The first round in the battle with Fate was inconclusive. Oscar Wilde
had managed to get known and talked about and had kept his head above
water for a couple of years while learning something about life and
more about himself. On the other hand he had spent almost all his
patrimony, had run into some debt besides; yet seemed as far as ever
from earning a decent living. The outlook was disquieting.
Even as a young man Oscar had a very considerable understanding of
life. He could not make his way as a journalist, the English did not
care for his poetry; but there was still the lecture-platform. In his
heart he knew that he could talk better than he wrote.
He got his brother to announce boldly in _The World_ that owing to the
"astonishing success of his 'Poems' Mr. Oscar Wilde had been invited
to lecture in America."
The invitation was imaginary; but Oscar had resolved to break into
this new field; there was money in it, he felt sure.
Besides he had another string to his bow. When the first rumblings of
the social storm in Russia reached England, our aristocratic
republican seized occasion by the forelock and wrote a play on the
Nihilist Conspiracy called _Vera_. This drama was impregnated with
popular English liberal sentiment. With the interest of actuality
about it _Vera_ was published in September, 1880; but fell flat.
The assassination of the Tsar Alexander, however, in March, 1881; the
way Oscar's poems published in June of that year were taken up by Miss
Terry and puffed in the press, induced Mrs. Bernard Beere, an actress
of some merit, to accept _Vera_ for the stage. It was suddenly
announced that _Vera_ would be put on by Mrs. Bernard Beere at The
Adelphi in December, '81; but the author had to be content with this
advertisement. December came and went and _Vera_ was not staged. It
seemed probable to Oscar that it might be accepted in America; at any
rate, there could be no harm in trying: he sailed for New York.
It was on the cards that he might succeed in his new adventure. The
taste of America in letters and art is still strongly influenced, if
not formed, by English taste, and, if Oscar Wilde had been properly
accredited, it is probable that his extraordinary gift of speech would
have won him success in America as a lecturer.
[Illustration: Oscar Wilde as He Appeared at Twenty-seven: on His
First Visit to America]
His phrase to the Revenue officers on landing: "I have nothing to
declare except my genius," turned the limelight full upon him and
excited comment and discussion all over the country. But the fuglemen
of his caste whose praise had brought him to the front in England were
almost unrepresented in the States, and never bold enough to be
partisans. Oscar faced the American Philistine public without his
accustomed _claque_, and under these circumstances a half-success was
evidence of considerable power. His subjects were "The English
Renaissance" and "House Decoration."
His first lecture at Chickering Hall on January 9, 1882, was so much
talked about that the famous impresario, Major Pond, engaged him for a
tour which, however, had to be cut short in the middle as a monetary
failure. _The Nation_ gave a very fair account of his first lecture:
"Mr. Wilde is essentially a foreign product and can hardly succeed in
this country. What he has to say is not new, and his extravagance is
not extravagant enough to amuse the average American audience. His
knee-breeches and long hair are good as far as they go; but Bunthorne
has really spoiled the public for Wilde."
_The Nation_ underrated American curiosity. Oscar lectured some ninety
times from January till July, when he returned to New York. The gross
receipts amounted to some £4,000: he received about £1,200, which
left him with a few hundreds above his expenses. His optimism regarded
this as a triumph.
One is fain to confess today that these lectures make very poor
reading. There is not a new thought in them; not even a memorable
expression; they are nothing but student work, the best passages in
them being mere paraphrases of Pater and Arnold, though the titles
were borrowed from Whistler. Dr. Ernest Bendz in his monograph on _The
Influence of Pater and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of Oscar
Wilde_ has established this fact with curious erudition and
completeness.
Still, the lecturer was a fine figure of a man: his knee-breeches and
silk stockings set all the women talking, and he spoke with suave
authority. Even the dullest had to admit that his elocution was
excellent, and the manner of speech is keenly appreciated in America.
In some of the Eastern towns, in New York especially, he had a certain
success, the success of sensation and of novelty, such success as
every large capital gives to the strange and eccentric.
In Boston he scored a triumph of character. Fifty or sixty Harvard
students came to his lecture dressed to caricature him in "swallow
tail coats, knee breeches, flowing wigs and green ties. They all wore
large lilies in their buttonholes and each man carried a huge
sunflower as he limped along." That evening Oscar appeared in ordinary
dress and went on with his lecture as if he had not noticed the
rudeness. The chief Boston paper gave him due credit:
"Everyone who witnessed the scene on Tuesday evening must
feel about it very much as we do, and those who came to
scoff, if they did not exactly remain to pray, at least left
the Music Hall with feelings of cordial liking, and, perhaps
to their own surprise, of respect for Oscar Wilde."[7]
As he travelled west to Louisville and Omaha his popularity dwined and
dwindled. Still he persevered and after leaving the States visited
Canada, reaching Halifax in the autumn.
