by Frank Harris
What would have happened to you I saw as in a glass. You were extraordinarily quick, impulsive and high-tempered. Don't you know that brains and energy and will power are hated by all the wastrels, and in this world they are everywhere in the vast majority. Some lieutenant or captain would have taken an instantaneous dislike to you that would have grown on every manifestation of your superiority: he would have laid traps for you of insubordination and insolence, probably for months, and then in some port where he was powerful, he would have brought you before a court martial and you would have been dismissed from the Navy in disgrace, and perhaps your whole life ruined. The British Navy is the worst place in the world for genius.»
That scene began my reconciliation with my father; one more experience completed it. I got wet through on one of our walks and next day had lumbago. I went to a pleasant Welsh doctor I had become acquainted with and he gave me a bottle of belladonna mixture for external use. «I haven't got a proper poison bottle,» he added,
«and I've no business to give you this.» (It is forbidden to dispense poisons in Great Britain, save in rough octagonal bottles which betray the nature of their contents to the touch.) «I'll not drink it,»
I said laughing. «Well, if you do,» he said, «don't send for me, for there's more than enough here to kill a dozen men!» I took the bottle and curiously enough we talked belladonna and its effects for some minutes. Richards (that was his name) promised to send me a black draught the same evening, and he assured me that my lumbago would soon be cured, and he was right: but the cure was not effected as he thought it would be. My sister had a girl of all work at this time called Eliza, Eliza Gibby, if I remember rightly. Lizzie, as we called her, was a slight red haired girl of perhaps eighteen with really large chestnut-brown eyes and a cheeky pug nose, and freckled neck and arms. I really don't know what induced me first to make up to her, but soon I was kissing her; when I wanted to touch her sex, however, she drew away, confiding to me that she was afraid of the possible consequences. I explained to her immediately that I would withdraw after the first spasm, and then there would be no more risk.
She trusted me, and one night she came to my room in her night dress.
I took it off with many kisses and was really astounded by her ivory white skin and almost perfect girlish form. I laid her on the edge of my bed, put her knees comfortable under my armpits and began to rub her clitoris: in a moment the brown eyes turned up and I ventured to slip in the head of my sex; to my surprise, there was no maidenhead to break through and soon my sex had slipt into the tightest cunt I had ever met. Very soon I played Onan and like that Biblical hero «spilt my seed upon the ground»-which in my case was a carpet. Then I got into bed with her and practiced the whole art of love as I understood it at that time. A couple of hours of it brought me four or five orgasms and Lizzie a couple of dozen, to judge by hurried breathings, inarticulate cries, and long kissings that soon became mouthings.
Lizzie was what most men would have thought a perfect bedfellow, but I missed Sophy's science and Sophy's passionate determination to give me the utmost thrill conceivable. Still in a dozen pleasant nights we became great friends and I began to notice that, by working in and out very slowly, I could after the first orgasm go on indefinitely without spending again. Alas! I had no idea at the time that this control simply marked the first decrease of my sexual power.
