace of Versailles with its tragic consequences from Vladivostock to London and finally the shameless, dastardly war waged by all the Allies and by America on Russia, for money, show us that Ave have been assisting at the overthrow of morality itself and re- turning to the ethics of the wolf and the polity of the Thieves' Kitchen.

XIII

And our public acts as nations are paralleled by our treatment of our fellows within the community. For the small minority the pleasures of living have been increased in the most extraordinary way while the pains and sorrows of existence have been greatly mitigated, but the vast majority even of civilised peoples have hardly been admitted to any share in the benefits of our astounding material progress. The slums of our cities show the same spirit we have dis- played in our treatment of the weaker races. It is no secret that over fifty per cent of English volunteers in the war were below the pigmy physical standard required and about one half of our American soldiers were morons with the intelligence of children under twelve years of age: "vae victis" has been our motto with the most appalling results. Clearly we have come to the end of a period and must take thought about the future.

The religion that directed or was supposed to direct our conduct for nineteen centuries has been finally discarded. Even the divine spirit of Jesus was thrown aside by Nietzsche as one throws the hatchet after the helve or to use the better German simile, the child was thrown out with the bath- water. The silly sex-morality of Paul has brought discredit upon the whole Gospel. Paul was impotent, boasted indeed that he had no sexual desires, wished that all men were even as he was in this respect, just as the fox in the fable who had lost his tail, wished that all other foxes should be mutilated in the same way in order to attain his perfection.

I often say that the Christian churches were offered two things: the spirit of Jesus and the idiotic morality of Paul, and they all rejected the highest inspiration and took to their hearts the incredibly base and stupid prohibition. Following Paul we have

XIV

turned the Goddess of Love into a fiend and degraded the crowning impulse of our Being into a capital sin ; yet everything high and ennobling in our nature springs directly out of the sexual instinct.

Grant Allan says rightly: "Its alliance is wholly with whatever is purest and most beautiful within us. To it we owe our love of bright colours, graceful form, melodious sound, rhythmic motion. To it we owe the evolution of music, of poetry, of romance, of belles lettres, of painting, of sculpture, of decorative art, of dramatic entertainment. To it we owe the entire existence of our aesthetic sense which in the last resort is a secondary sex-attribute. From it springs the love of beauty, around it all beautiful arts circle as their centre. Its subtle aroma pervades all literature. And to it we owe the paternal, mater- nal and marital relations, the growth of the affections, the love of little pattering feet and baby laughter." And this scientific statement is incomplete: not only is the sexual instinct the inspiring force of all art and literature; it is also our chief teacher of gentle- ness and tenderness, making lovingkindness an ideal and so warring against cruelty and harshness and that misjudging of our fellows which we men call justice. To my mind, cruelty is the one diabolic sin which must be wiped out of life and made impossible.

Paul's condemnation of the body and its desires is in direct contradiction to the gentle teaching of Jesus and is in itself idiotic. I reject Paulism as passionately as I accept the gospel of Christ. In regard to the body I go back to the Pagan ideals, to Eros and Aphrodite and

The fair humanities of old religions.

Paul and the Christian churches have dirtied desire, degraded women, debased procreation, vulga- rized and vilified the best instinct in us.

XV

"Priests in black gowns are going their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys and desires."

And the worst of it all is that the highest func- tion of man has been degraded by foul words so that it is almost impossible to write the body's hymn of joy as it should be written. The poets have been almost as guilty in this respect as the priests: Aristo- phanes and Rabelais are ribald, dirty: Boccaccio cynical while Ovid leers cold-bloodedly and Zola like Chaucer finds it difficult to suit language to his de- sires. Walt Whitman is better though often merely commonplace. The Bible is the best of all; but not frank enough even in the noble Song of Solomon which now and then by sheer imagination manages to convey the ineffable!

We are beginning to reject Puritanism and its unspeakable, brainless pruderies; but Catholicism is just as bad. Go to the Vatican Gallery and the great Church of St. Peter in Rome and vou will find the fairest figures of ancient art clothed in painted tin, as if the most essential organs of the body were dis- gusting and had to be concealed.

I say the body is beautiful and must be lifted and dignified by our reverence: I love the body more than any Pagan of them all and I love the soul and her aspirations as well; for me the body and the soul are alike beautiful, all dedicate to Love and her worship.

I have no divided allegiance and what I preach today amid the scorn and hatred of men will be uni- versally accepted to-morrow; for in my vision, too, a thousand years are as one day.

We must unite the soul of Paganism, the love of beauty and art and literature with the soul of Christianity and its human loving-kindness in a new synthesis which shall include all the sweet and gentle and noble impulses in us.

VI

What we all need is more of the spirit of Jesus: we must learn at length with Shakespeare: "Pardon's the word for all!"

I want to set this Pagan-Christian ideal before men as the highest and most human too.

Now one word to my own people and their pecu- liar shortcomings. Anglo-Saxon domineering com- bativeness is the greatest danger to Humanity in the world today. Americans are proud of having blotted out the red Indian and stolen his possessions and of burning and torturing negroes in the sacred name of equality. At all costs we must get rid of our hypoc- risies and falsehoods and see ourselves as we are — a domineering race, vengeful and brutal, as exempli- fied in Haiti; we must study the inevitable effects of our soulless, brainless selfishness as shown in the world-war.

The Germanic ideal which is also the English and American ideal, of the conquering male that despises all weaker and less intelligent races and is eager to enslave or annihilate them, must be set aside. A hundred years ago, there were only fifteen mil- lions of English and American folk; today there are nearly two hundred millions and it is plain that in another century or so, they will be the most numerous, as they are already by far the most powerful, race on earth.

The most numerous folk hitherto, the Chinese, has set a good example by remaining within its own boundaries, but these conquering, colonizing Anglo- Saxons threaten to overrun the earth and destroy all other varieties of the species man. Even now we annihilate the Red Indian because he is not subser- vient, while we are content to degrade the negro who doesn't threaten our domination.

XVII

Is it wise to desire only one flower in this garden of a world? Is it wise to blot out the better varieties while preserving the inferior 1

And the Anglo-Saxon ideal for the individual is even baser and more inept. Intent on satisfying his own conquering lust, he has compelled the female of the species to an unnatural chastity of thought and deed and word. He has thus made of his wife a meek, upper-servant or slave(die Hausfrau), who has hardly any intellectual interests and whose spiritual being only finds a narrow outlet in her mother-instincts. The daughter he has labored to degrade into the strangest sort of two-legged tame fowl ever imagined : she must seek a mate while concealing or denying all her strongest sex-feelings: in fine, she should be as cold-blooded as a frog and as wily and ruthless as an Apache on the war-path.

The ideal he has set before himself is confused and confusing: really he desires to be healthy and strong while gratifying all his sexual appetites. The highest type, however, the English gentleman, has pretty constantly in mind the individualistic ideal of what he calls an "all-round man", a man whose body and mind is harmoniously developed and brought to a comparatively high state of efficiency.

He has no inkling of the supreme truth that every man and woman possesses some small facet of the soul which reflects life in a peculiar way or, to use the language of religion, sees God as no other soul born into the world, can ever see Him.

It is the first duty of every individual to develop all his faculties of body, mind and spirit as com- pletely and harmoniously as possible; but it is a still higher duty for each of us to develop our special fac- ulty to the uttermost consistent with health; for only by so doing shall we attain to the highest self -con -

2

XVIII

sciousness or be able to repay our debt to humanity. No Anglo-Saxon, so far as I know, has ever advocated this ideal or dreamed of regarding it as a duty. In fact, no teacher so far has even thought of helping men and women to find out the particular power which constitutes their essence and inbeing and justi- fies their existence. And so nine men and women out of ten go through life without realising their own special nature: they cannot lose their souls for they have never found them.

For every son of Adam, for every daughter of Eve, this is the supreme defeat, the final disaster. Yet no one, so far as I know, has ever warned of the danger or spoken of this ideal.

That's why I love this book in spite of all its shortcomings and all its faults: it is the first book ever written to glorify the body and its passionate desires and the soul as well and its sacred, climbing sympathies.

Give and forgive, I always say, is the supreme lesson of life.

I only wish I had begun the book five years ago, before I had been half drowned in the brackish flood of old age and become conscious of failing memory; but notwithstanding this handicap, I have tried to write the book I have always wanted to read, the first chapter in the Bible of Humanity. And so I front this foreword with the lovely figure of Yenus Queen, and I close it with the face of Christ as seen by Rubens when He forgave the adulterous woman.

Hearken to good counsel: "Live out your whole free life, while yet on earth, Seize the quick Present, prize your one sure boon: Though brief, each day a golden sun has birth; Though dim, the night is gemmed with stars and moon."

Christ and The Woman taken in Adultery

by Rubens.

MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Chapter I.

A/T emory is the Mother of the Muses, the prototype A * of the Artist. As a rule she selects and relieves out the important, omitting what is accidental or tri- vial. Now and then, however, she makes mistakes like all other artists. Nevertheless I take Memory in the main as my guide.

I was born on the 14th of February 1855, and named James Thomas, after my father's two brothers: my father was in the Navy, a lieutenant in command of a revenue cutter or gunboat, and we children saw him only at long intervals.

My earliest recollection is being danced on the foot of my father's brother James, the Captain of an Indiaman, who paid us a visit in the south of Kerry when I was about two. I distinctly remember repeat- ing a hymn by heart for him, my mother on the other side of the fireplace, prompting: then I got him to dance me a little more, which was all I wanted. [ remember my mother telling him I could read, and his surprise.

The next memory must have been about the same time: I was seated on the floor screaming when my father came in and asked: "What's the matter?"

"It's only Master Jim", replied the nurse crossly,

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2 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

"he's just screaming out of sheer temper, Sir, look, there's not a tear in his eye".

A year or so later, it must have been, I was proud of walking up and down a long room while my mother rested her hand on my head, and called me her walking stick.

Later still I remember coming to her room at night: I whispered to her and then kissed her, but her cheek was cold and she didn't answer, and T woke the house with my shrieking: she was dead. I felt no grief, but something gloomy and terrible in the sudden cessation of the usual household activities.

A couple of days later I saw her coffin carried out, and when the nurse told my sister and me that we would never see our mother again, I was surprised merely and wondered why.

My mother died when I was nearly four, and soon after we moved to Kingstown near Dublin. I used to get up in the night with my sister Annie, four years my senior and go foraging for bread and jam or sugar. One morning about daybreak I stole into the nurse's room, and saw a man beside her in bed, a man with a red moustache. I drew my sister in and she too saw him. We crept out again without waking them. My only emotion was surprise, but next day the nurse denied me sugar on my bread and butter and I said: "I'll tell" — I don't know whv: I had then no inkling of modern journalism.

"Tell what?" she asked.

"There was a man in your bed", I replied, "last night."

"Hush, hush!" she said, and gave me the sugar.

After that I found all I had to do was to say "I'll tell!" to get whatever I wanted. My sister even wished to know one day what I had to tell, but I would not say. I distinctly remember my feeling of

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 3

superiority over her because she had not had sense enough to exploit the sugar mine.

When I was between four and five, I was sent with Annie to a girl's boarding-school in Kingstown kept by a Mrs. Frost. I was put in the class with the oldest girls on account of my proficiency in arith- metic, and I did my best at it because I wanted to be with them, though I had no conscious reason for my preference. I remember how the nearest girl used to lift me up and put me in my high-chair and how I would hurry over the sums set in compound long division and proportion, for as soon as I had finished, I would drop my pencil on the floor, and then turn round and climb down out of my chair, ostensibly to get it, but really to look at the girls' legs. Why? I couldn't have said.

I was at the bottom of the class and the legs got bigger and bigger towards the end of the long table, and I preferred to look at the big ones.

As soon as the girl next me missed me, she would move her chair back and call me, and I'd pretend to have just found my slate-pencil, which I said had rolled, and she'd lift me back into my high-chair.

One day I noticed a beautiful pair of legs on the other side of the table, near the top. There must have been a window behind the girl; for her legs up to the knees were in full light and they filled me wth emo- tion giving me an indescribable pleasure. They were not the thickest legs, which surprised me. Up to that moment, I had thought it was the thickest legs I liked best; but now I saw that several girls, three anyway, had bigger legs, but none like hers, so shapely, with such slight ankles and tapering lines. I was enthral- led and at the same time a little scared.

I crept back into my chair with one idea in my little head: could I get close to those lovely legs and

4 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

perhaps touch them — breathless expectancy. I knew I could hit my slate-pencil and make it roll up bet- ween the files of legs. Next day I did this and crawl- ed right up till I was close to the legs that made my heart beat in my throat and yet gave me a strange delight. I put out my hand to touch them; suddenly the thought came that the girl would simply be fright- ened by my touch and pull her legs back and I should be discovered and — I was frightened.

I returned to my chair to think, and soon found the solution. Next day I again crouched before the girl's legs, choking with emotion. I put my pencil near her toes, and reached round between her legs with my left hand as if to get it, taking care to touch her calf. She shrieked, and drew back her legs, holding my hand tight between them, and cried: "What are you doing there!"

"Getting my pencil", I said humbly, "it rolled."

"There it is", she said, kicking it with her foot.

"Thanks" I replied, overjoyed, for the feel of her soft legs was still on my hand.

"You're a funny little fellow", she said, but I didn't care; I had had my first taste of Paradise and the forbidden fruit — authentic heaven!

I have no recollection of her face: it seemed pleasant; that's all I remember. None of the girls made any impression on me but I can still recall the thrill of admiration and pleasure her shapely limbs gave me.

I record this incident at length, because it stands alone in my memory, and because it proves that sex- feeling may show itself in early childhood.

One day about 1890 I had Meredith, Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde dining with me in Park Lane and the time of sex-awakening was discussed. Both Pater and Wilde spoke of it as a sign of puberty; Pater

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 5

thought it began about 13 or 14 and Wilde to my amazement set it as late as 16. Meredith alone was inclined to put it earlier.

"It shows sporadically", he said, "and sometimes before puberty".

I recalled the fact that Napoleon tells how he was in love before he was five years old with a school- mate called Giacominetta, but even Meredith laughed at this and would not believe that any real sex-feeling could show itself so early. To prove the point, I gave my experience as I have told it here, and brought Meredith to pause: "very interesting", he thought, "but peculiar!"

"In her abnormalities", says Goethe, "Nature re- veals her secrets"; here is an abnormality, perhaps as such, worth noting.

I hadn't another sensation of sex till nearly .six years later when I was eleven, since which time such emotions have been almost incessant.

My exaltation to the oldest class in arithmetic got i ue into trouble by bringing me into relations with the headmistress, Mrs. Frost, who was very cross and seemed to think that I should spell as correctly as I did sums. When she found I couldn't, she used to pull my ears and got into the habit of digging her long thumb-nail into my ear till it bled. I didn't mind the smart ; in fact, I was delighted, for her cruelty brought me the pity of the elder girls who used to wipe my ears with their pocket-handkerchiefs and say that old Frost was a beast and a cat.

One day my father sent for me and I went with a petty officer to his vessel in the harbor: my right ear had bled on to my collar. As soon as my father notic- ed it and saw the older scars, he got angry and took me back to the school and told Mrs. Frost what he thought of her, and her punishments.

6 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Immediately afterwards, it seems to me I was sent to live with my eldest brother Vernon, ten years older than myself, who was in lodgings with friends in Galway while going to the College.

There I spent the next five years, which passed leaving a blank. I learned nothing in those years except how to play "tig", "hide and seek", "footer" and ball. I was merely a healthy, strong, little animal without an ache or pain or trace of thought.

Then I remember an interlude at Belfast where Vernon and I lodged with an old Methodist who used to force me to go to church with him and drew on a little black skullcap during the Service, which filled me with shame and made me hate him. There is a period in life when every thing peculiar or individual, excites dislike and is in itself an offense.

I learned here to "niitch" and lie simply to avoid school and to play, till my brother found I was coughing and having sent for a doctor, was informed that I had congestion of the lungs; the truth being that I played all day and never came home for din- ner, seldom indeed before seven o'clock, when I knew Vernon would be back. I mention this incident be- cause, while confined to the house, I discovered under the old Methodist's bed, a set of doctor's books with colored plates of the insides and the pudenda of men and women. I devoured all the volumes and bits of knowledge from them stuck to me for many a year. But curiously enough the main sex fact was not. re- vealed to me then; but in talks a little later with boys of my own age.

I learned nothing in Belfast but rules of games and athletics. My brother Vernon used to go to a gymnasium every evening and exercise and box. To my astonishment he was not among the best; so while he was boxing I began practicing this and that, draw-

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 7

ing myself up till my chin was above the bar, and repeating this till one evening Vernon found I could do it thirty times running: his praise made me proud.

About this time, when I was ten or so, we were all brought together inCarrickfergus; my brothers and sis- ters then first became living, individual beings to me. Vernon was going to a bank as a clerk, and was away all day. Willie, six years older than I was, Annie four years my senior, and Chrissie two years my junior, went to the same day-school, though the girls went to the girls' entrance and had women teachers. Willie and I were in the same class ; though he had grown to be taller than Vernon, I could beat him in most of the lessons. There was, however, one important branch of learning, in which he was easily the best in the school. The first time I heard him recite "The Battle of Ivry" by Macaulay, I was carried off my feet. He made gestures and his voice altered so naturally that I was lost in admiration.

