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My Life and Loves (Literary Classics)

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I'd do my best", I replied, the very thought of Chicago and the Great West drawing me, "Will you let me think it over?"

I record the shameful fact for the benefit of those Rebels and Lovers of the Ideal who will surely find themselves in a similar plight in future emergencies. For myself I do not complain. On the whole I have received better treatment in life than the average man and more loving kindness than I perhaps deserved. I make no plaint. I've told about the work and its dangers at some length in my novel "The Bomb", but here I may add some details just to show what labor has to suffer. I had one or two fights at school with boys of my own age: I hated fighting; but I was conceited and combative and strong and so got to fisticuffs twice or three times. Each time, as soon as an elder boy saw the scrimmage, he would advise us, after looking on for a round or two, to stop and make friends. The Irish are supposed to love fighting better than eating; but my school-days assure me that they are not ​nearly so combative or perhaps I should say, so brutal, as the English.

My life and loves

The next memory must have been about the same time: I was seated on the floor screaming when my father came in and asked: "What's the matter?"

It's only Master Jim", replied the nurse crossly, ​"he's just screaming out of sheer temper, Sir, look, there's not a tear in his eye". I don't buy love," I warned her: "but how much do you generally get?" "From one dollar to five," she replied; "but tonight I want as much as I can get." "I'll give you five," I replied; "but you must tell me all I want to know." Now you can sleep," said the Boss, "if you're minded to; I guess whisky has wiped out the rattler!"

Hush, hush," she said gravely, "you are too young to take vows and I must not listen", but seeing my face fall, she added: "You have been very kind. I shall remember my stay in Chicago with pleasure," and she stretched out her hand. I took it and held it treasuring every touch.

Women and Love", Edmond de Goncourt writes in his journal, "always constitute the subject of conversation wherever there is a meeting of intellectual people socially brought together by eating and drinking. Our talk at dinner was at first smutty (polisonne) and Tourgueneff listened to us with the ​open-mouthed wonder (l'étonnement un peu medusé) of a barbarian who only makes love (fait l'amour) very naturally (très naturellement)". In ten minutes' chat the hobo had upset all my preconceived ideas and given me a host of new and interesting thoughts. He was a man of some reading if not of education and the violence of his language attracted me almost as much as the novelty of his point of view. It was the second or third disappointment of my life the others being the conviction of my personal ugliness and the fact that I should always be too short and small to be a great fighter or athlete.

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On the other hand I have missed indescribable pleasures because the power to enjoy and to give delight is keenest early in life, while the understanding both of how to give and how to receive pleasure comes much later, when the faculties are already on the decline.

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