Wesblock, the autobiography of an automaton

by Harry McDonald Walters

So Paul was disposed of. He never forgave me, and said I had cruelly and treacherously robbed him of his love. As it pleased him to think so, I never enlightened him. During this year I grew in many directions. I was a man engaged to be married. My growth, in what is known as common sense, was slow. The great thing was that Muriel loved me and I loved her. That seemed to me to be everything; nothing else mattered.

My studies were neglected and a wild year passed in dances, theatre parties, musical orgies, drives, skating and every kind of pleasure which makes time of so little value to the young.

Muriel was a pleasing combination of wisdom and foolishness. She had a tremendous influence upon me, which she might have used wisely. What we both knew together would not have covered any great area to any considerable depth. We were young, spoiled, thoughtless, shallow. She appeared far more sophisticated than I did, which was produced by her absolute confidence in herself, an element sadly wanting in me.

And now I took to herding with the wild boys at college, and thereby fell considerably in my own estimation. I did not drink, but I became familiar with those ladies of the demi-monde who lived for and by students of a type. I was shocked in my better self, but lacked control.

These days were full of failings to live up to my own standard. I fell and repented, and fell again. Periods came regularly upon me when I had to cut loose, and go back to first principles. The painted siren called me and I went. It seems nearly like a sacrilege to mention these things while telling of my love for the woman who became my wife, but it is not. My love for Muriel was at once the cause of my falling and the reason of my being able to go through a difficult period without much harm. My love was one thing, the call of my body coming late into health and strength was another thing quite apart, and I treated them as such. I was not really brutal or a roué, but was cutting my wisdom teeth a little later than most boys.

We foolishly and unwisely despise the demi-mondaine, and hypocritically pretend that she is altogether vile, shutting our eyes to the plain truth that she is much more a part of our system than the nun. Or we refuse to admit her existence altogether. We make her, and we are responsible for her. She is a necessary part of things sexual. The churches are responsible for the hypocritical attitude towards this unfortunate type. Religions always go to extremes. Time was when the prostitute was a sacred person, consecrated to the gods. Now we go to the other extreme and make her an outcast, and consecrate her to the devil.

Jess was a celebrity among college students of my time. She was young, beautiful and witty. She was well-educated and talented, and a woman of a high type in some respects. If the word can be used towards a woman of her profession, she was even modest. I admired Jess while I loved Muriel. I was much ashamed of this affair at the time, but see it with very different eyes now. I was of a very pliant character, and my life, like most lives, followed the path of least resistance. It was easier to make Jess part of my life than to resist her.

How Jess came to be what she was need be no part of this tale. Hers was a free life. Although still a young woman, her experience of the world had been wide, and had made her very wise. She was four years older than I, and she looked upon me nearly as a naughty child, and was sorry for me. While our intimacy may not perhaps be considered nice, it was an eminently useful one to me. She was a tower of strength to me, saved me from much harm, and enlightened me on many vital things of which I was wholly ignorant. She was one of the curious anomalies of human society in this country, a refined and cultured demi-mondaine.

Considering the debit and credit between good and evil, of my few months’ experience with Jess, I see the balance was on the side of good.

I do not pretend that such things are defensible or ever have been, but say what you will and do what you may, young men will give way to animal spirits till the millenium. Woman in some respects presents an exceedingly serious problem in connection with college life. The matter cannot be met with “thou shalt not” or the ordinary moral punishments. All that can be safely done is to warn the young in a fatherly and kindly manner of the real dangers of the way; after that, the issue rests with the individual. Some come through the fires refined and sublimated, better fitted for larger usefulness in every way, others are scorched and warped; the weak are utterly destroyed. As for myself, I came to no particular harm. This was due, no doubt, to my natural disposition.