My Life and Loves Vol. 4

My Life and Loves

Vol. 4

Cimiez, Nice
Privately printed for the author

VOLUME FOUR

CHAPTER I.

HOW I BEGAN TO WRITE

CHAPTER II.

THE SATURDAY REVIEW

CHAPTER III.

THE JAMESON RAID
RHODES AND CHAMBERLAIN

CHAPTER IV.

AFRICAN ADVENTURES AND HEALTH

CHAPTER V.

DARK BEAUTIES

CHAPTER VI.

BARNATO, BEIT, AND HOOLEY

CHAPTER VII.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR:
MILNER AND CHAMBERLAIN;
KITCHENER AND ROBERTS

CHAPTER VIII.

SAN REMO

CHAPTER IX.

THE GIRLS' CONFESSIONS

CHAPTER X.

CELEBRITIES OF THE NINETIES

CHAPTER XI.

JESUS, THE CHRIST

CHAPTER XII.

THE END OF THE CENTURY

CHAPTER XIII.

SEX AND SELF-RESTRAINT

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PROSECUTION OF MY LIFE

VOLUME FOUR

CHAPTER I.
HOW I BEGAN TO WRITE

IT WAS THE CONFLICT with my committee in Hackney over Parnell and
his treatment by Gladstone that brought me to the parting of the ways. The
Venezuela affair, the Damien incident, and my dislike of a lazy, aimless life,
however luxurious, helped to decide me. Was I to continue to fool about
London and waste myself on little committees, or should I give up my
candidature for the House of Commons in Hackney and go abroad and try to
become a writer? A long spell of bad weather in November, unceasing fog
and rain, determined me. I packed up and went off to the Riviera. In a week I
was installed at the Hotel of Cap d'Antibes with Mr. Sella as host, who gave
me two excellent rooms on the first floor. I found that Grant Allen and his
wife were staying in the hotel. I had known him for some time, but now I met
him more intimately and soon confided to him that I had made a new start
and was going to try to write some short stories.
Every night he and his wife came up to my sitting-room after dinner and I
told them the stories before I wrote them. I told them the story of The Sheriff
and His Partner, of Monies, the Matador and A Modern Idyll on three
successive nights. They praised them all enthusiastically, and when they
went away I sat down to write out the stories, one story each night. When I
had finished all three I sent them off to the Fortnightly Review to be set up,
and asked for proofs to be returned to me at once. I remember I spent two
nights on the Modern Idyll, and afterwards worked on the proofs, while
Mantes came perfectly on the first attempt. I was so excited with hope and
fear that I went to Monte Carlo to while away the time till I could hope to get
my stories back in print.
In a week or so I returned and went to my room and read the three stories. I
saw that the story of The Sheriff and His Partner was spoilt by letting the
facts dominate; real life is seldom artistic; I thought Monies, the Matador very
much the better. I remember saying to myself that I had done what I
intended, given the Spaniard his real place as an heroic man of action. I
confess I thought it was better than the Carmen of Prosper Merimee, which,
up to that time, I had regarded as the best Spanish story. But I preferred A
Modem Idyll to either of the other two. There was in it a Sophoclean irony
that appealed to me intensely. When the Deacon insisted on paying in order
to keep the clergyman who was his wife's lover in the same town, I was
hugely delighted: I felt sure it was good work.
I gave the three stories to Grant Allen and he agreed with me that Monies,
the Matador and A Modern Idyll were much better than The Sheriff and His
Partner. I began to work on other short stories. A fortnight later Grant Allen
came and told me that he had a letter from Meredith about my stories. He
had sent Monies and A Modern Idyll to him and asked his opinion on them.
We both regarded Meredith as the highest literary judge in England at that

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time. Meredith did not care so much for A Modern Idyll: "The story was too
subacid," he thought, but he praised Mantes to the skies. To my delight, he
said it was better than Carmen in every way; I had given even the bulls
individuality, he said, whereas Merimee had dismissed them as brutes and
had been content to give life to the one woman. Meredith ended his criticism
with the words, "If there is any hand in England can do better than Mantes, I
don't know it."
I have always thought of that letter as my knighting. And I really cared
nothing afterwards for anyone's opinion of my work. Curiously enough, when
I sat down to write a longer story, Elder Conklin, I found it very difficult, and
the worst of it was that I didn't seem able to judge it properly. I suddenly
remembered that Horace tells us that he couldn't judge his poetry for nine
years—novem annas, and I found later, when a book of my stories was
printed, that I could not judge them even to my own satisfaction till five or six
years had elapsed after they were written. Really, an author is like a mother:
her latest baby seems to her the most perfect, just as his latest story or play
seems to the author the best he has done.
I sent out my first stories to three or four English magazines; although I was
the editor of the Fortnightly Review, they were every one returned to me
with thanks: only one editor even asked me to send him some other work,
telling me that he didn't think that the English public cared for stories about
bull-fighting. This amused me, so I turned A Modern Idyll and Monies, the
Matador into my best French and sent them off to the Revue des Deux
Mondes in Paris. Ferdinand Brunetiere, at that time editor of the Revue, was
called "The Door of the French Academy." He wrote me immediately a
charming letter, saying that it was the first time that he had ever received
two masterpieces in one letter, but he went on to tell me that my French was
faulty and that he hoped I would let him correct the worst passages. I was
only too delighted. As soon as the stories appeared in the Revue des Deux
Mondes, they were praised in the English press, and at once the same editors
who had rejected them wrote, asking me for some more stories. In this way I
was brought to realize how low is the standard of criticism in England. The
English editors always regarded me as an American, and had pleasure in
trying to put me in what they thought was my place.
Talking one day to Meredith of the low standard of English literary criticism,
he turned on me and said, "It is so true: I have never once been criticized in
England at all fairly."
"Good God," I cried, "not even your poetry?"
"Well," he said, "my poetry has been treated a little better than my prose.
Your ordinary editor feels that he knows nothing about poetry because he
doesn't care for it, so he leaves it for an expert to judge; but he thinks he can
judge a story as well as any one living, and so he has no hesitancy in telling

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me that my forte is not story-writing, and that Richard Fever el is not to his
taste."
"I'll repair the omission," I said, "for I look upon you as only second to the very
greatest, to my heroes: Shakespeare, Goethe, and Cervantes."
"Strange," he said, turning away, perhaps to hide his emotion, "that is what I
have sometimes thought of myself, but I never hoped to hear it said."
"I shall say it and loudly," I declared. And so I tried my best to get Matthew
Arnold and Browning to write the truth about Meredith, but they both made
excuses. Browning told me that "praise of the living always seems tainted."
Why, I couldn't imagine, but my scheme fell through. Yet, think of what
Meredith did in superb poetry, and of Richard Feverel, that great love idyll
in prose; and how difficult it is to win mastery in both arts, or, indeed, in either.
I often think of William Watson's noble epigram:
Forget not, brother singer, that though Prose
Can never be too truthful nor too wise,
Song is not Truth—not Wisdom—but the Rose
Upon Truth's lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes!
Here I cannot but recall a funny incident which occurred a little earlier. I had
gone up to Paris and had my usual sitting-room in the Hotel Meurice; one
day when I came in I found George Moore waiting for me. He naturally had
picked up the little stories which were lying in print on the table and had
read them.
"Where did you get these stories, Harris?" he asked. "I don't care for the
Mantes; it is too romantic; I hate bulls and bullfighting; but The Sheriff and
His Partner is very good, and A Modern Idyll is a masterpiece. I might have
done it myself. Who is the writer? Whoever he is, he ought to be proud of
himself."
"I wrote 'em all, Moore," I said.
"You!" he cried in astonishment. "Where did you learn to write stories?"
"They are my first fruits," I replied, laughingly.
"Good God!" he cried. "It must make you feel very conceited."
"On the contrary," I said, "it has made me feel very humble. I am not sure that
A Modern Idyll is better than Balzac's Chef d'Oeuvre Inconnu or his Autre
Etude de Femme."
"Good gracious!" cried Moore. "You surely didn't think you could write better
than Balzac straight off, did you?"

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"Certainly I did," I replied, "or I'd never have begun."
A little later Moore wrote to me, asking for permission to turn the Modern
Idyll into a play, and I believe he did it with Arthur Symons, under the title of
The Curate's Call or something of that sort. It had little interest for me.
I wanted to know whether I could do a long novel. Above all, I wanted to
know how I was to render the portrait of Shakespeare and his life that was in
my mind. But the joy in me already was rampant. I knew that, like Saul, I had
gone out to find my father's asses and had found a kingdom. I was drunk with
the hope that I might really be a great writer, as Carlyle said, "One of that
strange race called Immortal."
Immediately I took the matter seriously to heart. I returned to London and
sought counsel from the wisest, but got little or nothing for my pains, till it
suddenly came to me that I ought to increase my vocabulary as much as
possible; and when I told this to my friend, Verschoyle, he agreed with me
and sent me an early edition of Johnson's great dictionary. I put in two years'
work at it, as I have already related in detail.
The worst of it was that at first I had no guide as to how I should use the larger
vocabulary which I had acquired, till one day I came across the words of
Julius Caesar, who, according to Aulus Gellius, advised all writers "to avoid,
as the seaman avoids a rock, any word that isn't well known and commonly
used" (ut tamquam scopolum sic vitas inauditum et insolens verbum).
The simplest speech is the best in prose. It was Joubert, I think, who called
simplicity "the varnish of the great masters."
Meredith advised me to read English prose exclusively for some tune, till I got
free of the obsession of German, and accordingly I read Gulliver's Travels,
Donne's Sermons, and Dryden's Prefaces, and soaked myself in their rhythms
and cadences. I read, too, Froude's Short Stories on Great Subjects, and learnt
pages of Pater and of the Bible. Above all, while writing a good deal of
journalism, I forced myself every day to write one or two sentences as
carefully as possible: now I chopped them up into short sentences and then
wrote them all as one long phrase, studying the different effects; now I began
with the logical beginning and afterwards began at the end; in short, I
studied day by day for some years the structure of our English speech.
I don't think I got much from it all; still, reading the masters taught me their
peculiarities, and was in itself good discipline; and thus in time I learned that
the half is greater than the whole. As Goethe said: "In der Beschrankung
zeigt sich erst der Meister."
I am not inclined to lay much stress on style or mere verbal excellence: a
conception may be as great in sandstone as in marble, in putty as in bronze.

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Of course, I prefer the marble and bronze to sand and putty, but the
conception is, after all, the chief thing.
I came to love English words, too, for their bold, naked exposures, for the
pulsing, painting heat in them, and their shrill shrieks of pain; for the hot
rhetoric, too, drawn from the childhood of the race, and the high poetry
embalming man's dreams of the future and the ultimate triumph of beauty
and goodness and truth.
Words to me often possess individual life and the evocative magic of
personality:
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy
is to me a revelation of Shakespeare's soul; and when I read
All the soft luxury
That nestled in his arms,
I see Fanny Brawne atoning to Keats for her brainlessness by her soft,
luxuriant nestling.
What a beautiful word "mouth" is! and what a dreadful, ill-sounding brute is
"logic"; how stiff is "right," and how stupid "honest"; one word always amuses
me—the word "wanton"; English lexicographers can find no derivation for it,
and so they have suggested that it means "want one," as if any loose woman
ever would want only one! The idiocy of the professors could scarcely find a
more perfect illustration. I could go on forever; think of the beauty of Keats's:
There is a budding morrow in midnight,
or of Shakespeare's supreme verse:
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.
One should remember, too, that Hamlet exclaims: "Oh my prophetic soul!"
I think I was the first to point out that even Shakespeare had favorite words,
such as "gild," that he used in and out of season; even the greatest of men
have a peculiar vocabulary, and the limitations of speech mark limitations of
memory and of mind. The style changes with the growth of the man.
Shakespeare sloughs off his early euphemism, becomes in middle life very
fluid, intensely articulate, reaching even to simplicity, and then in age
packed sentences into words, deep thoughts into an epithet—a most
remarkable growth.

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I am not likely to underrate the magic of words, and English writers are apt to
be more articulate than Americans of the same mental caliber. Lowell
noticed this, but found no explanation for it, whereas I believe the reason is
that all English writers love poetry more than Americans do and start their
literary career by trying to write verse. This practice soon gives a large
vocabulary and a keen sense of the value of the painting epithet and of
rhythm.
Some of my correspondents have asked me to tell them what in my judgment
are the best pages in English prose: I think Swift perhaps the best model of all;
but there is hardly a finer passage in English literature than Pater's page on
the Mona Lisa:
The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive of
what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the
head upon which all 'the ends of the world are come,' and the eyelids are a
little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the
deposit, little cell by cell of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and
exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek
goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how they would be troubled
by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed. All the
thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in
that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward
form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle
age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan
world, the sins of the Borgias.
And Ruskin's page on Calais Church is almost as fine. I thrill when he speaks
of
the large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it; the record of its years written
so visibly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern wasteness and
gloom eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with the bitter sea
grasses.... as some old fisherman beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily
nets.
The last chapter of Ecclesiastes and Paul's words on Faith, Hope, and Charity
are even higher.
There are prose writers like Carlyle and Heine of an incomparable splendor
of achievement. No one surely has ever read the first page or the last volume
of Carlyle's French Revolution and come away without being deeply
affected by the experience. Yet Carlyle was not as great as Cervantes.
The greatest page in Cervantes, however, as I often say, I have never seen
quoted: it is near the end of the second part of Don Quixote, written shortly
before his death, when he was well over three score years of age.

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There comes a cloud upon the plain, and the Don immediately takes it for the
paynim host who have come out to fight him. Sancho Panza, the squire, says it
smells badly and may well be the pagans, so skins up a tree to be safe. Don
Quixote lays his lance in rest and spurs out to combat. A little while later he
is flung to the ground and trampled on; and when the wild mob has passed,
Sancho comes down the tree, goes over to the knight and is rejoiced to find
that he is not killed, not even wounded seriously; only bruised and cut and
dirtied.
"What was it?" asked the Knight. "What a terrible charge!"
"It was indeed," said Sancho, "a crowd of swine were being driven to market;
but as you are not wounded seriously, it doesn't matter."
"I am wounded to the soul," cried the Don; "to go out to do noble deeds and be
trampled on by the swine;—that's the last insult, the final disaster. Take me
home; my fighting is over and done."
And so the noble idealist went to his long rest after being trampled on by
swine!
With the exception of some sayings of Jesus, and especially the story of "The
Woman Taken in Adultery," there is nothing greater in prose than this page
of Cervantes.
My experiences of poetry, too, perhaps deserve to be recalled. I have already
described in the preceding volume how I gave up writing poetry, but with
the years my love for poetry has grown if possible more intense.
In London it used to amuse Colonel John Hay, when he was American
ambassador there, to hear me recite his Jim Bludso:
He weren't no saint,—but at jedgment I'd run my chance with Jim, 'Longside
of some pious gentlemen That wouldn't shake hands with him. He seen his
duty, a dead-sure thing,— And went for it thar and then; And Christ ain't agoing
to be too hard On a man that died for men.
But I always preferred even to that fine poem the Prayer of the Romans:
We lift our souls to Thee, O Lord
Of Liberty and of Light!
Let not earth's kings pollute the work
That was done in their despite.
Let not Thy light be darkened
In the shade of a sordid crown,
Nor Piedmont swine devour the fruit
Thou shook'st with an earthquake down....

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Let the People come to their birthright,
And crosier and crown pass away,
Like phantasms that flit o'er the marshes
At the glance of the clean white day.
This work of Hay, with some of Emerson and The Prayer of Columbus of
Whitman constitute, I think, the greatest American poetry; but the best
English poetry of the nineteenth century is finer still.
I sometimes wonder whether accidents are not providential. We have almost
driven God out of the universe and installed law in his stead; but curious
chances and coincidences often remind us that there are more things
between heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
In the first volume I declared that any originality of thought I may possess is
due in the first case to the fact that, when a cowboy on the trail some fifty
years ago, I had no books and by the camp fire at night had to answer the
obstinate questionings of sense and outward things without any help from
the choice and master spirits of my time. I was forced to think because I could
not read.
In the second volume I described how the second happy chance of my life
willed it that all my education took place in the United States, in France and
Germany, and that when I came to English literature I read and studied
without preconceived English ideas. My Shakespeare book is one result of
this foreign education; but all my views of English literature are untinged by
English prepossessions and English prejudices.
I can still recall vividly the shock it gave me to find William Rossetti putting
Shelley above Keats. Writing of the graves of the two poets in the Protestant
cemetery in Rome, he first mentions Keats, and the slab of marble covering
his remains with its pathetic inscription: "Here lies one whose name is writ in
water"; and, he adds, "A few paces further on and you come to a still more
sacred grave, the grave of the world-worn and wave-worn Shelley, the
divinest of the demi-gods."
"Ass, ass!" I cried, throwing the book down in an outburst of rage. But I found
this judgment of Rossetti was the ordinary and accepted English judgment,
and I had to take myself in hand and force myself to rationalize my
overwhelming and almost instinctive prepossession in favor of Keats. I knew
hundreds of verses of Shelley by heart, but one has only to read his Skylark
and then Keats's Nightingale in order to realize how immeasurably superior
was John Keats. And the Skylark is about the best of Shelley's work, whereas
Keats, in the Ode to a Grecian Urn and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, has
reached higher heights. All one whiter in Rome, every Sunday morning, I
used to lay flowers on the unhonored grave of Keats; the grave of Shelley was
always covered by unknown admirers.

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"Keats is with Shakespeare," I cried to myself, indignant, and Shakespeare
himself had never done anything at twenty-six to be compared with Keats.
His best is the best poetry in English, except here and there some divine verse
of Shakespeare.
In one of my earliest essays of poetic criticism in England I made this
declaration of faith and was immediately attacked for it on all hands.
"You will come to my opinion," was my retort, "in a little time." And two or
three days afterwards I showed my chief critic a letter from Lord Tennyson in
which he said: "How glad I am to see this opinion which I have held for thirty
years at length finding its way into print. Keats sings from the very heart of
poetry and I am glad you have said it."
A little later Matthew Arnold expressed the same opinion:
"No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the
fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of loveliness. 'I think,' he said
humbly, 'I shall be among the English poets after my death.' He is; he is with
Shakespeare."
But Matthew Arnold's reasoning does not seem to me conclusive. He says:
"Notwithstanding his short term and imperfect experience, by virtue of his
feeling for beauty and of his perception of the vital connection of beauty
with truth, Keats accomplished so much in poetry that in one of the great
modes by which poetry interprets, in the faculty of naturalistic
interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare."
Though Keats has once or twice reached magical interpretation of nature,
only to be compared with that of Shakespeare or Blake, no one has yet
noticed that in manifold richness of rhythm and in the dying fall of new
cadences, the blank verse of Keats in Hyperion surpasses even the "organ
tones" of Milton.
I could, if I would, give a dozen passages to prove that, to me at least, Keats
and not Shelley was the "divinest of the demi-gods." Yet England almost let
him starve. It was thirty-seven years after his death before Keats's poems
were reprinted in England, and it took fifty-odd years for him to reach his
proper place, side by side with Shakespeare and Blake.
Think of his sonnet On Seeing the Elgin Marbles:
My spirit is too weak—mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship, tells me I must die
Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.

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And his Ode to a Nightingale:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves has never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ...
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
The dying cadences of these lines are the finest in English verse. Think, too, of
the lines in his last sonnet:
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores.
Who would have dared to say then that this half-educated, consumptive lad
had written purer English than Shakespeare himself and finer blank verse
than Milton, and considering his years, stands without a peer in the Pantheon
of Humanity?
No wonder Shelley wrote of him, Shelley who was gifted in every way, wellborn,
well-bred, well-taught, yet able to keep his personal divine inspiration
through all the vicissitudes of life:
... Till the future dare
Forget the past, his name and fate shall be,
An echo and a Light unto Eternity,
... till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and name shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity.
I have said little of Shelley, but he was a divine poet and some of his verses
are always with me:
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

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Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
It was Keats who enforced the lesson which Shakespeare was the first to
teach me, that poetry at its best is on the topmost height of thought, either
lighting the feet of struggling humanity or encouraging men and women on
the upward way, or by sheer beauty attuning them to the humane ideal.
After Keats came Thomson and Tennyson, of whom I have already written;
and the next one who had a great effect upon me was Robert Browning. I
have done a sort of portrait of him and have devoted several pages to him
already in this Life of mine, but here I wish to say one or two things more.
I couldn't understand why he was not more widely appreciated in England.
Every cultivated man or woman knew poems of his wife, Mrs. Barrett
Browning—and she has written some fine poetry—yet, Robert Browning
was supposed to be difficult and obscure, though I never could see any
difficulty or obscurity. He was one of the bravest souls, and one of the most
optimistic that I have ever met.
Think of the verses in Rabbi Ben Ezra:
Not on the vulgar mass
Called 'work,' must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
But all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped;
All I could never be,

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All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
Browning often spoke to me of the way he had been neglected and his work
mis-seen, but always with a happy cheerfulness, as if it didn't matter. I
remember one story he used to tell, that John Stuart Mill came across some of
his early work, I think Bells and Pomegranates, and wrote to Browning,
asking him, would he like him to review it in Tail's Magazine, which was then
the chief literary organ. Of course Browning said he would be delighted and
was very grateful.
Mill thereupon wrote to the editor, and the editor replied that of course he
would be very glad to accept anything from the pen of Stuart Mill, but not a
review of Bells and Pomegranates, because that had already been reviewed
in a previous number of the magazine. Browning thereupon sent for the
previous number of the magazine and found that the review in question was
short if not sweet:
Bells and Pomegranates, by Robert Browning: Balderdash.
"It depended, you see," said Browning, "on what looked like the merest
accident, whether the work of a new and as yet almost unknown writer
should receive an eulogistic review from the pen of the first literary and
philosophic critic of his day—a review which would have rendered him most
powerful help, exactly at the time when it was most needed—or whether he
should only receive one insolent epithet from some nameless nobody. I
consider," he added, "that this so-called 'review' retarded any recognition of
me by twenty years' delay."
There are many things in life which I can never hope to understand, but the
vagaries of popularity are to me among the most incomprehensible of
mysteries. As I have said in another place, had I been asked who was the
artist most certain to be popular in England, where the love of beauty is
almost a religion, I should have said, Whistler, who never did anything which
hadn't a touch of beauty in it, who was devoted to beauty, more even than to
sublimity. But no, the English mocked him and wouldn't have him for twenty
years. And it was Ruskin, who was transparently honest and filled with the
same enthusiasm for beauty, who did Whistler the greatest injury.
In the same way, if I had been asked beforehand the poet who would most
appeal to Englishmen, with their manful courage and optimistic view of life, I
should have said Robert Browning; and Robert Browning went through life
almost unknown to the end! Meredith, I think it is, who wrote of
A song seraphically free
From taint of personality.

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But it was just the inevitable touch of personality that endeared Robert
Browning to me.
It was in the early nineties that I came across a verse that started me on a new
quest:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
I was so startled that I had to get Blake at once, and I simply devoured him.
For months I used to annoy every one by reciting verses of his and declaring
that he was the greatest spirit born in England since Shakespeare died.
His Garden of Love appealed to me intensely:
I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds.
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
I have already quoted dozens of Blake's verses in my books; again and again
he gives expression to the very spirit of Jesus, and the greatest lines of natural
magic in all English poetry are his.
... Let the west wind sleep on
The lake: speak silence with thy glimmering eyes
And wash the dusk with silver.
His finest verses always make me feel that there will be greater men born
into the world than any we know of.
As Blake himself wrote, his deepest words will
.. still go on
Till the heavens and earth are gone.

688

For above Time's troubled fountains,
On the great Atlantic mountains,
In my golden house on high,
There they shine eternally.
Talking once with Oscar Wilde and another friend, the topic came up of
undiscovered beauties of high poetry. "That's the best of winning a great
reputation," said Oscar; "everything you do well is sure to be known."
"I don't agree with you," I objected; "the finest things, even in Shakespeare,
are unknown."
Oscar laughed. "Come, come! A wild paradox," he expostulated.
"You have read the sonnets," I went on; "well, I don't believe you know the
finest line in them."
"Nonsense," he exclaimed impatiently, "everyone knows Shakespeare's best.
Why Wordsworth has gone through all the sonnets, pointing out the best and
after that, there's no gleaning."
"I don't believe that Wordsworth could see the best for himself," I retorted.
"Your English moralizers like Wordsworth and Milton all have blind spots in
them."
"Not in poetry," persisted Oscar. "But what is your line?"
"My line," I said, "is finer than anything in Sophocles, more purely Greek, and
curiously enough, it is in praise of beauty and is simply divine; 'beauty,'
Shakespeare says, 'Whose action is no stronger than a flower.' "
"Divine, indeed!" cried Oscar. "But where does it come?"
I recited the verse. He was evidently puzzled a little at having overlooked the
jewel for he said, "I'll let you know tomorrow whether Wordsworth has
missed that sonnet or not; I feel sure its very simplicity would have struck
him."
Next day he came to me laughing.
"Frank, it's absolutely astounding; you're right; Wordsworth quotes the very
next sonnet, the 66th, but omits the 65th; it's incredible!"
"It was to be foreseen," I insisted. "I knew he'd miss the best, because in
Shakespeare's dramatic writings the miracles of wisdom and insight are
invariably declared by the learned commentators to be from some other
hand; some inferior collaborator has touched the zenith Shakespeare couldn't
reach. At least that's my experience."

689

"You must really write your book on Shakespeare," said Oscar seriously; "it
will do you all the good in the world. Fancy a western cowboy," he laughed
delightedly, "teaching Oxford how to discover new beauties in Shakespeare.
It'll make your reputation in England," he added.
"Once I hoped so," I replied, "now I doubt. Swinburne discovered Blake for
the English, but no one reads him, and James Thomson is still unknown. No, it
takes time and more generations than one to separate the sinners from the
saints."
"Well, Frank, the shiners are more amusing—eh?"
There is another sonnet of Shakespeare's that comes from the same height of
inspiration—a personal sonnet:
That time of year thou mayest in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs, which shake against the cold
Bare, ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
Here, too, I am intimately pleased by the profound art of the verse; line after
line of simple iambics, and then the discord in the last line that makes the
melody harmonious—"Bare, ruin'd choirs"—and then the music taken up
again—"where late the sweet birds sang."
Of course there are other great sonnets in English, for example Wordsworth's
sonnet on Toussaint l'Ouverture has the finest sextet to be found anywhere:
Thou hast left behind
Powers that will work for thee; air, earth and skies;
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
And I often think the sextet of Lord Alfred Douglas' sonnet about himself and
his death is worthy to rank even with this:
For in the smoke of that last holocaust,
When to the regions of unsounded air
That which is deathless still aspires and tends,
Whither my helpless soul shall we be tossed?
To what disaster of malign Despair,
Or terror of unfathomable ends?
That "terror of unfathomable ends" is as sublime as anything in Dante.

690

But I can't say I like the sonnet in English; in Italian it's easy, for Italian is full
of rhymes; but English is poor in rhymes, and a perfect sonnet in English is in
my opinion almost impossible. Yet at its best it's like a fugue by Bach, beyond
praise, as in two or three of Shakespeare's and two or three of Wordsworth's,
and a couple of Keats's.
When I began writing on Shakespeare in the Saturday Review, Theodore
Watts, Swinburne's friend and housemate and the critic of the Athenaeum,
was very much interested and wrote to me. We met several times and he was
frankly astonished that I cared so much for poetry. He had evidently always
thought of me as an American who could hardly grapple with such high
things.
One evening at the Cafe Royal I tempted him with some rare Musigny, soft to
the palate as velvet and of an exquisite lingering bouquet. It unlocked the
tongue of "the little sick walrus," as I used to call him to myself and other
ribald juniors, and he began to swell in self-praise.
"Shakespeare's sonnets are no true sonnets," he insisted. "He neither knew nor
perhaps cared for the true sonnet form; but Rossetti knew it and so do I. Do
you know the sonnet I wrote on—"
"No," I replied. "Won't you recite it to me?" I added for courtesy's sake.
"I will if I can remember it," he replied, and at once began to recite verses that
were good enough technically but without any inspiration or touch of
beauty. I listened patiently and nodded my head at the close, as if in mute
admiration, the truth being that I hate to tell flattering lies about high things.
Watts seemed to sense my coldness and was piqued by it, for at length he
took his courage in both hands and said solemnly: "Rossetti said that was the
most perfect sonnet in English!"
"Really!" I cried, startled out of all politeness, for I knew Rossetti's keenness of
mind and reverence for good work, and such a judgment shocked me.
But Watts repeated the phrase, nodding his head the while like a mandarin.
While he was speaking, it came to me that possibly Rossetti had said, "The
most perfect sonnet," meaning simply in verse-form, and wishing above all
things to praise a genial, ingratiating, but commonplace creature. And once
started on this disdainful way, suddenly a thought struck me, and though it
was dreadfully rude, I thought Watts was probably too intoxicated to notice
it, and so I resolved to say the thing.
Everybody knows that Theodore Watts was a solicitor and practiced law for
a good many years before he went over to literature. Now the usual fee of a
solicitor or attorney in England is six shillings and eight pence.

691

"Oh, I see what Rossetti meant," I cried.
"What's that?" interjected Watts suspiciously.
"Well, you were sure, weren't you, to make the form perfect?" I queried.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean," I replied, "that you had had such a lot of practice beforehand in
sixes and eights."
He glared at me and then snuffled. I really feared he was going to cry and felt
a little ashamed of myself. Shortly afterwards we parted; I think it was the
end of our attempt at friendly relations. Afterwards we just bowed and left it
at that. That the sick walrus should think of matching himself with the
greatest of the world's poets seemed to me worse than absurd. I reminded
myself of Shakespeare's verses:
... These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled:
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.
"My beating mind"—the most tell-tale phrase in all Shakespeare.
Goethe, too, reached the highest height of poetry in Gretchen's appeal to the
Madonna:
Ach neige,
Du Schmerzenreiche,
Dein Antlitz gnadig meiner Not!
Das Schwert im Herzen,
Mit tausend Schmerzen
Blickst auf zu deines Sohnes Tod.

692

Wer fuhlet,
Wie wuhlet
Der Schmerz mir im Gebein?
Was mein armes Herz hier banget,
Was es zittert, was verlanget,
Weisst nur du, nur du allein!
Ich bin, ach! kaum alleine,
Ich wein, ich wein, ich weine,
Das Herz zerbricht in mir.
Wohin ich immer gehe
Wie weh, wie weh, wie wehe
Wird mir im Busen hier!
After that I feel inclined to quote here the earliest English poem that I know
of, which is really fine:
What if Art be slowe,
Sweetlie let it growe,
As groweth tender grasse,
'Neath God's smalle rain.
But of shoutyng, strivyng, crying,
roaryng, flghtyng,
Waxeth nought save dust aloft,
Upon the plaine.
I went to New York in 1914 when the World War came on, determined to
make my way to China and Japan and spend three or four years in getting to
know the languages, art and literature of those countries; for personal reasons
I didn't go, so my life is maimed, and my life work, which I had thought I
would make perfect, must be completed by some one else. Therefore I end
with Browning's word in Andrea del Sarto:
"And thus we half-men struggle."
This always goes in my mind with the end of that great poem:
... What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance—
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
To cover—the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So—still they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,—as I choose.
"Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love."

693

CHAPTER II.
THE SATURDAY REVIEW

UP TO THIS TIME, I have said very little about my financial position. I must
now make this omission good. From the time of taking over the Evening News
in the early eighties, I had got into touch with finance in London. I not only
knew the editors of the financial papers, but was a friend of both the owners,
Macrae of the Financial Times and Harry Marks of the Financial News, and
through my knowledge of South Africa and sympathy with the people, I had
come into close relations with a good many of the South African financiers.
I had known Cecil Rhodes ever since the Colonial Conference in '87, as I
have already narrated, and through him I came to know Alfred Beit, who
somewhat later made himself, through the success of the gold mines of
Johannesburg, one of the most important financiers in the world. About the
same time I became friendly with Albert Ochs, who was the head of the
famous diamond buying house of Hatton Gardens. He had a brother, James
Ochs, who conducted the Paris business, and another younger brother of less
importance; but Albert Ochs, in many respects, was very like Beit—a firstrate
financial head. He had inherited half a million or so from his father in
the diamond business, and while keeping on the old established trade in
diamonds, bought an interest in certain gold mines in Johannesburg, and so
came into the wider field of international finance.
We soon became intimate; I really liked Albert Ochs, and trusted him. I had
made money with him more than once by getting articles in favor of his
enterprises in all sorts of papers. Later I tried time and again to bring him into
a union with Beit and Rhodes, which he infinitely desired, but that's another
story to be told later.
Beit seemed to dislike Ochs, and one day told me a humorous story to
account for his prejudice against him.
Beit and Wernher, it appears, used to lunch together at the Holborn
Restaurant, and one day Beit noticed that old Ochs, Albert's father, had got a
seat at the next table and seemed to be listening attentively to the private
talk that went on between himself and Wernher. At this time Beit and
Wernher, too, were diamond brokers in Hatton Gardens; in fact, in time,
through Rhodes's help, they took over the whole business from Kimberley
and ousted all competitors, including Ochs.
When Wernher went out, old Ochs bowed very politely to Beit and asked,
"Would you mind if I come and sit with you? I'm alone."
Beit said, "I'm going very soon, but if you would care to sit here, come." Ochs
came over and took Wernher's vacant seat; Beit sat and talked with him
wondering what he wanted.
Suddenly Ochs said, "Is Mr. Wernher coming back?"

694

"No, I do not think so," Beit replied. "He has had to go off on private business."
"Oh," said Ochs, "then may I help myself to some of the potatoes he has left?"
And as soon as Beit said, "Yes," he harpooned one or two of the cold potatoes
and began to eat them. "Then I understood," said Beit, "that he had not come
in the hope of finding out any secret, but simply, millionaire like, to realize a
small economy." It was this story, I think, that first gave me the idea of my
saying, "Means and meanness go together"; for a little later still I found the
same characteristic just as fully developed in Alfred Beit, as I may tell in due
course.
My friendship with Albert Ochs and Beit showed me a good deal of the
inside of finance, and I knew that they would let me have the money to buy a
paper as soon as I put a fair proposition before them.
One day in London I heard casually that the Saturday Review had just been
sold to the son-in-law of the man who made Stephen's Ink. I had gone after
the Saturday years before and was assured by Mr. Beresford Hope himself
that if the sale of it were ever mooted, I should have the first refusal. Now,
some years after his death, I found it had been sold by his children for a paltry
thousand pounds. I went down at once to the office and saw the owner, Lewis
Edmunds, Q.C., who knew no more about literature than he knew about
skyscrapers. He told me that the paper was not for sale, but he would be
willing to consider an offer. At once I said, "All right, I will give you a pound
for every reader of the Saturday Review, taking the average of the last three
weeks. I will pay you ten per cent down and the balance within a fortnight."
"Will you take our figures for the sales?" he asked.
"Certainly," I replied. Forthwith he rang a bell and ordered the old bookkeeper
who came in to say what the average sales had been for the last three
weeks. In ten minutes the figures were on the table. The average sales were
5,600. At once I gave him my check for five hundred and sixty and a promise
to pay the remainder within a fortnight, against his written undertaking to
hand me over the journal—and I went out of the office the probable owner of
the Saturday Review.
When I thought the matter over I realized that I possibly hadn't more than
five hundred pounds in the bank, and so went out to get an extra hundred. I
went to one friend after another and failed: A. was not in; B. was away on a
holiday; C. would have to consult his wife as to the matter; but at last late in
the evening I fell across Brandon Thomas, the actor and playwright, and told
him why I had come. He said, "I will lend you one thousand pounds on
condition I may have a sixth-share in the venture." I gave him the
undertaking, and a couple of years afterwards he got five thousand pounds
for his sixth-share.

695

The purchase of the Saturday Review put me on my feet in every sense. Just
as everyone had found that the step from the Evening News to the
Fortnightly Review was a step up for me, so from the Fortnightly Review to
the ownership and editorship of the Saturday Review was again a big step
up. The losing of the Fortnightly Review did me good: it made me resolve to
edit the Saturday Review as well as I could. So I sat down to plan the ablest
possibly weekly: first of all, the staff must be better than the best hitherto.
I thought I had fewer prejudices than most men, and a better understanding
of greatness than any editor in London, and so I set myself to pick the ablest.
To my friend Runciman I had promised the place of musical critic and my
assistant. The first man I wrote to was George Bernard Shaw. He was at that
time writing musical articles on the World for four pounds a week. I wrote to
him that music was not the forte of the man who had written Widowers'
Houses and begged him to come to the Saturday Review and write articles
on the theatre—for he was a born dramatist—and I would pay him double
what he was getting.
I had in Shaw the ablest possible lieutenant—though with his communistic
views, he was a peculiar man to put as first lieutenant on the conservative
Saturday Review. Then I asked H. G. Wells to take over the reviewing of
novels in the Saturday, and when he, too, accepted, I felt that I had made real
progress.
Finally, I got D. S. McColl, who has since become the head of the Tate
Gallery, to do the art criticism. McColl was one of the first in England, I think,
to understand Cezanne as well as Monet and Manet; and I think I heard from
his lips first of all the name of Gaugin mentioned with understanding: all
through the next four years on the Saturday he tried to teach the English
public the new development of French art which has since led the world.
As a master of science, I picked Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, who is now, I believe,
the head of the Zoological Society. It is enough to say that Chalmers Mitchell
deserved the position or any other post, for he was not only a student of
science of real ability, but he wrote charmingly to boot. Always, in my mind, I
thought of him as a younger Huxley; yet Huxley lives in the history of
science, and I am not sure that Chalmers Mitchell has done anything which
entitles him to immortality; but he certainly was one of the most notable
contributors to the Saturday Review in my time, besides being of a charming,
pleasant nature with the critical habit very strongly developed. Chalmers
Mitchell was above middle height with spare, well-kept body and fine
expressive face—a notable personality.
A little later I got Cunninghame Graham. I have left him to the last because I
have always thought of him as an amateur of genius. He was picturesquely
handsome and always well dressed. I came to believe that his physical
advantages and his wealth alone prevented him from being one of the great
writers. He has written one or two of the best short stories in English, notably

696

Un Monsieur; and surely his travel sketches in the Argentine and elsewhere
are among the best extant.
The next thing to do was to outline the policy. The Saturday Review had been
called the Saturday Reviler and was evilly notorious as the most poisonous
critic of all lost and all new causes. I told my contributors from the beginning
that I wanted to change this character radically. I wanted the Saturday
Review to become known as the finder of stars and not the finder of faults;
and at once I refused to give pride and place to merely fault-finding articles,
though these too are necessary when dealing with be-puffed mediocrities.
One instance will do as well as fifty. One day I picked up a new book by a
new author. Almayer's Folly, by Joseph Conrad. I had not seen the name
before, but a glance at the first page told me that the man was a writer. At
about the same time a Mr. Low came in (a brother of Sydney Low), a very able
writer. I threw him the book and said: "There seems to be good stuff in that."
He took it with him and in a few days sent me a murderous review. I got
another copy of the book and read it. After reading it, I sent the review back
to Low, saying it was altogether wrong: Joseph Conrad was a good writer and
as a newcomer should be praised and not condemned, standing, as he did,
high above the ordinary!
Then I sent the book to H. G. Wells.
After a week or two Wells blew in boisterously. "What a book," he cried,
throwing it down on the table. "Thanks very much for sending it to me. That
sort of stuff makes one's task as a reviewer pleasant, but I am afraid you will
think my review far too long and far too eulogistic. I have written pages
about Conrad, not columns, and I have praised him to the skies. Will you
stand it?"
"First-rate," I cried, "just what I had hoped from you. I sent the book to a man
who crabbed it. After all, a great reviewer should be a star-finder and not a
fault-finder."
For some reason or other, I never met Conrad until the autumn of 1910, fifteen
years later. Talking one day with Austin Harrison of the English Review,
Conrad's name came up and I asked: "How does he look? What age is he?
Has he any foreign accent? Is he a great personality?" —a stream of
questions.
Harrison declared that Conrad knew me, always spoke warmly of me, and
ended by proposing that we should motor down to his cottage in Kent.
We did so the very next Sunday.

697

Conrad met us most cordially, was eager to record that the review in the
Saturday Review had given him reputation. I had thought from his
photograph that his forehead was high and domed, but it was rather low and
sloped back quickly. He was a little above middle height and appeared more
the student than a sea-captain. Both he and his wife were homely, hospitable
folk, without a trace of affectation. But Harrison's presence prevented any
intimacy of talk, and the nearest I got to Conrad was when I asked him for a
recent book, The Mirror of the Sea. He stipulated that I should send him my
latest in exchange, and under the dedication to me he wrote the first and last
verses of Baudelaire's magnificent poem comparing man to the sea. He
repeated the last line:
O lutteurs eternels, o freres implacables,
with a note of bitter sadness I thought characteristic. His French, I noticed,
was impeccable.
Since then I have read most of Conrad's books, but I have never rated him at
all as highly as Wells did.
What a crew of talent to get together on one paper before they were at all
appreciated elsewhere. Wells and Shaw, Chalmers Mitchell, D. S. McColl,
and Cunninghame Graham. I think the best staff ever seen on any weekly
paper in the world; and that on a paper which was practically bankrupt
when I took it over; and yet all these men remained with me for the three or
four years of my editorship.
Wells impressed me as about the best mind that I had met in my many years
in England: a handsome body and fine head. I had hoped extraordinary
things from him, but the Great War seems to have shaken Mm, and his latest
attempt to write a natural history of the earth chilled me. A history of
humanity to the present time in which Shakespeare is not mentioned and
Jesus is dismissed in a page carelessly, if not with contempt, shocks me. Yet as
Browning said,
Thus we half-men struggle.
I can hardly mention Wells at this time without speaking of Bernard Shaw: I
had known Shaw before I took over the Fortnightly. I had heard him speak in
the East End and had thought his communism shallow, for it left out
individualism, which is at least as important a force. But after getting him to
work for me as dramatic critic on the Saturday, I met him almost every week.
I saw at once that he had a good mind: one of the best of his time indeed; but
somehow or other his extremely slight body and his vegetarianism became to
me typical of the man.
His plays, too, are all full of Shaw. In one play Shaw assumes a dozen different
names; but the characters are all Shaw. His is an acute intelligence,

698

delighting in reasoning and argument, but never going deep, seldom indeed
reaching creation of any value. When I think of Bernard Shaw, I am always
reminded of Vauvenargues' fine word: "All great thoughts come from the
heart." All Shaw's thoughts come from the head.
The other day I was amused by a criticism of Shaw by a Mr. James Agate who
is, I believe, the dramatic critic of the Sunday Times. He lays it down that Mr.
Shaw is not able to create a human being. "All the Shavian creations," he says
"are like Martians or Selenites or other fantastic creatures with enormous
brains and no bodies and consequently no appetites." Yet he goes on to assert
that "There more fundamental brains in any single play of Shaw's than in the
whole of Shakespeare's output." To me this is worse than fantastic silliness.
But I remember that Shaw, many years ago, told me, and he has written it
somewhere, that it humiliated him to compare his brains with Shakespeare's;
I told him roundly I could give him a dozen instances where Shakespeare has
used more brains in two or three lines than is to be found in all Shaw's work.
He challenged me for an instance, and I gave him one: Shakespeare's
Cleopatra is with Antony in Egypt, and Antony goes to meet Caesar.
Cleopatra feels instinctively that no one can fight Caesar successfully;
dreading Caesar's power, she fled from Actium; but at the end of the day
Antony returns in triumph and says that he has beaten Caesar to his camp;
he cries to her
... leap thou, attire and all,
Through proof of harness to my heart, and there
Ride on the pants triumphing!
leap thou, attire and all,
And her reply is
Lord of Lords!
O infinite virtue, comest thou smiling from
The world's great snare uncaught?
She knows that in spite of her beauty and cleverness and her position as
queen, she has been caught in the world's great snare: she knows that it would
require "infinite virtue" to be successful—and all this realization of life is
packed into a couple of lines. Shaw would not admit the extraordinary virtue
of the passage.
Nothing to me is clearer than the fact that the highest mental effort is the
creative intelligence; the greatest minds in the world are those that have
created new world-figures:
Forms more real than living Man,
Nurslings of Immortality.

