He came from one of the Virgin Islands. He used to lecture in Wall Street. A group of Jews became interested and brought him to lecture in a hall in One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street. For a time he was the black hope of the Socialists. Then he gave up Socialism for the Garvey pan-African movement.
I explained my dilemma to Harrison and he said I was a fool to hesitate; that I was too conscientious. In civilized life it was not necessary for one to like one's hosts, he pointed out. Harrison said he would like to talk the plan over with me and Mr. Gray. So I got him and Mr. Gray together at dinner at a little South Carolina cookshop which was good for its special hog food.
Harrison talked to Mr. Gray mostly about the pan-African movement. He had a similar idea, he said, but Garvey, being more spectacular, had run away with it. He told Mr. Gray that he was performing a gracious act by taking me to Europe; that he himself had lived abroad in Denmark and Japan, and the experience had helped him in his later work. He avoided any mention of my real feelings about taking the trip, and I didn't know how to express what I really felt. Finally Harrison got a personal donation of fifty dollars from Mr. Gray to help in the work of black enlightenment.
I had to fall back upon myself in making a decision. When I did, informing Mr. Gray of all my doubts about the project, he was as surprised as I had been when he first mentioned the subject. Our contacts were all so easy and pleasant, he had not reckoned on the objections. I tried to make him see as I did that a close association would be quite a different thing from polite social contact.
When I told Hubert Harrison what I had done, he exclaimed that I was an impossible poet. But soon after I received a letter from Mr. Gray. He said that both he and his sister appreciated my frankness, especially because of the duplicity they had experienced in their efforts to found a community of free spirits. As an alternative he offered me a brief vacation abroad, regretting that the decrease of his income because of the war did not permit him to make it a long vacation. As the Grays were going to Spain and I did not want to appear as if I were deliberately avoiding traveling with them, I chose going to England.
I had promised Mr. Gray an introduction to Frank Harris, and we were invited to his house one afternoon. Frank Harris in his sitting room was obscured by the bulk of another visitor who resembled an enormous slug. Every gesture he made, every word he uttered, was a gesture of crawling at the feet of Harris, whom he addressed as "Master, Dear Master." And Frank Harris appeared pleased like a little boy who takes all the credit for a brave deed that others helped him to perform. The scene disconcerted me. I could not understand how a man so forthright in his opinion as Frank Harris could swallow all of that thick cloying syrup of insincerity. But he certainly did, and with relish, rubbing his hands and nodding his head. The phrases poured heavily out of the huge man's boneless jaws, nauseating the atmosphere: "Dear master, you are the world's greatest teacher and martyr since Jesus. The pharisees are against you, Master, but your disciples are loyal." Frank Harris said that he was quite aware of that. If he were in France he would be called universally cher maître, like Anatole France, but a true king had no honor among the Anglo-Saxon peoples.
Frank Harris then spoke of his long and unsuccessful fight against injustice, and he emphasized the Boer War, the Oscar Wilde case, and the World War. And whenever he paused the disciple filled in with "Yes, Master ... dear Master."
The visit ended with Mr. Gray being sold a set of Frank Harris's books and his taking out a year's subscription for Pearson's.
But before I left Frank Harris asked if there were anything he could do for me in London. He could not do much by way of personal introduction he said, because all his friends there had become enemies. I said the only person I was keen about meeting was Bernard Shaw. Well chosen, Frank Harris said, and gave me a letter introducing me to Bernard Shaw.