Chapter XXVII--A Last Word

Shaw's "Memories"

The Appendix

The crucifixion of the guilty is still more awe-inspiring than the crucifixion

of the innocent; what do we men know of innocence?

INTRODUCTION

I was advised on all hands not to write this book, and some English friends

who have read it urge me not to publish it.

"You will be accused of selecting the subject," they say, "because sexual

viciousness appeals to you, and your method of treatment lays you open

to attack.

"You criticise and condemn the English conception of justice, and English

legal methods: you even question the impartiality of English judges, and throw

an unpleasant light on English juries and the English public--all of which is

not only unpopular but will convince the unthinking that you are a presumptuous,

or at least an outlandish, person with too good a conceit of himself and

altogether too free a tongue."

I should be more than human or less if these arguments did not give me pause.

I would do nothing willingly to alienate the few who are still friendly to me.

But the motives driving me are too strong for such personal considerations.

I might say with the Latin:

"Non me tua fervida terrent,

Dicta, ferox: Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis."

Even this would be only a part of the truth. Youth it seems to me should always

be prudent, for youth has much to lose: but I am come to that time of life when

a man can afford to be bold, may even dare to be himself and write the best

in him, heedless of knaves and fools or of anything this world may do. The

voyage for me is almost over: I am in sight of port: like a good shipman, I have

already sent down the lofty spars and housed the captious canvas in preparation

for the long anchorage: I have little now to fear.

And the immortals are with me in my design. Greek tragedy treated of far more

horrible and revolting themes, such as the banquet of Thyestes: and Dante did

not shrink from describing the unnatural meal of Ugolino. The best modern

critics approve my choice. "All depends on the subject," says Matthew Arnold,

talking of great literature: "choose a fitting action--a great and significant

action--penetrate yourself with the feeling of the situation: this done,

everything else will follow; for expression is subordinate and secondary."

Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the young and was put to death for

the offence. His accusation and punishment constitute surely a great and

significant action such as Matthew Arnold declared was alone of the highest

and most permanent literary value.

The action involved in the rise and ruin of Oscar Wilde is of the same kind

and of enduring interest to humanity. Critics may say that Wilde is a smaller

person than Socrates, less significant in many ways: but even if this were true,

it would not alter the artist's position; the great portraits of the world are

not of Napoleon or Dante. The differences between men are not important in

comparison with their inherent likeness. To depict the mortal so that he takes

on immortality--that is the task of the artist.

There are special reasons, too, why I should handle this story. Oscar Wilde

was a friend of mine for many years: I could not help prizing him to the very

end: he was always to me a charming, soul-animating influence. He was

dreadfully punished by men utterly his inferiors: ruined, outlawed, persecuted

till Death itself came as a deliverance. His sentence impeaches his judges.

The whole story is charged with tragic pathos and unforgettable lessons. I have

waited for more than ten years hoping that some one would write about him in

this spirit and leave me free to do other things, but nothing such as I propose

has yet appeared.

Oscar Wilde was greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer, and no

fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story and paint his

portrait, it seems unlikely that anyone else will do it.

English "strachery" may accuse me of attacking morality: the accusation

is worse than absurd. The very foundations of this old world are moral: the

charred ember itself floats about in space, moves and has its being in obedience

to inexorable law. The thinker may define morality: the reformer may try to

bring our notions of it into nearer accord with the fact: human love and pity

may seek to soften its occasional injustices and mitigate its intolerable

harshness: but that is all the freedom we mortals enjoy, all the breathing-space

allotted to us.

In this book the reader will find the figure of the Prometheus-artist clamped,

so to speak, with bands of steel to the huge granitic cliff of English

puritanism. No account was taken of his manifold virtues and graces: no credit

given him for his extraordinary achievements: he was hounded out of life because

his sins were not the sins of the English middle-class. The culprit was in much

nobler and better than his judges.

Here are all the elements of pity and sorrow and fear that are required in

great tragedy.

The artist who finds in Oscar Wilde a great and provocative subject for his

art needs no argument to justify his choice. If the picture is a great and

living portrait, the moralist will be satisfied: the dark shadows must all be

there, as well as the high lights, and the effect must be to increase our

tolerance and intensify our pity.

If on the other hand the portrait is ill-drawn or ill-painted, all the reasoning

in the world and the praise of all the sycophants will not save the picture

from contempt and the artist from censure.

There is one measure by which intention as apart from accomplishment can be

judged, and one only: "If you think the book well done," says Pascal,

"and on re-reading find it strong; be assured that the man who wrote it,

wrote it on his knees." No book could have been written more reverently

than this book of mine.

Nice, 1910.

Frank Harris.

CHAPTER I--OSCAR'S FATHER AND MOTHER ON TRIAL

On the 12th of December, 1864, Dublin society was abuzz with excitement. A

tidbit of scandal which had long been rolled on the tongue in semi-privacy was

to be discussed in open court, and all women and a good many men were agog with

curiosity and expectation.

The story itself was highly spiced and all the actors in it well known.

A famous doctor and oculist, recently knighted for his achievements, was the

real defendant. He was married to a woman with a great literary reputation as

a poet and writer who was idolized by the populace for her passionate advocacy

of Ireland's claim to self-government; "Speranza" was regarded by the Irish

people as a sort of Irish Muse.

The young lady bringing the action was the daughter of the professor of medical

jurisprudence at Trinity College, who was also the chief at Marsh's library.

It was said that this Miss Travers, a pretty girl just out of her teens, had

been seduced by Dr. Sir William Wilde while under his care as a patient.

Some went so far as to say that chloroform had been used, and that the girl

had been violated.

The doctor was represented as a sort of Minotaur: lustful stories were invented

and repeated with breathless delight; on all faces, the joy of malicious

curiosity and envious denigration.

The interest taken in the case was extraordinary: the excitement beyond

comparison; the first talents of the Bar were engaged on both sides; Serjeant

Armstrong led for the plaintiff, helped by the famous Mr. Butt, Q.C., and

Mr. Heron, Q.C., who were in turn backed by Mr. Hamill and Mr. Quinn; while

Serjeant Sullivan was for the defendant, supported by Mr. Sidney, Q.C., and

Mr. Morris, Q.C., and aided by Mr. John Curran and Mr. Purcell.

The Court of Common Pleas was the stage; Chief Justice Monahan presiding with

a special jury. The trial was expected to last a week, and not only the Court

but the approaches to it were crowded.

To judge by the scandalous reports, the case should have been a criminal case,

should have been conducted by the Attorney-General against Sir William Wilde;

but that was not the way it presented itself. The action was not even brought

directly by Miss Travers or by her father, Dr. Travers, against Sir William

Wilde for rape or criminal assault, or seduction. It was a civil action brought

by Miss Travers, who claimed L2,000 damages for a libel written by Lady

Wilde to her father, Dr. Travers. The letter complained of ran as follows:--

Tower, Bray, May 6th.

