by Frank Harris
At eleven Winnie finally came but she was ill. Through the intense excitement, she said, her monthlies had come on long before it was due. I kissed her and consoled her and accompanied her back to her room.
The next night, when I knew Winnie would not come, I went to No. 17, opened the door and turned on the light. Ethel was in bed awaiting me. I locked the door and drew back the covers. Her nightie was in the way; I threw it up and climbed atop
Aren't you going to strip for me first, dear?” she said.
“Of course,” I gasped, overcome by her beauty. My eyes were drawn to the thick mossing between her legs and by the way her tits hung large and pendulous on her chest. My cock was erect as I drew off my trousers and let it spring free. It bobbed before Ethel's delighted eyes and she grabbed it as I pulled my shirt over my head. She began tugging it, reveling in the way it grew and stiffened as she led me to the bed.
When we lay down, I was startled when she turned me over on my back and raised herself up slightly while holding my lance upright with one hand. Acrobatically, she spread her legs, positioning my rampant tool, and then impaled herself on it. My cock was fully buried in her as she let her full weight fall on my belly. It was wonderful the way her pussy grasped my organ and played it. She moved up and down, eyes closed, seemingly aware of nothing as she rode me. I tried to thrust up to meet her, but she controlled the tempo expertly and I finally lay back and let her have her way. When she sensed I was becoming too excited and would soon eject a copious amount of sperm into her, she slowed, allowing the flood to recede only to release it once again with greater fury. At last, overcome by her own sensations, she began to pound her pussy against my cock as fast and as hard as she could. Her nipples thrust outward long and hard; her breasts bounced with each bucking descent on my ramrod. As she began to come, I reached down and nimbly inserted a finger between her buttocks. This additional stimulus sent her over the edge. She began to spasm uncontrollably as her pearly juices began to run down her thighs and onto mine. I pumped a hot injection into her immediately thereafter. She finally fell upon my chest, totally exhausted.
Resting beside this gorgeous nude woman, I contemplated her charms. I found Ethel quite as passionate as Winnie, but in a more selfish way; excited fully, she thought more of her pleasure than of mine while Winnie had always her lover's delight in mind. She was of far commoner origin; she would not talk of her feelings, thinking I would wish to forget all about the act as soon as it was over.
The last night before reaching Bombay, Winnie came to me and we had a long talk and arranged to meet. She could not do without me, she said, and begged me to be nice to her father so that we might meet easily. I swore I would be as pleasant as I could beand next day I saw her and her mother safely to their carriage.
I went to the hotel recommended by Mrs. Redfern who also took up her abode there. The second evening, she brought me a young girl of seventeena widowrather pretty but immature and inexperienced. When we were alone, I nearly tore her clothes from her. Her cunt was small and tight, but she had little response to passion in her; she seemed afraid to complain and didn't enjoy what we were doing.
I fucked her anyway, curious to see if any position that I chose would give her the admittedly minimal pleasure that I felt. I laid her upon her back and penetrated her in that fashion, then threw her legs over my shoulders and drove my cock forcefully into her, but there was no reaction. Because of this disinterest, I was able to maintain my composure for a longer time than usual, and so I continued to experiment. I turned on my back and lowered her onto my joystick as Ethel had done, then finally turned her over and entered her cunt from behind, cushioning my hard strokes on the soft rondures of her buttocks. It was all to no avail. Finally, I was so exasperated that I simply had her suck me until I exploded in her mouth. She didn't draw out the experience; her head bobbed up and down dutifully until she drew my passion from me and swallowed it expressionlessly. I couldn't even be angry about it; I was merely disappointed.
The girl was happy for the first time when I paid her.