699

Shakespeare has given us Hamlet arid Cleopatra, and better still Falstaff;
Goethe, Mephistopheles, and better still, Gretchen; Cervantes, Don Quixote
and Sancho Panza; and Turgenev, Bazarof. No one ranks with these few
creators of ever-living generic figures.
Yet it is unfair to say that Shaw has not created any character: he has given
himself in twenty characters as a sharp witted man who sees things chiefly
from the ludicrous side because he is not greatly gifted with body or heart.
Someone has said that "to the heart, life is a tragedy; and to the mind, it is a
comedy." Shaw sees it usually as a comedy, but his Cleopatra exists for me,
and the characters in Candida are something more than reproductions of his
own personality; but to compare his mental faculties with the great ones is
simply silly. He has done nothing comparable to Swift's best work, to say
nothing of Shakespeare's.
In my portrait of Shaw I have spoken of his kindness to me at some length.
Here I wish to add that in America, too, when I asked him to write for my
magazine Pearson's in New York, and begged him to tell me what I should
have to pay him, he wrote me that Hearst was giving him five thousand
dollars for everything he wrote, but that it was enough to know that I wanted
him to write for me, to continue writing for me, for I had done him a great deal
of good by giving him the pride of place on the Saturday Review.
He told a friend of mine the other day that he never felt any reverence for
any one; and this amused me greatly, for it is a peculiarly Shavian trait. How
could he feel reverence for any one, when the only person he really knows is
Shaw; yet he is an admirable journalist, and in many ways a good and kindly
man, and I enjoyed my intercourse with him on the Saturday.
How good any real power is! Some of Shaw's sayings have delighted me.
In the beginning of the war, when nearly every one had lost his head, Shaw
spoke of "the British bull dog masquerading as an angel of peace"; and later
he spoke of the "one hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent
village idiot." Village idiot! I could have kissed him for the word.
I see that the Saturday Review has published an account of its editors and
contributors on its seventy-fifth birthday. On my staff it left out Wells,
Chalmers Mitchell, and D. S. McColl; and had the grotesque impudence to
put a little Jew named Baumann to write about me as an editor. Baumann
naturally began by saying that I had begged him to write for the Saturday
Review, which is not the fact. A mutual friend, Lord Grimthorpe, begged me
to help the little man; and I think I took a couple of articles from him, but he
was never on the staff and never was able to rise to the ordinary level.
There is no such certain test of greatness as the dislike and denigration of the
mediocre!

700

The Saturday Review, as I remodelled it, met with a good deal of opposition
at first. Officious people by the score wrote to me, condemning Bernard Shaw
as an illiterate socialist, and Wells as a sort of Jules Verne. But the
circulation began to lift at once, and I was very glad of it, for very soon I came
to loggerheads with the Oxford University Press.
They had published some book or other, and Professor Churton Collins
brought me a review of it, in which he pointed out that in this book, issued by
the University Press, there were some three hundred grave errors of fact. I
published his review and immediately there was a terrible to-do; the
exposure was shocking. The University Press wrote to me curtly that they
wished to withdraw their advertisements. They had engaged space in the
Saturday Review for some three years beforehand and, of course, they paid
their bill regularly at the end of each year. I wrote to the University Press
that if they had had any regard for truth, they would have written thanking
me and my reviewer, but as they wished to enroll themselves among the
powers of darkness and ignorance, I would allow them to withdraw their
advertisements, which they accordingly did.
Shortly afterwards I got a notice from Longman's, complaining of a review of
a Greek book they had published. The review was written by the first
authority in England, Sir Richard Jebb. Longman's wrote that it was
evidently written by some ignoramus, and as the Oxford University Press had
severed their connection with the Saturday Review, the house of Longman
would also like to withdraw their advertisements.
I had been thunderstruck at the unconscionable impudence of the Oxford
University Press, but when I got Longman's letter as well, I went to see him. I
knew him through Froude's introduction, who prized him highly. I therefore
called upon Charles Longman, who told me he was sure the review was
written by some incapable and envious person. I had got Professor Jebb's
permission to tell him that he had written it, so at length I told Longman, in
confidence, the critic's name; and we parted, apparently good friends,
Longman saying he would reconsider the whole thing. A week after he wrote
that I had changed the whole character of the Review and he agreed with
the University Press, on the whole, and would like to withdraw his
advertisements.
Their example was followed by several other publishers. In every case I gave
the fools the permission to withdraw their advertisements, and at the end of a
month or two saw myself face to face with the revenue of the Saturday
Review diminished by three or four thousand pounds a year— the small
profit I had managed to create turned into a heavy loss. What was to be
done?
I went into the city and saw Alfred Beit, head of the great house of South
African Mines. I pointed out to him that the Saturday Review went to all the
best houses in England. I asked him to give me the balance sheet and yearly

701

report of all his companies as an advertisement and I would write a note, if
not an article, on each company when he sent me the balance sheet, the
advertisement to cost fifty guineas. I came out of his office with his promise
and the names of fifty-odd companies, so I had made up a good part of my
loss in an hour.
I went to Barnato's, saw Woolfie Joel, and got a dozen of his companies on the
same terms. I then went on to J. B. Robinson and got eight of his companies. In
short, in that one day's work in the city I had filled the gap in my revenue
made by the withdrawals of the English publishing houses, and had
increased the yearly revenue of the Saturday Review by two thousand a
year. I knew I could reckon on Cecil Rhodes's help to boot.
That was the reason, I think, why the book reviews of the Saturday Review
from '94 on became famous for their truth, which is so much disliked by most
English and American reviews.
I mentioned the whole incident just to teach people what sort of pressure is
exercised by Mr. Bumble, the publisher, on his true critic. Bumble wants
praise and nothing else.
Curiously enough, a little later I had a somewhat similar experience with an
insurance company. I got one of the ablest insurance critics in the world to
write an article on the methods of a certain company and their balance
sheet—and the company wrote, withdrawing its advertisement. I thereupon
let my critic loose on all the faults of their work, and the consequence was
that five or six of the best insurance companies wrote to me that they would
like to advertise in the Saturday Review. For the one advertisement I lost I
gained several better ones. This brought me to the conclusion that the
business men of England are more honest and clear-minded than those who
deal with literature and publishing.
There is something in art and literature which seems to corrupt the ordinary
business mind. I think the corrupting influence lies in the extraordinary
difference of values, which no ordinary man can foresee or explain. A
publisher gets two books, both to his mind fairly well written and interesting;
when he publishes them he finds that the worse one catches on and he sells
100,000 copies, whereas the other is a dead loss. He has given, let us say, a
hundred pounds for each of them. "A" that he liked best is the failure, and "B"
the success. A little later, he gets another book like "B" and finds that it is a
complete failure—and so he makes up his mind that the only thing he wants
to pay for is eulogy; and he prays for success because he is unable to deserve
or merit it, or even to know how it should be gained.
I had one other curious experience with the Saturday Review—I found that
a certain number of the best class of business people would only advertise if it
had a cover on. The cost of putting a good green cover on it would only be
some fifty pounds a week, whereas I could get over two hundred a week for

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the advertisements. I immediately put the cover on and got the
advertisements, thereby improving not only the looks, but the revenue of the
Review.
After I had bought the Saturday Review, I went and had a talk with Ochs,
and he told me he would help me and outlined the proposition he thought
suitable. I should form a company with a capital of about thirty thousand
pounds that would take over and own the paper, and this I did, but I put also
an addendum to his proposal, constituting five hundred deferred shares that
would take no profits, but would control the appointment of the editor and
staff. As I held all these five hundred shares myself, I thereby gave myself
complete control of the paper. When I asked Albert Ochs for the five
thousand pounds that I had to pay for the Saturday Review, he gave me four
thousand pounds against shares and thought I ought to find the other
thousand easily.
Now, what was the financial position of the Saturday Review when I took it
over? The paper was losing money, roughly fifty or sixty pounds a week. Its
circulation that once had been thirty or forty thousand had shrunk year by
year, till now it was only five or six thousand a week. The income from the
sales was less than a hundred pounds a week, and the income from
advertisements that had been a thousand pounds a week had diminished to
one hundred and fifty pounds or less.
The pay, however, of contributors, had rather increased than diminished, and
everyone now expected at least three pounds for writing a column or two. By
paying my staff, Shaw, Wells, McColl, Runciman and Chalmers Mitchell
much more than the ordinary price, I had further increased my difficulties;
but at the same time I knew dozens of young Oxford men at the bar and in
journalism who were willing indeed to review books for the Saturday Review
for nothing, on condition of getting the books; so instead of my contributors
costing me over two hundred pounds a week, I got them down to under a
hundred and so turned a loss of fifty or sixty pounds into a profit of thirty or
forty pounds. The advertisement revenue I soon increased greatly, as I have
told, so that the paper was clearing easily one hundred and fifty pounds a
week.
I think I have explained sufficiently the financial position. I had 25,000
shares that I could sell very readily if I wanted money, and I had besides 500
deferred shares that ensured me the continuance of my position.
At this time or a little later I sold 5,000 shares to Beit for cash, and 2,000 or
3,000 more to other people who wanted an oar in the boat, and so made
myself secure from the monetary point of view for some years to come.
I had only run the Saturday Review a short time when the Jameson Raid in
the Transvaal shocked the world and necessitated on my part a prolonged
absence from England.

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CHAPTER III.
THE JAMESON RAID
RHODES AND CHAMBERLAIN

SCARCELY HAD I got the Saturday Review and taken the first steps to
make it successful when the Jameson Raid took place, nominally in
obedience to a call for help and protection from the English women and
children in Johannesburg. I knew South Africa too well to be deluded for a
moment by this shallow pretext. At once I denounced the raid and everyone
who defended it. I soon found its defenders were numerous and could make
their voices heard in a hundred journals from The Times down.
I saw Beit about it, and Ochs, Woolfie Joel, too, and others, and came very
soon upon the proofs that the raid was instigated by Rhodes for selfish
interests and would set South Africa in a blaze.
Information reached me that the raiders had been assembled at Pitsani by
Rhodes, and everybody in South Africa knew that their real object was not to
succor the Outlanders in Johannesburg, but to overthrow the government in
Pretoria.
English opinion on the Jameson Raid and its ignoble end was rather
undecided till the German Kaiser sent his famous telegram to Krueger, in
which he practically told Krueger that if he wanted help he would give it to
him. This inconceivably stupid act not only consolidated English opinion in
favor of Jameson, but was the very beginning of that dislike of Germany and
condemnation of the German Kaiser which later led to the Great War. Even
the British Government resented the insult; it mobilized a part of the fleet
and, I believe, called ships away from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. It
is not too much to say that the English dislike of the Germans dates from that
idiotic telegram.
After the Kaiser's telegram, I saw Arthur Walter, but found him a hot
partisan of the Jameson Raiders with ears closed to any reason. At first, as I
have told, he didn't like Rhodes, but Moberly Bell soon inoculated him with
the pan-English patriotic enthusiasm which suited his innate conservatism.
I had thought that the loss of the American colonies would have taught the
English people that interference, even with their own kin thousands of miles
away, was ill-advised and apt to be dangerous. But in London in 1895 I found
nine men out of ten convinced that it was necessary to "teach the Boers a
lesson and put Krueger in his place." That brutal unreason was so wide spread
and intense that I resolved to go to South Africa in order the better to combat
this old hereditary madness.
It all reminds me that Englishmen have not grown much in one hundred and
fifty years. Didn't Benjamin Franklin write to Lord Kames, somewhere about
1760, that "the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of British
Empire lie in America, and though, like other foundations, they are low and

704

little now, they are nevertheless, broad and strong to support the greatest
political structure that human wisdom ever yet erected"? And it was due to
Franklin that at the Treaty of Paris in 1763 Guadeloupe was restored to
France, while Canada remained with England, though popular English
opinion at the time wished rather to retain "the valuable sugar-islands of
Guadeloupe" and give Canada to France.
If England had only the sense to profit by Franklin's foresight instead of
jeering at him and insulting him, how different the course of world history
would have been! As it is, Britain owes her chief possession in North America
to his wisdom. In the same way, in 1896,1 found that practically the whole of
British opinion, as well in England as in South Africa, was totally and
lamentably perverse. I must now return to my own story.
There was no time to lose if I was to do any good, so I took ship at once and was
in Cape Town before mid-January, 1896, leaving Runciman in charge of the
Saturday Review as my assistant, after having begged him, on any doubtful
question, to take counsel with my old friend, the Reverend John Verschoyle.
The first person I wanted to see in South Africa was Jan Hofmeyr, then
Rhodes; but curiously enough the day I arrived, Sir James Sivewright came to
lunch at the same hotel, and as soon as he heard of me, came up, introduced
himself and gave me the benefit of his unrivaled knowledge of South Africa.
When he realized that I wanted the truth and was prepared to accept it, he
let himself go freely. He spoke of Hofmeyr with affection and of Rhodes with
pity. I soon found him one of the wisest and best informed of counselors. I
asked him about Governor General Sir Hercules Robinson, whom I knew and
liked. "Alas!" said Sivewright. "He's too wedded to Rhodes; but he's honest
and capable."
At length we came to the Jameson Raid and the famous telegram from the
women in Johannesburg, asking for Jameson's help. "That telegram," said
Sivewright, "was written in Rhodes's office in Cape Town and sent from there
to The Times." I was horrified, but he gave me the proofs of what he alleged.
My first day in Cape Town had been astonishingly fruitful. At once I wrote an
article and some notes for the Saturday Review and then, out of my affection
for Arthur Walter, I wrote to him, giving chapter and verse for my belief, and
begging him to modify the attitude of The Times. A little later Cecil Rhodes
told me he knew I was working against him through Walter, and after that I
let The Times take care of itself.
After the raid, Rhodes went up to Kimberley and the British element made
his railway journey a sort of triumphal progress, but the more thoughtful
spirits all condemned him. On his return to Cape Town he prepared to go
back to England at once.

705

I had several interesting talks with him, and because he had been jolted, so to
speak, out of his ordinary self-centered optimistic attitude, I came to know
him better than ever before. I found he had gone entirely astray.
"What on earth could you hope to win by the raid?" I asked at length.
"I don't admit I had anything to do with it," Rhodes replied.
"Let us leave that," I answered, "but what could Dr. Jim hope to win by it?
Suppose he had got into Johannesburg; next day it would have been
surrounded by five thousand Boers and in a week would have had to
surrender."
"In a week a great deal might happen," said Rhodes sententiously.
"I understand," I replied. "Hercules Robinson would probably have gone
north and consulted Krueger to play fair, but neither in war nor peace could
your raiders have gained anything. It was an idiotic move."
"And suppose Chamberlain had taken a hand in the game?" Rhodes went on.
"You mean to say?" I cried; he nodded—
"Worse and worse," I countered; "that would have meant war, a race war in
South Africa with fifty thousand Boer settlers and eighty thousand English
loafers; you would have needed one hundred thousand British soldiers.
Rhodes, you could not want that!"
"Krueger would have given in," he said.
"You know better," I cried, "you know Krueger would never give in and his
Boers would back him to the last."
"Evidently you know South Africa better than I do," was his final fling.
"I am appealing," I said, "to Rhodes sober, the Rhodes I knew years ago, who
taught me a good deal about South Africa and the Boer stubbornness."
"Well," he said smiling, "the end is not yet; don't condemn me before the end."
To that I nodded my head.
This talk was only preliminary; I wanted to know Rhodes better: his real view
of life and what he wanted to do in it. At length, one evening, I came to an
understanding of his peculiar view of the world.
He had already spoken to me of Ruskin, who had influenced him profoundly
through a lecture at Oxford; and he had come to believe that the Darwinian

706

theory of evolution was the most probable explanation of the world, that it is
the law of some supreme being, rather than the result of blind forces. God, he
thought, was obviously trying to produce a type of humanity the best fitted
to bring peace, liberty, and justice into the world, and thus make, as Heine
said, "A Kingdom of God on this earth." One race to him seemed to approach
God's ideal type—his own, the Anglo-Saxon. He knew no language but
English, and that only imperfectly, and so was easily convinced of the
superiority of the Anglo-Saxon character. God's purpose, to him, was to make
the Anglo-Saxon race predominant.
As an ideal, it seemed to me grotesque. The races of the world to me were like
flowers in a garden, and I would cherish every variety for its own especial
excellence; far from being too numerous, they were not numerous enough,
and there was not enough variety. The French seemed to be dropping into the
second class, according to the judgment of force and numbers, but how could
humanity afford to lose the French ideal of life? The French had done more
for abstract justice in their social relations and more, too, for the ideal in art
than any other race; we couldn't afford to lose the French. Yet, there are only
forty millions of French people, whereas there are already nearly two
hundred millions of Anglo-Saxons, and soon there will be a thousand
millions, and yet what mistakes they make! Would not the consciousness of
power make them increasingly intolerant?
I couldn't influence Rhodes; he talked to me repeatedly of Bartle Frere's idea:
the English should possess Africa from the Cape to Cairo. "They already own
more than one-half of the Temperate Zone," I said; "isn't that enough for
them? And they don't know how to use it."
Still, I had already come to see that the vast central plateau of Africa from
the Cape to Cairo was the most magnificent possession in the world, finer far
than even the North American colonies that England had thrown away. Was
it the chance of insular position, or really some superiority in the race, that
had given one empire after the other into their possession? On the surface, it
was merely the greed of the aristocratic English class to get ever more land
into their power. But their continual extraordinary growth perhaps shows
some spiritual ascendency. I should like to believe it, though I later found
certain special virtues in the attempts at German colonization.
One day at dinner I ventured on a jest which distressed Rhodes dreadfully. I
said I could understand God, in His youth, falling in love with the Jews, an
extremely attractive race, but in His old age to fall in love with the Anglo-
Saxon was a proof of senility that I could hardly forgive Him. Rhodes cried
out at once: "You say things, Harris, that hurt."
"I would like to shock your idolatry of the English," I cried; "fancy the race
that loves commerce and wealth more than any other and yet refuses for a
century to adopt the metric system in weights and measures and coinage!
Harold Frederic used always to talk of the stupid Britons.

707

"The masters of the world," Rhodes retorted.
"Nonsense," I replied. "The Americans are already far stronger and more
reasonable."
We parted friends but disagreed profoundly.
Rhodes was completely uneducated, ignorant, indeed, to a degree that was
painful; an almost blind force from which as much might be feared as hoped.
Yet perhaps of his want of education, he was in most intimate sympathy with
the intense patriotism and imperial ideas of the English governing class, and
he was rich enough to advance his views in a hundred ways; money, to him,
was chiefly a means to an end.
After much talk with Sivewright, I called on Jan Hofmeyr, who greeted me
with the old kindness. "Very glad you've come out," he said; "now there's some
chance of making title truth known." He did not conceal his profound
disappointment with Rhodes. "Another Briton," he said, "whom we had taken
for a great Afrikander," and he added, with rare prescience, "he may do
worse for us yet! He's really madder than Oom Paul." We talked for hours
day after day and at length, when I had to say "Goodbye," he gave me a
letter to Chief Justice Kotze at Pretoria, whom he praised cordially: "He will
give you pure wine to drink on almost every South African subject."
From Sivewright and Jan Hofmeyr I got the truth about the raid and then
called on Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor General. He was before all an
official, and an English official at that, but he had a certain understanding of
South Africa and the best South African opinion; and though he sympathized
with Rhodes's imperial ambitions, he would never defend such an outrage as
the raid.
He seemed to have aged a good deal in the three or four years since I had
seen him in London. I noticed signs of nervousness in him that I had not
expected. He astonished me almost at once by saying: "We are still friends,
are we not?"
"Of course; always," I replied warmly.
"People have been saying," he went on, "that you were sent out by
Chamberlain, but that can hardly be true. He would surely have let me
know. Still, he is capable even of that, I suppose."
His words and tone set me marveling. But for the moment I could not occupy
myself with his opinion of Chamberlain. I noted that he was a good deal
irritated and left it at that.
"No," I replied, "no, I have nothing to do with Mr. Chamberlain. I imagine he
would hardly be likely to send me as an agent."

708

"I am glad of that," said Hercules Robinson. "We can then be on the old
footing, can't we?"
I nodded.
"Why didn't you come to see me at once?"
"To tell you the truth," I answered frankly, "I wanted to see Jan Hofmeyr,
wanted certain information before I came. I had to get clear in my own mind
about the raid and Rhodes's complicity in it, and I didn't think it would be fair
to question you in your position—I, your friend."
"You have found out all you wanted to know?"
"I have found out that you were all in it," I replied, thinking the challenge
would excite him. "Rhodes planned it of course, but you winked at it."
"Winked at it," he repeated hotly; "you are mistaken: it isn't true."
"Oh, no," I laughed. "I was saying, 'winked' at it to be very diplomatic and
polite. You knew all about it."
"Indeed, I did not," he took me up. "What put that into your head?"
"Come," I said gravely. "Surely you won't maintain that an armed force could
have lain weeks on the border without your knowing it."
"But I assure you," he said, "you are mistaken. I knew nothing of the raid."
"I should like to take your word," I persisted, "but it is impossible. I have
absolute proof."
"Proof?" he cried. "That's impossible. You must explain: you must see that
your statement is—is—dishonoring. I have assured Krueger on my honor
that it isn't true; he accepted my assurance, so must you."
I shook my head. "I'm afraid I can't."
"But I can explain everything," he went on. "For the first time in my
experience the Colonial Office acted over my head. If you must know the
whole truth, Chamberlain withdrew the political officer who was on the
border; Chamberlain said he would deal with the matters connected with
Jameson directly. I shrugged my shoulders, and let it pass. It was all a part, I
thought, of his new method of doing business. He has his own peculiar
methods," he concluded bitterly.
New light began to drift in on me; at least a hitherto unthought of suspicion.

709

"But you saw Rhodes on the matter," I ventured. "He must have told you at
any rate that Jameson's forces were there to bring a little pressure on
Krueger; he must have talked to you about the reform agitation he had
helped to get up in Johannesburg."
"I shouldn't have listened to such nonsense for a moment," cried Robinson.
"The way to get things out of Krueger is to behave straightforwardly with
him."
"Rhodes got something out of him over the Drifts business by threatening
war."
"That was different," Robinson admitted reluctantly. "Krueger felt he was in
the wrong there. But now I hope you understand that I had no complicity in
that shameful, stupid raid."
I had resolved to continue, so I persisted.
"I told you I had proofs," I replied. "You have destroyed one supposition, but
the proofs remain."
"Proofs?" he said, in an anxious, irritated tone of voice. "There are none; there
can't be any, Harris."
"Indubitable proofs," I repeated.
"It's impossible," he exclaimed. "Treat me like a friend. I tell you on my word
of honor I knew nothing of the raid."
"I am sorry," I replied, "but if you want me to deal like a friend with you, I can
only say I can't believe it."
"Good God," he cried, getting up from the desk and walking about the room.
"This is maddening. Speak plainly, lay your proofs before me, and I will
undertake to demolish every one of them."
"If I show you proofs that you can't demolish," I said, "will you deal fairly by
me and tell me all you really know, and what I want to know?"
"Certainly," he exclaimed. "I give you my promise; I have nothing to conceal."
"All right," I cried, "I will give you the proofs one after another. Here is the
first."
Sir Hercules Robinson's face was a study in conflicting emotions as I went on.
"When you first got news on the Sunday morning that Jameson had crossed
the frontier, you wired to him to return, and you wired to Krueger saying that

710

you had ordered Jameson to return, and that the raid was not authorized by
Her Majesty's Government."
"Yes," Robinson broke in sharply, "that's what I did."
"You must have expected an answer in two hours," I went on. "If not an answer
from Jameson, certainly an answer from Krueger."
"Of course," replied Robinson, "and I got a reply from Krueger."
"Pardon me for contradicting you," I replied, "but you did not. You got from
Krueger a mere statement that Jameson had crossed the border at a certain
hour with an armed force. You must have known from that telegram that
President Krueger hadn't had your telegram."
"No," replied Robinson, "I see what you mean, but we were all very much
excited and nervous, and I drew no such inference. The first thing I did was to
send to Rhodes to ask if he knew anything about Jameson's act. I wanted to
consult with him."
"I suppose he was not to be seen?" I said.
"That's true," said Robinson. "But how did you know?"
"Easy to be guessed," I replied carelessly.
"Rhodes returned no reply to any of my messages: in fact, he wouldn't see my
messengers," Robinson went on.
"But at ten o'clock," I insisted, "you had a call from Jan Hofmeyr. He asked
you to send out a proclamation, a public proclamation declaring that Her
Majesty's Government had nothing to do with the raid, and that you had
recalled Jameson by wire. You would not do this."
"I didn't see the necessity of it," Hercules Robinson answered. "I had wired to
Jameson, and I had wired to Krueger, and I considered that enough. Krueger
knew that the raid was unauthorized, and that was the main point."
"But Krueger did not know it," I replied, "and you must have known that he
didn't know."
"What do you mean?" cried Robinson. "I knew nothing at all of it." And then
he added, as if to himself, "When I was up at Pretoria, Krueger never said that
to me."
"Outsiders see most of the game," I went on. "Let us go back to that Saturday.
You have an exciting morning, but you get your lunch, and after lunch at
about, I suppose, three-thirty o'clock, you get another wire from Krueger

711

repeating his news, amplifying it, saying that Jameson had crossed the
frontier with Maxim guns, and asking you what you are going to do. Now you
must have known that he hadn't yet got your first telegram."
"No, I didn't know," said Robinson. "It ail passed in the hurry and excitement
of the moment."
"But why didn't you duplicate your telegram to him," I asked, "saying that
the raid was not authorized, and that you would order Jameson's return?"
"I did," he said.
"No, you didn't," I replied, "not at once, that is. Later that afternoon," I went on,
"or rather that evening, you got a telegram from Krueger again giving you
the news, and insisting on a reply."
"You are right," Robinson broke in, "I remember now; it was that last telegram
that I answered. But how did you know all this?"
"How I know doesn't matter," I replied. "The point is, I am giving you facts.
You must have taken great care that the second telegram of yours, after you
had received three from Krueger, each of which showed that he had not
received your first wire; I say, you must have taken extraordinary care to see
that the second telegram reached him at once."
"It must have reached him in an hour," said Robinson carelessly, "just as the
first must."
"You would be surprised to know," I replied, "that it didn't reach him at all
that night, nor till far on in the next day. You left Krueger to his Hollander
counselors for a day and a half without any word from you."
"Good God!" cried Robinson. "It can't be true; yet it would explain his attitude
to me at first. But how can it be? It's absurd."
"Send and find out when your telegrams went," I urged. "You must have a
book of telegrams, where times and everything are entered?"
"Of course, of course," he cried. "That is all in the hands of the Imperial
Secretary, Sir Graham Bower. I will ring for him."
He rang, and when a man came, sent him to ask Sir Graham Bower to come at
once. Two minutes later Sir Graham Bower appeared: an ordinary dark man,
unimportant looking, smiling, I thought, a little nervously, a set smile.
"Oh! Bower," broke out Robinson, "Harris has a most extraordinary tale.
Pardon me, I must introduce you. This is Sir Graham Bower, the Imperial

712

Secretary, and this is a friend of mine, Frank Harris, the editor of the Saturday
Review whom we have talked about."
We bowed and shook hands.
"Bower," Robinson broke in again, "Harris has brought a most extraordinary
story that on the Sunday morning when we got the first news of the raid, my
telegram to Krueger, telling him we had wired ordering Jameson to return,
and that the raid was not authorized by Her Majesty's Government, never
went oft. I don't know how he knows, but that is what he says."
"No, no," I broke in. "I say that it didn't reach Pretoria that day, and not till
well on in the next day."
"Nonsense," cried Robinson. "Please get the telegraph book, Bower, and
prove it to Harris."
Bower turned and went out of the room, still with the same smile on his face. I
felt sure then he was playing a part. I thought I had found the villain of the
piece, but waited for the proof. Meanwhile Robinson and I stood together in
tense expectation.
In two minutes Bower returned with a large book in his hand.
"The telegram," he said, "I find, went off at twelve-thirty."
"Twelve-thirty!" cried Robinson. "You must be mistaken. That is hours after I
sent it."
"It went off in the usual way," Bower remarked, with studied carelessness.
"Usual way!" said Robinson, looking at him. "But it was of the first
importance."
"There was a great deal of excitement and running to and fro," he said.
"I know, I know," said Robinson. "I sent you to Rhodes—but still, Bower—
twelve-thirty."
A thought came to me, and I drew the bow at a venture.
"But you have a special form," I said, "for telegrams from power to power, a
special form of telegram that takes precedence over all others. Why was this
telegram sent as an ordinary telegram, and not on your special form?"
I had hardly begun to speak when Bower's face changed expression. I knew I
had guessed right.

713

"Of course it went on the proper form," cried Robinson. "There can be no
doubt of it, can there, Bower? You can prove it."
I smiled. Bower said very lightly, too lightly, "I suppose so."
"But think, Bower," Robinson went on, "think what it means."
"I can't be sure. I'm not sure," replied Bower.
"Not sure," cried Robinson, turning on him, "not sure! But you can't realize
what it means, man. Harris here says that we got a second telegram from
Krueger in the afternoon, telling us of the raid again and asking us what we
were going to do. We believed, or I believed, that my first telegram had
already reached him, telling him that we disavowed the raid, and had
ordered Jameson to return. Harris says that when we got that second
telegram we must have known that Krueger hadn't got my first telegram; and
Harris is right. I should have drawn that inference; I remember it struck me at
the time as curious that Krueger should merely repeat the news. Then came
Krueger's third telegram, and of course Harris insists again it must have made
me see that Krueger had not received my first telegram. We answered it, and
now Harris says that both these telegrams of mine, official telegrams, must
have been sent as ordinary telegrams, for Krueger didn't get even the first of
them in the day; Krueger got no word from us till the Monday afternoon,
Harris asserts."
"I can only tell Mr. Harris," said Bower, "that the whole place was in a state of
the intensest excitement. I went twice or three times to Rhodes and couldn't
see him; visitors called at every moment, Hofmeyr and others, who had to be
seen: everyone was running about."
"All the more reason," I said, "for sending such important telegrams on the
special official forms.
"My God!" said Robinson, putting his hands to his head. "My God! That's what
Krueger's cold reception of me meant."
There could be no doubt about the matter. Hercules Robinson was blameless
in the affair. He had been kept out of it. Rhodes had found a surer tool in the
Imperial Secretary, Sir Graham Bower.
I rubbed the point in decisively.
"Your message," I said, "the telegram of the High Commissioner, the most
important telegram ever sent from this office, went as an ordinary telegram,
and instead of taking precedence, followed some hundreds of others in
ordinary sequence to Pretoria; and Krueger sat in council all day, sending
message after message to you, and getting no reply, but getting wire after
wire from country districts to the effect that Jameson was pushing on towards

714

his capital as hard as he could. Can you expect Krueger to trust the English
after this? All that day, all that night, the old man waited, and half the next
day before you gave him the chance to act."
"Good God!" said Robinson.
"You don't want me any more, Sir?" asked Graham Bower, pointedly, and left
the room.
"What's to be done now?" cried Hercules Robinson, falling into his seat.
"What's to be done? But how did you know all this? How have you in a few
days found out more than I knew, I with such power and experience, and
living at the center?"
A little later I went up to Johannesburg, and while there was asked to go and
see the President by Chief Justice Kotze of the High Court. I went across one
day to Pretoria. It is like a town set in a saucer with low hills ringing it round;
a town of squat Dutch houses set amid trees and little noisy rivulets of water
running down the sides of the streets—everywhere the chatter of children
and childish games, and quiet home life. And in the strange little provincial
town, two or three magnificent public buildings that represent fairly enough
the obstinate patriotism of the Boer.
I was invited to call upon the President at six o'clock in the morning, but I
declared that if I got up at that hour I should be at my worst, and I wanted to
be at my best. When the President heard that I never got up before the day
was well aired, he invited me to come and have coffee with him, and so I
called upon him in the early afternoon, called with Chief Justice Kotze, who
was kind enough to offer to act as interpreter. The house was an ordinary
Boer house, the reception-room an ordinary Boer parlor with wax flowers,
colored worsted mats and a huge Bible as its chief ornaments, unless I include
the enormous spittoon, which was used at every moment by the master. I
hardly dare to describe the coffee. For providing this coffee Krueger got
eight hundred a year besides his salary of eight thousand pounds, and I
should think that for eight pounds he could make enough of it to float a
battleship. It was the vilest liquid I had ever attempted to drink; a very
disagreeable decoction of Gregory powder in half-warm milk. I took one sip
and left it at that.
I told about the interview in its main lines in the Saturday Review at that
time, and gave the best portrait I could of the village Cromwell called Paul
Krueger. Every one is familiar with his likeness to a great gorilla, his porky
baboon face, and small piggy grey eyes, but no portrait could give an
impression of the massive strength, the power, and restrained passion of the
man. He must have been fifty-four inches round the chest, and when seated
looked like a Hercules. The worst fault in his gigantic figure was the shortness
of his legs. Strange to say, he is one of the few men who has grown greater in
my memory, and this in spite of all the rumblings and failings of his later

715

years. Had he been trained, had he had any education or reading, Paul
Krueger would have been one of the greatest of men. As it was, he was one of
the most remarkable.
Krueger was suspicious, as the ignorant always are, self-centered like most
strong-willed, successful men, but not devoid of heart and conscience. His
treatment of the Outlanders in Johannesburg was simply insane. Some
eighty thousand of them had made Johannesburg the greatest gold-mining
industry in the world; they paid more than nine-tenths of the state taxes.
Instead of getting just enough to live on—a few hundreds a year—from his
twenty thousand Boer burghers, Krueger was now a rich man. The
Outlanders had turned the Transvaal from a bankrupt state into the
wealthiest in South Africa, with a revenue of three millions sterling a year:
yet in 1894 he had made it impossible for them to obtain a vote in a country
to which they contributed practically the whole revenue. They had no
control even over the affairs of the city they had founded and built up.
Krueger still treated Johannesburg as a mining camp under his own mining
commissioner.
Dutch was taught in the schools, and not English. Though denied all rights of
citizenship and treated as aliens, the Outlanders were nevertheless liable to
be impressed for service in native wars. Krueger's iniquities were surely
unparalleled. He had given foreigners a concession for the manufacture of
dynamite, which was imported into the country by monopolists, and sold at
such a price to the mines that it practically imposed a tax of half a million
pounds a year on the industry. Another lot of adventurers got the concession
for carrying coal along the Rand, which they did at the highest possible rate;
another group owned a liquor concession which corrupted the natives.
The curious thing was that Krueger's treatment of the Outlanders was no
worse than his treatment of the Boers in the Cape. He wouldn't allow the
Transvaal to enter the Customs Union; and pigs, cattle, and coal from the
Cape could be imported only on payment of fantastic duties. The spirit of his
policy was shown in one act. When the Transvaal railway management
proposed to put up the rate from the Vaal above six-pence a ton in order to
kill the Cape traffic, Krueger asked them to make it a shilling; and when the
traders left the railway at the Free State border and carried their goods over
the short stretch to Johannesburg in bullock-wagons, Krueger proclaimed
that the Vaal Drifts, which they had to cross, would be closed to them.
This last piece of despotism brought a new force into the field. In 1895 Joseph
Chamberlain had made himself the Minister of the Colonies; and although
he had no liking for Rhodes, still, when Rhodes appealed to him, he took his
view and described President Krueger's act about the Drifts as one "almost of
hostility," and declared his willingness to back up his protest by force.
Reluctantly, Krueger saw he had gone too far and threw open the Drifts.
Then the raid took place, which blotted out even the memory of most of the

716

President's stupidities and threw the onus of flagrant wrong doing upon
Rhodes.
Early in the interview Krueger asked me point blank whether I believed, like
Hercules Robinson, that Chamberlain didn't know about the raid. I said, "I
couldn't tell: there was no proof. I felt certain the Cabinet didn't know it, and
could hardly believe that Mr. Chamberlain would act as dictator in such a
matter."
"The Cabinet didn't know of it?" questioned Krueger. "You are sure?" "As
sure as I can be of such a thing," I replied.
In the back of my mind was the feeling that Chamberlain must have known
all about it, may have talked even to Mr. Balfour about it, but I wanted to say
rather less than more of what I believed out of patriotic feeling, and so I
maintained the possibility of Chamberlain's innocence. Krueger turned on
me sharply.
"You know that Rhodes planned it, paid for it, directed it?" he barked.
"Surely," I replied. "He confessed as much in Cape Town to Jan Hofmeyr, and
I have wired that home to my paper."
"So," he cried, "you admit that Rhodes was a scoundrel?" "Worse," I replied
quietly, "a blundering idiot, to think that five hundred men could beat the
Boers."
The great burly man sprang erect, while his little grey eyes snapped in the fat
pork face. He looked like a maddened baboon.
"Four hundred boys," he shouted. "Do you know what I would have done with
them?"
"No," I said smiling, "I should like to know."
"What I proposed in council," he roared, glaring at me, "was to lead each by
the ear to the border and kick their bottoms back into Bechuana-land."
"Why didn't you do it?" I cried, shouting with laughter. "Oh, my goodness!
What a pity you didn't do it and enrich history with a unique scene. The most
genial proposal I ever heard. That is what ought to have been done with
them: impudence should always be met with contempt."
My delighted acceptance of his proposal brought the old man to good humor
at once, but he was still suspicious.
"Do you know," he went on, "that one of Jameson's lieutenants, a leader of the
raid, an officer in your army, too, told the Bechuanaland police that the raid
was looked upon favorably by the government?"

717

"But the police," I said, "didn't believe him. If the police had come in as
raiders, then the complicity of the government would be difficult to deny."
"Hercules Robinson is honest," said Krueger, as if to himself, "good, too, but
getting old and weak: thinks it clever to speak with two tongues. But we shall
soon know."
"Know what?" I asked.
"Know whether your government, whether Chamberlain and Rhodes were
agreed."
"How will time help you?" I asked, wondering.
The old man went into a long explanation which the Chief Justice translated,
telling me that notebooks, and telegrams had been found upon the
battlefield, and that they had all been decoded, and established the
complicity of Rhodes and Beit in the raid up to the hilt. I was told I might go
and see the telegrams, and I did see them all the next day, some time early in
February, the same telegrams that were published in The Times in May, and
caused a sensation.
But Krueger was not to be diverted for long from the main point.
"We shall soon know," he repeated, "whether Chamberlain was behind
Rhodes or not."
"How?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "it is clear that the English people were behind him. Look
how they cheer the raiders, and how they talk of them as heroes. But if they
punish them that will be clear, and if they punish Rhodes, then I shall know
that Chamberlain and the government were not behind him."
There was such menace in the old man's voice and manner, such rage of
anger, that I tried to show him the other side.
"Difficult," I said "to punish Rhodes. How would you have him punished?"
"Oh," he cried, "I don't want him punished in money or in person. He was
made a Privy Councillor. Let them take that away from him: anything to
show their disapproval, and I shall be content. I want to believe that the
English government is honest, as it was when Gladstone was there."
I could not help but admit that that might be done, should be done.
"If it is not done," cried the old man, "I shall know what to do."

