Maddened by desire, this high-born Princess makes violent love in

language of supreme beauty to the ascetic dweller in the desert. His

body, his hair, his mouth, are in turn the object of her praise only to

be vilified one by one as he drives her back with scathing words. She

insists that she shall kiss his mouth, and the jealous Syrian begs her

who is like "a garden of myrrh" not to "speak these things." She

insists, she will kiss his mouth. The Syrian kills himself, falling on

his own sword. This tragic event, to which a horror-struck soldier draws

her attention, does not for one second divert her attention from the

pursuit of her passion. Again and again, in spite of Jokanaan's warnings

and exhortations (for even in this supreme hour of horror and temptation

he preaches the Gospel of his Master), she pleads for a kiss of his

mouth. This reiteration of the request, even after the Saint has

returned to his prison, is a triumph of dramatic craftsmanship.

The page laments over his dead friend to whom he had given "a little bag

full of perfumes and a ring of agate that he wore always on his hand."

The soldiers debate about hiding the body and then, contrary to his

custom, Herod appears on the terrace accompanied by Herodias and all the

Court. His first inquiry is for Salome, and Herodias, whose suspicions

are evidently aroused, tells him in identically the same words used by

the page to the dead Syrian that he "must not look at her," that he is

"always looking at her."

Again the regnant moon becomes a menace and a symbol. This time it is

Herod who finds a strange look in her, and whose morbid wine-heated

imagination compares her to a naked woman looking for lovers and reeling

like one drunk. He determines to stay on the terrace, and slips in the

blood of the suicide. Terror-struck, he inquires whence it comes, and

then espies the corpse. On learning whose it is, he mourns the loss of

his dead favourite and discusses the question of suicide with

Tigellinus, who is described in the _dramatis personae_ as "a young

Roman." Herod is shaken by fears, he feels a cold wind when there is no

wind, and hears "in the air something that is like the beating of

wings." He devotes his attention to Salome, who slights all his

advances. Once the voice of Jokanaan is heard prophesying that the hour

is at hand, and Herodias angrily orders that he should be silenced.

Herod feebly upholds the prophet and strenuously maintains that he is

not afraid of him as Herodias declares he is. She then inquires why,

that being the case, he does not deliver him into the hands of the Jews,

a suggestion that is at once taken up by one of the Jews present; and

then follows a discussion between Pharisees and Sadducees and Nazarenes

respecting the new Messiah. This is followed by a dialogue between

Herodias and the Tetrarch, interrupted ever and again by the

hollow-sounding denunciations and prophecies of Jokanaan.

Herod's mind is still filled with the thoughts of his stepdaughter and

he beseeches Salome to dance for him, but supported by her mother she

keeps on refusing. The chorus, in the person of soldiers, once again

draws attention to the sombre aspect of the Tetrarch. More prophecies

from Jokanaan follow, with comments from Herod and his wife.

Once more the watching soldiers remark on the gloom and menace of the

despot's countenance and he himself confesses that he is sad, beseeching

his wife's child to dance for him, in return for which favour he will

give her all she may ask of him, even unto the half of his kingdom.

Salome snatches greedily at the bait and, in spite of her mother's

reiterated protests, obtains from Herod an oath that he will grant her

whatsoever she wishes if she but dance for him. Even in the midst of the

joy with which her acceptance fills him, the shadow of approaching death

is over him, he feels an icy wind, hears the rustle of passing wings,

and feels a hot breath and the sensation of choking. The red petals of

his rose garland seem to him drops of blood, and yet he tries to delude

himself that he is perfectly happy.

In accordance with Salome's instructions, slaves bring her perfumes and

the seven veils and remove her sandals. Even as Herod gloats over the

prospect of seeing her moving, naked feet, he recalls the fact that she

will be dancing in blood and notes that the moon has turned red even as

the prophet foretold. Herodias mocks at him and taunts him with

cowardice, endeavouring, at the same time, to persuade him to retire,

but her appeals are interrupted by the voice of Jokanaan. The sound of

his voice irritates her and she insists on going within, but Herod is

obstinate, he will not go till Salome has danced. She appeals once more

to her daughter not to dance, but with an "I am ready, Tetrarch," Salome

dances "the dance of the seven veils." There are no stage directions

given as to how the dance is to be performed, but whoever has seen the

slow, rhythmic, and lascivious movements of an Eastern dance can well

imagine it and all the passionate subtlety and exquisite grace with

which this languorous daughter of Judaean kings would endow it. The

ballet master who could not seize this opportunity of devising a _pas de

fascination_ worthy of the occasion does not know the rudiments of his

art.

Herod is filled with delight and admiration. He is anxious to fulfil his

pledge and bids Salome draw near and name her reward. She does so. Her

guerdon shall be the head of Jokanaan on a silver charger. At this,

Herodias is filled with satisfaction, but the Tetrarch protests. Again

Herodias expresses approval and Herod begs Salome not to heed her.

Proudly the dancer answers that she does not heed her mother, that it

is for her own pleasure she demands the grisly reward, and reminds her

stepfather of his oath. He does not repudiate it but begs of her to

choose something else, even the half of his kingdom rather than what she

asks. Salome insists, and Herodias chimes in with a recital of the

insults she had suffered at the hands of Jokanaan and is peremptorily

bidden to be silent by her husband, who argues with Salome as to the

terrible and improper nature of her request, offering her his great

round emerald in place of the head. But Salome is obdurate. "I demand

the head of Jokanaan," she insists.

Herod wishes to speak, but she interrupts him with "The head of

Jokanaan." Again Herod pleads with her and offers her fifty of his

peacocks whose backs are stained with gold and their feet stained with

purple, but she sullenly reiterates--"Give me the head of Jokanaan."

Herodias once more expresses approval, and her husband turns savagely on

her with "Be silent! You cry out always; you cry out like a beast of

prey." Then, his conscience stinging him, he pleads for Jokanaan's life,

and gives vent to pious sentiments: he talks of the omnipresence of God,

and then is uncertain of it. His mind is torn with doubts, and fears. He

has slipped in blood and heard a beating of wings which are evil omens.

Yet another appeal to Salome is met with the uncompromising "Give me

the head of Jokanaan." He makes one last appeal, he enumerates his

treasures, jewels hidden away that Herodias even has never seen; he

describes the precious stones in his treasury. All these he offers her.

He will add cups of gold that if any enemy pour poison into them will

turn to silver, sandals encrusted with glass, mantles from the land of

the Seres, bracelets from the City of Euphrates; nay even the mantle of

the High Priest shall she have, the very veil of the Temple. Above the

angry protests of the Jews rises Salome's "Give me the head of

Jokanaan," and sinking back into his seat the weak man gives way and

hands the ring of death to a soldier, who straightway bears it to the

executioner. As soon as his scared official has disappeared into the

cistern Salome leans over it and listens. She is quivering with

excitement and is indignant that there is no sound of a struggle. She

calls to Naaman to strike. There is no answer--she can hear nothing.

Then there is the sound ... something has fallen on the ground. She

fancies it is the executioner's sword and that he is afraid to carry out

his task. She bids the page order the soldiers to bring her the head. He

recoils from her and she turns to the men themselves bidding them carry

out the sentence. They likewise recoil, and just as she turns to Herod

himself with a demand for the head, a huge black arm is extended from

the cistern presenting the head of Jokanaan on a silver shield. She

seizes it eagerly. Meanwhile the cowering Tetrarch covers his face with

his cloak and a smile of triumph illumines the face of Herodias. All the

tigress in Salome is awakened; she apostrophises the head. He would not

let her kiss his mouth. Well, she will kiss it now, she will fasten her

teeth in it. She twits the eyes and the tongue with their present

impotence, she will throw the head to the dogs and the birds of the air.

But anon her mood changes, she recalls all that in him had appealed to

her, and laments over the fact that, though she loves him still, her

desire for him can now never be appeased.

All Herod's superstitious fears are awakened, he upbraids Herodias for

her daughter's crime, and mounts the staircase to enter the palace. The

stage darkens and Salome, a moonbeam falling on her, is heard

apostrophising the head, the lips of which she has just kissed. Herod

turns, and, seeing her, orders her to be killed, and the soldiers,

rushing forward, crush her with their shields.

It will be seen that the dramatist has awarded the fate meted out in

Scripture to Herodias to the daughter and not the mother, a poetic

licence for which no one will blame him.

In reading the play carefully and critically one cannot but be struck

with the influence of Maeterlinck in the atmosphere and construction,

and of Flaubert in the gorgeous imagery of the dialogue, the _decor des

phrases_, so to speak. An artist in words Wilde also proves himself in

stagecraft in this play. Not the mere mechanical setting, of which I

shall speak later, but the ability to lead up to a situation, the power

to convey a whole volume in a few words to fill the audience with a

sense of impending tragedy, and to utilise outside influences to enhance

the value of the scenes. Thus, the references to the moon by the various

characters are so many stage settings for the emotion of the moment,

verbal pictures illustrating the state of mind of the speaker, or the

trend of the action. It has been objected that the constant reiteration

of a given phrase is a mere trick and Max Nordau has set it down as a

mark of insanity, but in the hands of an artist the use of that "trick"

incalculably enhances the value of the dialogue, although when employed

by a bungler the repetition would be as senseless and irritating as the

conversational remarks of a parrot. The young Syrian's admiration for

Salome, the page's fears and warnings, Salome's insistence that she will

kiss Jokanaan's mouth, later on her insistence on having his head, the

very comments of the soldiers on Herod's sombre look are all brought in

with a thoroughly definite purpose, and it would be difficult to find an

equally simple and effective way of achieving that purpose.

A favourite device of the author was to introduce, apparently casually,

a sentence or word at the beginning of the play to be repeated or used

with telling effect at the end. For instance, in "A Woman Of No

Importance" Lord Illingworth's casual remark--"Oh, no one--a woman of no

importance," which brings down the curtain on the first act, is used

with a slight alteration at the end of the play in Mrs Arbuthnot's reply

to Gerald's inquiry as to who her visitor has been, "Ah, no one--a man

of no importance." In the same way Salome's reiterated cry, "I will kiss

the mouth of Jokanaan," in her scene with the prophet gives added

strength to her bitterly triumphant cry as, holding the severed head in

her hands, she repeats at three different intervals, "I have kissed thy

mouth, Jokanaan."

Apart from all questions of stage technique, Wilde had the incomparable

gift of finding _le mot juste_, of conveying a portrait in half-a-dozen

words. Could anything give one a more distinct portrait of Herod than

Salome's description of his "mole's eyes under his shaking eyelids," or

would it be possible to explain Herod's passion for his stepdaughter in

fewer words than her soliloquy: "It is strange that the husband of my

mother looks at me like that. I know not what it means. In truth, yes, I

know it." There is not a word wasted or misplaced, there is not a

superfluous syllable.