Sir, you may not be aware of the disreputable conduct of your daughter at Bray

where she consorts with all the low newspaper boys in the place, employing them

to disseminate offensive placards in which my name is given, and also tracts

in which she makes it appear that she has had an intrigue with Sir William

Wilde. If she chooses to disgrace herself, it is not my affair, but as her

object in insulting me is in the hope of extorting money for which she has

several times applied to Sir William Wilde with threats of more annoyance if

not given, I think it right to inform you, as no threat of additional insult

shall ever extort money from our hands. The wages of disgrace she has so basely

treated for and demanded shall never be given her.

Jane F. Wilde.

To Dr. Travers.

The summons and plaint charged that this letter written to the father of the

plaintiff by Lady Wilde was a libel reflecting on the character and chastity

of Miss Travers, and as Lady Wilde was a married woman, her husband Sir William

Wilde was joined in the action as a co-defendant for conformity.

The defences set up were:--

First, a plea of "No libel": secondly, that the letter did not bear the

defamatory sense imputed by the plaint: thirdly, a denial of the publication,

and, fourthly, a plea of privilege. This last was evidently the real defence

and was grounded upon facts which afforded some justification of Lady Wilde's

bitter letter.

It was admitted that for a year or more Miss Travers had done her uttermost

to annoy both Sir William Wilde and his wife in every possible way. The trouble

began, the defence stated, by Miss Travers fancying that she was slighted by

Lady Wilde. She thereupon published a scandalous pamphlet under the title of

"Florence Boyle Price, a Warning; by Speranza," with the evident intention

of causing the public to believe that the booklet was the composition of

Lady Wilde under the assumed name of Florence Boyle Price. In this pamphlet

Miss Travers asserted that a person she called Dr. Quilp had made an attempt

on her virtue. She put the charge mildly. "It is sad," she wrote, "to think

that in the nineteenth century a lady must not venture into a physician's

study without being accompanied by a bodyguard to protect her."

Miss Travers admitted that Dr. Quilp was intended for Sir William Wilde; indeed

she identified Dr. Quilp with the newly made knight in a dozen different ways.

She went so far as to describe his appearance. She declared that he had "an

animal, sinister expression about his mouth which was coarse and vulgar in the

extreme: the large protruding under lip was most unpleasant. Nor did the upper

part of his face redeem the lower part. His eyes were small and round, mean

and prying in expression. There was no candour in the doctor's countenance,

where one looked for candour." Dr. Quilp's quarrel with his victim, it

appeared, was that she was "unnaturally passionless."

The publication of such a pamphlet was calculated to injure both Sir William

and Lady Wilde in public esteem, and Miss Travers was not content to let the

matter rest there. She drew attention to the pamphlet by letters to the papers,

and on one occasion, when Sir William Wilde was giving a lecture to the Young

Men's Christian Association at the Metropolitan Hall, she caused large placards

to be exhibited in the neighbourhood having upon them in large letters the words

"Sir William Wilde and Speranza." She employed one of the persons bearing a

placard to go about ringing a large hand bell which she, herself, had given to

him for the purpose. She even published doggerel verses in the "Dublin Weekly

Advertiser", and signed them "Speranza," which annoyed Lady Wilde intensely.

One read thus:--

Your progeny is quite a pest

To those who hate such "critters";

Some sport I'll have, or I'm blest

I'll fry the Wilde breed in the West

Then you can call them Fritters.

She wrote letters to "Saunders Newsletter", and even reviewed a book of

Lady Wilde's entitled "The First Temptation," and called it a "blasphemous

production." Moreover, when Lady Wilde was staying at Bray, Miss Travers sent

boys to offer the pamphlet for sale to the servants in her house. In fine

Miss Travers showed a keen feminine ingenuity and pertinacity in persecution

worthy of a nobler motive.

But the defence did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient provocation for

Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to state that Miss Travers

had applied to Sir William Wilde for money again and again, and accompanied

these applications with threats of worse pen-pricks if the requests were not

acceded to. It was under these circumstances, according to Lady Wilde, that

she wrote the letter complained of to Dr. Travers and enclosed it in a sealed

envelope. She wished to get Dr. Travers to use his parental influence to

stop Miss Travers from further disgracing herself and insulting and annoying

Sir William and Lady Wilde.

The defence carried the war into the enemy's camp by thus suggesting that Miss

Travers was blackmailing Sir William and Lady Wilde.

The attack in the hands of Serjeant Armstrong was still more deadly and

convincing. He rose early on the Monday afternoon and declared at the beginning

that the case was so painful at the beginning that he would have preferred not

to have been engaged in it--a hypocritical statement which deceived no one, and

was just as conventional-false as his wig. But with this exception the story he

told was extraordinarily clear and gripping.

Some ten years before, Miss Travers, then a young girl of nineteen, was

suffering from partial deafness, and was recommended by her own doctor to go to

Dr. Wilde, who was the chief oculist and aurist in Dublin. Miss Travers went

to Dr. Wilde, who treated her successfully. Dr. Wilde would accept no fees from

her, stating at the outset that as she was the daughter of a brother-physician,

he thought it an honour to be of use to her. Serjeant Armstrong assured his

hearers that in spite of Miss Travers' beauty he believed that at first Dr.

Wilde took nothing but a benevolent interest in the girl. Even when his

professional services ceased to be necessary, Dr. Wilde continued his

friendship. He wrote Miss Travers innumerable letters: he advised her as to

her reading and sent her books and tickets for places of amusement: he even

insisted that she should be better dressed, and pressed money upon her to buy

bonnets and clothes and frequently invited her to his house for dinners and

parties. The friendship went on in this sentimental kindly way for some five

or six years till 1860.

The wily Serjeant knew enough about human nature to feel that it was necessary

to discover some dramatic incident to change benevolent sympathy into passion,

and he certainly found what he wanted.

Miss Travers, it appeared, had been burnt low down on her neck when a child:

the cicatrice could still be seen, though it was gradually disappearing. When

her ears were being examined by Dr. Wilde, it was customary for her to kneel

on a hassock before him, and he thus discovered this burn on her neck. After

her hearing improved he still continued to examine the cicatrice from time to

time, pretending to note the speed with which it was disappearing. Some time

in '60 or '61 Miss Travers had a corn on the sole of her foot which gave her

some pain. Dr. Wilde did her the honour of paring the corn with his own hands

and painting it with iodine. The cunning Serjeant could not help saying with

some confusion, natural or assumed, "that it would have been just as well--at

least there are men of such temperament that it would be dangerous to have such

a manipulation going on." The spectators in the court smiled, feeling that

in "manipulation" the Serjeant had found the most neatly suggestive word.