If I had only known, I would have cut out all the Lizzies that infested my life and reserved myself for the love that was to oust the mere sex urge. Next door to us lived a doctor's widow with two daughters, the eldest a medium-sized girl with large head and good grey eyes, hardly to be called pretty, though all girls were pretty enough to excite me for the next ten years or more. This eldest girl was called Molly, a pet name for Maria. Her sister Kathleen was far more attractive physically: she was rather tall and slight, with a lithe grace of figure that was intensely provocative. Yet, though I noted all Kathleen's feline witchery, I fell prone for Molly. She seemed to me both intelligent and witty: she had read widely, too, and knew both French and German. She was as far above all the American girls I had met in knowledge of books and art as she was inferior to the best of them in bodily beauty. For the first time my mind was excited and interested and I thought I was in love, and one late afternoon or early evening on Castle Hill I told her I loved her and we became engaged. Oh, the sweet folly of it all! When she asked me how we should live, what I intended to do, I had no answer ready, save the perfect self-confidence of the man who had already proved himself in the struggle of life. Fortunately for me, that didn't seem very convincing to her. She admitted that she was three years older than I was, and if she had said four, she would have been nearer the truth; and she was quite certain that I would not find it so easy to win in England as in America: she underrated both my brains and my strength of will. She confided to me that she had a hundred a year of her own, but that, of course, was wholly inadequate. So, though she kissed me freely and allowed me a score of little privacies, she was resolved not to give herself completely. Her distrust of my ability and her delightfully piquant reserve heightened my passion, and once I won her consent to an immediate marriage. At her best, Molly was astonishingly intelligent and frank. One night alone together in our sitting-room, which my father and sister left to us, I tried my best to get her to give herself to me. But she shook her head. «It would not be right, dear, till we are married,» she persisted. «Suppose we were on a desert island,» I said, «and no marriage possible?» «My darling,» she said, kissing me on the mouth and laughing aloud, «don't you know, I should yield then without your urging: you dear! I want you, Sir, perhaps more than you want me.» But she wore closed drawers and I didn't know how to unbutton them at the sides; and though she grew intensely and quickly excited, I could not break down the final barrier. In any case, before I could win, Fate used her shears decisively. One morning I reproached Lizzie for not bringing me up a black draught Doctor Richards had promised to send me. «It's on the mantlepiece in the dining-room,» I said, «but don't trouble, I'll get it myself,» and I ran down as I was. An evening or two later I left the belladonna mixture the doctor had made up for me on the chimney piece. Like the black draught, it was dark brown in color and in a similar bottle. Next morning Lizzie woke me and offered me a glassful of dark liquid. «Your medicine,» she said, and, half asleep still, I told her to leave the breakfast tray on the table by my bed, and then drained the glass she offered to me. The taste awoke me; the drink had made my whole mouth and throat dry. I sprang out of bed and went to the looking glass. Yes! Yes! The pupils of my eyes were unnaturally distended: had she given me the whole draught of belladonna, instead of black draught? I still heard her on the stairs, but why waste time in asking her? I went over to the table, poured out cup after cup of tea and drained them; then I ran down to the dining-room, where my sister and father were at breakfast. I poured out their tea and drank cups full of it in silence: then I asked my sister to get me mustard and warm water and met my father's question with a brief explanation and request. «Go to Dr. Richards and tell him to come at once. I've drunk the belladonna mixture by mistake; there's no time to lose.» My father was already out of the house! My sister brought me the mustard and I mixed a strong dose with hot water and took it as an emetic, but it didn't work. I went upstairs to my bedroom again and put my fingers down my throat over the bath: I retched and retched, but nothing came: plainly the stomach was paralyzed. My sister came in crying. «I'm afraid there's no hope, Nita,» I said. «The Doctor told me there was enough to kill a dozen men, and I've drunk it all fasting; but you've always been good and kind to me, dear, and death is nothing.» She was sobbing terribly, so to give her something to do, I asked her to fetch me a kettle full of hot water. She vanished downstairs to get it and I stood before the glass to make up my accounts with my own soul. I knew now it was the belladonna I had taken, all of it on an empty stomach: no chance; in ten minutes I should be insensible, in a few hours dead.
Dea
d! Was I afraid? I recognized with pride that I was not one whit afraid or in any doubt. Death is nothing but an eternal sleep, nothing! Yet I wished that I could have had time to prove myself and show what was in me! Was Smith right? Could I indeed have become one of the best heads in the world? Could I have been with the really great ones, had I lived? No one could tell now, but I made up my mind, as at the time of the rattlesnake bite, to do my best to live. All this time I was drinking cold water: now my sister brought the jug of warm water, saying, «It may make you throw up, dear,» and I began drinking it in long draughts. Bit by bit I felt it more difficult to think, so I kissed my sister, saying, «I had better get into bed while I can walk, as I'm rather heavy!» And then as I got into bed, I said,
«I wonder whether I shall be carried out next feet foremost while they chant the Miserere! Never mind, I've had a great draught of life and I'm ready to go if I must!» At this moment Dr. Richards came in.