I have spoken of the influence of Flaubert or his language, but there

was in Wilde a thoroughly Eastern love of colour which found its

expression in sensuous richness of sound, jewelled words, wonderfully

employed to effect a contrast with the horror in which he seemed to take

a strange delight. The rich, decorative phrases only enhance the

constant presence of the weird and _macabre_, while in its turn the

horror gives an almost painful lustre to the words.

The play has been assailed as immoral, but this certainly is not so. The

setting of an Eastern drama is not that of a Western, and the morals and

customs of the East are no more to be judged by a Western standard than

the Court of Herod to be compared with that of Edward the Seventh.

The play deals frankly with a sensuous episode, and if the author has

introduced the proper atmosphere he is only doing in words what every

artist does in painting. Compare "Salome" with Shakespeare's one Eastern

play, "Cleopatra," and though the treatment may be a little more modern,

a trifle more decadent, the same non-morality rather than immorality is

to be found in the principal characters.

I fancy that a great deal of the prejudice still existing in England

against the play is due to the illustrations of the late Aubrey

Beardsley. Beardsley was a personal friend of mine, and it, therefore,

pains me to have to frankly confess that, clever and decorative as his

drawings undoubtedly are, they are unhealthy in this instance, unhealthy

and evil in suggestion. I can imagine no more pruriently horrible

nightmare than these pictures of foul-faced, satyrlike men, feminine

youths and leering women. The worst of Beardsley's women is that, in

spite of their lubricity, they grow on one, and now and then one

suddenly traces in their features a likeness to really good women one

has known. It is as though something Satanic had been worked into the

ripe-lipped face of a girl. Such as these might have been the emissaries

of Satan who tempted anchorites of old to commit unpardonable sins.

Moreover, many of the illustrations have nothing whatever to do with the

text. I may be wrong, but I cannot for the life of me see what

connection there is between "Salome," the play, and "The Peacock Skirt"

or "The Black Cape." Nor can I see the object of modernising the

"Stomach Dance," save to impart an extra dose of lubricity into the

subject. The _leit motif_ of all Beardsley's art was to _epater les

bourgeois_, to horrify the ordinary stolid Philistine, and he would

hesitate at nothing, however _outre_, to attain this end. In these

drawings he surpassed himself in that respect, and one can only wonder

that a publisher was found daring enough to publish them. The subject is

a painful one to me, but I should not have been doing my duty as a

critic of the play had I not remarked upon it. An edition from which the

drawings are omitted can, however, be bought to-day.

I have already commented on the vagueness of the directions as to the

setting of the scene, and it may not be out of place to quote here a

letter I have received from a well-known stage-manager on the subject.

"You ask me how I would set the scene in question in accordance with the

printed directions, and I reply frankly that I should be puzzled to do

so even were the scene to consist of the banqueting hall with the

balustraded terrace built up above it. The whole action of the piece

takes place on the terrace, from which the actors are supposed to

overlook the banqueting hall, so that the latter apartment need not be

in view of the audience, but the gigantic staircase on the _R._ I

confess fogs me. Where does it lead to, and, save for Herod's exit at

the end of the play, of what use is it? It only lumbers up the stage,

and looks out of place (to my mind, at anyrate) on a terrace.

"By the cistern I presume the author means a well, though how on earth

the actor who plays Jokanaan is going to manage to scramble in and out

of it with dignity so as not to provoke the hilarity of the audience is

beyond my ken. I note that in the production of the opera at Dresden

the printed directions were utterly ignored."

As has already been stated, "Salome" was first written in French and

subsequently translated into English by a friend of Oscar Wilde.

Reading it in the language in which it was originally written, one fact

stands out pre-eminent--the work is that of a foreigner. The French,

though correct and polished, is not virile, living French. It is too

correct, too laboured; the writer does not take any liberties with his

medium. The words have all the delicacy of marble statuary but lack the

breath of life. I think it was Max Beerbohm who once said of Walter

Pater (heaven forbid that I should agree with him) that he wrote English

as though it were a dead language, and that is precisely what is the

matter with Wilde's French. One longs for a _tournure de phrase_, a

_maniement de mots_ that would give it a semblance of native authorship.

It is like a Russian talking French, and altogether too precise, too

pedantically grammatical.

I believe the play was revised by Marcel Schwab, but although he may

have corrected an error here and there he would hardly have liked to

tamper with the text itself.

The play was written in 1892, and was accepted by Madame Sarah

Bernhardt, who was to have produced it during her season at the Palace

Theatre. It was already in full rehearsal when it was prohibited by the

Censor. A great deal of abuse and ridicule has been heaped on that

official for this, but in all fairness to him it must be admitted that

he had no choice in the matter. Rightly or wrongly plays dealing with

Biblical subjects are not allowed to be performed on the English stage,

and the Censor's business is to see that the rules and regulations

governing stage productions are duly observed.

The author was greatly incensed at the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain's

officer to license the piece, and talked (whether seriously or not is a

moot point) of leaving England for ever and taking out naturalisation

papers as a French citizen. This threat he never carried out.

Meanwhile Madame Sarah Bernhardt had taken the play back to Paris with

her, promising to produce it at her own theatre of the Porte St Martin

at the very first opportunity, a promise that was never fulfilled.

Moreover, when a couple of years later Wilde, then a prisoner awaiting

his trial, finding himself penniless, sent a friend to her to explain

how he was circumstanced, and offering to sell her the play outright for

a comparatively small sum of money in order that he might be able to pay

for his defence, this incomparable _poseuse_ was profuse in her

expressions of sympathy and admiration for _ce grand artiste_ and

promised to assist him to the best of her ability. She had the cruelty

to delude with false hopes a man suffering a mental martyrdom, and

after buoying him up from day to day with promises of financial

assistance, the Jewess not considering the investment a remunerative

one, shut the door to his emissary, and failed to keep her word. Now

that the foreign royalties on play and opera amount to a considerable

sum annually her Hebrew heart must be consumed with rage at having

missed such "a good thing."

The piece was first produced at the Theatre Libre in Paris in 1896 by

Monsieur Luigne Poe with Lina Muntz as Salome. The news of the

production reached Wilde in his prison cell at Reading, and in a letter

to a friend the following reference to it occurs:--

"Please say how gratified I was at the performance of my play, and

have my thanks conveyed to Luigne Poe. It is something that at a

time of disgrace and shame I should still be regarded as an artist.

I wish I could feel more pleasure, but I seem dead to all emotions

except those of anguish and despair. However, please let Luigne Poe

know I am sensible of the honour he has done me. He is a poet

himself. Write to me in answer to this, and try and see what

Lemaitre, Bauer, and Sarcey said of 'Salome.'"

There is something intensely pathetic in the picture of Convict 33

writing to know what the foremost critics of the most artistic city in

Europe have to say concerning the child of his brain.

The play was eventually privately produced in English by the New Stage

Club in May 1905 at the Bijou Theatre, Archer Street.

The following is the programme on that occasion:--

THE NEW STAGE CLUB

"SALOME"

BY OSCAR WILDE

AT THE BIJOU THEATRE, Archer Street, W.

May 10th and May 13th 1905

Characters of the drama in the order of their speaking:

A Young Syrian Captain Mr HERBERT ALEXANDER

Page of Herodias Mrs GWENDOLEN BISHOP

1st Soldier Mr CHARLES GEE

2nd Soldier Mr RALPH DE ROHAN

Cappadocian Mr CHARLES DALMON

Jokanaan Mr VINCENT NELLO

Naaman the Executioner Mr W. EVELYN OSBORN

Salome Miss MILLICENT MURBY

Slave Miss CARRIE KEITH

Herod Mr ROBERT FARQUHARSON

Herodias Miss LOUISE SALOM

Tigellinus Mr C. L. DELPH

Slaves, Jews, Nazarenes, and Soldiers by

Miss Stansfelds, Messrs Bernhard Smith, Fredk. Stanley

Smith, John Bate, Stephen Bagehot and Frederick Lawrence.

SCENE--THE GREAT TERRACE OUTSIDE THE PALACE OF HEROD.

Stage Management under the direction of Miss FLORENCE FARR.

The following paragraphs are taken from a criticism on the performance

which appeared in _The Daily Chronicle_ of 11th May 1905:

"If only the dazzling and unfortunate genius who wrote 'Salome'

could have seen it acted as it was acted yesterday at the little

Bijou Theatre! One fears, if he had, he would have found that

little phrase of his--'the importance of being earnest'--a more

delicately true satire than ever upon our sometimes appalling

seriousness.

"Quite a brilliant and crowded audience had responded to what

seemed an undoubtedly daring and interesting venture. Many seemed

to have come out of mere curiosity to see a play the censor had

forbidden; some through knowing what a beautiful, passionate, and

in its real altitude wholly inoffensive play 'Salome' is.

"As those who had read the play were aware, this was in no way the

fault of the author of 'Salome.' Its offence in the censor's

eyes--and, considering the average audience, he was doubtless

wise--was that it represents Salome making love to John the

Baptist, failing to win him to her desires, and asking for his

death from Herod, as revenge. This, of course, is not Biblical, but

is a fairly widespread tradition.

"In the play, as it is written, this love scene is just a very

beautiful piece of sheer passionate speech, full of luxurious,

Oriental imagery, much of which is taken straight from the 'Song

of Solomon.' It is done very cleverly, very gracefully. It is not

religious, but it is, in itself, neither blasphemous nor obscene,

whatever it may be in the ears of those who hear it. It might

possibly, perhaps, be acted grossly; acted naturally and

beautifully it would show itself at least art.

"In the hands, however, of the New Stage Club it was treated after

neither of these methods. It was treated solemnly, dreamily,

phlegmatically, as a sort of cross between Maeterlinck and a

'mystery play.'

"The whole of the play was done in this manner, all save two

parts--one, that of Herodias (Miss Salom), which was excellently

and vigorously played: the other, that of Herod, which was

completely spoiled by an actor who gave what appeared to be a sort

of semi-grotesque portrait of one of the late Roman emperors. Even

the play itself represents the usurping Idumean as a terrific

figure of ignorant strength and lustfulness and power 'walking

mightily in his greatness.' Some of the most luxurious speeches in

the whole play--above all the wonderful description of his

jewels--are put into Herod's mouth. Yet he is represented at the

Bijou Theatre as a doddering weakling! And even so is desperately

serious.

"Altogether, beneath this pall of solemnity on the one hand and

lack of real exaltation on the other, the play's beauties of

speech and thought had practically no chance whatever. Set as it is

too, in one long act of an hour and a half, the lack of natural

life and vigour made it more tiresome still. And the shade of Oscar

Wilde will doubtless be blamed for it all!"

It was unavoidable that a play necessitating the highest histrionic

ability on the part of the actors, together with the greatest delicacy

of touch and artistic sense of proportion, should suffer in its

interpretation by a set of amateurs, however enthusiastic.