Naturally at this point Serjeant Sullivan interfered in order to stem the rising

tide of interest and to blunt the point of the accusation. Sir William Wilde,

he said, was not the man to shrink from any investigation: but he was only in

the case formally and he could not meet the allegations, which therefore were

"one-sided and unfair" and so forth and so on.

After the necessary pause, Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight and

proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this time, in which

he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot, but to rest it for a few

days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal position while reading a pleasant

book. If she would send in, he would try and send her one.

"I have now," concluded the Serjeant, like an actor carefully preparing

his effect, "traced this friendly intimacy down to a point where it begins

to be dangerous: I do not wish to aggravate the gravity of the charge in the

slightest by any rhetoric or by an unconscious overstatement; you shall

therefore, gentlemen of the jury, hear from Miss Travers herself what took

place between her and Dr. Wilde and what she complains of."

Miss Travers then went into the witness-box. Though thin and past her first

youth, she was still pretty in a conventional way, with regular features and

dark eyes. She was examined by Mr. Butt, Q.C. After confirming point by point

what Serjeant Armstrong had said, she went on to tell the jury that in the

summer of '62 she had thought of going to Australia, where her two brothers

lived, who wanted her to come out to them. Dr. Wilde lent her L40 to go,

but told her she must say it was L20 or her father might think the sum too

large. She missed the ship in London and came back. She was anxious to impress

on the jury the fact that she had repaid Dr. Wilde, that she had always repaid

whatever he had lent her.

She went on to relate how one day Dr. Wilde had got her in a kneeling position

at his feet, when he took her in his arms, declaring that he would not let her

go until she called him William. Miss Travers refused to do this, and took

umbrage at the embracing and ceased to visit at his house: but Dr. Wilde

protested extravagantly that he had meant nothing wrong, and begged her to

forgive him and gradually brought about a reconciliation which was consummated

by pressing invitations to parties and by a loan of two or three pounds for a

dress, which loan, like the others, had been carefully repaid.

The excitement in the court was becoming breathless. It was felt that the

details were cumulative; the doctor was besieging the fortress in proper form.

The story of embracings, reconciliations and loans all prepared the public for

the great scene.

The girl went on, now answering questions, now telling bits of the story in

her own way, Mr. Butt, the great advocate, taking care that it should all be

consecutive and clear with a due crescendo of interest. In October, 1862, it

appeared Lady Wilde was not in the house at Merrion Square, but was away at

Bray, as one of the children had not been well, and she thought the sea air

would benefit him. Dr. Wilde was alone in the house. Miss Travers called and

was admitted into Dr. Wilde's study. He put her on her knees before him and

bared her neck, pretending to examine the burn; he fondled her too much and

pressed her to him: she took offence and tried to draw away. Somehow or other

his hand got entangled in a chain at her neck. She called out to him, "You are

suffocating me," and tried to rise: but he cried out like a madman: "I will,

I want to," and pressed what seemed to be a handkerchief over her face.

She declared that she lost consciousness.

When she came to herself she found Dr. Wilde frantically imploring her to come

to her senses, while dabbing water on her face, and offering her wine to drink.

"If you don't drink," he cried, "I'll pour it over you."

For some time, she said, she scarcely realized where she was or what had

occurred, though she heard him talking. But gradually consciousness came back

to her, and though she would not open her eyes she understood what he was

saying. He talked frantically:

"Do be reasonable, and all will be right. . . I am in your power . . . . spare

me, oh, spare me . . . . strike me if you like. I wish to God I could hate you,

but I can't. I swore I would never touch your hand again. Attend to me and do

what I tell you. Have faith and confidence in me and you may remedy the past

and go to Australia. Think of the talk this may give rise to. Keep up

appearances for your own sake. . . . ."

He then took her up-stairs to a bedroom and made her drink some wine and lie

down for some time. She afterwards left the house; she hardly knew how; he

accompanied her to the door, she thought; but could not be certain; she was

half dazed.

The judge here interposed with the crucial question:

"Did you know that you had been violated?"

The audience waited breathlessly; after a short pause Miss Travers replied:

"Yes."

Then it was true, the worst was true. The audience, excited to the highest

pitch, caught breath with malevolent delight. But the thrills were not

exhausted. Miss Travers next told how in Dr. Wilde's study one evening she had

been vexed at some slight, and at once took four pennyworth of laudanum which

she had bought. Dr. Wilde hurried her round to the house of Dr. Walsh, a

physician in the neighbourhood, who gave her an antidote. Dr. Wilde was

dreadfully frightened lest something should get out. . . .

She admitted at once that she had sometimes asked Dr. Wilde for money: she

thought nothing of it as she had again and again repaid him the monies which

he had lent her.

Miss Travers' examination in chief had been intensely interesting. The

fashionable ladies had heard all they had hoped to hear, and it was noticed that

they were not so eager to get seats in the court from this time on, though the

room was still crowded.

The cross-examination of Miss Travers was at least as interesting to the student

of human nature as the examination in chief had been, for in her story of what

took place on that 14th of October, weaknesses and discrepancies of memory were

discovered and at length improbabilities and contradictions in the narrative

itself.

First of all it was elicited that she could not be certain of the day; it might

have been the 15th or the 16th: it was Friday the 14th, she thought. . . . It

was a great event to her; the most awful event in her whole life; yet she could

not remember the day for certain.

"Did you tell anyone of what had taken place?"

"No."

"Not even your father?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I did not wish to give him pain."

"But you went back to Dr. Wilde's study after the awful assault?"

"Yes."

"You went again and again, did you not?"

"Yes."

"Did he ever attempt to repeat the offence?"

"Yes."

The audience was thunderstruck; the plot was deepening. Miss Travers went on

to say that the Doctor was rude to her again; she did not know his intention;

he took hold of her and tried to fondle her; but she would not have it.

"After the second offence you went back?"

"Yes."

"Did he ever repeat it again?"

"Yes."

Miss Travers said that once again Dr. Wilde had been rude to her.

"Yet you returned again?"

"Yes."

"And you took money from this man who had violated you against your will?"

"Yes."

"You asked him for money?"

"Yes."

"This is the first time you have told about this second and third assault,

is it not?"

"Yes," the witness admitted.

So far all that Miss Travers had said hung together and seemed eminently

credible; but when she was questioned about the chloroform and the handkerchief

she became confused. At the outset she admitted that the handkerchief might

have been a rag. She was not certain it was a rag. It was something she saw

the doctor throw into the fire when she came to her senses.

"Had he kept it in his hands, then, all the time you were unconscious?"

"I don't know."

"Just to show it to you?"

The witness was silent.

