My life and loves Vol. 2 Page 11

  "Please not; be good now!"

  "But why, why?" The question stung her.

  "How could I ever go to church? I confess every month; sure it's a mortal sin!"

  "No sin at all and who'd know?"

  "Father Sheridan would ask me; sure, he knows I like you; I told him."

  "And he'd condemn it?"

  "Oh my! That's why I can come to you, because none of them would even dream that I'd come like this to you. But I love to hold you and hear you talk, and to think I please you makes me so proud and glad."

  "Don't you love my kisses best?"

  "They make me afraid. Talk to me now; tell me of all the places you've seen.

  I've been reading of Paris-it must be lovely-wonderful-and the French girls dress so well-oh, I'd love to travel."

  Again and again I tried, but the denial was adamant. Molly thrilled and melted under my kissing, but would not consent to what she'd have to confess afterwards to the priest.

  A few days later, I made it my business to meet Father Sheridan and found him very intelligent. He was of the old school, had been brought up in St.

  Omer and had a delightful French tincture of reading and humour, but alas!

  He was as crazy as any Irish-bred priest on the necessity of chastity. I drew him out on the subject and found him eloquent. At his fingers' tips, he had all the statistics of illegitimacy and was proud of the fact that it was five times less frequent in Ireland than in England; and to my amusement I found it was commoner in Wales than in Scotland. Sheridan would never admit that the Welsh were Christians at all-"all pagans," he'd say, with intense emphasis,

  "mere savages without a church or a saint!" He was proud of the fact, I found, that it was his duty to denounce a young man and woman from the pulpit if they kept company too long, or with a suspicion of undue intimacy. "They should marry and not burn," was a favorite phrase of his. "The children of young parents are always healthy and strong": it was an obsession with him.

  Yet he would drink whisky with me till we both had had more than enough.

  How do the Irish come to have this insane belief in the necessity and virtue of chastity? It is their unquestioned religious belief that gives it them, yet in the mountains of Bavaria and in parts of the Abruzzi, the peasants are just as religious, and there, too, chastity is highly esteemed, but nothing to be compared to its power in Ireland. I've often wondered why?

  To cut a long story short, I used all the knowledge I had with Molly, yet failed completely. I knew that at certain periods women feel more intensely than at others; I found out that three or four times each month Molly was easily excited, especially about the eighth day after her monthlies had ceased. I used every advantage; but nothing gave me victory. One night, I was halfinsane, so I promised to do nothing and thus got permission to lie on her, intending if necessary to use a little force. "That's nothing," I repeated,

  "nothing," as I rubbed my sex on her clitoris; "I'm not going in." But suddenly she took my head in her hands and kissed me. "I trust you, dear; you are too good to take advantage of me," and as I pressed forward, she said quietly,

  "You know I'd kill myself if anything happened." At once I drew away. I couldn't speak, could hardly think.

  "All right!" I cried at last. "You've won because you don't care," and I threw myself away from her.

  "Don't care!" she repeated. "I love you, and I'll love you all my life," and as she took me in her arms all my stupid resentment vanished and I set myself to interest her as much as I could.

  But with failure in the nightly lists, Ballinasloe soon became intolerable to me. I had long ago exhausted all the beauties of the neighbourhood and had come to the conclusion that outside love, the place was as devoid of intellectual interest as a town in western America. The clergyman I couldn't talk to, the lawyers and doctors were all tenth-rate. Some of the younger men were eager to learn and came to the inn in the evening to hear me talk, but I, too, had to be about my Father's business. I went for a trip to Londonderry to study the citadel of Irish Protestantism and to make the final parting with Molly easier. When I returned, I didn't ask her to come to me at night: what was the good? But the night before I went to Belfast she came and I explored with her some of the side-paths of affection and confessed, with all frankness, that since I met Smith I was all ambition-under a vow, so to speak, to develop every faculty I had at any cost. "I am not ambitious, Molly, of place or power or riches, but of knowledge and wisdom I'm the lover and priest, resolved to let nothing stand in the way."