A second performance, given in June 1906 by the Literary Stage Society,

was far more successful from an artistic point of view. This was in a

great measure due to the admirable stage setting designed by one who is

an artist to his finger tips, Mr C. S. Ricketts, and who, having been a

personal friend of the author's, could enter thoroughly into the spirit

of the play. The scene was laid in Herod's tent, the long blue folds of

which, with a background curtain spangled with silver stars, set off to

perfection the exquisite Eastern costumes designed by the same

authority. Mr Robert Farquharson was the Herod and Miss Darragh the

Salome.

But even this performance was far from being up to the standard the play

demands, and Dr Max Meyerfeld, who has done so much to make Wilde's work

known in Germany, wrote of it:

"The most notable feature of the production of 'Salome' was the

costumes, designed by Mr C. S. Ricketts--a marvellous harmony of

blue and green and silver. Here praise must end. The stage was left

ridiculously bare, and never for a moment produced the illusion of

the terrace outside Herod's banqueting hall. Not even the cistern

out of which the Prophet rises was discoverable--Hamlet without the

Prince of Denmark. And the actors! Without being too exigeant, I

cannot but suggest that before attempting such a play they ought to

have been sent by a special train to Berlin. Even then Miss Darragh

would have been an impossible Salome. She lacked nearly everything

required by this complex character. The Dance of the Seven Veils

was executed with all the propriety of a British governess. Mr

Robert Farquharson, whose Herod delighted us last year, has now

elaborated it to the verge of caricature. He emphasises far too

much the neuropathic element, and revels in the repulsive symptoms

of incipient softening of the brain.

"I cannot think that either of these works has yet been given a

fair chance in England. They are, however, things which will

endure, being independent of place and time, of dominant prejudice

and caprices of taste."

On the Continent "Salome" has become almost a stock piece and has been

performed in France, Sweden, Holland, Italy, and Russia, and has been

translated into every European tongue. It was not, however, till the

production in February, 1905, of the opera of Richard Strauss at the

Royal Opera House, Dresden, that "Salome" occupied its true and proper

place in the art world. Admirably rendered into German by Madame Hedwig

Lachmann, the libretto is a faithful translation of the original text.

The success of the opera was not for a minute in doubt, and with

operatic stars of the first order to interpret the characters and an

orchestra of 110 performers to do full justice to the instrumental

music, nothing was left undone to make the production a memorable one. A

distinguished foreign critic writing from Dresden says:

"Death in Love, and Love in Death, that is the whole piece. Death

of Narraboth, the young captain who cannot bear the burning words

that Salome addresses to Iokanaan; death of Iokanaan. Death of

Salome, impending death of Herod Antipas," and analysing the

character of Salome he continues: "It is not the Jewess 'so

charming and full of touching humility' that Salome represents, she

is the Syrian who inspired the Song of Songs, for whom incest is

almost a law and Semiramius, Lath, and Myrrha divinities. She is

the Syrian a prey to the seven devils, who combines in her amorous

cult beauty, death, and resurrection."

When the opera was performed at Berlin it is interesting to remember

that the Kaiser, whose views on morality are strict enough to satisfy

the most exacting Puritan, far from seeing anything to object to in the

story, not only was present on the opening night, but took an active

interest in the rehearsals, going so far even as to suggest certain

mechanical effects.

In New York a perfect storm of execration from the "ultra guid" greeted

the production of Strauss's work, which was almost immediately

withdrawn. It is only justice to say that the rendering of the Dance of

the Seven Veils was in a great measure responsible for this.

It was also freely rumoured that the puritanical daughter of one of the

millionaire directors of the Opera House had used her influence for the

suppression of the new production.

It is interesting to hear what the objectors to the story have to say,

and with this view I quote two extracts, one from a letter written by Mr

E. A. Baughan to _The Musical Standard_ and the other from a well-known

critic writing in a leading provincial paper.

Mr Baughan writes:

"Oscar Wilde took nothing but the characters and the incident of

John the Baptist's head being brought in a charger. All else is

changed and bears no relation to the Bible story. That would not

matter had worthy use been made of the story.

"In 'Salome' everything is twisted to create an atmosphere of

eroticism and sensuality. That is the aim of the play and nothing

else. There is none of the 'wide bearing on life' which you vaguely

suggest. Herod is a sensuous beast who takes delight in the

beautiful postures of his stepdaughter. He speaks line after line

of highly coloured imagery and his mental condition is that of a

man on the verge of delirium tremens, brought on by drink and

satyriasis. Oscar Wilde does not make him 'sorry' but only slightly

superstitious, thus losing whatever of drama there is in the Bible

narrative.

"So far, and in the drawing of Herodias, the dramatist may be

allowed the licence he has taken, however. Even a Puritan must

admit that art must show the evil as well as the good of life to

present a perfect whole.

"But it is in the character of Salome herself that Oscar Wilde has

succeeded in his aim of shocking any man or woman of decent mind.

He makes Salome in love with John the Baptist. It is a horrible,

decadent, lascivious love. She prates of his beautiful smooth limbs

and the cold, passionless lips which he will not yield to her

insensate desire. It is a picture of unnatural passion, all the

more terrible that Salome is a young girl. John the Baptist's death

is brought about as much by Salome as her mother. The prophet will

not yield himself alive to Salome's desires, but she can, and does,

feed her passion at his dead, cold lips. And that is what has

disgusted New York.

"You speak of fighting for liberty in art. If such exhibitions of

degraded passion are included in what you call 'liberty,' then you

will be fighting for the representation on the stage of satyriasis

and nymphomania, set forth with every imaginable circumstance of

literary and musical skill. I can conceive of no greater

degradation of Richard Strauss's genius than the illustration of

this play by music."

And here is what the critic of the provincial journals has to say:

"Salome marks the depths of all that was spurious, all that was

artificial, all that was perverse. Startling to English ears, the

play was not at all original. It drew its inspiration from the

decadent school of France, but in that world it would rank as one

of the commonplace.

"The shocking, startling idea, that so outraged the respectable

Yankees, is the twisting of a story of the New Testament to the

needs of a literature of the most degenerate kind. But in Paris,

and particularly amongst Wilde's friends, all such ideas had lost

the thrill of novelty. Pierre Louys, to whom he dedicates the

book, had couched his own 'Aphrodite' on similar perversions of

history and mythology, and to treat the story of the New Testament

in similar fashion was hardly likely to give pause to men who

laughed at the basis of the Christian religion.

"Even Academicians like Anatole France dealt with the Gospels as

the mere framework of ironical stories, and writers of the stamp of

Jean Loverain out-Heroded Wilde's Herod both in audacity and point.

Catulle Mendes recently produced at the Opera House in Paris an

opera founded on the supposed love of Mary Magdalen for Christ.

Catulle Mendes has very real talent, the opera was a great

success."

Whatever the judgment of posterity may be, and there can be little doubt

that it can be favourable, the play must ever appeal to the actor, the

artist, and the student of literature, on account of its dramatic

possibilities, its wonderful colouring, the perfection of its

construction, and the mastery of its style.

It stands alone in the literature of all countries.

"THE DUCHESS OF PADUA"

The first of all Wilde's plays was "The Duchess of Padua." It was

written at the time when he was living at the Hotel Voltaire in Paris

and taking Balzac as his model. The title of the play was doubtless

inspired by Webster's gloomy tragedy of another Italian duchess; and the

play itself is in five acts. Although many students of his works

consider that it is worthy to rank with the masterpieces of the

Elizabethan drama, it must be confessed that the work, though full of

promise, is immature and too obviously indebted in certain scenes to

some of Shakespeare's most obvious stage tricks. He had written the play

with a view to its being played by Miss Mary Anderson, but to his great

disappointment she declined his offer of it.

His biographer's description of his reception of her refusal is worth

quoting:

"I was with him at the Hotel Voltaire on the day when he heard from

Mary Anderson, to whom he had sent a copy of the drama which was

written for her. He telegraphed in the morning for her decision,

and whilst we were talking together after lunch her answer came. It

was unfavourable; yet, though he had founded great hopes on the

production of this play, he gave no sign of his disappointment. I

can remember his tearing a little piece off the blue telegraph-form

and rolling it up into a pellet and putting it into his mouth, as,

by a curious habit, he did with every paper or book that came into

his hands. And all he said, as he passed the telegram over to me,

was, 'This, Robert, is rather tedious.'"

The scene of the play is laid in Padua, the period being the sixteenth

century, and the characters are as follows:--

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SIMONE GESSO Duke of Padua.

BEATRICE His Wife.

ANDREA POLLAIUOLO Cardinal of Padua.

MAFFIO PETRUCCI }

JEPPO VITELOZZO }Of the Ducal Household.

TADDEO BARDI }

GUIDO FERRANTI

ASCANIO CRISTOFANO His Friend.

COUNT MORANZONE

BERNARDO CAVALCANTI Chief Justiciar of Padua.

HUGO The Public Executioner.

LUCIA A Tirewoman.

Serving-Men, Burghers, Soldiers, Falconers, Monks, etc.

The scene opens in the market, where Ascanio and Guido are awaiting the

arrival of the writer of a letter who has promised to enlighten the

latter as to his birth, and who will wear a violet cloak with a silver

falcon embroidered on the shoulder. The stranger arrives and proves to

be Count Moranzone, who, Ascanio having been dismissed, informs the lad

that he is the son of Lorenzo, the late Duke of Padua, betrayed to an

ignominious death by the reigning Duke, Simone Gesso. He works on the

youth's feelings and induces him to swear to avenge his father's death

by slaying his betrayer, but not until Moranzone sends him his parent's

dagger. Guido left alone, in a fine speech renews his oath, and as he is

vowing on his drawn dagger to "forswear the love of women and that

hollow bauble men call female loveliness," Beatrice descends the steps

of the church, their eyes meet for a second and as she leaves the stage

she turns to look at him again. "Say, who is yonder lady?" inquires the

young man, and a burgher answers, "The Duchess of Padua."

In the second act the Duchess is seen pleading with her husband that he

should feed and assist his starving people. On his exit she is joined by

Guido, who, for the first time, declares his love, while she avows hers

in turn. A pretty love scene full of tenderness and poetry is

interrupted by the appearance of Count Moranzone, whom Beatrice alone

catches sight of, and presently a messenger enters and hands Guido a

parcel containing the fatal dagger. He will have no more to do with

love--for will not his soul be stained with murder?--and steeling his

heart against Beatrice he bids her farewell, telling her that there is

a barrier between them. The Duke makes a brief entrance. The Duchess

will not go hunting with him. He suspects, and inquires for Guido, and

with a veiled threat leaves her. She will end her life that very night,

she soliloquises, and yet, why should she die, why not the Duke?

