My life and loves Vol. 2

by Frank Harris

  One may say that burlesques and wit like Burnand's could also be found in Paris, but the comic humour, plus the physical beauty of the chorus girls, were not to be found there, nor the tragedy. Ernest Parke was a convinced Radical and a man of high character, yet he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for reproducing, so he told me, a police inspector's statement, and one which in any case did Lord Euston no harm at all. Yet no one in London expostulated or thought of criticizing the judge, though it seemed to me an infamous and vindictive sentence only possible in England. The preposterous penalty discovers a weak and bad side of the aristocratic constitution of English society. The judges almost all come from the upper middle class and invariably, in my experience, toady to aristocratic sentiment. Every judge's wife wants to be a Lady (with a capital, please, printer!), and her husband as a rule gets ennobled the quicker the more he contrives to please his superiors in the hierarchy. If Lord Euston had been Mr.

  Euston of Clerkenwell, his libeller would have been given a small fine, but not imprisoned, though the imputation even of ordinary immorality would have injured him in purse and public esteem grievously, whereas it could not damage Lord Euston in any way.

  And now for a contrast.

  It was early in the eighties-I know it was a cold, windy day-that I went up to Haverstock Hill to call upon Dr. Karl Marx at his modest home in Maitland Park Road. We had met some time before, after one of Hyndman's meetings, and were more or less friends. Hyndman had contradicted something I had said, and when I quoted Engels as on my side, he told me that he knew Engels and spoke German as well as English. Seeing that a large part of the audience was German, I challenged him to reply to me and began speaking in German. When the meeting was over a German came up and congratulated me and asked me would I like to know Karl Marx? I replied that nothing would give me greater pleasure and he took me out and introduced me to the famous doctor. He was by no means so famous then as he is now forty years later, though he well deserved to be.

  I had read Das Kapital some years before. The first book, indeed, all the theoretical part, seemed to be brain-cobwebs loosely spun; but the second book and the whole criticism of the English factory system was one of the most relentless and convincing indictments I had ever seen in print. No one who ignores it should be listened to on social questions. When I had absorbed it, I sent for Marx's other books, A Life of Lord Palmerston and Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century. The Palmerston is written by one who had no feeling for character: the hero, an Irishman alive to his finger-tips, is buried under an erudition that prevents one seeing the forest for the trees; but the Revelations contain the best picture extant of the progress of Russia from the time she threw off the Tartar yoke to the latter half of the eighteenth century.

  In person Marx was broad and short, but strong with a massive head, all framed in white hair; the eyes were still bright blue, by turns thoughtful, meditative and quick-glancing, sharply curious. My German astonished him; where had I got the fluency and the rhetoric? Talking of religious belief, I had said that der Lauf des menschlichen Gedanker-ganges ist filr mich die einzige Offenbarung Gotten (the course of the progress of human thought is to me the only revelation of God). "Wunderbar! echt Deutsch!" Marx exclaimed (peculiarly German), which was the highest form of praise to a German of that time. He met me with critical courtesy, evidently surprised that an Englishman should have read not only Das Kapital, but all his contributions to periodicals. I told him I thought his book on the English factory system the most important work on sociology since The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith: on the one hand the advocate of socialism, on the other the individualist, while both forces, I thought, must meet in life and an equilibrium between them must be established. Marx smiled at me, but didn't even attempt to consider the new idea. He made much the same impression on me that Herbert Spencer made twenty years later, but Spencer was contemptuous-angry under contradiction, whereas Karl Marx was inattentively courteous. But both had shut themselves off from hearing anything against his pet theory, one-sided though it was. And just as Herbert Spencer was worth listening to on everything but "the field I've made my own," so was Karl Marx. He was the first to tell me how the French

  bourgeoisie had massacred thirty thousand communists in Paris in cold blood after the defeat of 1870; but he condemned this bloodshed just as passionately as he condemned the strain of brutality in the anarchist Bakounin. His deep human pity and sympathy were the best of him, the heart better than the head-and wiser. Much in the same way, Spencer saw that savagery in man was developed and perpetuated in the standing armies of Europe, though wholly at variance with the spirit of forgiveness preached from a thousand pulpits. Marx and Spencer, like Carlyle and Ruskin, were of the race of Polyphemus-one-eyed giants; but the latter pair were artists to boot!

  Another contrast.