That evening my sisters and I were together and wo talked of Willie's talent. My eldest sister was enthusiastic, which I suppose stirred envy and emula- tion in me, for I got up and imitated him, and to my sisters' surprise I knew the whole poem by heart. "Who taught you?" Annie wanted to know, and when she heard that I had learned it just from hearing Willie recite it once, she was astonished and must have told our teacher, for the next afternoon he asked me to follow Willie and told me I was very good. From this time on, the reciting class was my chief education. I learned every boy's piece and could imi- tate them all perfectly, except one redheaded rascal who could recite the "African Chief" better than anyone else, better even than the master. It was pure melodrama; but Red-head was a born actor and swept us all away by the realism of his impersonation-

8 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Never shall I forget how the boy rendered the words :

"Look, feast thy greedy eyes on gold, Long kept for sorest need; Take it, thou askest sums untold And say that I am freed.

Take it; my wife the long, long day

Weeps by the cocoa-tree, And my young children leave their play

And ask in vain for me."

I haven't seen or heard the poem these fifty odd years. It seems tawdry stuff to me now ; but the boy's accents were of the very soul of tragedy and I realized clearly that I couldn't recite that poem as well as he did. He was inimitable. Every time his accents and man- ner altered; now he did these verses wonderfully, at another time those, so that I couldn't ape him; always there was a touch of novelty in his intense realization of the tragedy. Strange to say it was the only poem he recited at all well.

An examination came and I was first in the school in arithmetic and first too in elocution; Vernon even praised me, while Willie slapped me and got kicked on the shins for his pains. Vernon separated us and told Willie he should be ashamed of hitting one only half as big as he was. Willie lied promptly, saying I had kicked him first. I disliked Willie; I hardly know why, save that he was a rival in the school-life.

After this Annie began to treat me differently and now I seemed to see her as she was and was struck by her funny ways. She wished both Chrissie and myself to call her "Nita"; it was short for "Anita", she said, which was the stylish French way of pro- nouncing Annie. She hated "Annie" — it was "com- mon and vulgar"; I couldn't make out why.

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 9

One evening we were together and she had un- dressed Chrissie for bed, when she opened her own dress and showed us how her breasts had grown while- Chrissie's still remained small, and indeed "Nita's" were ever so much larger and prettier and round like apples. Nita let us touch them gently and was evidently very proud of them. She sent Chrissie to* bed in the next room while I went on learning a lesson beside her. Nita left the room to get something,. I think, when Chrissie called me and I went into t he- bedroom wondering what she wanted. She wished me to know that her breasts would grow too, and be just as pretty as Nita's. "Don't you think so?" she asked,, and taking my hand put it on them, and I said, "Yes"* for indeed I liked her better than Nita who was all airs and graces and full of affectations.

Suddenly Nita called me, and Chrissie kissed me, whispering "don't tell her" and I promised. I always liked Chrissie and Vernon. Chrissie was very clever and pretty, with dark curls and big hazel eyes, and Vernon was a sort of hero and always very kind to me.

I learned nothing from this happening. I had hardly any sex-thrill with either sister, indeed, nothing like so much as I had had, five years before,, through the girl's legs in Mrs. Frost's school, and 1 record the incident here chiefly for another reason. One afternoon about 1890, Aubrey Beardsley and his sister Mabel, a very pretty- girl, had been lunching with me in Park Lane Afterwards we went into the Park. I accompanied them as far as Hyde Park Corner. For some reason or other, I elaborated the theme that men of thirty or forty usually corrupted young girls, and women of thirty or forty in turn corrupted youths.

"1 don't agree with you", Aubrey remarked: "It's

10 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

usually a fellow's sister who gives him his first lessons in sex. I know it was Mabel here, who first taught me."

I was amazed at his outspokenness ; Mabel flushed -crimson and I hastened to add:

"In childhood girls are far more precocious; but those little lessons are usually too early to matter." He wouldn't have it, but I changed the subject reso- lutely and Mabel told me some time afterwards that she was very grateful to me for cutting short the dis- cussion: "Aubrey", she said, "loves all sex things <md doesn't care what he says or does".

I had seen before that Mabel was pretty: 1 realised that day when she stooped over a flower that tier figure was beautifully slight and round. Aubrey caught my eye at the moment and remarked mali- ciously :

"Mabel was my first model, weren't you, Mabs? i was in love with her figure", he went on judicially, 4'her breasts were so high and firm and round that I took her as my ideal". She laughed, blushing a little, and rejoined, "Your figures, Aubrey, are not exactly ideal".

I realised from this little discussion that most men's sisters were just as precocious as mine and just as likely to act as teachers in the matter of sex.

From about this time on, the individualities of people began to impress me definitely. Vernon suddenly got an appointment in a bank at Armagh and I went to live with him there, in lodgings. The lodging-house keeper I disliked: she was always trying to make me keep hours and rules, and I was as wild as a homeless dog, but Armagh was a wonder city to me. Vernon made me a day-boy at the Royal School: it was my first big school; I learned all the lessons very easily and most of the boys and all the

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 11

masters were kind to me. The great Mall or park- like place in the centre of the town delighted me; I had soon climbed nearly every tree in it, tree-climbing and reciting being the two sports in which I excelled.

When we were at Carrickfergus, my father had had me on board his vessel and had matched me at climbing the rigging against a cabin-boy and though the sailor was first at the cross-trees, I caught him on the descent by jumping at a rope and letting it slide through my hands, almost at falling speed to the deck. I heard my father tell this afterwards with pleasure to Vernon, which pleased my vanity inordinately and increased, if that were possible, my delight in showing off.

For another reason my vanity had grown beyond measure. At Carrickfergus I had got hold of a book on athletics belonging to Vernon and had there learned that if you went into the water up to your neck and threw yourself boldly forward and tried to swim, you would swim; for the body is lighter than the water and floats.

The next time I went down to bathe with Ver- non, instead of going on the beach in the shallow water and wading out, I went with him to the end of the pier and when he dived in, I went down the steps and as soon as he came up to the surface I cried, "Look! I can swim too", and I boldly threw myself forward and, after a moment's dreadful sinking and spluttering, did in fact swim. When I wanted to get back I had a moment of appalling fear: "Could I turn round!" The next moment I found it quite easy to turn and I was soon safely back on the steps again.

"When did you leam to swim?", asked Vernon coming out beside me. "This minute", I replied and as he was surprised, I told him I had read it all in

12 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Ms book and made up my mind to venture the very next time I bathed. A little time afterwards I heard liim tell this to some of his men friends in Armagh, and they all agreed that it showed extraordinary courage, for I was small for my age and always appeared even younger than I was.

Looking back, I see that many causes combined to strengthen the vanity in me which had already become inordinate and in the future was destined, to shape my life and direct its purposes. Here in Armagh everything conspired to foster my besetting sin. I was put among boys of my age, I think in the lower Fourth, and the form-master finding that I knew no Latin, showed me a Latin grammar and told me I'd have to learn it as quickly as possible, for the class had already begun to read Caesar: he showed me the first declension mensa, as the example, and asked me if I could learn it by the next day. I said I would, and as luck would have it, the Mathe- matical master passing at the moment, the form- master told him I was backward and should be in a lower form.

"He's very good indeed at figures", the Mathe- matical master rejoined, "he might be in the Upper Division".

"Really!" exclaimed the Form-master. "See what you can do," he said to me, "you may find it possible to catch up. Here's a Caesar too, you may as well take it with you. We have done only two or three pages".

That evening I sat down to the Latin gram- mar, and in an hour or so had learned all the declen- sions and nearly all the adjectives and pronouns. Next day I was trembling with hope of praise and if the form-master had encouraged me or said one word of commendation, I might have distinguished myself

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 13

in the class work, and so changed perhaps my whole life; but the next day he had evidently forgotten all about my backwardness. By dint of hearing the other boys answer I got a smattering of the lessons, enough to get through them without punishment, and soon a good memory brought me among the foremost boys, though I took no interest in learning Latin.

Another incident fed my self-esteem and opened to me the world of books. Vernon often went to a clergyman's who had a pretty daughter, and I too was asked to their evening parties. The daughter found out I could recite, and soon it became the custom to get me to recite some poem everywhere we went. Vernon bought me the poems of Macaulay and Walter Scott and I had soon learned them all bv heart, and used to declaim them with infinite gusto: at first my gestures were imitations of Willie's; but Vernon taught me to be more natural and I bettered his teaching. No doubt my small stature helped the effect and the Irish love of rhetoric did the rest; but every one praised me and the showing off made me very vain and — a more important result — the learn- ing of new poems brought me to the reading of novels and books of adventure. I was soon lost in this new

world: though I played at school with the other boys, in the evening I never opened a lesson-book; but devoured Lever and Mayne Eeid, Marryat and Fenimore Cooper with unspeakable delight.

I had one or two fights at school with boys of my own age: I hated fighting; but I was conceited and combative and strong and so got to fisticuffs twice or three times. Each time, as soon as an elder boy saw the scrimmage, he would advise us, after looking on for a round or two, to stop and make friends. The Irish are supposed to love fighting better than eating; but my school-days assure me that they are not

14 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

nearly so combative or perhaps I should say, so brutal, as the English.

In one of my fights a boy took my part and we became friends. His name was Howard and we used to go on long walks together. One day I wanted Mm to meet Strangways, the Vicar's son, who was fourteen but silly, I thought; Howard shook his head: "he wouldn't want to know me", he said, "I am a Roman Catholic". I still remember the feeling of horror his confession called up in me: "A Roman Catholic! Could anyone as nice as Howard be a Catholic!"

I was thunderstruck and this amazement has always illumined for me the abyss of Protestant bigotry, but I wouldn't break with Howard who was two years older than I and who taught me many things. He taught me to like Fenians, though I hardly knew what the word meant. One day I remember he showed me posted on the Court House a notice offering 5000 Pounds sterling as reward to anyone who would tell the whereabouts of James Stephen, the Fenian Head-Centre. "He's travelling all over Ireland", Howard whispered, "everybody knows him", adding with gusto, "but no one would give the Head-Centre away to the dirty English". I remember thrilling to the mystery and chivalry of the story. From that moment Head-Centre was a sacred symbol to me as to Howard.

One day we met Strangways and somehow or other began talking of sex. Howard knew all about it and took pleasure in enlightening us both. It was Cecil Howard who first initiated Strang- ways and me too in self-abuse. In spite of my Novel reading, I was still at eleven too young to get much pleasure from the practice; but I was delighted to know how children were made and a lot of new facts

CHILDHOOD DAYS. 15

about sex. Strangways had hair about his private parts, as indeed Howard had, also, and when he rubbed himself and the orgasm came, a sticky milky fluid spirted from Strangway's cock which Howard told us was the man's seed, which must go right into the woman's womb to make a child.

A week later, Strangways astonished us both by telling how he had made up to the nursemaid of his younger sisters and got into her bed at night. The first time she wouldn't let him do anything, it appeared, but after a night or two he managed to touch her sex and assured us it was all covered with silky hairs. A little later he told us how she had locked her door and how the next day he had taken oft' the lock and got into bed with her again. At first she was cross, or pretended to be, he said, but he kept on kissing her and begging her, and bit by bit she yielded, and he touched her sex again: "it was a slit", he said. A few nights later, he told us he had put Ins prick into her and "Oh! by gum, it was wonder- ful, wonderful!"

"But how did you do itf" Ave wanted to know and he gave us his whole experience. "Girls love kissing," he said, "and so I kissed and kissed her and put my leg on her, and her hand on my cock and I kept touching her breasts and her cunny (that's what she calls it) and at last I got on her between her legs and she guided my prick into her cunt (God it was wonderful!) and now I go with her every night and often in the day as well." She likes her cunt touched, but very gently", he added, "she showed me hovv to do it with one finger like this" and he suited the. action to the word.

Strangways in a moment became to us not only a hero' but a miracle-man; we pretended not to believe him in order to make ;him tell us more, but

16 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

in our hearts we knew lie was telling us the truth, and Ave were almost crazy with breathless desire.

I got him to invite me up to the Vicarage and I saw Mary the nurse-girl there, and she seemed to me almost a woman and spoke to him as "Master Will" and he kissed her, though she frowned and said "Leave off" and "Behave yourself", very angrily ; but I felt that her anger was put on to prevent my guessing the truth.

I was aflame with desire and when I told Howard, he, too, burned with lust, and took me out for a walk and questioned me all over again and, under a haystack in the country we gave ourselves to a bout of frigging which for the first time thrilled me with pleasure.

All the time we were playing with ourselves I kept thinking of Mary's hot slit, as Strangways had described it, and at length a real orgasm came and shook me; the imagining had intensified my delight.

Nothing in my life up to that moment was comparable in joy to that story of sexual pleasure as described, and acted for us, by Strangways.

MY FATHER.

Father was coming: I was sick with fear: he was so strict and loved to punish. On the ship he had beaten me with a strap because I had gone forward and listened to the sailors taking smut: I feared him and disliked him ever since I saw him once come aboard drunk.

It was the evening of a regatta at Kingston. He had been asked to lunch on one of the big yachts. I heard the officers talking of it. They said he was asked because he knew more about tides and currents along the coast than anyone, more even than the fishermen. The racing skippers wanted to get some

SCHOOL DAYS. 17

information out of him. Another added, "he knows the slants of the wind off Howth Head, ay, and the weather, too, better than anyone living!" All agreed he was a first-rate sailor "one of the best, the very best if he had a decent temper — the little devil".

"D'ye mind when he steered the gig in that race for all? Won? av course he won, he has always won

— ah! he's a great little sailor an' he takes care of the men's food too, but he has the divil's own temper

— an' that's the truth".

That afternoon of the Regatta, he came up the ladder quickly and stumbled smiling as he stepped down to the deck. I had never seen him like that; he was grinning and wralking 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 dowTn to his cabin and came up five minutes afterwards: "he's snoring: he'll soon be all right: it's that champagne they give him, and all that praising him and pressing him to give them tips for this and that".

"No, no!" cried another, "it's not the drink; he only gets drunk when he hasn't to pay for it", and all of them grinned; it was true, I felt, and I despised the meanness inexpressibly.

I hated them for seeing him, and hated him — drunk and talking thick and staggering about; an object of derision and pity! — my "Governor", as Vernon called him; I despised him.

And 1 recalled other griefs I had against him. A Lord of the Admiralty had come aboard once: father was dressed in his best; I was very young: it was just after I had learned to swim in Carrick- fergus. My father used to make me undress and go in and swim round the vessel every morning after my lessons*

&

18 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

That morning I had come up as usual at eleven and a strange gentleman and my father were talking together near the companion. As I appeared my father gave me a frown to go below but the stranger caught sight of me and laughing called me. I came to them and the stranger was surprised on hearing I could. swim. "Jump in, Jim!" cried my father, "and swim round".

Nothing loath I ran down the ladder, pulled off my clothes and jumped in. The stranger and my father were above me smiling and talking; my father waved his hand and I swam round the vessel. When I got back, I was about to get on the steps and come aboard when my father said:

"No, no, swim on round till I tell you to stop."

Away I went again quite proud; but when I got round the second time I was tired; I had never swum so far and I had sunk deep in the water and a little spray of wave had gone into my mouth; I was very glad to get near the steps, but as I stretched out my hand to mount them, my father waved his hand. —

"Go on, go on!" he cried, "till you're told to stop".

I went on: but now I was very tired and frightened as well, and as I got to the bow the sailors leant over the bulwarks and one encouraged me: "Go slow, Jim, you'll get round all right." I saw it wTas big Newton, the stroke-oar of my father's gig, but just because of his sympathy I hated my father the more for making me so tired and so afraid. ••

When I got round the. third time, I swam very slowly and let myself sink very low, and the stranger spoke for me to my father, and then he himself told me to "come up". . ..

•I came eagerly, but a little scared at what my father might do; but the stranger came over to me,.

SCHOOL DAYS. 19

saying, "he's all blue; that water's very cold, Captain: someone should give him a good towelling".

My father said nothing but "Go down and dress"', adding, "get warm".

The memory of my fear made me see that he was always asking me to do too much, and I hated him who could get drunk and shame me and make me run races up the rigging with the cabin boys who were grown men and could beat me. I disliked him.

I was too young then to know that it was probably the habit of command which prevented him from praising me, though I knew in a half-cons- cious way that he was proud of me, because I was the only one of his children who never got sea-sick.

A little later he arrived in Armagh, and the follow- ing week was wretched: I had to come straight home from school every clay, and go out for a long walk with the "governor" and he was not a pleasant companion. I couldn't let myself go with him as with a chum; I might in the heat of talk use some word or tell him something and get into an awful row. So I walked beside him silently, taking heed as to what I should say in answer to his simplest question. There was no companionship!

In the evening he used to send me to bed early: even before nine o'clock, though Vernon always let me stay up with him reading till eleven or twelve o'clock. One night I went up to my bedroom on the next floor, but returned almost at once to get a book and have a read in bed, which was a rare treat to me. I was afraid to go into the sitting-room; but crept into the dining-room where there were a few books, though not so interesting as those in the parlour; the door between the two rooms was ajar. Suddenly T heard my father say:

"He's a little Fenian."

20 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

"Fenian", repeated Vernon in amazement, "really, Governor, I don't believe he knows the mean- ing of the word; he's only just eleven, you must remember."

"I tell you" broke in my father, "he talked of James Stephen, the Fenian Head Centre, to-day with wild admiration. He's a Fenian alright, but how did he catch it?"

"I'm sure I don't know", replied Vernon, "he reads a great deal and is very quick: I'll find out about it."

"No, no!" said my father, "the thing is to cure him: he must go to some school in England, that'll cure him."