She is interrupted by Moranzone, whom she taxes with taking Guido from

her. He answers that the young man does not love her nor will she ever

see him more, and leaves her. She determines that that very night she

will lie in Death's arms.

The third act takes place at night within the Palace. Guido enters the

apartment from without by means of a rope ladder, and is met by

Moranzone, to whom he declares that he will not stoop to murder, but

will place the dagger, with a paper stating who he is, upon the Duke's

bed and then take horse to Venice and enlist against the Infidels.

Nothing Moranzone urges can move him and the latter at last leaves him.

As Guido lifts the curtain to enter the Duke's chamber he is met by

Beatrice, who, after a while, confesses that she has stabbed her

husband. Guido, horrified, refuses to have aught to do with her, and

despite all her blandishments and entreaties remains adamant. She then

begs him to draw his sword on her "and quick make reckoning with Death,

who yet licks his lips after this feast."

He wrests the dripping knife from her hand, and although she explains

that 'twas for love of him she did the deed he bids her begone to her

chamberwomen.

Finally she turns on him with the threat "Who of us calls down the

lightning on his head let him beware the hurt that lurks within the

forked levin's flame," she leaves him. Left alone, his heart goes forth

to her and he calls her back, but soon her voice is heard without,

saying, "This way fled my husband's murderer." Soldiers enter, and Guido

is arrested, the bloodstained knife being taken from him.

The fourth act is laid in the hall of justice. The Duchess has accused

Guido of the murder. He will not defend himself though Moranzone, who

has recognised the dagger as the Duchess's, urges him to do so. Guido

tells his evil genius that he himself did the deed. He then begs leave

of the Justiciar to let him name the guilty one who slew the Duke, but

Beatrice, who is fearful he will accuse her, urges that he shall not be

allowed speech. A lengthy wrangle takes place between her, the judges,

and Moranzone, and the court retires to consider the point. During the

interval, the accused holds conference with the Cardinal, who will only

hear him in the Confessional. Beatrice tells him, "An thou dost meet my

husband in Purgatory with a blood-red star over his heart, tell him I

send you to bear him company." When at last the judges return they

decide that Guido may have speech. Beatrice, who has arranged for a

horse to be in waiting that it may convey her to Venice, endeavours to

leave the court, but is prevented. At last Guido speaks and confesses to

the murder. He is condemned to death, and is led forth as Beatrice,

calling out his name, "throws wide her arms and rushes across the stage

towards him."

The last act takes place in the prison. Guido is asleep, and Beatrice,

wearing a cloak and mask, enters to him. By wearing these and using her

ring of State she hopes he will be enabled to escape. Presently she

drinks the poison which, as he is of noble birth, has been placed near

him and when he awakes a reconciliation takes place between them. It is

too late, the poison has begun to work. "Oh, Beatrice, thy mouth wears

roses that do defy Death," exclaims Guido, and later on--"Who sins for

love, sins not," to which Beatrice replies, "I have sinned, and yet

mayhap shall I be forgiven. I have loved much." They kiss each other for

the first time in this act, and in a final spasm she expires, and he,

snatching the dagger from her belt, stabs himself as the executioner

enters.

The play was read for copyright purposes in March, 1907, by an amateur

dramatic society connected with St James's Church, Hampstead Road, Mr

George Alexander, lending his theatre for the purpose. It has been

produced, but without much success, in America by Miss Gale and the late

Lawrence Barrett, and in 1904 at one of the leading theatres in Hamburg.

The German production was, however, marred by a series of unfortunate

incidents, so that it can hardly be held to have been a fair test of the

merits of the play. The Guido had a severe cold, and during Beatrice's

long speech in the last act, when he is supposed to be asleep, kept on

spoiling the situation by repeated sneezes, while the Duchess herself

was uncertain of her words. On the third night the Cardinal went mad on

the stage and had to be taken off to an asylum.

"The Duchess of Padua" is much more a play for the study than the stage,

although replete with dramatic possibilities, for its gloomy character

would always militate against its success in this country. The plot is

finely elaborated, and yet perfectly clear. The characterisation is

keenly aware of the value of contrast in art and packed with a

psychology which, buried as it is, nevertheless is just and accurate. No

one can read the truly poetical dialogue with its stately cadence and

rich volume of sound without being moved by the dignity of tragedy, and

what blemishes there may be are more due to inexperience than to any

departure from the ideals in art that the author had set up for

himself.

"VERA, OR THE NIHILISTS"

And now in the survey of the Romantic Dramas we come to a play totally

different from any other work of the author's--"Vera, or the Nihilists."

This is a melodrama pure and simple, the action taking place in Russia

in 1795. It is described as "A Drama in a prologue and four acts," and

was written in 1881. Badly produced and acted in America it was printed

for private circulation.

The dramatis personae are:

PERSONS IN THE PROLOGUE

PETER SABOUROFF (an Innkeeper).

VERA SABOUROFF (his Daughter).

MICHAEL (a Peasant).

COLONEL KOTEMKIN.

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

IVAN THE CZAR.

PRINCE PAUL MARALOFFSKI (Prime Minister of Russia).

PRINCE PETROVITCH.

COUNT ROUVALOFF.

MARQUIS DE POIVRARD.

BARON RAFF.

GENERAL KOTEMKIN.

A PAGE.

_Nihilists_

PETER TCHERNAVITCH, President of the Nihilists.

MICHAEL.

ALEXIS IVANACIEVITCH, known as a Student of Medicine.

PROFESSOR MARFA.

VERA SABOUROFF.

Soldiers, Conspirators, etc.

Scene, Moscow. Time, 1800.

The plot is briefly as follows:--

Dmitri Sabouroff, the son of an innkeeper, is, with other prisoners, on

his way to an exile in Siberia to which he has been sentenced for

participation in Nihilist conspiracies. The band of prisoners in its

melancholy progress halts at the paternal inn. Dmitri is recognised by

his sister Vera, and manages to pass her a piece of paper on which is

written the address of the Nihilist centre, together with the form of

oath used on joining. Then the old innkeeper recognises his son and

tries to get to him as the prisoners are being marched off. The colonel

in charge of the detachment (Kotemkin), closes the door on him and the

old man falls senseless to the ground. A peasant admirer of Vera's

(Michael) kneels down and tends the stricken father while Vera recites

the oath: "To strangle whatever nature is in me; neither to love nor to

be loved; neither to pity nor to be pitied; neither to marry nor to be

given in marriage, till the end is come." This tableau ends the

prologue.

In the first act the Nihilists are assembled at their secret meeting

place and are anxiously waiting the return of Vera, who has gone to a

ball at the Grand Duke's to "see the Czar and all his cursed brood face

to face."

Amongst the conspirators is a young student of medicine, Alexis, who has

incurred the suspicions of Vera's admirer, Michael, the most

uncompromising of the revolutionists. Vera returns with the news that

martial law is to be proclaimed. She is in love with Alexis and reproves

him for running the risk of being present. Meanwhile, Michael and the

President confer together. Michael proposes to don the uniform of the

Imperial Guard, make his way into the courtyard of the palace, and shoot

the Czar as he attends a council to be held in a room, the exact

location of which he has learnt from Alexis. He has followed Alexis and

seen him enter the palace, but has not seen the young man come out again

though he had waited all night upon the watch.

Vera defends Alexis whom the conspirators wish to kill. Suddenly

soldiers are heard outside, the conspirators resume their masks as

Kotemkin and his men enter. In reply to his inquiries Vera informs him

that they are a company of strolling players. He orders her to unmask.

Alexis steps forward, removes his mask, and proclaims himself to be the

Czarevitch! The conspirators fear he will betray them, but he backs up

Vera's tale as to their being strolling players, gives the officer to

understand that he has an affair of gallantry on hand with Vera, and

with a caution to the General dismisses him and his men. The curtain

comes down, as, turning to the Nihilists, he exclaims, "Brothers, you

trust me now!"

The second act is laid in the Council Chamber, where the various

councillors are assembled, including the cynical Prime Minister, Prince

Paul Maraloffski. Presently the Czarevitch enters, followed later by the

Czar, whose fears Prince Paul has worked on to induce him to proclaim

martial law. He is about to sign the document when the Czarevitch

intervenes with a passionate appeal for the people and their rights, and

finally proclaims himself a Nihilist. His father orders his arrest, and

his orders are about to be carried out when a shot is heard from without

and the Czar, who has thrown open the window, falls mortally wounded,

and dies, denouncing his son as his murderer.

The third act takes place in the Nihilists' meeting place. Alexis has

been proclaimed Czar, and has dismissed his father's evil genius, Prince

Paul. The passwords are given and it is discovered that there is a

stranger present. He unmasks, and proves to be no other than Prince

Paul, who desires to become a Nihilist and revenge himself for his

dismissal. Alexis has not obeyed the summons to the meeting, and in

spite of Vera's protests is sentenced to death. The implacable Michael

reminds her of her brother's fate and of her oath. She steels her heart

and demands to draw with the others for the honour of carrying out the

sentence on Alexis. It falls to her, and it is arranged that she shall

make her way to the Czar's bedchamber that night, Paul having provided

the key and the password, and stab him in his sleep. Once she has

carried out her mission she is to throw out the bloodstained dagger to

her fellow-conspirators, who will be waiting outside, as a signal that

the Czar has been assassinated.

The fourth act is set in the antechamber of the Czar's private room,

where the various ministers are assembled discussing the Czar and his

plans of reform (he has already dismissed his guards and ordered the

release of all political prisoners).

Alexis enters and listens to their conversation. Stepping forward he

dismisses them all, depriving them of their fortunes and estates. Left

alone he falls asleep and Vera, entering, raises her hand to stab him,

when he awakes and seizes her arm. He tells her he has only accepted the

crown that she should share it with him. Vera realises that she loves

him and that she has broken her oath. A love scene follows. Midnight

strikes, the conspirators are heard clamouring in the streets. Vera

stabs herself, throws the dagger out of the window, and in answer to

Alexis's agonised, "What have you done?" replies with her dying breath,

"I have saved Russia."

The play, as I have already said, is quite different from any other of

Wilde's, and in reading it one cannot help regretting that he did not

turn some of his attention and devote a portion of his great talents to

the reform of English melodrama. He might have founded a strong, virile,

and healthy dramatic school, and by so doing raised the standard of the

popular everyday play in this country. Nevertheless, that "Vera" was not

a success when produced is not to be wondered at, apart from the fact of

its having been vilely acted. Pure melodrama, especially, despite a very

general idea to the contrary, requires an acquaintance with technique

and stage mechanism that is only obtainable after many years of

practice. At this period the author had not enjoyed this practice in

technique. Nevertheless, the play is essentially dramatic and had Mr

Wilde at this early time in his dramatic career called in the assistance

of some experienced actor or stage-manager, with a very little

alteration a perfectly workmanlike drama could have been made out of it.