718

"What?" I asked.
He growled and glared, and didn't answer, but one night after dinner Kotze
told me that Chamberlain had asked Krueger to come to London and state
his case, saying that he would be treated with perfect fairness. I knew that
Chamberlain disliked Rhodes, personally, and had never forgiven him for
giving ten thousand pounds to Parnell, and when Kotze told me all this, I said
to him that I thought I ought to see the President again; and he arranged for
the meeting immediately and undertook as before to act as interpreter
between us.
This last interview with Krueger seemed to me very important: first of all, I
thanked him for letting Leyds show me the telegrams that proved that the
Jameson Raiders were on their way to overthrow the Transvaal government,
and I got the President's permission to publish the telegrams as I wished. I
then alluded to the trial of the chief raiders and said I hoped that no capital
punishment would be inflicted. "It would be ridiculous," I said, "to punish the
servants with death and let the master go free." Krueger nodded agreement.
"President," I added, "as we agree on so much, I want to persuade you to go to
London as Chamberlain desires. You will give him the parliamentary
triumph which he wants, and in return he will give you a free hand against
Rhodes. You needn't fear for the independence of the Transvaal if you do this:
it will be insured for our time at least." "Why should I go to London?" he
broke in. "Policy," I said, "nothing else. Chamberlain is much more dangerous
than Rhodes: if you get Chamberlain on your side, you need fear nothing for
the next twenty years."
"Do you mean," he said, "that otherwise the English would come and try to
take the Transvaal again?"
"I have no right to speak for them," I said, "but I am frightened; Englishmen
don't believe that forty or fifty thousand Boers should be allowed to play
despots and deprive one hundred thousand Englishmen of political rights in
the country which they have made wealthy. You will have to judge the
matter, Mr. President," I added, "but Chamberlain is strong either as a friend
or an enemy, and I always remember what Ben Franklin, one of the wisest of
Americans, said: 'There never was a good war or a bad peace.'"
"We have a better friend than Chamberlain," he said. "You forget that we
have the Almighty God, and He has freed the Transvaal once for all."
"I can only tell you," I said, "how I think the game should be played; I am no
one, you are one of the protagonists."
"I am glad to have met you," was his concluding speech to me; "for the first
time I have met an Englishman who tells me what he considers the exact
truth. I hope you will put our case plainly before the public, and I don't say I
won't take your advice about Chamberlain, though I dislike the idea of going

719

to London. I have grown old," he barked, "and am tired, and I got nothing in
London before."
"There is much to get there now," were my last words, "and you would win
Chamberlain easily."
Delighted with my praise, the old man said, "As soon as I heard of the raid I
got out my rifle and put on my old veltschoon; I was going to lead my
burghers against Jameson, but—" he pointed to Kotze, "he and the others
persuaded me not to go."
Whatever Krueger was, he was a great old fighter! It was his courage and
combativeness which led him to his ruin. I remember saying to Kotze when
we came away: "Unless Krueger goes to London and gives Chamberlain his
parliamentary triumph, he will be sorry for it. There is a great text in the
Bible; I wonder if you know it: 'If thou hadst known, at least in this thy day,
the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine
eyes!'"
Of course Kotze understood. When we parted I told him that I would send the
telegrams to the Saturday Review to be published—but I must pass over that
story in silence, for it reminded me of the worldly wisdom of Dante's phrase:
Degli amici guarda mi Dio
Degli memici mi guardo lo
"God save me from my friends;
my enemies I'll take care of myself."
In the days that followed, and after my return to England, I saw plainly
enough how Krueger's suspicions must be strengthened to certainty. The
raiders were received in London by cheering crowds: the leaders, who were
punished by short terms of imprisonment, were let out even before the term
had been served. Rhodes was regarded everywhere as a hero, and even the
commission that was set on foot to bring the truth to light contented itself
with finding out little or nothing, and with rewarding instead of punishing
the villain.
One scene from that commission I must give because it is of historic interest; it
was the only real attempt made to cross-examine Rhodes before the
commission, and it established not only his complicity, but threw a more
sinister light on the whole conspiracy; and established finally, in my mind,
the guilty complicity of Joseph Chamberlain.
The chairman of the commission was a Mr. Jackson, whom I had known as
Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I had met him at dinners and had had
long talks with him, and had learned to appreciate his fair-mindedness and
good sense. He gave me a desk to myself, apart from the pressmen's desk in

720

the room where the sittings were held. It was well in front, where I could see
and hear everything.
From the beginning it was evident that it was a white-washing commission.
Everyone paid the most extravagant deference to Rhodes, a deference which
often called forth from him expressions of amused contempt. Chamberlain
bowed when he addressed a question to him. Sir Richard Webster was proud
to help him to brandy and soda like a waiter. The idea of a millionaire as a
criminal in England was too ludicrous for words. Even Labouchere lost all his
pert impudence when questioning him. Indeed, poor Labby was at a loss: he
was only half-informed, and Rhodes's advocates on the commission, and
especially Chamberlain, could do what they pleased with him.
But there was one man on the commission equal to his task, Sir William
Veraon Harcourt. He had studied his brief, had made himself familiar with
the facts, seemed quietly determined to get at the truth. When he took
Rhodes in hand, the relative proportions of the two men became plain at
once. Rhodes began to lose his self-confidence, hesitated, hectored. Sir
William Vernon Harcourt apologized, used great courtesy, never insisted,
but returned with new questions. Again and again Chamberlain interfered
to turn the attack, but Sir W. Vernon Harcourt was not to be denied or
diverted from the main points; he smiled at Chamberlain and went on
pushing in probe after probe in deadly fashion.
Rhodes and his supporters in the press had been putting forward the notion
that the agitation in Johannesburg was a real reform movement, whereas Sir
William Vernon Harcourt evidently believed that the cosmopolitan Jew
financiers directing the mines in Johannesburg didn't even wish to become
citizens of the Transvaal Republic. He had already made it pretty plain that
it was a fictitious and carefully fomented agitation. Rhodes, on the other
hand, asserted that Jameson had gone in to assist the reformers and to keep
order.
Sir William Vernon Harcourt went on to the morning before the raid and
read a telegram from Jameson to Woolff in Johannesburg: "Meet me as
arranged before you left on Tuesday night, which will enable us to decide
which is the best destination."
"Can you explain to me, Mr. Rhodes, what is the meaning of those words,
'which is the best destination'?" Thus daintily Sir William Vernon Harcourt
placed the bomb upon the table.
Rhodes pretended indignation.
"No, I certainly could not; you see, Woolff was at Johannesburg: Jameson
telegraphed from Pitsani. I should say the 'best destination' means the best
route."

721

Sir William Harcourt smiled.
"That is not the ordinary meaning of destination. Was it proposed that Dr.
Jameson, instead of going to Johannesburg, should go to Pretoria direct?
Have you ever heard that, Mr. Rhodes?"
The bomb had exploded, the tension in the room was extraordinary: members
craned forward and held their breath so as not to miss a word.
Rhodes hesitated, and then:
"I don't think I could have heard. I couldn't be sure. No," he added, "all I
understood was that he would go to Johannesburg if required by the people
of Johannesburg."
Again Sir William Harcourt insisted.
"Was there such a proposal? I ask because this is very important."
Mr. Rhodes turned and replied sulkily, fighting desperately for time. "I don't
see the importance of it."
Sir William Harcourt, though interrupted by Mr. Pope, one of the opposing
counsel, persisted quietly;
"I am putting a most important question. Was it ever discussed between you
and Dr. Jameson whether or not he should go direct to Pretoria and attack
President Krueger's Government, instead of going to Johannesburg?"
Mr. Rhodes fumbled: "I really couldn't answer that definitely; it might have
been said." Then, catching at a straw, "Ask Dr. Jameson."
"You are an even more important person than Dr. Jameson. I really must ask
you."
"I have given you my answer; I cannot remember; I don't see the importance of
it."
Sir William Vernon Harcourt: "There is a very important difference between
going to assist an insurrection in Johannesburg and going to make an attack
direct upon the government of Pretoria."
Rhodes admitted the proposal may have been discussed, though he couldn't
remember it.
Thus Sir William Harcourt by his questions had brought out the fact which,
indeed, was contained in a telegram of Jameson, that the objective of the raid
was not decided when the doctor started; that Jameson had it in mind not to

722

go to Johannesburg at all, but to make a dash for Eirene, the place where the
Boers stored their arms and ammunition about seven miles from Pretoria, and
thus attack Krueger's government at the heart and directly.
Everyone expected Sir William Harcourt to pursue his interrogatory on the
morrow, but he did not, and I was deeply disappointed. The commission broke
off for the day and the point was never touched on again.
For the life of me, I couldn't fathom the situation or guess the secret. I found it
out afterwards, however, from Dilke, the best informed Member of
Parliament. He told me what I have already explained in Chapter XIV, that
when the German Emperor congratulated Krueger on having defeated the
raid, Queen Victoria reproved him sharply and declared that he seemed to
be trying to make her government responsible for it, whereas none of her
ministers knew anything about the raid. The German Emperor apologized
humbly for his mistake.
"But when the South African Committee stirred the whole matter up again,"
Dilke said, "a Conservative statesman called upon Sir William Vernon
Harcourt and told him about the Queen's letter to the German Emperor, and
his reply; and when he had recited the facts, the Conservative went on to
point out that if Sir William Vernon Harcourt pursued his questions and
demonstrated the complicity of Chamberlain, or, indeed, rendered
Chamberlain's complicity probable, he would be proving the Queen to have
told what was not the truth to the German Emperor. He left it to Sir William
Vernon Harcourt's sense of what was fit and becoming whether he would
continue his interrogatory or not. Sir William Vernon Harcourt thereupon
abandoned his plan, and gave up the victory he might have won over
Chamberlain."
The committee condemned severely Sir Graham Bower, the Imperial
Secretary, who had betrayed his superior, Sir Hercules Robinson, but
Chamberlain gave him a governorship at once. Thus is traitorism rewarded in
England.
Much the same thing happened with Robinson. He made two or three distinct
charges against Chamberlain, and on my way home in April, '96, at Cape
Town, he gave me chapter and verse for these accusations, but begged me not
to say anything about them till he had returned to London and seen me, as he
intended to make them in person against Chamberlain.
When he came back I wrote to him, saying that I was ready to see him at any
time he might wish, and he replied that he would give me an immediate
appointment. Then he wrote again, putting me off in a letter with a very
changed tone; and when I pressed him, he wrote saying he was very ill, too ill
to see any one, although he had seen the Colonial Office and Chamberlain
in the meantime. Suddenly he was made Lord Rosmead and nothing more

723

was heard of his accusation against Chamberlain. The English often close
mouths with titles.

724

CHAPTER IV.
AFRICAN ADVENTURES AND HEALTH

I MUST TELL OF SOME of my African adventures which took place shortly
after I passed my fortieth birthday.
Africa—what gaudy memories the mere word calls to life: that first evening
in the desert south of Biskra, with the grave Arabs sitting round, listening to
the story-teller shaping the age-old tale to a new ending, acting the
characters the while, mimicking villain and hero, slave and ruler, and with a
magic of personality, making the drama live before our eyes.
Or that long ride up Table Mountain with Cecil Rhodes. I still see him
standing—a greater Cortez—with his back to the Pacific, starting towards
Cairo, six thousand miles away, dreaming of the immense central plateau,
three times as large as the United States, as one empire.
That great central plateau where the air is light and dry, like champagne,
and mere breathing's a joy; where the blessed sun reigns all through the long
day, and the earth grows odorous under the hot embrace, and the sweat dries
on the naked back in selvages of salt like the ripples on a sandy beach, while
the night is cool and refreshing as the yellow moon comes up over the black
forest and turns the camp into fairyland, while sweet airs breathe sleep on
weary limbs.
And the freedom of it! Not the freedom of London: freedom to do as others do,
dress as others dress, and speak as others speak, parroting phrases that were
half lies when first coined, and smearing unctuous sentimentalities on dagger
points; no, not that! Africa's freedom is of the wild and waste places of the
earth, where one can be a man and can think his own thoughts and speak
truth and live truth and stretch yokeless neck and free arms in God's sunlight.
Towards the end of February, 1896, I came to the conclusion that I understood
South Africa, and as Rhodes was still absent in London, I determined to make
my way up the country, at any rate as far as the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi,
which I had always wanted to compare with Niagara. Accordingly, I
organized an expedition and set off with one hundred and fifty carriers. I had
as lieutenants two Boers, brothers, whom I had met in the Free State, and so
long as they were with me, everything went fairly well. But their cruelty to
the Negro carriers was almost diabolic, and one day, when the elder brother
kicked a Negro and broke his leg and wanted to leave him to die in misery, I
revolted. The end of it was that I paid them both for the entire trip and said
"Goodbye" to them. We parted good friends, and the elder brother told me to
keep my eyes skinned and see that the Negroes always boiled the drinking
water or I'd get fever and come to grief. He turned out to be right. I thought
kindness would be as efficacious as cruelty, but I was mistaken.
Still, I won through to the Zambesi, and one sunlit morning, for the first time,
the great Victoria Falls that dwarf Niagara, burst on me, robed in rainbow

725

mists, as if to hide the depths, while the great Zambesi stretched away to the
right, a silver pathway to the far-off sea. The solitude, the scenery, the great
river, and the falls, the wild animals of all sorts, and above all, the sense of
living in the world as it was a hundred thousand years ago, made this
experience the chief event in my life, separating the future from the past and
giving me a new starting point.
I was two or three days exploring the falls from every point of view, and at
night had divine rest in my tent. A day's journey away, fifteen miles or so
north of the falls, and perhaps five hundred feet higher, I could still hear the
roar and seemed to feel the earth quake.
This trek fagged us all out; the road was bad and the heat intolerable. The
hundred and twenty or thirty Negro bearers I had with me put down their
loads and threw themselves on the ground, careless of tsetse fly or mosquito,
eager only to sleep and rest, even before eating. It was with difficulty that I
got my personal servants to put up even my bell-tent. The big one they
professed they could not find; three or four of the bearers, it appeared, had
not yet come up. At last the tent was fixed and my mattress put down in it. My
little table and stool were brought out and they gave me something to eat,
fish and deer's meat, washed down with good whisky and water.
I had had the tent placed, as usual, fifty or sixty yards away from the camp of
my carriers. The Negroes had not even cut thorn bushes as a Zareeba or fence
to protect themselves. Sleep was the one thing we all wanted.
Though within the tropics, we were some thousands of feet above the sea
level, so the air was quite cool at night, though the sun in the daytime was
scorching. After my meal, I told the head man he could go and sleep. I went
into my tent, put on pyjamas and lay down. The tent was small and the cool
air so delicious that I left the flap open. In the evening air it waved a little, the
elastic that held the square of it back being a little worn. Lying down on my
mattress in front of the opening, I could see the great purple vault of sky, and
on the right, the edge of the wood, perhaps a hundred yards away.
In a minute I was asleep, plunged into the dreamless slumber of absolute
bodily exhaustion.
Suddenly I was annoyed by a noise. I was pulled out of my dreamless sleep by
a repetition of it. Very cross, I tried to blink open my eyes. At first I could
hardly see anything.
Again the flip! What was the noise?
At the camp everything was in deepest peace and silence. The mosquito
netting was all around my head and my hands were gloved. I could hear the
insects humming.

726

Again the flip! At length I was wide awake, more than awake.
The flap of the tent had closed and then opened again. And again the sound.
The flap of the tent, three-quarters closed for a moment, was then pulled
back by the elastic. I could have reached it by stretching out my hand, but I
was now too full of anxious curiosity.
What could it be that made the flap of the tent go back and forth so
regularly?
Suddenly my curiosity was steeped in fear. I did not know why. Instead of
getting up and stepping out to see what caused the flap to act so strangely, I
put my head to the ground and peered underneath the tent.
Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dark and I soon could see
outlines a bit more clearly.
There was something there against the sky, and as I looked along it I saw a
tail with a tuft on the end of it.
What could it be?
All of a sudden the flap of the tent was driven to again and then pulled back
by the elastic. I peered more closely at the object, made out the outline, and
realized the whole affair.
It was a full grown lion, lying on the ground playing with the flap of my tent,
like a big cat. He had evidently crept up to the tent, probably attracted by
my odor, seen the flap moving a little in the wind, and struck it with his paw.
It went and came back again, and after a moment or two he had struck it once
more.
A lion playing with the flap of my tent, two feet from me!
Quickly I drew up my Westley Richards rule that was always loaded at my
side, and lay down to try to get an exact line on his head and ear.
Then I thought: Why should I kill him? The big cat was really doing no harm.
The something cat-like, childish, in his play made me smile. This feeling of
pity and friendliness probably saved my life, for just as I was hesitating—Gr-
r-r-m—I heard a long, rumbling sort of moan to the left, and as I looked out
through the tent, I saw distinctly the outline against the sky, perhaps four
yards away, of another lion, or rather a lioness, as she had no mane.
How many were there?

727

I had seen a dozen together before then. They might be all around my little
tent, for all I knew. One blow of one of their paws would carry the tent away
and leave me exposed in the center.
It was perhaps wiser to keep quiet and await developments. The lioness
moved a few feet forward and then stretched herself, yawning. I could see her
as distinctly as possible, not ten feet away now.
Suddenly my lion at the flap joined her, stood opposite her for a moment,
then turned his head slowly towards the flap and my humble person.
Again the rifle went to my shoulder, and I wondered, looking straight at the
lion, whether he saw me as plainly as I saw him. Then I reflected that against
the black of the tent he could not see me at all. That was my solitary
advantage over him. Both beasts were uneasy, curiously watchful, especially
the lioness.
Suddenly a sound came from the camp, and her head went round at once,
turned towards the sound. The next moment she crouched down close to the
ground and moved stealthily out of my limited field of vision.
The sound was repeated. Probably a Negro had got up for something in the
camp, for at the second sound the lion turned, and walked slowly out of my
vision after his mate.
I found it quite impossible to sleep. I tried to, but the proximity of the big
beasts was too disquieting. I found myself listening, on the thin edge of
expectancy, with nerves stretched for every sound.
I grew more and more wakeful. Again and again I peered along the ground,
but could see nothing.
The lions had either gone to the woods or to the camp. I could not tell which.
No sign of them.
Suddenly, I began to see the trees on the right more distinctly. The night was
over. Two minutes afterwards long arrows of light: it was day.
I went outside and clapped my hands. A couple of headmen came to me and I
pointed to the ground by the flap. They read the signs quite plainly— "big
lion"; and when I pointed a few feet away, they found the spoor of the lioness
and followed it down to where the pair had gone into the wood.
The marks of a half-grown cub were with the lioness.
I told them what had happened, that the lion had been playing with the flap,
and I still hear their "Woo-oof" of wonderment.

728

The second day of our trek I fell ill with malaria, which soon developed into
blackwater fever. I treated myself with big doses of quinine and arsenic and
went on, but the third day I must have been given another drink of ordinary
unboiled river water.
I found it almost impossible to get the Negroes to boil the water: they told me
lie after lie. That evening my temperature was over 105°. I had learned, with
Bilroth in Vienna, that at 105° the fever begins to feed on the heart itself, and
one must at all costs diminish the fever, even with icepacks. But I had no ice,
and that day and the next, in spite of large doses of quinine and arsenic, my
temperature continued very high. For two or three days I was out of my mind
and raved in delirium. My head man, a big Negro, told me with tears that the
men said the spirits who spoke through me were determined to take me; and
one morning I found that no one answered my call. Fortunately, the evening
before I wanted some tins of soup, and my Negro kept bringing me tins of
sardines, which I tossed in the corner of the tent; in the morning, when I awoke
and rang my bell, no one answered; and when I crawled on hands and knees
outside the tent, I found the camp deserted and my medicine chest broken in
pieces and strewn all over the ground. I was deserted by the carriers who had
smashed up my medicine chest before going, believing that all my power was
to be found in the medicines.
There was further evidence that kindness was not understood by the ordinary
Negro. I had made it a rule from the beginning to keep my tent fifty yards
from their encampment, and I soon found it necessary to make a further order:
that they should go about their private business one hundred yards from the
ordinary encampment; now, when they thought I was about to die and they
were resolved to steal all my belongings and bolt, they had been dirty first all
over the place as a sign of contempt, I suppose.
At any rate, here I was in the wilderness with nothing but my rifle and
revolver and a knife and perhaps twenty cartridges in the belt around my
waist, and nothing to eat, and so weak that I couldn't stand. I said to myself at
once: "This is the end; the sooner I put a bullet through my head the better. No
use writing anything; it would never be seen. If any white people come to the
place and find my dead body, my rifle will tell them the tale. Had I anything
to say of any value to anybody?" I decided that I had not. I took up the rifle to
end it all, when suddenly my eye caught sight of the five or six tins of sardines
which I had tossed the night before into the corner of the tent.
Six boxes of sardines and one of soup meant life for a good while, and after all
I was quite close to the Zambesi, to the river that ran to the sea and to
civilization, say, six hundred miles away. If I had been well, twenty miles a
day would have gotten me to the sea in a month, but even ill, surely I might
do it in two months! I tied my most necessary things into a bundle, took
several boxes of matches and a little tin kettle, strapped the whole on my
back, and two mornings after I came again to the Zambesi. I determined to

729

stick to the river and look for a canoe: some dug-out or canoe might be
abandoned and I might have the luck to find it.
Next morning I began to make my way to the sea: at first the fever was very
high, but I kept on taking daily doses of quinine and nightly doses of arsenic.
But alas! I had only the one package, picked from the box which had been by
my bedside: I had to be content with small doses.
Perhaps the hard exercise or the starvation did me good: in two or three days I
reckoned I had made about fifteen miles down the river, and I was certainly
stronger, so I took my first meal of three sardines. All the afternoon I was ill,
and the next day could scarcely crawl. Wherever I saw the semblance of a
path through the reeds to the river I looked out for a canoe, but for many days
I saw nothing, except some hippos in the river and deer in the distance. The
less I ate, however, the less fever I had. But the weakness persisted, my legs
seemed to have no bones in them, and half an hour's walk tired me out. What
I suffered, I can never tell. I couldn't have made much more than sixty or
seventy miles in the month; and it was a month before I found a canoe, three
days after I had wolfed my last sardine.
But the dug-out was salvation, and as I lay in it, I realized that I should now
be able to make fifty or sixty miles a day; one lucky shot would give me food,
and the current would bring me to civilization in ten days or a fortnight: the
mere hope gave me new life. In an hour I had made a couple of rude paddles
and had waded through the reeds and pushed into the full stream. No more
painful walking or crawling—thank God!
Luck held with me. That day, or the next, I saw a small hippo standing on the
bank. I took most careful aim and fired and he fell to the shot; in a few dozen
strokes I was into the bank and beside him: he was dead—the bullet had
gone clean through his head just behind the eye. Once only in my life did I
feel more of a murderer, but necessity is the first law, so I opened his mouth
and cut out his tongue, and went down the river half a mile with it before I lit
a little fire and boiled it in my kettle, boiled and boiled and boiled it till it
was more than cooked; and I had my first real meal in five or six weeks. It was
the turning point—my fever got less from day to day and I slept
interminably; one thing only bothered me: my beard grew inordinately and
there were some grey hairs in it—there were not many—I could still count
them, and I was over forty—but I resented their appearance and swore to
myself that I wouldn't mount the white feather until I was over sixty, if I could
ever get out of Africa.
I have nothing more to recount of any interest till I got to the first Portuguese
settlement, and there I had an amusing experience. I secured my canoe on the
bank but I couldn't make up my mind to leave the kettle and a few odds and
ends, so I carried them with me. As soon as I got into the street of the little
village, every one I came across had a good look at me and then bolted
incontinently: children, women, men—everybody. As I passed a barbershop, I

730

thought I would make myself decent before trying to get anything in a
restaurant. The barber was shaving a man, but as soon as he saw me he
dropped his razor and shot into the back room; the man, half-shaved, got up,
indignant, but after one look at me, he slipped out into the street and
disappeared; so I went over and looked at myself in the glass. Never was there
such an appearance: nose and eyes and a long ill-grown beard on the face of
a corpse—I had never seen any human face so thin, and my dirty shirt and
clothes, and the kettle in one hand, and all my belongings in the other; I don't
wonder that the people fled. I knocked at the inner room and the barber
ventured out as soon as he saw the gold sovereign —I had a good deal of
money about me. In a little while he cut off my beard and shaved me, but
even then my face frightened me: it was emaciated, a skeleton-face. I asked
the barber for a restaurant and he pointed on down the street to one, and in
five minutes I was seated at a table with a beefsteak in front of me. I ate very
little because I was afraid of indigestion, and with good reason: in an hour I
had thrown up most of what I had eaten; and I was back in the restaurant to
try something else, till I saw it was useless. My stomach had been ruined by
the berries and leaves I had eaten: I could digest scarcely anything;
meanwhile, half the town came to the restaurant to see me.
In spite of the heat, I bought an overcoat which covered my rags, and got a
room for the night in a decent hotel and had a long hot bath: it seemed
impossible to get clean. Before going to bed, I saw the doctor, who was a
Portuguese and knew some English. He told me to eat only soup and brought
me little arsenic pills that did me a great deal of good. What I weighed then I
have no idea, but a month later on the German steamer taking me up the
coast, I weighed less than eighty pounds, although my normal weight was
then about one hundred and sixty.
I must explain why I didn't get stouter. Only on the first day was I able to eat
and digest a little food. On the second day everything disagreed with me; I
had acute spasm after spasm of indigestion. I tried everything, but my
stomach was hopelessly enfeebled, partly by the berries and partly by the
other indigestible things I had eaten. If any reader wants to know the best
thing I had in weeks—it was a small snake, the head of which I cut off and
then boiled the body; and the worst thing I ever attempted to eat was a
caterpillar; there was a certain red berry which really poisoned me, but the
taste of the caterpillar will live with me as long as I live: it was disgusting.
The doctor on the German liner tried everything to help my digestion, but
nothing did me any good. In Germany, Schweninger made me believe that a
fast of ten or fourteen days would bring my stomach into good order. I tried
the fast and prolonged it till I found my legs failing on going down some
stairs; then I began to drink milk and afterwards vegetable soup, and so
brought myself gradually to a normal diet. But as soon as I began to eat solids
again, I had unbearable indigestion.

731

Schweninger taught me nothing except the science of getting thin, which he
had proved on Bismarck: his discovery was that drinking with one's meals
alone makes fat. If you drink nothing for half an hour before your meals and
for two hours after, you will lose weight at the rate of a couple of pounds a
day, after the first day or two. By following this regimen, Bismarck, when
already old, lost some sixty pounds and came to better health. Later I, too,
tried this cure and found it efficacious. Since then, whenever I want to bring
my weight down to normal, I simply follow Schweninger's regimen for a few
days.
When I found that I could get no relief from Schweninger, nor, for that matter,
from doctors all over Europe, I returned to London. That summer a wellknown
specialist told me to put my house in order, for I had only a short time
to live. He said, "I cannot hear your heart, and," pointing to some steps on the
other side of the road, "if you ran up those steps it would probably kill you."
The Princess of Monaco had brought me to him, and so when we got out into
the street, I ran up and down the steps three times as hard as I could, and
laughed with her afterwards.
A year later, in passing the doctor's house, I went in to call on him. After
examining me carefully, he told me that my heart was in perfect condition,
my arteries like those of a boy; and he wondered why I had come to him.
When I referred him to his prediction, he turned my case up in his diary and
said he had written that my heart was almost inaudible, weaker than any
woman's. He begged me to tell him what I had done and how I had brought
about the change.
I have already explained that it was my house doctor in London who first
made me acquainted with the stomach pump. It taught me what I could
digest and what I ought to shun, thus giving me a complete and scientific
dietary. As I made it a rule to leave off everything that disagreed with me I
soon came to almost perfect health.
Of course, every now and then I sinned a little. If, inspired by company, I
drank a little more than I should, the washing out of my stomach cured the
evil and gave me perfect rest. If I ate a little too much starch or oil, and the
first water of the purging was colored or impure, I gave my stomach another
bath, but always went to bed with my stomach as clean as my mouth.
One fact I may give here, which doctors and scientists may seek to explain.
After some years of careful dieting I found that I could eat and digest little
bread or even butter. Of course, I would only eat the butter or bread at lunch,
but sometimes a slight pain in my forehead a couple of hours afterwards
taught me that I had indulged too freely: the pain passed away and I took my
usual light dinner. Four hours or so later I would wash my stomach out and
suddenly the butter, eaten at lunch twelve hours before, would appear. The
stomach had allowed all the rest of the lunch and dinner to pass on into the
intestines, but had retained the butter to be washed out in due course.

732

This fact has made me almost believe that the individual cells of the stomach
are semi-rational in some sort, and will act in the interests of the general
health.
One other factor should be mentioned in connection with the stomach pump,
and that is the intestinal bath of warm water, which is taken once or twice a
week to regulate the bowels and keep them healthy.
But even the most careful dietary did not bring perfect health without
regular exercise. From boyhood on I had exercised pretty carefully both
morning and evening. I recognized early that indigestion in adults usually
comes from the fact that they do not move the middle part of the body
enough. The child is always bending and stooping, and so exercises the
abdomen; but the adult keeps the stomach and bowels almost quiescent. I
found that exercising this part of the body was better for health than
developing the muscles of the arms and legs and chest. And so for many years
my exercises were all taken with a view to bettering my digestion.
I may note here that I was nearly forty before I had the first attack of
indigestion; it was really the dreadful experience on the Zambesi that ruined
my stomach. As I grew in years from forty on I found that exercise could
easily be too violent: I began to leave off the heavy clubs and large
dumbbells I had loved to use in youth.
Strangers, and even those who know me, are continually surprised and
astonished at my almost perfect physical health and a comparative
youthfulness of appearance that goes with it. When I explain that my health
is due to study of the body and to careful observance of the rules which are
conducive to healthy living, they all beg me to publish some of the facts.
Very few people realize how completely it is within the power of a fairly
strong man to make himself perfectly healthy. After my breakdown in health
in 1896, I began, as I have said, to study health and digestion in every way
possible. In the autumn of this year, I found I was growing bald: a bald spot
had appeared on the top of my head. I immediately set myself to think out a
remedy. Advancing years, of course, was the real cause, and my spell of ill
health; but now that I had regained my health, what was I to do to get rid of
the baldness? It seemed to me that the bald spot came chiefly through the
use of the hat, which prevented the hairs being blown about and the roots of
them exercised; accordingly, I thought of a substitute and I began to scratch
my head so as to excite the hairs surrounding the bald spot. In a little while I
found that I was right, because the hairs came back and the baldness
gradually disappeared: six months did the trick and I have had no trouble
since.
In much the same way, later still, I found my eyes tiring with much reading
and writing. I went to the best oculists and got glasses which helped me a
little, but soon again, in spite of the glasses, I began to suffer. I had always

733

been short-sighted from astigmatism, but I saw well near at band, and up to
about fifty could read for ten or twelve hours a day without noticing any
fatigue; now, after four or five hours reading or writing, my eyes used to get
blurred for minutes together; I had to put the book down and wait. These
weak spells grew more and more frequent at an alarming rate, I went to the
oculists, but found they were just as ignorant as the doctors: one
recommended different glasses, but no change helped me; another told me
that I should be very proud of being able to read two hours at a stretch
without suffering. In fact, I got no satisfaction from any of the so-called
specialists; whereupon I took the matter up for myself. "You are suffering," I
said, "because your eyes move mechanically up and down a page and so
grow tired." Thereupon I began to exercise my eyes every morning, casting
them from one end of the room all over it to the other, for a quarter of an hour
a day. At the end of a month I threw away all my reading glasses and now
find that at over seventy I can read or write twelve or fourteen hours a day
without trouble, just as I could as a boy. A change of work is almost as good a
rest for the eyes as for the other parts of the body.
I am often asked where I get my knowledge of the body. As a German
student fifty years ago, I heard of the celebrated doctor Bilroth in Vienna,
and went there and studied under him. I would rather at that time have been
a doctor than anything else. There were two sacred orders of mankind to me
always: those who diminish pain and those who increase pleasure. I didn't
think my self good enough to be a writer or scientist and so give enjoyment,
but I did think I could be a great doctor; I soon found that I was taking the
science much more seriously than the ordinary students or doctors or even
professors.
I could give dozens of shocking instances of the careless indifference to
human suffering, not only of the students and doctors, but also of the nurses;
but I will simply give the final one, which made me leave the university. I
came into the operating-room one day and found that a doctor had just
carried out the difficult operation of cutting a cancer from a woman's breast.
The room was half-filled with students, which astonished me, and I asked
what was the occasion? I was told the doctor had bet a fairly large sum that
he would cut the cancer out and finish the operation in a certain number of
minutes; I think it was fifteen. I was horrified when he turned around and
smiling remarked that he had won. When I looked at the patient I suddenly
saw a small trickle of blood on her breast. I pointed and said to the doctor:
"You have been too hasty." His face changed: he had immediately to take the
stitches out, open up the wound again and tie up the artery, which he had
forgotten or overlooked because of the constant application of the ice-bag.
By the time the breast was open, the blood was already spurting from the
artery; and as he took it up to tie it, the woman made a slight movement and
was dead.
"It might have happened to any one," he remarked.

734

"You are a brute," I cried, "and should be charged with worse than murder." I
left the room or I would have struck him. I spoke of it to the superiors, which
all the students resented, but the superiors consoled me and themselves with
the fact that she was a poor woman and really couldn't expect such treatment
as was given to those who paid.
The whole incident, coming on top of fifty lesser experiences, made me see
that I would always be at odds with the whole of the profession and that I
might as well give up my wish to be a surgeon, so I left Vienna and went on to
Greece.
Before I leave this question of health, I must say just one thing: the wisest of
French proverbs is une fois n'est pas coutume —(once is not a habit), which,
being interpreted, means that you can do a great many things once which, if
you attempted to do frequently, would bring you to utter grief. I have known
the time that a drinking bout did me real good, but if I had continued it every
night for a week I should have been a pitiable object; and so there are many
things one can eat once in a while which one can't eat every day. Une fois
n'est pas coutume is a great rule of physical health.

735

CHAPTER V.
DARK BEAUTIES

THIS TREK to the Zambesi was the most extraordinary adventure of my life.
It altered my whole conception of life. Up to that year, about my fortieth, I
had always tried to believe in a Divinity
... that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
Now I began to put the comma after "rough" instead of after "ends."
As soon as we got into Bechuanaland to the north-east of the Transvaal,
Negro tribes, men and women, came constantly to visit us; they begged bright
cloths from us and knives, and naturally my Boers, who knew them
intimately, had provided me with all sorts of things with which to barter for
furs, etc. I soon found that the younger of the brothers was fond of gratifying
his lust with any young Negro girl who took his fancy, and I had to
acknowledge that the girls were anything but reserved. Karl was a fine, big
man, fully six feet in height and perhaps thirty years of age, and his brother
was even bigger and burlier, perhaps ten years older, and altogether more
brutal: we always spoke of him as the "Doctor."
One morning, I remember, we were late in starting and some of the Negro
leaders were laughing because Karl was not ready, having been occupied
with a Negro girl in his tent. As soon as the "Doctor" learned this, he strode to
the tent, and tearing up the fastenings, overthrew it and exposed his brother,
half-dressed, who was packing his valise. The young Negro girl who had
been helping him started up when the tent fell, and smiling, held out her
hands to the "Doctor." Red with rage, he caught her by the left breast and
flung her from him. She shrieked and began to cry: Karl expostulated with
him; but I was furious.
"I want you to know once for all," I cried, "that I won't have these colored
people ill-treated."
"Bestie!" he replied.
"They may be beasts, in your opinion," I went on, "but I insist that they shall
be treated decently. To kiss a girl first and then maltreat her is shameful! And
I won't stand for it!"
Karl nodded agreement with me while the "Doctor" went off muttering and
scowling.
It was Karl who gave me at our next stopping place a lesson in Negro
morality. A small tribe had come to our camp to beg: he and I got out some
colored stuffs and showed them to the women and girls, who went crazy with
delight. One of the prettiest of them and best formed, a girl of perhaps fifteen,

736

took up a piece of bright blue. She was, of course, naked, except the little
apron that half-covered her nudity. Karl at once threw the cloth about her
shoulders: she laughed gleefully and strutted about with it; he went over and
kissed her, saying she could have it. At once she threw her arms about him
and then, saying something, lifted her apron.
"What does she say?" I asked.
"That she's ready for a man!" said Karl.
"What does she mean?" I asked, and Karl set himself to explain to me a
custom which I found was almost universal.
"As soon as half a dozen girls in a tribe reach puberty," Karl said, "they are
taken by a couple of old women to the nearest stream. There the old crones,
with great ceremony, break the girls' maidenheads and then declare them fit
and ready, in a week or so, to give pleasure to men and bear children."
The whole affair seemed astonishing to me: I had always imagined that the
maidenhead was a result, or at least an indication, of the proprietary instinct
of the male, and if it were thus gradually developed by natural selection,
why do away with it in such a coarse way? But Karl assured me that the girls
were all delighted to be rid of it and free to devote themselves to the higher
uses of maturity.
After a month's trekking we were visited one evening by a tribe which
possessed a young girl almost completely white. The heads of the tribe
assured Karl that she was the product of a white missionary, who fifteen years
ago had journeyed far, far to the north across the great river.
Some time later I told Stanley the story and wondered whether by a new sort
of paper-chase, he had tracked Livingstone by parti-colored offspring across
Africa. But Stanley had no sense of humor and seemed to resent the
imputation. Still, I must record one fact in regard to this girl: she was
extraordinarily proud of her white blood and begged Karl to find her some
white man to whom she might give herself and so have done with colored
men forever. Curiously enough, though of sufficient age, she had refused to
submit to the ministry of the old colored women and therefore still preserved
her maidenhead. She wanted white children, she declared, and would never
yield herself to a Negro.
It was the Doctor who undertook to content her desire and was gratefully
accepted, though I always thought there was more than a little Negro blood
in his veins; still, he was at least half-white. In the course of the next month or
so we came upon three similar instances, and in every case the same insensate
pride in the mulatto. It grew to be a joke with us that we were following in the
missionary's footsteps!

737

When we were nearing the Zambesi, we spent a whole day trekking through
a dense forest, and there towards midday discovered a troop of baboons. The
Doctor happened to be a little ahead of us, and almost at once a huge female
baboon picked bun out and began, with unmistakable gestures, to show him
that he had taken her fancy and that she was more than willing to be his love.
Naturally the incident amused me highly and I induced the brothers to let
the game go on. To cut a long story short, that female kept close to the Doctor
to the edge of the forest and beyond it. The grotesque obscenity of the
exhibition, the unmistakable passion of the animal, gave me a new
understanding of the intimate ties that bind us men to our simian ancestors.
However we brazen it out
We men are a little breed.
I never took any part in the nightly orgies that went on between the members
of our caravan and the girls of the various tribes that visited us to beg and to
barter. I was content with my Kodak to take snapshots of the prettiest girls
and the finest young men, and here I made some remarkable discoveries.
None of the girls objected to stand for me, and not one hesitated to take off
the little apron of hide they usually wore; but underneath the apron there
was a small covering, perhaps two fingers broad, which they all objected to
removing. They regarded their sex as ugly and would not willingly expose it.
Another curious fact: I soon found that these girls did not recognize
themselves in their photos. One of our leaders was a Negro with perfectly
white hair. When we showed the girls this Negro and his photoed likeness,
they all exclaimed with delight: they could recognize him, but not
themselves. I have often noticed that a dog does not recognize his likeness in a
glass; perhaps it needs a certain amount of intelligence to know even what
we look like.
Some of these young colored girls had very beautiful figures: it is usually
thought that their calves are too thin and their breasts too flaccid. Naturally,
taking into consideration their early maturity, they soon show these signs of
age, but from ten to fifteen they are often perfectly made.
Why didn't they tempt me? I can't say; the half-white girls appealed to me
much more; but the pure Negro type left me completely unmoved.
I loved to take their photographs in the most lascivious attitudes, enjoyed
draping them in a pretty piece of stuff and thus bringing out their everpresent
coquetry; but when they sought to excite me, I would slap their
bottoms and turn away. I never could understand the attraction they
possessed for most white men. I had known the fact from my varsity days in
Lawrence, Kansas, where all my comrades used to hunt regularly in the
Negro quarter; but even then I never went with them, not out of any moral
scruple, but simply because the black girl, however well made, did not excite
in me what Dr. Johnson called his "amorous propensities."

738

Yet I was told by Karl and the Doctor that the Negro girls were far more
passionate than the white ones. "There is no comparison," Karl used to
declare; "Negro girls, and boys, too, feel the sex thrill far more intensely than
any whites."
It may be true. I have seen Parisian cocottes making heroes of Negro lovers;
they have told me time and again just what Karl asserted; but it is not only
the vigor of the Negro, but also the size of his sex which causes him to be so
esteemed by the French prostitutes. On the other hand, the Negro girl, too, is
far larger than the white and that certainly detracts from the man's pleasure.
Besides, the mousey smell is always present, and that was enough to choke
my desire. But the want of intelligence is the chief deterrent; for Hindu girls
are often very dark and have the mousey odor, yet their brains or higher
spiritual understanding make them eminently desirable.
Yet my virtue was destined to suffer one defeat. One evening, a girl we had
met, who was almost completely white, was encouraged by Karl to come
nude to my bed. I was tossing about asleep in the night when she came and
laid down beside me, or rather on me. The heat of her body had excited me
before I even awoke, and before I was fully conscious I was enjoying her. I felt
no disappointment when I saw her: I have seen Italian girls with darker skins
and coarser features; but I cannot say that she gave me any extraordinary
thrill. Yet, she did her best and the game of love to her was the best game in
the world. She delighted in teaching me all the Swahili terms for the sex and
for sensual pleasures. And when I used them she would scream with
enjoyment.
This girl was rather intelligent, and so I asked her about sexual perversions.
She seemed to think there was nothing in them, that naturally all human
beings took what pleasure they could get whenever they could get it. There
was no shadow of moral law in the matter. She even told me that most of the
colored girls didn't know how to kiss until they were taught and were quite
astonished at any extension of kissing.
I would have forgotten all about this girl, had she not begged me to take her
with me on my expedition. I could not do this, but some bright cloths and
beads soon consoled her for my defection, and one day I saw her making up to
the big Doctor, which at once chased away any lingering scruples I may have
had.
I have been asked to write on sexual perversions; but I have no personal
experiences of them, being wholly taken up with the normal desires of the
man for the woman; but once in New York I received a letter from a girl in
Toronto which bears every mark of truth in its frank lesbianism. I found out
afterwards that the explanation of this girl's perversion was to be found in the
constant physical pursuit of her, when still a mere child, by her father. I give
the letter here textually.

739

Mother opens the door when I ring the home bell. It is sad and pleasant to
greet her. We stand talking for a minute in the hall.
"Is he there?" Mother knows to whom I refer.
"Yes." She hesitates; then wife-like, pleadingly: "Be nice to him."
I promise.
The children greet me hilariously and I wonder what to say to them. Children
always embarrass me.
The father obtrudes himself with weighty tenderness:
"Why doesn't my elf come and kiss me?"
He is fatter, greyer, more dissolute. Only eyes and forehead still partly
survive the wreck. I grit my teeth and appear to kiss him willingly, angry
with myself that I cannot prevent my flesh from suffering at the contact. His
breath is unpleasant with the odor of whiskey and cheese. It revives a vivid
childhood scene:
Fresh from the woods, fragrance of earth and leaves clinging to her, a mist of
poetry in her brain from something she had been writing or reading, I see the
child that was me, darting into the house at tea-time.
"Streak-of-lightning! Come and give your dad a kiss!"
The child goes obediently to be kissed, resentful only at having her thoughts
disturbed. Cheese and whiskey! She is horribly disgusted. How could anyone
with such a breath want to kiss her? Then I see her breaking away, racing into
the garden and burying her head in the flowers.
My first distaste for my father was certainly an aesthetic distaste, which soon
became disgust.
"Cold as ever!" he complains because I get away from him as soon as I can.
"All brain; no heart whatever." Mother smiles; she knows me better.
He reaches for his whiskey: "Have a drink: it'll warm your chilly blood,"
"No, thank you. Not so early in the morning; I haven't eaten yet."
Mother rescues me with breakfast.
"He's drinking too much," she remarks unhappily.

740

I had never blamed him for drinking, like mother continually did. But I could
not help despising him for not being strong enough to make it serve him.
There is little but the unhappy in the handful of news mother unfolds to me
during breakfast. Most of it hangs about the man of the family.
"He has been more ill than well lately. I can't help thinking he will not live
long... and all these children ... five of them under fifteen!" Helplessly: "I don't
know what it will mean."
I do.
I see a scale balancing—mother, children—writing, the poetry, my own
life— and my heart is breaking with resentment.
I try to put the black thoughts in chains, since they are far too evilly vigorous
to banish. After all, I came here to link hands with love.
I go to the telephone and call Louise's number. No answer. She must be out,
although nine-thirty is early for her. There is nothing to do but fill an hour
with futile occupations. Later I make another attempt, but still she is not
there.
At noon I telephone Louise's number again. This time her husband answers:
"She is spending the holidays at St. Agathe ... won't be back till Monday."
I do not know what I feel, but something terribly more than disappointment.
Streets drabber than ever, and rain drizzling down.
I want to put Montreal behind me at once, but a berth for Sunday night is
already reserved and I haven't money to get another. All I can do is to stay.
Defiance begins to possess me. Since I must remain, I'll enjoy it. I go
immediately to a telephone and call Marguerite. Before I left Montreal for
New York she displayed a great deal of love for me. I had tried to meet it
with sympathy; certainly always did respond with pleasure and passion, for
she is beautiful, very much the artist (musically), and fascinating.
I recognize her voice at the other end of the wire.
"Marguerite! C'est Sapho qui parle."
"Oh, ma chere! What happiness. Where are you? I must see you at once! Will
you come here?"
The French enthusiasm, the voice vibrating with unmistakable delight, are
wine to me. In spite of her insistence that we must meet at once—

741

"immediatement! immediatement!" she repeats—we finally agree to see
each other that evening at a friend's studio.
I go again into the street with a little of the greyness lifted. How mysteriously
heartening is pleasure, and the thought of pleasure.
Night, and the indestructible magic of passion in the veins and the mist of a
spring evening dimming the lights that are softer than most city lights. The
ancient buildings have become more characterful. They are not splendid and
blatant like New York's concrete monsters.
I run up the old staircase to the studio. It is early and the hostess is not yet
there, but I enter. In Montreal we leave our studios unlocked, or the key in
some accessible corner. The familiar studio, full of the pictures I had watched
being painted, is another pleasure. Someone had freed incense or
sandalwood perfume in the room.
I am stretched on a sofa with a cigarette, trying not to think of Louise, whom I
had loved more than once in this place, when someone knocks at the door. I
open it and find the woman from the adjoining studio standing there, like a
Baccante, with a decanter of red wine in her left hand. She wears a
transparent kimono and rather disarranged hair. I am glad enough to see her.
We had been friends once upon a time.
"I saw you come in," she explained, putting the decanter down on a table. I
motion towards it:
"What's that for?"
"Oh! You've forgotten since you lived in that desert across the border!"
It was plain to me that she had not "forgotten." She seemed to have been
practicing well that very day. She poured wine for both of us, then reclining
so that her kimono became very vague about the shoulder, began
immediately to tell me, French fashion, about her lover—the latest.
In my last few years in Montreal, everyone seemed to come to me with
confessions. I became a sort of repository for the troubles of the artistic tribe,
and at one time had locked in my memory the intimate secrets and misdeeds
of about one-half of Montreal's quartier-latin. They came to me with
everything from confessions of rape—even murder, once—to the tiniest sins
of the spirit. Why they trusted me, I do not know. I felt quite at home when
Davila, nicknamed "Devil," called "Dev" for handiness, immediately
unfolded an intrigue for me.
She departed when Regina, mistress of the studio, arrived at eight o'clock.

