by Frank Harris
«That comes afterwards,» said my sister. «Lots of men begin with kissing and pawing you about before you even like them. That puts you off. Flattery first of looks and dress, then devotion, and afterwards the kissing comes naturally.» «Number four!» I went over these four things again and again to myself and began trying them even on the older girls and women about me and soon found that they all had a better opinion of me almost immediately. I remember practicing my new knowledge first on the younger Miss Raleigh whom, I thought, Vernon liked. I just praised her as my sister had advised: first her eyes and hair (she had very pretty blue eyes). To my astonishment she smiled on me at once; accordingly I went on to say she was the prettiest girl in town and suddenly she took my head in her hands and kissed me, saying, «You're a dear boy!» But my experience was yet to come. There was a very good looking man whom I met two or three times at parties; I think his name was Tom Connolly: I'm not certain, though I ought not to forget it; for I can see him as plainly as if he were before me now; five feet ten or eleven, very handsome, with shaded violet eyes. Everybody was telling a story about him that had taken place on his visit to the Viceroy in Dublin. It appeared that the Vicereine had a very pretty French maid and Tom Connolly made up to the maid. One night the Vicereine was taken ill and sent her husband upstairs to call the maid. When the husband knocked at the maid's door, saying that his wife wanted her, Tom Connolly replied in a strong voice: «It's unfriendly of you to interrupt a man at such a time.» The Viceroy, of course, apologized immediately and hurried away, but like a fool he told the story to his wife, who was very indignant, and next day at breakfast she put an aide-de-camp on her right and Tom Connolly's place far down the table. As usual, Connolly came in late and the moment he saw the arrangement of the places, he took it all in and went over to the aide-de-camp. «Now, young man,» he said, «you'll have many opportunities later, so give me my place,» and forthwith turned him out of his place and took his seat by the Vicereine, though she would barely speak to him. At length Tom Connolly said to her: «I wouldn't have thought it of you, for you're so kind. Fancy blaming a poor young girl the first time she yields to a man!» This response made the whole table roar and established Connolly's fame for impudence throughout Ireland.
Everyone was talking of him and I went about after him all through the gardens and whenever he spoke, my large ears were cocked to hear any word of wisdom that might fall from his lips. At length he noticed me and asked me why I followed him about. «Everybody says you can win any woman you like, Mr. Connolly,» I said half-ashamed. «I want to know how you do it, what you say to them.» «Faith, I don't know,» he said, «but you're a funny little fellow. What age are you to be asking such questions?» «I'm fourteen,» I said boldly.
«I wouldn't have given you fourteen, but even fourteen is too young; you must wait.» So I withdrew but still kept within earshot.
I heard him laughing with my eldest brother over my question and so imagined that I was forgiven, and the next day or the day after, finding me as assiduous as ever, he said: «You know, your question amused me, and I thought I would try to find an answer to it, and here is one. When you can put a stiff penis in her hand and weep profusely the while, you're getting near any woman's heart. But don't forget the tears.» I found the advice a counsel of perfection; I was unable to weep at such a moment, but I never forgot the words.
There was a large barracks of Irish constabulary in Ballybay and the sub-inspector was a handsome fellow of five feet nine or ten named Walter Raleigh. He used to say that he was a descendant of the famous courtier of Queen Elizabeth, and he pronounced his name «Roily,» and assured us that his illustrious namesake had often spelt it in this way, which showed that he must have pronounced it as if written with an o. The reason I mention Raleigh here is that his sisters and mine were great friends and he came in and out of our house almost as if it were his own. Every evening, when Vernon and Raleigh had nothing better to do, they cleared away the chairs in our back parlor, put on boxing gloves and had a set to. My father used to sit in a corner and watch them. Vernon was lighter and smaller, but quicker; still I used to think that Raleigh did not put out his full strength against him.