Mrs. Redfern could only say, “Better luck next time,” but the better luck seldom materialized. Time and again she brought pretty young girls, but we could not converse and there was an awkwardness over the whole affair. Several of them even had all their pussy hairs taken off which seemed to increase their youthfulness. The experience cured me of my liking for the immature. Even the best of them failed to give me the thrill I had experienced with older girls. The cunt was often very tight; but it had not the gripping, pumping power of the mature woman's. I'd found that some older women, especially in France, use all the contractive power of their pussy and the movement of the hips to increase the throes of pleasure. A woman from twenty on, gifted with passion and in love with you, gives more pleasure than almost any girl.
It is strange that nearly everywhere women think that the whole art of love on their part is summed up in surrender. To excite the man, to give him the utmost thrill of pleasure, to respond at least to his desire passionately, never seems to occur to the average woman anywhere except in Japan, sometimes in China, and often in that garden of India, Ceylon. But with the young women in India proper, there is rarely any response, and Mrs. Redfern confessed to me that nearly all the older girls of 20 to 25 were diseased or had had some disease.
I didn't mind curtailing my activities with those girls, for one day Winnie came to my rooms and found me in and we had another long talk, after which she left without engaging in any of those acts I so dearly wished to repeat with her. She promised we would soon enough.
Perhaps I have not done enough to portray each of the girls I have had love-duets with. I am resolved at least to try and give their view of life and the love episodes.
In some way or other the freshness of youth made some of them more vivid to me. But others in maturity made a deathless impression on me and I do not want to pass them over without outlining their very souls. Many were kindlier, more loving and more generous than could be imagined at least by me, and these surely deserve to be saved from oblivion.
I remember one in particular in the South of France, who gave herself to me so simply, so easily that I did not at all realize that she was possessed by the very spirit of love. She was of good family and I soon found that her reckless abandon in sexual things was so complete that it was almost certain to lead to pregnancy. This frightened me. I knew and esteemed her mother and father and I was not free at the time, nor could I hope to free myself in any reasonable time; so I drew away from her the more resolutely because my passion grew so intense that I knew if I gave way to it, the result would be disaster.
Years later I met her. She had married and was happy, yet there was between us an instinctive sympathy, an attachment of heart and mind and soul that fills me with reverence for the spirit of pure love in her. She was so wise and yet so enthusiastic, so capable of devotion and yet free of all superstition. And when she told me that her yielding at first was wholly free of sensuality, that all she wanted was to please and content and if possible delight me, I remembered little things that convinced me the confession was wholly true. She had not weighed consequences, nor thought of disgrace: It was enough for her to love and to give herself to love, body and soul. I never met a nobler nature. Many years later when we met again, she showed me a generosity and a desire to help me in every way that filled me with shame at my unworthiness. There are some women nobler than men and I thank God I have met one or two of them that have heightened my estimate of the possibilities of human goodness.
CHAPTER II
While we were traveling through the Red Sea, my mind had turned naturally to Colonial problems, for it was not possible, nor even desirable, to be concerned with Winnie all the time. Perhaps the most useful way to reveal my thoughts would have been to contrast the characters of Cecil Rhodes and the German Kaiser. The former was without doubt an Empire Builder; the latter, as few men before 1914 realized, was an Empire Destroyer. But two such portrait
s would have taken me beyond the scope of the present part of my memoir. For this reason, using the personality of Rhodes as a kind of springboard, I shall attempt to record exactly what my thoughts were at the time. I have since found no reason to alter them.
As early as 1887 at the Colonial Conference in London, Rhodes had outlined the true colonial policy of England in the future. There was no snobbishness in him and he saw that the despotism of the aristocratic class was out of keeping with modern ideas. He told me once that if there had been any brains in English rulers, the seat of government would have been settled for five years in Washington and then five years in London. To him “the British constitution” was an absurd anachronism and should have been remodeled on the lines of the American Union with federal self-governing colonies as the constituent states.
Rhodes had many faults, but there was greatness in him and in the main he seemed to gravitate to what was right. He made dreadful mistakes: He could not believe that Kruger would fight. He was the only man in South Africa of any position who held that view. He believed too that the English would beat the Boers easily and again he found himself mistaken. But he was the ablest exponent of the true imperialism.