742

Regina greeted me with a maidenly kiss on the cheek. Regina is an artist, two
or three years my senior, although she appears to be younger. She has not the
brains nor the curiosity about life ever to be a great painter. Her claims to the
title of artist lie chiefly in a vivid, almost virile color sense, and a careful
technique. Her claims to my admiration are far more numerous. Her type is
oriental; coloring richly dark; magnificent, slow-burning eyes; features that
would be heavy but for the life that shines through, as though they were
transparent; figure a little too full, but redeemed by the firmness of unused
youth; hard, not too large breasts; and beautiful hands.
I draw her to my side on the couch and begin talking about her pictures.
There is a lot to criticize in the latest.
"It is difficult to realize, looking at you," I tell her, "but love, even passion, is
lacking in your work. How do you keep it out?"
"I don't know. I have not ever really loved."
I had guessed that much, but I merely say:
"Why don't you?"
"I have not yet found anyone I want to fall in love with."
That is an attitude I am not in sympathy with.
I rarely await Fate's sweet pleasure. So I tell her:
"Love is worth the loving regardless of that. The perfection is in the artist and
the art itself, not in the instrument, is it not so?"
She seemed troubled about it. "Men do not inspire me," hesitatingly, "My lips
are loath to meet theirs as my brush is to paint them. No. They do not inspire
me in the least."
Woman always waits to be inspired! Well—Marguerite is not due for an
hour and this little creature is very seductive. I take both her hands and kiss
them. I love beautiful hands.
"Perhaps I can inspire you."
She smiles uncertainly, but I draw her towards me and kiss her mouth; her
eyes, and throat; then the mouth again. It grows warm, and the little nipples
of her breasts harden under my fingers. I have never caressed such a sensitive
skin. It burns and trembles wherever it is touched, and I am surprised that so
responsive a body should be innocent of love. She does not seem to wish that
it should remain innocent, tempting me with the most beautiful abandon,
that I would willingly meet with all my passion; but Fate, unusually

743

malicious, intervenes with footsteps on the stairs. It is quite certain they
belong to Marguerite, whom I had forgotten. Regina hears them, too, and hot,
restraining hands creep and cling round me. I cannot help feeling sorry for
her. A final kiss that neither of us wants to end, and she lets me go.
Pulling a screen around the couch to give Regina time to arrange her
things—for something besides, Marguerite's eyes harbor a dash of green!—I
reach the door just as the knock comes. Nothing can restrain the exuberance
of Marguerite's greeting. For Regina's sake, I am glad of the screen.
Marguerite is pale, more lithe, more tiger-like, than when I last saw her, and
even then I would run my hands over her body and ask how she managed to
hide the stripes! The yellow-green eyes are pure tiger. Her clothes are chosen
with the absolute art that only the French seem to possess.
Regina, looking self-possessed enough, even to my eye, comes from behind
the screen and takes Marguerite's wraps. Before we are seated others arrive.
Conversation and wine carry the evening swiftly to midnight. Marguerite,
passion apparently making her impatient, whispers to me several times to
leave and go home with her. I am eager enough to go, but the moods of her
impatience interest me to watch. It is not kind, perhaps, but a dash of pain is
good seasoning for pleasure—makes it more vital, aggressive.
A little later I get Regina into a corner, tell her I am about to leave, and ask if
I may see her tomorrow, before I depart for New York. She consents, of course,
her large eyes kissing me; then says impulsively:
"I wish you could stay longer. I would love to do a head of you with just the
expression you had when—we were together on the couch."
"So! I did inspire you?" I kiss the beautiful hand, hoping Marguerite does not
see, and leave her.
Marguerite and I go decorously enough downstairs, but outside the air, the
everlasting moon, the desertedness of the streets, are too much for us. We
embrace the minute the policeman at the corner turns his back.
Marguerite and I are perfectly in accord about one important detail of
love— we believe that the surroundings should harmonize with the passion;
so she, quite naturally, immediately dims the lights when we enter her home,
puts glowing charcoal in the incense burner, and pours liqueur—
appropriately perverse little glasses; then, forgetting everything, apparently,
but her need of love, sinks down beside me, where I recline on the rug and
receives my kisses on her flung-back throat and face.
The foolish clothes that interrupt my lips! I unfasten them and slip them off;
my own as well. The couch is more comfortable than the rug. I raise her and

744

we stand against each other, embrace, kiss—the perfect kiss of completely
meeting bodies. It creates desire too keen to be borne. Perspiration dampens
her skin and mine. The perfume she has put on her body, not sweet but
something insidiously acrid of eastern origin, fills my head with a hot mist.
We sway to the couch and lie for a minute, bound by our burning arms,
breasts crushed together.
I release myself and begin to weave a mesh of kisses over her: the eyes, the
hair, the perfect mouth, the breasts that have no shadow of fault, past the tiny
coiling navel where the skin is increasingly sensitive, so quivering more with
every kiss. (I always want to call a woman I love a harp.) At last the kiss that
seals them all! Her body is convulsed with the intensity of the sensation.
Stressful little moans come from her throat blended with endearing names.
Her hands caress me frantically. We draw closer together. Her mouth finds
my sensitive places. Incredible pleasure. Somewhere in my mind there is this
thought: What a beautiful piece of work a sculptor who dared would make of
this perverse intertwining of two figures in lesbic passion! Both bodies are fair
enough, firm and young and supple-muscled. It must have been done by the
ancients.
Cool rills of perspiration create separate tiny thrills where they traverse the
skin. The quivering of her limbs, the bitter salts of her body on my tongue and
lips, the sweet pressure and motion of her mouth, shake me into a scarlet
blindness. The mounting sensations make me think of melodies I have heard,
growing and growing to a crescendo and ending with the sudden silence that
symbolizes the crisis.
We seem to flutter down from a far height and lie exquisitely quivering with
the pleasure of perfect passion.
I raise myself a little and, gently now, lay little kisses along the limbs, the
hips, upward over the breasts, across the throat back to the lips and grateful
eyes. She is still—like a marble girl. I barely know her until she circles me
with her arms and whispers, "Lover! Sweet, little burning lover!"
I can think of no name to call her that would harmonize with the reverence
that fills me for her beauty and the intensity of the pleasures we have
enjoyed. I kneel beside her and kiss her hands.
It seems to be almost a law that we love those who respond to us and worship
all that gives us pleasure—pleasure in its very widest sense.
Vice—! The thought amuses me. There are only vicious people.
Marguerite rises, goes and pours out something, then returning, crouches
beside me, and holds up one of her little glasses to my lips with enchanting
grace.

745

Then we go and lie on the bed, she bringing Verlaine for me to read to her,
while she strokes my body, resting her cheek against one of my breasts.
If the spirit of Verlaine lurked anywhere in the room, I am certain there was
approval in its nebulous heart.
And Regina on the morrow—Regina!

746

CHAPTER VI.
BARNATO, BEIT, AND HOOLEY

'Tis a very good world to live in,
To lend or to spend or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow or get a man's own,
'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.
IT WAS THROUGH my sojourn in South Africa in 1896 that I came to know
the world of modern finance, where millions sometimes are made or lost in a
day by speculation. It was in Johannesburg that I first got acquainted with
this characteristic of the time.
Long before meeting him, I had heard of Barney Barnato: every one in the
Rand Club knew the sturdy little middle-aged man, who was said to be
worth twenty millions and was considered by many to be the true rival of
Rhodes and Beit. Ten or twelve years before he had landed in Kimberley
with the proverbial five pound note. How had he made such a fortune in so
short a tune? His presence and speech were against him; he was commonly
dressed and spoke like an uneducated Cockney, dropped his "h's" and made
grammatical howlers in almost every sentence. Rhodes after all was
"someone," while Barnato was plainly a rank "outsider," to use the ordinary
English phrase.
It was said of Barney that in early days at Kimberley he had got a living by
showing off as a fighter: he would put a square of carpet on the ground and
bet that no one could stand up to him on it for five minutes. One rough miner
after the other used to take on the job, but they soon found that little Barnato
was really hard to beat, and they usually lost their money and took a good
deal of punishment into the bargain.
Barnato soon bought claim after claim in Kimberley, and working as he had
fought, with all his heart, quickly became one of the richest men in the camp.
From the beginning he was inconceivably mean: he never paid for a drink—
always pretended that he had no loose cash about him. A story was told of
him that always seemed to me to paint him to the life. Going to the
Kimberley races once, he answered some jest made at his expense by saying
that he would bet he could make a thousand pounds before the evening.
Several people bet with him. When he got to the race course, Barnato went
up to a woman who was selling lemonade and drinks and asked her how
much she expected to make during the day. She said, "Perhaps ten pounds."
"I'll give you twenty," he said, "for your stock, and five for yourself—is it a
deal?"
The woman consented and Barnato began to sell her stock, and he did it with
such humor and such understanding of almost every miner who came up that
he soon had a great crowd about him and sold out at fabulous prices, getting

747

higher and higher sums toward the end of the day; and finally achieved his
aim and made his clear thousand pounds, besides the bets he had also won.
His common cockney English endeared him to the ordinary miner, but his
knowledge of life and men was extraordinary; his energy extraordinary, too,
as was his self-confidence. I have told the story how Rhodes and Beit bought
him out at Kimberley; but Barnato soon established himself in Johannesburg
as one of the great mine owners and made another huge fortune. Yet he only
gambled when he was sure to win. I was once at a game of baccarat in his
house where nearly a quarter of a million changed hands in two hours while
Barney, having shed his boots, dozed on a sofa in the room.
I remember his telling me once that he was worth twenty-five millions. "My
boy," he added, "I have made three millions in one day." I always thought
that that was the day when he sold his claims in Kimberley to Rhodes and
Beit.
I am giving no portrait of him, and yet I liked Barney Barnato, for he was
really likable in spite of his meanness about petty sums. He told me one day
how he had given one hundred pounds for his first claim in the diamond mine
of Kimberley: he worked day and night at it with his niggers, and when he
got down, a month later, to the blue ground where the stones were found, he
made ten thousand pounds in the first hour. "Thirty good diamonds," he said.
"I could hardly believe my ears when I was offered eight thousand pounds for
them; but I didn't sell them till I got the round ten thousand—about half their
real worth, I should think."
"The week after, I bought three adjoining claims and since then my bank
balance has grown pretty rapidly; I'm not complaining. I remember on my
first day on the carpet in Kimberley, I had to fight like a wildcat with a big
miner, and all for five quid—a change, eh?"
Every one knows how Barney Barnato bucked against the falling market in
Johannesburg, brought about by Rhodes's schemes. He was said to have lost a
million. I met him once near the end when he told me how Rhodes and Beit
had kept him out and how he had bought on a f ailing market and lost his
money. "My dear Barney," I said, "one of these days you will make another
fortune. What's a million to you?"
"A million!" he snarled, "A million to me—it's ten hundred thousand pounds,
you—!" There was something mad in his glare. It suddenly came to me that
Barney had worn his mind out, and when he hurried into an inner room,
muttering to himself, I felt sure that if he didn't soon win to self-control, he
would come to grief. I perhaps read Barney correctly because I, too, had
suffered from nerves and knew how essential it was to cure them. I may say
here that constant change of scene and companionship, and the
determination to take life easy for awhile are the best cures; but poor
Barnato stuck to his work till the last.

748

A little later, on his way to England, he threw himself off the steamer into the
sea; his body was recovered and brought to Southampton.
Woolfie Joel, his nephew, told me that Barney had worn himself out. Woolfie
Joel had many of the fine qualities that Barney Barnato lacked. He hadn't
the genius of his uncle, but he was far better educated and of a generous and
kindly nature. I always had a great liking for Woolfie Joel.
It is the development of a man, the growth of him, that is of supreme interest
to his fellows: whoever can tell this story is sure of hearers; but how much
more sure when the story is that of the master of millions in a day when all
would be rich if they could.
It was in Alfred Beit's house in Park Lane in '97 or '98 that I put him to the
question. We were seated in the room which was at once a sort of rockery and
palm garden: a room of brown rocks and green ferns and tesselated
pavement—an abode of grateful, dim coolness and shuttered silence, silence
made noticeable, as it were, framed off by the vague hum of the outside
world.
We had been talking of Kimberley and his early days there and his first
successes, and I was eager to learn how, even in the race for wealth, he had
outstripped a man like Barney Barnato, who had reached Kimberley years
before him, and who had never cared for anything in his life but money, and
had sought it night and day with the meanness of avarice which collects
pennies and saves crusts; or, better still, which dines sumptuously at someone
else's expense, inspired by the insane Jew greed which finds a sensual delight
in the mention of gold and silver, and diamonds and pearls, and rubies—
above all, rubies, hued like pigeon's blood, and more precious than a
thousand times their weight in refined gold. In spite of his savage greed and
oriental garishness, Barney Barnato had a touch of genius in him, and wasn't
easily beaten at his own game.
In person Beit was not very remarkable: he was short—shorter even than
Barney Barnato—and plump; in later days the plumpness became fat. But
even in his prime he seemed to have "run to head"; the great round ball
appeared too large for the little body and small limbs; but it was excellently
well-shaped, the forehead very broad, and high-domed to reverence and
idealism, like a poet's; the rest of the face was not so good; the nose fairly
large, but slightly beaked, not noticeably fleshy—a good rudder; the chin
rather weak than strong—no great courage or resolution anywhere. After
the forehead the eyes and mouth were the two noteworthy features: the eyes
prominent, large, brown, the glance at once thoughtful and keen; the mouth
coarse and ill-cut, the lower lip particularly heavy. It reminded me of
Rhodes's face; but Rhodes's mouth was coarser and more cruel than Beit's; his
nose, too, larger and more beaked; his chin and jaw much more massive —
altogether a stronger face, though not so intellectually alert.

749

Beit's manner was nervous, hesitating: he had a tiny dark moustache and a
curious trick of twirling at it with the right hand, though he seldom touched
it; the embarrassed nervousness of a student, rather than the assurance of a
man of affairs accustomed to deal with men; but the nervousness was chiefly
superficial, due perhaps to weak health, for as soon as he began to talk
business he came to perfect self-possession.
Beit did not seem to wish to talk of Barney Barnato; he admitted his gifts, but
evidently did not like him. But if Beit disliked being compared with Barnato,
nothing flattered him more than to be compared with Rhodes. He had a
profound and pathetic admiration for Rhodes, the admiration which only a
born idealist could keep through many years of ultimate companionship.
And in connection with Rhodes, he had no disinclination to talk about
himself; the phrase of Goethe, paraphrased at the beginning of this portrait,
seemed to touch him.
"Yes," he said, "that's the good time of a man's life, if he only knew it, the
Entwicklungsperiode."
"It is the beginning," I went on, "that is supremely interesting; how from
nothing you won the first fifty thousand pounds, that interests everyone; but
how afterwards you turned the fifty thousand into twenty millions is much
less interesting."
"Well," said Beit, "I was one of the poor Beits of Hamburg; my father found it
difficult even to pay for my schooling, and you know that is cheap enough in
Germany; I had to leave before I had gone through the Real-schule. Of
course, in Hamburg at that time everyone was talking about the discovery of
diamonds in South Africa, and so, after helping my father for a little time, he
made up his mind to send me to Amsterdam to learn all about diamonds. I
went there and spent two years, and in that time got to know a good deal
about diamonds."
"Of course," I interjected, "hi that time you must also have learnt Dutch."
"No," replied Beit; "no. I just did my work, and wasted my spare time like
other young men. A little later my father had some interest with the house of
Jules Forges in Paris, and I was sent out by him to Kimberley. I got my passage
money and three hundred pounds for the first year. When I reached
Kimberley, I found that very few people knew anything about diamonds;
they bought and sold at haphazard, and a great many of them really
believed that the Cape diamonds were of a very inferior quality. Of course, I
saw at once that some of the Cape stones were as good as any in the world;
and I saw, too, that the buyers protected themselves against their own
ignorance by offering for them one-tenth part of what each stone was worth
in Europe. It was plain that if one had a little money there was a fortune to be
made, and I remember I wrote to Forges, offering to give up my position and

750

pay him back my passage money if he would let me off my engagement to
work for him for a year; but he would not let me off, so I went on working.
"I wrote to my father frequently, long letters, telling him all about Kimberley;
how incredibly rich the ground was; how easy it was to make money with a
little capital; and I begged him to send me as much as he could get together
by the end of the year, and I promised him to return whatever money he lent
me with good interest within a year.
"Before the end of my time with Forges, my father got together a couple of
thousand pounds and sent it to me; but I did not use it in buying diamonds, as I
should have done if he had sent it to me in the first six months. Kimberley was
growing so fast that the demand for houses was extraordinary, so I bought a
bit of land and put up twelve or thirteen offices, corrugated iron shanties, of
which I kept one for myself. I let out these twelve or thirteen shanties, and I
got eighteen hundred pounds a month for them."
"Eighteen hundred pounds a month!" I said. "How long did that continue?"
"For years and years," said Beit. "Twelve or thirteen years, I think, and then
the pit had grown so large that my ground was wanted, and I sold the ground
on which the shanties were built for a fair sum—I think it was about two
hundred and sixty thousand pounds. I got something for the dwellings, too, I
think," and he laughed. "Not a bad speculation!"
"No," I said, "indeed; that solves the question of how you came from poverty to
riches."
While getting a subscription once for a charity, I came across a curious trait
in his character—he seemed to over-estimate the value of small sums of
money. If you spoke to him of two or three pounds, or twenty-two or twentythree,
he was always eager to show you how thirty shillings could do in the
one case, and how it was possible to attain the desired end with half the
amount in the other. But the moment you spoke in thousands, he seemed to
treat them as counters. He would jump from five thousand to fifty thousand as
if there were no intervening figures. The truth was, of course, that Beit had
learned the value of small sums of money when he was young and poor in
Hamburg and Amsterdam, and no one knew better than he did how much
could be done with a pound. But when you talked in thousands you were
speaking to Beit the millionaire, who made fifty thousand in an afternoon,
and did not attach precise importance to either sum.
Beit went into the Jameson Raid at Rhodes's request, but he protested against
every stage of that mad and stupid enterprise. Indeed, the story of Jameson's
Raid would only show that Beit was intensely loyal to Rhodes, even when he
believed him to be entirely in the wrong. Beit was a good type of business
man. He had an instinctive aversion to politics and raidings, and was chiefly
interested in such enterprises as could be shown in a profit and loss account.

751

But there was another side of his nature: like many Jews, he had a real love
and understanding of music; and he admired pictures and bronzes, too,
though he was anything but a good judge of them. At bottom Beit was a
sentimentalist, and did not count or reckon when his feelings were really
touched. This was the fine side of the man, the side through which Rhodes
used him, the side which, by contrast with his love of money, showed the
breadth and height of his humanity. Of all the millionaires I had chanced to
meet, Beit was the best. He had a great deal of the milk of human kindness in
him, quick and deep sympathies, too, sympathies even with poverty, perhaps
through his own early struggles; and if any plan of a social Utopia had been
brought forward in his time, no one would have detected its weakness more
quickly that Beit, no one would have seen its good points more clearly or
been more willing to help it to accomplishment.
After Cecil Rhodes's death, I had written an article about him and about his
will, in which I declared that posthumous benefactions seemed to me no proof
of benevolence because they lacked the savor of sacrifice, and, to use Bacon's
phrase, "were but the painted sepulchre of alms." Beit expressed his
astonishment at this criticism, and thought there was a great deal of unselfish
nobility shown in Rhodes's will, and added that he only hoped to make as
good use of whatever he might possess when he died. Indeed, when Beit died
in 1906, he left over two million pounds to charity.
It was in the late summer of 1896, after my return from South Africa, that A.
M. Broadley called on me one day in the office of the Saturday Review and
brought a new interest into my life. I had known Broadley for a good many
years and had long been convinced of his business ability, as well as his
journalistic skill. He told me that he was making a good deal of money with
Ernest Terah Hooley, whom I had just heard of as the successful promotor of
the Dunlop Company. Broadley offered to bring me up to see him, suggesting
that I should find it to my profit to help him in his financial schemes. Nothing
loath, I went with Broadley and was introduced to Hooley at the Midland
Grand Hotel. To my surprise, I learned that the financier had taken the whole
of the first floor of the Midland Grand Hotel for his offices. I don't know how
many rooms there were, but I believe there were certainly fifty; and from ten
o'clock in the morning until six at night, almost every room was filled with
people who had axes to grind. Hooley flitted from room to room, always good
humored and decisively quick in dealing with the most heterogeneous
projects.
At one moment he was discussing the raising of a loan of sixteen millions with
Li Hung Chang on the security of the Chinese customs, and with him was Sir
Robert Hart, the Englishman who knew more about China than any other
living westerner. In Hooley's private room, one would meet Arthur du Cros
who had more to do with the successful Dunlop promotion than any other
member of his family, and who afterwards became a member of Parliament
and was knighted, I believe, for this achievement: an alert, intelligent man, a
good organizer, but intensely combative. In another room a nobleman who

752

had come to sell Hooley the Prince's yacht Britannia; in still another room, a
persuasive Spaniard, who appeared with the news that sugar had been made
from sea water, and all he wanted was a million for the discovery. From room
to room went Hooley, a rather tall, well-made man with black hair, black
beard, black moustache, a long beaked Jewish nose, and long half-closed
Jewish eyes, well dressed and always polite without a particle of "side," too
earnestly busy to show any conceit. He told me at once that Broadley had
been very useful to him and he hoped that I should be. I replied that I was
quite willing to follow my friend Broadley's lead; and after two minutes' talk
Hooley hurried away to another room.
From that time on I went up to the Midland Grand Hotel practically twice a
week, and soon became conversant with Hooley's financial methods and with
many of Hooley's ideas. He certainly knew more about the value of land in
England than any one I had ever seen, and he had a perfectly open mind for
any and every scheme, and was most easy of access. In his bankruptcy two
years afterwards, the official receiver proved that Hooley had made over six
millions of hard cash in just these two years. Hooley himself always said that
he had made a million and a half over the Dunlop promotion alone. His
astounding success can only be explained by the fact that he was lifted on
the most astonishing wave of prosperity that perhaps has ever been known in
any country—never in my thirty years of residence has London known so
prosperous a period; and Hooley was an optimist to the fingers' tips, suited
perfectly to the time, without a suspicion that there could be a change in
feeling or a slump in finance.
When I got to know him pretty well, I found to my amazement that he had a
man named Martin Rucker for a partner, who never helped him in any way;
and it was months before I learned that Rucker had been a bicycle agent and
had put some money in with Hooley at the very beginning and had remained
with him as a sort of deadweight ever afterwards. It was he, in fact, who
brought about Hooley's first fall.
I soon got the idea that the best companies to promote would be those which
had spent most in advertising in the past and were therefore widely known. I
put this idea to Hooley, and he accepted it at once. "You ought to turn Bovril
into a company," I said, "because every one knows of it and it would go like
wildfire; and Schweppe's soda water, too."
"Go to it," said Hooley; "get me an option on any such concern, bring it to me,
and you can count on a fair deal."
I immediately went to work to get to know the owners of Bovril: it was really
in the hand of one person, a Mr. Johnson, I think. Coming from Hooley, I was
admirably received and soon found that the company was making something
over a hundred thousand pounds a year, and that they wanted a good deal
over a million for it. I went with the news to Hooley, who told me to go ahead
if the figures were correct. I returned and began to bargain; the seller wanted

753

about a million and a half, and I wanted to bring him to a million and a
quarter. We had practically decided on a million and three hundred and
fifty thousand pounds, when one day he laughed at me and told me that he
had accepted an offer of two millions that day, that it was all settled and that
Hooley was the purchaser. I drove immediately to the Midland Grand Hotel
to see Hooley and found it was all true.
"You were too slow, my boy," he said, "much too slow: another man told me he
could get it for two millions and I told him to put it through, and I gave him a
check as deposit."
"You have done me out of the ten percent which you promised me," I said,
"because I was trying to get it under a million and a half, and it was
practically settled."
"Don't talk like that:" cried Hooley, "do you wish to show your brains? In that
room there are twenty financiers, all rich men; you know more about Bovril
than almost any one; you have been at it over a fortnight; go in and persuade
them that two millions is a fair price and I will give you ten thousand at once.
Is it a deal?"
"I'll do my best," I said.
Hooley opened the door and introduced me to a crowded room with the
words, "Frank Harris has been looking into Bovril for a month, knows all
about it, and is prepared to show you that two millions is a low price for it." A
large man thrust himself forward at once, whom I afterwards knew as Nocton,
a very able solicitor. "Have we the figures correct," he said, "that Bovril has
never made one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in a year? If so, it ought
to be capitalized at about a million and a half at the very outside. Why
should two millions be given for it?"
"The growth of the business in the last five years," I said, "since they began to
advertise widely, has been most extraordinary: the income has more than
doubled, has practically grown from fifty thousand a year to one hundred
and forty thousand; it is only fair to suppose that it will grow in the same
proportion in the next five years, and even more, for as a Hooley promotion it
will be advertised everywhere and should therefore be cheap at three
millions. Besides, it has no competitors and it has become a household name
in Great Britain. Given a proper prospectus, every one will take shares in
Bovril."
"You are evidently the man to write it," said Nocton. And from that time we
were friends, for Hooley backed up the idea at once.
I got away as soon as possible, seeing that I was not wanted. In ten minutes
Hooley came to me in another room. "You have done the trick, my boy; a cool

754

million has been subscribed on my terms, and I owe you ten thousand. Will
you have it in cash or shares?"
"Half cash, half shares," I said.
"Good for you," he said, and then and there wrote me a check for five
thousand pounds and a note to say that I should have five thousand shares
when the Bovril promotion was completed. While he was writing, another
thought came into my head: "Why not let me sketch out the prospectus, as
Nocton suggested?"
"You are trenching on Broadley's domain," he said, "and I have almost
promised it to someone else: still, there is five thousand pounds in it—go to
it—if your argument is the best, you will probably get it."
"Thanks," I said, and away I went.
The greater part of my scheme appeared later as the Bovril prospectus. I had
taken pains to study the law and to keep within it in every particular.
I won't attempt to describe all my further financial ventures with Hooley; it is
enough to say that I took a small part in several of his promotions, like the rest
of his supporters. I would put in, say, five thousand pounds in cash, on
condition that I got ten thousand in cash or shares if the deal came off
successfully. I remember particularly taking such a share in the Schweppe
promotion, which was not one of his great successes, and he left some three
thousand pounds unpaid to me.
His failure was astonishingly sudden. Martin Rucker, his partner, wanted to
buy an estate and become a country gentleman, and finally settled with
Hooley for a million pounds cash for his half share. Hooley gave him the
million cash, although Broadley and I both protested that it was madness to
strip himself of so great a sum in cash; but Hooley was not to be argued with
or persuaded. He gave the million and Rucker was seen no more. But almost
immediately the financial tide which had so far been on the flow began to
ebb. Hooley involved himself in Manchester in the Trafford Park scheme, and
suddenly became in need of cash: the banks, as usual scenting necessity, drew
in their credits, and Hooley, though several times a millionaire on paper, was
soon in financial difficulty.
He explained all this to Broadley and myself at some length, and it occurred
to me that I might be able to interest Beit in his schemes and so float Hooley
over his difficulty. I went to Beit and talked the Trafford Park scheme at some
length. It was really a great enterprise: Beit, seeing it, at once promised his
support on conditions. "We will go in as partners," he said, "on an even
footing; I will put up five hundred thousand pounds and so must Hooley, and
the scheme shall be developed by him, and we will divide afterwards."

755

Greatly excited, I hurried back to Hooley and told bun how I had succeeded;
he too was delighted. We were to meet Beit on the following Monday for
lunch at the Savoy Hotel, and the provisional partnership would then be
concluded. But on the Thursday Hooley came to me and told me that he
could only raise three hundred and fifty thousand pounds in cash, that his
banks had refused him the other one hundred and fifty thousand, and
therefore he would put up shares for double the amount. I begged him not to
alter the agreement in any way; I felt certain that as soon as the cooperation
was whispered, a dozen of Beit's friends would be dead against his
participation with Hooley.
Hooley went again to the banks and returned to me on the Saturday saying,
"It is impossible; I can put up four hundred thousand, but the last one hundred
thousand must be made up by shares."
I begged him to use every effort, and he said that he had—it was impossible,
so I went to the lunch with Beit alone to tell him Hooley's latest decision. The
moment I described his position, Beit said, "That settles it; my partner has
been terribly against the whole business. Wernher won't hear of Hooley, and
now as I can get out without breaking my word, I won't go on."
I went back and told Hooley and found him in a strange mood. He didn't care
what happened; it didn't matter, for they couldn't take away his ability to
make money. The Trafford Park scheme was the best in the world; he would
work it through somehow: Beit's aid was not so important.
"Beit," I said, "could put ten millions cash on the table if he wanted to; with
his backing, you would have been the strongest financial force in England,
that is to say, in the world today. I am very sorry."
A little later Hooley announced coolly that he was going into bankruptcy. "It
seems to me to be pure madness," I said to Broadley. But Hooley went on like
a naughty child, who, having wet one toe by chance, would wade into the
gutter to his neck. He made himself a bankrupt and shortly afterwards was
sent to Brixton Prison for a year, apparently to teach him that to lose six
million in England was a crime.
Of course, he often exaggerated and talked wildly; it was part of the
optimistic nature of the man and a consequence of his astonishing success; but
I don't believe that Hooley ever tried to cheat any one dishonorably (sic) in
his life. I have done business with a great many men in London, and think
Hooley as honest, perhaps even more honorable, than most of the men I have
worked with.
When he came out of prison, I met him by chance in the Strand and of course
held out my hand and greeted him as of old. "You know," he said, "I have just
come out of Brixton?"

756

"Yes," I replied, "but that doesn't alter my opinion of you. When will you dine
with me?"
He was very much obliged to me, he said, but he was going back to Risley
Park, which he had settled on his wife after his Dunlop success. He told me
that I was one of the few people who hadn't altered to him. Away he went,
and I have not seen him since, though I understand that his book describing
his career has been a best seller.
One curious thing happened which tinged my liking for Hooley with a shade
of doubt. Broadley declared that he was not fair to us, and I found out that
that was the case. When I sent my claim in for the three thousand pounds
unpaid over Schweppe's to the official receiver, I got a letter from him that
made me gasp. He asked me to define the debt and how it had been incurred.
I told him that I had put up five thousand pounds in the Schweppe promotion
on Hooley's undertaking to pay ten thousand cash or shares, as I might decide
after the promotion. I had received seven thousand in cash and no more. The
official receiver answered me, saying that he was very sorry to question my
word, but could I get any proof that I had put up the five thousand pounds. I
went at once to my bank—Coutts's—got the original check endorsed by
Hooley and took it to the official receiver in person and asked him for an
explanation; I thought his request extraordinary. The moment he saw the
check his manner altered; he became cordial. "You have no idea," he said. "I
have got claims from a dozen journalists, but no one else except yourself
helped Hooley with the cash. Here is Mr. So and So who is asking for twenty
thousand, yet he never advanced a penny. Please forgive me if I thought that
you were like the rest, claiming money without having risked any."
The thought came to me afterwards that Hooley had misrepresented me, as
Broadley said; but I imagine that it was only because he classed all
journalists together in a lump. He was careless, but not malevolent.
For some reason or other the Daily Mail was always against me, and in this
matter of Hooley's bankruptcy it more than hinted that I was trying to get
money without having done anything for it. Curiously enough, the result of
the investigation of the official receiver cleared me and established the fact
that the Daily Mail correspondent was one of those who had claimed money
without having given any quid pro quo. Harry Marks, too, of the Financial
News, was astonished to hear that I had put up money with Hooley.
"I am claiming twenty thousand pounds from his estate," he said, "but I never
gave him any money. He never asked me for it."
Hooley's example taught me the value of company promoting, and I resolved
sooner or later to market the twenty-odd thousand shares I still possessed in
the Saturday Review.

757

CHAPTER VII.
THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR:
MILNER AND CHAMBERLAIN;
KITCHENER AND ROBERTS

ALL THESE YEARS, '97 and '98, in which I had sketched out my
Shakespeare book and written half a dozen new stories, I had come more and
more to feel that I must do my own work and that the drudgery of journalism
was interfering with the real business of my life. The public spirit of the time,
too, didn't please me. It was evident to me that Chamberlain was seeking to
establish British authority, or as he would have said, British supremacy, in
South Africa. At length came the news that Alfred Milner was appointed by
Chamberlain as Governor General, and was to be sent out to the Cape with
full authority.
Ever since Harold Frederic introduced me to Alfred Milner, when we were
all in the thirties, I had thought of him as the most perfect example of a
modern German in mind that I had ever seen. Both in defects and in qualities,
he was characteristically German and not English. For the German trusts
reason and knows thoroughly what he has learned, while the best
Englishman has a subconscious belief that there are instincts higher than
reason, and he has never learned anything deeply enough to feel that he
knows it as a master. These immature spiritual antennae are what makes the
Englishman the tragic creature he often is in practical life, and the lovable
person he is at his best; and their absence gives the German his supremacy in
the present and forecasts perhaps his comparative failure in the future.
Now Harold Frederic was a great friend of Milner, and he had told me a good
deal about him and his imperialistic views. I became a little anxious and saw
Beit on the matter, but he assured me there was nothing important afoot, and
at the same time he wanted to know why I had not asked him to take any
shares in the Saturday Review. I told him he could take five thousand
whenever he pleased; and he took five thousand and gave me his check;
others took shares too, especially when a dividend of five per cent was
declared on the capital. I was on easy street as regards money, but still a little
doubtful of the political situation, when Harold Frederic came and said he
was giving a big dinner at the Savoy Hotel to Milner on his appointment to
South Africa, and asked me to speak at the dinner. I said I should be glad to.
Harold Frederic in his speech talked of Milner and himself as only a man of
genius could talk. He spoke first of Milner's generous recognition of other
men; how he had pressed work upon him and praised his writing
enthusiastically; he gave this as a sign of kindness of heart, whereas in Milner
it was merely the efficiency of the bureaucrat. Then he spoke of Milner's
career.
"From the first," he said, "at Oxford, even, the English had picked Milner out
for a high position. He had had a German training and had won besides all
sorts of scholastic honors at Oxford. We all knew when he arrived in London

758

and became Stead's assistant on the Pall Mall Gazette that he was sure to
come to honor, and all of us are glad now to congratulate him," for he's a jolly
good fellow, and so forth.
Milner said little or nothing, did not commit himself in any way, whereas I
spoke with perfect frankness. I said that the Englishman who went out to
South Africa with power and who brought the Boers and British to mutual
trust and harmony would do great work; but such a heaven-sent diplomatist
would have to show sympathy with the Boers from the very outset. The
English, of course, would trust him; he should make it his first object to win the
confidence of the Boers, who were naturally suspicious. The British Empire
extended north of the Transvaal over the whole central plateau of Africa to
Nairobi or to Khartoum, or, if you wished, to Cairo; surely from the Transvaal
border to Khartoum was enough for British colonization in the next two
hundred years.
"There," I went on, "was the most fruitful land in the world, and the best
climate in the world; and I think a great colonizing effort should be made, for
all the unemployed in Britain might be established on that magnificent
plateau and thus extend and consolidate the greatest empire on earth. The
first essential to success," I insisted, "was to win the Boers by treating them
fairly. They were not anti-English; they were, in spite of the war of 1880 and
in spite of the Jameson Raid, inclined to be pro-English; and as soon as
Krueger died the English colonists in the Transvaal would be accorded full
citizen rights. The Boers would do this so much the quicker if the land to the
north of the Transvaal were settled up by Englishmen. Why shouldn't the
next colonial Governor be the Moses of this new Exodus? On the other hand,
if the new Governor quarreled with the Boers and excited that dislike which
lay so near ignorance, he might have a war on his hands that would sow evil
broadcast and would retard the development, not only of South Africa, but
also of Great Britain."
I did my very best in this sense. A good many people applauded me, but after
the dinner, when Harold Frederic and I strolled together to the Liberal Club
and I congratulated him on one of the best speeches I had ever heard, he said:
"My dear Harris, I never made a good speech before in my life, and you
usually talk well, but tonight I thought you were at your worst; you showed
such distrust of Milner. I assure you, he's a Radical and a good fellow."
"I don't believe he's a Radical; he's a German and he'll fail ruinously in South
Africa. He'll bring war. You've only to look at him; he frightens me."
Lord Desborough came to me afterwards and said that he agreed with a good
many of my ideas, but he wished that I could really meet Milner because
Milner was a prince of good fellows and absolutely fair-minded. Finally he
invited me to lunch with him at Willis' rooms; and I lunched there a week
later with Milner and Lord Desborough.

759

It was at this time the fashionable rendezvous for lunch in London, and I
noticed that three or four people, whom I had known socially, treated me
with marked coldness. I was put down as a lover of the Boers, and a good
many of the governing class disliked my attitude intensely. Man after man
came out and bowed to Milner and Desborough in the pleasantest way, while
contenting themselves with the merest nod to me. After lunch Milner went
away and Desborough remarked to me that he had never known Milner so
cautious: "He didn't speak his mind or give us even an inkling of what he
thought." But I still believed that it was absolutely impossible for any English
governor to be mad enough to make war with the Boers. "After all," I said to
Lord Desborough, "they are the real colonists in South Africa; except the
gold hunters in Johannesburg and the diamond diggers in Kimberley, there
are no Englishmen outside of Natal and the Cape. Will Milner go in for
colonization and make for himself a deathless reputation, or will he proceed
to quarrel with the Boers?" I knew at the bottom of my heart that Krueger
would quarrel with any one: was indeed as combative as a bull-terrier.
Desborough could tell me nothing, except that he hoped for the best; still, he
felt pretty sure that Milner would do what Chamberlain wished and always
act in the best interests of England. We had to leave it at that.
In due time Milner went out to South Africa, and in my mind's eye I saw a
meeting between him and President Krueger.
Milner tall, thin, with shaven, stony face, calm, direct regard and immaculate
attire, the type of clean, intelligent efficiency; and Oom Paul, huddled in his
armchair, looking like a sick gorilla with a fringe of thick, dirty hair under his
heavy animal face, and small hot eyes glinting out under the bushy brows:
the one man ignorant to the point of believing the world to be flat, the other
intelligent and equipped with all the learning of the schools; and yet
Krueger a great heart and great man, and Milner small and thin, proud of
easily holding his emotions in leash to his reason. I dreaded the clash, for
behind Milner was all the power of Britain, and yet Krueger was right: "We
Boers hold South Africa; you can't get rid of us; it is foolish to bully your
bedfellow."
Milner's first speech at Graaf Reinet taught me all that I wished to know
about him, and more. The gist of his speech, I shall never forget, and I don't
care to look out the words. "The Boers," he began, "talk about their loyalty: I
see no merit in this; I should think they would be loyal; they live in perfect
peace, protected by the might of England, by her armies and navies; loyalty
is a cheap price to pay for such complete security." And so he went on, as if
love were a thing to be bought and affection had a price. He had no
conception whatever that the ordinary Boer never dreamed of any attack
from the outside and would have laughed at the idea. The whole speech was
a British challenge; still, at first nothing seemed to come of it, and I gradually
settled down into the hope that no decisive issue would arise in my time.