«Now, how, how in Goodness' name, man, after our talk and all, how did ye come to take it?» His fussiness and strong Welsh accent made me laugh. «Give me the stomach pump, Doctor, for I'm full of liquid to the gullet,» I cried. I took the tube and pushed it down, sitting up in bed, and he depressed it, but only a brownish stream came: I had absorbed most of the belladonna. That was nearly my last conscious thought, only in myself I determined to keep thinking as long as I could. I heard the doctor say, «I'll give him opium-a large dose,» and I smiled to myself at the thought that the narcotic opium and the stimulant belladonna would alike induce unconsciousness, the one by exciting the heart's action, the other by slackening it. Many hours afterwards I awoke: it was night, candles were burning, and Dr.
Richards was leaning over me. «Do you know me?» he asked, and at once I answered: «Of course I know you, Richards,» and I went on jubilant to say, «I'm saved: I've won through. Had I been going to die, I should never have recovered consciousness.» To my astonishment, his brow wrinkled and he said, «Drink this and then go to sleep again quietly: it's all right,» and he held a glass of whitish liquid to my lips. I drained the glass and said joyously. «Milk! How funny you should give me milk; that's not prescribed in any of your books.» He told me afterwards it was castor oil he had given me and I had mistaken it for milk. I somehow felt that my tongue was running away with me even before he laid his hand on my forehead to quiet me, saying, «There please! Don't talk, rest! Please!» and I pretended to obey him, but couldn't make out why he shut me up. I could not recall my words either-why? A dreadful thought shook me suddenly: had I been talking nonsense? My father's face, too, appeared to be dreadfully perturbed while I was speaking. «Could one think sanely and yet talk like a madman? What an appalling fate!» I resolved in that case to use my revolver on myself as soon as I knew that my state was hopeless: that thought gave me peace and I turned at once to compose myself. In a few minutes more I was fast asleep. The next time I awoke, it was again night and again the doctor was beside me and my sister. «Do you know me?» he asked again, and again I replied,
«Of course I know you, and Sis here as well.» «That's great,» he cried joyously. «Now you'll soon be well again.» «Of course I shall,» I cried joyously. «I told you that before, but you seemed hurt; did I wander in my mind?» «There, there,» he cried, «don't excite yourself, and you'll soon be well again!» «Was it a near squeak?» I asked. «You must know it was,» he replied. «You took sixty grains of belladonna fasting, and the books give at most a quarter of a grain for a dose and declare one grain to be generally fatal. I shall never be able to brag of your case in the medical journals,» he went on smiling, «for no one would ever believe that a heart could go on galloping far too fast to count, but certainly two hundred odd times a minute for thirty odd hours, without bursting.
You've been tested,» he concluded, «as no one was ever tested before and have come back safe! But now sleep again,» he said. «Sleep is nature's restorative.» Next morning I awoke rested but very weak: the doctor came in and sponged me in warm water and changed my linen: my night-shirt and a great part of the sheet were quite brown. «Can you make water?» he asked, handing me a bed-dish. I tried and at once succeeded. «The wonder is complete!» he cried. «I'll bet you have cured your lumbago too,» and, indeed, I was completely free of pain.
That evening or the next my father and I had a great heart-to-heart talk. I told him all my ambitions and he tried to persuade me to take one hundred pounds a year from him to continue my studies. I told him I couldn't, though I was just as grateful. «I'll get work as soon as I am strong,» I said; but his unselfish affection shook my very soul, and when he told me that my sister, too, had agreed he should make me the allowance, I could only shake my head and thank him. That evening I went to bed early and he came and sat with me: he said that the doctor advised that I should take a long rest.
Strange colored lights kept sweeping across my sight every time I shut my eyes, so I asked him to lie beside me and hold my hand. At once he lay down beside me, and with his hand in mine, I soon fell asleep and slept like a log till seven next morning. I awoke perfectly well and refreshed and was shocked to see that my father's face was strangely drawn and white, and when he tried to get off the bed, he nearly fell.