I waited to hear no more but got my book and crept upstairs; so because I loved the Fenian Head- Centre I must be a Fenian.

"How stupid Father is", was my summing up, but England tempted me, England — life was open- ing out.

It was at the Royal School in the summer after my sex-experiences with Strangways and Howard that I first began to notice dress. A boy in the sixth form named Milman had taken a liking to me and though he was five years older than I was, he often went with Howard and myself for walks. He was a stickler for dress, said that no one but "cads" (a name I learned from him for the first time) and common folk would wear a made-up tie: he gave me one of his scarves and showed me how to make a running lover's knot in it. On another occasion he told me that only "cads" would wear trowsers frayed or repaired.

Was it Milmans talk that made me self-conscious or my sex-awakening through Howard and Strang- ways? I couldn't say; but at this time I had a curious

SCHOOL DAYS. 21

and prolonged experience. My brother Vernon hearing me once complain of my dress, got me three suits of clothes, one in black with an Eton jacket for best and a tall hat and the others in tweeds: he gave me shirts, too, and ties, and I began to take great care of my appearance. At our evening parties the girls and young women (Vernon's friends) were kinder to me than ever and I found myself wondering whether I really looked "nice" as they said.

I began to wash and bathe carefully and brush my hair to regulation smoothness (only "cads" used pomatum, Milman said) and when I was asked to recite, I would pout and plead prettily that I did not want to, just in order to be pressed.

Sex was awakening in me at this time but was still indeterminate, I imagine; for two motives ruled me for over six months: I was always wondering how 1 looked and watching to see if people liked me. I used to try to speak with the accent used by the "best people" and on coming into a room I prepared my entrance. Someone, I think it was Vernon's sweet- heart, Monica, said that I had an energetic profile, so I always sought to show my profile. In fact, for some six months, I was more a girl than a boy, with all a girl's self -consciousness and manifold affecta- tions and sentimentalities: I often used to think that no one cared for me really and I would weep over my unloved loneliness.

Whenever later, as a writer, I wished to picture a young girl, I had only to go back to this period in my consciousness in order to attain the peculiar view-point of the girl.

LIFE IN AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

Chapter II.

If I tried my best, it would take a year to describe the life in that English Grammar School

at R I had always been perfectly happy in

every Irish school and especially in the Royal School at Armagh. Let me give one difference as briefly as possible. When I whispered in the class-room in Ireland, the master would frown at me and shake his head; ten minutes later I was talking again, and he'd hold up an admonitory finger: the third time he'd probably say, "Stop talking, Harris, don't you see you're disturbing your neigbourf Half an hour later in despair he'd cry, "If you still talk, I'll have to punish you".

Ten minutes afterwards: "You're incorrigible, Harris, come up here" and I'd have to go and stand beside his desk for the rest of the morning, and even this light punishment did not happen more than twice a week, and as I came to be head of my class, it grew rarer.

In England, the procedure was quite different. "That new boy there is talking; take 300 lines to write out and keep quiet".

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 23

"Please, Sir", I'd pipe up — "Take 500 lines and keep quiet".

"But, Sir" — in remonstrance.

"Take 1000 lines and if you answer again, I'll send you to the Doctor" — which meant I'd get a caning or a long talking to.

The English masters one and all ruled by punishment; consequently I was indoors writing out lines almost every day, and every half -holiday for the first year. Then my father, prompted by Vernon, complained to the Doctor that writing out lines was ruining my handwriting.

After that I was punished by lines to learn by heart; the lines quickly grew into pages, and before the end of the first half year it was found that I knew the whole school history of England by heart, through these punishments. Another remonstrance from my father, and I was given lines of Vergil to learn. Thank God! that seemed worth learning and the story of Ulysses and Dido on "the wild sea -banks" became a series of living pictures to me, not to be dimmed even, so long as I live.

That English school for a year and a half was to me a brutal prison with stupid daily punishments. At the end of that time I was given a seat by myself, thanks to the Mathematical master; but that's another story.

The two or three best boys of my age in Eng- land were far more advanced than I was in Latin and had already waded through half the Greek Gram- mar, which I had not begun, but I was better in Math- ematics than any one in the whole lower school. Because I was behind the English standard in lan- guages, the Form-master took me to be stupid and called me "stupid", and as a result I never learned a Latin or Greek lesson in mv two and a half years

24 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

in the Grammar School. Nevertheless, thanks to the punishment of having to learn Vergil and Livy by heart, I was easily the best of my age in Latin too, before the second year was over.

I had an extraordinary verbal memory. The Doctor, I remember, once mouthed out some lines of the "Paradise Lost" and tokUus in his pompous way that Lord Macaulay knew the "Paradise Lost" by heart from beginning to end. I asked: "Is that hard, Sir!" "When you've learned half of it", he replied, „you'll understand how hard! Lord Ma- caulay was a genius", and he emphasized the "Lord' again.

A week later when the Doctor again took the school in literature, I said at the end of the hour: "Please, Sir, I know the 'Paradise Lost' by heart"; he tested me and I remember how he looked at me after- wards from head to foot as if asking himself where I had put all the learning. This "piece of impudence", as the older boys called it, brought me several cuffs and kicks from boys in the Sixth, and much ill-will from many of the others.

All English school life was summed up for me in the "fagging". There was "fagging" in the Royal School in Armagh, but it was kindly. If you wanted to get out of it for a long walk with a chum, you had only to ask one of the Sixth and you got permission to skip it.

But in England the rule was Rhadamanthine; the fags' names on duty were put up on a blackboard, and if you were not on time, ay, and servile to boot, you'd get a dozen from an ash plant on your behind and not laid on perfunctorily and with distaste, as the Doctor did it, but with vim so that I had painful weals on my backside and couldn't sit down for days without a smart.

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 25

The fags too, being young and weak, were very often brutally treated just for fun. On Sunday mor- nings in summer, for instance, we had an hour longer in bed. I was one of the half dozen juniors in the big bedroom; there were two older boys in it, one at each end, presumably to keep order; but in reality to teach lechery and corrupt their younger favorites. If the mothers of England knew what goes on in the dormitories of these boarding-schools throughout England, they would all be closed, from Eton and Harrow upwards or downwards, in a day. If English fathers even had brains enough to understand that the fires of sex need no stoking in boyhood, they too would protect their sons from the foul abuse. But I shall come back to this. Now I wish to speak of the crueltv.

Every form of cruelty was practiced on the younger, weaker and more nervous boys. I remember one Sunday morning, the half-dozen older boys pulled one bed along the wall and forced all the seven younger boys underneath it, beating with sticks any hand or foot that showed. One little fellow cried that he couldn't breathe and at once the gang of torment- ors began stuffing up all the apertures, saying that they would make a "Black Hole" of it. There were soon cries and struggiings under the bed and at length one of the youngest began shrieking so that the torturers ran away from the prison, fearing lest some master should hear.

One wet Sunday afternoon in midwinter, a little nervous "Mother's darling" from the West Indies who always had a cold and was always sneaking near the fire in the big schoolroom, Avas caught by two of the Fifth and held near the flames. Two more brutes pulled his trowsers tight over his bottom, and the more he squirmed and begged to be let go, the tighter

26 ; MY LIFE AND LOVES.

they held the trowsers and the nearer the flames he was pushed, till suddenly the trowsers split apart scorched through, and as the little fellow tumbled forward screaming, the torturers realized that they had gone too far. The little "Nigger" as he was called, didn't tell how he came to be so scorched but took his fortnight in sick bay as a respite.

We read of a fag at Shrewsbury who was thrown into a bath of boiling water by some older boys be- cause he liked to take his bath very warm; but this experiment turned out badly, for the little fellow died and the affair could not be hushed up, though it was finally dismissed as a regrettable accident.

The English are proud of the fact that they hand over a good deal of the school discipline to the older boys: they attribute this innovation to Arnold of Rugby and, of course, it is possible if the super- vision is kept up by a genius, that it may work for good and not for evil; but usually it turns the school into a forcing-house of cruelty and immorality. The older boys establish the legend that only sneaks would tell anything to the masters, and then they are free to give rein to their basest instincts.

The two Monitors in our big bedroom in my time were a strapping big fellow named Dick F . . . , who tired all the little boys by going into their beds and making them frig him till his semen came. The little fellows all hated to be covered with his filthy slime, but they had to pretend to like doing as he told them, and usually he insisted on frigging them by way of exciting himself. Dick picked me out once or twice but I managed to catch his semen on his own night- shirt, and so after calling me a "dirty little devil" he left me alone.

The other monitor was Jones, a Liverpool ,bov of about seventeen, very backward in lessons but

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 27

very strong, the "Cock" of the school at fighting. He used always to go to one young boy's bed whom he favored in many ways. Henry H . . . used to be able to get off any fagging and he never let out what Jones made him do at night, but in the long run he got to be chums with another little fellow and it all came out. One night when Jones was in Henry's bed, there was a shriek of pain and Jones was heard to be kissing and caressing his victim for nearly an hour afterwards. We all wondered whether Jones had had him, or what had happened. Henry's chum one day let the cat out of the bag. It appeared that Jones used to make the little fellow take his sex in his mouth and frig him and suck him at the same time. But one evening he had brought up some butter and smeared it over his prick and gradually inserted it into Henry's anus and this came to be his ordinary practice. But this night he had forgotten the butter and when he found a certain resistance, he thrust violently forward, causing extreme pain and making his pathic bleed. Henry screamed and so after an interval of some weeks or months the whole proce- dure came to be known.

If there had been no big boys as Monitors, there would still have been a certain amount of solitary frigging; from twelve or thirteen on, most boys and most girls too, practice self-abuse from time to time on some slight provocation, but the practice doesn't often become habitual unless it is fostered by one's elders and practiced mutually. In Ireland it was spo^ radic; in England perpetual and in English schools it often led to dowmright sodomy as in this instance.

In my own case there were two restraining in- fluences, and I wish to dwell on both as a hint. to parents. I was a very eager little athlete: thanks to instructions and photographs in a book, on athletics

28 MY LIFE AND LOYES.

belonging to Vernon, I found out how to jump and how to run. To jump high one had to take but a short run from the side and straighten oneself hori- zontally as one cleared the bar. By constant prac- tice I could at thirteen walk under the bar and then jump it. I soon noticed that if I frigged myself the night before, I could not jump so well, the conse- quence being that I restrained myself, and never frigged save on Sunday and soon managed to omit the practice on three Sundays out of four.

Since I came to understanding, I have always been grateful to that exercise for this lesson in self- restraint. Besides, one of the boys was always frig- ging himself: even in school he kept his right hand in his trousers' pocket and continued the practice. All of us knew that he had torn a hole in his pocket so that he could play with his cock; but none of the masters ever noticed anything. The little fellow grew gradually paler and paler until he took to crying in a corner, and unaccountable nervous tremblings shook him for a quarter of an hour at a time. At length, be was taken away by his parents: what became of him afterwards, I don't know, but I do know that till he was taught self-abuse, he was one of the quickest boys of his age at lessons and given like myself to much reading.

This object-lesson in consequences had little effect on me at the time; but later it was useful as a warning. Such teaching may have affected the Spar- tans as we read in history that they taught their children temperance by showing them a drunken helot; but I want to lay stress on the fact I was first taught self-control by a keen desire to excel in jump- ing and in running, and as soon as I found that I couldn't run as fast or jump as high after practicing

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND.

self-abuse, I began to restrain myself and in return this had a most potent effect on my will-power.

I was over thirteen when a second and still strong- er restraining influence made itself felt, and strange- ly enough this influence grew through my very desire for girls and curiosity about them.

The story marks an epoch in my life. We were taught singing at school and when it was found that I had a good alto voice and a very good ear, I was picked to sing solos, both in school and in the church choir. Before every church festival there was a good deal of practice with the organist, and girls from neighbouring houses joined in our classes. One girl alone sang alto and she and I were separated from the other boys and girls; the upright piano was put across the corner of the room and we two sat of stood behind it almost out of sight of all the other singers; the organist, of course, being seated in front of the piano. The girl E . . . who sang alto with me was about my own age : she was very pretty or seemed so to me, with golden hair and blue eyes and I always made up to her as well as I could, in my boyish way. One day while the organist was explaining something, E . . . stood up on the chair and leant over the back of the piano to hear better or see more. Seated in my chair behind her, I caught sight of her legs; for her dress rucked up behind as she leaned over: at once my breath stuck in my throat. Her legs were lovely, I thought, and the temptation came to touch them; for no one could see,

I got up immediately and stood by the chair she was standing on. Casually I let my hand fall against her left leg. She didn't draw her leg away or seem to feel my hand, so I touched her more boldly. She never moved, though now I knew she must have felt my hand. T began to slide my hand

30 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

up her leg and suddenly my fingers felt the warm flesh on her thigh where the stocking ended above the knee. The feel of her warm flesh made me literally choke with emotion: my hand went on up, warmer and warmer, when suddenly I touched her sex: there was soft down on it. The heart-pulse throbbed in my throat. I have no words to describe the intensity of my sensations.

Thank God, E . . . . did not move or show any sign of distaste. Curiosity was stronger even than desire in me; 1 felt her sex all over and at once the idea came into my head that it was like a fig (the Italians, I learned later, call it familiarly "fica") ; it opened at my touches and I inserted my finger gently, as Strangways had told me that Mary had taught him to do ; still E . . . . did not move. Gently I rubbed the front part of her sex with my finger. I could have kissed her a thousand times out of pas- sionate gratitude.

Suddenly as I went on, I felt her move and then again; plainly she was showing me where my touch gave her most pleasure: I could have died for her in thanks; again she moved and I could feel a little mound or small button of flesh right in the front of her sex, above the junction of the inner lips: of course it was her clitoris. I had forgotten all the old Methodist doctor's books till that moment; this frag- ment of long forgotten knowledge came back to me: gently I rubbed the clitoris and at once she pressed down on my finger for a moment or two. I tried to insert my finger into the vagina; but she drew away at once and quickly, closing her sex as if it hurt, so 1 went back to caressing her tickler.

Sudden the miracle ceased. The cursed orga- nist had finished his. explanation of the new plain chant, and. as he. touched the first notes on the piano,

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 31

E drew her legs together; I took away my hand

and she stepped down from the chair: "You darling, darling", I whispered; but she frowned, and then just gave me a smile out of the corner of her eye to show me she was not displeased.

Ah, how lovely, how seductive she seemed V> me now, a thousand times lovelier and more desirable than ever before. As we stood up to sing again, I whispered to her: "I love you, love you, dear, dear!"

I can never express the passion of gratitude I felt to her for her goodness, her sweetness in letting

me touch her sex. E it was who opened the

Gates of Paradise to me and let me first taste the hidden mysteries of sexual delight. Still, after more than fifty years I feel the thrill of the joy she gave me by her response, and the passionate reverence of my gratitude is still alive in me.

This experience with E . . , . had the most impor- tant and unlooked for results. The mere fact that girls could feel sex pleasure "just as boys do" in- creased my liking for them and lifted the whole sexual intercourse to a higher plane in my thought. The excitement and pleasure were so much more in- tense than anything I had experienced before that I resolved to keep myself for this higher joy. No more self aburc for me; I knew something infinitely better. One kiss was better, one touch of a girl's sex. That kissing and caressing a girl could inculcate - self -restraint is not taught by our spiritual guides and masters; but is nevertheless true. Another cog- nate experience came at this time to reinforce the same lesson. J had read all Scott and his heroine Di Vernon made a great impression on me. I resolved now to keep all my passion for some Di Vernon in the future. Thus the first experiences of passion anc*

4

32 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

the reading of a love story completely cured me of the bad habit of self -abuse.

Naturally after this first divine experience, I was on edge for a second and keen as a questing hawk.

I could not see E till the next music-lesson, a

week to wait; but even such a week comes to an end, and once more we were imprisoned in our solitude behind the piano ; but though I whispered all the sweet and pleading words I could imagine, E . . . did nothing but frown refusal and shake her pretty head. This killed for the moment all my faith in girls: why did she act so? I puzzled my brain for a reasonable answer and found none. It was part of the damned inscrutability of girls but at the moment it filled me with furious anger. I was savage with disappoint- ment.

"You're mean!" I whispered to her at long last and I would have said more if the organist hadn't called on me for a solo which I sang very badly, so badly indeed that he made me come from behind the piano and thus abolished even the chance of future intimacies. Time and again I cursed organist and girl, but I was always on the alert for a similar experience. As dog fanciers say of hunting dogs, "I had tasted blood and could never afterwards forget the scent of it."

Twenty-five years or more later, I dined with Frederic Chapman, the publisher of "The Fortnightly Review", which I was then editing; he asked me some weeks afterwards had I noticed a lady and described her dress to me, adding, "She was very curious about you. As soon as you came into the room she recogniz- ed you and has asked me to tell her if you recognized her; did you?"

I shook my head: "I'm near-sighted, you know",

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 33

I said, "and therefore to be forgiven, but when did she know me?"

He replied, "As a boy at school; she said you would remember her by her Christian name of E ".

"Of course I do", I cried, "Oh! please tell me her name and where she lives. I'll call on her, I want (and then reflection came to suggest prudence) to ask her some questions", I added lamely.

"I can't give you her name or address", he re- plied, "I promised her not to, but she's long been happily married I was to tell you".

I pressed him but he remained obstinate, and on second thoughts I came to see that I had no right to push myself on a married woman who did not wish to renew acquaintance with me, but oh! I longed to see her and hear from her own lips the explanation of what to me at the time seemed her inexplicable, cruel change of attitude.