When she was examined as to her knowledge of chloroform, she broke down

hopelessly. She did not know the smell of it; could not describe it; did not

know whether it burnt or not; could not in fact swear that it was chloroform

Dr. Wilde had used; would not swear that it was anything; believed that it was

chloroform or something like it because she lost consciousness. That was her

only reason for saying that chloroform had been given to her.

Again the judge interposed with the probing question:

"Did you say anything about chloroform in your pamphlet?"

"No," the witness murmured.

It was manifest that the strong current of feeling in favour of Miss Travers

had begun to ebb. The story was a toothsome morsel still: but it was

regretfully admitted that the charge of rape had not been pushed home. It was

felt to be disappointing, too, that the chief prosecuting witness should have

damaged her own case.

It was now the turn of the defence, and some thought the pendulum might swing

back again.

Lady Wilde gave her evidence emphatically, but was too bitter to be a persuasive

witness. It was tried to prove from her letter that she believed that Miss

Travers had had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but she would not have it.

She did not for a moment believe in her husband's guilt. Miss Travers wished to

make it appear, she said, that she had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but

in her opinion it was utterly untrue. Sir William Wilde was above suspicion.

There was not a particle of truth in the accusation; "her" husband would never

so demean himself.

Lady Wilde's disdainful speeches seemed to persuade the populace, but had small

effect on the jury, and still less on the judge.

When she was asked if she hated Miss Travers, she replied that she did not

hate anyone, but she had to admit that she disliked Miss Travers' methods of

action.

"Why did you not answer Miss Travers when she wrote telling you of your

husband's attempt on her virtue?"

"I took no interest in the matter," was the astounding reply.

The defence made an even worse mistake than this. When the time came,

Sir William Wilde was not called.

In his speech for Miss Travers, Mr. Butt made the most of this omission. He

declared that the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the witness box was

an admission of guilt; an admission that Miss Travers' story of her betrayal

was true and could not be contradicted. But the refusal of Sir William Wilde

to go into the box was not, he insisted, the worst point in the defence. He

reminded the jury that he had asked Lady Wilde why she had not answered Miss

Travers when she wrote to her. He recalled Lady Wilde's reply:

"I took no interest in the matter."

Every woman would be interested in such a thing, he declared, even a stranger;

but Lady Wilde hated her husband's victim and took no interest in her seduction

beyond writing a bitter, vindictive and libellous letter to the girl's father.

. . . .

The speech was regarded as a masterpiece and enhanced the already great

reputation of the man who was afterwards to become the Home Rule Leader.

It only remained for the judge to sum up, for everyone was getting impatient

to hear the verdict. Chief Justice Monahan made a short, impartial speech,

throwing the dry, white light of truth upon the conflicting and passionate

statements. First of all, he said, it was difficult to believe in the story

of rape whether with or without chloroform. If the girl had been violated she

would be expected to cry out at the time, or at least to complain to her father

as soon as she reached home. Had it been a criminal trial, he pointed out,

no one would have believed this part of Miss Travers' story. When you find

a girl does not cry out at the time and does not complain afterwards, and

returns to the house to meet further rudeness, it must be presumed that she

consented to the seduction.

But was there a seduction? The girl asserted that there was guilty intimacy,

and Sir William Wilde had not contradicted her. It was said that he was only

formally a defendant; but he was the real defendant and he could have gone

into the box if he had liked and given his version of what took place and

contradicted Miss Travers in whole or in part.

"It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to draw your own conclusions from

his omission to do what one would have thought would be an honourable man's

first impulse and duty."

Finally it was for the jury to consider whether the letter was a libel and

if so what the amount of damages should be.

His Lordship recalled the jury at Mr. Butt's request to say that in assessing

damages they might also take into consideration the fact that the defence was

practically a justification of the libel. The fair-mindedness of the judge was

conspicuous from first to last, and was worthy of the high traditions of the

Irish Bench.

After deliberating for a couple of hours the jury brought in a verdict which

had a certain humour in it. They awarded to Miss Travers a farthing damages

and intimated that the farthing should carry costs. In other words they rated

Miss Travers' virtue at the very lowest coin of the realm, while insisting that

Sir William Wilde should pay a couple of thousands of pounds in costs for having

seduced her.

It was generally felt that the verdict did substantial justice; though the

jury, led away by patriotic sympathy with Lady Wilde, the true "Speranza,"

had been a little hard on Miss Travers. No one doubted that Sir William Wilde

had seduced his patient. He had, it appeared, an unholy reputation, and the

girl's admission that he had accused her of being "unnaturally passionless"

was accepted as the true key of the enigma. This was why he had drawn away from

the girl, after seducing her. And it was not unnatural under the circumstances

that she should become vindictive and revengeful.

Such inferences as these, I drew from the comments of the Irish papers at the

time; but naturally I wished if possible to hear some trustworthy contemporary

on the matter. Fortunately such testimony was forthcoming.

A Fellow of Trinity, who was then a young man, embodied the best opinion of

the time in an excellent pithy letter. He wrote to me that the trial simply

established, what every one believed, that "Sir William Wilde was a pithecoid

person of extraordinary sensuality and cowardice (funking the witness-box left

him without a defender!) and that his wife was a highfalutin' pretentious

creature whose pride was as extravagant as her reputation founded on second-rate

verse-making. . . . . Even when a young woman she used to keep her rooms in

Merrion Square in semi-darkness; she laid the paint on too thick for any

ordinary light, and she gave herself besides all manner of airs."

This incisive judgment of an able and fairly impartial contemporary (As he has

died since this was written, there is no longer any reason for concealing his

name: R. Y. Tyrrell, for many years before his death Regius Professor of Greek

in Trinity College, Dublin.) corroborates, I think, the inferences which one

would naturally draw from the newspaper accounts of the trial. It seems to me

that both combine to give a realistic photograph, so to speak, of Sir William

and Lady Wilde. An artist, however, would lean to a more kindly picture.

Trying to see the personages as they saw themselves he would balance the

doctor's excessive sensuality and lack of self-control by dwelling on the fact

that his energy and perseverance and intimate adaptation to his surroundings

had brought him in middle age to the chief place in his profession, and if

Lady Wilde was abnormally vain, a verse-maker and not a poet, she was still

a talented woman of considerable reading and manifold artistic sympathies.

Such were the father and mother of Oscar Wilde.

CHAPTER II--OSCAR WILDE AS A SCHOOLBOY

The Wildes had three children, two sons and a daughter. The first son was born

in 1852, a year after the marriage, and was christened after his father William

Charles Kingsbury Wills. The second son was born two years later, in 1854 and

the names given to him seem to reveal the Nationalist sympathies and pride of

his mother. He was christened Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde; but he

appears to have suffered from the pompous string only in extreme youth. At

school he concealed the "Fingal," as a young man he found it advisable to omit

the "O'Flahertie."

