I was christened Israel Gascoyne Rank. From my earliest years, however, I cannot remember being called anything but Israel, and in my childhood if I were asked my name I was sure to answer “Israel Rank,” and equally sure to supplement the information by adding, “and my other name is Gascoyne—Israel Gascoyne Rank.”
I suppose that it is due to my sense of humour—which has never deserted me and which I trust will not do so even at the last trying moment—that I cannot help feeling just a trifle amused at the idea of my saintly mother and my dear, lovable little father carefully bringing up—with all the love and affection which was in them—me. It must be admitted to have its humorous side.
I played about the dingy house at Clapham during my happy childhood and was strangely contented without other companionship than my mother’s. I certainly betrayed no morbid symptoms, but was, on the contrary, noted for a particularly sunny disposition. My mother declared that my laugh was most infectious, so full was it of real enjoyment and gaiety.
I have always attributed my psychological development along the line it afterwards took to a remark made to my mother by a woman who used to come in and sew for her.
I was playing just outside the room with a wooden horse, when Mrs. Ives remarked as she threaded the needle preparatory to driving the machine: “Lord, mum, I do believe that boy of yours gets handsomer every time I come. I never see such a picture, never.”
I was quite old enough to grasp the remark, and for it to sink deep into my soul, planting there the seeds of a superb self-consciousness. From that moment I was vain. I grew quite used to people turning to look at me in the streets, and saying: “What a lovely child!” and in time felt positively injured if the passers-by did not testify openly to their admiration. My mother discouraged my being flattered—I suppose from the point of view of strict morality, with which I cannot claim acquaintance. Flattery is bad, and yet at the same time it always seems an absurd thing to talk to and bring up a child of exceptional personal attractions as if he or she were quite ordinary. If he be a boy, he is told that personal attractions are of no consequence, things not to be thought of and which can on no account make him better or worse, and then, whether girl or boy, the child finds on going out into the world that it is as valuable a weapon as can be given to anybody, that to beauty many obstacles are made easy which to the plain are often insuperable, and that above all his moral direction and his looks stand in very definite relation.
It was of no use telling me that I was not exceptionally good-looking; I grasped the fact from the moment of Mrs. Ives’ flattering little outburst.
My father was immensely proud of my appearance; I suppose the more so because he could claim that I was like him and that I did not resemble the Gascoynes in any way.
I was dark and Jewish, with an amazingly well-cut face and an instinctive grace of which I was quite conscious. I have never known from my childhood what it was to be ill at ease, and I have certainly never been shy. I inherited my father’s gift of music. With him it had never developed into more than what might give him a slight social advantage; with myself I was early determined it should be something more, and was quick to see the use it might be in introducing me into good society.