One of the first evenings when Vernon was complaining that Raleigh hadn't come in or sent, my father said: «Why not try Joe?» (My nickname!) In a jiffy I had the gloves on and got my first lesson from Vernon, who taught me at least how to hit straight and then how to guard and side-step. I was very quick and strong for my size, but for some time Vernon hit me very lightly. Soon, however, it became difficult for him to hit me at all; and then I sometimes got a heavy blow that floored me. But with constant practice I improved rapidly and after a fortnight or so put on the gloves once with Raleigh. His blows were very much heavier and staggered me even to guard them, so I got accustomed to duck or side-step or slip every blow aimed at me while hitting back with all my strength. One evening when Vernon and Raleigh both had been praising me, I told them of Jones and how he bullied me; he had really made my life a misery to me. He never met me outside the school without striking or kicking me and his favorite name for me was «bog-trotter!» His attitude, too, affected the whole school: I had grown to hate him as much as I feared him. They both thought I could beat him; but I described him as very strong and finally Raleigh decided to send for two pairs of four-ounce gloves, or fighting gloves, and use these with me to give me confidence. In the first half hour with the new gloves, Vernon did not hit me once and I had to acknowledge that he was stronger and quicker even than Jones.
At the end of the holidays they both made me promise to slap Jones' face the very first time I saw him in the school. On returning to school we always met in the big school room. When I entered the room there was silence. I was dreadfully excited and frightened, I don't know why, but fully resolved: «He can't kill me,» I said to myself a thousand times; still I was in a trembling funk inwardly though composed enough in outward seeming. Jones and two others of the sixth stood in front of the empty fireplace: I went up to them. Jones nodded, «How d'ye do, Pat?» «Fairly,» I said, «but why do you take all the room?» and I jostled him aside; he immediately pushed me hard and I slapped his face, as I had promised. The elder boys held him back or the fight would have taken place then and there. «Will you fight?» he barked at me and I replied, «As much as you like, bully!»
It was arranged that the fight should take place on the next afternoon, which happened to be a Wednesday and half-holiday. From three to six would give us time enough. That evening Stackpole asked me to his room and told me he would get the Doctor to stop the fight if I wished; I assured him it had to be and I preferred to have it settled. «I'm afraid he's too old and strong for you,» said Stackpole: I only smiled. Next day the ring was made at the top of the playing field behind the haystack so that we could not be seen from the school. All the sixth and nearly all the school stood behind Jones; but Stackpole, while ostensibly strolling about, was always close to me. I felt very grateful to him: I don't know why, but his presence took away from my loneliness. At first the fight was almost a boxing-match. Jones shot out his left hand, my head slipped it and I countered with my right in his face: a moment later he rushed me but I ducked and side-stepped and hit him hard on the chin. I could feel the astonishment of the school in the dead silence. «Good, good!» cried Stackpole behind me. «That's the way.» And indeed it was the «way» of the fight in every round except one. We had been hard at it for some eight or ten minutes when I felt Jones getting weaker or losing his breath: at once I went in attacking with all my might, when suddenly, as luck would have it, I caught a right swing just under the left ear and was knocked clean off my feet: he could hit hard enough, that was clear. As I went into the middle of the ring for the next round, Jones peered at me. «You got that, didn't ye, Pat?»