  I explained to her that that was the reason why I had come to Ireland, just as the same desire of knowledge had driven me years before round the world, and would no doubt drive me again. "I don't want happiness even, Molly, nor comfort, though I'll take all I can get of both, but they're not my aim or purpose. I'm wedded to the one quest like a knight of the Holy Grail and my whole life will go to the achievement. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I only know that Smith, my friend and professor in Lawrence, Kansas, lit the sacred fire in me and I'll go on till death. You must not think I don't care for you; I do with all my heart. You're a great woman, heart and soul and body, but my work calls me and I must go."

  "I've always felt it," she said quietly, "always felt that you would not stay here or marry anyone here. I understand and I only hope your ambition may make you happy, for without happiness, without love, is there anything worth having in life? I can't believe it, but then I'm only a girl. If you ever thought of coming back, write first. To see you suddenly would stop my heart with joy."

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  CHAPTER VIII

  How I met Froude and won a place in London and gave up writing poetry!

  Now my Lehrjahre (student years) were ended, London drew me irresistibly; I hardly know why. It impressed me much more than New York: besides, I feared a return of malaria if I went back to the States; then, too, I had a letter of introduction to Froude from Carlyle. Why not present it and see what would come of it? My boyish resolution to do every piece of work with all my heart, as well as I could do it, still held, I was sure, its conquering magic. I'd find it as easy to open the oyster of success in London as in New York; easier, I had no doubt. I crossed from Paris to London, took a room in the Grosvenor Hotel, and next morning called in Onslow Gardens. Mr. Froude, I found, was spending the summer at Salcombe in South Devon and was not expected in London for a month or more. I wanted to take his exact address.

  Accordingly, the servant asked me into the dining-room and brought me writing paper. The furnishing of the room, the pictures here and in the hall made an impression on me of well-to-do comfort and refinement of taste much beyond any impression left on me in New York. I began to feel the truth of what Emerson had said a score of years before: "The Englishman's lot is still the best in the world."

  The forty years that have elapsed since, and especially the great war, have changed all this. Life in New York today strikes one as more luxurious than that of London, though still inferior in taste and refinement.

  London itself taught me a great deal about the Englishman. It is immense: no limit to its energy: healthy, too, in spite of its wretched climate; well-drained and clean: but it never rises high. One thinks of the East-End, how mean and coarse and grovelling, the narrow streets and cluttering hovels, and the West-End, now comfortable, now pretentious, now primly vulgar-clothed in stucco as in broadcloth. But there are grassy parks and open spaces where one has a glimpse of nature, and here and there too a noble house or fine pointing spire or bold adventurous bridge.

  The worst of it is, there is no plan, no general idea directing this indefatigable activity. It is built by beavers and not by men; industry everywhere and not intelligence. It depresses the spirit, therefore; its smoke and grime too, are characteristic: no generous ideal: let us all live in fog so long as we eat well and sleep softly. But there is no unnecessary noise; London is the quietest of cities and the methods of transport are excellent and cheap. The industry is efficient, though not a
rtistic.

  After the great fire, Wren made out a plan of a new London. His great cathedral, set in a noble space and open to the Thames, was to be the centre.

  Three great boulevards were to run from St. Paul's westward, parallel to the river, each of them 150 feet wide near the cathedral and growing narrower as they passed into the country; every half a mile or so a parish church was to stand in its park-like square of grassy circle; and so the Embankment, the Strand, and Oxford Street could have been developed to high purpose, but no! The builders preferred to build as their fathers had builded, without plan or design, and we have the wretched result: narrow winding streets in the heart of the city, no thought, no soul. London is the meanest of great capitals, with the solitary exception of Berlin; yet, if the English had followed Wren, it might easily have been the noblest.

  I went back to the Grosvenor, wondering whether I ought to go to Salcombe or try to get work in London. An accident determined me.

