Tact!' "
CHAPTER XII
I was to meet my fate again and unexpectedly. It was in my second year as editor of the Evening News and I was so confident of ultimate success in my business as a journalist that I began to go into society more and more and extend my knowledge of that wonderful pulsing life in London.
One night I went to the Lyceum Theatre. I have forgotten what was on or why I went, but I had seen the whole play and was standing talking to Bram Stoker by the door when, in the throng of people leaving, I saw Laura Clapton and her fat mother coming down the steps. She smiled radiantly at me and again I was captivated: her height gave her presence, she carried herself superbly-she was the only woman in the world for me. I could tell myself that the oval of her face was a little round, as I knew her fingers were spatulate and ugly, but to me she was more than beautiful. I had seen more perfect women, women, too, of greater distinction, but she seemed made to my desire. She must be marvellously formed, I felt, from the way she moved; and her long hazel eyes, and masses of carelessly coiled chestnut hair, and the quick smile that lit up her face-all charmed me. I went forward at once and greeted her. Her mother was unusually courteous; in the crowd I could only be polite and ask them if they would sup with me at the Criterion, for the Savoy was not known then, as Ritz had not yet come and conquered London and made its restaurants the best in the world.
"Why have you never come to see me?" was her first question.
I could only reply, "It was too dangerous, Laura." The confession pleased her.
Shall I ever forget that supper? Not so long as this machine of mine lasts. I was in love for the first time, on my knees in love, humble for the first time, and reverent in the adoration of true love.
I remember the first time I saw the beauty of flowers: I was thirteen and had been invited to Wynnstay. We had luncheon and Lady Watkin Wynn afterwards took me into the garden and we walked between two "herbaceous borders," as they're called, rows four and five yards deep of every sort of flower: near the path the small flowers, then higher and higher to very tall plants-a sloping bank of beauty. For the first time I saw the glory of their colouring and the exquisite fragility of the blossoms: my senses were ravished and my eyes flooded with tears!
So, overpowering was the sensation in the theatre: the appearance of Laura took my soul with admiration. But as soon as we were together, the demands of the mother in the cab began to cool me. "Daughter, the window must be shut! Daughter, we mustn't be late: your father-" and so forth. But after all, what did I care; my left foot was touching Laura's and I realized with a thrill that her right foot was on the other side of mine. If I could only put my knee between hers and touch her limbs: I would try as I got up to go out and I did and the goddess responded, or at least did not move away, and her smiling, kindly glance warmed my heart.
The supper was unforgettable, for Laura had followed my work and the subtle flattery enthralled me. "Is May Fortescue really as pretty as you made out?"
"It was surely my cue to make her lovely," I rejoined. Laura nodded with complete understanding. She enjoyed hearing the whole story; she was particularly interested in everything pertaining to the stage.
That evening everything went on velvet. The supper was excellent, the Perrier-Jouet of 1875-the best wine chilled, not iced; and when I drove the mother and daughter home afterwards, while the mother was getting out Laura pressed her lips on mine and I touched her firm hips as she followed her mother. I had arranged too a meeting for the morrow for lunch at Kettner's of Soho in a private room.
I went home drunk with excitement. I had taken rooms in Gray's Inn and when I entered them that night, I resolved to ask Laura to come to them after lunch, for I had bought some Chippendale chairs and some pieces of table silver of the eighteenth century that I wanted her to see.
How did I come to like old English furniture and silver? I had got to know a man in Gray's Inn, one Alfred Tennyson, a son of Frederick Tennyson, the elder brother of the great poet, and he had taught me to appreciate the recondite beauty in everything one uses. I shall have much to tell of him in later volumes of this autobiography, for, strange to say, he is still my friend here in Nice forty-odd years later. Then he was a model of manliness and vigour; only medium height, but with good features and a splendidly strong figure. His love of poetry was the first bond between us. He was a born actor, too, and mimic; he had always wished to go on the stage-a man of cultivated taste and good company. Here I just wish to acknowledge his quickening influence: I only needed to be shown the right path.