As a man, of course, I know she may have had a very good reason indeed, and her mere name still carries a glamour about it for me, an unforgettable fascination.

My father was always willing to encourage self reliance in me: indeed, he tried to make me act as a man while I was still a mere child. The Christmas holidays only lasted for four weeks; it was cheaper for me, therefore, to take lodgings in some neigh boring town rather than return to Ireland. Accor- dingly the Headmaster received the request to give me some seven pounds for my expenses and he did so, adding moreover much excellent advice.

My first holiday I spent in the watering-place of Rhyl in North Wales because a chum of mine, Evan Morgan, came from the place and told me he'd make it interesting for me. And in truth he did a good deal to make me like the people and love the

34 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

place. He introduced me to three or four girls, among whom I took a great fancy to one Gertrude Hanniford. Gertie was over fifteen, tall and very pretty, I thought, with long plaits of chestnut hair; one of the best companions possible. She would kiss me willingly; but whenever I tried to touch her more intimately, she would wrinkle her little nose with "Don't!" or "Don't be dirty!"

One day I said to her reproachfully : "You'll make me couple 'dirty' with 'Gertie' if you go on using it so often." Bit by bit she grew tamer, though all too slowly for my desires; but luck was eager to help me.

One evening late we were together on some high ground behind the town when suddenly there came a great glare in the sky, which lasted two or three mi- nutes: the next moment we were shaken by a sort of earthquake accompanied by a dull thud.

"An explosion!" I cried, "on the railway: let's go and see!" And away we set off for the railway. For a hundred yards or so Gertie was as fast as I was; but after the first quarter of a mile I had to hold in so as not to leave her. Still for a girl she was very fast and strong. We took a footpath along- side the railway, for we found running over the wooden ties, very slow and dangerous. We had covered a little over a mile when we saw the blaze in front of us and a crowd of figures moving about before the glare.

In a few minutes we were opposite three or four blazing railway carriages and the wreck of an engine.

"How awful!" cried Gertie. "Let's get over the fence", I replied, "and go close!" The next moment I had thrown myself on the wooden paling and half vaulted, half clambered over it. But Gertie's skirts prevented her from imitating me. As she stood in

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 35

dismay, a great thought came to me: "Step on the iow rail, Gertie", I cried, "and then on the upper one and I'll lift you over. Quick!"

At once she did as she was told and while she stood with a foot on each rail hesitating and her hand on my head to steady herself, I put my right hand and arm between her legs and pulling her at the same moment towards me with my left hand, I lifted her over safely but my arm was in her crotch and when I withdrew it, my right hand stopped on her sex and began to touch it:

It was larger than E . . .'s and had more hairs and was just as soft but she did not give me time to let it excite me so intensely.

"Don't!" she exclaimed angrily: "take your hand away!" And slowly, reluctantly I obeyed, trying to excite her first; as she still scowled: "Come quick!" I cried and taking her hand drew her over to the blazing wreck.

In a little while we learned what had happened: a goods train loaded with barrels of oil had been at the top of the siding; it began to glide down of its own weight and ran into the Irish Express on its way from London to Holyhead. When the two met, the oil barrels were hurled over the engine of the express train, caught fire on the way and poured in flame over the first three carriages, reducing them and their unfortunate inmates to cinders in a very short time. There were a few persons burned and singed in the fourth and fifth carriages; but not many. Open-eyed we watched the gang of workmen lift out charred things like burnt logs rather than men and women, and lay them reverently in rows alongside the rails: about forty bodies, if I remember rightly, we^e taken out of that holocaust.

Suddenlv Gertie realised that it was late and

36 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

quickly hand in hand we made our way home: "they'll be angry with me", said Gertie, "for being so late, it's after midnight". "When you tell them what you've seen!" I replied, "they won't wonder that we waited". As we parted I said, "Gertie dear, I want to thank you — " "What for" she said shortly. "You know", I said cunningly, "it was so kind of you" she made a face at me and ran up the steps into her house.

Slowly I returned to my lodgings, only to find myself the hero of the house when I told the story in the morning.

That experience in common made Gertie and myself great friends. She used to kiss me and say I was sweet: once even she let me see her breasts when I told her a girl (I didn't say who it was) had shown hers to me once: her breasts were nearly as large as my sister's and very pretty. Gertie even let me touch her legs right up to the knee; but as soon as I tried to go further, she would pull down her dress with a frown. Still I was always going higher, making progress; persistence brings one closer to any goal; but alas, it was near the end of the Christmas holidays and though I returned to Rhyl at Easter, I never saw Gertie again.

When I was just over thirteen I tried mainly out of pity to get up a revolt of the fags, and at first had a partial success, but some of the little fellows talked and as a ringleader I got a trouncing. The Mon- itors threw me down on my face on a long desk: one sixth form boy sat on my head and another on my feet, and a third, it was Jones, laid on with an ashplant. I bore it without a groan but I can never describe the storm of rage and hate that boiled in me. Do English fathers really believe that such work is a part of education? It made me murderous. When

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 37

they let me up, I looked at Jones and if looks could kill, he'd have had short shrift. He tried to hit me but I dodged ilie blow and went out to plot revenge.

Jones was the head of the cricket First Eleven in which I too was given a place just for my bowling. Vernon of the Sixth was the chief bowler, but I was second, the only boy in the lower school who was in the Eleven at all. Soon afterwards a team from some other school came over to play us: the rival captains met before the tent, all on their best behaviour; for some reason, Vernon not being ready or something, I was given the new ball. A couple of the masters stood near. Jones lost the toss and said to the rival captain very politely, "If you're ready. Sir! we'll go out". The other captain bowed smiling, my chance had come:

"I'm not going to play with you, you brute!'1 I cried and dashed the ball in Jones's face.

He was very quick and throwing his head aside, escaped the full force of the blow; still the seam of the new ball grazed his cheek-bone and broke the skin: everyone stood amazed: only people who know the strength of English conventions can realise the sensation. Jones himself did not know what to do but took out his handkerchief to mop the blood, the skin being just broken. As for me, I walked away by myself. I had broken the supreme law of our school- boy honour: never to give away our dissensions to a master, still less to boys and masters from another school; I had sinned in public, too, and before everyone; I'd be universaly condemned.

The truth is, I was desperate, dreadfully unhappy, for since the breakdown of the fags' revolt the lower boys had drawn away from me and the older boys never spoke to me if they could help it and then it was alwavs as "Pat".

38 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

I felt myself an outcast and was utterly lonely and miserable as only despised outcasts can be. I was sure, too, I should be expelled and knew my father would judge me harshly; he was always on the side of the authorities and masters. However, the future was not to be as gloomy as my imagination pictured it.

The Mathematical Master was a young Cam- bridge man of perhaps six and twenty, Stackpole by name: I had asked him one day about a problem in algebra and he had been kind to me. On returning to the school this fatal afternoon about six, I happened to meet him on the edge of the playing field and by a little sympathy he soon drew out my whole story.

"I want to be expelled. I hate the beastly school", was my cry. All the charm of the Irish schools was fermenting in me : I missed the kindliness of boy to boy and of the masters to the boys; above all the imaginative fancies of fairies and "the little people" which had been taught us by our nurses and though only half believed in; yet enriched and glorified life, — all this was lost to me. My head in especial, was full of stories of Banshees and fairy queens and heroes, half due to memory, half to my own shaping, which made me a desirable companion to Irish boys and only got me derision from the English.

"I wish I had known that you were being fagged". Stackpole said when he had heard all, 'I can easily remedy that", and he went with me to the schoolroom and then and there erased my name from the fags' list and wrote in my name in the First Mathematical Division.

"There", he said with a smile, "you are now in the Upper School where you belong. I think", he added, "I had better go and tell the Doctor wliat

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 39

I've done. Don't be down-hearted, Harris", he added, "it'll all come right."

Next day the Sixth did nothing except cut out my name from the list of the First Eleven: I was told that Jones was going to thrash me but I start- led my informant by saying: "I'll put a knife into hira if he lays a hand on me : you can tell him so."

In fact, however, I was half sent to Coventry and what hurt me most was that it was the boys of the Lower School who were coldest to me, the very boys for whom I had been righting. That gave me a bitter foretaste of what was to happen to me again and again all through my life.

The partial boycotting of me didn't affect me much; I went for long walks in the beautiful park of Sir W. W near the school.

I have said many harsh things here of English school life; but for me it had two great redeeming features: the one was the library which was open to every boy, and the other the physical training of the playing fields, the various athletic exercises and the gymnasium. The library to me for some months meant Walter Scott. How right George Eliot was to speak of him as "making the joy of many a young life". Certain scenes of his made ineffaceable im- pressions on me though unfortunately not always his best work. The wrestling match between the Puritan, Balfour of Burleigh and the soldier was one of my beloved passages. Another favorite page was approv- ed, too, by my maturer judgment, the brave suicide of the little atheist apothecary in the "Fair Maid of Perth". But Scott's finest work, such as the character painting of old Scotch servants, left me cold. Dickens I never could stomach, either as a boy or in later life- 'His "Tale of Two Cities" and "Nicholas Nickleby" seemed to me then about the best and I've never had

40 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

any desire since to revise my judgment after reading "David Copperfield" in my student days and finding men painted by a name or phrase or gesture, women by their modesty and souls by some silly catchword; "the mere talent of the caricaturist", I said to myself, "at his best another Hogarth".

Naturally the romances and tales of adventure were all swallowed whole; but few affected me vitally: "The Chase of the White Horse" by Mayne Reid, lives with me still because of the love-scenes with the Spanish heroine, and Marryat's "Peter Simple" which I read a hundred times and could read again tomorrow; for there is better character painting in Chucks, the boatswain, than in all Dickens, in my poor opinion. I remember being astounded ten years later when Carlyle spoke of Marryat with contempt. I knew he was unfair, just as I am probably unfair to Dickens: after all, even Hogarth has one or two good pictures to his credit, and no one survives even three generations without some merit.

In my two years I read every book in the library, and half a dozen are still beloved by me.

I profited, too, from all games and exercises. I was no good at cricket ; I was shortsighted and caught some nasty knocks through an unsuspected astigmatism; but I had an extraordinary knack of bowling which, as I have stated, put me in the First Eleven. I liked football and was good at it. I took t he keenest delight in every form of exercise : I could jump and run better than almost any boy of my age and in wrestling and a little later in boxing, was among the best in the school. In the gymnasium, too. I practiced assiduously; I was so eager to excel that the teacher was continually advising me to go slow. At fourteen I could pull myself up with my right hand till mv chin was above the bar.

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 41

In all games the English have a high ideal of fairness and courtesy. No one ever took an unfair advantage of another and courtesy was a law. If another school sent a team to play us at cricket or football, the victors aways cheered the vanquished when the game was over, and it was a rule for the Captain to thank the Captain of the visitors for his kindness in coming and for the good game he had given us. This custom obtained too in the Royal Schools in Ireland that were founded for the English garrison, but I couldn't help noting that these- courtesies were not practiced in ordinary Irish schools. It was for years the only tiling in which T had to admit the superiority of John Bull.

The ideal of a gentleman is not a very high one. Klmerson says somewhere that the evolution of the gentleman is the chief spiritual product of the last two or three centuries; but the concept, it seems to me, dwarfs the ideal. A "gentleman" to me is a thing of some parts but no magnitude: one should be a gentleman and much more: a thinker, guide or artist.

English custom in the games taught me the value and need of courtesy, and athletics practiced assi- duously did much to steel and strengthen my control of all my bodily desires: they gave my mind and reason the mastery of me. At the same time they taught me the laws of health and the necessity of obeying them.

I found out that by drinking little at meals I could reduce my weight very quickly and was thereby enabled to jump higher than ever; but when I went on reducing I learned that there was a limit beyond which, if I persisted, I began to lose strength: athlet- ics taught me what the French call the juste milieu, the middle path of moderation.

42 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

When I was about fourteen I discovered that to think of love before going to sleep was to dream of it during the night. And this experience taught me something else; if I repeated any lesson just before going to sleep, I knew it perfectly next morning; the mind, it seems, works even during unconsciousness. Often since, I have solved problems during sleep in mathematics and in chess that have puzzled me during the day.

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND.

Chapter III.

I n my thirteenth year the most important experience- took place of my schoolboy life. Walking out one- day with a West Indian boy of sixteen or so, I admit- ted that I was going to be "confirmed" in the Church of England. I was intensely religious at this time and took the whole rite with appalling seriousness^ "Believe and thou shalt be saved" rang in my ears day and night, but I had no happy conviction. Be- lieve what? "Believe in me, Jesus". Of course I be- lieve; then I should be happy, and I was not happy..

"Believe not" and eternal damnation and eternal torture follow. My soul revolted at the iniquity of the awful condemnation. What became of the myr- iads who had not heard of Jesus? It was all a hor- rible puzzle to me; but the radiant figure and sweet teaching of Jesus just enabled me to believe and re- solve to live as he had lived, unselfishly — purely. I never liked that word "purely" and used to relegate it to the darkest background of my thought. But I would try to be good — I'd try at least!

"Do you believe all the fairy stories in the Bible?" my companion asked.

"Of course I do", I replied, "It's the Word of God, isn't it?" "Who is God?" asked the West Indian.

44 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

"He made the world", I added, "alt this wonder" — and with a gesture I included earth and sky.

"Who made God!" asked my companion.

I turned away stricken: in a flash I saw I had •been building on a word taught to me: "who made {jod?" I walked away alone, up the long meadow by the little brook, my thoughts in a whirl : story after story that I had accepted were now to me "fairy stories". Jonah hadn't lived three days in a whale's belly. A man couldn't get down a whale's throat. The Gospel of Matthew began with Jesus' pedigree, showing that he had been born of the seed of David through Joseph, Ms father, and in the very next chapter you are told that Joseph wasn't his father; but the Holy Ghost. In an hour the whole fabric of my spiritual beliefs lay in ruins about me: I be- lieved none of it, not a jot, nor a tittle: I felt as though I had been stripped naked to the cold.

Suddenly a joy came to me: if Christianity was 4ill lies and fairy-tales like Mahometanism, then the prohibitions of it were ridiculous and I could kiss and have any girl who would yield to me. At once I was partially reconciled to my spiritual nakedness: there was compensation.

The loss of my beliefs was for a long time very painful to me. One day I told Stackpole of my in- fidelity and he recommended me to read "Butler's Analogy" and keep an open mind. Butler finished what the West Indian had begun and in my thirst for some certainty I took up a course of deeper reading. In Stackpole's rooms one day I came across a book of Huxley's Essays; in an hour I had swallowed them and proclaimed myself an "agnostic"; that's what I was; I knew nothing surely, but was willing to learn.

I aged ten years mentally in the next six months: I was always foraging for books to convince me and

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 45

at length got hold of Hume's argument against mi- racles. That put an end to all my doubts, satisfied me finally. Twelve years later, when studying phil- osophy in Goettingen, I saw that Hume's reasoning was not conclusive but for the time I was cured. At midsummer I refused to be confirmed. For weeks before, I had been reading the Bible for the most in- credible stories in it and the smut, which I retailed at night to the delight of the boys in the big bedroom.

This year as usual I spent the midsummer holi- days in Ireland. My father had made his house with my sister Nita wherever Vernon happened to be sent by his Bank. This summer was passed in Ballybay in County Monaghan, I think. I remember little or nothing about the village save that there was a noble series of reed-fringed lakes near the place which gave good duck and snipe shooting to Vernon in the autumn.

These holidays were memorable to me for several incidents. A conversation began one day at din- ner between my sister and my eldest brother about making up to girls and winning them. I noticed with astonishment that my brother Vernon was very de- ferential to my sister's opinion on the matter, so I immediately got hold of Nita after the lunch and asked her to explain to me what she meant by "flat- tery". "You said all girls like flattery. What did you mean?"

"I mean", she said, "they all like to be told they are pretty, that they have good eyes or good teeth or good hair, as the case may be, or that they are tall and nicely made. They all like their good points no- ticed and praised."

"Is that all?" I asked. "Oh no!" she said, "they all like their dress noticed too and especially their hat; if it suits their face, if it's very pretty and so

46 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

forth ... All girls think that if you notice their clothes you really like them, for most men don't."

"Number two", I said to myself: "is there any- thing elsel"

"Of course", she said, "you must say that the girl you are with, is the prettiest girl in the room or in the town, in fact is quite unlike any other girl, superior to all the rest, the only girl in the world for you. All women like to be the only girl in the world for as many men as possible."

"Number three", I said to myself: "Don't they like to be kissed?" I asked.

"That comes afterwards", said my sister, "lots of men begin with kissing and pawing you about before you even like them. That puts you off. Flattery first of looks and dress, then devotion and afterwards the kissing comes naturally."

"Number four!" I went over these four things again and again to myself and began trying them even on the older girls and women about me and soon found that they all had a better opinion of me almost immediately.

I remember practicing my new knowledge first on the younger Miss Raleigh whom, I thought, Vernon liked. I just praised her as my sister had advised: first her eyes and hair (she had very pretty blue eyes). To my astonishment she smiled on me at once; accor- dingly I went on to say she was the prettiest girl in the town and suddenly she took my head in her hands and kissed me, saying "You're a dear boy!"