In childhood and early boyhood Oscar was not considered as quick or engaging

or handsome as his brother, Willie. Both boys had the benefit of the best

schooling of the time. They were sent as boarders to the Portora School at

Enniskillen, one of the four Royal schools of Ireland. Oscar went to Portora in

1864 at the age of nine, a couple of years after his brother. He remained at

the school for seven years and left it on winning an Exhibition for Trinity

College, Dublin, when he was just seventeen.

The facts hitherto collected and published about Oscar as a schoolboy are sadly

meagre and insignificant. Fortunately for my readers I have received from Sir

Edward Sullivan, who was a contemporary of Oscar both at school and college,

an exceedingly vivid and interesting pen-picture of the lad, one of those

astounding masterpieces of portraiture only to be produced by the plastic

sympathies of boyhood and the intimate intercourse of years lived in common.

It is love alone which in later life can achieve such a miracle of

representment. I am very glad to be allowed to publish this realistic

miniature, in the very words of the author.

"I first met Oscar Wilde in the early part of 1868 at Portora Royal School.

He was thirteen or fourteen years of age. His long straight fair hair was a

striking feature of his appearance. He was then, as he remained for some years

after, extremely boyish in nature, very mobile, almost restless when out of

the schoolroom. Yet he took no part in the school games at any time. Now and

then he would be seen in one of the school boats on Loch Erne: yet he was a

poor hand at an oar.

"Even as a schoolboy he was an excellent talker: his descriptive power

being far above the average, and his humorous exaggerations of school

occurrences always highly amusing.

"A favourite place for the boys to sit and gossip in the late afternoon

in winter time was round a stove which stood in 'The Stone Hall.' Here Oscar

was at his best; although his brother Willie was perhaps in those days even

better than he was at telling a story.

"Oscar would frequently vary the entertainment by giving us extremely quaint

illustrations of holy people in stained-glass attitudes: his power of twisting

his limbs into weird contortions being very great. (I am told that Sir William

Wilde, his father, possessed the same power.) It must not be thought, however,

that there was any suggestion of irreverence in the exhibition.

"At one of these gatherings, about the year 1870, I remember a discussion

taking place about an ecclesiastical prosecution that made a considerable stir

at the time. Oscar was present, and full of the mysterious nature of the Court

of Arches; he told us there was nothing he would like better in after life than

to be the hero of such a "cause celebre" and to go down to posterity as the

defendant in such a case as 'Regina versus Wilde!'

"At school he was almost always called 'Oscar'--but he had a nick-name,

'Grey-crow,' which the boys would call him when they wished to annoy him, and

which he resented greatly. It was derived in some mysterious way from the name

of an island in the Upper Loch Erne, within easy reach of the school by boat.

"It was some little time before he left Portora that the boys got to know of his

full name, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. Just at the close of his

school career he won the 'Carpenter' Greek Testament Prize,--and on presentation

day was called up to the dais by Dr. Steele, by all his names--much to Oscar's

annoyance; for a great deal of schoolboy chaff followed.

"He was always generous, kindly, good-tempered. I remember he and myself were

on one occasion mounted as opposing jockeys on the backs of two bigger boys in

what we called a 'tournament,' held in one of the class-rooms. Oscar and his

horse were thrown, and the result was a broken arm for Wilde. Knowing that it

was an accident, he did not let it make any difference in our friendship.

"He had, I think, no very special chums while at school. I was perhaps as

friendly with him all through as anybody, though his junior in class by a

year. . . . .

"Willie Wilde was never very familiar with him, treating him always, in those

days, as a younger brother. . . . .

"When in the head class together, we with two other boys were in the town of

Enniskillen one afternoon, and formed part of an audience who were listening

to a street orator. One of us, for the fun of the thing, got near the speaker

and with a stick knocked his hat off and then ran for home followed by the other

three. Several of the listeners, resenting the impertinence, gave chase, and

Oscar in his hurry collided with an aged cripple and threw him down--a fact

which was duly reported to the boys when we got safely back. Oscar was

afterwards heard telling how he found his way barred by an angry giant with whom

he fought through many rounds and whom he eventually left for dead in the road

after accomplishing prodigies of valour on his redoubtable opponent. Romantic

imagination was strong in him even in those schoolboy days; but there was always

something in his telling of such a tale to suggest that he felt his hearers were

not really being taken in; it was merely the romancing indulged in so humorously

by the two principal male characters in 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' . . .

"He never took any interest in mathematics either at school or college.

He laughed at science and never had a good word for a mathematical or science

master, but there was nothing spiteful or malignant in anything he said against

them; or indeed against anybody.

"The romances that impressed him most when at school were Disraeli's novels.

He spoke slightingly of Dickens as a novelist. . . . .

"The classics absorbed almost his whole attention in his later school days, and

the flowing beauty of his oral translations in class, whether of Thucydides,

Plato or Virgil, was a thing not easily to be forgotten."

This photograph, so to speak, of Oscar as a schoolboy is astonishingly clear

and lifelike; but I have another portrait of him from another contemporary,

who has since made for himself a high name as a scholar at Trinity, which, while

confirming the general traits sketched by Sir Edward Sullivan, takes somewhat

more notice of certain mental qualities which came later to the fruiting.

This observer who does not wish his name given, writes:

"Oscar had a pungent wit, and nearly all the nicknames in the school were

given by him. He was very good on the literary side of scholarship, with a

special leaning to poetry. . . . .

"We noticed that he always liked to have editions of the classics that were of

stately size with large print. . . . . He was more careful in his dress than

any other boy.

"He was a wide reader and read very fast indeed; how much he assimilated I never

could make out. He was poor at music.

"We thought him a fair scholar but nothing extraordinary. However, he startled

everyone the last year at school in the classical medal examination, by walking

easily away from us all in the "viva voce" of the Greek play ('The Agamemnon')."

I may now try and accentuate a trait or two of these photographs, so to speak,

and then realise the whole portrait by adding an account given to me by Oscar

himself. The joy in humorous romancing and the sweetness of temper recorded

by Sir Edward Sullivan were marked traits in Oscar's character all through his

life. His care in dressing too, and his delight in stately editions; his love

of literature "with a special leaning to poetry" were all qualities which

distinguished him to the end.

"Until the last year of my school life at Portora," he said to me once, "I had

nothing like the reputation of my brother Willie. I read too many English

novels, too much poetry, dreamed away too much time to master the school tasks.

"Knowledge came to me through pleasure, as it always comes, I imagine. . . . .

"I was nearly sixteen when the wonder and beauty of the old Greek life began

to dawn upon me. Suddenly I seemed to see the white figures throwing purple

shadows on the sun-baked palaestra; 'bands of nude youths and maidens'--you

remember Gautier's words--'moving across a background of deep blue as on the

frieze of the Parthenon.' I began to read Greek eagerly for love of it all,

and the more I read the more I was enthralled:

Oh what golden hours were for us

As we sat together there,

While the white vests of the chorus

Seemed to wave up a light air;

While the cothurns trod majestic

Down the deep iambic lines

And the rolling anapaestics

Curled like vapour over shrines.