760

I then went into one of the bad speculations of my life. I had got to know the
two managers of the Savoy Hotel, Ellis and Cesari, very well indeed. They
had made a success of the Savoy Hotel, and as soon as Cesari knew that I
came to the French Riviera nearly every winter, he told me that he could
make a marvelous success of a hotel at Monte Carlo. Next winter I came
down and saw some hotels which were for sale. I didn't care for any of them,
but when I spoke to the Princess of Monaco about it, she said she would be
delighted to make any hotel I took a success so far as it lay in her power; and
so I told Cesari that if he could find a good hotel as an investment I might
take a hand in it, for I had already bought a good deal of property on the Cap
d'Estel between Monte Carlo and Eze, and would be glad to develop a hotel
or reserve on it.
The next winter, Cesari came out and soon told me that he had discovered a
wonderful hotel. I went to Monte Carlo and saw it, didn't think much of it, but
allowed myself to be persuaded. Cesari played me false, spent some
thousands of pounds on the furnishings of the hotel, and some thousands of
pounds more on wine, and the first season was fairly successful. Unluckily for
me, about this time one of De Lara's brothers took an interest in a hotel in
Monte Carlo, and Princess Alice went continually to that hotel and left me in
the lurch, saying that her husband didn't wish her to come to my place. This
only made me the more obstinate, and I determined to build a reserve; I got
estimates for ten thousand pounds, set the men to work under Cesari's
supervision, but as my bad luck would have it, the managership of a great
hotel in Paris was offered to Cesari, and he left me practically without notice.
At the crucial moment I suddenly found myself called away to South Africa
again. Milner was pushing matters to an extremity. I went out and saw to my
horror that he had brought it almost to war. I returned to London, determined
to see Chamberlain in order to try to save England from what I regarded as a
catastrophe.
I wrote to Chamberlain and asked him to give me an hour of his time; and he
was good enough to consent. He had altered in many ways since we parted
over the policy of the Fortnightly Review. He had given up his belief in Free
Trade and had come to see that a closer union of England and her colonies
was only to be achieved by "Fair Trade," but as soon as I spoke of South Africa
I found that he disagreed with me. The English Empire, he thought, must be
founded on justice, strict justice; and Krueger and his Boers were unjust to the
English settlers in Johannesburg, who had made the Transvaal the richest
state in South Africa and yet were denied any rights of citizenship. I learned
from him that he meant to force the Boers and Krueger to act justly. I tried to
argue with him as I have argued in these pages, but nothing I could say had
any effect. It all seemed sun-clear to him, whereas I knew that the use of force
must lead to a South African war, which could have nothing but evil results. I
did my very best; I went so far as to plead with bun that he might assure
Krueger that England would guarantee the independence of the Transvaal
on condition that he gave rights of citizenship to the Johannesburgers; but

761

the more I pleaded, the more I felt that it was all in vain; Chamberlain's mind
was made up. He had the best of the verbal argument, and power to boot; and
Krueger would have to give in. I was perfectly certain that Krueger would
never give in.
A little while later Lord Hardwicke came to me and wanted to know
whether I would sell the Saturday Review. I said that I had no objection.
There were only about ten or twelve thousand shares which hadn't been
taken up, besides the reserved shares—the few hundreds reserved for me. I
asked him did he wish to get control in order to change the editorship, or was
he willing to keep me on as editor. He said that he didn't think there was any
wish to change me; so the end of it was that I sold him the ten or twelve
thousand shares, which gave him, or rather Beit and Rhodes, the control of
the Saturday Review.
Some months later, Hardwicke told me that "they wanted to treat me fairly,
but the policy of the Review in regard to South Africa must be modified to
suit Chamberlain and Rhodes; would I do it, or would I re-sign?"
"It's a perfect impasse," I said. "You have got the voting power on everything
except the vote for the editor and his assistants, and that is controlled by the
five hundred shares which I possess and will not part with."
A few weeks passed and he came to me and asked me if I would please put a
price on those five hundred shares. I had already had thirty thousand pounds
out of the Saturday Review for the five thousand I had put in it, and I had
come to see that it was necessary for me to give all my time to writing. Still, I
did not want to lose the Saturday, so I put the prohibitive price of ten
thousand pounds on the five hundred reserved shares; to my astonishment he
came to me a little later with his check for ten thousand pounds. I could do
nothing but resign myself, which I did the more easily as it freed me to do my
own work as a writer, and particularly the work on Shakespeare that I was
anxious to complete.
I went away immediately to the South of France and began to work seriously
at the "Shakespeare." It was nearly twenty years since I had discovered him
in his works; in all these years I had read him again and again for various
qualities to make sure that my version of him was the correct one. The work
was entrancing to me, but difficult. I had continually to be on my guard not to
ascribe any of my own failings to him; fortunately for me, the differences in
character and development were so marked it was not impossible to picture
him in almost every trait.
In this summer of '99 I got the first rough sketch of the book down on paper. In
reading it through, I was delighted with the portrait, when suddenly the
papers told me that Milner had met President Krueger in South Africa and
had failed utterly to come to any understanding with him, and thereupon
Milner had sent a telegram to Chamberlain, which filled me with fear: it was

762

the special pleading of an advocate, an advocate, too, who cared nothing for
the Boers or South African opinion. I saw at once that Milner had adopted
Chamberlain's position from one end to the other.
Now for the first time I felt how wrong I had been to give up the Saturday
Review; and, it began to dawn upon me, it was because Rhodes and
Chamberlain were determined to push the matter to war that Beit and
Hardwicke had bought control of the Saturday. Chamberlain began to send
troops to South Africa, and then another voice, and a great one, made itself
heard distinctly.
At this very time, the greatest living woman writer, Olive Schreiner, wrote an
impassioned article (afterwards published under the title Words in Season),
pleading for fair play to the Dutch and for a policy of conciliation, just as I
had pleaded.
It didn't seem possible that England would attempt to use force against the
Transvaal, but I was frightened as Olive Schreiner was, and month by month
the fear grew. One thing was certain: Chamberlain and Milner could make
war if they wished, and it grew plainer and plainer that they meant to; they
pushed Krueger to concession after concession, then declared them all
worthless; and in the meantime English troops kept pouring into Natal and
Cape Town. The old gorilla had to fight. War! The shame and horror of it ate
into my very heart.
Almost the last thing I wrote in the Saturday Review was a prediction that if
the English made war in South Africa, it would last for years and cost them
two hundred millions of money and would alter none of the essential
conditions. In fact, it would be at best labor and lives lost, the most brainless
adventure that England ever engaged in. Years afterwards some London
paper reproduced this prediction of mine as extraordinarily correct, and I
remember Winston Churchill asking me one day how I had come to be so
right.
"I wasn't right," I replied, "the war cost England more than a thousand
millions."
"What do you mean?" he asked in astonishment.
"When you speak of what it cost," I said, "you reckon up the money paid out,
but you don't count the financial consequences. Consols before the war were
114; after the war they were 94 or 5: there was a loss of twenty points of some
eight hundred millions of money; but if you lost one hundred and fifty
millions on Consols, you lost two hundred millions on your railroads, and a
proportionate sum on all the other industries. That ineffably stupid, brainless
war cost over a thousand millions of English money, and nothing, less than
nothing, was gamed by it. You won contempt and hatred in South Africa and
gained nothing, not even fighting fame. Campbell-Bannerman was quite

763

right in giving back their independence to the Boers: it was the only thing to
do; but even that didn't atone for the atrocious bloodshed and wanton loss."
The mere attempt to coerce Krueger showed such manifest stupidity that it
forced me to doubt the English race, doubt whether they had political
wisdom enough to carry out a great policy and be worthy of their astounding
birthright.
Instead of beginning to settle up the great plateau of Africa from the north of
the Transvaal to the Zambesi, they spent a thousand millions in ruining their
prestige in Africa and bringing mourning into thousands of homes for no
reason. But even Olive Schreiner could not stop Chamberlain from sending
British soldiers into Natal to bring pressure on Krueger, and Milner went on
talking and telegraphing rabid nonsense to excite the combative English
feeling; and at length came the war.
By this time I had finished the first draft of my book on Shakespeare and was
back in England; before even the war was declared, I went to see Lord
Wolseley, who had been a friend of mine for a great many years. It was at the
end of the summer before the war was declared that I asked him in his room
in the War Office whether there was going to be war. He told me it was
practically decided. I said, "How terrible! What a dreadful calamity!"
He sprang up from the table. "We are making no mistake this tune," he said.
"I'll send out an army corps and bring it to a quick ending."
"You don't really think," I said, "that an army corps will be sufficient?"
"There are not more than forty or fifty thousand Boers," he said. "I reckon that
forty or fifty thousand British soldiers should be enough for them, and more
than enough."
"You don't know the country," I said, "nor the Boers: two army corps, four, five
army corps will not be enough."
He lifted his hands in amused deprecation. "You don't know our English
soldiers," he said; "at any rate, Buller is going out; he knows the Boers."
"Buller!" I cried, and as soon as possible I went away. The next day I went and
called on Buller and had a talk with him. I had known him, too, for many
years, and had always looked upon him as a big foolish person, only to be
tolerated because of his charming wife, Lady Audrey; but in this
conversation, Buller surpassed himself.
"What are your tactics?" I asked. "Where are you going to land?"
"Oh, I suppose it will be Durban," he said; "the nearest way to the Transvaal is
through Natal."

764

"But all Cape Colony will be seething," I said, "on the other side of you. The
young Boers there will be able to go up through the Free State to the aid of
their cousins in the Transvaal. What is your policy?"
"There is only one policy in war," replied Buller. "Get alongside the other
fellow and give him hell."
"But suppose he won't let you get alongside of him," I said.
"There if, never any difficulty," he said, "if you want to fight."
A few months later I read of a scene that came vividly before me as pictured
in the London papers—Buller with an army of thirty thousand men brought
to a standstill by the shooting of two or three thousand Boers hidden on the
other side of a river. He sent out artillery and soon the sharp-shooting Boers
had killed every one of the gunners and then sent a force across the river to
take the British guns and dump them in the river; it was done without loss:
Buller with a force outnumbering the Boers ten to one beaten to a standstill
by sharp-shooters who could use cover!
It was in late December or early January, after the war had begun, that Lord
Desborough asked me to lunch at the Bath Club, and at the beginning of the
lunch he said: "I have asked Harris to come here because he was the only
person to predict that the British forces would have many defeats. When
Chamberlain asked for a credit of ten millions and everyone said that the
war wouldn't last three weeks, no one except Harris saw that after three
months we should need a credit of a hundred millions and should feel
dreadfully disappointed at the outcome."
'Twas just after Spion Kop, I remember, when Buller had tried to occupy the
little mountain and a couple of thousand men he sent up were beaten by a
few hundred Boers so that they had to be withdrawn the same day. The Times
had just published a dispatch of Buller, in which he said that he had
retreated from Spion Kop without losing a gun or an ammunition wagon. An
army general at Grenfell's lunch started the talk by declaring that that was a
splendid message of Buller—that he retreated from Spion Kop without
losing a gun or ammunition wagon.
"Or," I added interrupting, "a moment's time."
Everyone laughed; but the general got very red. When Grenfell pressed me
for my opinion, I said, "I am sorry to say that I think the English will win; the
Boers have made as bad blunders as the English: they have been led away by
the memory of '80-81 and by Buller's attack, and have gone to fight in Natal;
they should have left only a small force on the frontier and gone down into
Cape Colony to get recruits, where they could have got a hundred thousand
men of their own race to help them. Because they have not done this, they
will be beaten. The next English general will land in Cape Town and go up

765

through Cape Colony, and in a month or so the whole aspect of the war will
have changed.
"But nothing alters the fact that the war is the worst one that the English
have ever been engaged in, except, indeed, their terrible defeat in the
Argentine, which no one seems to remember. But this is even worse, for South
Africa was already practically Anglicized, made English in sentiment from
one end of the country to the other.
"I remember spending an evening with General Cronje, who was a typical
Boer, but his daughters would talk of nothing except of the dramas on the
London stage and how they longed to go for a night to Covent Garden to
hear Grand Opera."
I must have spoken with intense bitterness because at the end of the lunch
Lord Desborough, in saying "Good-bye" to me, said: "I am afraid, Harris, we
must part; when you speak against England as you do, it is like speaking
against my mother; I cannot bear it. I am sorry, but we mustn't meet again."
I realized then that I was completely out of touch with the English, and as the
gloomy days went on, I came to be more and more isolated.
I don't know how to express what I felt about that inexcusable war and my
detestation of the men who brought it about. I think everyone who reads
what I have written about Joseph Chamberlain and Alfred Milner must
admit that I have treated them more than fairly, with sympathy, indeed, and
a desire, above all, to omit no good feature of character, no gift of intellect.
But they worked together to bring about the South African war, and
afterwards I always said and felt that they were viler than any criminal, two
of those whom Dante meant when he said they were hated of God and of His
enemies.
After the war, Chamberlain invited me to dinner and I replied, regretting
that I couldn't accept. He met me a day or two afterwards in the lobby of the
House of Commons and came up to me, smiling.
"Your letter rather surprised me," he said. "I thought we were friends and that
you would tell me when you would be free, in case you had an engagement."
I replied, "I am very sorry, Mr. Chamberlain, but I can only see you as the
maker of the war in South Africa and I cannot meet you with any decent,
friendly feeling. I think it a horrible thing to have done. I mustn't speak about
it or I should be insulting, and I have no wish to insult you."
"I am sorry," he replied, "but I did what I regarded as my duty."
I said, "I know, but the word 'duty' is worse than prostituted," and I hurried
away.

766

Milner, too, I saw afterwards, met in fact at a certain house, but when he spoke
to me I went past him as if I hadn't seen or heard him. I was told afterwards
that both Chamberlain and Milner spoke of me as a "savage without
manners," but there are higher laws than those of manners.
Swinburne wrote a shameful sonnet in August, 1899, which was printed in
The Times in defense of the war. He speaks of the Boers as "dogs, agape with
jaws afoam," and ends with
Strike, England, and strike home.
Meanwhile, Lord Roberts had taken over the commander-in-chief-ship and
the whole war had altered. I did not know Roberts at all well. Years before,
he had invited Sir Charles Dilke to pay him a visit on the northwest frontier
of India and see what he had done with the British forces in Afghanistan.
Dilke asked me to go with him and at first I consented eagerly, but when I
talked it over with Wolseley, he persuaded me that I was wrong: he told me
that Roberts had nothing in him at all—was a little fighting Irishman under
the thumb of his wife, Lady Roberts; he was sure I should only be losing my
time. I could see no reason for Wolseley's condemnation, for I had always
found him fair minded: I took his advice in this instance and told Dilke I
couldn't go with him; and so I missed Roberts. Towards the end of the year
1899 a story was told me which led me to think that I would have to alter my
opinion about him.
When it became plain that Buller could do nothing except make a fool of
himself in South Africa, and lead his troops to defeat and disaster, the
Defense Committee under Lord Hartington got together to consider matters,
and for some unknown reason they all agreed that Roberts ought to be sent
out; but the Secretary of State for War objected. "We passed Roberts over,"
he said, "who was the senior, and sent out Buller. How can we go back to
Roberts now? How can one confess such a blunder?"
"Quite easily," said Lord Hartington; "tell Roberts that we made fools of
ourselves and we are sorry for it and beg him to come to our help; say that
England wants him."
The moment the War Secretary broached the matter to Roberts, he
exclaimed, "At last, at last!"
The Secretary of War asked him what he meant. He replied, "You know they
sent me out in '80, but when I got to Cape Town I found that Gladstone had
just made peace after the bitter defeat of Majuba. The news sent me down to
my cabin crying with rage—to make peace after such a defeat!
But when I thought it over I felt certain that if I lived long enough my time
would come, so I resolved to give up drinking and smoking and live as long as
I could for the chance of redeeming our name; that's why I said, 'At last.'"

767

"I wanted to apologize," said the Secretary, "for passing you over and sending
Buller out."
"No apology needed," said Roberts, "I have my chance at last. I will do the
work; you can tell them so."
One day I read in the paper that Roberts when to church on Sunday at Cape
Town, and I must confess this gave me a shock, till a friend told me the story
that I have just told here. At any rate, Roberts went forward through Cape
Colony and through the Free State to the Transvaal and led his troops
against the chief force of the Boers under General Cronje and won a
complete victory—almost without loss. One word in the account made the
victory clear to me: the correspondent said that Roberts, holding the Boers in
front, made a flank attack.
When he returned to England a couple of years later, I got to know him, and
asked him, had I been right in my thought about his tactics.
He said, "Quite right. The Boers had come from all parts of a country three
times as big as England: the Boers from the north of the Transvaal couldn't
possibly know anything about the Boers from the south, so when they were
on the battlefield I knew that there could be no cohesion among them; and at
the same time, I realized perfectly that they were far better shots than the
troops of my army, so I protected my front with a cross fire of artillery while
attacking their flanks, and at once saw I was justified; the Boers began to
retreat; successive flank attacks broke up the whole organization, and my
artillery turned the retreat into a rout."
The bringing of two or three hundred thousand English soldiers up through
Cape Colony and the Free State held Cape Colony to quietude, and the
brains of Lord Roberts did the rest. The defeat and retreat of Cronje was the
turning point of the war.
People still talk of Kitchener as if he had been the equal of Roberts, and I
have heard the victory in South Africa attributed to his generalship, so I must
tell what I think of Kitchener. I had met him first when I was in Cairo fifteenodd
years before. I had gone out partly to cure bronchitis and partly to get an
understanding of Egypt. I met Sir Evelyn Baring, now Lord Cromer, in Cairo;
and he introduced me to his assistant, who was a far abler man, Gerald Portal,
afterwards Sir Gerald Portal, who died all too soon for England.
Gerald Portal came and lunched and dined with me at Shepheard's Hotel,
and took me to the English Club; and at the English Club one day he asked
me whether I knew Kitchener; I shook my head. "The Chief," he said, "Sir
Evelyn Baring, thinks a great deal of him, but I couldn't form such a high
opinion about him: he was so silent."

768

"I remember," I said, "my father telling me that the only way for a man of no
family and no wealth to get on in the English army or navy was either by
servility or silence. He added that I was incapable of both. Perhaps
Kitchener's trying silence!"
"I will go to Suakim," I added, "if you will give me a letter to him. I will see
Kitchener and let you know what I think of him."
I had already engaged in Cairo a Levantine Jew intepreter; he spoke English
nearly as well as I did, and boasted that he spoke perfect Arabic; it seemed to
me he knew nearly every known tongue, for his modern Greek was better
than mine, and his Italian perfect.
In due time I went to Suakim and called on Kitchener and was invited by him
to dinner. There were a couple of sheiks at the table, and from time to time
Kitchener spoke to them in Arabic. His French was not good, though I had
understood that he had passed some years as a young man in France. This
surprised me so much that I asked him whether he knew Arabic.
"I am pretty useful at it," he said.
When I got home I told my secretary what Kitchener had said. He burst out:
"I know Kitchener; I met him in Cyprus, worked for him: he knows no Arabic,
not he! He knows nothing: he's a mere ignorant bluff. I tell you what to do. I'll
teach you two or three Arabic proverbs; you shoot them off at dinner: the
sheiks will understand, but Kitchener won't."
He insisted so vehemently and so contemptuously about Kitchener's
ignorance that I resolved to put it to the test, for his manner at the dinner had
not impressed me; he had gotten his reputation through silence and not
through wisdom, in my opinion. So I spent an hour learning two or three
Arabic sentences till my secretary told me that I pronounced them perfectly.
The next night, dining again with Kitchener, I took the opportunity and shot
off the wittiest of them. The sheiks burst out laughing and answered me in
Arabic, and I grinned as if I understood what was said. Kitchener turned to
me and said, "You know Arabic?"
"Oh, I am not useful at it," I replied. But I noticed that after that he used no
more Arabic.
I came away from Suakim with the one word for Portal which I gave him the
first day at lunch. "No one," I said, "ever was so great a soldier as Kitchener
looks."
Some months later I found that Portal shared my contemptuous opinion of
Kitchener's ability. And the South African war only confirmed my opinion.
As soon as Roberts left South Africa, the war under Kitchener dragged on. He
founded a system of blockhouses, hoping to surround the Boers. I said his

769

blockhouses were made for blockheads and predicted that he would achieve
nothing with them; and he did achieve nothing, except waste of a huge sum.
When I got to know Lord Roberts after the war and came to a high
appreciation of his soldier's insight, I wanted to get his opinion of Kitchener,
and he gave it to me without circumlocution.
"You know," he said, "after beating Cronje by flank attacks, I sent Kitchener
after him to round the Boers up and bring them to surrender. He had seen
how I conducted the fight: I didn't dream of telling him anything about it; he
must have understood, I supposed. The next news I got was that he pursued
Cronje and his beaten force of four or five thousand men and attacked them
at Paardeberg. He attacked them in front and lost twelve hundred men in an
hour and had to draw off beaten. I almost cried when I heard it. When I came
up I found the Boers by the river and immediately began a cross fire of
artillery. The cross fire was deadly; the Boers took shelter in the river bed and
there I left them, keeping always a cross fire of artillery ready at all the
points they could get out. When they attempted to come out, they were met
by heavy artillery fire. Five days afterwards, they all surrendered with a loss
to us of under twenty men. I don't want to say anything against Kitchener: he
can't even see what is before his eyes; he can't even learn: he is a fool."
I said, "Did you tell them that at the Council of Defense?"
"No, no," said the little man laughing. "It wasn't my business to tell them. I
knew that when I got Cronje's force I had broken the back of the Boers in
South Africa, and even Kitchener couldn't utterly spoil the work done."
But the South African war dragged on under Kitchener till the Boers were
brought to submission with a promise of three or four millions to rebuild their
houses, and shortly afterwards Campbell-Bannerman was wise enough to
give them their liberty again and leave them in power in the Transvaal.
Today, from one end to the other, thanks to this piece of belated wisdom, the
Transvaal is as English as it was before the ineffably stupid Boer war.

770

CHAPTER VIII.
SAN REMO

I MUST NOW TELL the greatest amatory experience of my life. I had made a
great deal of money with Hooley, and was besides tormented with the wish to
complete at any cost my book on Shakespeare. I had done some chapters in
the Saturday Review, and Shaw, among others, had praised them highly. It
was and is my belief that Shakespeare has been mis-seen and misunderstood
by all the commentators. Ordinary men are always accustomed to make
their gods in their own image, and so the English had formed a Shakespeare
who loved his wife and yet was a pederast; who had made money at his
business and retired to enjoy his leisure as a country gentleman in village
Stratford after living through the bitter despair of Timon, and the madness of
Lear: "O, let me not be mad, Sweet Heaven ... I would not be mad!"
The only particle of truth in the fancy portrait has been contributed by Tyler,
who, inspired by Wordsworth's saying that in the sonnets Shakespeare
"unlocked his heart," proved that the sonnets showed that Shakespeare,
about 1596, had fallen in love with a maid-of-honor named Mary Fitton and
had been in love with her, as he said himself about 1600, for three years. I
came to Tyler's aid by proving that this episode had been dragged into three
different plays of the same period, and I went on to show that this love
episode had practically been the great love of Shakespeare's life, and had
lasted from 1596 to 1608. I proved also that though he disliked his wife, he
was perfectly normal; that his fortune rested on the gift of Lord Southampton
to him of a thousand pounds when he came of age in 1596; and that so far
from having increased his wealth and been a prudent husbandman, he had
never cared for "rascal counters," and died leaving barely one year's income,
probably after the drinking-bout of tradition, in which he had drunk perhaps
a little too much, for, to use his own words, he had "poor, unhappy brains for
drinking": a too highly powered ship for the frail hull! Does he not talk in The
Tempest of walking to "still his beating mind"?
All this and more I wanted to set forth, but was it possible to bring such a
totally new conception of Shakespeare into life, and so to prove it that it
would be accepted? I hated the English climate in the winter, and so I set off
in an October fog for the Riviera; and I don't know why, but I went through
Nice to San Remo. At San Remo, the hotel life quickly tired me, and I went
about looking for a villa. I discovered a beautiful villa with views over both
the mountains and the sea and a great garden; but alas, it was for sale and not
for hire, the gardener told me.
This gardener deserves a word or two of description. He was a rather small
man, perhaps forty-five or fifty years of age, a slight, strong figure, with an
extraordinarily handsome head, set off by quite white moustaches— the
suggestion of age being completely contradicted by the clearness of the skin
and the brightness of his eyes. Ten thousand pounds was wanted for the villa,
but the gardener told me that if I bought it, I could always sell it for as much
as I paid for it, or more. I took this assertion with a grain of salt, but the end of

771

it was that the gardener amused me so much that I bought the villa and went
to live in it.
I ordered my days at once for work and for the first week or two did work ten
or twelve hours a day, but one memorable afternoon I came upon the
gardener, whom I had taken into my service, reading Dante, if you please, in
the garden. I had a talk with him and found that he knew not only Dante, but
Ariosto, and Leopardi, and Carducci, and was a real student of Italian
literature. I passed a great afternoon with him, and resolved whenever I was
tired in the future to come out and talk with him.
Two or three days afterwards I was overworked again, and I went out to him
and he said: "You know, when I saw you at first, I thought we should have a
great time together here; that you would love life and love; and here you are
writing, writing, writing, morning, noon and night—wearing yourself out
without any care for beauty or for pleasure."
"I like both," I said, "but I came here to work; still, I shouldn't mind having
some distractions if they were possible; but what is possible here?"
"Everything," he replied. "I have been putting myself in your place: if I were
rich, wouldn't I enjoy myself in this villa!"
"What would you do?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I would give prizes for the prettiest girls, say one hundred
francs for the first; fifty francs for the second; and twenty-five as consolation
prizes if five or six girls came."
"What good would that do?" I asked. "You wouldn't get young girls that way,
and you certainly wouldn't get their love."
"Wouldn't I!" he cried. "First of all, in order to see who was the prettiest, they
would have to strip, wouldn't they? And the girl who is once naked before
you is not apt to refuse you anything."
I had come to a sort of impasse in my work; I saw that the whole assumption
that Shakespeare had been a boy lover, drawn from the sonnets, was
probably false, but since Hallam it was held by every one in England, and
every one, too, in Germany, so prone are men always to believe the worst,
especially of their betters—the great leaders of humanity.
Heinemann, the publisher, had asked me for my book on Shakespeare before
I left England, but as soon as I wrote him that I was going to disprove
Shakespeare's abnormal tastes, he told me that he had found every authority
in England was against me and therefore he dared not publish my book. Just
when I was making up my mind to set forth my conviction, came this proposal
of my gardener. I had worked very hard for years on the Saturday Review

772

and in South Africa, and I thought I deserved a little recreation; so I said to
the gardener, "Go to it. I don't want any scandal, but if you can get the girls
through the prizes, I will put up the money cheerfully and will invite you to
play master of ceremonies."
"This is Tuesday," he said. "I think next Sunday would be about the best day."
"As you please," I replied.
One Sunday, having given a conge to my cook and waiting-maid, I walked
about to await my new guests, the cook having laid out a good dejeuner with
champagne on the table in the dining-room. About eleven o'clock a couple
of girls fluttered in, and my gardener conducted them into two bedrooms and
told them to make themselves pretty and we would all lunch at half-past
twelve. In half an hour five girls were assembled. He put them all into
different rooms and went from room to room, telling them that they must
undress and get ready for inspection. There was much giggling and some
exclamations, but apparently no revolt. In ten minutes he came to me and
asked me, was I ready for inspection?
"Certainly," I said; and we went to the first room. A girl's head looked out
from under the clothes: she had got into bed. But my gardener knew better
than to humor her: he went over and threw down the bed clothes, and there
she was completely nude. "Stand up, stand up," he said, "you are worth
looking at!"
And indeed she was. Nothing loath, she stood on the bed as directed and lent
herself to the examination. She was a very pretty girl of twenty or twentyone;
and at length, to encourage her, he took her in his arms and kissed her. I
followed suit and found her flesh perfectly firm and everything all right,
except that her feet were rather dirty; whereupon my gardener said, "That's
easily remedied." We promised her a prize and told her that we would return
when she had washed and put on her clothes and made herself as pretty as
possible; and he led me into the next room.
The girl in this one was sitting on the bed, half-undressed, but she was very
slight and much younger, and evidently very much excited, because she
glowered at us as if she hated us. The moment we came into the room she
went for the gardener, telling him that if she had known it was required to be
naked, she wouldn't have come near us. The gardener kissed her at once and
told her not to be frightened, that she was pretty sure of winning a prize, and
she need not undress. And we went on to the third room.
There I had one of the surprises of my life: a girl stood on the rug near the bed
with the color coming and going in her cheeks; she was in her shirt, but with
her dress held round her hips. She, too, said she didn't want to strip—she
would rather go home.

773

"But nothing has happened to you," said the gardener. "Surely a couple of
men to admire you isn't going to make you angry; and that frown doesn't suit
your loveliness at all."
In two or three minutes the wily Italian had dissipated her anger and she
began to smile, and suddenly, shrugging her shoulders, she put down the
dress and then at once stood up at his request, trying to laugh. She had one of
the loveliest figures and faces that I ever saw in my life. Her breasts were
small, but beautifully rounded and strangely firm; her hips, too, and bottom
were as firm as marble, but a little slight. Her face was lit up with a pair of
great hazel eyes and her mouth, though a little large, was perfectly formed:
her smile won me. I told the gardener that I didn't want to see any more girls,
that I was quite content, and he encouraged me to kiss and talk to her while
he went into the next room to see the next applicant.
As soon as the gardener left the room, my beauty, whose name was Flora,
began questioning me: "Why do you choose me? You are the owner, aren't
you?"
I could only nod. I had sense enough to say, "Partly for your beauty, but also
because I like you, your ways, your courage."
"But," she went on, "real liking does not grow as quickly as that, or just by the
view of a body and legs."
"Pardon me," I rejoined, "but passion, desire in a man comes first: it's for the
woman to transform it into enduring affection. You like me a little because I
admire and desire you; it's for me by kindness and sympathy to turn that
liking into love; so kiss me and don't let us waste time arguing. Can you kiss?"
"Of course I can," she said, "every one can!"
"That's not true," I retorted. "The majority of virgins can't kiss at all, and I
believe you're a virgin."
"I am," she replied; "but you'll not find many in this crowd."
"Kiss me," I went on, taking her in my arms and kissing her till I found
response in hot lips. As she used her tongue, she asked roguishly, "Well, Sir,
can I kiss?"
"Yes," I replied, "and now I'll kiss you," and I laid her on the bed and buried
my face between her legs.
She was a virgin, I discovered, and yet peculiarly quick to respond to passion:
an astonishing mistress! She didn't hide from me the fact that, like most school
girls in Italy, as in France, she had been accustomed to provoke her own
sensuality by listening to naughty stories and by touching herself ever since

774

puberty. But what kept her from giving herself freely was her fear of the
possible consequences. My assurances seemed to have convinced her, for
suddenly she started up and danced round me in her fascinating nudity.
"Shall I have a prize?" "The first," I cried.
"Carissimo mio," and she kissed me a dozen tunes. "I'll be whatever you want
and cover you with love."
Our talk had gone on for perhaps half an hour, when a knock came at the
door, and the gardener came in to find us both quite happy and, I think,
intimately pleased with each other. He said, "The other two you had better
see or they will be disappointed, but I think you have picked the prettiest." "I
am quite content," I replied, "to rest on your approval of them." But my selfwilled
beauty said, "Let us go and see them; I will go with you," and we went
into the next room, said a few flattering things, and went on to the fifth room,
where there was a girl who said she wouldn't undress.
"At any rate," said the gardener, "the matter is settled; we can all go in and
have lunch, and then my master will give the prizes."
We had a great lunch, all helping each other and ourselves, and when the
champagne was opened, every one seemed to enjoy the feast infinitely. But
when the prize giving came, I was ashamed, hating to give one less than the
other, so I called the gardener to one side and told him my reluctance.
"Nothing easier," he said. "I have made you out to be a great English lord. Go
into that bedroom on the right and I will send them in one by one. If I were
you, I would give the two first prizes and I will give the consolation stakes."
"Splendid," I said, "but give me a reasonable half-hour before sending in the
second one." Flora came in and got her first prize, kissed me, and offered
herself to my desire by opening the bed. Then for some reason or other a good
idea came into my head.
I put up my hands. "That's for later, I hope," I exclaimed. "It means affection,
and you don't care for me yet; perhaps you will with tune, and if you don't, I'll
forgive you. There's no compulsion here."
"How good of you," she exclaimed. "Just for saying that I want to kiss you,
caro mio (you dear)," and she threw her arms round my neck and gave me a
long kiss.
Naturally, I unproved the occasion, and turned the kiss into an embrace by
putting my hands up her dress on her sex. After I had touched her for a
minute or so, she trembled and came, and as I put my arms round her and
kissed her, she kissed me passionately in return. "Carissimo mio," she
murmured, and hid her glowing cheek on my neck. While she was putting
her dress in order before the glass, she began talking quickly: "You know, I
hope this isn't the only time. I want to come back without any prize, for I like

775

you and you have been kind to me. I was frightened at first—you must forget
all that; you will, won't you? Cuore mio; I'll find new love names for you," and
she did.
"But why did you want to see us all naked," she went on, "we're all alike,
aren't we?"
"No, indeed," I cried, "you are all different."
"But you can't love one because her breasts are smaller than another's. No
woman would care for such a thing. I love your voice and what you say and
your eyes, but not your legs: fancy!" and she laughed aloud.
Finally she said, "When may I come again? soon, please!"
"Surely," I replied, "when will you come? I want your photograph."
"Any day you like," Flora said. And we fixed the meeting for Tuesday. She
went off delighted.
The next girl who came in was the young girl, the second we saw, who had not
undressed and who had declared that she wouldn't have come if she had
known the conditions. At once she said to me: "I don't mind undressing for
you: I know you now," and in a trice she had pulled her things off: she was
very pretty. I afterwards photographed her in the swing in the garden. But
she was nothing astonishing, just a very pretty and well-made girl of sixteen.
Her name, she told me, was Yolande; she lived with an aunt. I may have more
to tell of her later, though her quick temper made me avoid her.
When I gave her the second prize of seventy-five francs, she said, "You are
giving me the second prize; if I had been nicer you perhaps would have given
me the first."
Her frankness amused me. "Does it make much difference to you, the
difference between seventy-five and one hundred francs?"
She nodded her head: "It will make a difference to my dress," she said. "I want
pretty underthings"—and she curled up her nose.
"Well," I replied, "say nothing about it, and take another twenty-five francs."
At once she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me, and then, "May I
come back?"
"Sure, sure," I replied.
"May I bring some one else?"
"Any one you please," I said.

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That is about all I remember of the first seance, except that the beauty, Flora,
whom I have tried to describe, did not leave the villa till long after dinner.
When I talked with my gardener of the event afterwards, he told me that he
had preferred the youngest of all, whom I had not seen. "Clara," he said, "was
the prettiest of the lot." As I told him I thought her too thin for beauty and too
young to be mentally attractive, be promised to show me her nudity the next
Sunday. I wanted to know about the next Sunday. "Will you be able to get
three or four new girls?"
"Good God," he exclaimed, "twenty, if you like! These girls will whisper it all
about and you may be sure you will have an ever increasing number. This
villa is going to get a good name if you continue!"
"I will continue weekly," I said, "but if there are likely to be more girls, I might
bring a friend over from Monte Carlo, who happens to be there and who is
really an English lord."
"By all means," he said; "the more, the merrier."
Accordingly, I sent a telegram to my friend, Ernest — asking him to come
and spend a happy weekend with me. In due time he came. And it was well
that he did come, for the second week showed me that the gardener was
wiser and knew his country people better than I did: at least twenty girls
came to win prizes, girls of all ages from fifteen to thirty. My gardener
proposed that he should weed them out to six or seven, giving them
consolation prizes without stripping them. Both Ernest and I were quite
content, but we wanted to see his choice, and we were astonished by the
ability with which he made his selection: practically, we had to agree with
him. Twelve or fourteen girls were sent home with twenty-five francs each,
without any further attempt at discrimination; and our inspection began
without making me waver in my allegiance to Flora.
It was in these first weeks at San Remo that I began to discover that the body
was not so important in love or in passion as the mind and character. I had no
slightest desire to leave my beauty for any of the newer queens; and I didn't
want her to strip, even for Ernest's inspection, although she was willing to. But
I had become her lover now, and love desires exclusive possession.
The third meeting had a new termination. Another young Englishman,
named George —, a friend of Ernest, had fallen in love with one the week
before. We had the three queens, as we called them, to dinner, as well as to
lunch. After dinner the gardener appeared with one, and declared that if our
girls would strip, he would show that his was the prettiest of the lot. None of
the three girls minded: they were all willing, so we had another contest; but
we resolved to give the winner of this contest two hundred francs. I don't
believe that the famous choice of Paris, with the three queens of Heaven
before him, ever showed such beauties. I must try to describe them. Of two of

777

them I have photographs, which I must not reproduce; and the third, my
queen, I have already described. It is for my readers to use their imaginations.
And I cannot even give the photo of the gardener's choice, for she wasn't a bit
more than fourteen years of age. When we made fun of him about this, he
said philosophically, "I am older than you men, and I have noticed that the
older we get the younger we like the girls." On this we all burst out laughing.
My readers may compare the four beauties for themselves.
This was the first time in my life that I ever studied the sex of women; and it
was the gardener who brought it about. We had decided that all our three
beauties were lovelier than his, when he challenged us to a new test.
"What do we desire most in a girl?" he asked: "surely a small and well-made
sex. Well, I'll bet Clara has the smallest and best sex of the lot."
Ernest at once declared that the gardener was right; so we asked our beauties
to submit to his examination. They laughed at us but yielded to the general
wish. Clara won, as the gardener predicted; my Flora was second; Ernest's
beauty, third; and George's fourth. But all had to admit that from the outside
Flora's sex was the most perfectly formed.
We found that the chief centre of pleasure, as a rule, was the clitoris and that
almost in proportion to its size; sometimes it was not distinguishable, but in
the three beauties it was normal, whereas in Clara it was abnormally
developed—fully an inch long. The inner lips too, in her case, were very
heavy; and when the gardener told us that he had brought her twice to
fainting, we had to agree with him that she felt more acutely than any of the
rest.
Flora, however, disdained the test and said that she felt more at something
said, at a beautiful thought or fine deed than she ever felt by mere sexual
excitement.
One day Ernest and George went to Monte Carlo and brought over two more
friends. The gardener was overjoyed, for as the girls increased, so his tips
increased, and his amusement, too, I think. But from now on, our Sundays
occasionally developed into orgies; that is, we wandered about, selecting now
this and now that girl, instead of remaining faithful to the queens; but
usually, as soon as the newcomers went away, we returned to our old
allegiances. But from the outset I limited my time for amusement to two days
a week: Wednesdays and Sundays; all the other days I spent working.
I shall never forget one occasion when we all went down bathing in a state of
nature—half a dozen girls and four men. After the bath, we all came up and
lay about on the grass and soon the lovely girlforms seduced the men, and the
scene turned to embracing, which the beauty and abandon of the girls made
memorable.

778

This life continued for five or six weeks, till one Thursday I was interrupted by
the gardener, who came and asked me to come down to see a cousin of
Clara's, Adriana. I found a very lovely girl with reddish fair hair and grey
eyes: quite different in looks from the ordinary Italian. I could reproduce the
likeness of her that a painter-friend, Rousselet, developed later from a
photograph. But she was certainly one of the most beautiful beings I have
ever seen in my life, and curiously enough, she seemed at first as sweet and
sympathetic and passionate as she was lovely. I took to her at once and,
strange to say, even Flora liked her. She told us she was an orphan and
seemed always grateful for any kindness: when Flora told her she liked her
and was not jealous, "How could you be jealous?" said Adriana. "You are too
lovely to know what envy means."
Flora kissed her, saying: "My dear, I don't know whether it is wisdom in you or
goodness, but you are certainly wonderful."
We had been at these games more than half the summer when Ernest
proposed we should vary the procedure by letting the girls select their
favorites. No sooner proposed than done. We gave them prizes and asked
them to apportion them: at once they established one purse and gave us all
an equal prize; but they determined, too, who was the first favorite, and who
the second, and so on.
I had no reason to complain of the result; but I was at a loss to know why I was
chosen so frequently: was it due to a hint of the gardener, or simply to the fact
that I was known to be the owner of the villa? I never could quite determine,
but I was chosen so often that the game became monotonous; and when I was
left out, Ernest was the winner, though George was far better looking than
either of us, and at least ten years younger.
At length we hit on a new game: one Sunday about fifty girls had come, so
Ernest proposed that our four beauties should select the prettiest four of the
newcomers, while we men stood round and studied their feminine choice. We
soon found it was impossible to know why this or that girl was chosen, but
assuredly the prettiest were seldom, if ever, successful; nevertheless, the four
selected were soon initiated.
One day there came a new development: three mothers had brought their
girls, and George proposed we should get the mothers to select the most
beautiful four to throne it at our lunch. To my delight, Flora was selected, and
an excellent selection made from the others.
Every week, I had almost said, every Wednesday and every Sunday, there
was something new: we constantly drove in George's carriage, or Ernest's, or
both, either into the mountains or along the coast. George had discovered a
wonderful, lonely, little bay for bathing, almost uninhabited, and we used to
go there frequently, and half a dozen of us would bathe together; then the

779

meals, especially the dinners, were always feasts which often ended in some
droll invention.
The curious part of my personal adventure was the changes in the character
of Adriana. It was almost indescribable; from being all sympathy and
sweetness, she began, I think, through jealousy, to become more and more
imperious.
"You know," she began one day, when she had come of her own accord to see
me, "your Flora is engaged to be married; as soon as I saw her, I knew she
wouldn't go begging long; she's pretty, though you must know her legs are
thin. But perhaps you like thin legs?"
"You are the best made of them all," I began, "please let me see you, and don't
bother about any one else."
"If I'm the only one," she replied, pouting; "I can't bear to be second—"
"Make yourself the first:" I said, "it's up to you: be sweeter than Flora, more
passionate than Clara, and you'll win—"
"Clara," she cried, "is nothing but a little prostitute, like her mother before
her; she's quite common—"
I couldn't help provoking her. "The gardener swears," I said, "that she has the
smallest sex in the whole country and is besides the most passionate of all of
you—"
"I hate these comparisons," cried Adriana. "They degrade one to the level of
the mere animal; surely there's more to me than round limbs and a small sex?
I'd give anything, everything to love, but to mere desire— nothing—"
"Desire," I remarked, "is the door to love and the guide; physical beauty can
be seen and measured, so to speak, whereas affection and devotion need time
to be appreciated. Do you know," I added warningly, "jealousy is no proof of
affection; on the contrary, I think jealous people are usually hardhearted:
pride is their master passion, not affection."
"Oh; I'm proud," she cried, "I admit it, but I think if you cared for me and me
alone, I would do anything for you whatever you wished."
I turned the talk by admiring her arms and bust, for I didn't wish to change
Flora; and, lovely though Adriana was, I resented her imperious-ness; but her
body was too perfect and I ended by making her feel and enjoy her.
"Did I please you?" she asked afterwards.
"More than ever," I said.

780

"You see," she cried; "may I come tomorrow?"
"Oh, you know," I said, "I have to work; I would like you to come, but not
before Saturday."
"Then you will have Flora on Wednesday," she said pouting.
"No," I replied, to get rid of her, "I promise I'll have no one until you come
again."
She kissed me, and there the matter ended for the time. But she soon made
herself impossible by her exactions.
It was the advent into our company of one Frenchman, whom I shall call by
his Christian name, Jean, who brought us to an acquaintance with new
sensualities. He chose again a girl, Rosa, and declared that by whipping her
bottom he could bring her to a passion of desire and soon the whippings, just
to redden the skin, became more or less general among us: from time to time
we all tried it; and strange to say the girls were most partial to it— the
sufferers, so to speak, though the suffering plainly was very slight and soon
lost in pleasure. On more than one occasion the whippings became general,
and nothing prettier could be imagined than three or four girls being excited
in this way. Generally it was one of the girls who did the whipping; it was
curious how much rougher they were than the men; it showed us all very
plainly that women think less of small pains than men do.
Another thing Jean did was to send to Paris and get half a dozen instruments
resembling the sex of men in stiff Indian rubber; and these, too, we found
could be used to excite our beauties to a hitherto unknown extent.
We all agreed finally that the sensuality of women lasted much longer than
that of men, and women needed much more exciting. But Jean's greatest
achievement was altogether new to most of us. He heard the gardener one
day bragging of his mistress because she had the smallest sex.
"Of course," said Jean, "you know that you can make any girl's sex as small as
you like."
We showed astonishment and he went on: "There are three or four injections
which will contract the sex as much as you please, contract it so that you
cannot enter easily the sex of a woman who has had a child: it's ridiculous to
talk of a small sex as a beauty when anyone can have it."
In the next week or ten days we had all tried his injections of alum water and
found that his remedy was in every case infallible; but still we preferred
those who were naturally small.

781

Ernest told us that he had had a similar experience in the East, I think in Java,
and I had to admit that I had learned about it in India.
Jean, too, would not be fettered for a moment to any girl, but every
Wednesday and every Sunday chose a new partner; and he used to amuse us
all infinitely with his stories of how he treated them and how he enjoyed
them. One day when Jean had been bragging of his performances, one of his
mistresses suddenly interrupted him by saying, "The only way one can ever
get you to go twice is by whipping you," and we all laughed, for Jean was
distinctly younger than any of us except George, and we hitherto had taken
his bragging, more or less, to be the truth.
Looking back over that wonderful summer, I consider my most valuable
experiences to be the stories the girls told of themselves: the sex experiences
in girlhood of Flora and Adriana taught me a great deal, for they both were
normal. I am sure Flora's confessions were perfectly truthful and, though
Adriana concealed a good deal usually, she now and then revealed herself
very completely. This is what Flora told me: but I'll keep these revelations for
another chapter.