  I was in the smoking-room after lunch when a couple of gentlemen drew my attention. The afternoon was wet and they were passing the time by betting on the flies crawling up the window panes. I heard one say, "I'll bet five hundred this one gets higher in two minutes," and then the other: "Done with you and I'll bet a thou mine reaches the top first."

  The younger man was nearly drunk, and I soon saw that his older companion sought to confuse him by running three or four different bets at the same time. This idea caused me to watch more carefully, and it soon became clear to me that the older man was cheating the younger. Suddenly, to my surprise I heard him, after a brief dispute, say, "That makes ten thou you owe me- quite enough, too, for such an idiotic game."

  The younger man pulled himself together and remarked with the portentous gravity of intoxication: "Five thou, Gerald, at most, and I don't believe you reckoned in the thou I gained with my bluebottle."

  "Oh yes, I did," replied the sharper. "Don't you remember: it was at the very outset when I owed you a couple of thousand."

  "You're d… d clever, Gerald," retorted the other, as if hesitating, and then with a sudden decision, "I'll give you an I.O.U. this evening." His friend nodded,

  "All right, old man!"

  As the two were leaving the room I called over the waiter. "Who are those gentlemen?" I asked. "The young one, Sir, is Lord C-, son of the Earl of D-; the other isn't staying here. He's a friend and his name's Costello, I believe.

  Lord C-, Sir, can drink; he's not often drunk like that."

  I don't know why, but Lord C- had made so pleasant an impression on me that I resolved to open his eyes, if I could, to the fact that he had won and not lost and ought not to pay?. 5000, or indeed anything at all.

  Accordingly, I sat down, then and there, and wrote an exact accounting of what I had noticed and sent it to Lord C-'s apartment. Next morning I got a note from him, thanking me warmly and asking me to meet him in the smoking-room. We met and I found him curiously generous, willing even to make all sorts of allowances for the so-called friend who had plainly cheated him. On the other hand, I was indignant and advised him to send my letter just as it was to his friend. I was willing to stand by every word. "Very kind of you, I'm sure," said Lord C-. "I think I'll do that. Are you going to stay in London? Would you lunch with me to-day?" I consented and in the course of lunch told him I wanted to go to Salcombe to see Froude. He knew Salcombe and spoke with admiration of the beauties of the Devon coast and indeed of the whole county. "You ought to drive down," he told me. "That is the best way to see our English scenery."

  I shrugged my shoulders regretfully. "I'm not rich enough to indulge in such pastime: I must soon get to work."

  The next morning I was told that some one wanted to see me at the door. I went there and found a groom with a dog-cart, who handed me a letter from Lord C-, begging me to accept the dog-cart and horse and drive down to Salcombe. "My groom," he added, "knows every foot of the way and I'm not using him for the next month. You've done me a very good turn; I hope you'll allow me to do you one. Only one thing I ask-that you'll not mention anything about the betting episode." But after forty years there can be no harm in recalling it.

  Next day, after thanking Lord C- for his splendid present, I set off for Salcombe and about a fortnight later called upon Mr. Froude in his house on a cliff overlooking the bay. I was ushered into a delightful room and gave the servant Carlyle's letter to take to Mr. Froude. In a few moments Froude came in with the letter in his hand. He was tall and slight, of scholarly, ascetic appearance. "An extraordinary letter," he began. "You know what Carlyle says in it?"

  "No, I don't," I replied. "I put it in my pocket when he gave it to me, and when I took it out I found it had stuck and I never opened it. I knew it would be friendly and more than fair."

  "It's very astonishing," Froude broke in. "Carlyle asks me to help you in your literary ambitions; says he 'expects more considerable things from you than from anyone he has met since parting from Emerson.' I'd be very proud if he had said it about me. Take a seat, won't you, and tell me about your meeting with him. I have always thought him the best brain, the greatest man of our tune," and the grey eyes searched me.

  "He has been my hero," I said, "since I first read Latter Day Pamphlets and Heroes and Hero Worship as a cowboy in western America."

  "A cowboy!" repeated Froude, as if amazed.