But my great experience was yet to come. There was a very good-looking man whom I met two or three times at parties; I think his name was Tom Connolly: I'm not certain, though I ought not to forget it; for I can see him as plainly as if he were before me now: five feet ten or eleven, very handsome

A

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 47

with shaded violet eyes. Everybody was telling a story about him that had taken place on his visit to the Viceroy in Dublin. It appeared that the Vicereine had a very pretty French maid and Tom Connolly made up to the maid. One night the Vicereine was taken ill and sent her husband up stairs to call the maid. When the husband knocked at the maid's door, saying that his wife wanted her, Tom Connolly re- plied in a strong voice:

"It's unfriendly of you to interrupt a man at such a time."

The Viceroy, of course, apologized immediately and hurried away, but like a fool he told the story to his wife who was very indignant and next day at breakfast she put an aide-de-camp on her right and Tom Connolly's place far down the table. As usual, Connolly came in late and the moment he saw the arrangement of the places, he took it all in and went o\er to the aide-de-camp.

"Now, young man", he said, "you'll have many opportunities later, so give me my place", and forth- with turned him out of his place and took his seat by the Vicereine, though she would barely speak to him.

At length Tom Connolly said to her: "I wouldn't have thought it of you, for you're so kind. Fancy blaming a poor young girl the first time she yields to a man!"

This response made the whole table roar and esta- blished Connolly's fame for impudence throughout Ireland.

Everyone was talking of him and I went about after him all through the gardens and whenever he spoke, my large ears were cocked to hear any word of wisdom that might fall from his lips. At length he noticed me and asked me why I followed him about.

48 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

"Everybody says you can win any woman you like, Mr. Connolly"; I said half -ashamed : "I want to know how you do it, what you say to them."

"Faith, I don't know", he said, "but you're a funny little fellow. What age are you to be asking such questions'!"

"I'm fourteen", I said boldly.

"I wouldn't have given you fourteen, but even fourteen is too young; you must wait." So I with- drew but still kept within earshot.

I heard him laughing with my eldest brother over my question and so imagined that I was forgiven, and the next day or the day after, finding me as assiduous as ever, he said:

"You know, your question amused me and I thought I would try to find an answer to it and here is one. When you can put a stiff penis in her hand and weep profusely the while, you're getting near any woman's heart. But don't forget the tears." I found the advice a counsel of perfection; I was unable to weep at such a moment; but I never forgot the words.

There was a large barracks of Irish Constabulary in Ballybay and the Sub-Inspector was a handsome fellow of fLve feet nine or ten named Walter Raleigh. He used to say that he was a descendant of the fam- ous courtier of Queen Elizabeth and he pronounced his name "Holly" and assured us that his illustrious namesake had often spelt it in this way, which showed that he must have pronounced it as if written with an "o". The reason I mention Raleigh here is that his sisters and mine were great friends and he came in and out of our house almost as if it were his own.

Every evening when Vernon and Raleigh had nothing better to do, they cleared away the chairs in our back parlor, put on boxing gloves and had a set- to. My father used to sit in a corner and watch them:

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 49

Vernon was lighter and smaller; but quicker; still I used to think that Raleigh did not put out his full strength against him.

One of the first evenings when Vernon was com- plaining that Raleigh hadn't come in or sent, my father said: "Why not try, Joel" (my nickname!) In a jiffy I had the gloves on and got my first lesson from Vernon who taught me at least how to hit straight and then how to guard and side-step. I was very quick and strong for my size; but for some time Vernon hit me very lightly. Soon, however, it became difficult for him to hit me at all and then I sometimes got a heavy blow that floored me. But with constant practice I improved rapidly and after a fortnight or so put on the gloves once with Raleigh. His blows were very much heavier and staggered me even to guard them, so I got accustomed to duck or side-step or slip every blow aimed at me while hitting back with all my strength. One evening when Vernon and Raleigh both had been praising me, I told them of Jones and how he bullied me; he had really made my life a misery to me: he never met me outside the school without striking or kicking me and his favo- rite name for me was "bog-trotter!" His attitude, too, affected the whole school: I had grown to hate him as much as I feared him.

They both thought I could beat him; but I des- cribed him as very strong and finally Raleigh decided to send for two pairs of four ounce gloves or fighting gloves and use these with me to give me confidence. In the first half-hour with the new gloves Vernon did not hit me once and I had to acknowledge that he was stronger and quicker even than Jones. At the end of the holidays they both made me promise to slap Jones's face the very first time I saw Mm in the school.

5,

50 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

On returning to school we always met in the big schoolroom. When I entered the room there was silence. I was dreadfully excited and frightened, I don't know why ; but fully resolved : "he can't kill me", I said to myself a thousand times; still I was in a trembling funk inwardly though composed enough in outward seeming. Jones and two others of the Sixth stood in front of the empty fire-place: I went up to them: Jones nodded, "How d'ye do, Pat!"

"Fairly", I said, "but why do you take all the room?" and I jostled him aside: he immediately pushed me hard and I slapped his face as I had pro- mised. The elder boys held him back or the fight would have taken place then and there: "will you fight V he barked at me and I replied, "as much as you like, bully!" It was arranged that the fight should take place on the next afternoon, which hap- pened to be a Wednesday and half -holiday. From three to six would give us time enough. That evening Stackpole asked me to his room and told me he would get the Doctor to stop the fight if I wished; I assured him it had to be and I preferred to have it settled.

"I'm afraid he's too old and strong for you", said Stackpole: I only smiled.

Next day the ring was made at the top of the playing field behind the haystack so that we could not be seen from the school. All the Sixth and nearly all the school stood behind Jones; but Stackpole, while ostensibly strolling about, was always close to me. I felt very grateful to him: I don't know why; but his presence took away from my loneliness. At first the fight was almost like a boxing-match. Jones shot out his left hand, my head slipped it and I countered with my right in his face: a moment later he rushed me but I ducked and side-stepped and hit him hard

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 51

on the chin. I could feel the astonishment of the school in the dead silence:

"Good, good!" cried Stackpole behind me: "that's the way." And indeed it was the "way" of the fight in every round except one. We had been hard at it for some eight or ten minutes when I felt Jones get- ting weaker or losing his breath: at once I went in attacking with all my might; when suddenly, as luck would have it, I caught a right swing just under the left ear and was knocked clean off my feet: he could hit hard enough, that was clear. As I went into the middle of the ring for the next round Jones jeered at me:

"You got that, didn't ye, Pat!"

"Yes", I replied, "but I'll beat you black and blue for it" and the fight went on. I had made up my mind, lying on the ground, to strike only at his face. He was short and strong and my body-blows didn't seem to make any impression on him; but if I could blacken all his face, the masters and especially the Doctor would understand what had happened.

Again and again Jones swung, first with right hand and then with his left, hoping to knock me down again; but my training had been too varied and com- plete and the knock-down blow had taught me the necessary caution: I ducked his swings, or side-stepped them and hit him right and left in the face till sud- denly his nose began to bleed and Stackpole cried out behind me in huge excitement: "that's the way, that's the way; keep on peppering him!"

As I turned to smile at him, I found that a lot of the fags, former chums of mine, had come round to my corner and now were all smiling encouragement at me and bold exhortations to "give it him hard". I then realized for the first time that I had only to keep on and be careful and the victory would be mine.

52 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

A cold, hard exultation took the place of nervous ex- citement in me, and when I struck, I tried to cut with my knuckles as Raleigh had once shown me.

The bleeding of Jones's nose took some time to stop and as soon as he came into the middle of the ring, I started it again with another righthander. After this round, his seconds and backers kept him so long in his corner that at length, on Stackpoie's whispered advice, I went over and said to him: "Either fight or give in: I'm catching cold". He came out at once and rushed at me full of fight, but his face was all one bruise and his left eye nearly closed. Every chance I got, I struck at the right eye till it was in an even worse case.

It is strange to me since that I never once felt pity for him and offered to stop : the truth is, he had bullied me so relentlessly and continually, had woun- ded my pride so often in public that even at the end I was filled with cold rage against him. I noticed everything: I saw that a couple of the Sixth went away towards the schoolhouse and afterwards retur- ned with Shaddy, the second master. As they came round the haystack, Jones came out into the ring; he struck savagely right and left as I came within striking distance, but I slipped in outside his weaker left and hit him as hard as I could, first right, then left on the chin and down he went on his back.

At once there was a squeal of applause from the little fellows in my corner and I saw that Stackpole had joined Shaddy near Jones's corner. Suddenly Shaddy came right up to the ringside and spoke, to my astonishment, with a certain dignity:

"This fight must stop now", he said loudly, "if another blow is struck or word said, I'll report the disobedience to the Doctor." Without a word I went and put on my coat and waistcoat and collar, while

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 53

his friends of the Sixth escorted Jones to the school- house.

I had never had so many friends and admirers in my life as came up to me then to congratulate me and testify to their admiration and goodwill. The whole lower school was on my side, it appeared, and had been from the outset, and one or two of the Sixth, Herbert in especial, came over and praised me warmly: "A great fight", said Herbert, "and now perhaps we'll have less bullying: at any rate", he added humorously, "no one will want to bully you: you're a pocket professional: where did you learn to box?"

I had sense enough to smile and keep my own counsel. Jones didn't appear in school that night: indeed, for days after he was kept in sick-bay up- stairs. The fags and lower school boys brought me all sorts of stories how the doctor had come and said "he feared erysipelas: the bruises were so large and Jones must stay in bed and in the dark!" and a host of other details.

One thing was quite clear; my position in the school was radically changed: Stackpole spoke to the Doctor and I got a seat by myself in his class-room and only went to the form-master for special lessons: Stackpole became more than ever my teacher and friend.

When Jones first appeared in the school, we met in the Sixth room while waiting for the Doctor to come in. I was talking with Herbert; Jones came in and nodded to me: I went over and held out my hand, "I'm glad you're all right again!" He shook hands but said nothing. Herbert's nod and smile showed me I had done right. "Bygones should be bygones", he said in English fashion. I wrote the whole story to Vernon that night, thanking him,

54 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

you may be sure, and Raleigh for the training and encouragement they had given me.

My whole outlook on life was permanently alter- ed: I was cock-a-hoop and happy. One night I got

thinking of E and for the first time in months

practiced Onanism. But next day I felt heavy and resolved that belief or no belief, self-restraint was a good thing for the health. All the next Christmas holidays spent in Rhyl, I tried to get intimate with some girl ; but failed. As soon as I tried to touch even their breasts, they drew away. I liked girls fully formed and they all thought, I suppose, that I was too young and too small: if they had only known!

One more incident belongs in this thirteenth year, and is worthy perhaps of record. Freed of the bullying and senseless cruelty of the older boys who for the most part, still siding with Jones, left me severely alone, the restraints of school life began to irk me,

"If I were free", I said to myself, "I'd go after E

or some other girl and have a great time; as it is, I can do nothing, hope for nothing." Life was stale, flat and unprofitable to me. Besides, I had read nearly all the books I thought worth reading in the school library, and time hung heavy on my hands: I began to long for liberty as a caged bird.

What was the quickest way out! I knew that my father as a Captain in the Navy could give me or get me a nomination so that I might become a Mid- shipman. Of course I'd have to be examined before I was fourteen; but I knew I could win a high place in any test.

The summer vacation after I was thirteen on the 14th of February I spent at home in Ireland as I have told, and from time to time, bothered my father to get me the nomination. He promised he would, and I took his promise seriously. All the autumn I stu-

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 55

died carefully the subjects I was to be examined in and from time to time wrote to my father reminding him of his promise. But he seemed unwilling to touch on the matter in his letters which were mostly filled with Biblical exhortations, that sickened me with contempt for his brainless credulity. My un- belief made me feel immeasurably superior to him.

Christmas came and I wrote him a serious letter, insisting that he should keep his promise. For the first time in my life I flattered him, saying that I knew his word was sacred: but the time-limit was at hand and I was getting nervous lest some official delay might make me pass the prescribed limit of age. I got no reply: I wrote to Vernon who said he would do his best with the Governor. The days went on, the 14th of February came and went: I was four- teen. That way of escape into the wide world was closed to me by my father. I raged in hatred of him.

How was I to get free? Where should I go? What should I do? One day in an illustrated paper in '68, I read of the discovery of the diamonds in the Cape, and then of the opening of the Diamond fields. That prospect tempted me and I read all I could about South Africa, but one day I found that the cheapest passage to the Cape cost fifteen pounds and I despair- ed. Shortly afterwards I read that a steerage pas- sage to New York could be had for five pounds; that amount seemed to me possible to get; for there was a prize of ten pounds for books to be given to the second in the Mathematical scholarship exam that would take place in the summer: I thought I could win that, and I set myself to study Mathematics harder than ever.

The result was — but I shall tell the result in its proper place. Meanwhile I began reading about America and soon learned of the buffalo and Indians

56 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

on the Great Plains and a myriad entrancing romantic pictures opened to my boyish imagining. I wanted to see the world and I had grown to dislike England; its snobbery, though I had caught the disease, was loathsome and worse still, its spirit of sordid self-in- terest. The rich boys were favored by all the Masters, even by Stackpole; I was disgusted with English life as I saw it. Yet there were good elements in it which I could not but see, which I shall try to indicate later.

Towards the middle of this winter term it was announced that at Midsummer, besides a scene from a play of Plautus to be given in Latin, the trial-scene of "The Merchant of Venice" would also be played — of course, by boys of the Fifth and Sixth form only, and rehearsals immediately began. Naturally I took out "The Merchant of Venice" from the school library and in one day knew it by heart. I could learn good poetry by a single careful reading: bad poetry or prose was much harder.

Nothing in the play appealed to me except Shylock and the first time I heard Fawcett of the Sixth recite the part, I couldn't help grinning: he repeated the most passionate speeches like a lesson in a singsong, monotonous voice. For days I went about spouting Shylock's defiance and one day, as luck would have it, Stackpole heard me. We had become great friends : I had done all Algebra with him and was now devouring trigonometry, resolved to do Conic Sections afterwards, and then the Calculus. Already there was only one boy who was my superior and he was Captain of the Sixth, Gordon, a big fellow of over seventeen, who intended to go to Cambridge with the eighty Pound Mathematical Scholarship that summer.

Stackpole told the Head that I would be a good Shylock: Fawcett to my amazement didn't want to

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 57

play the Jew: he found it difficult even to learn the part, and finally it was given to me. I was parti- cularly elated for I felt sure I could make a great hit.

One day my sympathy with the bullied got me a friend. The Vicar's son Edwards was a nice boy of fourteen who had grown rapidly and was not strong. A brute of sixteen in the Upper Fifth was twisting his arm and hitting him on the writhen muscle and Edwards was trying hard not to cry. "Leave him alone, Johnson", I said, "why do you bully ?" "You ought to have a taste of it", he cried, letting Edwards go, however.

"Don't try it on if you're wise", I retorted.

"Pat would like us to speak to him", he sneered and turned away. I shrugged my shoulders.

Edwards thanked me warmly for rescuing him and I asked him to come for a walk. He accepted and our friendship began, a friendship memorable for bringing me one novel and wonderful experience.

The Vicarage was a large house with a good deal of ground about it. Edwards had some sisters but they were too young to interest me; the French governess, on the other hand, Mile. Lucille, was very attractive with her black eyes and hair and quick, vivacious manner. She was of medium height and not more than eighteen. I made up to her at once and tried to talk French with her from the beginning. She was very kind to me and we got on together at once. She was lonely, I suppose, and I began well by telling her she was the prettiest girl in the whole place and the nicest. She translated nicest, I remember, as la plus chic.

The next half-holiday Edwards went into the house for something. I told her I wanted a kiss, and she said:

"You're only a boy, mais gentil", and she kissed

58 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

me. When my lips dwelt on hers, she took my head in her hands, pushed it away and looked at me with surprise.

"You are a strange boy", she said musingly.

The next holiday I spent at the Vicarage. I gave her a little French love-letter I had copied from a book in the school library and I was delighted when she read it and nodded at me, smiling, and tucked it away in her bodice : "near her heart" I said to myself, but I had no chance even of a kiss for Edwards always hung about. But late one afternoon he was called away by his mother for something, and my opportunity came.

We usually sat in a sort of rustic summerhouse in the garden. This afternoon Lucille was seated leaning back in an armchair right in front of the door, for the day was sultry-close, and when Edwards went, I threw myself on the doorstep at her feet: her dress clung to her form, revealing the outlines of her thighs and breasts seductively. I was wild with excitement. Suddenly I noticed her legs were apart; I could see her slim ankles. Pulses awoke throbbing in my forehead and throat: I begged for a kiss and got on my knees to take it: she gave me one; but when I persisted, she repulsed me, saying:

"Non, non! sois sage!"

As I returned to my seat reluctantly, the thought came, "put your hand up her clothes"; I felt sure I could reach her sex. She was seated on the edge of the chair and leaning back. The mere idea shook and scared me: but what can she do, I thought: she can only get angry. I thought again of all possible consequences : the example with E came to en- courage and hearten me. I leaned round and knelt in front of her smiling, begging for a kiss, and as she smiled in return, I put my hand boldly right up her

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 59

clothes on her sex. I felt the soft hairs and the form of it in breathless ecstasy; but I scarcely held it when she sprang upright: "how dare you!" she cried trying to push my hand away.

My sensations were too overpowering for words or act; my life was in my fingers; I held her cunt. A moment later I tried to touch her gently with my

middle finger as I had touched E : 'twas a

mistake: I no longer held her sex and at once Lucille whirled round and was free.

"I have a good mind to strike you", she cried; 'Til tell Mrs. Edwards", she snorted indignantly. "You're a bad, bad boy and I thought you nice. I'll never be kind to you again: I hate you!" she fairly stamped with anger.