782

CHAPTER IX.
THE GIRLS' CONFESSIONS
FLORA

"YOU ASK ME to strip my mind; well, I'll try," Flora began, "and if I omit
anything, you must just question me, for I want to please you, you dear!
"Ever since I can remember, I have revelled in certain kinds of—may I call
them, naked thoughts. Even as young as seven I must have been lewd —this
is stripping myself with a vengeance. I remember I had measles at school, and
a doctor whose pet I was attended me. He was very good-looking. I suppose
he was a hero to me—anyway, I distinctly remember the sensation he caused
me by undressing and touching me. That may be ordinary enough, but I used
to dream about it, think about it, delight in it. Is that natural? I've never told
any one—they wouldn't understand—so I don't know whether it is usual or
not.
"And later at nine years of age or so, a girl much older than myself made me
much worse. Of course, she used me to gratify her sensations, but it was very
bad for me. She put my hand on her and told me to rub. I think I must have
been really depraved, for later two other girls got very intimate with me, but
this time I was the ring-leader. I can hardly say what we didn't do—you will
understand. This at the age of nine and ten, and they say boys are more
depraved than girls! I don't believe it. From that you can have some idea what
I am like now.
"My dreams lead to sensations. I just revel in passions that have no outlet
whatever, unless I satisfy them myself. And often I do that. That's one side of
me.
"I wish to God those of my sex weren't such hypocrites. Even my best friend,
with whom I discuss all sorts of things, chiefly men and women, often seems
thoroughly disgusted and tells me seriously I'm getting very immoral. She
was saying the other day that she had dreamt she was walking naked and
alone down the main street, and she thought everyone had had that dream
more or less frequently. I said I had never dreamt I was naked and alone
anywhere! That it was wasting a splendid sensation. She was really annoyed.
"Then there were two other girls; they were about the same age as myself,
thirteen and fourteen. They were sisters and very wild; I mean undisciplined. I
didn't like them at all, they were too rude and bold and very mean. Still they
served a purpose. They used to strip and put me in bed and one of them
rubbed vaseline or some sort of grease between my legs, and the other looked
on till her turn came. The sensation of being looked at was almost as good as
the one of being rubbed. I must have been a cunning little devil, because I
certainly wasn't able to analyze the why and the wherefore of it at all; I just
knew I liked it.

783

"And then came older girls; when I was about fifteen, a girl took me up to her
room and locked the door; it was a sort of wardrobe room—small and pitch
dark. I was old enough to realize then just what I was doing. She put my hand
on her sex and I touched her as well as I could. I know I liked doing it.
Naturally she was fully developed and somehow that was an added
enjoyment for me. It did me harm in that I used to brood over it, gloat over it,
enjoy my lewd thoughts—well, fifteen is too young for that, especially as I
didn't need encouraging."
"But why shouldn't you be encouraged?" I couldn't help asking.
"I was already too much inclined that way," she replied.
"So much the better," I went on; "I can't understand the implied
condemnation."
"Nor can I," she rejoined. "It's merely habit, the customary way of thinking
and speaking.
"You want to know everything: are girls' desires as vagrant as those of men?
Yes, and quite as strong, I think; when, as a young girl, a man attracted me, a
complete stranger—or showed me he wanted me, in the tram or anywhere, I
used to cross my legs and press my thighs together and squeeze my sex till I
came just as if I had used my hand; often I was all wet. There, you have the
truth!
"Why did I come here? Naturally, I hoped to win a first prize, but really that
was not my chief motive. The gardener said there was a young good-looking
Englishman in the villa who would be very nice to me; the money was only
the hope we all used to excuse ourselves. We pretended to be seeking the
money, but in truth we were seeking lover and love—new emotions.
"When the gardener left me in the bedroom that first morning, I noticed how
fine the sheets were and the pretty pictures in the room: 'When will he come?'
I asked myself; 'What will he do?' And my heart was in my mouth.
"Before you came in that first time to see me, the hope of you set all my pulses
throbbing. I threw myself on the bed and thought about it, and thinking
gradually brought about the feeling that demands satisfaction, so I satisfied
it by touching myself—waiting for you: you dear, you!
"I've told you nothing about men, you say; but really, I had no experiences to
speak of till I came here. My mother was always warning me of the
consequences and the risk of having a child was always present.
"I often saw men in the town I could have liked, but we lived right out in the
country, and till your gardener came and talked to me and assured me there

784

was no risk and a great deal of fun, I never gave myself to any man: you are
first, and you know it, don't you, dear?
"One young fellow used to come out last summer from the town and we used
to take long walks, and he said he loved me and was always touching my
breasts and trying to excite me in fifty ways; but when I mentioned marriage,
he sheered off. Men want pleasure and no ties and I don't blame them. If I
were a man, I'd do the same: it's we women run the risk; but not with you, dear.
"Oh, now, often I can feel those slow long kisses of yours on my breasts and—I
close my eyes and give myself to you: love is the best thing in the world, but
how am I to love when you go away and the great days are ended? Oh, I wish
my life could end with them: I have had the best of life."
"Don't say that," I cried. "The best of your life is still to come, and I shall not be
gone forever."
And then the love play began again and went on till we were called out to
lunch, and we found a feast that deserves to be described at length, but I am
afraid of tiring my readers.
Though I liked Flora immensely, I often made fun of her coldness. She used to
resent this, saying, "You do not know me!"
One day she found me with Adriana, and that evening she asked me: "Do
you go with her because she's passionate?"
I nodded my head: it's useless to try to explain to a woman the attraction of
novelty.
The next day, to my astonishment, Flora surpassed herself: she really used her
sex as an instrument and gave me intense thrills.
As I cried out, "Enough dear!" she triumphed.
"Am I better than your Adriana?"
"Much better," I replied, "but why don't you act like that always?"
"I don't know!" she replied. "It's due to a sort of reserve I can't explain, but you
mustn't believe with the gardener that Clara or Adriana or any of them feel
more than I do. A man may be proud of liking the act; a woman is always
ashamed to confess it or show it!"
The year after I had left San Remo, Flora wrote to me at the Hotel de Paris at
Monte Carlo. She told me that all her life since I had gone away was stale and
flat. If I didn't want her any more, she would prefer to kill herself: she could
not endure her dull, uneventful existence. The letter was some months old,

785

but I raced over to San Remo at once to make things right if possible.
Naturally, I first sought out my gardener. He was astonished. "She has just
been married," he cried, when I showed him the letter, "and well married; he's
rich. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."
It turned out to be as he had said: my Flora had married, and married
exceedingly well, and when I sought her out, she didn't hesitate to tell me
that half her success had come from the apprenticeship she had gone through
with us Englishmen. "You taught me to love, Sir," she said, "and it was your
teaching mainly that made it easy for me later to excite love without feeling
it much. Yet my husband is a dear fellow, and I think I shall be happy with
him: you don't mind?" she asked, smiling archly the while.
"Mind! Of course not!" And I said to myself, "Another ship come safely to
port."
Adriana
Adriana's account was very like that of Flora's in the early years, but at first
she was more outspoken.
"Passion—I'm made of it, a colt—wild, crazy, untamed colt—quick, rashly
impulsive, savage—and yet I've emotion enough in me—high poetry; the
violin, 'flame in the skies of sunset'—all bring tears to my eyes: the rippling of
a stream, the green foliage of trees, books and pictures—a deep sweet world.
"Of course, it was an older girl who first taught me sensuality; I don't really
think she ever touched me. It was quite a one-sided affair, but what I did to
her gave me quite a little pleasure of my own. Of course, I didn't know what
she did it for. I liked it and that was all that mattered to me.
"I had a governess just before I went to school. I can't remember, but, anyway,
she's the only female, barring the first I mentioned, who made me aware of
her passion. She would insist on bathing me. I knew that was funny, as none of
the others had wished to. But she banged on the door the first night, and
when I admitted her, she came over to me and slowly took away the towel
covering me. I felt ashamed—her eyes made me feel so—her look made me
blush—it also began to make me feel strangely pleased, with that feeling of
pleasure we all experience, I think, when we are looked at. Well, every week
she bathed me and I became fully aware of her feelings towards me once
behind the bathroom door. And I loved it. She would lift me out of the bath
and lay me across her knees and the delightful sensation of being devoured
by her greedy eyes made me open my legs —for her to rub me.
"From twelve to fourteen I was at school and developed a passion for one of
the seniors. And while I would have been thrilled at a single touch of her
fingers even on my hand, she never took even the very slightest notice of me.

786

The sight of her thrilled me, and if she passed me and I felt her brush against
me, it set my heart beating. But that sort of hero worship is very common at
school.
"Another girl of my own age one night surprised me by asking me to
accompany her into the bathroom. I went along wondering. She locked the
door and then in a somewhat shamefaced fashion, asked me to touch her. I
did, and she touched me. Both of us were highly excited, but we were
interrupted, and somehow we never tried anything further afterwards.
"You ask me about exciting myself. I was doing it constantly from ten or
eleven on. About thirteen I got quite thin and pale, and my mother told me
one evening how a young girl friend of hers had ruined her health by
touching her sex and so warned me. After that, I used to do it every Saturday
night. Then I had an orgy, once a week; it was splendid. I used to think of some
man who had attracted me or shown that he wanted me and I'd begin.
"One day in the tram a common man came in and threw himself down
opposite me. Of a sudden I noticed that his trousers were unbuttoned and I
saw his sex: it made me angry at first; he was so dirty and common. But as I
stole glances at it, it excited me fearfully; I crossed my legs and squeezed my
sex and at once I came. I could not help it: when I got out I was all
streaming—wet to my knees.
"You ask me about my feelings. I have only to wait a very short time before I
come, usually. But it all depends on the state of my mind. If there is not a good
(I should say bad) atmosphere, it takes long, but if I feel really passionate—
almost lewd—a minute will do it. And I can do it again perhaps three times,
but that's the limit. My legs give way under me after that—so I judge I've had
the best of myself; anyway I couldn't do more than that consecutively.
"No one thrill is ever exactly like the last; you soon learn to differentiate. Of
course, they all recur, but never one after the other—and sometimes my
favorite thrill comes most seldom; it is when all my muscles stiffen and grow
rigid; it may not occur for days, even weeks."
Naturally, I went to work at once to bring on the rigid paroxysm in Adriana
and found no difficulty. "You could not do it again," she said, but in ten
minutes I proved that I could bring about the rigid orgasm as often as I liked.
In fact, once after bringing on the paroxysm three or four times, she burst out
crying and laughing in a sort of wild hysteria that took me hours to quiet.
"I love you," she said to me, "and that's why I can't control myself. But why do
you want any one else? I'll give you all myself, more than any one else can,
you dear! But you must be faithful!"
"When are you most passionate?" I asked, and she replied:

787

"I have not noticed that I am more passionate at certain times—at least
orthodox times—than others. I know it is so, or should be so, but everything to
me depends on my mind and emotion.
"Did I tell you of any man having me? She wouldn't, I'm sure, your Flora, but I
will. I was only sixteen and my folks got me work in the office in an hotel. He
was the manager and married: I knew his wife, and his eldest daughter was
older than I was. He was very kind to me from the beginning. I saw he desired
me, of course.
"One fete day, three years ago, every one was in the street; but he had given
me some work and I didn't like to leave it. In the middle of the procession he
came to the door and sent me to fetch his fountain pen from his bedroom on
the fourth floor. Of course I went, and while I was searching for his pen, he
came into the room and had locked the door before I knew or guessed
anything. He took me almost by force; he put his hands up my clothes and
lifted me on to the bed; and while I was saying I'd cry out, he hurt me so that I
shrieked; but he went on. Afterwards he kissed me and told me all sorts of
sweet things, but I never put myself in his power again. I had a terrible dread
for two weeks and then I feared the pain for years more. One day a girl told
me I'd not suffer again.
"Then a boy came. I was tempted by his virginity, but I didn't yield; then last
year a young visitor at the hotel made love to me—he didn't hurt, and I
enjoyed it ecstatically, for I really liked him, and he had such dear pleasing
ways: he was always bringing me flowers, and he would kiss my hands, and
was always telling me how pretty I was and how much he loved my eyes: he
was a dear!
"But now I've fallen in love with you with my whole soul and body
passionately; and that's what makes me wild with jealousy. Flora is always
boasting that you like her best, and I can't believe it, but I hate to hear her. I
could strike the slut. But you do go with her, and I go home and cry half the
night. Why can't you love me alone or love me best? Then I wouldn't care. But
always to be second, to find that Flora is preferred to me: it's driving me
crazy."
Of course I kissed her, smiling, and she said: "Promise you'll only go with me
for this next week, and I'll give my very soul to you; promise! You'll see how
sweet I can be—promise! I'll say all the naughty words and do all the
naughty things: I want to! There! Do you hear that; I'll do more than you
imagine, you dear, you!"
I promised and kept my word, but after that week Adriana never came back
again, and so we lost the loveliest figure of all. In her, jealousy was stronger
than passion, as it is in many, many women.
Clara

788

It was the gardener again who brought me to the chief discovery. He told me
that Clara had no reticences and would tell me anything, so one day I got
him to bring her and questioned her. She said:
"What is there to tell? It's the same thing over and over again, only it gets
better and better all the time, different to (sic) most things in life. I don't know
when I began. I don't think I was more than seven, but almost immediately I
noticed that I didn't care for girls touching me; I only wanted boys, and I was
very curious about them, though I pretended not to be.
"One boy, five or six years older than I was, when I was about ten, told me all
about it and suited the action to the word. He hurt me a little, but the
pleasure, even at the beginning, was greater than the pain, and so I went on
with anyone I liked; and I liked a good many.
"I got very careful about thirteen because I knew what the consequences
might be, and I made up my mind only to go with a man I really cared for. I
don't know why I fell in love, but I did when I was about fifteen, with a
gentleman who was good-looking and had charming manners. He spoke to
me in the street, took me for a drive, kissed me and put his hand all over me. I
didn't mind. He really was charming but when he took me up to his bedroom
in his hotel, I told him I was frightened; but he assured me that I'd run no risk
with him, and he kept his word. Yet, that sort of half-pleasure didn't content
me, so I was very glad, indeed, when your gardener came; and since then I
have been as happy as a bird!
"You want to know whether I have touched myself. Sure; all girls have. If they
say they haven't, they lie; the silly fools. Why shouldn't we have pleasure
when it's so easy?
"I remember my father took me once to the picture gallery in Genoa. I loved
the pictures; but one had a young man in it who looked right at me. I got off
next morning and went back to the gallery to my pictured lover. I could not
help it; I sat down on the bench opposite to him and crossed my legs and
squeezed my sex till I was wet. And when I went to bed that night I thought of
him, and his lovely limbs and his great eyes, and I touched myself with my
hand pretending it was him till I came again and again, and at last got so wild
I just had to stop or I'd have screamed—but lots of girls are like that.
"I think I was one of the few who let a boy have me time and again. I could not
resist: the truth is, I wanted him as much as he wanted me, and when an older
man came after me, it was worse: I could not refuse him, and I felt more with
him than with any boy, till I came here, and the great games began. Oh, I love
them all; and I've always been taken with you since you gave me the first
prize when I had only won the second. You great sweet!"
Naturally, after this we had a long kissing match that ended in a new
rendezvous, which was repeated frequently, for I found Clara in many

789

respects the most delightful of all the girls. She had really no reticences, and
loved to show her sex and to talk about her intense sensations in the crudest
terms; but she never invented or beautified anything, and this simplicity of
truth in her was most attractive. When, for example, she said, "When you
have me I feel the thrills running all down my thighs to the knees," she was
plainly describing an immediate personal experience, and when she told me
that merely hearing my voice in the villa made her sex open and shut, I could
be sure it was the truth. And bit by bit this truth of reciprocated sensation
grew on me, till I, too, was won by the novelty of the emotion. Clara was the
most wonderful mistress of them all; though the youngest.
I have spoken here only of pleasant occurrences; and it is interesting or
amusing incidents that I remember best in my past life; but towards the end of
the summer there was a good deal of trouble with some of the girls. It began
with the defection of Adriana; as if encouraged by her jealousy, others felt
inclined to follow her example and make conditions.
The three queens, and Clara in especial, remained fairly constant to the end,
but Jean and his girls were a constant source of trouble. He would change in
the same day, and that always led to remonstrances or angry scenes. Finally,
both Ernest and George had to go back to England, and I was ashamed of
having let the summer pass without completing my work.
When I returned later to San Remo to see Flora, I found that Clara, too, had
got well married. She explained it by saying that widows always found
husbands easier than girls, knowing more of what men wanted.
A word here about the difference between the jealousy of man and that of
woman.
The jealousy of woman: If the man went with another woman because he
loved her, the woman would weep, but forgive him. Love is all powerful to
her. But if the man went with another girl out of mere passion, even if he
didn't care for her, the woman would be furious: she sees the act—it is an
unpardonable traitorism.
The jealousy of man is just the contrary: If the woman went with another man,
and gave herself to a passing fancy, the man would be hurt, but would forgive
her easily. But if the woman gave herself to some one out of love, the man
would be furious and too angry to forgive.

790

CHAPTER X.
CELEBRITIES OF THE NINETIES

I WANT TO GIVE as fair and large a picture as I can of this third period of
my life—the last decade of the nineteenth century. Casanova is often
praised for having given a good picture of his age, yet he has painted no
great man of his time, no writer of the first rank, no artist, no statesman, with
the solitary exception of Frederick the Great, whom he hardly does more
than mention.
In this Life of mine I have tried to picture my growth of character and mind
and soul as faithfully as I can, and to complete this history by putting in the
foreground, so to speak, the great men and deeds which characterized the
age. In my first volume I tried to paint Whitman, Emerson, Carlyle, and
others; and in my second volume Skobelef, Ruskin, Randolph Churchill and
Maupassant. In this volume I have given sketches of many artists and writers,
and I wish to complete the picture with further memories of my
contemporaries.
I met Zola and talked with him a dozen times before I ventured to differ with
him on any subject. He thought his later books, Lourdes and Rome, his best
books, whereas I felt that L'Assommoir, La Terre, Germinal and Nona were far
better, to say nothing of Page d'Amour, Le Reve and La Faute de l'Abbe
Mouret, which I thought at least as good. Lourdes and Paris and the rest were
all to me lifeless, machine-made things that had never grown.
I tried to make him see that Balzac's latest tales, La Cousine Bette and
Cousin Pans, seemed to me manufactured and mechanical in comparison
with Pere Goriot or La Recherche de l'Absolu, or Eugenie Grandet, and in
truth many of the earlier works, such as Le Cure de Tours.
Zola would not agree with me. He regarded Cousine Bette and Cousin Pans
as the best things Balzac had ever written.
I remember when he came over to London once, he could talk of nothing but
the quiet of the place, the strange peace that reigned in the streets. "What a
great city," he said, "here, there is no noise." He wanted to know why La Terre
was regarded as pornographic, which incensed him very much. "If they knew,
how much worse life is," he cried, "they would stop talking such nonsense."
And with that sentiment I was in complete agreement.
I got more pleasure from a side of Zola that is almost unknown. I knew that as
a young man he had been an art critic of a Paris paper; I think it was Le
Figaro; and he interested me enormously when he talked about the modern
schools of painting. He was the first person I ever heard say that Cezanne was
one of the greatest masters that ever lived. George Moore praised Manet,
Monet, and Degas, but said little or nothing about Cezanne, though he was
the greatest of the lot, the true head of the school. Zola let out the secret one
day when he told me that he had been at school with Cezanne and that when

791

Cezanne came to Paris, he, Zola, was almost the first person whom Cezanne
called upon and interested in his work.
It is strange that Zola never wrote any book about painting, and when I asked
him why he did not, he told me that it was not his art, that he felt as an
outsider to it. But his love of painting and of artistic things generally was seen
in his house, which was filled with old furniture and quaint decorations.
I cannot help thinking that Zola might have given us as good a book on
modern French art, as Fromentin gave us on the art of Holland, and such a
volume would be, as Thucydides called his book, "a possession forever."
Zola, though one of the heads of the time, had a peculiarly uninteresting
outward. He was a little below ordinary height, but strongly built and rather
stout. His hair and beard and walk showed strength, but there was nothing
distinctive about his face: an ordinary round face with thick nose and
ordinary lips that might have passed in any crowd. He had not even the
distinction of ugliness; his pale face, coarse lips and brown beard were merely
commonplace.
I was astonished to find that Alphonse Daudet had a very high opinion of
Zola. "Have you ever seen his notes," he said, "on any book he is going to
write? It is extraordinary, the way he gets up his subject, studies every part of
it. I suppose he knew more about Lourdes when he wrote about it than any
one living. He went down and spent a month in the place."
Yet Zola used to interest me by saying that too much knowledge is as
dangerous as too little. You had to know enough to see all the peculiarities of
a place or a theme, but the moment you knew so much about it, that its
resemblance to other places struck you rather than its differences, you had
done too much work. "For my part," Daudet added, "I write without any notes,
trusting to the idiosyncracy of the characters to develop the plot and, in fact, I
trust to what people call inspiration, which is probably another name for
laziness, rather than to study."
In striking contrast to Zola, Daudet was picturesque, very good-looking
indeed: he wore his hair long, but his nose was well-cut, his eyes large, the
shape of his face excellent. I happened to see Daudet again after Turgenev's
letters had been published, and I found him strangely angry. He resented
Turgenev's criticism as if it had been a personal offence. "We all treated him
as one of ourselves," he kept repeating, "and here he talks of us as if Zola and
Flaubert and the rest of us were pigmies and he alone was the great writer
and artist."
I wanted to see whether I could get a new word out of him, so I said: "Well,
you know, some of us think that in Bazarof, Turgenev has depicted the one
new character added to European literature since the Mephistopheles of
Goethe."

792

"Good God," cried Daudet, "but is not Madame Bovary a character, and
Zola's Lantier? I cannot understand such criticism."
To insist would have been surely rude, yet to some of us Madame Bovary is
poor stuff and Lantier poorer still in comparison with Bazarof. Bazarof is the
model of the realist for all time, deeper than Tartuffe or Le Misanthrope, and
they are both greater creations than Madame Bovary or Lantier.
Daudet's novels were better than his criticism.
I don't know why, but Daudet often reminded me of W. E. Henley. I met
Henley first at dinner at Sidney Low's house, who had followed Greenwood
as editor of the St. James Gazette. Henley was then editing the Scots
Observer, which he later removed to London as the National Observer.
Seated at the table, Henley was a great big man with broad shoulders,
looking at least six feet in height, with an immense leonine head, full golden
beard, large blue eyes and good features, a handsome and striking
personality.
Almost immediately we came to some difference about the relative value of
the play and the novel. I spoke of the novel as the most complex and
therefore the highest form of art, and he replied: "That's nonsense," so rudely
that I retorted: "Let us wait until the ladies go and then we'll continue the
argument." Too surprised to find words, Henley grunted "Hmph!" But after
the ladies had left the table, he turned on me and said: "Now I would like to
know why you think the novel a higher form of art than a play, or for that
matter, a poem?"
"It can include poems," I retorted, "as Goethe showed, and it has all the
powers of a play and many that the play lacks."
Henley grunted again: "I don't see that mere assertion proves anything!"
"The dramatic presentation of character," I went on, "is, of course, the best for
simple characters, but suppose you want to make a complex character.
Suppose, for instance, you want to show your readers a man of great courage,
who for some reason or other, (a weakness of heredity, drink, let us say, or
some hereditary murder) is a coward at night: the spectators would not
understand what you meant. You have to put in the finer qualifying shades
of character by explanations. This you can do in the novel, (1849-1903); he
was a considerable critic and editor, as well as a writer, and that's why I said
that the novel was the largest form of art, a more complex form even than the
play."
To my astonishment, Henley replied quite frankly: "I never thought of it, but I
believe you are right"; and we became, to a certain extent, friends.

793

When he afterwards laid down the law about poetry, I did not contradict
him, and when he asked me whether I agreed with him or not, I told him I
only believed in criticizing the art that I myself practiced, and not being a
poet, I never disputed with poets about their mystery.
When we got up to join the ladies, I was horrified. Henley's legs were all
twisted, and instead of being a man of six feet and over, he was only middle
height. My host told me that from his poems in hospital, it was pretty clear
that syphilis had turned him from a giant into a cripple.
I remember some later meetings with Henley; once when he sent me his Song
of the Sword for the Fortnightly Review, which I should have liked to publish,
but Chapman, the managing director, would not hear of it. "Free verse," he
said, "is neither poetry nor prose," and he begged me not to have anything to
do with it.
Henley was not a great man, but a very interesting one. He thought it his
duty to edit every contribution sent him, and he did edit every word, every
phrase, weighed every comma and colon, until the whole of his paper was
steeped in his own style, so that it often seemed as if it were all written by one
man.
My chief object, when I got a paper of my own, the Saturday Review, was the
antipodes of his. I encouraged everybody to express himself as personally as
possible, and the more he differed with me, as a rule, the more I liked his
work. I do not see how one could have got Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, McColl,
Chalmers Mitchell and Cunninghame Graham to do their best on any other
terms.
What then was Henley's success? He got together a band of youthful
admirers who wrote for him and afterwards became known as journalists. I
don't remember one man of real ability in Henley's crowd; not one, so far as I
recollect, made a great name for himself in the future. But success in the day
and hour he had in abundance and admirers, such as the Right Hon. George
Wyndham, who always called Henley a remarkable poet, mainly I used to
think, because Henley's poetry, second rate as it was, was better than his own.
There was another figure whom I got to know very well in the nineties, an
infinitely more gifted man than Henley in another art: Auguste Rodin. I have
done a portrait of him, but here I wish to add a few more words.
At our very first meeting I noticed that he had no venom in him and no
exclusions. He was of the race of the great masters, easily moved to
enthusiasm, without a particle of envy in his composition. He accepted life as
it was, lived it to the fullest, and had few regrets. The only trace of bitterness I
ever saw in him came to the surface when an American millionaire offered
him ten thousand dollars for a portrait-head, provided he would finish it in a
week.

794

"I explained to him," said Rodin, relating the incident, "that in such a short
time I could do nothing more than a likeness. I should not be able to
understand the soul of him, much less find out how best to suggest it through
his features; but he declared that a likeness was all he wanted, and so"—and
he threw up his hand—"ma foi, I said, 'Yes.'" He swung round a moment later
as if the thought had stung him: "Fifty thousand francs in a week. Ah, had I
had those fifty thousand in a year when I did my 'man with the broken nose,'
I'd have done a dozen types that now—"
There was an inexpressible sadness in his voice, and well there might be. "A
dozen types," I said to myself, "all swallowed up and lost 'in the vague womb
of uncreated night.' "
Rodin died during the World War, leaving twenty or thirty great portraits of
his contemporaries, from Henley and Shaw to Rochefort, Hugo and Balzac, to
say nothing of a dozen groups and figures that can never be forgotten. His
Thinker is finer than the Medician figure of Michelangelo; his Baiser, his
Nymph and Satyr, his Succube, are all examples of bronze turned into flesh
by virtue of an incomparable craftsmanship and the urge of an astonishing
sensuality that could lend even to marble the pulsing thrills of life.
I can still see a little female figure, perhaps half-life size, that stood for some
years in the center of the salon in his little villa at Meudon. I christened it La
Parisienne, and he adopted the name at once joyfully, and indeed it might
have stood as a personification of the gay capital—the only city in the world
where artists feel at home. There was a certain perversity in its frank beauty
that was exquisitely characteristic. The hips were slight, the limbs slight, too,
with something of the divine awkwardness of girlhood; but the breasts stood
out round and firm, defiantly provocative; the nose, too, was tip-tilted,
cheeky; the face, one would swear, smiling with a gay challenge.
Madame Rodin, I remember, regaled us with some petits fours that were very
good, and some desperate coffee which made me wonder why it was not
called chicory honestly, as it should have been. The little old woman served
the Master like a servant at once and mother for half a century; then,
conscious of his immense debt to her loving care, and anxious to make tardy
amends, Rodin married her. I think so much of her humble devotion that I do
not believe the new dignity affected her much: yet I may be mistaken m this,
for she died a month or so afterwards, and a little later Rodin, as if unable to
bear the separation after so many years of companionship, followed her into
the silent land.
I remember meeting Rostand in Paris in 1898. He was then at the height of his
vogue. Cyrano de Bergerac had been brought out by Madame Bernhardt in
1897, when he was just 27 years of age. There have been few such triumphs:
the play ran 400 nights in Paris and nearly as long in Berlin in Fulda's
translation. Petersburg and Madrid, Belgrade even, went crazy over it, and
dozens of companies played it all over the United States.

795

Rostand met me like a prince might meet a small unknown boy. I have never
seen any Frenchman put on such airs. He was a little over average height and
dressed with a touch of eccentricity all in black; a big black satin stock,
showing only a narrow white edge of collar, seemed to hold up his head, and
he held it very high. His face was pale; his features regular; his dark eyes
rather large and long—a handsome face with an air of haughty disdain—
the French word morgue exactly expressed it. Though Marcel Schwob (who
introduced me) spoke of me as a master and mentioned that my stories had
appeared in La Revue des Deux Mondes, Rostand contented himself with a
slight bow, while his eyebrows lifted with an air of patient inattention. I had
prepared a compliment, but I kept it to myself and turned aside abruptly. I
didn't think much of Cyrano, and Rostand's other work seemed to me
negligible, while the airs he gave himself were inexcusable in so young a
man. No great man ever plays grand seigneur without some extraordinary
good reason.
Nothing was talked about but his plays; he was asked about his method of
work. He gave ordinary facts with the air of a God letting new truths drop
from Sinai. It seemed that like most of us the period of gestation in him was
long, the parturition hurried. "I read and think a great deal," he said, "till it's
all clear and then write incessantly." A well bred murmur of admiration
greeted the oracle. It was quite certain that no really great man could have
won such popularity so early. I went away as soon as I decently could.
Rostand was born rich; success came at twenty with his first book Les
Musardies, and his wealth enabled him to screen himself off from anything
harsh or true, spoiled in fact a great theatrical talent.
Once later I was destined to meet him. I had taken Oscar Wilde to dine at
Maire's restaurant, intending to go afterwards to Antoine's theatre close by.
Rostand was already at table when we entered. I hardly knew whether to
bow to him or not. To my surprise he rose and bowed more than politely —
cordially.
Thus encouraged, I went over to him and shot off the compliment I had
prepared months before. He laughed delightedly, and when I introduced
Oscar, he showed a kindly human side I had scarcely expected. During the
dinner he kept up an intermittent conversation from table to table, and was
really charming, attributing the success of his play mainly to the
incomparable acting.
Oscar took the ball on the hop, and told of seeing Coquelin at a dress
rehearsal. The great actor, it appeared, was doubtful whether he should add
to his already prominent nose; "It is mine and Cyrano's," he exclaimed, "why
alter it?"

796

"They may say," interjected Oscar with an air of deep meditation, "that you
play the part so well because it is your own story; I think I'd increase the
nose."
"You're right," replied Coquelin gravely. "I must remain the artist, the artist
always, above my creation."
Oscar told the story superbly, mimicking air and manner and throwing into
high relief the actor's vanity: "My creation."
Rostand enjoyed the tale ingenuously, and the talk turning on noses, I could
not help reciting the witty remark made about Baron Hirsch. Some one said:
"You'd hardly believe he was a Jew were it not for his nose." "True," replied
the listener, "God forgives and the world forgets, but the nose remains."
Suddenly we found it was time to go if we would not lose part of the play, and
then Rostand told us that he also wanted to see Foil de Carotte (Carrots!), I
think it was, with Madame Nau in the title part, so we turned down the
boulevard together and went to our seats like old friends.
On reflection, Rostand seemed to me a richly endowed romantic nature,
dwarfed by wealth and wanting the spur of desperate incentive. But he came
at the psychological moment. The second generation since the great defeat
was growing up and full of the old Gallic vanity and the courage which was
resolved to act and not to talk. The French youths all took up athletics, went
in for boxing, even; left realism for romance and began to affirm, instead of
denying. The romance of daring was in the air and Rostand gave it a voice. In
almost everything he was a herald of the new time; his family life was very
happy; in fine, in spite of surface faults, he was a good representative of the
new France. It is almost symbolical to me that he should have been born in
1870, in the year of disaster, and died in 1919, in the assurance of victory.
I have written a good deal about Meredith and tried to give a true picture of
him as one of the greatest writers of the time and a charming personality.
Shortly after I took over the Saturday Review, he came up to London to
undergo an operation, and I met him again and was of course as cordial as I
could be, but I could never forgive him for having refused his name to the
petition in favor of Oscar Wilde. Up to that time, I used to go down to Boxhill
to spend some hours with him nearly every week. Afterwards I only met him
on rare occasion by chance. His operation seemed to have weakened him a
good deal, for afterwards he took to riding about in a little carriage which he
drove himself, and almost ceased to walk. I excused myself for not seeing him
more often by telling him that I spent fully six months of every year in the
south of France, whereas he preferred Boxhill and the Sussex Downs.
It was on one of these visits to Nice that I got to know Maeterlinck and
Georgette Le Blanc whom I regarded as his wife. Maeterlinck was an

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interesting personality, but I never got much out of him beyond what any one
could get from his books. He never seemed able to reveal new sides of himself
in talk.
I remember he asked me once why I didn't review his translation of the
Macbeth, which he had sent to me. I told him I would if he liked, but I didn't
think his knowledge of English was sufficient; however, I promised to do my
best. Later, in London, remembering the promise, I picked up his translation; I
looked at one line in it: "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well," and I found
Maeterlinck had translated it: "Apres les convulsions fievreuses de la vie il
dort bien." I saw at once that he had taken "fitful" to mean full of fits, as
"painful" is full of pain, and had no conception that it simply meant
intermittent. Therefore I sent a friend to the British Museum, who brought me
back the information that of the one hundred translations of Macbeth in
French, about eighty-five had followed Francois Victor Hugo in this
misrendering of "fitful"; and the other had left it out altogether: "Apres le
fievre de la vie il dort bien."
I sent this to Maeterlinck, thinking he would laugh over the matter, but when
I met him again in Nice the next year, he and Georgette came and lunched
with us and he broached the subject at once by saying that the translations of
Shakespeare were quite impossible. I tried to agree with him by saying that
of course it took an equal poet to try to translate from one language into the
other adequately.
But he would have it that Shakespeare was quite impossible, and he gave an
example from Hamlet where Ophelia says:
Here's rosemary—that's for remembrance;
Here are pansies—that's for thoughts ...
"The first sentence can be translated," he said, "but the second can't, because
in French the word for pansies is almost the same as the word for thoughts;
you cannot say, 'Voila des pensees—c'est pour penser.'"
"Oh," I retorted, "I think it quite possible. Picture the scene to yourself:
Ophelia is speaking before the King and Queen and she knows, with a
woman's divination, that the Queen is the real culprit, so she says, 'Voila des
pensees,' and then, looking at the Queen, adds, stuttering, 'c'est pour penser.'"
Francis Carco, who was also at the lunch, applauded me for the thought, but
Maeterlinck pretended not to understand. Really, whenever Frenchmen
translate from English, they are apt to come to grief. The other day I saw that
one of them had translated "Love's last shift" into "La derniere chemise de
l'amour."
I knew Albert, Prince of Monaco, fairly well for more than a quarter of a
century. The New York Times gave a column article to him while he was

798

visiting America shortly before his death; it said that "he belonged to the
Grimaldis of Genoa ... one of the most ancient houses of Europe"; described
him as "a wise old man of the world, honorably distinguished as a savant; an
enlightened ruler ... sagacious and experienced," and God knows what
besides. Now, Albert of Monaco was not a Grimaldi at all, but a Matignon of
little Breton squire stock, and his "wisdom and enlightenment" were low
cunning.
One incident will give a better picture of this Princelet than pages of word
painting. When I first knew him he was always talking of his dislike of "the
gambling house" of Monte Carlo, which gave him his princely revenue and
paid besides all the expenses of his three miles long and half a mile wide
kingdom. Every one staying in the palace was requested not to visit or even
enter "the gambling house," and the Prince was continually complaining that
his father had given M. Blanc a lease of the place till 1907, or else "I'd shut it
up tomorrow. I hate the corruptions of it. It is really wrong for a father so to
bind and fetter a son; I loathe the place," so he used to preach.
It seemed to me that the Prince protested too much; in any case, surely he
need not have accepted "the wages of sin," had he had not been so inclined.
But bit by bit his protests affected me; I came to believe in his honesty.
For there was a side to the Prince which pleased me. He was a sportsman. He
had a great country house at Marchais on the borders of Lorraine; it had at
one time belonged to the Dues de Guise and was set, a great house, in the
midst of marshes.
There was most excellent shooting to be had in the swamps of Marchais; wild
geese and ducks by the myriad flocked there from the north in cold weather,
and wild swans, too, and the woods were well stocked with pheasants and
rabbits and hares.
But there were other amenities at Marchais. So long as the Princess Alice
ruled there, the food was excellent and there used to be wonderful music in
the evenings.
One met at Marchais all the literary geniuses and the leaders of French
thought: Bourget and Loti, Saint-Saens and Sarah Bernhardt. In Marchais,
more than in any other French house, one touched life at many points.
Naturally, I was delighted to go to Marchais and spend long days with the
Prince shooting. I have been awakened at four o'clock in the morning with
the news that wild swans had just come in and in ten minutes I was up and
dressed. Before we started out I had a cup or two of delicious hot coffee and
such eggs and bacon, preserves and bread as one seldom finds. Then down in
the cold night to ride six or seven miles to the ground, and when there to
crawl for perhaps another mile on one's stomach between straw fences to the
huts, out of which one could watch the great swans sailing the water and

799

shoot them, if one wanted to. Then as day dawned we would take this wood
for pheasants, and that stubbled plain for red-legged partridge, and so fleet
the day in healthy exercise. Then home to a hot bath and a superb dinner
with super-excellent French wine and coffee, and a great evening with good
music by Tosti or De Lara, or a talk in a quiet room with a member of the
Institute or the Academy.
Who could resist the seduction! One evening the Prince assured me that he
meant to shut up the "tripot" or "den," as he called it, at Monte Carlo as soon
as he had the right, and begged me to preach this in the British press, so as not
to surprise people when it took place.
"I want to avoid complaints," he said, "and the leaders of English life are
powerful in France."
Naturally, I did my best for his high purpose.
I knew the "gambling house" at Monte Carlo extremely well: I had spent a
good many winters at the Principality, and it was apparent to me that the
way to give tone and importance to the whole place was by founding a
special Sporting Club which should have all the best visitors as members,
especially the best English and French and Americans. One day I outlined
this scheme to the Prince of Monaco, saying that if he decided that he had to
leave the "gambling house" as it was, the way to improve it would be by
establishing a high class Sporting Club in close connection with it.
He asked me to make out the whole scheme. I told him it would cost some
time and labor: and he wanted to know how he should reward me. "Very
simple," I said, "you can make me a permanent secretary at a decent salary."
"Certainly," he exclaimed enthusiastically. "You help me: make out the
whole constitution and articles of the club, print them and let me have them,
and you shall be permanent secretary at a salary, say, of a thousand pounds a
year, and of course lodgings in the club." I said that would suit me excellently;
I made out the whole thing—constitution, articles and all— and submitted it
to him. He told me it was exactly what he wanted.
A little later it was rumored that the Prince of Monaco had concluded a
treaty with Monsieur Camille Blanc, the chief shareholder in the "gambling
house," and had given him fresh extension of his lease, on condition of
receiving some millions of francs.
One night in London I mentioned the matter to one of the kings of finance; he
laughed outright.
"So you're the culprit," he cried; "that's a jolly good one on you."
"Why?" I asked. "What are you laughing at?"

800

"I'm laughing," he said, "because that wily fox, the Prince of Monaco, got you
for nothing to frighten M. Blanc so that he has concluded a new contract for
fifty years to come on most favorable terms."
I knew intuitively that I had been done by the fox. But I had been cheated, I
found, more completely than I had even imagined. The Prince of Monaco sold
the whole idea of the Sporting Club, as constituted by me, to Camille Blanc,
and got another large sum for it, taking care not to encumber the deal with a
permanent secretary, and so cheated me.
There were two sides to Prince Albert, as to most men: he really loved science
and prosecuted his deep sea fishing in the interests of science; at the same
time he married an immensely rich heiress, and he sold the future of Monte
Carlo to Camille Blanc, after getting the highest possible from the financier
by publishing his resolve to shut the "tripot" as soon as the lease was out.
Verily, The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the
children of Light!

801

CHAPTER XI.
JESUS, THE CHRIST

OPINION IS SLOWLY coming to the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth is the
greatest spirit in recorded time. Very early they proclaimed him divine, and
now for nearly two thousand years all sorts and conditions of men have
studied him and talked of him. But very few, so far as I know, have even tried
to see him as he was. He was so sweet and so great that even after twenty
centuries the jury of his peers has not yet been formed, nor the final verdict
pronounced. As I have loved him without adoring him, I contribute here my
voice to the final decision, and describe besides how I came to my belief, and
the effect it had upon my conduct.
In my portrait of Renan, I have told how, towards the end of the century, Sir
Charles Dilke had given me an introduction to him, and Dilke was one of the
few Englishmen who spoke French as well as he spoke English: his
commendation therefore had some weight. At first, Renan received me with
great kindness and almost immediately began to ask me how his Life of Jesus
was appreciated in England. I said that it was regarded as the best life—
much better than Strauss's: but again and again he came back to the matter
with a desire of praise which seemed almost childish to me, and an invincible
disdain of any criticism, however well founded, which sometimes provoked
me.
Every time I came to Paris for some years, I went to see him, and after a couple
of visits he began to treat me with a sort of condescension, which was really
due to the fact that I had never told him fully what was in my mind about his
work. At length I resolved to do this.
One day, I have forgotten how, he provoked me and I said to him: "Master,
what was the ordinary language that Jesus spoke?" "Aramaic," he replied,
"the common Jewish dialect of Hebrew." "I have always hoped," I said, "that
he spoke Greek ordinarily, though of course it may have been Latin."
"Oh no," said Renan, "he only spoke one language; he was quite uneducated,
so far as we know."
"What does it mean," I said, "when on the cross he cries, 'Eloi, Eloi, Lama
Sabachthani?' That's Aramaic, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Renan, "surely."
"Then they go on to say in the Bible, 'which being interpreted means, "My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" ' It is surely plain from this that
he usually spoke another language, which did not need to be interpreted,
and that here on the Cross in his mortal anguish, he fell into the language of
his childhood, and they therefore translated it."

