Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

Then I may tell in a fourth volume of my breakdown in health and how I won it back again and how I found a pearl of woman and learned from her what affection really means, the treasures of tenderness, sweet-thoughted wisdom and self-abnegation that constitute the woman's soul. Vergil may lead Dante through Hell and Purgatory: it is Beatrice alone who can show him Paradise and guide him to the Divine. Having learned the wisdom of women-to absorb and not to reason-having experienced the irresistible might of gentleness and soul-subduing pity, I may tell of my beginnings in literature and art, and how I won to the front and worked with my peers and joyed in their achievements, always believing my own to be better. Without this blessed conviction, how could I ever have undergone the labor or endured the shame or faced the loneliness of the Garden, or carried the cross of my own Crucifixion; for every artist's life begins in joy and hope and ends in the shrouding shadows of doubt and defeat and the chill of everlasting night. In these books, as in my life, there should be a crescendo of interest and understanding. I shall win the ears of men first and then" senses, and later their minds and hearts and finally their souls; for I shall show them all the beautiful things I have discovered in Life's pilgrimage, all the sweet and loveable things, too, and so encourage and cheer them and those after-comers, my peers, whose sounding footsteps already I seem to hear; and I shall say as little as may be of defeats and downfalls and disgraces save by way of warning, for it is courage men need most in life, courage and loving-kindness. It is not written in the Book of Fate that he who gives most receives most, and do we not all, if we would tell the truth, win more love than we give. Are we not all debtors to the overflowing bounty of God? FRANK HARRIS. The Catskill Mts., this 25th day of August, 1922.