The prologue and the first act could have been run into one act divided

into two separate scenes. More incident and action could have been

introduced into Act Two and some of the dialogue curtailed. Acts Three

and Four want very little revision, and it would have been easy to

introduce one or two female characters and perhaps a second love

interest. Some light-comedy love scenes would have helped to redeem the

gloom of the play and afforded a valuable contrast to the intensity of

the hero and heroine in their amorous converse.

The dialogue is crisp and vigorous and the language at times of rare

beauty. It is a pity that such a work should be wasted, and it is to be

hoped that some manager will have the astuteness and ability to produce

it in a good acting form. The experiment would certainly be worth

trying.

The play as a whole is certainly not one of its author's finest

productions. As has been said, it was written before he had mastered

stage technique and learned those secrets of dramaturgy which in later

years raised him to such a pinnacle of fame as a dramatic author. Yet it

can be said of it with perfect confidence that it is far and away

superior to nine-tenths of modern, and successful, melodramatic plays.

Indeed, whenever we discuss or criticise even the less important works

of Oscar Wilde we are amazed at their craftsmanship and delighted with

their achievement. The most unconsidered trifles from his pen stand out

among similar productions as the moon among stars, and his genius is so

great that work for which other writers would expect and receive the

highest praise in comparison with _his_ greatest triumphs almost fails

to excite more than a fugitive and passing admiration.

"THE FLORENTINE TRAGEDY"

An interesting story attaches to "The Florentine Tragedy," a short play

by Wilde which was produced on 18th June 1906, by the Literary Theatre

Club.

The history of the play was related by Mr Robert Ross to a

representative of _The Tribune_ newspaper.

"The play was written," he said, "for Mr George Alexander, but for

certain reasons was not produced by him. In April 1895, Mr Wilde

requested me to go to his house and take possession of all his

unpublished manuscripts. He had been declared a bankrupt, and I reached

the house just before the bailiffs entered. Of course, the author's

letters and manuscripts of two other unpublished plays and the enlarged

version of 'The Portrait of Mr W. H.' upon which I knew he was

engaged--had mysteriously disappeared. Someone had been there before me.

"The thief was never discovered, nor have we ever seen 'The Florentine

Tragedy,' the 'Mr W. H.' story, or one of the other plays, 'The Duchess

of Padua'--since that time. Curiously enough, the manuscript of the

third play, a tragedy somewhat on the lines of 'Salome,' was discovered

by a friend of Mr Wilde's in a secondhand bookshop in London, in 1897.

It was sent to the author in Paris, and was not heard of again. After

his death in 1900 it could not be found. With regard to 'The Duchess of

Padua,' the loss was not absolute, for this play, a five-act tragedy,

had previously been performed in America, and I possessed the 'prompt'

copy.

"To return to 'The Florentine Tragedy.' I had heard portions of it read,

and was acquainted with the incidents and language, but for a long time

I gave it up as lost. Then, after Mr Wilde's death, I had occasion to

sort a mass of letters and papers which were handed to me by his

solicitors. Among them I found loose sheets containing the draft of a

play which I recognised as 'The Florentine Tragedy.' By piecing these

together I was able to reconstruct a considerable portion of the play.

The first five pages had gone, and there was another page missing, but

some 400 lines of blank verse remained. Now the introductory scene of

the single act of which the play consists has been rewritten by Mr

Sturge Moore, and the 'Tragedy' will be presented to an English audience

for the first time at the King's Hall, Covent Garden, next Sunday.

"On the same occasion the Literary Theatre Club will give a performance

of Mr Wilde's 'Salome,' which, as you know, cannot be given publicly in

this country, owing to the Biblical derivation of the subject. But

'Salome' has been popular for years in Germany, and it has also been

played in Sweden, Russia, Italy, and Holland."

It seems that "The Florentine Tragedy" has also been played with great

success in Germany. It was translated by Dr Max Meyerfeld, and was

produced first at Leipsic, and afterwards at Hamburg and Berlin.

According to Mr Ross, "The Florentine Tragedy" promises to become almost

as popular with German playgoers as "Salome" is now.

"The Florentine Tragedy," as already indicated, is a brief one-act

drama. There are only three characters: an old Florentine merchant, his

beautiful wife, and her lover. The simple plot may be briefly indicated.

The merchant, arriving suddenly at his home after a short absence, finds

his wife and his rival in her affections together at supper. He makes a

pretence at first of being profoundly courteous, and the ensuing

conversation (as need hardly be said) is pointed, epigrammatic, and

witty. Then the old man gradually leads up to what, it becomes obvious,

had been his fixed purpose from the beginning. He draws the lover into a

duel. This takes place in the presence of the wife, who, indeed, holds

aloft a torch in order that the two swordsmen may fight the more easily.

The contest waxes fiercer, and the swords are exchanged for daggers.

The wife casts the torch to the ground as the two men close with each

other, and the younger one falls mortally wounded. The ending is

dramatic. The infuriated husband turns to his shrinking wife and

exclaims, "Now for the other!" The woman, in mingled remorse and fear,

says, "Why did you not tell me you were so strong?" And the husband

rejoins, "Why did you not tell me you were so beautiful?" As the curtain

descends, the couple, thus strangely reconciled, fall into each other's

arms.

The character of outstanding importance, of course, is that of the old

merchant. According to those who have studied the play, he is a

strikingly effective figure, most cleverly and delightfully drawn. In

the opinion of Mr Moore the part is one that would have fitted Sir Henry

Irving excellently well. The action of the drama occupies less than

half-an-hour.

In this connection it may be well to recall the testimony of an Irish

publisher quoted by Mr Sherard in his "Life of Oscar Wilde." This

gentleman attended the sale of the author's effects in Tite Street, and

in a room upstairs found the floor thickly strewn with letters addressed

to the quondam owner of the house and a great quantity of his

manuscripts. He concluded that as the various pieces of furniture had

been carried downstairs to be sold their contents had been emptied out

on to the floor of this room. Presently a broker's man came up to him

and inquired what he was doing in the room, and on his replying that

finding the door open he had walked in, the man said, "then somebody has

broken open the lock, because I locked the door myself." This gentleman

surmises that it was from this room that various manuscripts that have

never been recovered were stolen!

When the piece was produced by the Literary Theatre Club it suffered

from inadequate acting. Mr George Ingleton was quite overweighted by the

part of Simone, the Florentine merchant. It is a part that requires an

Irving to carry it through, or, at anyrate, an actor of great

experience, and for anyone else to attempt it is a piece of daring which

can only result in failure.

It is curious that the denouement, which was so severely handled by the

critics when the play was produced in Berlin, was the part of the piece

that seemed most to impress an English audience. The epigram and the

praises of strength and beauty provoked no protest or dissatisfaction,

as those who had seen the German production expected they would, nor was

the audience in the least shocked when the wife holds the torch for her

husband and lover to fight, nor when, at the close of the encounter, she

purposely throws it down. This, of course, is the unlooked-for climax of

the piece, and the dramatic character of the situation completely saved

it.

"THE WOMAN COVERED WITH JEWELS"

Finally we have arrived at what must always be the most tantalising of

all Wilde's plays because the MS. has been lost and very little is known

about it. It had for title "The Woman Covered With Jewels." The only

copy of it known to exist, a small quarto book of ruled paper in the

author's own handwriting, was presumably stolen with the copies of "The

Incomparable and Ingenious History of Mr W. H. Being the true Secret of

Shakespeare's Sonnets, now for the first time here fully set forth," and

"The Florentine Tragedy," at the time of the Tite Street sale. But

little is known about the play--a very few privileged persons having

been favoured with a perusal of it, and the only information the public

have been able to gather about it is from an article by a well-known

book-lover that appeared in a weekly paper. I myself have not been able

to discover any further information.

The play was in prose and, like "Salome," was a tragedy in one act. It

was written about 1896.

According to the writer of the article referred to, it was "presented by

its author to a charming and cultured Mayfair lady, well known in

London Society." He goes on to say that she allowed a few well-known

_litterateurs_ to peruse it, but that the manuscript is now lost and

that he has not succeeded in tracing a second copy anywhere. There seems

to be some confusion here, for if this were the only copy it could not

have been stolen from the Tite Street sale, as, according to the

biography, was the case. One thing, at anyrate, appears certain, and

that is that there is no copy in existence, or rather--for if it was

stolen it must be in someone's possession--available at the present

moment. It would be interesting to know how the lady to whom the book

was presented came to lose it. Perhaps she herself destroyed it at the

period when so many of his friends were so anxious to conceal all traces

of their friendship with its author. Again, the MS. may only have been

lent her, and may have been returned by her to Wilde before the crash.

At anyrate, it seems incredible that he should have parted with the

manuscript without keeping even a rough copy. The point needs

elucidation.

According to the writer of the article--"There is little doubt that the

lost tragedy by Wilde was intended originally--like 'Salome'--for Sarah

Bernhardt. It contains a part somewhat like her _Izeil_. The period of

the play is that of the second century after Christ, a century of

heresy and manifold gospels that had made the Church of the day a thing

divided by sects and scarred with schisms. Fairly vigorous Christian

churches existed at Athens and Corinth. From one of these there seceded

a most holy man. He withdrew into the desert, and at the time the play

begins was dwelling in a cave 'whose mouth opened upon the tawny sand of

the desert like that of a huge lion.' His reputation for holiness had

gone forth to many cities. One day there came to his cave a beautiful

courtesan, covered with jewels. She had broken her journey in order to

see and hear the wonderful priest who had striven against the devil in

the desert. He sees the strange, beautiful intruder, and, speaking of

the faith that was within him, tries to win one more convert to its

kingdom, glory, and power. She listens as Thais listened to Paphnutius.

The hermit's eloquence sways her reason, while her exquisite beauty of

face and form troubles his constancy. She speaks in turn and presses him

to leave his hermit home and come with her to the city. There he may

preach to better effect the gospel of the Kingdom of God. 'The city is

more wicked than the desert,' she says, in effect.

"While they are talking two men drew near and gazed upon the unusual

scene. 'Surely it must be a king's daughter,' said one. 'She has

beautiful hair like a king's daughter, and, behold, she is covered with

jewels.'

"At last she mounts her litter and departs, and the men follow her. The

priest has been troubled, tortured by her beauty. He recalls the melting

glory of her eyes, the softly curving cheeks, the red humid mouth.

Recalls, too, the wooing voice that was like rippling wind-swept water.

Her hair fell like a golden garment; she was, indeed, covered with

jewels.

"Evening draws near and there comes to the mouth of the cave a man who

says that robbers have attacked and murdered a great lady who was

travelling near that day. They show the horror-struck priest a great

coil of golden hair besmeared with blood. Here the tragedy ends.