I went to her, my whole being one prayer. "Don't please spoil it all", I cried. "You hurt so when you are angry, dear". She turned to me hotly: "I'm really angry, angry", she panted, "and you're a hateful rude boy and I don't like you any more", and she turned away again, shaking her dress straight. "Oh, how could I help it I" I began, "You're so pretty, oh, you are wonderful, Lucille".

"Wonderful", she repeated, sniffing disdainfully,, but I saw she was mollified.

"Kiss me", I pleaded, "and don't be cross."

"I'll never kiss you again", she replied quickly, "you can be sure of that". I went on begging, praising, pleading for ever so long, till at length she took my head in her hands, saying:

"If you'll promise never to do that again, never, I'll give you a kiss and try to forgive you".

"I can't promise", I said, "it was too sweet; but kiss me and I'll try to be good".

She kissed me a quick peck and pushed me away.

"Didn't you like it?" I whispered, "I did awfully.

60 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

[ can't tell you how I thrilled: oh, thank you, Lucille, thank you, you are the sweetest girl in all the world, and I shall always be grateful to you, you dear!"

She looked down at me musingly, thoughtfully; I felt I was gaining ground:

"You are lovely there", I ventured in a whisper, "please, dear, what do you call it? I saw ''chat' once: is that right, 'pussy'!"

"Don't talk of it", she cried impatiently, "I hate to think — "

"Be kind, Lucille", I pleaded, "you'll never be the same to me again: you were pretty before, chic and provoking, but now you're sacred. I don't love you, I adore you, reverence you, darling! May I say 'pussy' !"

"You're a strange boy", she said at length, "but you must never do that again; it's nasty and I don't like it. I — "

"Don't say such things!" I cried, pretending in- dignation, "you don't know what you're saying — nasty! Look, I'll kiss the fingers that have touched your pussy", and I suited the action to the word.

"Oh, don't!" she cried and caught my hand in hers, "don't!" but somehow she leaned against me at the same time and left her lips on mine. Bit by bit my right hand went down to her sex again, this time on the outside of her dress, but at once she tore her- self away and would not let me come near her again. My insane desire had again made me blunder! Yet she had half -yielded, I knew, and that consciousness set me thrilling with triumph and hope, but alas! at that moment we heard Edwards shout to us as he left the house to rejoin us.

This experience had two immediate and unlooked for consequences: first of all, I could not sleep that night for thinking of Lucille's sex; it was like a large

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 61

fig split in the middle, and set in a mesh of soft hairs: I could feel it still on my fingers and my sex stood stiff and throbbed with desire for it.

When I fell asleep I dreamed of Lucille, dreamed that she had yielded to me and I was pushing my sex into hers ; but there was some obstacle and while I was pushing, pushing, my seed spirted in an orgasm of pleasure •— and at once I awoke and, putting down my hand, found that I was still coming: the sticky, hot, milk-like sperm was all over my hairs and prick.

I got up and washed and returned to bed; the cold water had quieted me; but soon by thinking of Lucille and her soft, hot, hairy "pussy", I grew randy again and in this state fell asleep. Again I dreamed of Lu- cille and again I was trying, trying in vain to get into her when again the spasm of pleasure overtook me; I felt my seed spirting hot and — I awoke.

But lo! when I put my hand down, there was no seed, only a little moisture just at the head of my sex — nothing more. Did it mean that I could only give forth seed once? I tested myself at once: while picturing Lucille's sex, its soft hot roundnesses and hairs, I caressed my sex, moving my hand faster up and down till soon I brought on the orgasm of pleas- ure and felt distinctly the hot thrills as if my seed were spirting, but nothing came, hardly even the moisture.

Next morning I tested myself at the high jump and found I couldn't clear the bar at an inch lower than usual. I didn't know what to do: why had I indulged so foolishly?

But next night the dream of Lucille came back again, and again I awoke after an acute spasm of pleasure, all wet with my own seed. What was I to do? I got up and washed and put cold water in a sponge on my testicles and sex and all chilled crawled

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I had never 7^: noticed the beauties of natnr ieed whenever I came across descriptions of sce- nery in my reading, I alv skipped diem as wet me. Now of a sudden, in a moment, my eyes were

62 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

back into bed. But imagination was master. Time and again the dream came and awakened me. In the morning I felt exhausted, washed-out and needed no test to assure me that I was physically below par.

That same afternoon I picked up by chance a little piece of whipcord and at once it occurred to me that if I tied this hard cord round my penis, as soon as the organ began to swell and stiffen in excitement, the cord would grow tight and awake me with the pain.

That night I tied up Tommy and gave myself up to thoughts of Lucille's private parts: as soon as my sex stood and grew stiff, the whipcord hurt dreadfully and I had to apply cold water at once to reduce my unruly member to ordinary proportions. I returned to bed and went to sleep: I had a short sweet dream of Lucille's beauties but then awoke in agony. I got up quickly and sat on the cold marble slab of the washing-stand. That acted more speedily than even the cold water; whyl I didn't learn the reason for many a year.

The cord was effective, did all I wanted: after this experience I wore it regularly and within a week was again able to walk under the bar and afterwards jump it, able too to pull myself up with one hand till my chin was above the bar. I had conquered temp- tation and once more was captain of my body.

The second unsuspected experience was also a direct result, I believe, of my sex-awakening with Lu- cille and the intense sex-excitement. At all events it came just after the love-passages with her that I have described and post hoc is often propter hoc.

I had never yet noticed the beauties of nature; indeed whenever I came across descriptions of sce- nery in my reading, I always skipped them as weari- some. Now of a sudden, in a moment, my eyes were

/

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 63

unsealed to natural beauties. I remember the scene and my rapt wonder as if it were yesterday. It was a bridge across the Dee near Overton in full sunshine; on my right the river made a long curve, swirling deep under a wooded height, leaving a little tawny sand- bank half bare just opposite to me: on my left both banks, thickly wooded, drew together and passed round a curve out of sight. I was entranced and speechless — enchanted by the sheer color-beauty of the scene — sunlit water there and shadowed here, reflecting the gorgeous vesture of the wooded height. And when I left the place and came out again and looked at the adjoining cornfields, golden against the green of the hedgerows and scattered trees, the colors took on a charm I had never noticed before: I could not understand what had happened to me.

It was the awakening of sex-life in me, I believe, that first revealed to me the beauty of inanimate nature.

A night or two later I was ravished by a moon nearly at the full that flooded our playing field with ivory radiance, making the haystack in the corner a thing of supernal beauty.

Why had I never before seen the wonder of the world? the sheer loveliness of nature all about mel From this time on I began to enjoy descriptions of scenery in the books I read and began, too, to love landscapes in painting.

Thank goodness! the miracle was accomplished, at long last, and my life enriched, ennobled, trans- figured as by the bounty of a God! From that day on I began to live an enchanted life; for at once I tried to see beauty everywhere, and at all times, of day and night caught glimpses that ravished me with delight and turned my being into a hymn of praise and joy.

64 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Faith had left me and with faith, hope in Heaven or indeed in any future existence: saddened and fear- ful, I was as one in prison with an undetermined sen- tence; but now in a moment the prison had become a paradise, the walls of the actual had fallen away into frames of entrancing pictures. Dimly I became con- scious that if this life were sordid and mean, petty and unpleasant, the fault was in myself and in my blindness. I began then for the first time to under- stand that I myself was a magician and could create my own fairyland, ay and my own heaven, trans- forming this world into the throne-room of a god!

This joy, and this belief I want to impart to others more than almost anything else, for this has been to me a new Gospel of courage and resolve and certain reward, a man's creed teaching that as you grow in wisdom and courage and kindness, all good things are added unto you.

I find that I am outrunning my story and giving here a stage of thought and belief that only became mine much later; but the beginning of my individual soul-life was this experience, that I had been blind to natural beauty and now could see; this was the root and germ, so to speak, of the later faith that guided all my mature life, filling me with courage and spilling over into hope and joy ineffable.

Very soon the first command of it came to my lips almost every hour: "Blame your own blindness! always blame yourself!"

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA.

Chapter IV.

parly in January there was a dress rehearsal of ^ the Trial Scene of "The Merchant of Venice". The Grandee of the neighborhood who owned the great park, Sir W. W. W., some M. P.'s, notably a Mr. Whalley who had a pretty daughter and lived in the vicinity, and the Vicar and his family were invit- ed, and others whom I did not know; but with the party from the Vicarage came Lucille.

The big schoolroom had been arranged as a sort of theatre and the estrade at one end where the Head- Master used to throne it on official occasions, was converted into a makeshift stage and draped by a big curtain that could be drawn back or forth at will.

The Portia was a very handsome lad of sixteen named Herbert, gentle and kindly, yet redeemed from effeminacy by the fact that he was the fleetest sprin- ter in the school and could do the hundred yards in eleven and a half seconds. The "Duke" was, of course, J ones and the merchant "Antonio" a big fellow named Vernon, and I had got Edwards the part of "Bassanio" and a pretty boy in the Fourth Form was taken as "Nerissa". So far as looks went the cast was pas- sable; but the "Duke" recited his lines as if they had

66 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

been imperfectly learned and so the "Trial Scene" opened badly. But the part of "Shylock" suited me intimately and I had learned how to recite. Now be- fore E and Lucille, I was set on doing better than

my best. When my cue came I bowed low before the "Duke" and then bowed again to left and right of him in silence and formally, as if I, the outcast Jew, were saluting the whole court; then in a voice that at first I simply made slow and clear and hard, I began the famous reply: "I have possessed your Grace of what I purpose; And by our Holy Sabbath have I sworn To have the due and forfeit of my bond."

I don't except to be believed; but nevertheless I am telling the bare truth when I say that in my im- personation of "Shylock" I brought in the very piece of "business" that made Henry Irving's "Shylock" fifteen years later, "ever memorable", according to the papers.

When at the end, baffled and beaten, Shylock gives in:

"I pray you, give me leave to go from hence, I am not well: send the deed after me, And I will sign it", the Duke says, "Get thee gone, but do it", and Gra- tiano insults the Jew — the only occasion, I think, when Shakespeare allows the beaten to be insulted by a gentleman.

On my way to the door as Shylock, I stopped, bent low before the Duke's dismissal; but at Gra- tiano's insult, I turned slowly round, while drawing myself up to my full height and scanning him from head to foot.

Irving used to return all across the stage and folding his arms on his breast look down on him with measureless contempt.

SCHOOL DAYS IN ENGLAND. 67

When fifteen years later Irving, at the Garrick Club one night after supper, asked me what I thought of this new "business"; I replied that if Shylock had done what he did, Gratiano would probably have spat in his face and then kicked him off the stage. Shylock complains that the Christians spat upon his gaberdine.

My boyish, romantic reading of the part, however, was essentially the same as Irving's, and Irving's rea- ding was cheered in London to the echo because it was a rehabilitation of the Jew, and the Jew rules the roost to day in all the cities of Europe.

At my first words I could feel the younger mem- bers of the audience look about as if to see if such reciting as mine was proper and permitted; then one after the other gave in to the flow and flood of passion. When I had finished everyone cheered, Whalley and Lady W . . . enthusiastically, and to my delight, Lu- cille as well.

After the rehearsal, everyone crowded about me: "Where did you learn?" "Who taught youf" At length Lucille came. "I knew you were someone", she said in her pretty way, "quelqu'un", "but it was extraordinary! You'll be a great actor, I'm sure."

"And yet you deny me a kiss", I whispered, taking care no one should hear.

"I deny you nothing", she replied, turning away, leaving me transfixed with hope and assurance of delight. "Nothing", I said to myself, "nothing means everything"; a thousand times I said it over to myself in an ecstasy.

That was my first happy night in England. Mr. Whalley congratulated me and introduced me to his daughter who praised me enthusiastically, and best of all the Doctor said, "We must make you Stage Manager, Harris, and I hope you'll put some of your fire into the other actors."

68 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

To my astonishment my triumph did me harm with the boys. Some sneered, while all agreed that I did it to show off. Jones and the Sixth began the boycott again. I didn't mind much, for I had heavier disappointments and dearer hopes.

The worst was I found it difficult to see Lucille in the bad weather; indeed I hardly caught a glimpse of her the whole winter. Edwards asked me fre- quently to the Vicarage; she might have made half a dozen meetings but she would not, and I was sick at heart with disappointment and the regret of unful- filled desire. It was March or April before I was alone with her in her schoolroom at the Vicarage. I was too cross with her to be more than polite. Suddenly she said, "Vous me boudez". I shrugged my shoulders.

'You don't like me", I began, "so what's the use of my caring."

"I like you a great deal", she said, "but — "

"No, no", I said, shaking my head, "if you liked me, you wouldn't avoid me and — "

"Perhaps it's because I like you too much — "

"Then you'd make me happy", I broke in.

"Happy", she repeated, "How can If

"By letting me kiss you, and — "

"Yes, and — " she repeated significantly.

"What harm does it do youf" I asked.

"What harm", she repeated, "Don't you know it's wrong? One should only do that with one's hus- band; you know that."

"I don't know anything of the sort", I cried, "That's all silly. We don't believe that to-day."

"I believe it", she said gravely.

"But if you didn't, you'd let me", I cried, "say that, Lucille, that would be almost as good, for it would show you liked me a little."

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 69

"You know I like you a great deal", she replied.

"Kiss me then", I said, "there's no harm in that", and when she kissed me I put my hand over her breasts; they thrilled me they were so elastic-firm, and in a moment my hand slid down her body, but she drew away at once quietly but with resolve.

"No, no", she said, half smiling.

"Please!" I begged.

"I can't", she said, shaking her head, "I mustn't. Let us talk of other things — How is the play getting on?" But I could not talk of the play as she stood there before me. For the first time I divined through her clothes nearly all the beauties of her form. The bold curves of hip and breast tantal- ized me and her face was expressive and defiant.

How was it I had never noticed all the details before 1 Had I been blind? or did Lucille dress to show off her figure? Certainly her dresses were ar- ranged to display the form more than English dresses, but I too had become more curious, more observant. Would life go on showing me new beauties I had not even imagined!

My experience with E . . . . and Lucille made the routine of school life almost intolerable to me. I could only force myself to study by reminding myself of the necessity of winning the second prize in the Mathematical Scholarship, which would give me ten pounds, and ten pounds would take me to America.

Soon after the Christmas holidays I had taken the decisive step. The examination in winter was not nearly so important as the one that ended the summer term, but it had been epoch-making to me. My punishments having compelled me to learn two or three books of Vergil by heart and whole chapters of Caesar and Livy, I had come to some knowledge of Latin: in the examination I had beaten not only

70 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

all my class, but thanks to trigonometry and Latin and history, all the two next classes as well. As soon as the school reassembled I was put in the Upper Fifth. All the boys were from two to three years older than I was, and they all made cutting remarks about me to each other and avoided speaking to "Pat". All this strengthened my resolution to get to America as soon as I could.

Meanwhile I worked as I had never worked: at Latin and Greek as well as Mathematics; but chiefly at Greek, for there I was backward: by Easter I had mastered the grammar — irregular verbs and all — and was about the first in the class. My mind, too, through my religious doubts and gropings and through the reading of the thinkers had grown astonishingly: one morning I construed a piece of Latin that had puzzled the best in the class and the Doctor nodded at me approvingly. Then came the step I spoke of as decisive.

The morning prayers were hardly over one bitter morning when the Doctor rose and gave out the terms of the scholarship Exam at Midsummer; the winner to get eighty pounds a year for three years at Cam- bridge, and the second ten pounds with which to buy books. "All boys", he added, "who wish to go in for this scholarship will now stand up and give their names." I thought only Gordon would stand up, but when I saw Johnson get up and Fawcett and two

or three others I too got up A sort of derisive

growl went through the school; but Stackpole smiled at me and nodded his head as much as to say, "they'll see", and I took heart of grace and gave my name very distinctly. Somehow I felt that the step was decisive.

I liked Stackpole and this term he encouraged me to come to his rooms to talk whenever I felt in-

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 71

clined, and as I had made up my mind to use all the half-holidays for study, this association did me a lot of good and his help was invaluable.

One day when he had just come into his room, I shot a question at him and he stopped, came over to me and put his arm on my shoulder as he answered. I don't know how I knew; but by some instinct I felt a caress in the apparently innocent action. I didn't like to draw away or show him that I objected; but I buried myself feverishly in the Trigonometry and he soon moved away.

When I thought of it afterwards, I recalled the fact that his marked liking for me began after my fight with Jones. I had often been on the point of confessing to him my love-passages; but now I was glad I had kept them strenuously to myself, for day by day I noticed that his liking for me grew or rather his compliments and flatteries increased. I hardly knew what to do : working with him and in his room was a godsend to me; yet at the same time I didn't like him much or admire him really.

In some ways he was curiously dense; he spoke of the school life as the happiest of all and the health- iest; a good moral tone here, he would say, no lying, cheating or scandal, much better than life outside. I used to find it difficult not to laugh in his face. Moral tone indeed! when the Doctor came down out of temper, it was usually accepted among the boys that he had had his wife in the night and was therefore a little below par physically.

Though a really good mathematical scholar and a firstrate teacher, patient and painstaking, with a gift of clear exposition, Stackpole seemed to me stu- pid and hidebound and I soon found that by laughing at his compliments I could balk his desire to lavish on me his unwelcome caresses.