«Yes,» I replied, «but I'll beat you black and blue for it,» and the fight went on. I had made up my mind, lying on the ground, to strike only at his face. He was short and strong and my body blows
didn't seem to make any impression on him; but if I could blacken all his face, the masters and especially the Doctor would understand what had happened. Again and again Jones swung, first with right hand and then with his left, hoping to knock me down again; but my training had been too varied and complete and the knock-down blow had taught me the necessary caution. I ducked his swings, or side-stepped them and hit him right and left in the face till suddenly his nose began to bleed, and Stackpole cried out behind me in huge excitement: «That's the way, that's the way; keep on peppering him.» As I turned to smile at him, I found that a lot of the fags, former chums of mine, had come round to my corner and now were all smiling encouragement at me and bold exhortations to «give it him hard.» I then realized for the first time that I had only to keep on and be careful and the victory would be mine. A cold, hard exultation took the place of nervous excitement in me, and when I struck, I tried to cut with my knuckles, as Raleigh had once shown me. The bleeding of Jones' nose took some time to stop and as soon as he came into the middle of the ring, I started it again with another righthander. After this round his seconds and backers kept him so long in his corner that at length, on Stackpole's whispered advice, I went over and said to him:
«Either fight or give in: I'm catching cold.» He came out at once and rushed at me full of fight, but his face was all one bruise and his left eye nearly closed. Every chance I got, I struck at the right eye till it was in an even worse condition. It is strange to me since that I never once felt pity for him and offered to stop: the truth is, he had bullied me so relentlessly and continually, had wounded my pride so often in public that even at the end I was filled with cold rage against him. I noticed everything: I saw that a couple of the sixth went away towards the school-house and afterwards returned with Shaddy, the second master. As they came round the haystack, Jones came out into the ring; he struck savagely right and left as I came within striking distance, but I slipped in outside his weaker left and hit him as hard as I could, first right, then left on the chin and down he went on his back. At once there was a squeal of applause from the little fellows in my corner and I saw that Stackpole had joined Shaddy near Jones' corner. Suddenly Shaddy came right up to the ringside and spoke, to my astonishment, with a certain dignity. «This fight must stop now,» he said loudly. «If another blow is struck or word said, I'll report the disobedience to the Doctor.» Without a word I went and put on my coat and waistcoat and collar, while his friends of the sixth escorted Jones to the schoolhouse. I had never had so many friends and admirers in my life as came up to me then to congratulate me and testify to their admiration and good will. The whole lower school was on my side, it appeared, and had been from the outset, and one or two of the sixth, Herbert in especial, came over and praised me warmly. «A great fight,» said Herbert, «and now perhaps we'll have less bullying; at any rate,» he added humorously, «no one will want to bully you: you're a pocket professional; where did you learn to box?» I had sense enough to smile and keep my own counsel. Jones didn't appear in school that night: indeed, for days after he was kept in sick bay upstairs. The fags and lower school boys brought me all sorts of stories how the doctor had come and said «he feared erysipelas; the bruises were so large and Jones must stay in bed and in the dark!» and a host of other details. One thing was quite clear; my position in the school was radically changed.
Stackpole spoke to the Doctor and I got a seat by myself in his classroom and only went to the form-master for special lessons;
Stackpole became more than ever my teacher and friend. When Jones first appeared in the school, we met in the sixth room while waiting for the Doctor to come in. I was talking with Herbert; Jones came in and nodded to me: I went over and held out my hands but said nothing.
Herbert's nod and smile showed me I had done right. «Bygones should be bygones,» he said in English fashion. I wrote the whole story to Vernon that night, thanking him, you may be sure, and Raleigh for the training and encouragement they had given me. My whole outlook on life was permanently altered: I was cock-a-hoop and happy. One night I got thinking of E… and for the first time in months practiced onanism. But next day I felt heavy and resolved that belief or no belief, self-restraint was a good thing for the health. All the next Christmas holidays spent in Rhyl I tried to get intimate with some girl, but failed. As soon as I tried to touch even their breasts, they drew away. I liked girls fully formed and they all thought, I suppose, that I was too young and too small: if they had only known! One more incident belongs in this thirteenth year and is worthy perhaps of record. Freed of the bullying and senseless cruelty of the older boys who for the most part, still siding with Jones, left me severely alone, the restraints of school life began to irk me. «If I were free,» I said to myself, «I'd go after E… or some other girl and have a great time; as it is, I can do nothing, hope for nothing.» Life was stale, flat and unprofitable to me. Besides, I had read nearly all the books I thought worth reading in the school library, and time hung heavy on my hands; I began to long for liberty as a caged bird.