"One sees that 'The Woman Covered With Jewels' is an outcome, and one

more expression, of that literary movement that gave us 'Salambo,'

'Thais,' 'Aphrodite,' 'Imperial Purple,' and many more remarkable works

of a school, or group of writers, who, wearied of the _jejune_, the

effete, and much else, have sought solace for their literary conscience

in a penman's reconquest of antiquity. Probably the old-world story of

Paphnutius and Thais inspired the tragedy and Maeterlinck's plays

suggested its technique. Who can know? Assuredly its tragic picture of

devotion, passion, cupidity, and murder would thrill and enthrall those

who could know it better than in this imperfect portrayal. 'The Woman

Covered With Jewels' is worthy of the pen that wrote 'Salome,' and 'The

Sphinx.'

"Yet it is lost!"

PART IV

THE WRITER OF FAIRY STORIES

THE FAIRY STORIES

A little girl who had kept her fifth birthday joyously in the garden of

her father's home went on the morrow to the great and grimy city which

was nearest to it. We were to visit the bazaars and buy books and toys.

As we went through the great square in which the Town Hall stands the

small hand in mine told me that here was something which we must stay to

consider. We stood at the base of the statue which the citizens had

raised in memory of a statesman's endeavour and success. She looked

steadily and long at the figure of which the noble head redeemed the

vulgar insignificance of costume and posture. "What did this man do,

uncle?" she asked, "that he has been turned into stone?" I was

dreadfully startled, for the horrid suspicion darted through my mind

that my little niece had remembered my talk with her father about modern

sculpture, and at five years old had already begun to pose. "Of course,

it had to be stone not salt in England," she went on to say, and I was

reassured; she at least was remembering Lot's wife.

It was in the later spring of 1888, and when the evening post brought me

fresh from the press "The Happy Prince and Other Tales," the first

story told me that Oscar Wilde, of whom men, even then, had many things

sinister and strange to say, had yet within him the heart of a little

child.

"High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy

Prince."

"When I was alive and had a human heart I did not know what tears were,

for I lived in the Palace of Sans Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to

enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in

the evening I led the dance in the great Hall. Round the garden ran a

very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything

about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and

happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness, so I lived and so I died.

And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see

all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is

made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep."

Here, strange to say, is the note of pathos which we hear again and

again in the volume of fairy stories which many men look upon as Oscar

Wilde's best and most characteristic prose work. Time after time they

make me murmur Vergil's untranslatable line _sunt lachrymae rerum et

mentem mortalia tangunt_.

The felicity of expression is exquisite, and an opulent imagination

lavishes its treasures in every story. Our author has come into full

possession of his sovereignty of words and every sentence has its

carefully considered, yet spontaneous charm. Nevertheless, Oscar Wilde

makes the Linnet his mouthpiece in the fourth story "The Devoted

Friend." "'The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.' 'Ah, that

is always a very dangerous thing to do,' said the Duck--and I quite

agreed with her."

Dangerous though it is, Oscar Wilde essayed the endeavour. I do not

think that children would easily detect that _amari aliquid_ which makes

the fairy stories fascinating to minds that are mature, and I am sure

that many little ones have revelled in the Swallow's stories of what he

had seen in strange lands when he told "the Happy Prince of the red

ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile and catch gold

fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself,

and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants who walk

slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their

hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as

ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that

sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey

cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves,

and are always at war with the butterflies."

I suppose it would shock the authorities of the Education Department at

Whitehall if it were suggested that the children in the Elementary Day

Schools should have for their reading lesson, sometimes, the volume of

"The Happy Prince and Other Tales, by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by Walter

Crane and Jacomb Hood"--but I think the starved and stunted imaginations

of the children in the great, cruel cities would revive and grow if this

could be done.

But perhaps it would have to be an expurgated edition. The sad

consciousness of, and stern satire on, our social system might remain,

the children would take no hurt, and the weary school teachers would be

glad to hear and to read a children's fairy tale, which sets the student

thinking and makes the more worldly man consider his ways. But if I had

the editing of the book I would leave out here and there a sentence.

"'Bring me the two most precious things in the city,' said God to one of

His angels; and the angel brought him the leaden heart and the dead

bird.

"'You have rightly chosen,' said God, 'for in my garden of Paradise this

little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy

Prince shall praise me.'" The children would not like this, for in their

ears sound often the severe words of Sinai, "The Lord will not hold him

guiltless that taketh His name in vain," and I, who delight in the

beautiful prose poems, feel that here the dead artist was not at his

best.

Some have said that there are no fairy stories like Oscar Wilde's, but

Hans Andersen had written before him, and Charles Kingsley's "Water

Babies" was published long before "The Happy Prince." The Dane managed

to touch on things Divine without a discord, and Charles Kingsley's

satire was not less keen than Oscar's, but he could point his moral

without intruding very sacred things into his playful pages, and I wish

that the two last sentences of "The Happy Prince" could be erased.

It is the gorgeous colour and the vivid sonorous words that charm us

most. It is easy to analyse these sentences and to note how pearls and

pomegranates, and the hyacinth blossom, and the pale ivory, and the

crimson of the ruby, again and again glow on the pages like the

illuminations of the mediaeval missal; but each story has its own

peculiar charm.

"The Nightingale and the Rose" is a tale full of passion and tenderness,

and sad in the sorrow of wasted sympathy and unrequited love.

"Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds,

and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor

is it set forth in the market-place. It may not be purchased of the

merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance of gold."

I can fancy Oscar Wilde writing thus in the happy days of his early

married life in Chelsea, in the little study where his best work was

done, whilst memories of the Chapel of Magdalen murmured in his brain,

and he heard again the surpliced scholar reading from the lectern the

praise of wisdom which he transmuted into the praise of love which was

not wise. "It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed

for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with

the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot

equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels or fine gold.

No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls: for the price of wisdom

is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall

it be valued with pure gold."

Throughout "The Song of the Nightingale" there is a reminiscence of that

Song of Solomon which Wilde told a fellow-prisoner he had always loved.

"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a

man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be

utterly contemned."

In "The Selfish Giant" another note is sounded. As we read it we pass

into the mediaeval age, and we think of the story of Christopher.

The giant keeps the garden to himself and the children that played in it

are banished, and thenceforward its glories are gone. In the garden of

the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in

it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. The Snow

covered up the grass with his great white cloak, and the Frost painted

all the trees silver, but anon there came a child who wept as he

wandered in the desolated garden, and the Selfish Giant's heart melted;

once again the children's voices are heard and the garden flourishes as

it did before, and the Giant grows old and watches from his chair the

children at their play. "I have many beautiful flowers," he said, "but

the children are the most beautiful flowers of it all," till at last the

grey old Giant finds again in his garden the child who had first touched

his hard heart--"but when he came quite close his face grew red with

anger, and he said, 'Who hath dared to wound thee?' for on the palms of

the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two

nails were on the little feet. 'Who hath dared to wound thee?' cried the

Giant, 'tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.' 'Nay,'

answered the child, 'but these are the wounds of love.'"

"The Devoted Friend" is altogether in another vein. As the first story

is fragrant of the East and the second mediaeval in its memories, so the

third is Teutonic, and "Hans and the Miller's Friendship" reminds us of

the Brothers Grimm. Now that every child has the chance of reading the

German fairy stories, Oscar Wilde's tale will be compared with theirs,

but I think the children will like this one best for the simple reason

that, being written in exquisite English, nothing that has passed

through the perils of translation can have its charm. Children are

wonderful, because perfectly unconscious, critics of style.

It is doubtful if readers will enjoy "The Remarkable Rocket" as they

will the other stories. The modern _milieu_ intrudes here and there. The

satire is keen and there are some clever epigrams. The Russian Princess

"had driven all the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer

which was shaped like a great golden swan, and between the swan's wings

lay the little princess herself"--and we think that we are going to

enjoy again the atmosphere of Watteau, and are a little disappointed

when we find our author saying, "He was something of a politician, and

had always taken a prominent part in the local elections, or he knew the

proper Parliamentary expressions to use." And the story, alas! will

suggest over and over again painful thoughts which I would keep at a

distance when I read these other lovely tales. Was not this sentence of

evil omen? "'However, I don't care a bit,' said the Rocket. 'Genius like

mine is sure to be appreciated some day,' and he sank down a little

deeper into the mud." And the last sentence of all is terribly sinister.

"'I knew I should create a sensation,' gasped the Rocket, and he went

out."

"The House of Pomegranates" was published in 1891, and is dedicated to

Constance Mary Wilde. Here, in a volume which the author frankly calls a

volume of "Beautiful Tales," is a very stern indictment of the social

system which, in his essay "The Soul of Man," Oscar Wilde had so

powerfully denounced. We know how profoundly that essay has influenced

the minds of men in every country in Europe. Translated into every

tongue it has taught the oppressed to resent the callous cruelty of

capital, but I doubt if its author was altogether as earnest as he

seems. Here, in the story of the young King, we have a lighter touch. It

is as though the writer hesitated between two paths. In the year 1895

the wrong path had been taken if we may trust the record of a

conversation which took place in that year.

"To be a supreme artist," said he, "one must first be a supreme

individualist."

"You talk of Art," said I, "as though there were nothing else in the

world worth living for."

"For me," said he sadly, "there is nothing else."

But when Oscar Wilde dedicated "The House of Pomegranates" to his wife

the love of Beauty and the love of humankind still seemed to go

together.

The young King is possessed with a passion for beauty. The son of the

old King's daughter, by a secret marriage, his childhood and early youth

have been obscure, and he comes into his kingdom suddenly. We see him in

the Palace where are gathered rich stores of all rare and beautiful

things and his love for them is an instinct. The author in some

exquisite pages tells us of the glories of the King's house. Here, as in

the other book of which I have written, the mind of the reader is helped

to realise how beautiful luxury may be. I must quote the description of

the young King's sleeping-chamber--"The walls were hung with rich

tapestries representing the Triumph of Beauty. A large press, inlaid

with agate and lapis lazuli, fitted one corner, and facing the window

stood a curiously wrought cabinet with lacquer panels of powdered and

mosaiced gold, on which were placed some delicate goblets of Venetian

glass and a cup of dark veined onyx. Pale poppies were broidered on the

silk coverlet of the bed, as though they had fallen from the tired hands

of sleep, and tall reeds of fluted ivory bare up the velvet canopy, from

which great tufts of ostrich plumes sprang like white foam, to the

pallid silver of the fretted ceiling. A laughing Narcissus in green

bronze held a polished mirror above its head. On the table stood a flat

bowl of amethyst."

But on the eve of the coronation, the King dreams a dream. He is borne

to the weavers' quarter and marks their weary toil, and the weaver of

his own coronation robe has terrible things to tell him.

"In war," answered the weaver, "the strong make slaves of the weak, and

in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and

they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long,

and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away

before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil.

We tread out the grapes, and another drinks the wine. We sow the corn,

and our own board is empty. We have chains though no eye beholds them;

and are slaves, though men call us free."