At the beginning of the century when the war was practically over, he addressed a meeting of the South Africa League in Cape Town and his words deserve to be remembered:
“The Dutch are not beaten; what is beaten is Krugerism, a corrupt and evil government, no more Dutch in essence than English. No! The Dutch are as vigorous and unconquered today as they have ever been; the country is still as much theirs as it is yours, and you will have to live and work with them hereafter as in the past. Remember that when you go back to your homes in the towns or in the up-country farms and villages, let there be no vaunting words, no vulgar triumph over your Dutch neighbors; make them feel that the bitterness is past and that the need of cooperation is greater than ever. Teach your children to remember when they go to their village school that the little Dutch boys and girls they find sitting on the same benches with them are as much part of the South African nation as they are themselves, and that as they learn the same lessons together now, so hereafter they must work together as comrades for a common objectthe good of South Africa.”
In the three of four years of the war he had changed physically to an astonishing extent; he had become puffy-faced and bloated, but his high purposes held. His first will had been made when he was a youth of 24. In his final will of 1899, he published his resolve to found a great educational scheme to apply to all the English-speaking portions of the world. He gave scholarships to young Americans, Germans and others to enable them to study in Oxford.
It is not time yet to judge the full effect of these “Rhodes scholarships,” but that they have done good is certain.
His private life no one knew much about. He had a secretary once who told me stories of his erotic tendencies worthy of Oscar Wilde, but I never believed them wholeheartedly. Rhodes always seemed to me to be lacking in virility, political ideas engrossed his attention when really good erotic tales scarcely induced him to listen. And in Cape Town where he was well-known, his reputation in this respect was never assailed.
The end of his life was tragiche had drunk too much for years, eaten too much, too, and his heart began to give way. The Princess Radziwill had been connected with him in some way and had forged his name to a number of bills of exchange. He had to go to Cape Town to defend himself. He gave his evidence practically on his death bed, but his last home was chosen for him carefully by Dr. Jameson who brought him to a little cottage at Muizesberg near the sea where he could look out over the great ocean and get the cool breezes. They rigged up a sort of cable over his bed and here he used to hang when his heart fluttered and his breathing became difficult. His old friends all wrote to him affectionately. Hofmeyr was the first to send him a message of reconciliation and daily cables came from friends in London.
Dying, Rhodes reached his true height. “Everything in the world is too short,” he said one day, “life and fame and achievements, everything is too short.” Just before his death on March 26, 1902, he was heard to say: “So little done, so much to do.” It might well be his epitaph.
I feel that I ought to tell something about Rhodes' greatest rival, Paul Kruger, the President of the Transvaal, though in statecraft he was no match for Rhodes. It was said that when a young man, he was the greatest athlete in the country. He was just six feet in height and was, it was said, an extraordinary runner, and possessed, besides, extraordinary strength.
It was Sir James Sivewright who told me that on one occasion Kruger ran a footrace against the pick of Kaffir braves. There were large prizes of good cattle. It was a long day's run across country past certain well-known landmarksamongst others, his own father's house. Young Kruger soon distanced all his pursuers, and when he reached his father's house, he was so far ahead that he went in and had some coffee. His father, however, was so angry with him for running across country without his rifle that he very nearly gave his son a flogging. He made the boy take a light rifle with him when he left to finish his race.
On sped young Kruger, the Kaffir braves toiling after him as well as they could. They threw away their impediments as their muscles weakened; their path became strewn with shields, spears, clubs, and even the bangles they wore on their legs and arms. But in spite of it all, Paul Kruger kept far ahead of them.
His speed on foot was so extraordinary that it was commonly said that he could outrun a horse, and I believe that on one occasion he did. Of course, the myth faculty came into play, and it was usually said that Kruger ran faster than a horse can gallop for half a mile, which, was utterly impossible. In truth, over twelve hours he did, I believe, surpass a horse.