What was the quickest way out? I knew that my father as a captain in the navy could give me or get me a nomination so that I might become a midshipman. Of course I'd have to be examined before I was fourteen; but I knew I could win a high place in any test. The summer vacation, after I was thirteen on the fourteenth of February, I spent at home in Ireland, as I have told, and from time to time bothered my father to get me the nomination. He promised he would, and I took his promise seriously. All the autumn I studied carefully the subjects I was to be examined in, and from time to time wrote to my father, reminding him of his promise. But he seemed unwilling to touch on the matter in his letters, which were mostly filled with Biblical exhortations that sickened me with contempt for his brainless credulity. My unbelief made me feel immeasurably superior to him.
Christmas came and I wrote him a serious letter. I flattered him, saying that I knew his word was sacred: but the time-limit was at hand and I was getting nervous, lest some official delay might make me pass the prescribed limit of age. I got no reply: I wrote to Vernon, who said he would do his best with the governor. The days went on, the fourteenth of February came and went: I was fourteen. That way of escape into the wide world was closed to me by my father. I raged in hatred of him. How was I to get free? Where should I go? What should I do? One day in an illustrated paper in '68 I read of the discovery of diamonds in the Cape, and then of the opening of the diamond fields. That prospect tempted me and I read all I could about South Africa, but one day I found that the cheapest passage to the Cape cost fifteen pounds and I despaired. Shortly afterwards I read that a steerage passage to New York could be had for five pounds; that amount seemed to me possible to get; for there was a prize of ten pounds for books to be given to the second in the mathematical scholarship exam that would take place in the summer. I thought I could win that, and I set myself to study mathematics harder than ever. The result was-but I shall tell the result in its proper place. Meanwhile I began reading about America and soon learned of the buffalo and Indians on the Great Plains, and a myriad entrancing romantic pictures opened to my boyish imagining. I wanted to see the world and I had grown to dislike England; its snobbery, though I had caught the disease, was loathsome, and worse still, its spirit of sordid self-interest. The rich boys were favored by all the masters, even by Stackpole; I was disgusted with English life as I saw it. Yet there were good elements in it which I could not but see, which I shall try to indicate later. Towards the middle of this winter term it was announced that at midsummer, besides a scene from a play of Plautus to be given in Latin, the trial scene of The Merchant of Venice would also be played-of course, by boys of the fifth and sixth form only, and rehearsals immediately began. Naturally I took out The Merchant of Venice from the school library and in one day knew it by heart. I could learn good poetry by a single careful reading; bad poetry or prose was much harder. Nothing in the play appealed to me except Shylock and the first time I heard Fawcett of the sixth re
cite the part, I couldn't help grinning. He repeated the most passionate speeches like a lesson, in a singsong, monotonous voice.
For days I went about spouting Shylock's defiance and one day, as luck would have it, Stackpole heard me. We had become great friends: I had done all algebra with him and was now devouring trigonometry, resolved to do conic sections afterwards, and then the calculus. Already there was only one boy who was my superior and he was captain of the sixth, Gordon, a big fellow of over seventeen, who intended to go to Cambridge with the eighty pound mathematical scholarship that summer.
Stackpole told the head that I would be a good Shylock; Fawcett to my amazement didn't want to play the Jew: he found it difficult even to learn the part, and finally it was given to me. I was particularly elated, for I felt that I could make a great hit.
One day my sympathy with the bullied got me a friend. The vicar's son, Edwards, was a nice boy of fourteen who had grown rapidly and was not strong. A brute of sixteen in the upper fifth was twisting his arm and hitting him on the writhen muscle and Edwards was trying hard not to cry. «Leave him alone, Johnson,» I said. «Why do you bully?» «You ought to have a taste of it,» he cried, letting Edwards go, however.
«Don't try it on me if you're wise,» I retorted. «Pat would like us to speak to him,» he sneered and turned away. I shrugged my shoulders. Edwards thanked me warmly for rescuing him and I asked him to come for a walk. He accepted and our friendship began, a friendship memorable for bringing me one novel and wonderful experience. The vicarage was a large house with a good deal of ground about it. Edwards had some sisters but they were too young to interest me; the French governess, on the other hand, Mile. Lucille, was very attractive with her black eyes and hair and quick, vivacious manner. She was of medium height and not more than eighteen. I made up to her at once and tried to talk French with her from the beginning.