72 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Once he kissed me, but my amused smile made him blush while he muttered shamefacedly, "You're a queer lad!" At the same time I knew quite well that if I encouraged him, he would take further liberties.

One day he talked of Jones and Henry H . . . . He had evidently heard something of what had taken place in our bedroom; but I pretended not to know what he meant and when he asked me whether none of the big boys had made up to me, I ignored big Fawcett's smutty excursions and said "No" adding that I was interested in girls and not in dirty boys. For some reason or other Stackpole seemed to me younger than I was and not twelve years older, and I had no real difficulty in keeping him within the bounds of propriety till the Math Exam.

I was asked once whether I thought that "Shaddy", as we called the House-master, had ever had a woman. The idea of "Shaddy" as a virgin filled us with laughter; but when one spoke of him as a lover, it was funnier still. He was a man about forty, tall and fairly strong: he had a degree from some college in Manchester, but to us little snobs he was a bounder because he had not been to either Oxford or Cambridge. He was fairly capable, however.

But for some reason or other he had a down on me and I grew to hate him, and was always thinking of how I might hurt him. My new habit of forcing myself to watch and observe everything came to my aid. There were five or six polished oak-steps up to the big bedroom where fourteen of us slept. "Shaddy" used to give us half an hour to get into bed and then would come up, and standing just inside the door under the gas-light would ask us, "Have you all said your prayers'?" We all answered: "Yes, sir", then would come his "Goodnight, boys", and our stereo- typed reply: "Good night, Sir."

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 73

He would then turn out the light and go down- stairs to his room. The oak-steps outside were worn in the middle and I had noticed that as one goes downstairs one treads on the very edge of each step.

One day "Shaddy" had maddened me by giving me one hundred lines of Vergil to learn by heart for some trifling peccadillo. That night, having provided myself with a cake of brown Windsor soap, I ran upstairs before the other boys and rubbed the soap freely on the edge of the two top steps, and then went on to undress.

When "Shaddy" put out the light and stepped down to the second step, there was a slip and then a great thud as he half slid, half fell to the bottom. In a moment, for my bed was nearest the door, I had sprung up, opened the door and made incoherent ex- clamations of sympathy as I helped him to get up.

"I've hurt my hip", he said, putting his hand on it. He couldn't account for his fall.

Grinning to myself as I went back, I rubbed the soap off the top step with my handkerchief and got into bed again, where I chuckled over the success of my stratagem. He had only got what he richly de- served, I said to myself.

At length the long term wore to its end; the Exam was held and after consulting Stackpole I was very sure of the second prize. "I believe", he said one day, "that you'd rather have the second prize than the first." "Indeed I would", I replied without thinking.

"Why?" he asked, "why?" I only just restrained myself in time or I'd have given him the true reason. "You'll come much nearer winning the Scholarship", he said at length, "than any of them guesses."

After the "Exams" came the athletic games, much more interesting than the beastly lessons. I won two*

74 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Tssprf

first prizes and Jones four, but I gained fifteen "se- conds", a record, I believe, for according to my age I was still in the Lower School.

I was fully aware of the secret of my success and strange to say, it did not increase but rather diminished my conceit. I won, not through natural advantages but by will-power and practice. I should have been much prouder had I succeeded through natural gifts. For instance, there was a boy named Reggie Miller, who at sixteen was five feet ten in height, while I was still under five feet: do what I would, he could jump higher than I could, though he only jumped up to his chin while I could jump the bar above my head. I believed that Reggie could easily practice and then outjump me still more. I had yet to learn in life that the resolved will to suc- ceed was more than any natural advantage. But this lesson only came to me later. From the beginning I was taking the highway to success in everything by strengthening my will even more than my body. Thus, every handicap in natural deficiency turns out to be an advantage in life to the brave soul, whereas every natural gift is surely a handicap. Demosthenes had a difficulty in his speech, practising to overcome this, made him the greatest of orators.

The last day came at length and at eleven o'clock all the school and a goodly company of guests and friends gathered in the school-room to hear the results of the examinations and especially the award of the scholarships. Though most of the boys were early at the great blackboard where the official figures were displayed, I didn't even go near it till one little boy told me shyly: "You're head of your Form and sure of your remove".

I found this to be true, but wasn't even elated. A Cambridge professor, it appeared, had come down in

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 75

person to announce the result of the "Math" Scholar- ship.

He made a rather long talk, telling us that the difficulty of deciding had been unusually great, for there was practical equality between two boys: indeed he might have awarded the scholarship to No. 9 (my number) and not to No. 1, on the sheer merit of the work, but when he found that the one boy was under fifteen while the other was eighteen and ready for the University, he felt it only right to take the view of the Head-Master and give the Scholarship to the older boy, for the younger one was very sure to win it next year and even next year he would still be too young for University life. He therefore gave the Scholarship to Gordon and the second prize of ten pounds to Harris. Gordon stood up and bowed his thanks while the whole school cheered and cheered again: then the Examiner called on me. I had taken in the whole situation. I wanted to get away with all the money I could and as soon as I could. My cue was to make myself unpleasant: accordingly, I got up and thanked the Examiner, saying that I had no doubt of his wish to be fair, "but", I added, "had I known the issue was to be determined by age, I should not have entered. Now I can only say that I will never enter again", and I sat down.

The sensation caused by my little speech was a thousand times greater than I had expected. There was a breathless silence and mute expectancy. The Cambridge Professor turned to the Head of the school and talked with him very earnestly, with visible annoyance, indeed, and then rose again.

"I must say", he began, "I have to say", repeating himself, "that I feel the greatest sympathy with Harris. I was never in so embarrassing a position. Ir I must leave the whole responsibility with the Head-

76 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Master. I can't do anything else, unfortunately!'' and he sat down, evidently annoyed.

The Doctor got up and made a long hypocritical speech: It was one of those difficult decisions one is forced sometimes to make in life: he was sure that everyone would agree that he had tried to act fairly, and so far as he could make it up to the younger boy, he certainly would: he hoped next year to award him the Scholarship with as good a heart as he now gave him his cheque; and he fluttered it in the air.

The Masters all called me and I went up to the platform and accepted the cheque, smiling with delight, and when the Cambridge Professor shook hands with me and would have further excused him- self, I whispered shyly, "it's all right, Sir, I'm glad that you decided as you did". He laughed aloud with pleasure, put his arm round my shoulder and said:

"I'm obliged to you, you're certainly a good loser, or winner perhaps I ought to have said, and altogether a remarkable boy. Are you really under sixteen?" I nodded smiling, and the rest of the prize-giving went off without further incident, save that when I appeared on the platform to get the Form prize of books, he smiled pleasantly at me and led the cheering. I 've described the whole incident, for it illustrates to me the English desire to be fair: it is really a guiding impulse in them, on which one may reckon, and so far as my experience goes, it is perhaps stronger in them than in any other race. If it were not for their religious hypocrisies, childish conventions and above all, their incredible snobbishness, their love of fair play alone would make them the worthiest leaders •of humanity. All this I felt then as a boy as clearly .as I see it to day.

I knew that the way of my desire was open to me.

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 77

Next morning I asked to see the Head; be was very amiable; but I pretended to be injured and disappointed. "My father", I said, "reckons, I think, on my success and I'd like to see him before he hears the bad news from anyone else. Would you please give me the money for my journey and let me go to- day*? It isn't very pleasant for me to be here now."

"I'm sorry", said the Doctor (and I think he was sorry), "of course I'll do anything I can to lighten your disappointment. It's very unfortunate but you

must not be down-hearted: Professor S says that

your papers ensure your success next year, and I — well, I'll do anything in my power to help you."

I bowed: "Thank you, Sir. Could I go today! There's a train to Liverpool at noon?"

"Certainly, certainly, if you wish it", he said, "I'll give orders immediately" and he cashed the cheque for ten pounds as well, with only a word that it was nominally to be used to buy books with, but he supposed it did not matter seriously.

By noon I was in the train for Liverpool with fifteen pounds in my pocket, five pounds being for my fare to Ireland. I was trembling with excitement and delight; at length I was going to enter the real world and live as I wished to live. I had no regrets, no sorrows, I was filled with lively hopes and happy presentiments.

As soon as I got to Liverpool, I drove to the Adelphi Hotel and looked out the steamers and soon found one that charged only four pounds for a steer- age passage to New York, and to my delight this steamer was starting next day about two o' clock. By four o' clock I had booked my passage and paid for it. The Clerk said something or other about bedding; but I paid no attention. For just on entering his office I had seen an advertisement of "The Two

78 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

Roses", a "romantic drama" to be played that night, and I was determined to get a seat and see it. Do you know what courage that act required? More than was needed to cut loose from everyone I loved and go to America. For my father was a Puritan of the Puritans and had often spoken of the theatre as the "open door to Hell".

I had lost all belief in Hell or Heaven, but a cold shiver went through me as I bought my ticket and time and again in the next four hours I was on the point of forfeiting it without seeing the play. What if my father was right? I couldn't help the fear that came over me like a vapour.

I was in my seat as the curtain rose and sat for three hours enraptured; it was just a romantic love- story but the heroine was lovely and affectionate and true and I was in love with her at first sight. When the play was over T went into the street, resolved to keep myself pure for some girl like the heroine: no moral lesson I have received before or since can compare with that given me by that first night in a theatre. The effect lasted for many a month and made self-abuse practically impossible to me ever afterwards. The preachers may digest this fact at their leisure.

The next morning I had a good breakfast at the Adelphi Hotel and before ten was on board the steamer, had stowed away my trunk and taken my station by my sleeping place traced in chalk on the deck. About noon the Doctor came round, a yonng man of good height with a nonchalant manner, red- dish hair, roman nose and easy, unconventional w.iys

"Whose is this berth?" he asked, pointing to mine.

"Mine, Sir" I replied.

'Tell your father or mother", he said curtly, "that

<<m.

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 79

you must have a mattress like this", and he pointed to one, "and two blankets", he added.

"Thank you, Sir", I said and shrugged my shoulders at his interference. In another hour he eame round again.

"Why is there no mattress here and no blanket!" he asked.

"Because I don't need 'em", I replied.

"You must have them", he barked, "it's the rule, d'ye understand f and he hurried on with his in- spection. In half an hour he was back again.

"You haven't the mattress yet", he snarled.

"I don't want a mattress", I replied.

"Where's your father or mother", he asked.

"Haven't got any", I retorted.

"Do they let children like you go to .America" he •fried, "What age are you?"

I was furious with him for exposing my youth there in public before everyone. "How does it matter to youf 1 I asked disdainfully. "You're not responsible for me, thank God!"

"I am though", he said, "to a certain degree at least. Are you really going t© America on your own!"

"I am", I rejoined casually and rudely.

"What to do!" was his next query.

"Anything I can get" I replied.

"Hum", he muttered, "I must see to this".

Ten minutes later he returned again. "Come with me", he said, and I followed him to his cabin — a comfortable stateroom with a good berth on the right of the door as you entered, and a good sofa opposite.

"Are you really alone f he asked.

I nodded, for I was a little afraid he might have the power to forbid me to go and I resolved to say as little as possible.

7

80 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

"What age are you?" was his next question.

"Sixteen", I lied boldly.

"Sixteen!", he repeated, "you don't look it but yon speak as if you had been well educated". I smiled; I had already measured the crass ignorance of the "peasants in the steerage.

"Have you any friends in America!" he asked.

"What do you want to question me for?" I demanded, "I've paid for my passage and I'm doing no harm".

"I want to help y;u", ne said, "will you stay here until we draw out and I get a little timet"

"Certainly", I said, "I'd rather be here than with those louts and if I might read your books — "

I had noticed that there were two little oak book- cases, one on eaoh side of the washing-stand, and smaller books and pictures scattered about.

"Of course you may", he rejoined and threw open the door of the bookcase. There was a Macau lay staring at me.

"I know his poetry", I said, seeing that the book contained his "Essays" and was written in prose. "I'd like to read this".

"Go ahead", he said smiling, "in a couple of hours I'll be back'" When he returned he found me curled upon his sofa, lost in fairyland. I had just come to the end of the essay on Olive and was breathless. "You like it?" he asked. "I should just think I did", I replied, "it's better even than his poetry", and suddenly I closed the book and began to recite:

"With all his faults, and they were neither few nor small, only one cemetery was" worthy to contain his remains. In the Great Abbey — "

The Doctor took the book from me where I held it.

"Are you reciting from Olive?" he asked.

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 81

"Yes", I said, "but the essay on Warren Hastings its just as good", and I began again:

"He looked like a great man, and not like a bad one. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the Court, indicated also habitual self- possession and self-respect. A high and intellectual forehead; a brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face on which was written as legibly as under the great picture in the Council Chamber of Calcutta, Mens aequo, in arduis: such w:< the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges."

"Have you learned all this by heart!" cried the Doctor laughing.

"I don't have to learn stuff like that", I replie ;. "one reading is enough". He stared at me.

"I was surely right in bringing you down here", he began, "I wanted to get you a bertli in the Inter- mediate; but there's no room: if you could put up with that sofa, I'd have the steward make up a bed for you on it".

"Oh, would you!" I cried, "how kind of you, ar.d you'll let me read your books ?" "Everyone of 'em", he replied, adding, "I only wish I could make as good use of them".

The upshot of it was that in an hour he had drawn some of my story from me and we were great friends. His name was Keogh. "Of course he's Irish", I said to myself, as I wTent to sleep that night: "no one else would have been so kind".

The ordinary man will think I am bragging here about my memory. He's mistaken. Swinburne's memory especially for poetry was far, far better than mine, and I have always regretted the fact that a good

82 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

memory often prevents one thinking for oneself. I shall come back to this belief of mine when I later explain how want of books gave me whatever originality I possess. A good memory and books at command are two of the greatest dangers of youth and form by themselves a terrible handicap, but like all gifts a good memory is apt to make yon friends among the unthinking, especially when you are very young.

As a matter of fact, Doctor Keogh went about bragging of my memory and power of reciting, until some of the Cabin passengers became interested in the extraordinary schoolboy. The outcome was that I was asked to recite one evening in the First Cabin and afterwards a collection was taken up for me and a iirst-class passage paid and about twenty dollars over and above was given to me. Besides, an old gentleman offered to adopt me and play second father to me. but I had not got rid of one father to take on another. so I kept as far away from him as I decently could.

1 am again, however, running ahead of my story. The second evening of the voyage, the sea got up a little and there was a great deal of sickness. Doctor Keogh was called out of his cabin and while he was away, someone knocked at the door. T opened it and found a pretty girl.

"Where's the Doctor?" she asked. I told her he had been called to a cabin passenger.

"Please tell him", she said, "when he returns, that Jessie Kerr, the chief Engineer's daughter, would like to see him".

"I'll go after him now if you wish, Miss Jessie". I said. "I know where he is".

"It isn't important", she rejoined, "but I feel giddy and he told me he could cure it".

! Coming up on deck is the best cure". 1 declared :

t(n.

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. S3

"the fresh air will soon blow the sick feeling away. You'll sleep like a top and tomorrow morning you'll he alright. Will you come?,? She consented readily and in ten minutes admitted that the slight nausea had disappeared in the sharp breeze. As we walked up and down the dimly lighted deck I had now and then to support her, for the ship was rolling a little under a sou-wester. Jessie told me something about herself; how she was going to New York to spend some months with an elder married sister and how strict her father was. In return she had my whole story and could hardly believe I was only sixteen. Why she was over sixteen, and she could never have stood up and recited piece after piece as T did in the Cabin: she thought it "wonderful".

Before she went down, I told her she was the prettiest girl on board and she kissed me and promised to come up the next evening and have another walk. 'If you've nothing better to do1' she said at parting, "you might come forward to the little Promenade Deck of the Second Cabin and I'll get one of the men to arrange a seat in one of the boats for us". "Of course", I promised gladly and spent the next after- noon with Jessie in the stern-sheets of the great launch where we were out of sight of everyone, and out of hearing as well.

There we were, tucked in with two rugs and cradled, so to speak, between sea and sky, while the keen air whistling past increased our sense of solitude. Jessie, though rather short, was a very pretty girl with large hazel eyes and fair complexion.

1 soon got my arm round her and kept kissing her till she told me she had never known a man so greedy of kisses as 1 was. It was delicious flattery to me to speak of me as a man and in return I raved about her eyes and mouth and form; caressing her

84 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

left breast I told her I could divine the rest and knew she had a lovely body. But when I put my hand up her clothes, she stopped me when I got just above her knee and said:

"We'd have to be engaged before I could let you do that. Do you really love mef

Of course I swore I did, but when she said she'd have to tell her father that we were engaged to be married, cold shivers went down my back.

"I can't marry for a long time yet", I said, "I'll have to make a living first and I'm not very sure where I'll begin". But she had heard that an old man wished to adopt me and everyone said that he was very rich, and even her father admitted that I'd be "well fixed".

Meanwhile my right hand was busy: I had got my fingers to her warm flesh between the stockings and the drawers and was wild with desire; soon mouth on mouth I touched her sex.

What a gorgeous afternoon we had! I had learned enough now to go slow and obey what seemed to be her moods. Gently, gently I caressed her sex with my finger till it opened and she leaned against me and kissed me of her own will, while her eyes turned up and her whole being was lost in thrills of ecstasy. When she asked me to stop and take my hand away, I did her bidding at once and was rewarded by being- told that I was a "dear boy" and "a sweet" and soon the embracing and caressing began again. She moved now in response to my lascivious touchings and when the ecstasy came on her, she clasped me close and kissed me passionately with hot lips and afterwards in my arms wept a little and then pouted that she was cross with me for being so naughty. But her eyes gave themselves to me even while she tried to scold.