One incident must find a place here. On September 6 he sent £80 to
Lady Wilde. I have been told that this was merely a return of money
she had advanced; but there can be no doubt that Oscar, unlike his
brother Willie, helped his mother again and again most generously,
though Willie was always her favourite.
Oscar returned to England in April, 1883, and lectured to the Art
Students at their club in Golden Square. This at once brought about a
break with Whistler who accused him of plagiarism:--"Picking from our
platters the plums for the puddings he peddles in the provinces."
If one compares this lecture with Oscar's on "The English Renaissance
of Art," delivered in New York only a year before, and with Whistler's
well-known opinions, it is impossible not to admit that the charge was
justified. Such phrases as "artists are not to copy beauty but to
create it ... a picture is a purely decorative thing," proclaim their
author.
The long newspaper wrangle between the two was brought to a head in
1885, when Whistler gave his famous _Ten o'clock_ discourse on Art.
This lecture was infinitely better than any of Oscar Wilde's. Twenty
odd years older than Wilde, Whistler was a master of all his
resources: he was not only witty, but he had new views on art and
original ideas. As a great artist he knew that "there never was an
artistic period. There never was an Art-loving nation." Again and
again he reached pure beauty of expression. The masterly persiflage,
too, filled me with admiration and I declared that the lecture ranked
with the best ever heard in London with Coleridge's on Shakespeare and
Carlyle's on Heroes. To my astonishment Oscar would not admit the
superlative quality of Whistler's talk; he thought the message
paradoxical and the ridicule of the professors too bitter.
"Whistler's like a wasp," he cried, "and carries about with him a
poisoned sting." Oscar's kindly sweet nature revolted against the
disdainful aggressiveness of Whistler's attitude. Besides, in essence,
Whistler's lecture was an attack on the academic theory taught in the
universities, and defended naturally by a young scholar like Oscar
Wilde. Whistler's view that the artist was sporadic, a happy chance, a
"sport," in fact, was a new view, and Oscar had not yet reached this
level; he reviewed the master in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, a review
remarkable for one of the earliest gleams of that genial humour which
later became his most characteristic gift: "Whistler," he said, "is
indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting in my opinion. And
I may add that in this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs."
Whistler retorted in _The World_ and Oscar replied, but Whistler had
the best of the argument.... "Oscar--the amiable, irresponsible,
esurient Oscar--with no more sense of a picture than of the fit of a
coat, has the courage of the opinions ... of others!"
It should be noted here that one of the bitterest of tongues could not
help doing homage to Oscar Wilde's "amiability": Whistler even
preferred to call him "amiable and irresponsible" rather than give
his plagiarism a harsher attribute.
Oscar Wilde learned almost all he knew of art[8] and of controversy
from Whistler, but he was never more than a pupil in either field; for
controversy in especial he was poorly equipped: he had neither the
courage, nor the contempt, nor the joy in conflict of his great
exemplar.
Unperturbed by Whistler's attacks, Oscar went on lecturing about the
country on "Personal Impressions of America," and in August crossed
again to New York to see his play "Vera" produced by Marie Prescott at
the Union Square Theatre. It was a complete failure, as might have
been expected; the serious part of it was such as any talented young
man might have written. Nevertheless I find in this play for the first
time, a characteristic gleam of humour, an unexpected flirt of wing,
so to speak, which, in view of the future, is full of promise. At the
time it passed unappreciated.
September, 1883, saw Oscar again in England. The platform gave him
better results than the theatre, but not enough for freedom or ease.
It is the more to his credit that as soon as he got a couple of
hundred pounds ahead, he resolved to spend it in bettering his mind.
His longing for wider culture, and perhaps in part, the example of
Whistler, drove him to Paris. He put up at the little provincial Hotel
Voltaire on the Quai Voltaire and quickly made acquaintance with
everyone of note in the world of letters, from Victor Hugo to Paul
Bourget. He admired Verlaine's genius to the full but the grotesque
physical ugliness of the man himself (Verlaine was like a masque of
Socrates) and his sordid and unclean way of living prevented Oscar
from really getting to know him. During this stay in Paris Oscar read
enormously and his French, which had been school-boyish, became quite
good. He always said that Balzac, and especially his poet, Lucien de
Rubempré, had been his teachers.
While in Paris he completed his blank-verse play, "The Duchess of
Padua," and sent it to Miss Mary Anderson in America, who refused it,
although she had commissioned him, he always said, to write it. It
seems to me inferior even to "Vera" in interest, more academic and
further from life, and when produced in New York in 1891 it was a
complete frost.