  "It was Carlyle's advice," I went on, "that sent me for four years to German universities; and I finished my schooling with a year in Athens."

  "How interesting," said Froude, who evidently did not understand that adventures come to the adventurous. We talked for an hour or more, but when he asked me to lunch as a sort of after-thought, I told him I had arranged to drive back to the near-by town and lunch with a friend. On this he assured me that he would return to London in a fortnight or so and soon after give a dinner and invite Chenery, the editor of The Times, and other people of importance in literature to meet me. He would do his best to carry out Carlyle's wishes. I thanked him, of course, warmly, while protesting that I didn't want to give him trouble. He then asked me, had I written anything he could read? I pulled out a small bound book in which I had written in my best copperplate hand a few dozen poems, chiefly sonnets, and gave it to him.

  A little later we shook hands and I returned to my inn and next morning set off for London by another road. The English country pleased me hugely, it was so neat and well-kept, but there was nothing grandiose about the scenery-nothing as fine as the Catskills, nothing to compare with the enthralling beauty of eastern France, to say nothing of the Rockies!

  Hardly had I left Froude when I realized that I should indeed be a fool if I trusted to his help. "Help yourself, my friend," I kept repeating to myself,

  "then, if he helps, so much the better; and if he doesn't, it won't matter." I still had a couple of hundred pounds behind me.

  When I reached London I sent the groom with the dog-cart and horse back to Lord C-, thanking him for a superb holiday and lovely trip. But I took care the very same day to engage rooms near the British Museum at a pound or so a week, and there I went and unpacked, first telling the Grosvenor Hotel people that I'd call once a week for letters. My acquaintance with Lord C- won me much politeness.

  A morning or two later, I saw in one of the papers something about John Morley and the Fortnightly Review; the journal called it, I remember, "the most literary of our reviews." I took down the address of it in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and without losing time, went and called about nine o'clock in the morning. To my surprise, the office was a sort of shop, the publishing house of Chapman and Hall. The clerk behind the counter told me that Mr.

  Chapman usually came in about eleven and if I could wait-I asked for nothing better; so I took a seat and waited.

  At about ten-thirty Mr. Chapman came in, a well-made man of five feet ten or so, past the prime of life, with thinning hair and a tendency to stoutness. I got up as soon as I heard his name and said, "I'd like a few minutes with you."
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  He took me up to his room on the first floor and I told him how I had just returned from a visit to Froude, to whom I had taken a letter from Carlyle. He appeared greatly impressed, regretted that he had nothing for me to do; but when I spoke of working for the Fortnightly, he said I should come back in the afternoon and see Mr. Escort, who was the acting editor in place of Mr. John Morley. At four o'clock I turned up and Chapman introduced me to T. H. S.

  Escott. Escort was a good-looking, personable man, very curious as to how I had come to know Carlyle and what Froude had said to me, but at the end he turned me down flatly.

  "I have nothing for you to do, I'm sorry," was his curt dismissal.

  "Have you never any translation?" I asked.

  "Seldom," he replied, "but I'll bear you in mind!"

  "Don't do that," I replied. "Let me come each day and if you've nothing to do, it won't matter. But I'll be on hand if unexpectedly you need a proof read or an article verified or anything."

  "As you please," he said rudely, shrugging his shoulders, as he turned away disdainfully-I couldn't but see.

  But every morning I was seated in the shop when Chapman came. He used to acknowledge my bow with an embarrassed air. When Escott arrived in the afternoon, he generally went straight up to his back room on the first floor, pretending not even to see me. After about a week Chapman asked me up to his room one day and told me politely that I must see now there was nothing for me to do: would it not be better to try elsewhere rather than wait about? I felt sure Escott had suggested this to him.

  I said I hoped I was not bothering him; I would soon have regular work; I'd tell him as soon as I succeeded; meantime, I hoped he would not mind my being on hand.

  "No, no!" he hastened to say. "It's for your sake I'm speaking; I only wish I had something for you to do." On this I smiled and went away till the next day, when again I was in my place as before.