802

"I see your inference," cried Renan; "strange that I had never thought of that
before; where did you get the idea?"
I smiled, but it almost made me tell him that I had gotten hardly anything
from his Life of Jesus, often as I had looked into it.
There are many little touches in the Bible which seem to make the Master
plain to me. If I had another life to live, I would learn Aramaic and Hebrew
and try to do what Renan failed to do: give a real portrait of the greatest man
who ever wore flesh.
When his mother and father left him as a boy, and finding that he was not
with them, returned to Jerusalem and discovered that he bad been in the
synagogue, he said to them: "Wist thou not that I must be about my Father's
business?" This and the remark afterwards that his mother kept all such
sayings in her heart seemed to reveal him to me as extraordinary, even in
boyhood.
It has always seemed strange to me that Jesus called his disciples, and as
many as twelve. Most able men have two or three who cherish their sayings
and love to be with them, but we have no record of their selection by the
teacher: usually it is the disciples who choose. The story seems to me a little
difficult to understand because it is very unusual, and so far as I can discover,
not symbolic.
A little later Jesus will not see his mother or his brethren, nor acknowledge
the claims of kinship. There is a possible, even a likely explanation of this:
when he engaged his disciples and began his independent career, he first
went back to Nazareth, we are told, but his assumption of authority annoyed
the people and "filled them with wrath." "Is not this Joseph's son?" they
asked. "And have we not his brothers and sisters here with us?" And he had
to hide from the indignation of the people.
We are told expressly: "Neither did his brethren believe in him." His friends
and kinsmen, indeed, appear to have shielded him by saying, "He is beside
himself"; and their excuse, I imagine, so wounded him that later he refused to
see them, declaring that "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my
brother, and my sister and mother."
Again, later, we have the estrangement from his mother in a more
pronounced form. "A certain woman of the company," according to St. Luke,
lifted up her voice and said unto him: 'Blessed the womb that bore thee and
the paps which thou has sucked!' But he said: 'Yea, rather, blessed they that
hear the word of God and keep it.' "
It is extremely difficult to see him through the mist cast about him by his
biographers. He begins his Sermon on the Mount with a series of aphorisms
such as young men of talent are accustomed to make, some of them intensely

803

characteristic: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth"—
surely the strangest prediction ever made to the children of men!
And later, the encouragement:
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say
all manner of evil against you.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so
persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Then the most beautiful of all:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
But after these superb phrases, which seem to show us the very spirit of the
young prophet, come verses which one cannot understand at all:
Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him; lest
at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, thou shall by no means come out thence, till thou hast
paid the uttermost farthing.
This childish morality, based on fear, is out of time with the rest of the
chapter; it was perhaps some youthful expression of submission to authority.
Jesus returns to the theme again toward the end of the chapter, and lifts it to
new heights:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shall love thy neighbour and hate
thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you.
And again the ineffable word which remains as a commandment: Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
But the point which first made him clear to me was the revelation of his
physical weakness. Why did he fall under the cross? Most men would find it
easy enough to carry the cross, which was of dried wood and wasn't very
heavy. The first time I saw one was in the Russo-Turkish war of '76-77, when
the Turks had crucified some of their opponents; these crosses one could have
carried a long time without any difficulty, with one end over one's shoulder
and the other trailing on the ground.

804

But the chief proof of his weakness is that he is said to have died on the cross
within a few hours; at this, we are told, "Pilate marvelled"—and well he
might, for most men can endure the torture of the cross for days; and it was to
convince themselves that he was really dead that a soldier put the spear into
his side and "forthwith came there out blood and water."
Now if he were dead, he must have been dead for some time, the time at least
necessary for someone to go to Jerusalem and see Pilate and return again to
Calvary with the order to test the apparent death. If he were dead for a
couple of hours, surely nothing would come out of a wound save a little
moisture; I therefore draw the conclusion that he had fainted merely and
afterwards came to, and through the care of the women who loved him, was
able to show himself to his disciples; but the crucifixion had broken him, and
the dreadful doubt—"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"—and
soon afterwards he died.
As I told Renan, I disliked his insistence on the personal beauty of Jesus.
Mohammed was said by every one to be astonishingly good-looking, with
splendid eyes, but no disciple at the time seems to have said anything like
this of Jesus. What took them was that "he spoke as never man spoke"; and
although his face must have been transfigured by his emotion, still it was the
message and not the face of the messenger which struck every one as most
important.
Best of all his sayings, I love the story of the woman taken in adultery, the
greatest story in the world, if I may judge it.
It is only recorded by John: was he the beloved disciple because he would
recall the highest word?
Jesus had said time and again that he had come to fulfill the law of Moses
and not to change it; and now the Jews brought him a woman "taken in
adultery, in the very act," and said: "Moses commanded that such should be
stoned, but what sayest thou?"
Jesus was caught in a flagrant contradiction; he had always said that he had
come to fulfill the law, so now to gain time for thought, he stooped and with
his finger wrote upon the ground, "as though he heard them not."
And then he took counsel with his own soul and answered divinely: "He that
is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
And the Jews were so honest that "being convicted by their own conscience,"
they went out, one by one.
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto
her, "Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned
thee?"

805

She said, "No man, Lord!"
And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
Now what does this "Neither do I condemn thee!" mean, save that he, too, was
not without sin?
The puzzling things in the Gospel narrative are the contradictions in spirit:
think of that verse in St. Luke: "But those mine enemies, which would not that
I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before ne. And in almost
every one of the Gospels there is some dreadful contradiction of this sort
which brings one near doubt. For example, Mark tells us in his first chapter
how Jesus came from Nazareth and was baptized of John in Jordan, and the
heavens opened and the Spirit like a dove descended upon him. And there
came a voice from heaven saying: "Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am
well pleased."
Afterwards, John was cast into prison, and while there, if we can believe
Matthew, he heard of the works of Christ and sent two of his disciples to ask
him: "Art thou he that should come or do we look for another?" In other
words: "Art thou the Messiah?"
But how extraordinary, for when John baptized Jesus, he must have seen the
heavens opened and the spirit in the form of a dove descending and heard
the voice saying: "Thou art my beloved Son." How then could John doubt?
Even the prayer Jesus taught his disciples hardly reaches his highest: "Give
us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who
trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation." I should prefer simply:
"Give and forgive."
Why then believe at all in the existence of Jesus? Why not accept the
conclusion of Mr. Robertson and others, and, I am told, the great majority of
Rabbis, who think that he never existed?
First of all, it is my conviction that every great movement in the world comes
from a great man. I cannot believe that the verses: "Love your enemies ..." and
"Be ye therefore perfect ..." ever came as a part of ordinary belief: such words
are the very perfume, so to speak, of an extraordinary and noble nature.
Besides this, there are the two almost contemporary records: the one in
Josephus and the other in Tacitus. The one in Josephus has been tampered
with In the interest of so-called Christianity, but the fact that it was inserted
already testifies to a personality: and the phrase in Tacitus: "quidam Jesu,"
confessing contempt—"a certain fellow called Jesus"—is purely Roman, and
comes from the same man who thought the murder of fifty thousand Jews,
men, women, and children, In the streets of Syracuse "a good riddance."

806

Beyond all doubt Jesus lived and died as his disciples tell us, and what
consolation there is for all of us in his ultimate triumph. Here is a poor Jew,
known only to a few fishermen in a small and despised province of the Roman
Empire, speaking a dialect that was only understood by a handful of
sectaries, and condemned when between thirty and forty years of age to a
shameful death.
No record of what he said or did for fifty years after his crucifixion, and then
nothing but fragmentary memories of three or four unlettered followers. Yet,
by virtue of half a dozen sentences and a couple of little parables — how can
one help recalling here the Prodigal Son with its message of pure affection—
he has come to be a leader and teacher of hundreds of millions of the most
intelligent peoples in the world—in some sort, their idol and God.
Is it not plain from this one example that the Good is imperishable and
Divine and must ultimately conquer even in this world?
For two thousand years, now, Christianity has been preached to us as an
ideal; even the ministers of the gospel have regarded its teaching as
impracticable, and from St. Paul down, one and all have sought to mix some
hard alloy of conventional morality with the golden evangel of Jesus, in
order to give it currency among men.
I wish to go a step further, to push the light a space on into the all-encircling
night. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated his belief once for all:
I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
you.
And this is put aside as a counsel of perfection. It seems to me the impartial
statement of scientific truth.
Jesus gave no reason for his gospel; did not attempt to prove it, save to the
soul by its own virtue. For many centuries the saying was a stumbling block
even to the wisest, but when it came to Shakespeare, he saw its everlasting
truth and found a reason for it and so added a coping stone to the divine
Temple of Humanity. The passage is in Timon of Athens:
He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs
His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
In other words, if we nurse hatreds we are doing ourselves harm: we must love
our enemies, for if we hate them we prefer our injuries to our heart's well
being and bring it into danger.

807

Shakespeare did not go further than this; he saw that a man should take
wrongs done to him lightly and for his own sake should not cherish
resentment. It was a great step forward; but there is still a truth behind, which
Shakespeare, the most articulate of men, would surely have expressed, had
he seen. It is by the heart we grow; hatred injures the heart; dries up the
sympathies; impoverishes the blood, so to speak; stops all growth.
This further truth was revealed to me by my art. I found that till I loved a man
I could not understand him, could not see him as he saw himself, and so could
not depict him fairly. But as soon as I began to like him, I began to make
excuses for his faults, and when I grew to care for him really, I saw that he had
no need even to be excused. Hatred gives nothing but the shadows in the
portrait: you can make a likeness with shadows alone; but if you want to
reveal a man's soul fully, to make a work of art, you must know the best in the
man and use high lights as well; and these you can only get from loving
comprehension.
The road up for all of us is sympathy. How fine the Greek word "sympathy" is,
and what a lesson it teaches of the divinity of pain; it means literally "to suffer
with." We mortals grow near one another by "suffering with" one another,
and so come by pain to love and through love to comprehension. Shelley's
word is forever true:
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
The French proverb, "tout comprendre est tout pardonner" (to understand all
is to pardon all), does not go far enough. If we understand a man perfectly,
there is no need to pardon, for we are then above forgiveness, even beyond
good and evil; we see why and how he acted.
And this effort to love our enemy, and so come to see him as he sees himself, is
soul-enriching in a thousand ways. First of all, the getting rid of an enemy is
exhilarating and delightful. Then every new friend is an acquisition more
precious by far than any great portrait to a collector in his gallery; and when
we have forced ourselves to annex several of these rich prizes that we had no
title to and money could not buy, we begin to see that this is no alien or
difficult world, and not dangerous at all. The woods that seemed so dark and
threatening to our childhood, now show us shady nooks and gay green glades
and pleasant avenues sun-kissed. Love is the guide; and the good magician,
Love.
A new commandment I give unto you: that ye love one another.
This is the scientific law of life, the end, if not the beginning, of all human
morality!
I was about forty before I came to understand its supreme significance. It
influenced me in my conduct of the Saturday Review, as I have stated, in my

808

desire to get the best men to work with me, careless of their opinions, and to
set them, so far as possible, to praise and not to blame.
The message of Jesus has, I think, influenced my life more and more with
every year I have lived since, but still I hardly dare call myself a Christian,
because I also believe in the pagan view of life. Who can doubt that it is the
first duty of man to develop all his faculties to the uttermost, and to enjoy all
the beauties and pleasures of life so far as he can without injuring others? The
doctrine of love for others only supplements and crowns this primary creed.
It seems plain to me that the intense spirituality of Christ's teaching has had
an unexpected result in increasing sensuality and the sensuous expression of
affection. Was it the love of the Magdalen—which, everyone knows, was the
heart of the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages—which intensified and
in some sense ennobled passion, or was this exaltation of the woman who had
"loved much" also a result of increasing sensualism— probably at once both
cause and consequence?
It cannot be denied that the growth of sensuality is the chief note of all the
centuries since. It is embodied to me in the coming to honor of the kiss.
Naturally, the kiss in the beginning was a purely maternal act: it is unknown
to the Yellow and Negro races, who rub noses instead; in early Sanskrit
literature, too, the kiss was always maternal or filial. The kiss seems to have
been unknown as a token of love even to the ancient Greeks: there is no
mention of a kiss in the love scenes of Homer; and among the ancient Romans,
the kiss was a mere salutation.
It is possible that the Jews were somewhat more advanced; St. Paul advises
his followers to greet one another "with an holy kiss," and there seems to me
to be a strange confession in that "holy."
However that may be, the kiss in our time has become even more than a
token of love: I cannot but recall Shakespeare's deathless lines to his dark
lady:
Of many thousand kisses, the poor last
I lay upon thy lips.
Saint-Beuve, in one of his rare flashes of insight, says: "Nous sommes tons
aujourd'hui fils d'une litterature sensuelle" (We are all today children of a
sensual literature).
It is curious to me that even the greatest have done so little to justify the new
commandment of Jesus, to love one another.
Even Cervantes is silent on the matter: his Don Quixote will fight windmills,
but is not Quixotic enough to preach the doctrine of love to his neighbor; nor
does Goethe; and yet what can be plainer than the fact that unless this gospel

809

of Jesus is learned and put to practice, the generations of men will cease to
exist?
A scientist in London wrote me the other day that already they had under
control five or six of the original elements. "When we have control of a
dozen," he added, "a man will go about with power enough in his waistcoat
pocket to destroy a whole city like London or New York." It seems to me
possible that men may win power before goodness, and the race may then
come to an untimely end. If not, its survival will be in great part due to the
divine spirit of Jesus.
While passing this chapter through the press, news came to me of the
recently discovered version of Josephus in the Russian language. This
manuscript of "The Jewish War" was found in Esthonia some twenty years
ago; it is of supreme interest because it throws new light on the life of Christ,
and even records events which are not to be found in the Greek text of the
Gospels.
The original of Josephus' work was written in Aramaic or Hebrew (as is to be
inferred from one passage), and the best scholars are now beginning to see
that the newly found text was taken from this version; and that certain
allusions to the history of Jesus were omitted by the writer from his Greek
translation in order not to offend his Roman patrons. Here are some of the
most interesting passages from the Russian manuscript:
At this time arises a man, if one may call him a man, who by his nature and
behavior showed himself as if more than human. His works were wonderful,
and he worked wonders, strange and powerful. Thus it is possible for me to
call him a man; through looking at him in every way, I would also not call
him an angel. And all he did, he did by word and command; as if by some
inner power. Some said of him that our first law-giver had risen from the dead
and showed forth much healing power. Others considered that he was sent of
God. But he opposed altogether the Law; and did not hold the Sabbath
according to ancestral custom. Yet he did nothing overtly criminal; but by
word he influenced all. And many out of the people followed him and
received his teaching. And many souls wavered, wondering whether by it the
Jewish tribes could free themselves from Roman hands. Now it was a habit of
his to stay much on the Mount of Olives in face of the city. And also there he
manifested his healing powers to the people. And there gathered to him
"Slaves" a hundred and fifty, and many from among the Folk. When they saw
his power that all was as he willed by means of the word, they besought him
that "he would enter the city and cut down the Roman soldiers and Pilate,
and rule over us." But that he scorned.
And thereafter, when the Jewish leaders got to know of it, they assembled
themselves with the high priests and said: "We are powerless and weak to
stand against the Romans. But as also the bow is bent, we will go and tell
Pilate what we have heard, and we will be untroubled; lest if he hear it from

810

others, we be robbed of our goods and ourselves cut down and our children
scattered." And they went and told Pilate. And he sent and had many of the
people struck down.
And as for the wonder-worker, he had him brought before him. And when he
had tried him, he perceived that he was a doer of good and not of wrong;
neither a rebel, nor a striver after political power, and he set him free. He had
given heed to his perturbed wife.
And he went again to his accustomed place and did his customary works.
And at once again more people gathered to him, so that his works were more
celebrated than ever; the Scribes became filled with envy and gave thirty
talents to Pilate that he should kill him. And after he had taken, he
consented that they should themselves carry out their purpose. And they
took him and crucified him according to Imperial Law.
It was only natural that Josephus, when he turned his story written in
Aramaic into Greek, should omit this bribing of Pilate, which would surely
have offended the Romans. After most careful consideration, I regard this
account as a wonderful addition to the Gospel story as we have it. It does not
represent Jesus as divine; in fact it gives an almost modern view of the rarest
spirit that has ever steered humanity.

811

CHAPTER XII.
THE END OF THE CENTURY

THE LAST YEARS of this century were dignified by an extraordinary
proposal, which has been allowed to fall into complete oblivion: the Tsar
Nicolas II sent in August, 1898, to all European rulers and to the United
States, a proposal to bring about a great conference in order to ensure peace
among the nations and put an end to the constantly increasing armaments
that were impoverishing Europe. The Tsar's words were:
"The maintenance of general peace and a possible reduction of the excessive
armaments which weigh upon all nations, present themselves, in the existing
conditions of the whole world, as the ideal towards which the endeavors of all
governments should be directed."
The difficulties in reaching any agreement were of necessity great, but did
not appear at first to be insurmountable. The conference met: all the nations
sent of their wisest. The president was M. de Staal, Germany sent Count
Munster, England Sir Julian Pauncefote, America the Hon. Andrew D.
White, Italy Count Nigra, France Leon Bourgeois, Spain the Duke of Tetuan,
China sent Yang Yu, Persia her poet, Riza Khan, Servia the celebrated writer,
Miyatovich. The young Queen of Holland put the great palace of the Hague
at the disposition of the delegates. Alas! Even before the Congress met, signs
of disagreement arose.
A little dispute between Lord Salisbury and Dick Olney of the United States
put the chief difficulty in a nutshell. Suppose the conference condemned a
war and a certain nation or nations began hostilities. How could the
conference get power to enforce its decision? Plainly, the difficulty had to be
met in some way or other, yet, though the talk went on for months, it all came
to nothing. But the peace proposal and the conference cast a certain grim
light upon the murder later in Siberia of the Tsar and his whole family by his
unruly subjects.
The year 1899 was to me extraordinarily painful. I have already told how my
work in South Africa had taken away my attention from investments in
Monte Carlo and Nice, which I had neglected and which therefore turned
out very badly. I lost thirty or forty thousand pounds and had to find some
new way of making money. Suddenly in this mood I went back from the
Riviera and stayed a short time in Paris.
On one of my earlier hurried visits to Paris I met Whistler, who took me to
lunch at his house in the Rue du Bac. He talked to me passionately of his
quarrel with Sir William Eden, which arose about the price to be paid for the
portrait he had done of Lady Eden. He read to me his newest pamphlet: "The
Baronet and the Butterfly."
I had already written in the Saturday Review in Whistler's favor in the
dispute with Sir William Eden because I thought it petty of a man as rich as

812

Eden to quarrel over a hundred pounds with a great artist; but now I noticed
a malevolence in Whistler that amazed me.
I have told in my Life of Wilde how I had dined with Whistler in London and
told him that Oscar was engaged in prison in writing a new work, a very
important drama; and I simply recorded the fact that my story called forth "a
stinging gibe at Oscar's expense."
I may now recount Whistler's word. "Oscar writing a new work," he said, "a
great romantic drama; we must find a name for it. I have it" he cried; "it must
be known as The Bugger's Opera."
If Whistler had been more kindly, he would have been a greater man. In full
maturity of talent he dissipated himself in squabbles and quarrels which had
really no meaning or importance.
Of course, I always took care to meet Oscar whenever I was in Paris; at this
time he was hard up and I had to promise him money.
I must now tell perhaps the most characteristic piece of humor that I ever
heard from him. He called on me one morning and found me reading the
Bible.
"Wonderful book, Frank," he said.
"A fairy tale of religion," I said, "the development of a national conscience."
"Not quite that, Frank," he said gravely, "it's its truth that impresses me."
"Truth?" I questioned.
"Yes, Frank," and the fine eyes laughed. "It begins, you know, with a man and
a woman in a garden and naturally it ends with Revelations."
I was delighted with the word; and of course had to try to equal it, so I told
him the story of my old friend Marix. I was astonished one day at meeting him
coming out of a private room of the Cafe Royal, for at that time, even, he was
quite grey and must have been seventy years of age.
"My boy," he said, "I have just been with the prettiest girl in London, and had
a great time."
"Come, come, Marix," I said, "you are too old to brag."
"Oh, you unbeliever," he said, "don't you know the English proverb: 'Many a
good tune comes from an old fiddle?' "

813

"That's true," I said, "but even the English have never been foolish enough to
say that the good tune comes from an old bow (beau)."
In one of these talks, Oscar told me a scene from a play he had thought of
writing, in which the wife, who was also the mistress of the house, has gone up
to her private sitting-room to rest: she is lying down behind the screen with a
"migraine," when her husband comes in with the woman he is in love with at
the moment. In the middle of their love-making, which the wife can't help
overhearing, a knock comes at the door and they hear outside the voice of the
husband of the lady, who demands admission. The scene is resolved by the
lady of the house getting up from behind the screen and opening the door,
and thus saving the guilty couple.
It occurred to me that I had a story about a Mr. and Mrs. Daventry in my head,
which would suit this scene. I finally bought the right to use it for a hundred
pounds from Oscar. He asked me fifty pounds for the scene and I gave it to
him, and I told him I would give him fifty pounds more if he would write the
first act. He promised, but did not keep his word. I went back to London and
wrote the play, Mr. and Mrs. Daventry, in four or five days, and took it to Mrs.
Patrick Campbell, who accepted it at once. I only made one condition—that
Mr. Daventry should be played by Fred Kerr, whom I regarded as one of the
best character actors on the English stage.
As Oscar would not write the first act, I wrote it and did it badly, and I
rewrote it for the fiftieth night when I had had a little stage experience.
Afterwards Oscar twitted me about my purchase, saying I had bought the
great scene from the Lady Teazle of Sheridan without recognizing it.
When the play was put on at first, it had a very bad press: the London papers
all told me that I had written a French play better suited for Paris than for
London; and I found Mrs. Campbell, the next day, in despair because of the
unfavorable notices. I cheered her up by telling her that I would pay all the
expenses of the play for a half-share in it.
"If you can afford to do that," she said, "I can afford to risk it."
"This bad press," I said, "will make the play."
Clement Scott, the most influential critic of the tune, tried to damn the play
out of personal dislike for me and gave one phrase in the play astonishing
notoriety. People talked in the play of the "English vice" till at length the
protagonist, Mr. Daventry, turns round and asks: "Is there such a thing, Lady
Hillington, as an English vice? What is the peculiarly English vice?"
"Oh," retorted the clever woman, "I thought every one knew that, Mr.
Daventry; the English vice is adultery with home comforts."

814

That brought all the best class of London society in streams to the theatre,
and created such an excitement that about the fiftieth night the censor
interfered and cut the phrase out. I went to see him. "Why do this?" I asked.
"Surely the phrase is harmless enough, and true to boot."
"Oh, I am delighted with it" he replied, "I tell it every night. I wish you could
tell me as good a one about the French. Couldn't you tell me what the French
vice is?"
"Quite easily," I replied. "You know that in all the apartment houses in Paris
they have a notice 'eau et gaz a tous les Stages' (water and gas on every floor).
Well, you know the word garce, meaning a naughty flapper, is pronounced
very much like gaz, so I say 'eau et garces a tous les etages' that is the French
vice."
He roared with laughter and thanked me, and this word of mine had almost
as great a success, told by him in private, as anything in the play: but in the
middle of the success, when I was receiving some hundreds of pounds a week
from the play, Queen Victoria died, and the period of mourning stopped all
plays in London for a fortnight; but after the period of mourning had passed
my play was the only play, I believe, revived in that season, and it ran for fifty
or sixty more nights—until Mrs. Patrick Campbell got rid of Fred Kerr, whom
I had picked to play the protagonist, Mr. Daventry, and so spoilt the whole
cast.
The success emboldened me to write other plays and I wrote three or four,
notably one Shakespeare and His Love, and one entitled The Bucket Shop.
The one on Shakespeare was immediately taken by Beerbohm Tree, who
gave me five hundred pounds in advance for it and promised to open his
season with it; but in the meantime he found that his daughter Viola had
some talent and wished to go on the stage; and he therefore rejected my play
for another because, as he said, he couldn't make love to his own daughter on
the stage, whereas Shakespeare in my play was the lover personified. So I
withdrew the play and it was never given in London. A year or so later I
wrote The Bucket Shop and the Stage Society asked me to allow them to
give a representation of it. The success was so great that the society, with my
consent, put it on for a second performance, when again the house was
crowded.
I found such difficulty, however, with actors and actresses that I resolved to
return to writing stories: each actor and actress seems to be firmly convinced
that his or her part is greater than the whole, and they will deform the whole
at any moment for a personal success in the part. Besides, I made more money
on the stock exchange than I could make at either play-writing or bookwriting,
and so I resolved to write merely the books that pleased me, careless
of what the monetary outcome might be.

815

When I had done a number of short stories, some which later appeared in my
book The Veils of Isis, I began to see that the art of narration was still in its
infancy. I saw that though the French were masters of the art of story-writing,
there wasn't a single story in French, long or short, which I considered at all
perfectly designed.
My practice taught me that the most important thing in a story is the speed of
narration; no one wants his reader to skip passages or to feel that this or that
part is too long. Most writers think that they can avoid being tedious by
jumping from one part of the story to another; but this habit is apt to distract
attention. The true art consists in so graduating the speed of the narration
that the reader feels that he is being carried along faster and faster to an
inevitable conclusion, much as if he were caught in the rapids of Niagara
above the falls. And in order to be able to graduate the speed, the
introduction of the characters should be deliberate and slow in exact
proportion to the length of the story. For as soon as the characters are all
known to the readers and the trend of the story is indicated, then the pace
should begin to quicken, and chapter by chapter the speed should increase
and should be felt to be increasing, so that skipping or tedium should be
absolutely impossible. I can understand using telegraphese at the end of a
story to prevent any suspicion of dragging.
In time, with a great deal of practice, I learned many things about the art of
story-writing, which I shall perhaps tell about in a future volume.
In the meantime, I had no journal; the South African war was going on,
English defeats growing more and more frequent, every one disappointed
and dejected. A sad close to a wonderful period! My old enemy, bronchitis,
had seized me in October and I couldn't shake it off. I was in bed with it in a
little country house I had outside London when I read of Oscar Wilde's death.
The world went greyer to me.
The news from the front continued to get worse and worse. It seemed to me
that the South African war marked the decadence of England. I thought and
said it showed a lack of understanding, a lack of all high qualities of heart as
well as of head, so grave that I couldn't see any possibility of England
standing in the future side by side with the United States. The English had
spent a thousand millions of money on that unspeakably silly South African
war, whereas, if they had spent half that sum in settling up the central
plateau of Africa, even from the north of the Transvaal to the Zambesi with
their own unemployed, they might have laid the foundations of a greater
empire than even the one they had lost in North America.
Now, after many years, I wonder still whether it is too late for them to recover,
but their policy since the Great War is exactly the same as it was in the South
African War—a policy of petty grocers much more intent on getting than on
giving—and greedy of small immediate gains. Fancy disputing with the
miners about an eight hours' day. The miner has to go to his work and return

816

and wash from head to foot in warm water, and on the average this costs him,
at least, two hours more; ten hours a day of meanest labor for eight hours pay
is bad enough for anyone. The workers in England are always vilely treated.
Another evil is that the aristocrat always supports the employers and
exploiters of labor as against the workingmen, although his conduct to his
own servants and dependents is usually excellent; consequently, the strife in
England between the employer and the workman becomes keener and
keener: the employer wishes to pay as little as he can, and naturally under
these circumstances, the workman tries to do as little as he can. The chief
result is that though the mining conditions in England are more favorable
than they are anywhere else in the world, for in South Wales and elsewhere
they have coal quite close to the sea, yet coal can be produced in America
and shipped from Virginia, four hundred miles to the sea, and sold to compete
with English prices in the London markets. The English employers
continually seek to make their money by grinding the workmen, instead of
using their own brains in new labor saving appliances and inventions—and
now in this year, 1927, they are bringing in a law to make a general strike
criminal and so reduce the workmen to practical slavery. Nothing has been
done in twenty years to develop the central plateau of Africa—the noblest
field for colonization in the world! I harp on this because of its extraordinary
importance: I wish all good things for England, for I know well her chivalrous
and honorable side, enskied by beauty and sainted by noble deeds, a side
realized in her poetry, the finest in the world's literature. But if she ever wins
again to financial power it will be through her colonies, and she possesses no
colony that can compare with that Central African plateau.
But if England doesn't care to use her power wisely, what must be said of
America? The United States Government has never even shown an inkling of
its highest function. Already she is by far the strongest power in the world,
strong enough to disband her army and navy and make the chief navies of
the world a mere police force and insurance against piracy and privateering;
and the money she now spends on armaments could be used to spiritualize
her people. By putting an end to war, she may inaugurate that reign of peace
upon earth and universal good will to men which is, so to speak, the first
recognition by the soul of the new commandment given to us by Christ.
The money rewards of work are far larger in America than anywhere else in
the world, and so artists and thinkers and writers of all sorts are swept into the
struggle for money and carried away by success. Of course, this fact should
have led the governors to increase at any cost the spiritualization of the
people. Conservatories of music and opera houses should have been founded
by the state in every city of fifty-thousand inhabitants. Long ago America
should have had municipal theatres, too, as well as municipal opera houses,
and even municipal schools of chemistry and physics for original research,
after the German fashion, but nothing of this sort has been done.

817

America, I am afraid, is becoming more and more a mere weapon of the rich
to plunder the poor. Yet something great in America drew me always; my
love of Professor Smith, who had been my earliest teacher in Kansas, taught
me that there was an ideal there higher than anywhere else on earth,
because kinder. Every revelation of English snobbishness led me back to the
democratic feeling in America with intense pleasure. I always knew that all
snobbishness was a love of unreal superiorities, and always loathed the vice;
as Emerson said, it dwarfs the dignity of manhood, and prevents one feeling
at home with the best in every country.
Let me tell a story to show this. When I was a student in Lawrence, Kansas,
there was a wastrel in the town who pretended to have been a pal of Ulysses
Grant, the President. This wastrel was always hanging round the bar of the
Eldridge House, or some other saloon, and if he had ever met you in any
company always called you afterwards by your Christian name and
proposed a drink. His tipple was what he called port wine, a most awful
concoction of sugar, logwood and raw alcohol that had no more relation to
Oporto than the wastrel had to civilization.
I have forgotten his name, but we youths were more or less interested in him
and his stories. He told us how President Grant in his youth used to drink a
great deal more than was good for him. We often wondered whether he was
telling the truth or merely inventing.
Suddenly, it was announced that President Grant was coming to Lawrence.
He was to dine at the Eldridge House on a certain day, accompanied by the
governor and two or three senators and the mayor of the town.
We boys thought our time had come, so we got the old wastrel, primed him
up with a drink or two of his port wine, and took him to the Eldridge House
five minutes before the President was expected to arrive.
In due course the President's carriage drew up at the entrance. The governor
got out, helped the President out, and the mayor and various other
dignitaries brought up the rear. Just as Grant got to the door of the hotel in
the full glare of the light, we pushed the old wastrel forward in front of him,
and he stood with a deprecating smile, holding out his hand, saying, Ulysses,
Ulysses."
Grant's grim face did not relax. He looked at the human wreck with sharp,
little gray-blue eyes, taking him all in, the dirty thread-bare clothes, frayed
trousers, shabby boots and hat—everything—but not a gleam of recognition.
The wastrel was ludicrous—pathetic. "You hain't forgot Hap," he said,
grinning.
Suddenly Grant's hard face changed. "Are you So and So?" he said.

818

"Sure," quavered the wastrel, "sure. I knew you'd remember me."
"Of course I do," said the President, holding out his hand; "of course I do. Yet it
is twenty or more years since I saw you. You must come in and dine."
The wastrel's face quivered like jelly and he looked down at his clothes and
hands.
"What matter?" Grant went on heartily. "Come right in; these gentlemen will
forgive your dress." And in they all went, to our amazement, the President
and the drunken wastrel in the lead.
It was said afterwards that no one had ever heard Grant talk so much as at
that dinner. He spoke on three or four different occasions to the wastrel—a
thing unheard of. But when we boys turned away, I remember it struck me
that there was something noble in Grant's recognition and cordiality—
something unthinkable almost to the European.
I remember trying once to persuade Arthur Balfour, after telling him this
incident, that this feeling of equality, this generosity, was the strong mortar
that clamped the American people together with a grip firmer even than the
Roman mortar which was stronger than the stone itself.
America suffers from an exaggerated and almost insane individualism, yet
there is slowly growing up an ideal of mutual help that may yet redeem all
the races of men.
The slow rate of human progress is what distresses one. It has taken a
thousand years for us to get rid of Hell and devils and to distrust prisons and
punishments, but now that we believe in sympathy and affection, our
progress will be more rapid. It is money now that separates us one from
another: greed must be conquered, and case-hardened selfishness, too, by a
new sense, a truly Christian sense, of mutual loving-kindness; and so we shall
get rid of war and its insane stupidity and cruelty. My quarrel with President
Wilson was that he might have done this easily, but any American president
could do it in a single term, and win for himself and his land an immortality of
renown.
This new ideal was born in the wonderful nineteenth century, the century
that has enlarged and enriched life in so many ways.
In 1870, one-third of the globe was unexplored, unknown; as soon as the dark
continent was charted and the poles discovered, man took the depths of the
sea for his park and the limitless fields of the air for his playground. The XRays,
too, and wireless telegraphy have multiplied our spiritual possessions
and added, so to speak, the imaginative touch to our new powers. Railways
were first used in the late thirties and then in the nineties motor cars to make
travel easy and delightful. Instead of having only theatres to amuse us, we

819

have astounding cinema shows as well and can sit in our rooms and listen to
the greatest singers in the last half century, or hear the greatest modern
actors; statesmen, too, long dead, will make their best speeches for us as if still
alive.
And in spite of all our petty squabbles and cowardly selfishness, the pace
quickens from year to year; in spite of the World War and poison gasses and
infamous blockades that ruined women and children, we have made more
progress in science in the last ten years than in any previous decade. We
have just begun to understand the infinite power of the atom and are now
studying to harness it to our needs. And soon the forces of nature will be
enslaved and free us all from the curse of working to supply bodily wants,
and so we can turn the whole world into an enchanted place, for we begin to
see that everything is possible and wonders indescribable will yet be realized
by the awakened spirit of man.
This is my faith, the faith that guides me and directs, and I hope that those
who read me may be inspired by it. I believe unshakeably in the holy spirit of
man; in his infinite perfectibility; in the divine impulse in him to grow, not
only in knowledge, or even ml wisdom, but in goodness, in consideration for
others, in loving-kindness and gentle pity, and all the sweet offices of love.
Paul preached Faith, Hope, and Love, but he had no faith such as we have, no
hope so well-founded as ours. Think of what we have done in the last
hundred years, and forecast, if you will, the transcendent future. Tennyson's
words recur to me:
For I looked into the future far as human eye could see,
Saw the wonders of the world and all the rapture that would be.

820

CHAPTER XIII.
SEX AND SELF-RESTRAINT

LIKE HEINE, I have always been puzzled by the sex restraints and
prohibitions in men and women, and annoyed by their prudery in confessing
their practices and desires. As I have told elsewhere in this volume, I studied
medicine in Vienna when I was only twenty-three and devoted especial
attention to all sex questions; and some friends now request me to tell what I
know of these matters, for they interest everyone.
I was in doubt whether or not to do this when I received an anonymous letter
from a girl in America, who, plainly to me, is telling the story of her own
experiences, and very sad they are. If the girl had had a little more
knowledge, she might have escaped the worst of her suffering, and so I place
what little knowledge I have gained at the disposal of men and women who
may need and desire it. She begins:
This is the woman's side of your volume two (the writer not having seen
volume one). Not that this is meant to be a sermon—nor that "the writer"
doesn't believe in frankness and in truth; (on the contrary, "the writer" has
suffered much because others objected to truth instead of dissimulation).
A young girl born in a Roman Catholic community, where the Blessed
Virgin Mary is a great patron, where virginity is considered a priceless jewel.
The girl with a bright mind, anxious to learn, easily surpassing classmates,
liking to "think"—beginning to think about Catholic dogmas, until that
culminated long afterwards in leaving the Church. Born poor, the girl had
enough to do to work in order to be able to study, to go to a "select" (it
happened) preparatory school, business school, Roman Catholic College,
then a larger, leading women's college. Never had an opportunity to meet
boys as social equals. Consequently had an idealized version of mankind in
her mind. A good-looking girl, not of the "pretty" type, she did attract men,
and it was a new land of not-known possibilities to her. However, she never
met "eligible" people, nor naturally was she very "eligible" to "worthwhile"
people, having no background but herself, no money but what she earned,
etc.
Full of energy, enthusiasm, zeal for service, etc., after college, (during the
senior year, met an impecunious, brilliant young man, who loved her
ardently, brilliantly, youthfully, and exploringly, with much interchange of
brilliant correspondence, exploring ideas, etc.—he was an irresponsible
intellectual hero —the girl wanted strength and daring in every way in a
man—a break, and the boy died of the flu).
Another plunge into an unknown group: uneducated, very young girl-nurses
thrown into a knowledge of sex and bestiality. Our girl read up on surgery,
watched operations, etc., got to know the "wise and kindly" older housephysician,
a good surgeon, kindly and sometimes untiring. And this older
house-physician had your view of sex, Frank Harris; and every virgin was an

821

attraction to him, and no harm was ever done a girl (in his estimation) unless
she were made pregnant, and of course he never did that. He was a pleasant
kindly man, and new minds, with to-her-new experiences always interested
"our girl." He gave lectures on anatomy to the half-fledged nurses with no
education, which gave him a delightful opportunity to instill veiledly and
very sinuously the idea that the sex organs must be used or they atrophy. He
knew so much of what a virgin did not know, that when he showed strong
emotion at the girl's telling him she was leaving the next day or so, he did
persuade her to let him "have" her, after he had soothed her conscience by
asking her to marry him; she with her zeal for service, thought of getting him
to be a missionary, or such, with her. So the next night they registered as Mr.
and Mrs.— in a small New York hotel he knew.
It was an anatomical experiment to her with a dear friend. When he wanted
her to play with his "sex", she loved and fondled his dear head instead. It was
a new knowledge to her that when she stroked his nude back, his "sex"
throbbed with each stroke as he asked her to hold it. And he—afterwards—
having kissed her with seeming reverence, deeply, lovingly on the mouth as
she lay there, in the morning, insisted on putting a ten dollar note in her dress,
when she said, surprisedly, "Why, darling, why don't you get me some dear
little remembrance if you must." He had explained to her as a friend that
servant girls "pick up" ten dollars or so a night from a pick-up on the street,
and it helps out their income! And the unsuspecting "kid" (and she was over
twenty-one) never dreamed he was a very loose liver.
That ended it for the man, or any man—n'est-ce pas? Not so with any woman,
or this woman. As you know, sex in woman is very close to deep friendship
and tenderness, and not a passing thing. They wrote. His idea was to have her
spend week-ends with him as often as possible. With the education she had
had—just that, with no idea of further responsibility—a life in common,
interchange of ideal, and so on, was very cheapening. When a friend at the
hospital (the only one not of the "cheap" gang of loose-nurses) wrote her that
the Doctor had said in a class the reason he had not married was that he
could not be faithful to any one woman—the girl wrote a letter to end the
thing. And the Doctor did not come back!
Just before that, the girl had her first experience in "loving up." "Loving up"
was a term new to her used by the hospital nurses. The friend, abovementioned,
had asked her to join her in a party, three men and three girls, to
take a ride in a big limousine. One man had the car, the other two were
brothers, one of the girls was an ex-patient of hers. She dressed up "our girl" in
some attractive clothes of her sister's, and rouged her, and "our girl" seemed
to be very stunning and captivated the heart of her ex-patient's brother. It
was a new experience to her, to be made physical love to, with long-drawnout
kisses and a very new thing to have a man put her hand on his "sex" and
to find it a hard big thing! and to have him try to put his hand up her clothes!
And it frightened her then, and later when he tried to get her again.

822

The girl took a course in a religious university and met a young British
Presbyterian Minister of Scotch-Irish descent, that year. Said young man
seemed rather sophisticated to her, and she was distant to him, didn't quite
like the daring look in his eye. They talked a lot however; afterwards when
he seemed to know so much more about the course (a radical current events
course) he was invited to tea one day to finish a long talk in which he tried to
find out all he could about her. He asked her to a dinner and dance
afterwards, which was new and strange to "our girl." Since it happened that
there was a surprise party on at home (at the training school—a beautiful
place architecturally to live in by the way) she could not go, and
surreptitiously slipped out to tell him at the corner she could not. However,
she asked him later to go with her to a Tammany Hall ball, as a sociological
experiment. He was marvelously dressed up in a skirted coat, smart cane,
etc.—very handsome and gay and full of pep. She had gone to a movie with
him once, and after it, walked in the park with him where he lightly jumped
over a bench and did other physical strength stunts to her surprise. They ran a
race together, and when he outstripped her, he ran backwards, and then
caught her swiftly and turned her around, and lifted her (a big girl) high up
in the air and carried her! All much to her surprise, and thrilling, too; he
being, of course, a good man of high ideals, being a practicing Minister as
well as a student!
They danced at the ball, and he was very, very passionate, to her surprise.
During a wait on the balcony between dances, he said sophisticated little
things, and then a glance of their eyes suddenly met, said "I love you" to each
other— strangely disturbing to the girl! They went home soon after—he said,
"It's getting too warm."
Then they stopped at a Chinese restaurant to get her some Chinese candy;
but domineeringly he went to a table and said to her, "Sit there; come over
here beside me." They had food; he ate ravenously. He flirted, and she was
new at flirting. She toyed with sugar and said nonentities. He looked all
around the place to see he was unobserved (she wore a large hat) and kissed
her on the cheek, and to her very susceptible self, it seemed very insufficient.
Then they left to go home. Just outside of the door, upstairs on the landing, he
caught her and kissed her most thoroughly, and she felt his sex getting close,
close to hers (and he a Minister!) and herself being hugged as only a strong
man could hug. To her amazement, he did not say: "Will you marry me?"
When they reached the street (a Chinaman coming up had made them part
at last) she said, "What made you do that?" He said, (to her disappointment)
"Oh, I am very passionate." They took a last bus, sat on the top—the only
ones—and he finally took her on his lap and tried (as you say) to put a
naughty hand up her dress, and she seemed a willing victim, and so he
stopped. And he said, "We must not see so much of each other since we fall so
hard for each other."