"Sic vos non nobis!" The artist in words is still haunted by his master

Vergil's verses, and he had not listened to Ruskin all in vain. The

Pagan point of view is not that which prevailed in those happy months

when "The House of Pomegranates" was written. Perhaps Ruskin's socialism

made no very deep impression, but Christian Art had its message once for

Oscar Wilde.

The young King sees in his dreams the toil of the weaver, and the diver,

and of those who dig for the red rubies, and when he wakes he puts his

pomp aside. In vain do his courtiers chide him, in vain do those whom he

pities tell him that his way of redress is wrong and that "out of the

luxury of the rich cometh the life of the poor."

The King asks, "Are not the rich and the poor brothers?"

"Ay," answered the man in the crowd, "and the name of the rich brother

is Cain." So the young King comes to the Cathedral for his coronation

clad in his leathern tunic and the rough sheepskin cloak of other days,

and when the wise and worldly Bishop has told him in decorous words even

the same as his own courtiers said.

"Sayest thou that in this House?" said the young King, and he strode

past the Bishop, and climbed up the steps of the altar, and stood before

the Image of the Christ.

But I must not be tempted to continue the quotation of this lovely

story, and will only give its closing words--

"And the young King came down from the high altar, and passed home

through the midst of the people. But no man dared look upon his face,

for it was like the face of an angel."

Here once more is the music of the lectern which an Oxford man of years

ago cannot forget, and I wonder if this story of the young King was not

written some time before those others which complete the book.

"The Birthday of the Infanta" does not give me the same delight. It is,

of course, clever, as all was that Oscar Wilde ever touched, but it is

cruel whilst it accuses cruelty. And now and then we have a sentence or

a phrase which seems to have escaped revision. The story of the little

dwarf who made sport for the princess and whose heart was broken when he

found that she was pleased, not by his dances, but by his deformity, is

not like its predecessor in the volume, and the picture of "the little

dwarf lying on the ground and beating the floor with his clenched hands"

did not need the awkward addition "in the most fantastic and exaggerated

manner." But every poet, of course, _aliquando dormitat_, and I would

rather appreciate than criticise.

Two more stories complete this beautiful book and I think I have not

said yet how beautiful the type and binding and engravings are of this

edition of 1891 in which I am reading. If ever it is reprinted it should

have still the same sumptuous setting forth.

Wilde himself described the _format_ of the book in the following

passage:--"Mr Shannon is the drawer of the dreams, and Mr Ricketts is

the subtle and fantastic decorator. Indeed, it is to Mr Ricketts that

the entire decorative design of the book is due, from the selection of

the type and the placing of the ornamentation, to the completely

beautiful cover that encloses the whole.

"The artistic beauty of the cover resides in the delicate tracing,

arabesques, and massing of many coral-red lines on a ground of white

ivory, the colour effect culminating in certain high gilt notes, and

being made still pleasurable by the overlapping band of moss-green cloth

that holds the book together."

"The Fisherman and his Soul," recalls many stories and is very weird in

its conception. We think of Undine and of Peter Schmeidel and his

shadow; and again there is a reminiscence of "The Arabian Nights." Yet

once more it is the old burden of the song "Love is better than wisdom,

and more precious than riches, and fairer than the feet of the daughters

of men. The fires cannot destroy it, nor can the waters quench it." But

in the story there is seen distinctly the strong attraction which the

Ritual of The Catholic Church had for Oscar Wilde. Those who have read

that fine poem, "Rome Unvisited," which even the saintly recluse of the

Oratory at Edgbaston could praise, will understand how in the story of

the "Fisherman and his Soul" it is written.

"The Priest went up to the chapel, that he might show to the people the

wounds of the Lord, and speak to them about the wrath of God. And when

he had robed himself with his robes, and entered in and bowed himself

upon the altar, he saw that the altar was covered with strange flowers

that never had been seen before, and after that he had opened the

tabernacle, and incensed the monstrance that was in it, and shown the

fair wafer to the people, and hid it again behind the veils, he began to

speak to the people."

And now I come to "The Star-Child--inscribed to Miss Margot Tennant."

"He was white and delicate like swan ivory, and his curls were like the

rings of the daffodil. His lips, also, were like the petals of a red

flower, and his eyes were like violets by a river of pure water, and his

body like the narcissus of a field where the mower comes not." But his

heart was hard and his soul was selfish, and his evil ways wrought

mischief all around; so bitter sorrow fell upon him and his comeliness

departed, and in pain and grief he was purged from his sin.

This last is indeed a beautiful story, and not once is there sounded the

mocking note of cynical disdain of men. If one had taken up this tale

and known not whose pen had traced it, he would not hesitate to place it

in his children's hands.

Is it not good to think that tenderness and humility and patience are

seen herein to be more beautiful than all the precious things which are

loved so ardently by the artistic mind? I have shown, I hope, that in

both of these exquisite volumes, it may be seen that Oscar Wilde had

visions sometimes of the celestial city where the angels of the little

children do always behold the face of the Father. And if, as other

chapters of this volume may seem to show, the vision splendid died away

and faded all too soon, purgatorial pain came to the author, as to the

star-child in his story, and he who could build for his soul a lordly

pleasure house, and was driven forth from it, may enter it again when he

has purged his sin.

PART V

THE POET

POEMS

If a keynote were wanted to Oscar Wilde's verse it might be found in a

couple of stanzas by the poet whose work perhaps had the greatest share

in moulding his ideas and fashioning his style. Charles Baudelaire, with

all his love of the terrible and the morbid, was an incomparable

stylist, and in these lines has almost formulated a creed of art.

"La Nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers

Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;

L'homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles

Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs echos qui de loin se confondent

Dans une tenebreuse et profonde unite,

Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarte,

Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se repondent."

We can picture to ourselves the young Oxford student studying these

lines over and over again till they had become part and parcel of

himself.

Wilde himself has left it on record that he "cannot imagine anyone with

the smallest pretensions to culture preferring a dexterously turned

triolet to a fine imaginative ballad." In the majority of his poems, the

beauties of nature, flowers, the song of birds and the music of running

water are introduced either incidentally or as the _leit motif_. In

fact, he was responsible for the dictum that what English poetry has to

fear is not the fascination of dainty metre or delicate form, but the

predominance of the intellectual spirit over the spirit of beauty.

That the expression of the beautiful need not necessarily be simple was

one of his earliest contentions. "Are simplicity and directness of

utterance," he asks, "absolute essentials for poetry?" and proceeds to

answer his own question. "I think not. They may be admirable for the

drama, admirable for all those imitative forms of literature that claim

to mirror life in its externals and its accidents, admirable for quiet

narrative, admirable in their place; but their place is not everywhere.

Poetry has many modes of music; she does not blow through one pipe

alone. Directness of utterance is good, but so is the subtle recasting

of thought into a new and delightful form. Simplicity is good, but

complexity, mystery, strangeness, symbolism, obscurity even, these have

their value. Indeed, properly speaking, there is no such thing as Style;

there are merely styles, that is all."

There we have a clear, concise and catholic statement of his literary

creed, and none other was to be expected from one to whom Baudelaire,

Poe, Keats, and Rossetti were so many masters whose influence was to be

carefully cultivated and whose methods were worthy of imitation and

study. His views on the subject of simplicity in verse should be read by

all who desire to understand his method and do justice to his work.

"We are always apt to think," he wrote, "that the voices which sang at

the dawn of poetry were simpler, fresher, and more natural than ours,

and that the world which the early poets looked at, and through which

they walked, had a kind of poetical quality of its own, and could pass,

almost without changing, into song. The snow lies thick now upon

Olympus, and its scarped sides are bleak and barren, but once, we fancy,

the white feet of the Muses brushed the dew from the anemones in the

morning, and at evening came Apollo to sing to the shepherds in the

vale. But in this we are merely lending to other ages what we desire, or

think we desire, for our own. Our historical sense is at fault. Every

century that produces poetry is, so far, an artificial century, and the

work that seems to us the most natural and simple product of its time is

probably the result of the most deliberate and self-conscious effort.

For nature is always behind the age. It takes a great artist to be

thoroughly modern."

"Ravenna," the poem with which Oscar Wilde won the Newdigate Prize, we

find to be far above the average of such effusions, though possessing

most of the faults inherent in compositions of this kind. Grace and

even force of expression are not wanting, with here and there a pure

strain of sentiment and thought, and a keen appreciation of the beauties

of nature. Ever and anon we come across some sentence, some _tournure de

phrase_ which might belong to his later work, as for instance--

"The crocus bed (that seems a moon of fire

Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring)."

But for the most part the poem is rather reminiscent of "Childe Harold's

Pilgrimage," and is chiefly interesting by reason of the promise it

holds forth.

The poems published in 1881 are preceded by some dedicatory verses

addressed to his wife which are characterised by great daintiness and

simplicity, instinct with tender affection and chivalrous homage.

"Helas," which forms a sort of preface to the collection, is chiefly

interesting on account of the prophetic pathos of the lines:

"Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God."

"Ave Imperatrix" will come as a surprise to those unacquainted with

Wilde's works. Most people would have thought the author of "Dorian

Gray" the last man in the world to write a stirring patriotic poem which

would not be out of place in a collection of Mr Kipling's works. A copy

of _The World_ containing this poem found its way to an officer in Lord

Robert's force marching on Candahar, and evoked the enthusiasm and

admiration of the whole mess. As a proof of the author's originality and

care in the choice of similes he purposely discards the modern heraldic

device of the British lion for the more correct and ancient leopards,

as:

"The yellow leopards, strained and lean,

The treacherous Russian knows so well

With gaping blackened jaws are seen

Leap through the hail of screaming shell."

There is a fine swing about the metre of this verse, and the description

of the leopards as "strained and lean" is a piece of word painting, a

felicity of expression that it would be difficult to improve on. The

whole poem is tense with patriotic fervour, nor is it wanting in

exquisitely pathetic touches, as for instance--

"Pale women who have lost their lord

Will kiss the relics of the slain--

Some tarnished epaulette--some sword--

Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain."

or

"In vain the laughing girl will yearn

To greet her love with love-lit eyes:

Down in some treacherous ravine,

Clutching the flag, the dead boy lies."

That he should have written such a poem is proof conclusive of the

author's extraordinary versatility, and though a comparatively early

production is worthy to rank with the finest war poems in the language.

Current events at that time attracted his pen for we find a set of

verses on the death of the ill-fated Prince Imperial, a sonnet on the

Bulgarian Christians, and others of a more or less patriotic character.

Few of these productions, however, invite a very serious criticism. They

were of the moment and for the moment, and have lost the appeal of

freshness and actuality.

In "The Garden of Eros" we get a good insight into Wilde's passionate

fondness for flowers, to whom they were human things with souls.

Probably no other verses of the poet so well define and express this

master passion of his life.

