Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

I bowed to the mayor and turned away, but the audience broke into cheers, and Senator Ingalls came over and shook my hand, saying he hoped to know me better, and the cheering went on till I had gotten back to my place and resumed my seat. A few minutes later and I was touched on the back by Professor Smith. As I turned round, he said smiling, «You gave me a good lesson: I'll never make a public speaker and what I said doubtless sounded inconsequent and absurd; but if you'd have a talk with me, I think I could convince you that my theory will hold water.» «I've no doubt you could,» I broke in, heartily ashamed of having made fun of a man I didn't know; «I didn't grasp your meaning, but I'd be glad to have a talk with you.» «Are you free tonight?» he went on; I nodded. «Then come with me to my rooms.

These ladies live out of town and we'll put them in their buggy and then be free. This is Mrs…» he added, presenting me to the stouter lady, «and this, her sister, Miss Stephens.» I bowed and out we went, I keeping myself resolutely in the background till the sisters had driven away: then we set off together to Professor Smith's rooms for our talk. If I could give you a complete account of that talk, this poor page would glow with wonder and admiration, all merged in loving reverence. We talked, or rather Smith talked, for I soon found he knew infinitely more than I did, was able indeed to label my creed as that of Mill, «a bourgeois English economist,» he called him with smiling disdain. Ever memorable to me, sacred indeed, that first talk with the man who was destined to reshape my life and inspire it with some of his own high purpose. He Introduced me to the communism of Marx and Engels and easily convinced me that land and its products, coal and oil, should belong to the whole community, which should also manage all industries for the public benefit. My breath was taken away by his mere statement of the case and I thrilled to the passion in his voice and manner, though even then I wasn't wholly convinced.

Whatever topic we touched on, he illumined; he knew everything, it seemed to me, German and French and could talk Latin and classic Greek as fluently as English. I had never imagined such scholarship, and when I recited some verses of Swinburne as expressing my creed, he knew them too, and his pantheistic hymn to Hertha as well. And he wore his knowledge lightly as the mere garment of his shining spirit! And how handsome he was, like a sun-god! I had never seen anyone who could at all compare with him. Day had dawned before we had done talking: he told me he was the professor of Greek in the state university and hoped I would come and study with him when the schools opened again in October. «To think of you as a cowboy,» he said, «is impossible. Fancy a cowboy knowing books of Vergil and poems of Swinburne by heart; it's absurd: you must give your brains a chance and study.» «I've top little money,» I said, beginning to regret my loan to my brother. «I told you I am a Socialist,» Smith retorted smiling. «I have three or four thousand dollars in the bank; take half of it and come to study,» and his luminous eyes held me: it was true, after all; my heart swelled, jubilant there were noble souls In this world who took little thought of money and lived for better things than gold. «I won't take your money,» I said, with tears burning. «Every herring should hang by its own head in these democratic days; but if you think enough of me to offer such help, I'll promise to come, though I fear you'll be disappointed when you find how little I know, how ignorant I am. I've not been in school since I was fourteen.» «Come, we'll soon make up for the time lost,» he said. «By the bye, where are you staying?» «The Eldridge House,» I replied. He brought me to the door and we parted; as I turned to go, I saw the tall, slight figure and the radiant eyes, and I went away into a new world that was the old, feeling as if I were treading on air. Once more my eyes had been opened as at Overton Bridge to the beauties of nature; but now to the splendor of an unique spirit. What luck! I cried to myself, to meet such a man! It really seemed to me as if some god were following me with divine gifts! And then the thought came: This man has chosen and called you very much as Jesus called his disciples: «Come, and I will make you fishers of men!» Already I was dedicated heart and soul to the new gospel. But even that meeting with Smith, wherein I reached the topmost height of golden hours, was set off, so to speak, by another happening of this wonder-week. At the next table to me in the dining room I had already remarked once or twice a little, middle-aged, weary looking man who often began his breakfast with a glass of boiling water and followed it up with a baked apple drowned in rich cream. Brains, too, or sweetbreads he would eat for dinner, and rice, not potatoes: when I looked surprised, he told me he had been up all night and had a weak digestion. Mayhew, he said, was his name, and explained that if I ever wanted a game of faro or euchre or indeed anything else, he'd oblige me. I smiled; I could ride and shoot, I replied, but I was no good at cards. The day after my talk with Smith, Mayhew and I were both late for supper: I sat long over a good meal and as he rose, he asked me if I would come across the street and see his «lay-out.» I went willingly enough, having nothing to do. The gambling saloon was on the first floor of a building nearly opposite the Eldridge House: the place was well kept and neat, thanks to a colored bartender and waiter and a nigger for all work. The long room, too, was comfortably furnished and very brightly lit-altogether an attractive place. As luck would have it, while he was showing me around, a lady came in. Mayhew after a word or two introduced me to her as his wife. Mrs. May-hew was then a woman of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, with tall, lissom, slight figure and interesting rather than pretty face: her features were all good, her eyes even were large and blue-grey; she would have been lovely if her coloring had been more pronounced. Give her golden hair or red or black and she would have been a beauty; she was always tastefully dressed and had appealing, ingratiating manners. I soon found that she loved books and reading, and as Mayhew said he was going to be busy, I asked if I might see her home. She consented smiling and away we went. She lived in a pretty frame house standing alone in a street that ran parallel to Massachusetts Street, nearly opposite to a large and ugly church. As she went up the steps to the door, I noticed that she had fine, neat ankles and I divined shapely limbs. While she was taking off her light cloak and hat, the lifting of her arms stretched her bodice and showed small, round breasts: already my blood was lava and my mouth parched with desire.

«You look at me strangely!» she said, swinging round from the long mirror with a challenge on her parted lips. I made some inane remark: I couldn't trust myself to speak frankly; but natural sympathy drew us together. I told her I was going to be a student, and she wanted to know whether I could dance. I told her I could not, and she promised to teach me: «Lily Robins, a neighbor's girl, will play for us any afternoon. Do you know the steps?» She went on, and when I said, «No,» she got up from the sofa, held up her dress and showed me the three polka steps, which she said were waltz steps, too, only taken on a glide. «What pretty ankles you have!» I ventured, but she appeared not to hear me. We sat on and on and I learned that she was very lonely: Mr. Mayhew away every night and nearly all day and nothing to do in that little dead-and-alive place. «Will you let me come in for a talk sometimes?» I asked. «Whenever you wish,» was her answer. As I rose to go and we were standing opposite to each other by the door, I said: «You know, Mrs. Mayhew, in Europe when a man brings a pretty woman home, she rewards him with a kiss.»