823

Again—to a man that ended the matter. To a girl it seemed to mean the
beginning of a deeper friendship. You don't seem to understand what that
may leave in a girl's mind of sorrow and disappointment.
Suddenly another married man, a Jew, met her, offered to teach her how to
write, made love to her, tried to make her his mistress, never did succeed in
getting her to go away with him. The unsophisticated girl went with him to
his office in the building of the ... School. He told her later he had asked her
only in order to make love to her.
Our girl was almost killed with mere loneliness. One day on going into town
she wore her new suit (quite attention-attracting), missed the train and took
the trolley, having only a ten dollar bill (her month's wages) in her pocket.
Her seat-partner paid her fare and started to talk to her about the loneliness
of a traveling man, district manager, etc., etc., of a shooting stall in Canada,
etc. Finally he asked her to have dinner with him that evening. The lonely
girl did. He talked liberally, of trial marriage, etc. Our lonely girl was
susceptible to comradeship but not to trial marriage. He asked her to get
another girl for another man. She got a girl and the girl's own man-friend—
one she rarely saw; the four went to a new thing—a night restaurant roof
garden where she saw astonishing things—little girls (very young)
displaying their sex from the rear suddenly. It disturbed her; she pitied them,
having studied children and loved them; they were such young girls and so
ignorant looking. However, her newfound friend was a hospitable, bigtalking
passionate person. He rushed her along on the street, he tore along to
her friend's apartment, the friend gave the key, and persuaded the girl to let
his sex touch hers. That one performance may have given her gonorrhea! He
asked to come out next day. He tried to get her to come to the hotel but she
did not.
During the week some man-friend of his called her up saying the man had
left her telephone number and address and had asked him to call her up. This
humiliated the girl and she hung up the receiver, and was very, very
miserable.
The following Saturday she went to the station to take a train into a college
club meeting (she hadn't money enough to join the college club, but this was
a group meeting). On the way before she reached the station, a beautiful car
stopped and the beautifully gotten up uniformed chauffeur said respectfully:
"Can't I give you a lift?" Parched in life at the awful estate place, she who
had never taken a "lift" accepted, sat beside the person and was amused at
his respectful awed talking to her, calling her "ma'am" telling of his travels
over the world in the car for his young and wealthy master. The master
sounded interesting. He said how lonely it was to ride around without a
companion. He seemed to be having to do that for some reason or other. It was
hot summer time and the breeze in hiding was grateful to "our girl." He said
he would be glad to put his own car at her service any time she wished. He
asked her if she would go to a beautiful place she had heard of but never

824

seen. She wasn't sure so he asked her please to call him up. The next day she
did and couldn't get him. The "house" evidently answered and said he was a
servant and in the stable. However in the p. m. at the end of the lane leading
to the beautiful estate where our girl languished, was a tin-canny car and the
chauffeur; and with a text book on botany under her arm, our girl got in.
It was a beautiful ride, a beautiful place; the chauffeur was respectful! There
was no one else who wanted our girl's companionship. On the way back he
stopped the car on a woody place, laid out a newspaper and asked her to sit
down. He put his initials on a tree, a place he used to visit as a boy, he said. He
did not put the date so the girl offered to put on the date. As she had her arms
raised, he suddenly kissed her! To her it seemed to say that he was lonely, and
that was a weak spot in her. Enlarging the thing from him and her to a world
more or less of lonely human beings (and she had been suffering the pangs of
solitariness in the midst of people) she felt sorry—felt pity. He carried her (as
said, she was not a slight thing) across a foot-path, and (there is no beauty to
be described) used her for his pleasure like an animal, used her regardless of
her pain. She was down-and-out with lack of hope (and yet a strange
undirect insatiable ambition to be something was always in her); she went
"home" (to the old maid—the only home she had); he wrote her an illiterate
note meant to be kindly.
She wrote to the psycho-analyst Dr. (man) and told him some symptoms; he
wrote to her that she should be examined for he felt sure she had gonorrhea.
Alone in a strange city with no one in whom she could confide; she searched
for a woman doctor, found none, finally went to the head of a social agency to
whom one of the journalists had written much. She went not for charity but
for advice. He was kind, got her a woman Doctor who finally had her go to a
hospital where they regarded her as an outcast, had her eat on tin dishes in
an off-porch, the nurses promiscuously spilled lysol on the floor here and
there—the girl was wretched, miserable, alone; she wrote to the woman
Doctor and the doctor took her away (the hospital said they would not have
her) in the women's college hospital—after a night spent with a nurse,
secured for forty dollars a week—(an ignorant, old inefficient Irish body R. C.
who sang R. C. hymns) at a children's bureau house filled with bedbugs and
with the girl paying food expenses. The nurse had nothing to do and did less,
almost douched her with clear lysol by mistake instead of potassium
permanganate— the only reason it didn't happen was because our girl saw it
first!
The girl went through a great deal of spiritual discomfort, and mental distress
with nobody doing the slightest to change conditions at all in the future.
Finally when able she hunted herself another job, and got one for another
social agency as secretary to a female director; gave herself completely to
the work, which was to help school-children; labored enthusiastically,
industriously at less than she was worth "for the good of the cause" month by
month paid off the accumulated debt, realized that much as she loved
children and companionship evidently she was a fool in that line and

825

marriage was not for her. She was in the hospital a month, undergoing
treatment—infection was at the cervix, had not yet reached into the
uterus—and the treatment was to prevent it doing so. She was pronounced
cured but went to the doctor (the celebrated woman surgeon who took her
over to the hospital: she was killed later in an auto accident) a youthful
woman doctor successor (former helper) each month to make sure. After a
year or more she took a course or two at a school of social work and there had
one instructor who seemed very efficient, thorough, etc.
To make a long story short, they fell deeply, permanently, desperately, soulstirringly
in love. And he was married to his first cousin (his mother's sister's
daughter) both Jews, had two children, a girl and a boy; "Was no longer," (he
said, swearing the truth) "married to the woman, lived daily, hourly in mind
and soul with 'our girl'; planned to marry her!" They seemed to be perfectly
mated in every way. He seemed to become younger—he was ten years older
than she. However, like all men, this man seems to be a coward from the heel
up. I omit all the heart-rending details, of his waving back and forth, of their
not being sure that she was pregnant (the doctor said she could not become
pregnant for a year) and upon a thorough examination (when later events
showed that she had been three months pregnant) said she was not pregnant.
Eventually after much pain and sorrow at the defection of the adored one,
the baby came.
Our girl had been in the valley of humiliation and death of spirit and even
loving the man, decided she was not after "the past" worthy unless—so in all
honesty, truthfulness and sincerity, she told him before even their "marriage"
was consummated so that he could retreat if he wished to. Everything was
talked over frankly and they reverenced and respected each other.
So therefore (he lied like a devil) he went back to his cousin and the girl paid
all the bills of suffering, humiliation and anguish, always asking her to pity
him, that he would never again be happy, that he loved only her, etc., etc.,
that be was poor (the girl did the economizing; he did the spending while
talking of poverty), if he had money (he had a salary of $7,500 a year) it
would all be different.
Meanwhile other men thinking our girl a widow are perfectly willing to offer
themselves as lovers, provided it cost them nothing much in the way of
responsibility, and they can get a "beautiful thrill" out of a most beautiful
experience, and she has learned that men can be sudden and tempestuous
and bold and brutal, and they can be sly and cunning and long-time-patient
with that goal in view, and they can be devilishly unjust and mean and
wicked when they don't get what they want—always talking nicely about
"beauty" in such intimacy.
The head of the Children's Bureau, mentioned before, came to the front
again, killed the man's love for his child, took him under his wing, to bring
him back to his "holy family," told a lot of dirty, cowardly, fiendish,

826

impossible lies about the girl (he said if the thing became known it would
hurt social work in his city, so the man must be saved, regardless). And the
man's megalomaniac wife had just had a miscarriage while the man does not
pay for the support of his daughter by his beloved!
Our girl is supporting her child among many obstacles and hardships and
can't run the risk of having a government put her in jail for writing to you.
Hence the anonymity.
You seem not to care much about children, or the next generation in your
second volume, nor how you may be injuring a dear and beautiful girl-child
in your quest for your own pleasure.
I liked your "Contemporary Portraits" and your "The Man Shakespeare" very
much. And I liked a great deal of your "Life."
This letter appears to me to be an authentic human document, revealing
curiously the average woman's point of view; it bears the imprint of reality on
every page, partly because of its contempt of English usage in its ignorance of
grammar; but it is quite exceptional in pain and suffering; not once does "the
girl" describe, or even mention, the joys of sexual intercourse, and if she had
few of the pleasures, she had assuredly more than a fair share of the suffering.
Finally, she gave herself out of love to a married man; she had a child by him,
and was brutally abandoned—a sad, sad story.
I have enjoyed all the pleasures I could in life, while always seeking to do as
much good as possible and as little harm to the girl or woman-partner. I
believe that, with one exception, I have not done much harm to any one.
The reason why girls don't give themselves freely is the fear of getting a child:
they are usually too ignorant or too trusting to feel the fear of getting some
disease, though it is this fear which obsesses and scares the man; but the
dread of becoming enceinte is even less founded: with a little care that
catastrophe can be avoided. As a rule the man covers his sex with a French
letter or else covers the neck of the woman's womb with a pessary; but both of
these diminish the enjoyment and are not so sure as they might be, for the
French letters sometimes burst, and the pessary falls off occasionally, and the
result is that pregnancy may take place.
The method suggested in the Bible in the story of Onan is the one I think best:
when Onan got excited, he withdrew his sex, and we are told that "he spilled
his seed on the ground." I found out in Vienna that as a rule one needs only to
do this after the first orgasm: in ordinary cases, there is little or no danger in
the second or in following consecutive embraces. And usually this selfrestraint
is worth practicing on the part of the man since it gives almost
complete security to the girl.

827

But if the girl is caught and pregnancy results, to get rid of the foetus and
bring on the monthly period is comparatively easy in the first two months,
especially easy at the end of the first month: a dose of ergot usually suffices.
Indeed, I have known jumping down two or three stairs to bring about the
desired result; but as a rule, the girl does not act energetically this first month,
and the difficulty is enormously increased by leaving the matter for two
months; but it is still easy to bring it about the second month, and without
much danger of inflammation or consequent illness; the third, fourth, and
fifth months are excessively dangerous, and abortion then should be carried
out by a skilled hand, for as soon as the foetus adheres to the side of the
womb, it is not easy to get rid of; even when a miscarriage is brought about,
one must take care to remove all the filaments attached to the side of the
womb with a silver spoon, of course perfectly disinfected; a skilled hand is
needed in this case. In the sixth, seventh, eight, and ninth months, abortion is
comparatively easy, but there is life in the child.
We had in Vienna a method of bringing about abortion, especially at the end
of the first, or even the second month, which had no ill effects; we made a
pointed pencil of certain ingredients which swell with the heat of the body;
this pencil would be introduced slowly and carefully into the neck of the
womb; as soon as it began to swell, the abortion was begun: nature then made
its own effort and got rid of the intruding semen.
Of course, in all cases in which the girl seeks to bring about abortion she
ought, if possible, to have the advice and skilled assistance of a good doctor;
and in spite of the insane legal prohibitions, it is not difficult to find such help.
I am now going to complete this chapter by giving a personal experience
which may have a certain interest as revealing the depths over which
ordinary life is built.
When I first went to Berlin as a student, nearly fifty years ago, now, I went out
looking for rooms not too far from the university and near the great avenue,
Unter den Linden. I soon found two excellent rooms and a bathroom on the
third floor, which were let by a nice looking woman of about forty or fortyfive.
"Who will attend to me?" I asked, for the price was rather high. "Either I
myself or my daughter," said the woman, and going to the door she called,
"Katchen!" A pretty girl of sixteen or so came running and bowed to me
smiling. "All right," I said, "I'll take the rooms and move in this afternoon." In a
few hours I came in and the mother and daughter helped me to arrange
everything and make myself comfortable.
The woman brought me my coffee in the morning at eight o'clock, got my
bath ready and went away. I was perfectly content, and even better satisfied
when, after a couple of mornings, Katchen brought me my coffee, arranged
the bath, chatting to me the while.

828

Everything went perfectly for about a month: Katchen and I had become
great friends and I had already taught her that kissing sweetened service. To
do her justice, she seemed eager to profit by the teaching, but at the same
time showed a fear of being caught, I thought by her mother; and that seemed
to me extraordinary.
One Sunday morning she hurried away and the mother came in her stead.
"Where's Katchen?" I asked.
"Her father's there," the woman replied, "and he doesn't like her to serve
anyone."
"Send your younger daughter, Lisabeth!" I said cheekily, and the woman, as if
scared, answered, "Oh, that would be worse!"
"Why worse?" I went on. "I won't eat her, and surely your husband can't want
the three girls to attend to him."
"Please, please, Sir," she cried, "don't speak so loud. He might hear and then
our good times would be over."
"Over?" I questioned. "Is he such a brute?"
"Oh, Sir," she cried with tears in her voice, "forgive me! I'll tell you everything
tomorrow. Now I must go," and away she hurried, evidently in extreme
excitement or fear.
The next morning in came the mother again, and she told me the father was
very suspicious and had told her that I was too young for Katchen to wait
upon me. "Nonsense!" I cried. "I want Katchen to come out with me to the
theatre."
"Oh, Sir, please not!" cried the mother passionately. "Then he'd be sure to
know and he'd be furious. Be content with me for a week or so and he may
forget—and I'll send Katchen to you again."
"All right;" I said, "it's idiotic," but I had a good deal of work to do and wasn't
sorry to be forced to get on with it.
Three or four days more elapsed and Katchen brought me my coffee again
and sat on my bed talking with me. I had my arm round her pretty, slim waist
and was kissing her, when a knock came on the door and a man's voice called
her loudly. She sprang from the bed with white face and frightened eyes and
vanished.
I got up, bathed and dressed quickly, and then rang to have the breakfast
things taken away. The mother came in; evidently she had been crying.

829

"Please, please Sir, take care," she said. "He's in one of his mad rages: he came
back from work on purpose to catch Katchen. Oh, Sir, take care and don't go
out till noon."
"I'm going out very soon," I said, carelessly, "and shan't put it off for anyone."
"I pray you go very quietly," she said in a low voice. "We all want you to
stay."
"I don't understand," I said, feeling bewildered, for there were not many
students who could pay what I was paying.
"Nobody could understand," she cried, "how unhappy I am. Please Sir," she
added imploringly.
"All right," I said, laughing to reassure her. "I'll slip out like a mouse and
return just as quietly—"
"Please come back before six," she said. I promised and went.
That evening I got back about five and saw the mother. I asked for Katchen.
The mother said, "I'll send her, Sir, but please let her go soon; he comes home
from work soon after six."
Katchen came and was more loving than before, though manifestly on the
qui vive, listening for every sound. Before six, even, she kissed me and said
she'd have to go and I took her to the door; there the kissing began again and
lasted, I suppose, longer than we thought, for just as I opened the door that
gave on the passage to her room, there was a man at the bottom of the short
flight of stairs; he sprang up them as the girl ran into the door to the right
leading to her apartment. The man came straight to me. He was about my
height and sturdily built, plainly a man of forty-five at least, or fifty.
"You can leave this house tomorrow," he said in a low hoarse voice.
"Who are you to give me orders?" I asked.
"I'm the master here," he replied, "and I tell you, you had better go."
"My month's only beginning," I replied, "and I want the usual notice."
"If you don't go tomorrow," he said, "you'll be carried out—"
"You're a fool to threaten," I said. "To go soon would be to prove that I was
afraid of you and I'm not."
"If you had more sense, you would be," he replied.

830

"Get out of my way," I retorted, "I'm going."
"You go," he said, "and don't come back."
As he didn't move I pushed him slightly. He at once seized my right arm and
struck savagely at my face.
As a trained athlete, I had already weighed the possibilities; as he pulled my
arm I went with it to destroy his balance. As he struck I threw my head aside
and my left foot behind him. The next moment he over-balanced, and
slipping back to recover himself, slipped on the stairs and went with a crash
to the bottom and lay still.
At once the neighboring door opened and the mother and Katchen rushed
out. I had already sprung down and lifted the man; his nose was bleeding, but
his head was not seriously hurt. He would be quit for a painful bruise and a
headache, and so I informed the woman, who seemed scared to death. With
her help, I carried him into his bedroom, and on the way saw the two younger
daughters: Lisabeth, whom I knew slightly, an ordinary girl of thirteen or so,
and Marie a pretty child of ten, who, to my surprise, stared while Katchen
wept.
That evening I got a letter from the mother, asking me to go, saying the
Father threatened to kill me, and she was frightened. "Pray, pray, go," she
ended. "I don't want any money, dear Mr. Harris, and forgive me."
Next morning she came in with my breakfast. "He's gone to work," she said,
"in a silent, black rage; he says if you don't go, he'll kill you. Please, dear Mr.
Harris, do go. You'll easily get other rooms."
"I won't go a foot," I said, "and tell him if he tries to kill me, he'll get badly
hurt. I thought I had taught him that." To my wonder she broke into a storm of
tears.
"I'm the most unhappy creature in the world. I wish he'd kill me."
"Don't cry," I said, "of course, if you really want it I'll go, but—"
She seized my hand and kissed it, wetting it with tears. "I'll tell you
everything," she said. "I owe it to you. I don't know how to begin. I loved my
husband and at first was very happy with him. He has lots of good qualities.
He works hard and he thinks of his home, but I don't know how to tell it. One
day, when Katchen was about twelve, she came to me and said her father
kissed her funnily and since then—Oh, I can't tell you. He took her into my
bed! Oh, it is dreadful! Fancy, in my bed. I know I can trust you not to tell
anybody, but I am the most unhappy woman in all the world. My dear
children, ruined by their father! Was ever anyone so unhappy! What am I to

831

do? If I had told you at first, it might have made all the difference, but I
couldn't bear to. But now forgive us and forget us. Oh, I am so—miserable."
I comforted her as best I could. I was horror stricken and filled with disgust for
the man. Perhaps a point of envy sharpened my hatred of him. It ended by my
saying, "I'll go within a week and I will write it so that you can show it to him,
but I must get a place and I can't get one in a moment. In a week or so I'll be
gone."
Strange, the fact that her father had used her killed my liking for Katchen.
But Lisabeth more than filled her place. One morning Lisabeth came in with
my coffee. "Oh, I'm glad you've come," I said. "What good wind blew you in?"
"They're all crying," she said. "Father's been raging; but I wouldn't care what
he said."
"Suppose I ask you for a kiss," I said, smiling and holding out my hand, "would
you be afraid to give it?"
"Not I," she cried, coming to my side at once and giving me not one kiss, but a
dozen. "You see," she said, sitting on the edge of my bed, Father has scared
them, but he can't scare me and he knows it. He tried to kiss me the other day,
but I wouldn't have it."
"Go to mother," I said, "or Kate, but leave me alone."
"There he is now!" she exclaimed, and at that moment the father's voice was
heard in peremptory tone.
"Lisabeth, you're wanted."
"I'm not either," she replied cheekily; "you go away!" And to my astonishment
he went off grumbling.
Lisabeth appealed to me and came to me in my new lodging, and I gave her
dresses and trinkets as soon as I found that she was perfectly free of her
father's influence. "I never liked him," she said to me once. "As soon as I saw
how he made mother suffer, I was through with him. Kate can stand him, but I
can't."
I found Lisabeth an engaging practical mistress. Although so young, she
reckoned everything in cash. "I want a purse," she used to say, "and when I've
ten thousand marks in it, I'll feel safer." And before she was fifteen she had
the ten thousand marks. She was very well made, but had not nearly so pretty
a face as her sister Kate; yet, in worldly wisdom, was a hundred years ahead
of her.

832

For some reason or other, I didn't get a place in a week, but I told the woman I
had seen one that would do and it would be free in two or three days. I hadn't
seen Katchen in the meantime. One afternoon I had been out, and I had given
the order to send for my things in the morning to transfer them to my new
lodging. At that time it was very difficult to get two rooms and a bathroom
without getting a whole apartment, and I had been lucky to find a good one.
In the evening I went out for a walk. I meant to go up Unter den Linden,
through the great arch and into the Tiergarten: I went and had my walk and
returned. Coming back under the arch, I noticed the light of one of the hotels
shining into the darkness and looked away. For some reason or other, a few
seconds later, when I was in the middle of the arch and complete darkness, I
looked again and saw quite close to me a flash! For a moment I didn't know
what it was and stopped. The next second I knew it was a big knife—like a
carving knife—and I stepped to the right just in tune, for the man rushed at
me and stabbed. My side step was just right, and as his knife came down, I
struck him under the jaw as hard as I could and he went down like a log. In a
second I had picked up the knife and saw that the man was Katchen's father. I
was furious. His face was all distorted by his hatred and by my blow. His nose
was bleeding and he looked a sorry sight, but the danger made me furious. I
couldn't help it—I drew back and hit him as hard as ever I could, and down
he went again. This time he lay still and I had to drag him by the legs out into
the light. As he lay there, I kicked him two or three times and thought of
calling the police. Thinking of his unhappy wife and children, I thought he
had perhaps had punishment enough for once, so I lifted him up and sat him
against the arch. In a few minutes he came to himself.
"You damn fool," I said, "you had better get home and behave better to your
wife and children. It is lucky for you that I had given the order to leave your
house, or I'd break every bone in your body. You murderous cur."
"You go," he muttered, "or I'll kill you, you damned Englishman."
"It's lucky for you," I said, "that I'm going to sleep somewhere else tonight, but
the police ought to be notified about you."
He got up on his feet and was evidently pretty shaky. "I'm taking the knife," I
said, "just as a memento."
"I sharpened it for you," said he, glaring at me.
As I went down Unter den Linden, it really seemed to me as if the man was
mad. There was madness in his distorted face and in his growling voice. "His
wife will have to patch up his eye, and his jaw will prevent his eating for a
few days," I thought. But as I grew cooler, I suddenly noticed that I had taken
the skin off the knuckles of both hands and they were smarting. What
insanity! I could still see the woman's face and hear her voice: "I'm so
unhappy! No one in the world is so miserable. To have my dear little children
ruined by their father!"

833

In my experience, incest is infinitely commoner among the Germanic peoples
than it is among the Latins or Slavs. It is curious that in spite of the poverty
and the fact that in some homes large families have to live in one room, incest
is almost unknown among the Celts. But then I am of the opinion that the
Irish and Scotch and even the Welsh Celts are far more moral in the highest
sense of the word than their English neighbors.
Several of my men correspondents in America and in England have asked me
to say something about venereal diseases, especially to tell them whether
syphilis is curable. I am going to tell elsewhere how I met Ehrlich at the
medical congress in London, I think, in 1913. He was the discoverer of
salvarsan, or as he called it later "606." I was one of the few who could talk
German to him, so we became real pals. Since his death a good deal of doubt
has been cast on the efficacy of "606"; but the best knowledge of today
justifies me in saying that diligently used and followed by treatment with
mercury, it can cure syphilis; cure it so completely that there isn't a trace in
the blood, and that even subsequent offspring are perfectly healthy.
Ehrlich, as I shall tell in my portrait of him, was one of the great benefactors of
humanity.
Gonorrhea is much more common and much more easily cured: a great deal
of rest, and unlimited drinks of strong barley water, and no sign of wine, spirits
or beer, should bring about a complete cure in a month, but during the month
it is very distressing, very painful, very dirty, and there is always danger of
worse developments if it isn't taken seriously.
One little story may find a place here. I remember a young friend of mine
who had caught syphilis in New York and who showed me a loaded revolver
with which he intended to kill the woman who had infected him. I laughed at
him. "The poor girl may not even have known she was ill," I said. "Don't be a
fool; take my advice and always blame yourself for the mishaps of life, and no
one else."

834

CHAPTER XIV.
THE PROSECUTION OF MY LIFE

Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:
Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.
IN THE SECOND volume I promised that I would end this volume with an
account of my life up to date, and so now I must tell what has befallen me in
this past year, 1926.
I was astonished one day here in Nice to get a citation to appear before a
Judge Bensa, to answer a charge of "outrage aux bonnes moeurs"—an
outrage on good morals; and the Judge informed me that the outrage in
question was the publication of the second volume of My Life.
"Why not the first volume?" I asked.
"Oh, because that was published in Germany; we have nothing to do with it;
but this volume was printed in France, so we must take note of it."
"My crime, then," I said, "is that I wished to benefit French printers and to give
them work; for if I had published the second volume in Germany or Italy, I
should not have been molested."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Have you sold the book in France?" was the next
question.
"It was 'privately printed,'" I said, "as you can see. I didn't anticipate any sale
in France and therefore I did not trouble to get the book into the shops; but
later, here and there, a book-seller whom I know has told me that he has been
asked for a copy of My Life by Americans or Englishmen who wished to
complete their sets of my books, and so I have given these book-sellers copies
to sell, always on condition that they should not be exhibited in the windows
or held for ordinary sale. The sale in France has therefore been very
restricted: certainly in all, I have not sold fifty copies. It has never been mise
en vente (exposed for sale)."
The Judge took note of this, but said it didn't matter whether I sold thirty, or
three, or three thousand; it was the fact of the sale that was important. I
bowed, of course, to this judicial reasoning.
At first my advocate, Maitre Gassin, told me that the case would certainly
not come before any court. It was ridiculous, he thought, to make the printing
of a book in France a crime, when nothing was done with the book printed in
Germany and brought into France by the thousands; but the second or third
time I saw him, I found that he regarded the case much more seriously.
"We are not rich in France," he said, "and I felt they would never spend the
two or three thousand francs in getting your book translated, but I have seen

835

the authorities, and they tell me that the prosecution has been started from
Paris, and the money for the translation of the book has been paid. You have
got some enemy or enemies in Paris who are making their influence felt."
I had already obtained from M. Bensa, the judge, a note of the pages which
were objected to in the second volume of My Life: some forty in all out of four
hundred, and among these marked forty were three or four pages together.
The moment I looked them out, I found that one of them was my description of
English gormandizing at the Lord Mayor's banquets in the city of London,
and another dealt with the conduct of Sir Robert Fowler, who was twice Lord
Mayor, and his gluttony and disgusting behavior at Sir William Marriott's
table when Lady Marriott had to leave the room.
Now this episode is merely revolting, and I had put it in simply because I
thought it a duty to give as complete a record of my life as I could, and the
habit of over-eating and over-drinking reigns in England all through the
middle classes. I have told how Prince Edward put a stop to it in the best class
by introducing the habit of going at once to coffee and cigarettes after
dinner, instead of guzzling bottle after bottle of Burgundy or claret, which
was the custom of the upper classes till he came.
Again I found that anything I had told of Prince Edward's liking for naughty
stories and for witty limericks had also got me into trouble, and was marked
down as offensive. Another passage especially objected to was the account of
how Lord Randolph Churchill became infected with disease.
From these indications it seemed to me that the persecution came from the
English Foreign Office; and this inference I have since found to be correct.
The publicity given by the prosecution will certainly add to the sale of the
book, which accordingly is now about to appear in several other European
languages.
Yet the prosecution was annoying if only for the cost; and just because the
accusation seemed ridiculous, I became anxious. I had once tasted prison
through contempt of the English Judge Horridge by commenting on the
conduct of a case which never came to trial, just because the whole thing was
ridiculous. I was punished without a shadow of reason. Now I was to be
punished again, just for telling some truths about England and Englishmen in
a foreign country. The case, I am told, won't come on for some months, but I
dread it most because of the unreason in the charge.
Here for example is a book, La Garconne of Marguerite, which tells of love
between men and boys, and girls with girls, yet this book has sold five
hundred thousand copies in France, and the author has not been brought
before any court except the court of the Legion of Honor. Verlaine, too, the
great poet, has given to the world posthumously a book of poems adorned
with the lewdest illustrations, and all singing the praise of unnatural vices.

836

Finally, I have before me a copy of a publisher's circular, issued expressly as
from the Libraire du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, with the sanction
therefore of the Office of Foreign Affairs in Paris, wherein I find exposed for
sale at low prices Le Marquis de Sade, Gamiani, Les Memoires de Suzon in
French, and The Pearl in English—all frankly pornographic works.
My offense is after all nothing but the description of the normal love of man
for woman; and I am to be punished for twenty pages in 400 and for selling
thirty or forty volumes in France, every one of which, I believe, has been sold
to Englishmen or Americans. My crime is that I have given work to French
printers rather than to German or Italian printers. Yet my advocate, Maitre
Gassin, tells me that the matter is serious and being pursued with fiendish
earnestness.
One fact I must record here. As soon as news of my prosecution got into the
press, all the French writers whom I know, notably Barbusse, Morand, Willy
Breal, Davray, De Richter, Maurevert, and others, wrote in my favor,
expressing their contempt for such persecution. Every French author of note
appears to be on my side and all agree with the great phrase of
Vauvenargues: "Ce qui n'offense pas la societe, n'est pas du ressort de la
justice" (That which does not offend society, has nothing to do with justice).
But no English or American writer has taken up the cudgels for me or written
one word in my defense. Far from that, not a single English or American
writer has even considered the book fairly or tried to see any merit in it, and
while English journals have usually taken the indecency for admitted,
American journals, such as the New York World and the Nation, have
covered me with cheap insults. All this, of course, was to be expected. But I
may be permitted to believe that the genial conduct of the French writers
shows a higher level of understanding and a nobler humanity.
A previous experience substantiates this belief. I was in Paris when Zola
published his Nona, which described the life of a courtesan in Paris. The book
came as a shock to every reader in the city. Not only did it sell over fifty
thousand copies in the first week, but the day after it appeared, everyone
who counted had read it and could talk of nothing else.
"This is the limit" was the one remark that went uncontradicted. Not only was
the book outspoken, but it was indubitably salacious and unspeakably
suggestive and provocative. Serious people at once began to talk of
prosecution. And with this in mind I hurried to call on Daudet, Dumas fils and
others.
Daudet received me with his usual kindness.
"I regret the book," he said. "I am sorry that Zola wrote it; it will give French
literature a worse name than it has already in Europe, and, really, the stigma
will be deserved. Zola has gone too far this time. I have only glanced at the

837

book, but there are pages in it that are more provocative than the youthful
indiscretions of Mirabeau or Gustave Droz."
"Then you would be in favor of prosecution?" I asked.
"Of course not," Daudet cried. "How can you imagine such a thing? Zola is a
great writer. He must be allowed license that one would never accord to an
ordinary penman. There will be no prosecution. We would all unite against
that at once. No ordinary magistrate could sit in judgment on Emile Zola. But
I am sorry he published the book. It can only damage his reputation."
"Yet everybody says that it will add greatly to his bank balance," I ventured.
Daudet held up his hands.
"Zola assuredly did not care for that aspect of it," he replied.
Dumas and the others agreed with Daudet, and Nana was left unpursued.
What will be the outcome of the prosecution of my book, I am unable even to
guess. I can only abide the issue. Meanwhile I often catch myself reciting
what Matthew Arnold called My Last Word:
Let the long contention cease,
Geese are swans and swans are geese;
Let them have it as they will
Thou are tired, best be still.
They out-talked thee, jeered thee, cursed thee,
Better men fared thus before thee
Fired their ringing shot and passed
Hotly charged, though broke at last.
Charge once more and then be dumb;
Let the victors when they come,
When the forts of folly fall
Find thy body by the wall.
Let me now for a moment talk of old age again. I said in my second volume
that old age had little to recommend it, but I find a good many authorities
against me on the matter.
And many friends have reproached me for the sadness of the last chapter in
my previous volume, which I wrote when I was about seventy. A dozen, at
least, have written to me, asking me whether there were no consolations
peculiar to old age. There may be many, but not for the man who after
seventy still feels young. Fortenelle at the age of ninety-five, was asked
which were the twenty years of his life that he regretted the most; he replied
that he regretted none of them, but that nevertheless the period he would
wish to relive, the period in which he had been happiest, was from fifty-five

838

to seventy-five. "At fifty-five," he said, "one's fortune is made; one's
reputation established; one is well considered by the many, honored perhaps
by the few. Moreover, one sees things as they are; most of one's passions are
cooled and calmed; one has reached the goal of one's career; done what one
could for society; and one has then fewer enemies, or perhaps one should say
fewer envious people, because one's merit is generally recognized."
Buff on, f too, at seventy years of age, declares that the philosopher can only
regard old age as a foolish prejudice; and he goes on to paint a picture of
senile pleasures.
"Every day," he says, "that I get up in good health, have I not the full
enjoyment of the day as much as ever I had? If I order my appetites, my
desires, my hopes according to the dictates of wisdom and reason, am I not as
happy as I ever could have been; and the thought of the past and its
pleasures, which seem to give some regrets to old fools, affords me, on the
contrary a joyful memory of charming pictures, precious recollections of
pleasurable incidents; and these pictures and memories are free of taint and
perfectly pure and bring to the soul only an agreeable emotion. The
restlessness, the disappointments, the mistakes which accompany the
pleasures of youth have all disappeared in age, and every regret should
disappear with them, for what is regret, after all, but the last quiver of that
foolish personal vanity which refuses to grow old."
There is a good deal of truth in all this, but not, as I say about myself, for the
man who after seventy still feels young. To him, old age is like poverty; its
blessings must be sought in their rarity. Bernard Shaw writes me that he is "a
ruin and that all the pre-seventy in him is dead." All the pre-seventy and the
pre-fifty are nearly as much alive in me as they were twenty years ago. The
keenest regret I have is that I haven't money enough to go around the world
for the third time and see it all again and tell of the changes which fifty years
have shown in it. I should have thought some paper would be willing to pay
for my account of this journey, but no one offers to, and my autobiography
and my works of the last four or five years have brought me in less than any
single year's work of my whole life.
I had no idea, when I determined to write my life frankly, that I should be
punished as I have been for my outspokenness. I knew, of course, that most of
the foolish and all the envious would declare that I was writing pornography
in my old age; they would say "Harris was always dirty, you know; filthy
minded." I knew the popular verdict beforehand and smiled at it, but I had no
idea that this Anglo-Saxon condemnation would injure the sale of my other
books as it has. I used to receive ten thousand dollars a year from them; the
publication of the first volume of My Life cut this income down to less than a
thousand dollars yearly, and injured in like degree the sale value of anything
I may write. Moreover, this condemnation keeps me from returning to London
or New York and beginning life again if I wanted to, utilizing my knowledge
of the stock exchange to rebuild my fortune.

839

Thirty odd years ago my friend, Burton, published his Arabian Nights, which
was freer, not to say viler, than anything I have ever written, and the books
went through the post freely, and he made ten thousand pounds out of the
publication. But now England has copied America in one of its worst acts:
every one knows that if you send an obscene book through the post in
America, you can be had up and punished as if you had published the book.
But this execrable law, which allows a foolish official to judge the great
innovators on the same level as the corrupters, has now been adopted by
England. Twenty-five or thirty years ago she had better sense. Nevertheless,
an English translation of Brantome is now being published and freely
distributed in England; but the best English lawyers assure me that I could
not hope for any leniency.
I remember in the prosecution of Mrs. Besant and Bradlaugh the judge stated
that if the book was a dear book, it was not to be condemned like a cheap
book, which might fall into the hands of boys and girls. This sane English
compromise now has been tossed aside and the public prosecutor can
proceed against any one for sending an obscene or indecent book through
the mails, just as in America, even if one put a price on it, as I do, that should
prevent it falling into the hands of any except those who really want it. But
now that aristocratic England has taken on the livery of democratic America,
there is no room for the man who uses English as his mother tongue to warn or
to guide his fellows frankly. "God's spies" are punished as if they were the
devil's minions.
I don't think I have committed any violation even of these idiotic laws, but I
am assured that I should find scant justice in America at the hands of the
Justices Levys and Mayers; and just as little perhaps in London at the hands
of the Horridges.
He who wishes to give a true record of his life is almost compelled to leave
out the most interesting incidents of it. But some amusing ones, the brave soul
may still record.
Heine has left on record how he was treated by the vile swarm of Suabian
critics, but none of them ever attacked him as venomously as I have been
attacked in America. I want to give some specimens of it. Here is an editorial
article in the Evening World of New York, of August 23, 1926: it is headed:

840

THE CASE OF FRANK HARRIS
At the autumn assizes at Nice, Frank Harris, the writer, will face charges of
offending public morals, and possible imprisonment. Many years ago, he was
a figure of some importance in the literary life of London. Editor of an
important periodical, he associated on terms of more or less intimacy with
many of the most distinguished writers of England and France. In those days
the only thing scandalous about him was his insufferable egotism. His
connection with Oscar Wilde led to the writing of a biography of the
dramatist which has much merit. In later life he has distinguished himself in
the writing of entertaining character studies of literary and political
celebrities, albeit he is charged with taking liberties with the truth.
Then, old, world-weary, broken in health, he wrote the first volume of an
autobiography, published first in Germany, which was disgusting in its
frankness and its crudity. The attempt to circulate this nauseating collection
of dirty stories in America led to some arrests.
It appeared that the disgust of even his well-wishers taught him nothing, for
his arrest in France follows the publication of the second volume. Always a
sensualist, it is impossible to believe that he presented himself in undress from
any motive other than a desire for money. Having put himself in the class of
street-walkers, he is entitled to no sympathy. The Frank Harris of years ago
died long ago, and it is his cadaver that has been writing recently. The odor
proves it.
This editorial is a mere collection of slanderous lies: so far am I from being
broken in health that I never enjoyed better health in my life, and in this very
August walked over twenty miles one day without feeling even tired. I was
never arrested in France—that is another invention of the Evening World.
Before I began writing My Life, I knew that frank speech would not bring me
in any money; but even "street-walkers" would have my sympathy: with
Anatole France, I believe that they will be set above Queens in the Kingdom
of Heaven. Instructed by the English Foreign Office, the French authorities
found thirty pages to object to in four hundred and thirty—a slightly larger
proportion than Whitman's; but hardly enough to make an honest man talk
of a book as a "nauseating collection of dirty stories."
No decent journal in the world, except in New York, would have allowed an
anonymous and cowardly slanderer to write such an editorial—a mere tissue
of foul lies and fouler insults. Nor does this stand alone. The Saturday Review
of Literature, the most widely circulated literary organ in the states, in its
issue of February 13, 1926, gives more than a page to an outpouring of similar
lies and abuse. And, worse still, Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle,
which I have praised, wrote to me that "I think it is the vilest book I have ever
laid eyes on: I think it is absolutely inexcusable ... I regard the book as a
poisonous one."

841

I put all this silly abuse on record just to comfort those of God's spies who
come after me and who will no doubt be persecuted by the brainless and
envious as I have been.
I have been asked what I mean by the term "God's Spies!"
Whoever will be one of "God's Spies," as Shakespeare called them, must
spend years by himself in some solitude of desert or city, resolutely stripping
himself of the tune-garment of his own paltry ego, alone with the stars and
night winds, giving himself to thoughts that torture, to a wrestling with the
Angel that baffles and exhausts. But at length the travail of his soul is
rewarded; suddenly, without warning, the Spirit that made the world uses
him as a mouthpiece and speaks through him. In an ecstasy of humility and
pride—"a reed shaken by the wind"—he receives the message. Years later,
when he gives the gospel to the world, he finds that men mock and jeer at
him, tell him he is crazy, or worse still, declare they know the fellow, and
ascribe to him their own lusts and knaveries. No one believes him or will
listen, and when he realizes his own loneliness, his heart turns to water, and he
himself begins to doubt his inspiration. That is the lowest hell. Then, in his
misery and despair, comes one man who accepts his message as authentictrue;
one man who shows in the very words of his praise that he, too, has seen
the Beatific Vision, has listened to the Divine voice. At once the prophet is
saved: the sun irradiates his icy dungeon; the desert blossoms like a rose; his
solitude sings with choirs invisible. Such a disciple is spoken of ever
afterwards as the beloved and set apart and above all others.
Fortunately for me, I have found several such disciples: Esar Levine, Ben
Rebkuhn, Raymond Thomson and Lyngklip. These young Americans came to
my lectures in New York and offered me their services. For years now they
have helped me in all the ways of affection, suffered even fines and
imprisonment for me—and no man hath greater love than this! Esar Levine
has helped me a great deal with this volume, for he knows all my writing
better than I do. And now other Americans, Thomson and Lyngklip, come to
me in the same sweet spirit. I think the world will soon recognize—for they
are all still in the twenties—that the friendship of these men is to me a title of
honor.
As I told at the end of the second volume of My Life, my chief pleasures in life
are still those derived from literature and art and the intercourse with wise
and loving friends. I get as much pleasure, too, from a good dinner, in spite of
using strict moderation, as I ever did, and more I think than ever from a
beautiful sunset or exquisite sky and mountain and sea effects; but most of all
from my work, and from the resolute purpose to make each book better than
the previous one at the cost of multitudinous revisions.
And now a word from my heart about my deepest belief. I have told how, as a
schoolboy, just before taking my first Communion, I had come to doubt the
accepted revealed religion; but still, in a vague way, I believed in a good, if

842

somewhat ineffective, purpose in life, and for thirty years cherished a vague
belief in a God and his goodness and in human progress. But between fifty
and sixty when I first read Fabre and came to realize the senseless cruelties
that dominate the animal and insect world, I began to doubt, and I soon lost
sight of any upward way in the horror-haunted chaos. Doubts soon took
shape and meaning. A hundred organs are given to man for pain, and one for
pleasure: he has thirty feet of intestine, all for suffering, where one would
suffice; and worse still, pain is never in any relation to welfare, has in it no
warning, even; one suffers more from a toothache than from a mortal wound.
If there is a creator, he is malevolent, rather than kind.
I disliked the word "atheist," and felt with Huxley that "agnostic" was a truer
description of my mental state: for if the idea of a personal God had
altogether vanished from my consciousness, I still believed in a slow and
gradual unfolding of a higher and nobler social life for men on this earth.
Again and again I came back to Goethe's word:
Uns zu verewigen
Sind wir ja da!
Men at least should grow in goodness and loving-kindness, should put an
end, not only to war and pestilence, but also to poverty, destitution and
disease, and so create for themselves a Paradise on this earth, and turn the
pilgrimage of life first into a Crusade where every cross should be wreathed
with roses, and at length into a sacred struggle worth of God himself to put an
end to all suffering and make of existence a hymn of highest achievement.
The truth is, man must be his own God in the highest sense and must create
not only a Heaven for men but for insects and plants, too, for all life,
especially the so-called lower forms of it—a triumphal chant of joy-crowned
endeavor.
The trees, even the humblest plants, we know struggle upward to the light;
surely they should be helped—all difficulties and disorders should be
incentives to the divine shaping spirit of man.
Yet Whitman praised death, "beneficent death." "Hateful death!" I cry. I hate
it, as Goethe hated it, at least for the choice and master spirits. Who will
make good the loss? It is irreparable for me. Death!
I prefer Browning's word here to Whitman's; it's truer. Death he calls "The
Arch-fear;" I often think of it as an ocean; in the great flood another wave
sinks and nothing is changed—except to the wave and the other waves near
at hand!
With death before him, how any thinking man can believe in an omnipotent
and beneficent God, I cannot imagine. I am not thinking now of cruelty,
though it is the primary law of His creation, but simply of death that comes to

843

all of us, no matter whether we have lived nobly or vilely. How easy it would
have been for a benevolent deity to give a second life of youthful vigor to
every man or woman who had lived in the main to the highest in him, and
how such a reward would have quickened virtue and discouraged vice and
made of man's life a sacred progress to all the heights. But as it is, death
comes! And even before death, his dread heralds, decaying strength, failing
faculties, loss of memory and of joy, the sunlight even drained of warmth.
And we children of an hour quarrel and dispute and show greed and envy
while the days shorten to the inevitable end. How could Whitman praise
death!
But after all, what does death matter? It is hideous and terrible, if you will;
but few can tell when the curtain will fall and the play for them be finished.
And meanwhile one's work remains. A, B, and C look at it and shrug
indifferent shoulders and the years pass and one seems forgotten. Suddenly,
some one comes who is interested. "Strange," he says, "how did this work
escape praise?" And he begins to praise it, and others follow him, wondering
where this new teacher should be placed.
Sometimes, as in the case of Shakespeare, the recognition has to wait three
hundred years. What matter? It was a century before anyone dreamed of
placing Heine with Goethe: what do the years matter? Sooner or later we are
judged by our peers and the judgment is unchangeable. I wait for my peers,
welcoming them.
"He has written naughty passages," says one, and my friend replies, "so did
Shakespeare in 'Hamlet' and with less provocation." "His life is the fullest
ever lived," says my disciple, and they all realize that a supreme word has
been spoken and that such a man is among the great forever.

844