"... Mark how the yellow iris wearily

Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed

By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly."

or

"And I will tell thee why the jacynth wears

Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan."

or again

"Close to a shadowy nook where half afraid

Of their own loneliness some violets lie

That will not look the gold sun in the face."

I remember a lady telling me once that she was in a London shop one day

when Wilde came in and asked as a favour that a lily be taken out of the

window because it looked so tired. This looking on flowers as real live

sentient things was no mere pose with him. He was thoroughly imbued with

the conviction that they were possessed of feeling, and throughout his

poetical work we shall find endless applications of this idea.

Of particular interest in this poem are the verses descriptive of the

various poets, his contemporaries. Swinburne he alludes to most happily,

as far as the neatness of phrase is concerned nothing could be better in

this regard than

"And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine

And sung the Galilean's requiem."

William Morris, "our sweet and simple Chaucer's child," appeals to him

strangely. Many a summer's day he informs us he has "lain poring on the

dreamy tales his fancy weaves." His appreciation of Morris's verse is

keen and enthusiastic.

"The little laugh of water falling down

Is not so musical, the clammy gold

Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town

Has less of sweetness in it."

What a delicate metaphor that is, what an exquisite poet's fancy. Not

Keats himself could have surpassed the "clammy gold close hoarded in the

tiny waxen town"--it is worthy to rank with some of the daintiest

flights in the "Queen Mab speech," that modern Mercutios murder so

abominably.

Like every verse writer of his time Oscar Wilde had felt the wondrous

influence of Rossetti, and no finer tribute to the painter could be

written than the lines--

"All the World for him

A gorgeous coloured vestiture must wear,

And Sorrow take a purple diadem,

Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair

Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be

Even in Anguish beautiful; such is the empery which Painters held."

There is a stately splendour about the flow of "a gorgeous coloured

vestiture," and one pauses to admire the choice of the last word, and

can picture the poet's delight when, like an artist in mosaic who has

hit upon the stone to fill up the remaining interstice, he lighted on

the word. It is essentially _le mot juste_, no other could have filled

its place. So also is there a peculiar happiness in the use of "empery."

There is a volume of sound and meaning in the word that could with

difficulty be surpassed.

In fact, in his choice of words Wilde always and for ever deserves the

glowing words of praise that Baudelaire addressed to Theodore de

Bonville--

"Vous avez prelasse votre orgueil d'architecte

Dans des constructions dont l'audace correcte

Fait voir quelle sera votre maturite."

And when we come to a line like--

"Against the pallid shield

Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam"

we realise how thoroughly the praise would be deserved, and linger

lovingly on the lilting music of the words and the curious Japanese

setting of the picture evolved. The poem ends on a note like the drawing

in of a deep breath of country air after a prolonged sojourn in towns.

"Why soon

The woodman will be here; how we have lived this night of June."

In "Requiescat" quite a different note is reached. The poem was written

after the death of a beloved sister; the sentiment rings true and the

very simplicity of the language conveys an atmosphere of real grief that

would have been entirely marred by the intrusion of any decorative or

highly-coloured phrase. The choice of Saxon words alone could produce

the desired effect, and the author has realised this and made use almost

exclusively of that material. Nor was he ill-advised to let himself be

influenced so far as the metre is concerned by Hood's incomparable

"Bridge of Sighs," and it was not in the metre alone that he availed

himself of that priceless gem of English verse--

"All her bright golden hair

Tarnished with rust,

She that was young and fair

Fallen to dust."

is obviously inspired by

"Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashioned so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!"

But, on the other hand, Hood himself might well have envied the

exquisite sentiment contained in--

"Speak gently, she can hear

The daisies grow."

The lines were written at Avignon, surely the place of all others, with

its memories and its mediaeval atmosphere, to inspire a poem, the dignity

and beauty of which are largely due to the simplicity of its wording.

During this period of travel we are struck by two things. Firstly, how

deeply impressed the young poet was by the mysteries of the Catholic

Faith and how his indignation flamed up at the new Italian _regime_;

secondly, how apparent the influence of Rossetti is in the sonnets he

then wrote.

His sympathies were all with the occupant of St Peter's chair.

"But when I knew that far away at Rome

In evil bonds a second Peter lay,

I wept to see the land so very fair."

and again

"Look southward where Rome's desecrated town

Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!

Look heavenward! Shall God allow this thing

Not but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,

And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain."

In "San Miniato" the influence of Rome upon the young man's mind finds

expression in words which might have been written by a son of the Latin

Church.

"O crowned by God with thorns and pain!

Mother of Christ! O mystic wife!

My heart is weary of this life

And over sad to sing again,"

he writes, and ends with the invocation--

"O crowned by God with love and flame!

O crowned by Christ the Holy One!

O listen ere the scorching sun

Show to the world my sin and shame."

Nor can it be wondered at that the devotion to the Madonna which forms

so essential a feature of the Catholic Faith should impress his young

and ardent spirit as it does nearly every artist to whom the poetic

beauty of this side of It naturally appeals.

The Pope's captivity moved him again and again to express his

indignation in verse, and from his poem, "Easter Day" we can gather how

deeply he was impressed both by the stately ceremonial at St Peter's and

by the sight of the despoiled Pontiff. At this time also he seems to

have been more or less yearning after a more spiritual mode of life than

he has been leading, at least so one gathers from poems like "E

Tenebris" in which he tells us that--

"The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,

My heart is as some famine-murdered land

Whence all good things have perished utterly

And well I know my soul in Hell must be,

If I this night before God's throne should stand."

That he had visions of a possible time when a complete change should be

worked in his spiritual condition seems clear from the concluding lines

of "Rome Unvisited."

"Before yon field of trembling gold

Is garnered into dusty sheaves

Or ere the autumn's scarlet leaves

Flutter as birds adown the wold,

I may have run the glorious race,

And caught the torch while yet aflame,

And called upon the Holy name

Of Him who now doth hide His face."

Apart from the light these poems throw upon his mental and spiritual

attitude at that period, they are extremely interesting as revealing the

literary influences governing him at the time. I have already referred

to the resemblance between his sonnets and the more finished ones of

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and this point cannot better be illustrated than

by placing the work of the two men in juxtaposition.

If we take, for instance, Rossetti's "Lady of the Rocks."

"Mother, is this the darkness of the end,

The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea

Infinite imminent Eternity?

And does the death-pang by man's seed sustained

In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend

Its silent prayer upon the Son, while He

Blesses the dead with His hand silently

To His long day which hours no more offend?

Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,

Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls

Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.

Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,

Whose peace abides in the dark avenue

Amid the bitterness of things occult."

and compare it with "E Tenebris." We are at once struck with the same

mode of expression, the same train of thought and the same deep note of

pain in the two poems.

And again take Wilde's "Madonna Mia"--

"I stood by the unvintageable sea

Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray,

The long red fires of the dying day

Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;

And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:

'Alas!' I cried, 'my life is full of pain,

And who can garner fruit or golden grain,

From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!'

My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw

Nathless I threw them as my final cast

Into the sea, and waited for the end.

When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw

From the black waters of my tortured past

The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!"

and compare it with Rossetti's "Venetian Pastoral" and "Mary's

Girlhood," and we can almost imagine that the painter was holding up

pictures to inspire the young poet.

"Red underlip drawn in for fear of love

And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,"

might almost have been written by Rossetti himself.

More characteristically original are the lines--

"I saw

From the black waters of my tortured past

The argent splendour of white limbs ascend,"

from the "Vita Nuova," though one cannot fail to perceive a faint

Baudelairian note.

"Where behind lattice window scarlet wrought and gilt

Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,"

at once reminds us of the Rossetti influence.

The poem itself shows considerable skill in construction and deftness in

the moulding of the sentences, moreover, there is a freshness in the

treatment of the theme that a less original writer would have found

great difficulty in imparting. Here again we see the Catholic note as

when he writes--

"Never mightest thou see

The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine

To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;

Who got from Love no joyous gladdening,

But only Love's intolerable pain,

Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,

Only the bitterness of child-bearing."

There is one especially fine bit of imagery--

"The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of death

Lie in thy hand--"

which bears the very truest imprint of poetry.

With the poet's return to England, a reaction took place, and the sight

of English woodlands and English lanes caused a strong revulsion of

feeling.

"This English Thames is holier far than Rome

Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea

Breaking across the woodland, with the foam

Of meadow-sweet and white anemone,

To fleck their blue waves,--God is likelier there

Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear."

The green fields and the smell of the good brown earth come as a

refreshing contrast to the incense laden atmosphere of foreign

cathedrals. And yet his fancy delights in commingling the two. In the

"violet-gleaming" butterflies he finds Roman Monsignore (he anglicises

the word by the way and gives it a plural "s,"), a lazy pike is "some

mitred old Bishop _in partibis_," and "The wind, the restless prisoner

of the trees, does well for Palestrina."

He revels in the contrast that the refreshing simplicity of rural

England presents to the pomp and splendour of Rome. The "lingering

orange afterglow" is "more fair than all Rome's lordliest pageants." The

"blue-green beanfields" "tremulous with the last shower" bring sweeter

perfume at eventide than "the odorous flame-jewelled censers the young

deacons swing." Bird life suggests the conceit that--

"Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Mass,

Were out of tune now for a small brown bird

Sings overhead."

His love of nature, his passion for flowers and the music of nature find

continued and ecstatic expression.

"Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves."

Everything appeals to him, "the heavy lowing cattle stretching their

huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate," the mower whetting

his scythe, the milkmaid carolling blithely as she trips along.

"Sweet are the hips upon the Kentish leas,

And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,

And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees

That round and round the linden blossoms play;

And sweet the heifer breathing on the stall

And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall."

No matter that he mixes up the seasons somewhat and that having sung of

bursting figs he refers, in the next line, to the cuckoo mocking the

spring--"when the last violet loiters by the well"--the poem is still a

pastoral breathing its fresh flower-filled atmosphere of the English

countryside. Wilde is, however, saturated with classical lore and

(though on some minds the fantasy may jar) he introduces Daphnus and

Linus, Syrinx and Cytheraea. But he is faithful to his English land, he

talks of roses which "all day long in vales AEolian a lad might seek for"

and which "overgrows our hedges like a wanton courtesan, unthrifty of

its beauty," a real Shakespearean touch. "Many an unsung elegy," he

tells us, "Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames." He

peoples the whole countryside with faun and nymph--

"Some Maenad girl with vine leaves on her breast

Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans,

So softly that the little nested thrush

Will never wake, and then will shrilly laugh and leap will rush

Down the green valley where the fallen dew

Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store,

Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew

Trample the loosetrife down along the shore,

And where their horned master sits in state

Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate."

And yet the religious influence still makes itself felt.

"Why must I behold [he exclaims]

The wan white face of that deserted Christ

Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold?"

but it is only momentary, and once more he sports with the sylvan gods

and goddesses till