Very soon I had read all I could find about the two Adam brothers who came to London from Scotland and dowered the capital in the latter half of the eighteenth century with their own miraculous sense of beauty. The Adelphi off the Strand was named after them: even in their own time they were highly appreciated. But I was genuinely surprised to find that almost every age in England had its own ideals of beauty, and that the silverware of Queen Anne was as fine in its way as that of the Adam Brothers; and the tables of William and Mary had their own dignity, while a hall chair of Elizabeth's time showed all the stateliness of courtly manners. I began to realize that beauty was of all times and infinitely more varied than I had ever imagined. And if it was of all times, beauty was assuredly of all countries, showing subtle racecharacteristics that delighted the spirit. What could be finer than the silver and furniture of the First Empire in France? A sort of reflex of classic grace of form with superabundance of ornament, as if flowered with pride of conquest.
At length I had come into the very kingdom of man and discovered the proper nourishment for my spirit. No wonder I was always grateful to Alfred Tennyson, who had shown me the key, so to speak, of the treasure-house.
It was Alfred Tennyson, too, in his rooms in Gray's Inn, who introduced me to Carlo Pellegrini. Pellegrini was a little fat Italian from the Abruzzi and Tennyson's mother was also an Italian, and she had taught her son sympathy for all those of her race. At any rate, Tennyson knew Carlo intimately, and in the eighties Carlo was a figure of some note in London life. He was the chief cartoonist of Vanity Fair and signed his caricatures "Ape." They constituted a new departure in the art: he was so kindly that his caricatures were never offensive, even to his victims. He would prowl about the lobby of the House of Commons, taking notes, and a dozen of his caricatures are among the best likenesses extant. His comrade Leslie Ward, who signed "Spy," was nearly as successful. A better draftsman, indeed, but content with the outward presentment of a man, not seeking, as Pellegrini sought, to depict the very soul of the sitter.
Carlo confessed to being a homosexualist, flaunted his vice, indeed, and was the first to prove to me by example that a perverted taste in sex might go with a sweet and generous nature. For Carlo Pellegrini was one of nature's saints.
One trait I must give: once every fortnight he went to the office of Vanity Fair in the Strand and drew twenty pounds for his cartoon. He had only a couple of hundred yards to go before reaching Charing Cross and usually owed his landlady five pounds; yet he had seldom more than five pounds left out of the twenty by the time he got to the end of the street. I have seen him give five pounds to an old prostitute and add a kindly word to the gift. Sometimes, indeed, he would give away all he had got and then say with a whimsical air of humility, "Spero che you will invite me to dine — eh, Frankarris?"
The best thing I can say of the English aristocracy is that this member of it and that remained his friend throughout his career and supplied his needs time and again. Lord Rosebery was one of his kindliest patrons, my friend Tennyson was another, but it was in the nineties I learned to love him, so I'll keep him for my third volume. Here I only wish to remark that his frank confession of pederasty, of the love of a man for boys and youths, made me think and then question the worth of my instinctive, or rather unreasoned, prejudice. For on reflection I was forced to admit that paederastia was practiced openly and without any condemnation-nay, was even regarded as a semi-religious cult by the most virile and most courageous Greeks, by the Spartans chiefly, at the highest height of their development in the seventh and sixth and fifth centuries before our era. And what was considered honourable by Aeschylus and Sophocles and Plato was not to be condemned lightly by any thinking person. Moreover, the passion was condemned in modern days merely because it was sterile, while ordinary sex-sensuality was permissible because it produced children. But as I practiced Lesbianism, which was certainly sterile, I could not but see that my aversion to paederastia was irrational and illogical, a mere personal peculiarity. Boys might surely inspire as noble a devotion as girls, though for me they had no attraction. I learned, too, from Carlo Pellegrini the entrancing, attractive power of sheer loving-kindness, for in person he was a grotesque caricature of humanity, hardly more than five feet two in height, squat and stout, with a face like a mask of Socrates, and always curiously illdressed; yet always and everywhere a gentleman-and to those who knew him, a good deal more.