In a few months Oscar Wilde had spent his money and had skimmed the
cream from Paris, as he thought; accordingly he returned to London and
took rooms again, this time in Charles Street, Mayfair. He had learned
some rude lessons in the years since leaving Oxford, and the first
and most impressive lesson was the fear of poverty. Yet his taking
rooms in the fashionable part of town showed that he was more
determined than ever to rise and not to sink.
It was Lady Wilde who urged him to take rooms near her; she never
doubted his ultimate triumph. She knew all his poems by heart, took
the strass for diamonds and welcomed the chance of introducing her
brilliant son to the Irish Nationalist Members and other pinchbeck
celebrities who flocked about her.
It was about this time that I first saw Lady Wilde. I was introduced
to her by Willie, Oscar's elder brother, whom I had met in Fleet
Street. Willie was then a tall, well-made fellow of thirty or
thereabouts with an expressive taking face, lit up with a pair of deep
blue laughing eyes. He had any amount of physical vivacity, and told a
good story with immense verve, without for a moment getting above the
commonplace: to him the Corinthian journalism of _The Daily Telegraph_
was literature. Still he had the surface good nature and good humour
of healthy youth and was generally liked. He took me to his mother's
house one afternoon; but first he had a drink here and a chat there so
that we did not reach the West End till after six o'clock.
The room and its occupants made an indelible grotesque impression on
me. It seemed smaller than it was because overcrowded with a score of
women and half a dozen men. It was very dark and there were empty
tea-cups and cigarette ends everywhere. Lady Wilde sat enthroned
behind the tea-table looking like a sort of female Buddha swathed in
wraps--a large woman with a heavy face and prominent nose; very like
Oscar indeed, with the same sallow skin which always looked dirty; her
eyes too were her redeeming feature--vivacious and quick-glancing as a
girl's. She "made up" like an actress and naturally preferred shadowed
gloom to sunlight. Her idealism came to show as soon as she spoke. It
was a necessity of her nature to be enthusiastic; unfriendly critics
said hysterical, but I should prefer to say high-falutin' about
everything she enjoyed or admired. She was at her best in misfortune;
her great vanity gave her a certain proud stoicism which was
admirable.
The Land League was under discussion as we entered, and Parnell's
attitude to it. Lady Wilde regarded him as the predestined saviour of
her country. "Parnell," she said with a strong accent on the first
syllable, "is the man of destiny; he will strike off the fetters and
free Ireland, and throne her as Queen among the nations."
A murmur of applause came from a thin bird-like woman standing
opposite, who floated towards us clad in a sage-green gown, which
sheathed her like an umbrella case; had she had any figure the dress
would have been indecent.
"How like 'Speranza'!" she cooed, "dear Lady Wilde!" I noticed that
her glance went towards Willie, who was standing on the other side of
his mother, talking to a tall, handsome girl. Willie's friend seemed
amused at the lyrical outburst of the green spinster, for smiling a
little she questioned him:
"'Speranza' is Lady Wilde?" she asked with a slight American accent.
Lady Wilde informed the company with all the impressiveness she had at
command that she did not expect Oscar that afternoon; "he is so busy
with his new poems, you know; they say there has been no such
sensation since Byron," she added; "already everyone is talking of
them."
"Indeed, yes," sighed the green lily, "do you remember, dear Speranza,
what he said about 'The Sphinx,' that he read to us. He told us the
written verse was quite different from what the printed poem would be
just as the sculptor's clay model differs from the marble. Subtle,
wasn't it?"
"Perfectly true, too!" cried a man, with a falsetto voice, moving
into the circle; "Leonardo himself might have said that."
The whole scene seemed to me affected and middle-class, untidy, too,
with an un-English note about it of shiftlessness; the æsthetic
dresses were extravagant, the enthusiasms pumped up and exaggerated. I
was glad to leave quietly.
It was on this visit to Lady Wilde, or a later one, that I first heard
of that other poem of Oscar, "The Harlot's House," which was also said
to have been written in Paris. Though published in an obscure sheet
and in itself commonplace enough it made an astonishing stir. Time and
advertisement had been working for him. Academic lectures and
imitative poetry alike had made him widely known; and, thanks to the
small body of enthusiastic admirers whom I have already spoken of, his
reputation instead of waning out had grown like the Jinn when released
from the bottle.
The fuglemen were determined to find something wonderful in everything
he did, and the title of "The Harlot's House," shocking Philistinism,
gave them a certain opportunity which they used to the uttermost. On
all sides one was asked: "Have you seen Oscar's latest?" And then the
last verse would be quoted:--"Divine, don't ye think?"
