actor (in a great life tragedy as in everything else), artist (in
more crafts than one, including flattery), poet, critic, convict,
genius, and, as I knew him, gentleman: I dedicate these pages in
memory of many kindnesses.”
In these words I wished, soon after Wilde’s death, to dedicate a
book, but the publisher of the book in question was obdurate. He
would not, he said, have Wilde’s name on the dedication page of any
work issued by him, and went so far as to urge me not to fulfil
the intention I had even then formed of one day writing a chapter
on Oscar Wilde as I knew him. Yet in Oscar Wilde as I knew him, as
stated in the above dedication, except for his vanity there was no
offence.
The preface, since my relations with the publisher of whom I speak
were pleasant and friendly, I withdrew. If I have let sixteen years
elapse before writing the chapter, it was for no other reason than
that I felt the thing could wait--would perhaps be the better for
waiting--and that the pressure of other work kept me employed.
But one day a man, who to my knowledge has eaten Wilde’s salt
and received many kindnesses from him in the season of Wilde’s
prosperity, called to see me concerning some literary project. On
my shelves are books given and inscribed to me by Wilde and signed
“from his sincere friend,” and on my mantelshelf stands a portrait
similarly inscribed and signed. Seeing this portrait, my caller
observed:
“If I were you I should put that thing out of sight, and, if you
happen at any time to hear his name mentioned, I should keep the fact
that he had been a friend of yours to yourself.”
That decided me to write my long delayed chapter. I begin by a
protest. In his very interesting _Notes from a Painter’s Life_, my
friend Mr. C. E. Hallé speaks of Wilde’s “repulsive appearance.”
At the time of Wilde’s conviction some of the sketches of him,
presumably made in court and published in certain prints, did so
portray him, possibly because, as he was just then being held up
to public execration, so to picture him fitted in with the popular
conception. Mr. Hallé wrote “after the event” of Wilde’s downfall,
when it is easy not only to be wise, but also to see in the outer
man some signs of the evil within. But from the statement that
Wilde’s appearance was “repulsive” I entirely dissent. It is true
there was a flabby fleshiness of face and neck, a bulkiness of body,
an animality about the large and pursy lips--which did not close
naturally, but in a hard, indrawn and archless line--that suggested
self-indulgence, but did not to me suggest vice. Otherwise, except
for this fleshiness and for the animality of the mouth, I saw no
evil in Wilde’s face. The forehead, what was visible of it--for
he disposed brown locks of his thick and carefully parted hair
over either temple--was high and finely formed. The nose was well
shaped, the nostrils close and narrow--not open and “breathing” as
generally seen in highly sensitive men. The eyes were peculiar,
the almond-shaped lids being minutely out of alignment. I mean by
this that the lids were so cut and the eyes so set in the head that
the outer corners of the lids drooped downwards very slightly and
towards the ears, as seen sometimes in Orientals. Liquid, soft, large
and smiling, Wilde’s eyes, if they seemed to see all things--life,
death, other mortals and most of all himself--half banteringly, met
one’s own eyes frankly. His smile seemed to me to come from his
eyes, not from his lips, which he tightened rather than relaxed in
laughter. His general expression--always excepting the mouth, which,
its animality notwithstanding, had none of the cruelty which goes so
often with sensuality--was kindly.
The best portrait I have seen of Wilde is one in my possession
which has never been published. It was taken when he was the guest
of the late Lady Palmer (then Mrs. Walter Palmer), with whom I had
at the time some acquaintance. She was a close friend of Wilde
(who christened her “Moonbeam”) and of George Meredith (whom she
sometimes half-seriously, half-playfully spoke of as “The Master”).
In the portrait, Lady Palmer is seated with Meredith, Mrs. Jopling
Rowe being seated on her right and Mr. H. B. Irving on her left.
Behind Meredith’s chair stands Wilde with Miss Meredith (afterwards
Mrs. Julian Sturgis), Sir J. Forbes-Robertson, and I think Mr. David
Bisham on his right. The portrait of Wilde, if grave, is frank,
untroubled, and attractive, for, when he chose to be serious, the
large lines of his face and features sobered into a repose and into
a massiveness which were not without dignity. Too often, however,
Dignity suddenly let fall her cloak, and Vanity, naked and unashamed,
was revealed in her place.
Yet there is this to be said of Wilde’s vanity, that its very
nakedness was its best excuse. A loin-cloth, a fig-leaf would have
offended, but it was so artlessly naked that one merely smiled and
passed on. Moreover, it was never a jealous or a malicious vanity.
It was so occupied in admiring itself in the mirror that the smile
on its face was never distorted into a scowl at sight of another’s
success. Wilde’s vanity, I repeat, was as entirely free from venom
as was his wit. No one’s comments on society, on the men and women
he met, the authors he read, were more incisive or more caustic, but
I remember none in which the thought was slanderous or the intention
spiteful.
_A propos_ of Wilde’s vanity, here is a story told me long ago by
Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer, who then held a post of some sort in
connection with the Masters in Lunacy. Visiting the Zoological
Gardens one day--in his private capacity, I assume, not in
connection with the Lunacy Commission--he entered the Monkey House.
Within the big cement wire enclosure a certain liveliness--the war
phrase seems to have come to stay--was evident. What it was all about
Colonel Spencer did not know, but with one exception the occupants
were very excited, leaping wildly from end to end of the cage, and
from top to bottom, jabbering, groaning, snarling, emitting shrill
shrieks of terror or hoarse howls of rage.
The one exception was an evil-looking and elderly monkey which sat
humped and brooding in a corner, absolutely motionless except for
the twitching of his nostrils and the angry way in which he switched
his eyes first upon what he apparently thought to be the staring
human idiots outside, and then at the capering and noisy monkey
imbeciles within. “What’s the matter with that monkey?” Colonel
Spencer inquired of a keeper. “Is he ill? He seems too bored even
to scratch.” The keeper shook his head. “No, he isn’t ill, sir,”
he answered. “Wot’s the matter with ’im, sir? Why, wanity.” Then
stirring up the sulking monkey with his cane, he added, “’Ere, get
up--Hoscar Wilde!”
One day it was Wilde’s caprice to amuse himself by talking the most
blatantly insincere nonsense, directed against my own political
views, and deliberately intended to “draw” me. He was in his most
exasperating mood, exuding, or affecting to exude, egotism at every
pore, and fondling, or making pretence to fondle, his vanity as
some spinsters fondle a favourite cat. At last I could stand it no
longer, and wickedly told him the story of Colonel Spencer’s visit
to the Monkey House at the Zoo and the keeper’s comment about the
sulky monkey. “Wot’s the matter with ’im, sir? Why, wanity. ’Ere, get
up--Hoscar Wilde.”
So far from being annoyed, Wilde simply rocked, or affected to rock
with delight.
“I hoped once,” he said, “to live to see a new shape in
chrysanthemums or sunflowers, or possibly a new colour in roses, blue
for choice, called after me. But that one’s name should percolate
even to the Zoological Gardens, that it should come naturally to the
lips of a keeper in the Monkey House, is fame indeed. Do remind me
to tell George Alexander the story. It will make him so dreadfully
jealous.”
And I answered grimly:
“Your game, Wilde!”