"The head master was always holding my brother Willie up to me as an example;

but even he admitted that in my last year at Portora I had made astounding

progress. I laid the foundation there of whatever classical scholarship

I possess."

It occurred to me once to ask Oscar in later years whether the boarding school

life of a great, public school was not responsible for a good deal of sensual

viciousness.

"Englishmen all say so," he replied, "but it did not enter into my experience.

I was very childish, Frank; a mere boy till I was over sixteen. Of course I was

sensual and curious, as boys are, and had the usual boy imaginings; but I did

not indulge in them excessively.

"At Portora nine out of ten boys only thought of football or cricket or rowing.

Nearly every one went in for athletics--running and jumping and so forth; no one

appeared to care for sex. We were healthy young barbarians and that was all."

"Did you go in for games?" I asked.

"No," Oscar replied smiling, "I never liked to kick or be kicked."

"Surely you went about with some younger boy, did you not, to whom you told your

dreams and hopes, and whom you grew to care for?"

The question led to an intimate personal confession, which may take its place

here.

"It is strange you should have mentioned it," he said. "There was one boy,

and," he added slowly, "one peculiar incident. It occurred in my last year at

Portora. The boy was a couple of years younger than I--we were great friends;

we used to take long walks together and I talked to him interminably. I told

him what I should have done had I been Alexander, or how I'd have played king in

Athens, had I been Alcibiades. As early as I can remember I used to identify

myself with every distinguished character I read about, but when I was fifteen

or sixteen I noticed with some wonder that I could think of myself as Alcibiades

or Sophocles more easily than as Alexander or Caesar. The life of books had

begun to interest me more than real life. . . . .

"My friend had a wonderful gift for listening. I was so occupied with talking

and telling about myself that I knew very little about him, curiously little

when I come to think of it. But the last incident of my school life makes me

think he was a sort of mute poet, and had much more in him than I imagined.

It was just before I first heard that I had won an Exhibition and was to go to

Trinity. Dr. Steele had called me into his study to tell me the great news;

he was very glad, he said, and insisted that it was all due to my last year's

hard work. The 'hard' work had been very interesting to me, or I would not have

done much of it. The doctor wound up, I remember, by assuring me that if I went

on studying as I had been studying during the last year I might yet do as well

as my brother Willie, and be as great an honour to the school and everybody

connected with it as he had been.

"This made me smile, for though I liked Willie, and knew he was a fairly good

scholar, I never for a moment regarded him as my equal in any intellectual

field. He knew all about football and cricket and studied the schoolbooks

assiduously, whereas I read everything that pleased me, and in my own opinion

always went about 'crowned.'" Here he laughed charmingly with amused deprecation

of the conceit.

"It was only about the quality of the crown, Frank, that I was in any doubt.

If I had been offered the Triple Tiara, it would have appeared to me only the

meet reward of my extraordinary merit. . . . .

"When I came out from the doctor's I hurried to my friend to tell him all

the wonderful news. To my surprise he was cold and said, a little bitterly,

I thought:

"'You seem glad to go?'

"'Glad to go,' I cried; 'I should think I was; fancy going to Trinity College,

Dublin, from this place; why, I shall meet men and not boys. Of course I am

glad, wild with delight; the first step to Oxford and fame.'

"'I mean,' my chum went on, still in the same cold way, 'you seem glad to

leave me.'

"His tone startled me.

"'You silly fellow,' I exclaimed, 'of course not; I'm always glad to be with

you: but perhaps you will be coming up to Trinity too; won't you?'

"'I'm afraid not,' he said, 'but I shall come to Dublin frequently.'

"'Then we shall meet,' I remarked; 'you must come and see me in my rooms. My

father will give me a room to myself in our house, and you know Merrion Square

is the best part of Dublin. You must come and see me.'

"He looked up at me with yearning, sad, regretful eyes. But the future was

beckoning to me, and I could not help talking about it, for the golden key of

wonderland was in my hand, and I was wild with desires and hopes.

"My friend was very silent, I remember, and only interrupted me to ask:

"'When do you go, Oscar?'

"'Early,' I replied thoughtlessly, or rather full of my own thoughts, 'early

to-morrow morning, I believe; the usual train.'

"In the morning just as I was starting for the station, having said 'goodbye'

to everyone, he came up to me very pale and strangely quiet.

"'I'm coming with you to the station, Oscar,' he said; 'the Doctor gave me

permission, when I told him what friends we had been.'

"'I'm glad,' I cried, my conscience pricking me that I had not thought of

asking for his company. 'I'm very glad. My last hours at school will always

be associated with you.'

"He just glanced up at me, and the glance surprised me; it was like a dog looks

at one. But my own hopes soon took possession of me again, and I can only

remember being vaguely surprised by the appeal in his regard.

"When I was settled in my seat in the train, he did not say 'goodbye' and go,

and leave me to my dreams; but brought me papers and things and hung about.

"The guard came and said:

"'Now, sir, if you are going.'

"I liked the 'Sir.' To my surprise my friend jumped into the carriage and said:

"'All right, guard, I'm not going, but I shall slip out as soon as you whistle.'

"The guard touched his cap and went. I said something, I don't know what; I was

a little embarrassed.

"'You will write to me, Oscar, won't you, and tell me about everything?'

"'Oh, yes,' I replied, 'as soon as I get settled down, you know. There will

be such a lot to do at first, and I am wild to see everything. I wonder how

the professors will treat me. I do hope they will not be fools or prigs;

what a pity it is that all professors are not poets. . . . .' And so I went

on merrily, when suddenly the whistle sounded and a moment afterwards the train

began to move.

"'You must go now,' I said to him.

"'Yes,' he replied, in a queer muffled voice, while standing with his hand on

the door of the carriage. Suddenly he turned to me and cried:

"'Oh, Oscar,' and before I knew what he was doing he had caught my face in his

hot hands, and kissed me on the lips. The next moment he had slipped out of the

door and was gone. . . . .

"I sat there all shaken. Suddenly I became aware of cold, sticky drops

trickling down my face--his tears. They affected me strangely. As I wiped them

off I said to myself in amaze:

"'This is love: this is what he meant--love.' . . . .

"I was trembling all over. For a long while I sat, unable to think, all shaken

with wonder and remorse."

CHAPTER III--TRINITY, DUBLIN: MAGDALEN, OXFORD

Oscar Wilde did well at school, but he did still better at college, where the

competition was more severe. He entered Trinity on October 19th, 1871, just

three days after his seventeenth birthday. Sir Edward Sullivan writes me that

when Oscar matriculated at Trinity he was already "a thoroughly good classical

scholar of a brilliant type," and he goes on to give an invaluable snap-shot

of him at this time; a likeness, in fact, the chief features of which grew more

and more characteristic as the years went on.