Another story equally strange was told me. Kruger had been chasing buffalo, and his horse had brought him close up to his victim. Suddenly the huge beast put his foot into a hole, and fell head-over-heels into a swamp. Kruger was on top of it in a moment, horse, rider and buffalo all rolling pell-mell in the same soft ground. Kruger was the first to collect his wits. He sprang at the head of the buffalo, seized both its horns in his hands, and while the beast lay upon its side, twisted its neck so as to force its nose under water; thus, after a struggle, Kruger killed the buffalo, drowning it by sheer strength. I had heard this story already in Cape Town, but would not believe it until I had the President's corroboration of this extraordinary feat.
It was the same Sivewright, the Minister of Public Works in the Cape Colony, who told me that he once called upon Kruger with a certain English duke, who was by no means conceited, but was somewhat deficient in diplomacy. The conversation, as I recall it, ran about as follows. Of course it was conducted by means of an interpreter.
“Tell the President that I am the Duke and have come to pay my respects to him.”
Kruger gave a grunt signifying welcome.
“Tell him that I am a member of the English Parliament,” said the Duke after a long pause.
Kruger gave another grunt, puffing his pipe.
After a still longer pause: “Andyou might tell him that I amera member of the House of Lordsa Lordyou know.”
Kruger puffed as before, and nodded his head, with another grunt. Then, turning, he said gruffly, “Tell the Englishman that I was a cattle-herder.”
There was no snobbishness in Kruger, but he possessed great obstinacy and he was as combative as a bull-terrier. I told him that he had better give in to Chamberlain, and give the Englishman the pride of a victory in words, “or else,” I said, “you may be sure there will be war, which will help no one.”
Kruger said: “You may be right, but the issue is in the hands of God. I can only do what I regard as right, and the issue is not so certain as you think. We Boers are hard to beat.” He afterwards sent for me saying that I was the only Englishman he had met who told him the truth. It would have been easy for Chamberlain to manage Kruger, as it was easy for Kruger to placate Chamberlain. But, alas! they pre
ferred to fight, and I cannot but admit that the chief wrong was Chamberlain's. The consciousness of power leads usually to provocative bullying. The struggle cost poor Kruger his life.
My proof that the South African War had cost Great Britain millions and had worsened our relations with South Africa made me many enemies in England. All the evil effects of the war had seldom been adequately or carefully stated. Let me give here some new facts.
In 1901, the Commission of Police in London reported that in the twelve months during which Lord Kitchener was looting and burning and devastating South Africa, the criminal classes were carrying on similar operations in the heart of the Empire. In a single twelve months, burglaries in London rose 50 per cent. Forgeries also showed a similar increase; house-breaking rose 22 per cent, and shop-breaking 15 per cent. As with crime, so with drunkenness. The number of convictions for drunkenness in the five years from 1897 to 1901 showed an increase of 50 per cent in London over the convictions for the five years from 1892 to 1896. The increase in vagrancy was even more appalling. In 1901 the number of vagrants relieved at the workhouse showed an increase of 20 per cent, and in 1901 the number was actually 100 per cent higher than the figure at which it stood ten years before.
The tide of pauperism, which had been steadily ebbing during the liberal regime of peace, turned completely. In 1900 there was 1 pauper for 42 of the population, in 1901 1 in 40, and in November 1902, 1 in 38.4. Not less ominous was the tale told in the Labor Gazette as to the increase in the number of unemployed. When the war began, the percentage reported as unemployed by the trades unions was little more than 2.5. In November 1902, the percentage had doubled. The poverty in England chiefly due to the English ruling classes was intensified through this purposeless war. Here I will use another authority:
In 1904, Montague Crackenthorpe in an article in The Nineteenth Century gave some figures which deserve to be widely known. He proved that “nine hundred and twenty-nine out of every thousand persons in the Kingdom die in poverty and one of every four in London dies supported by public charity. Eight millions of people in the United Kingdom are on the edge of starvation, and twenty millions are not comfortable.”