  It was about this time that I first met Lord Randolph Churchill's brother, the Duke of Marlborough. Though he was perhaps ten years older than I was, we became friends through sheer similarity of nature. He too wanted to touch life on many sides. He liked a good dinner and noble wine whether of Burgundy or Moselle, but above all, he loved women and believed with de Maupassant that the pursuit of them was the only entrancing adventure in a man's life. After a dinner at the Cafe Royal one night, he discoursed to me for an hour on the typical beauties of a dozen different races, not excluding the yellow or the black. He had as good a mind as his brother, but nothing like Randolph's genius as a captain or leader of men. I may tell one story of him here, though it took place much later, when I was editing the Fortnightly Review. I had met Lady Colin Campbell in Paris and found that she spoke excellent French and Italian because she had spent her childhood in Florence. Shortly after I was made editor of the Fortnightly Review-in 1887 it was, I think-Mrs. Jeune told me I ought to meet Lady Colin and publish some of her articles. I said I should be very glad to renew acquaintance with so pretty a woman. One day Mrs. Jeune brought about a meeting and told me to go to the back drawing-room where Lady Colin was waiting for me. I went upstairs and opened the door and there was Lady Colin toasting her legs in front of the fire. As soon as I spoke she dropped her skirt, excusing herself on the ground that she had got her feet wet and cold, but the exhibition seemed intentional, the appeal gross. At any rate, it put me off, and I soon found her articles were just as obvious as her tall, lithe figure and great dark eyes and hair. I had rejected one or two of her papers when the Duke asked me to dinner and soon told me, without unnecessarily beating about the bush, that he was in love with Lady Colin and had promised her that I would publish her next paper. I told him I couldn't do it, but he pressed me so earnestly that at length I said, "If you will write me an absolutely frank article, setting forth the sensuous view of life you have often preached to me, I'll accept Lady Colin's contribution blindfold; but I want absolute frankness from you."

  He broke in, laughing. "It's a bargain and I am greatly obliged to you; I'll write the article at once and let you have it this week." "Life and Its Pleasures," I soon saw, was frank to indecency. I should have to expurgate it before publishing, but it was sure to cause a huge stir.

  I put the article away for some real need and assured the Duke that I would publish it sooner or later. I wish I had kept the paper, but I remember one passage in it which contained his defence. "There are persons," he wrote airily, "who will object to my frank sensuality. I have been asked in astonishment whether I really could see anything to admire in the beautiful knees of a woman. I have no doubt there are little birds who sip a drop or two of clear water at a lake-side and wonder what a healthy frog can find in the succulent ooze that delights his soul. Such prudes, and they are numerous and of both sexes in England, remind me of the witty Frenchman's joke. The talk had come to a discussion of differences between a chimpanzee and a gorilla: 'What animal do you think is the most like a man?' the hostess asked and at once the Frenchman replied, 'An Englishman, Madame, surely.'"

  The Duke had as
many witty stories at command as anyone I have ever known, and he told them excellently.

  He attributed many of them to Travers, the famous wit of New York in the seventies who died alas! without leaving any inheritors of his talent.

  Travers was a real wit without alloy. I have a dozen stories of his which are good and one or two worth preserving. When Fiske and Gould had come together to exploit the finances of the Erie railroad and rob the American people of many millions of dollars, Fiske gave a luncheon party on his yacht and of course, among others, invited Travers. The financier took the wit all over the yacht and finally in the cabin showed him his own portrait painted by Bougereau, whom he called the most famous French painter, and a portrait of Gould, by some American, hanging near it. "What do you think of 'em?" he asked triumphantly.

  "Surely some-something's lacking," stuttered Travers with a puzzled look, for he exaggerated his stutter and pointed his witticisms with an air of bewilderment, just as Lord Plunkett used to do in London.

  "Lacking," repeated Fiske; "what do you mean?"

  "Mean," ejaculated Travers; "why, that the S-S-S Saviour should b-b-b-be between the two thieves!"

  Only one better story than this has come out of America in my time and I'll put it in here to get rid of it. A young American went to a hotel and saw the manager about getting some work; he was hard up, he said, and hungry, and would do almost anything.

  The manager put him off on the head waiter, who was slightly coloured, but famous for his good manners. He heard the lad's plaint and then, "I guess you'll do your best and work all right, but has you tact?"

  "Don't know what tact means," said the lad, "but I'll get some if you tell me how!"