I saw then that he had lain all the night through on the brass edge of the bed rather than risk disturbing me to give him more room. From that time to the end of his noble and unselfish life, some twenty-five years later, I had only praise and admiration for him. As soon as I began to take note of things, I remarked that Lizzie no longer came near my room. One day I asked my sister what had become of her. To my astonishment, my sister broke out in passionate dislike of her. «While you were lying unconscious,» she cried, «and the doctor was taking your pulse every few minutes, evidently frightened, he asked me could he get a prescription made up at once. He wanted to inject morphia, he said, to stop or check the racing of your heart. He wrote the prescription and I sent Lizzie with it and told her to be as quick as she could, for your life might depend on it. When she didn't come back in ten minutes, I got the doctor to write it out again and sent father with it. He brought it back in double-quick time. Hours passed and Lizzie didn't return: she had gone out before ten and didn't get back till it was almost one. I asked her where she had been. Why she hadn't got back sooner? She replied coolly that she had been listening to the band. I was so shocked and angry I would not keep her another moment.
I sent her away at once. Think of it! I have no patience with such heartless brutes!» Lizzie's callousness seemed to me even stranger than it seemed to my sister. I have often noticed that girls are less considerate of others than even boys, unless their affections are engaged, but I certainly thought I had half won Lizzie at least!
However, the fact is so peculiar that I insert it here for what it may be worth. During my convalescence, which lasted three months, Molly went for a visit to some friends. At the time I regretted it: now looking back I have no doubt she went away to free herself from an engagement she thought ill-advised. Missing her, I went about with her younger, prettier, sister Kathleen, who was more sensuous and more affectionate than Molly. A little later, Molly went to Dresden to stay with an elder married sister: thence she wrote to me to set her free, and I consented as a matter of course very willingly. Indeed, I had already more real affection for Kathleen than Molly had ever called to life in me. As I got strong again I came to know a young Oxford man who professed to be astonished at my knowledge of literature, and one day he came to me with the news that Grant Allen, the writer, had thrown up his job as professor of literature at Brighton College. «Why should you not apply for it: it's about two hundred pounds a year, and they can do no worse than refuse you.»
I wrote to Taine at once, telling him of the position and my illness and asking him to send me a letter of recommendation, if he thought I was fit. By return post I got a letter from him recommending me in the warmest way. This letter I sent on to Dr. Bigge, the head-master, together with one from Professor Smith of Lawrence, a
nd Dr. Bigge answered by asking me to come to Brighton to see him. Within twenty-four hours I went and was accepted forthwith, though he thought I looked too young to keep discipline. He soon realized that his fears were merely imaginary, I could have kept order in a cage of hyenas.
A long book would not exhaust my year as a master in Brighton College, but only two or three happenings require notice here as affecting my character and its growth. First of all, I found in every class of thirty lads five or six of real ability, and in the whole school three or four of astonishing minds, well graced, too, in manners and spirit. But six out of ten were both stupid and obstinate, and these I left wholly to their own devices. Dr. Bigge warned me by a report of my work exhibited on the notice board of the sixth form, that while some of my scholars displayed great improvement, the vast majority showed none at all. I went to see him immediately and handed him my written resignation to take place at any moment he pleased. «I cannot bother with the fools who don't even wish to learn,» I said, «but I'll do anything for the others.» Most of the abler boys liked me, I believe, and a little characteristic incident came to help me. There was a form-master named Wolverton, an Oxford man and son of a well-known archdeacon, who sometimes went out with me to the theatre or the roller-skating rink in West Street. One night at the rink he drew my attention to a youth in a straw hat, going out accompanied by a woman. «Look at that,» said Wolverton,
«there goes So-and-So in our colors and with a woman! Did you see him?» «I didn't pay much attention,» I replied, «but surely there's nothing unusual in a sixth form boy trying his wings outside the nest.» At the next masters' meeting, to my horror Wolverton related the circumstance and ended up by declaring that unless the boy could give the name of the woman, he should be expelled. He called upon me as a witness to the fact. I got up at once and said that I was far too short-sighted to distinguish the boy at half the distance, and I refused to be used in the matter in any way. Dr.