"And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl."
In spite of all this extravagant eulogy Oscar Wilde's early plays and
poems, like his lectures, were unimportant. The small remnant of
people in England who really love the things of the spirit were
disappointed in them, failed to find in them the genius so loudly and
so arrogantly vaunted.
But, if Oscar Wilde's early writings were failures, his talk was more
successful than ever. He still tried to show off on all occasions and
sometimes fell flat in consequence; but his failures in this field
were few and merely comparative; constant practice was ripening his
extraordinary natural gift. About this time, too, he began to develop
that humorous vein in conversation, which later lent a singular
distinction to his casual utterances.
His talk brought him numerous invitations to dinner and lunch and
introduced him to some of the best houses in London, but it produced
no money. He was earning very little and he needed money,
comparatively large sums of money, from week to week.
Oscar Wilde was extravagant in almost every possible way. He wished to
be well-fed, well-dressed, well-wined, and prodigal of "tips." He
wanted first editions of the poets; had a liking for old furniture
and old silver, for fine pictures, Eastern carpets and Renascence
bronzes; in fine, he had all the artist's desires as well as those of
the poet and _viveur_. He was constantly in dire need of cash and did
not hesitate to borrow fifty pounds from anyone who would lend it to
him. He was beginning to experience the truth of the old verse:
'Tis a very good world to live in,
To lend or to spend or to give in,
But to beg or to borrow or get a man's own,
'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.
The difficulties of life were constantly increasing upon him. He
despised bread and butter and talked only of champagne and caviare;
but without bread, hunger is imminent. Victory no longer seemed
indubitable. It was possible, it began even to be probable that the
fair ship of his fame might come to wreck on the shoals of poverty.
It was painfully clear that he must do something without further
delay, must either conquer want or overleap it. Would he bridle his
desires, live savingly, and write assiduously till such repute came as
would enable him to launch out and indulge his tastes? He was wise
enough to see the advantages of such a course. Every day his
reputation as a talker was growing. Had he had a little more
self-control, had he waited a little longer till his position in
society was secured, he could easily have married someone with money
and position who would have placed him above sordid care and fear for
ever. But he could not wait; he was colossally vain; he would wear the
peacock's feathers at all times and all costs: he was intensely
pleasure-loving, too; his mouth watered for every fruit. Besides, he
couldn't write with creditors at the door. Like Bossuet he was unable
to work when bothered about small economies:--_s'il était à l'étroit
dans son domestique_.
What was to be done? Suddenly he cut the knot and married the daughter
of a Q.C., a Miss Constance Lloyd, a young lady without any particular
qualities or beauty, whom he had met in Dublin on a lecture tour. Miss
Lloyd had a few hundreds a year of her own, just enough to keep the
wolf from the door. The couple went to live in Tite Street, Chelsea,
in a modest little house. The drawing-room, however, was decorated by
Godwin and quickly gained a certain notoriety. It was indeed a
charming room with an artistic distinction and appeal of its own.
As soon as the dreadful load of poverty was removed, Oscar began to go
about a great deal, and his wife would certainly have been invited
with him if he had refused invitations addressed to himself alone; but
from the beginning he accepted them and consequently after the first
few months of marriage his wife went out but little, and later
children came and kept her at home. Having earned a respite from care
by his marriage, Oscar did little for the next three years but talk.
Critical observers began to make up their minds that he was a talker
and not a writer. "He was a power in the art," as de Quincey said of
Coleridge; "and he carried a new art into the power." Every year this
gift grew with him: every year he talked more and more brilliantly,
and he was allowed now, and indeed expected, to hold the table.
In London there is no such thing as conversation. Now and then one
hears a caustic or witty phrase, but nothing more. The tone of good
society everywhere is to be pleasant without being prominent. In every
other European country, however, able men are encouraged to talk; in
England alone they are discouraged. People in society use a debased
jargon or slang, snobbish shibboleths for the most part, and the
majority resent any one man monopolising attention. But Oscar Wilde
was allowed this privileged position, was encouraged to hold forth to
amuse people, as singers are brought in to sing after dinner.
Though his fame as a witty and delightful talker grew from week to
week, even his marriage did not stifle the undertone of dislike and
disgust. Now indignantly, now with contempt, men spoke of him as
abandoned, a creature of unnatural viciousness. There were certain
houses in the best set of London society the doors of which were
closed to him.
[Illustration: Oscar Wilde]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] By way of heaping coals of fire on the students' heads Oscar
presented a cast of the Hermes (then recently unearthed) to the
University of Harvard.
[8] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."