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. So

The dinner bell rang and she said she'd have to go, and we made a meeting for afterwards on the top deck; but as she was getting up, she yielded again to my hand with a little sigh and T found her sex all wet, wet!

She got down out of the boat by the main rigging and I waited a few moments before following her. At first our caution seemed likely to be rewarded, chiefly, I have thought since, because everyone believed me to be too young and too small to be taken seriously. But everything is quickly known on seaboard at least by the sailors.

I went down to Dr. Keogh's cabin, once more joyful and grateful as I had been with E . . . . My fingers were like eyes gratifying my curiosity, and the curiosity was insatiable. Jessie's thighs were smooth and firm and round: T took delight in recalling the touch of them, and her bottom was firm like warm marble. I wanted to see her naked and study her beauties one after the other. Her sex too was wonderful, fuller even than Lucille's and her eyes were finer. Oh, Life was a thousand times better than school. I thrilled with joy and passionate wild hopes — perhaps Jessie would let me, perhaps — T was breathless.

Our walk on deck that evening was not so satisfactory: the wind had gone down and there were many other couples and the men all seemed to know Jessie, and it was Miss Kerr here, and Miss Kerr there, till I was cross and disappointed; I couldn't get her to myself, save at moments, but then I had to admit she was as sweet as ever and her Aberdeen accent even was quaint and charming to me.

I got some long kisses at odd moments and just before we went down I drew her behind a boat in the davits and was able to caress her little breasts and.

86 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

when she turned her back to me to go, I threw my arms round her hips and drew them against me and felt her sex and she leant her head back over her shoulder and gave me her mouth with dying eyes. The darling! Jessie was apt at all Love's lessons.

The next day was cloudy and rain threatened, but we were safely ensconced in the boat by two o'clock, as soon as lunch was over, and we hoped no one had seen us. An hour passed in caressings and fondlings, in love's words and love's promises : I had won Jessie to touch my sex and her eyes seemed to deepen as she caressed it.

"I love you, Jessie, won't you let it touch yours V'

She shook her head. "Not here, not in the open", she whispered and then, "wait a little till we get to New York, dear", and our mouths sealed the compact.

Then I asked her about New York and her sister's house, and we were discussing where we should meet, when a big head and beard showed above the gunwale of the boat and a deep Scotch voice said: "I want ye, Jessie, I've been luiking everywhere for ye".

"Awright, father", she said, "I'll be down in a minute".

"Come quick", said the voice as the head disappeared.

"I'll tell him we love each other and he won't be angry for long", whispered Jessie; but I was doubtful. As she got up to go my naughty hand went up her dress behind and felt her warm, smooth buttocks. Ah, the poignancy of the ineffable sensations; her eyes smiled over her shoulder at me and she was gone — and the sunlight with her.

I still remember the sick disappointment as I sat in the boat alone. Life then like school had its chagrins, and as the pleasures were keener, the balks and blights were bitterer. For the first time in my

FROM SO WOOL TO AMERICA. 87

life vague misgivings came over me, a heartshaking suspicion that everything delightful and joyous in life had to be paid for — I wouldn't harbor the fear. If I had to pay, I'd pay; after all, the memory of the ecstasy could never be taken away while the sorrow was fleeting. And that faith I still hold.

Next day the Chief Steward allotted me a berth in a cabin with an English midshipman of seventeen going out to join his ship in the West Indies. William Ponsonby was not a bad sort, but he talked of nothing but girls from morning till night and insisted that negresses were better than white girls: they were far more passionate, he said.

He showed me his sex; excited himself before me, while assuring me he meant to have a Miss LeBreton, a governess who was going out to take up a position in Pittsburg.

"But suppose you put her in the family way .'" I asked.

"That's not my funeral", was Ins answer, and seeing that the cynicism shocked me, he went on to say there was no danger if you withdrew in time. Ponsonby never opened a book and was astound- ingiy ignorant: he didn't seem to care to learn anything that hadn't to do with sex. He introduced me to Miss LeBreton the same evening. She was rather tall, with fair hair and blue eyes, and she praised my reciting. To my wonder she was a woman and pretty, and I could see by the way she looked at Ponsonbv that she was more than a little in love with him. He was above middle height, strong and good-tempered, and that was all I could see in him.

Miss Jessie kept away the whole evening and when I saw her father on the "upper deck", he glowered at me and went past without a word. That night 1 told Ponsonby my story, or part of it, and he

88 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

declared he would find a sailor to carry a note to Jessie next morning if I'd write it.

Besides, he proposed we should occupy the cabin alternate afternoons; for example, he'd take it next day and I mustn't come near it, and if at any time one of us found the door locked, he was to respect his chum's privacy. I agreed to it all with enthusiasm and went to sleep in a fever of hope. Would Jessie risk her father's anger and come to me? Perhaps she would: at any rate I'd write and ask her and I did. In one hour the same sailor came back with her reply. It ran like this: "Dear love, father is mad, we shall have to take great care for two or three days: as soon as it's safe, I'll come — your loving Jess", with a dozen crosses for kisses.

That afternoon, without thinking of my compact with Ponsonby, I went to our cabin and found the door locked: at once our compact came into my head and J went quietly away. Had he succeeded so quickly? and was she with him in bed? The half certainty made my heart beat.

That evening Ponsonby could not conceal his success but as he used it partly to praise his mistress. 1 forgave him.

"She has the prettiest figure you ever saw", he declared, "and is really a dear. We had just finished when you came to the door. I said it was some mistake and she believed me. She wants me to marry her but I can't marry. If I were rich I'd marry quick enough. It's better than risking some foul disease*", and he went on to tell about one of his colleagues, John Lawrence, who got Black Pox, as he called syphilis, caught from a negress.

"He didn't notice it for three months", Ponsonby went on, "and it got into his system; his nose got bad and he was invalided home, poor devil. Those black

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERICA. 89

girls are four', he continued, "they give everyone the clap and that's bad enough, I can tell you; they're dirty devils". His ruttish sorrows didn't interest me muck, for I had made up my mind never at any time to go with any prostitute.

I came to several such uncommon resolutions on hoard that ship, and I may set down the chief of them here very briefly. First of all, I resolved that I would do every piece of work given to me as well as I could, so that no one coming after me could do it better. I had found out at school in the last term that if you gave your whole mind and heart to anything, you learned it very quickly and thoroughly. I was sine even before the trial that my first job would lead me straight to fortune. 1 had seen men at work and knew it would be easy to beat any of them. I was only eager for the trial.

I remember one evening I had waited for Jessie and she never came and just before going to bed, 1 went up into the bow of the ship where one was alone with the sea and sky, and swore to myself this great oath, as I called it in my romantic fancy : what- ever I undertook to do, I would do it to the uttermost in me.

If 1 have had any success in life or clone any good work, it is due in great part to that resolution.

1 could not keep my thoughts from Jessie; if i tried to put her out of my head, I'd either get a little note from her, or Ponsonby would come begging me to leave him the cabin the whole day: at length in despair I begged her for her address in New York, for I feared to lose her forever in that maelstrom. 1 added that 1 would alwavs be in my cabin and alone from one to half past if she could ever come.

That day she didn't come, and the old gentleman who said he would adopt me, got hold of me, told me

90 MY LIFE AND LOVES,

he was a banker and would send me to Harvard, the University near Boston; from what the Doctor had said of me, he hoped I would do great things. He was really kind and tried to be sympathetic, but he had no idea that what I wanted chiefly was to prove myself, to justify my own high opinion of my powers in the open fight of life. I didn't want help and I absolutely resented his protective airs.

Next day in the cabin came a touch on the door and Jessie all flustered was in my arms. "I can only stay a minute", she cried, "Father is dreadful, says you are only a child and won't have me engage myself and he watches me from morning to night. I could only get away now because he had to go down to the machine-room."

Before she had finished, 1 had locked the cabin door.

"Oh, I must go", she cried, "I must really: I only came to give you my address in New York, here it is", and she handed me the paper that I put at once in my pocket. And then I put both my arms under her clothes and my hands were on her warm hips, and I was speechless with delight; in a moment my right hand came round in front and as I touched her sex our lips clung together and her sex opened at once, and my finger began to caress her and we kissed and kissed again. Suddenly her lips got hot and while I was still wondering why, her sex got wet and her eyes began to flutter and turn up. A moment or two later she tried to get out of my embrace.

"Really, dear, I'm frightened: he might come and make a noise and I'd die; please let me go now: we'll have lots of time in New York" — but I could not bear to let her go. "He'd never come here where there are two men", I said, "never, he might find the wrong one", and I drew her to me, but seeing' she was only half

FROM SCHOOL TO AMERIKA.

91

reassured, I said while lifting her dress, "Let mine just touch yours, and I'll let you gor' and the next mo- ment my sex was against hers and almost in spite of herself she yielded to the throbbing warmth of it; but when I pushed in, she drew away and down on it a little and I saw anxiety in her eyes that had grown very dear to me.

At once I stopped and put away my sex and let her clothes drop. "You're such a sweet, Jess", I said, "who could deny you anything; in New York then, but now one long kiss."

She gave me her mouth at once and her lips were hot. I learned that morning that when a girl's lips >w hot. her sex is hot first and she is ready to give herself and ripe for the embrace.

■ Cii

i-X

THE GREAT NEW WORLD!

Chapter V.

A stolen kiss and fleeting caress as we met on ^"^ the deck at night were all I had of Jessie for the rest of the voyage. One evening landlights flickering in the distance drew crowds to the deck; the ship began to slow down. The cabin passengers went below as usual, but hundreds of immigrants sat up as I did and watched the stars slide down the sky till at length dawn came with silver lights and start- ling revelations.

I can still recall the thrills that overcame me when I realized the great waterways of that land- locked harbor and saw Long Island Sound stretching away on one hand like a sea and the magnificent Hudson River with its palisades on the other, while before me was the East River, nearly a mile in width. What an entrance to a new world! A magnificent and safe ocean port which is also the meeting place of great water paths into the continent.

No finer site could be imagined for a world ca- pital; I was entranced with the spacious grandeur, the manifest destiny of this Queen City of the Waters.

The Old Battery was pointed out to me and Gov- ernor's Island and the prison and where the bridge

•>

THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 9:

was being built to Brooklyn: suddenly Jessie passed on her father's arm and shot me one radiant, linger- ing glance of love and promise.

I remember nothing more till we landed and the old banker came up to tell me he had had my little box taken from the "H's" where it belonged and put with his luggage among the "S's".

"We are going , he added, "to the Fifth Avenue Hotel away up town in Madison Square: we'll be comfortable there", and he smiled self-complacently. I smiled too, and thanked him; but I had no intention of going in his company. I went back to the ship and thanked Dr. Keogh with all my heart for his great goodness to me; he gave me his address in New York and incidentally I learned from him that if I kept the key of my trunk, no one could open it or take it away; it would be left in charge of the Customs till I called for it.

In a minute I was back in the long shed on the dock and had wandered nearly to the end when 1 perceived the stairs: "Is that the way into the town !" I asked and a man replied, "Sure". One quick glance around to see that I was not noticed and in a moment I was down the stairs and out in the street: I raced straight ahead of me for two or three blocks and then asked and was told that Fifth Avenue was right in front. As I turned up Fifth Avenue, I began to breathe freely; "no more fathers for me". The old Greybeard who had bothered me was consigned to oblivion without regret. Of course, I know now that he deserved better treatment. Perhaps indeed I should have done better had I accepted his kindly, generous help, but I'm trying to set down the plain, unvarnished truth, and here at once I must say that children's affections are much slighter than most pa- rents imagine. I never wasted a thought on my

94 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

father; even my brother Vernon who had always been kind to ine and fed my inordinate vanity , was not regretted: the new life called me: I was in a flutter of expectancy and hope.

Some way up Fifth Avenue I came into the great Square and saw the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but I only grinned and kept right on till at length I reached Central Park. Near it, I can't remember exactly where, but I believe it was near where the Plaza Hotel stands today, there was a small wooden house with an outhouse at the other end of the lot. While I stared a woman came out with a bucket and went across to the outhouse. In a few moments she came back again and noticed me looking over the fence.

"Would you please give me a drink V I asked. *\Sure I will", she replied with a strong Irish brogue. "Come right in" and I followed her into her kitchen.

"You're Irish", I said, smiling at her. "I am", she replied, "how did ye guess?" "Because I was born in Ireland too", I retorted. "You were not!" she cried emphatically, more for pleasure than to con- tradict. "I was bom in Galway", I went on and at once she became very friendly and poured me out some milk warm from the cow, and when she heard 1 had had no breakfast and saw I was hungry, she pressed me to eat and sat down with me and soon heard my whole story or enough of it to break out in wonder again and again.

In turn she told me how she had married Mike Mulligan, a longshoreman who earned good wages and was a good husband but took a drop too much now and again, as a man will when tempted by one of "thiin saloons". It was the saloons, I learned, that were the ruination of all the best Irishmen and "they were the best men anyway, an' — an" — " and the kindly, homely talk flowed on, charming me.

THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 95

When the breakfast was over and the things cleared away I rose to go with many thanks but Mrs. Mulligan wouldn't hear of it. "Ye're a child',, she said, "an' don't know New York: it's a terrible place and you must wait till Mike comes home an' — "

"But I must find some place to sleep", I said, "I have money."

"You'll sleep here", she broke in decisively, "and Mike will put ye on yer feet; sure he knows New York like his pocket, an' yer as welcome as the flowers in May, an' — "

What could I do but stay and talk and listen to all sorts of stories about New York, and "toughs" that were "hard cases" and "gunmen" an' "wimmin that were worse — bad scran to them".

In due time Mrs. Mulligan and I had dinner to- gether, and after dinner I got her permission to go into the Park for a walk, but "mind now and be home by six or I'll send Mike after ye", she added laughing.

I walked a little way in the Park and then star- ted down town again to the address Jessie had given me near the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a mean street, I thought, but I soon found Jessie's sister's house and went to a nearby restaurant and wrote a little note to my love, that she could show if need be, saying that I proposed to call on the 18th, or two days after the ship we had come in was due to return to Liver- pool. After that duty which made it possible for me to hope all sorts of things on the 18th, 19th or 20thr I sauntered over to Fifth Avenue and made my way up town again. At any rate I was spending nothing in my present lodging.

When I returned that night I was presented to Mike: I found him a big, good-looking Irishman who thought his wife a wonder and all she did perfect. "Mary", he said, winking at me, "is one of the best

8

96 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

cooks in the wurrld and if it weren't that she's down on a man when he has a drop in him, she'd be the best gurrl on God's earth. As it is, I married her and I've never been sorry: have I Mary?" "Ye've had no cause, Mike Mulligan."

Mike had nothing particular to do next morning and so he promised he would go and get my little trunk from the Custom House. I gave him the key. He insisted as warmly as his wife that I should stay with them till I got work: I told them how eager I was to begin and Mike promised to speak to his chief and some friends and see what could be done.

Next morning I got up about five-thirty as soon as I heard Mike stirring, and went down Seventh Avenue with him till he got on the horse-car for down-town and left me. About seven-thirty to eight o'clock a stream of people began walking down-town to their offices. On several corners were bootblack shanties. One of them happened to have three custom- ers in it and only one bootblack.

"Won't you let me help you shine a pair or twot"f I asked. The bootblack looked at me: "I don't mind", he said and I seized the brushes and went to work. I had done the two just as he finished the first: he whispered to me "halves" as the next man came in and he showed me how to use the polishing rag or cloth. I took off my coat and waistcoat and went to work with a will; for the next hour and a half we both had our hands full. Then the rush began to slack off but not before I had taken just over a, dollar and a half. Afterwards we had a talk and Allison, the bootblack, told me he'd be glad to give me work any morning on the same terms. I assured him I'd be there and do my best till I got other work. I had earned three shillings and had found out I could get good board for three dollars a week, so in a

THE GREAT NEW WORLD. 97

couple of hours I had earned my living. The last anxiety left me.

Mike had a day off, so he came home for dinner at noon and he had great news. They wanted men to work under water in the iron caissons of Brooklyn Bridge and they were giving from five to ten dollars a day.

"Five dollars", cried Mrs. Mulligan, "it must be dangerous or unhealthy or somethin' — sure, you'd never put the child to work like that."

Mike excused himself, but the danger, if danger there was, appealed to me almost as much as the big pay: my only fear was that they'd think me too small or too young. I had told Mrs. Mulligan I was six- teen, for I didn't want to be treated as a child and now I showed her the eighty cents I had earned that morning bootblacking, and she advised me to keep on at it and not go to work under the water; but the promised five dollars a day won me.

Next morning Mike took me to Brooklyn Bridge soon after five o'clock to see the Contractor: he wan- ted to engage Mike at once but shook his head over me. "Give me a trial", I pleaded, "You'll see, I'll make good." After a pause, "0. K.", he said, "four shifts have gone down already underhanded; you may try."

I've told about the work and its dangers at some length in my novel "The Bomb", but here I may add some details just to show what labor has to suffer.

In the bare shed where we got ready the men told me no one could do the work for long without getting the "bends"; the "bends", it appeared, were a sort of convulsive fit that twisted one's body like a knot and often made you an invalid for life. They soon ex- plained the whole procedure to me. We worked, it appeared, in a huge bell-shaped caisson of iron that

8"

98 MY LIFE AND LOVES.

went to the bottom of the river and was pumped full