"He had rooms in College at the north side of one of the older squares, known

as Botany Bay. These rooms were exceedingly grimy and ill-kept. He never

entertained there. On the rare occasions when visitors were admitted, an

unfinished landscape in oils was always on the easel, in a prominent place in

his sitting room. He would invariably refer to it, telling one in his

humorously unconvincing way that 'he had just put in the butterfly.' Those of us

who had seen his work in the drawing class presided over by 'Bully' Wakeman at

Portora were not likely to be deceived in the matter. . . . .

"His college life was mainly one of study; in addition to working for his

classical examinations, he devoured with voracity all the best English

writers.

"He was an intense admirer of Swinburne and constantly reading his poems;

John Addington Symond's works too, on the Greek authors, were perpetually in

his hands. He never entertained any pronounced views on social, religious or

political questions while in College; he seemed to be altogether devoted to

literary matters.

"He mixed freely at the same time in Dublin society functions of all kinds, and

was always a very vivacious and welcome guest at any house he cared to visit.

All through his Dublin University days he was one of the purest minded men that

could be met with.

"He was not a card player, but would on occasions join in a game of limited loo

at some man's rooms. He was also an extremely moderate drinker. He became a

member of the junior debating society, the Philosophical, but hardly ever took

any part in their discussions.

"He read for the Berkeley medal (which he afterwards gained) with an excellent,

but at the same time broken-down, classical scholar, John Townsend Mills, and,

besides instruction, he contrived to get a good deal of amusement out of his

readings with his quaint teacher. He told me for instance that on one occasion

he expressed his sympathy for Mills on seeing him come into his rooms wearing

a tall hat completely covered in crape. Mills, however, replied, with a smile,

that no one was dead--it was only the evil condition of his hat that had made

him assume so mournful a disguise. I have often thought that the incident was

still fresh in Oscar Wilde's mind when he introduced John Worthing in 'The

Importance of Being Earnest,' in mourning for his fictitious brother. . . . .

"Shortly before he started on his first trip to Italy, he came into my rooms in

a very striking pair of trousers. I made some chaffing remark on them, but he

begged me in the most serious style of which he was so excellent a master not to

jest about them.

"'They are my Trasimene trousers, and I mean to wear them there.'"

Already his humour was beginning to strike all his acquaintances, and what

Sir Edward Sullivan here calls his "puremindedness," or what I should rather

call his peculiar refinement of nature. No one ever heard Oscar Wilde tell a

suggestive story; indeed he always shrank from any gross or crude expression;

even his mouth was vowed always to pure beauty.

The Trinity Don whom I have already quoted about Oscar's school-days sends me a

rather severe critical judgment of him as a student. There is some truth in it,

however, for in part at least it was borne out and corroborated by Oscar's later

achievement. It must be borne in mind that the Don was one of his competitors

at Trinity, and a successful one; Oscar's mind could not limit itself to college

tasks and prescribed books.

"When Oscar came to college he did excellently during the first year; he was top

of his class in classics; but he did not do so well in the long examinations

for a classical scholarship in his second year. He was placed fifth, which was

considered very good, but he was plainly not the man for the dolichos (or long

struggle), though first-rate for a short examination."

Oscar himself only completed these spirit-photographs by what he told me of

his life at Trinity.

"It was the fascination of Greek letters, and the delight I took in Greek life

and thought," he said to me once, "which made me a scholar. I got my love of

the Greek ideal and my intimate knowledge of the language at Trinity from

Mahaffy and Tyrrell; they were Trinity to me; Mahaffy was especially valuable

to me at that time. Though not so good a scholar as Tyrrell, he had been in

Greece, had lived there and saturated himself with Greek thought and Greek

feeling. Besides he took deliberately the artistic standpoint towards

everything, which was coming more and more to be my standpoint. He was a

delightful talker, too, a really great talker in a certain way--an artist in

vivid words and eloquent pauses. Tyrrell, too, was very kind to me--intensely

sympathetic and crammed with knowledge. If he had known less he would have

been a poet. Learning is a sad handicap, Frank, an appalling handicap," and

he laughed irresistibly.

"What were the students like in Dublin?" I asked. "Did you make friends with

any of them?"

"They were worse even than the boys at Portora," he replied; "they thought of

nothing but cricket and football, running and jumping; and they varied these

intellectual exercises with bouts of fighting and drinking. If they had any

souls they diverted them with coarse "amours" among barmaids and the women

of the streets; they were simply awful. Sexual vice is even coarser and more

loathsome in Ireland than it is in England:--

"'Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.'

"When I tried to talk they broke into my thought with stupid gibes and jokes.

Their highest idea of humour was an obscene story. No, no, Tyrrell and Mahaffy

represent to me whatever was good in Trinity."

In 1874 Oscar Wilde won the gold medal for Greek. The subject of the year was

"The Fragments of the Greek Comic Poets, as edited by Meineke." In this year,

too, he won a classical scholarship--a demyship of the annual value of L95,

which was tenable for five years, which enabled him to go to Oxford without

throwing an undue strain on his father's means.

He noticed with delight that his success was announced in the "Oxford University

Gazette" of July 11th, 1874. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, on October

17th, a day after his twentieth birthday.

Just as he had been more successful at Trinity than at school, so he was

destined to be far more successful and win a far greater reputation at Oxford

than in Dublin.

He had the advantage of going to Oxford a little later than most men, at twenty

instead of eighteen, and thus was enabled to win high honours with comparative

ease, while leading a life of cultured enjoyment.

He was placed in the first class in "Moderations" in 1876 and had even then

managed to make himself talked about in the life of the place. The Trinity Don

whom I have already quoted, after admitting that there was not a breath against

his character either at school or Trinity, goes on to write that "at Trinity he

did not strike us as a very exceptional person," and yet there must have been

some sharp eyes at Trinity, for our Don adds with surprising divination:

"I fancy his rapid development took place after he went to Oxford, where he

was able to specialize more; in fact where he could study what he most affected.

It is, I feel sure, from his Oxford life more than from his life in Ireland that

one would be able to trace the good and bad features by which he afterwards

attracted the attention of the world."

In 1878 Oscar won a First Class in "Greats." In this same Trinity term, 1878,

he further distinguished himself by gaining the Newdigate prize for English

verse with his poem "Ravenna," which he recited at the annual Commemoration in

the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26th. His reciting of the poem was the literary

event of the year in Oxford.

