was rather like a Bavarian, with an indefinable tang of the Jew. I don't put forward the usual scandalous explanation; I merely note the fact.
The Prince's sensualism was as round as his figure, as full-blooded as his body.
He gambled whenever he could because of the pleasure it gave him; he smoked incessantly, though the cigarettes plagued him with smoker's cough; but till Nemesis came with the years-ill health and indigestion from want of exercise or from over-eating, which you will-he was generally good humored and kindly disposed: un ban vivant, as the French say.
Like the average man, he delighted in popularity. He could not help believing that all desired and sought it, and if they failed, it was because of some shortcoming in them. He could not imagine that anyone would hold himself above the arts which lead to popular applause. When he drove through London, bowing and smiling to cheering crowds, he took it all as a triumph of personal achievement, a final and complete apotheosis.
Edward had all the aristocrat's tastes. He loved horse-racing, was gregarious, hated to be alone, preferred a game of cards to any conversation; in fact, he only talked freely when he went to the opera, where, perhaps, he ought to have been silent. He was a gambler, too, as English aristocrats are gamblers, and his love for cards often got him into difficulties. It has been said by a bitter but keen sighted observer: 'King Edward was loved by the English because he had all the aristocratic vices, whereas King George is disliked by them because he has all the middle class virtues.'
Early in the nineties I was struck by the story of Father Damien. There was an echo of the heroic self- sacrifice of St. Paul and the early Christian martyrs in his self-abnegation.
A simple Belgian monk, he had begged to be sent to the South Sea lepers. He made the choice in the spring of lusty manhood, knowing that he would never see his home and his loved ones again, in the full conviction that he, too, must catch the loathsome malady and die piecemeal, rotting for years, and praying in the end for death as a release.
At luncheon one day I happened to have the Vyners: Mrs. Vyner, an intimate friend of the Prince of Wales, was an extraordinary woman; Bob Vyner, her husband, was simply a very rich Yorkshire squire. Mrs. Vyner, without being good-looking, had an extraordinary charm of manner. I remember once saying to her daughter, Lady Alwynne Compton: 'You know, Lady Alwynne, after talking to your mother for some time, one feels a sort of ultimate sympathy with her, almost as though it were love.'
'The curious part of it is,' said Lady Alwynne, 'that she is in love with you for the time being; she's extraordinarily sympathetic.'
At this luncheon I declared that modern science should turn the sacrifice of Father Damien into a triumph by forming a fund to study leprosy and discover a cure.
'The only worthy memorial to him,' I said, 'would be to make his selfsacrifice final by eliminating the foul disease from the world.'
Mrs. Vyner questioned me closely after lunch and then persuaded me that I should call on Prince Edward and ask him to take the initiative. 'I'll speak to the Prince,' she said, 'and you'll see that he'll take fire at your idea; he's really a good man and eager to help every noble cause.'
A day or two afterwards I got a letter from Prince Edward, asking me to come to Marlborough House and explain my scheme about Damien. I went and found Sir Francis Knollys, the Prince's secretary. I told him I wanted to get up a committee and form a fund, to be called the Damien Fund, to make an end of leprosy in memory of the great hearted man who had given his life for the lepers. 'Modern doctors,' I said, 'will be able to find the microbe of leprosy in six months and so cure the disease.' Knollys finally agreed with me and made an appointment with the Prince for the afternoon. When Edward saw me he burst out: 'I could hardly believe it was you, Harris! Your naughty stories are wonderful; but what have you to do with leprosy and a fund to cure it?'
'It could be done so easily, Sir,' I began. 'I'm sure if you'll lend your great influence to the cause, it can be made successful in a year, and one of the vilest diseases that afflict humanity can be done away with.'
'All right,' cried the Prince. 'I'll back you up in every way: see Knollys here and arrange the plan of campaign. I'm with you heartily. We'll have the meetings here.' I thanked him cordially for his support.
The chief persons in the kingdom were put on the committee: the preliminaries were settled by Sir Francis Knollys and myself, and a large fund raised. But alas! In spite of all my efforts to keep at least one lay member on the working committee, the whole executive power fell into the hands of the doctors, who each had his own fad to air and his own personality to advertise.
Our first meeting at Marlborough House was a huge success. All the first men in England came to the meeting and some twenty thousand pounds were subscribed in the first half hour. 'What should I give?' asked the Duke of Norfolk.
'You must remember,' I said, 'that as the first Catholic in the realm, your gift will certainly not be surpassed; the more you give, the more others will give.'
He gave two thousand pounds, I believe.
While the doctors were disputing in private, strange rumors came to London from the leper settlement in Hawaii. It was said that Father Damien's leprosy had been contracted through his carnal love for some of the female lepers.
The wretched story was contradicted, but the slander was too tasty a morsel to be rejected. The Prince sent for me hot-foot. I found him in a state of great excitement in Marlborough House.
'Here's a pretty kettle of fish!' he cried. 'Of course it's not your fault, but this Father Damien must have been a nice person. Fancy choosing lepers-eh? It gives one a shiver. I suppose it's human nature; propinquity, eh?' and he laughed. 'We must change the name of our fund, though; what shall we call it?'
'Why change, Sir?' I asked. 'That would be to condemn Damien without a trial. I don't believe a word of the vile story.'
'Whether you believe it or not,' cried the Prince impatiently, 'everyone else believes it, and that's the thing I have to consider. Such stories are always believed, and I can't afford to be laughed at like they laugh at Damien. I don't want to be taken for a fool; surely you see that. We may believe what we please, but I have to consider public opinion.'
'As you please, Sir,' I said, realizing for the first time that in these democratic days Princes, even, are under the hoof of the ignorant despot called opinion.
'The name can be changed. 'The Leprosy Fund' is as distinctive a title as 'The Father Damien Fund,' but I regret your decision.'
'Oh, come,' he exclaimed, restored to complete good humor by my submission. 'The Leprosy Fund' is excellent. Tell Knollys, will you, that we have changed the title, and take all steps to make it widely known! We must be worldmen, men of the world, I mean, and accept opinion and not be peculiar. It's always foolish to be peculiar; you get laughed at,' and so he ran on, expounding his cheap philosophy, the philosophy of the average man and of the street. Fancy a Prince afraid to be peculiar. No wonder Edward was popular; he was always eager to pay the price popularity demands.
The doctors chosen to investigate were appointed by the head of the College of Surgeons, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, and the head of the College of Physicians, whose name I forget. But Sir Jonathan Hutchinson took the chief part in the appointments and he was notorious for his belief that leprosy came from the eating of stale fish. This was the theory when he was a youth and studied medicine. It had been completely disproved by the experiments of the Norwegians, who had established the best school and hospital for leprosy in modern Europe, but Sir Jonathan knew nothing of modern research on the subject and insisted on appointing someone who believed or pretended to believe in the stale fish theory. Consequently, the commissioners went to India and returned without achieving anything. They would have been infinitely better advised if they had gone to Norway and profited by the experiments of the Norwegian investigators.
I wanted to use the fund to send two young men to Norway and two to the leper settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, and two more to Calcutta, to study leprosy in all its phases and try to find a cure for it; whereas each of the great doctors had a new theory and a new method to propose. One declared that it was purely contagious; another believed that like syphilis, it could only be propagated through an abrasion of the outer cuticle: not one of them knew anything about the modern researches; they were all full of the conclusions they had formed on the subject after an hour's reading when they were students-one could tell the textbook each of them had used.
I had already noticed that Sir Andrew Clarke and the other notable medical authorities were opposed to me and my ideas. But they didn't trouble me greatly, as no two of them agreed on any policy. On one point however,