  "That's it," replied the darky, with a lordly air, "that's it. No one I guess kin tell you what tact is or how to git it, but I'll try to make it clear to you. The other day a lady's bell rang. She was a real beauty from old Verginny and all the waiters wuz busy, so I decided to go up myself and wait on her.

  "When I opened the door there she was, right opposite me, in her bath. Yes, in her bath. Of course I drew the door to at once, saying, "Scuse me please, Sir, 'scuse me!' Now the "scuse me' was politeness; but the 'Sir!' That was 'tact.' See!

  Tact!' "

  CHAPTER XII

  Laura, young Tennyson, Carlo Pellegrini, Paderewski, Mrs. Lynn Linton

  I was to meet my fate again and unexpectedly. It was in my second year as editor of the Evening News and I was so confident of ultimate success in my business as a journalist that I began to go into society more and more and extend my knowledge of that wonderful pulsing life in London.

  One night I went to the Lyceum Theatre. I have forgotten what was on or why I went, but I had seen the whole play and was standing talking to Bram Stoker by the door when, in the throng of people leaving, I saw Laura Clapton and her fat mother coming down the steps. She smiled radiantly at me and again I was captivated: her height gave her presence, she carried herself superbly-she was the only woman in the world for me. I could tell myself that the oval of her face was a little round, as I knew her fingers were spatulate and ugly, but to me she was more than beautiful. I had seen more perfect women, women, too, of greater distinction, but she seemed made to my desire. She must be marvellously formed, I felt, from the way she moved; and her long hazel eyes, and masses of carelessly coiled chestnut hair, and the quick smile that lit up her face-all charmed me. I went forward at once and greeted her. Her mother was unusually courteous; in the crowd I could only be polite and ask them if they would sup with me at the Criterion, for the Savoy was not known then, as Ritz had not yet come and conquered London and made its restaurants the best in the world.

  "Why have you never come to see me?" was her first question.

  I could only reply, "It was too dangerous, Laura." The confession pleased her.

  Shall I ever forget that supper? Not so long as this machine of mine lasts. I was in love for the first time, on my knees in love, humble for the first time, and reverent in the adoration of true love.

  I remember the first time I saw the beauty of flowers: I was thirteen and had been invited to Wynnstay. We had luncheon and Lady Watkin Wynn afterwards took me into the garden and we walked between two "herbaceous borders," as they're called, rows four and five yards deep of every sort of flower: near the path the small flowers, then higher and higher to very tall plants-a sloping bank of beauty. For the first time I saw the glory of their colouring and the exquisite fragility of the blossoms: my senses were ravished and my eyes flooded with tears!

  So, overpowering was the sensation in the theatre: the appearance of Laura took my soul with admiration. But as soon as we were together, the demands of the mother in the cab began to cool me. "Daughter, the window must be shut! Daughter, we mustn't be late: your father-" and so forth. But after all, what did I care; my left foot was touching Laura's and I realized with a thrill that her right foot was on the other side of mine. If I could only put my knee between hers and touch her limbs: I would try as I got up to go out and I did and the goddess responded, or at least did not move away, and her smiling, kindly glance warmed my heart.

  The supper was unforgettable, for Laura had followed my work and the subtle flattery enthralled me. "Is May Fortescue really as pretty as you made out?"

  "It was surely my cue to make her lovely," I rejoined. Laura nodded with complete understanding. She enjoyed hearing the whole story; she was particularly interested in everything pertaining to the stage.

  That evening everything went on velvet. The supper was excellent, the Perrier-Jouet of 1875-the best wine chilled, not iced; and when I drove the mother and daughter home afterwards, while the mother was getting out Laura pressed her lips on mine and I touched her firm hips as she followed her mother. I had arranged too a meeting for the morrow for lunch at Kettner's of Soho in a private room.

  I went home drunk with excitement. I had taken rooms in Gray's Inn and when I entered them that night, I resolved to ask Laura to come to them after lunch, for I had bought some Chippendale chairs and some pieces of table silver of the eighteenth century that I wanted her to see.

  How did I come to like old English furniture and silver? I had got to know a man in Gray's Inn, one Alfred Tennyson, a son of Frederick Tennyson, the elder brother of the great poet, and he had taught me to appreciate the recondite beauty in everything one uses. I shall have much to tell of him in later volumes of this autobiography, for, strange to say, he is still my friend here in Nice forty-odd years later. Then he was a model of manliness and vigour; only medium height, but with good features and a splendidly strong figure. His love of poetry was the first bond between us. He was a born actor, too, and mimic; he had always wished to go on the stage-a man of cultivated taste and good company. Here I just wish to acknowledge his quickening influence: I only needed to be shown the right path.

  Very soon I had read all I could find about the two Adam brothers who came to London from Scotland and dowered the capital in the latter half of the eighteenth century with their own miraculous sense of beauty. The Adelphi off the Strand was named after them: even in their own time they were highly appreciated. But I was genuinely surprised to find that almost every age in England had its own ideals of beauty, and that the silverware of Queen Anne was as fine in its way as that of the Adam Brothers; and the tables of William and Mary had their own dignity, while a hall chair of Elizabeth's time showed all the stateliness of courtly manners. I began to realize that beauty was of all times and infinitely more varied than I had ever imagined. And if it was of all times, beauty was assuredly of all countries, showing subtle racecharacteristics that delighted the spirit. What could be finer than the silver and furniture of the First Empire in France? A sort of reflex of classic grace of form with superabundance of ornament, as if flowered with pride of conquest.

  At length I had come into the very kingdom of man and discovered the proper nourishment for my spirit. No wonder I was always grateful to Alfred Tennyson, who had shown me the
key, so to speak, of the treasure-house.

  It was Alfred Tennyson, too, in his rooms in Gray's Inn, who introduced me to Carlo Pellegrini. Pellegrini was a little fat Italian from the Abruzzi and Tennyson's mother was also an Italian, and she had taught her son sympathy for all those of her race. At any rate, Tennyson knew Carlo intimately, and in the eighties Carlo was a figure of some note in London life. He was the chief cartoonist of Vanity Fair and signed his caricatures "Ape." They constituted a new departure in the art: he was so kindly that his caricatures were never offensive, even to his victims. He would prowl about the lobby of the House of Commons, taking notes, and a dozen of his caricatures are among the best likenesses extant. His comrade Leslie Ward, who signed "Spy," was nearly as successful. A better draftsman, indeed, but content with the outward presentment of a man, not seeking, as Pellegrini sought, to depict the very soul of the sitter.

  Carlo confessed to being a homosexualist, flaunted his vice, indeed, and was the first to prove to me by example that a perverted taste in sex might go with a sweet and generous nature. For Carlo Pellegrini was one of nature's saints.

  One trait I must give: once every fortnight he went to the office of Vanity Fair in the Strand and drew twenty pounds for his cartoon. He had only a couple of hundred yards to go before reaching Charing Cross and usually owed his landlady five pounds; yet he had seldom more than five pounds left out of the twenty by the time he got to the end of the street. I have seen him give five pounds to an old prostitute and add a kindly word to the gift. Sometimes, indeed, he would give away all he had got and then say with a whimsical air of humility, "Spero che you will invite me to dine — eh, Frankarris?"

  The best thing I can say of the English aristocracy is that this member of it and that remained his friend throughout his career and supplied his needs time and again. Lord Rosebery was one of his kindliest patrons, my friend Tennyson was another, but it was in the nineties I learned to love him, so I'll keep him for my third volume. Here I only wish to remark that his frank confession of pederasty, of the love of a man for boys and youths, made me think and then question the worth of my instinctive, or rather unreasoned, prejudice. For on reflection I was forced to admit that paederastia was practiced openly and without any condemnation-nay, was even regarded as a semi-religious cult by the most virile and most courageous Greeks, by the Spartans chiefly, at the highest height of their development in the seventh and sixth and fifth centuries before our era. And what was considered honourable by Aeschylus and Sophocles and Plato was not to be condemned lightly by any thinking person. Moreover, the passion was condemned in modern days merely because it was sterile, while ordinary sex-sensuality was permissible because it produced children. But as I practiced Lesbianism, which was certainly sterile, I could not but see that my aversion to paederastia was irrational and illogical, a mere personal peculiarity. Boys might surely inspire as noble a devotion as girls, though for me they had no attraction. I learned, too, from Carlo Pellegrini the entrancing, attractive power of sheer loving-kindness, for in person he was a grotesque caricature of humanity, hardly more than five feet two in height, squat and stout, with a face like a mask of Socrates, and always curiously illdressed; yet always and everywhere a gentleman-and to those who knew him, a good deal more.