There had been great curiosity about him; he was said to be the best talker

of the day, and one of the ripest scholars. There were those in the University

who predicted an astonishing future for him, and indeed all possibilities seemed

within his reach. "His verses were listened to," said "The Oxford and Cambridge

Undergraduates' Journal", "with rapt attention." It was just the sort of thing,

half poetry, half rhythmic rhetoric, which was sure to reach the hearts and

minds of youth. His voice, too, was of beautiful tenor quality, and exquisitely

used. When he sat down people crowded to praise him and even men of great

distinction in life flattered him with extravagant compliments. Strange to say

he used always to declare that his appearance about the same time as Prince

Rupert, at a fancy dress ball, given by Mrs. George Morrell, at Headington Hill

Hall, afforded him a far more gratifying proof of the exceptional position he

had won.

"Everyone came round me, Frank, and made me talk. I hardly danced at all.

I went as Prince Rupert, and I talked as he charged but with more success, for

I turned all my foes into friends. I had the divinest evening; Oxford meant

so much to me. . . . .

"I wish I could tell you all Oxford did for me.

"I was the happiest man in the world when I entered Magdalen for the

first time. Oxford--the mere word to me is full of an inexpressible, an

incommunicable charm. Oxford--the home of lost causes and impossible ideals;

Matthew Arnold's Oxford--with its dreaming spires and grey colleges, set in

velvet lawns and hidden away among the trees, and about it the beautiful fields,

all starred with cowslips and fritillaries where the quiet river winds its way

to London and the sea. . . . . The change, Frank, to me was astounding; Trinity

was as barbarian as school, with coarseness superadded. If it had not been for

two or three people, I should have been worse off at Trinity than at Portora;

but Oxford--Oxford was paradise to me. My very soul seemed to expand within me

to peace and joy. Oxford--the enchanted valley, holding in its flowerlet cup

all the idealism of the middle ages. (Oscar was always fond of loosely quoting

or paraphrasing in conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers.

He said them exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as

the original. This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of

originality. In especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence upon

him, almost as great indeed as Pater.) Oxford is the capital of romance, Frank;

in its own way as memorable as Athens, and to me it was even more entrancing.

In Oxford, as in Athens, the realities of sordid life were kept at a distance.

No one seemed to know anything about money or care anything for it. Everywhere

the aristocratic feeling; one must have money, but must not bother about it.

And all the appurtenances of life were perfect: the food, the wine, the

cigarettes; the common needs of life became artistic symbols, our clothes even

won meaning and significance. It was at Oxford I first dressed in knee breeches

and silk stockings. I almost reformed fashion and made modern dress

aesthetically beautiful; a second and greater reformation, Frank. What a pity

it is that Luther knew nothing of dress, had no sense of the becoming. He had

courage but no fineness of perception. I'm afraid his neckties would always

have been quite shocking!" and he laughed charmingly.

"What about the inside of the platter, Oscar?"

"Ah, Frank, don't ask me, I don't know; there was no grossness, no coarseness;

but all delicate delights!

"'Fair passions and bountiful pities and loves without

pain,'" ("Stain," not "pain," in the original.)

and he laughed mischievously at the misquotation.

"Loves?" I questioned, and he nodded his head smiling; but would not be drawn.

"All romantic and ideal affections. Every successive wave of youths from the

public schools brought some chosen spirits, perfectly wonderful persons, the

most graceful and fascinating disciples that a poet could desire, and I preached

the old-ever-new gospel of individual revolt and individual perfection.

I showed them that sin with its curiosities widened the horizons of life.

Prejudices and prohibitions are mere walls to imprison the soul. Indulgence

may hurt the body, Frank, but nothing except suffering hurts the spirit; it is

self-denial and abstinence that maim and deform the soul."

"Then they knew you as a great talker even at Oxford?" I asked in some surprise.

"Frank," he cried reprovingly, laughing at the same time delightfully, "I was a

great talker at school. I did nothing at Trinity but talk, my reading was done

at odd hours. I was the best talker ever seen in Oxford."

"And did you find any teacher there like Mahaffy?" I asked, "any professor with

a touch of the poet?"

He came to seriousness at once.

"There were two or three teachers, Frank," he replied, "greater than Mahaffy;

teachers of the world as well as of Oxford. There was Ruskin for instance, who

appealed to me intensely--a wonderful man and a most wonderful writer. A sort

of exquisite romantic flower; like a violet filling the whole air with the

ineffable perfume of belief. Ruskin has always seemed to me the Plato of

England--a Prophet of the Good and True and Beautiful, who saw as Plato saw that

the three are one perfect flower. But it was his prose I loved, and not his

piety. His sympathy with the poor bored me: the road he wanted us to build was

tiresome. I could see nothing in poverty that appealed to me, nothing; I shrank

away from it as from a degradation of the spirit; but his prose was lyrical and

rose on broad wings into the blue. He was a great poet and teacher, Frank, and

therefore of course a most preposterous professor; he bored you to death when he

taught, but was an inspiration when he sang.

"Then there was Pater, Pater the classic, Pater the scholar, who had already

written the greatest English prose: I think a page or two of the greatest prose

in all literature. Pater meant everything to me. He taught me the highest form

of art: the austerity of beauty. I came to my full growth with Pater. He was a

sort of silent, sympathetic elder brother. Fortunately for me he could not talk

at all; but he was an admirable listener, and I talked to him by the hour. I

learned the instrument of speech with him, for I could see by his face when I

had said anything extraordinary. He did not praise me but quickened me

astonishingly, forced me always to do better than my best--an intense vivifying

influence, the influence of Greek art at its supremest."

"He was the Gamaliel then?" I questioned, "at whose feet you sat?"

"Oh, no, Frank," he chided, "everyone sat at my feet even then. But Pater was a

very great man. Dear Pater! I remember once talking to him when we were seated

together on a bench under some trees in Oxford. I had been watching the

students bathing in the river: the beautiful white figures all grace and ease

and virile strength. I had been pointing out how Christianity had flowered into

romance, and how the crude Hebraic materialism and all the later formalities of

an established creed had fallen away from the tree of life and left us the

exquisite ideals of the new paganism. . . .

"The pale Christ had been outlived: his renunciations and his sympathies were

mere weaknesses: we were moving to a synthesis of art where the enchanting

perfume of romance should be wedded to the severe beauty of classic form.

I really talked as if inspired, and when I paused, Pater--the stiff, quiet,

silent Pater--suddenly slipped from his seat and knelt down by me and kissed

my hand. I cried:

"'You must not, you really must not. What would people think if they saw you?'

"He got up with a white strained face.

"'I had to,' he muttered, glancing about him fearfully, 'I had to--once. . . .'"

I must warn my readers that this whole incident is ripened and set in a higher

key of thought by the fact that Oscar told it more than ten years after it

happened.

CHAPTER IV--FORMATIVE INFLUENCES: OSCAR'S POEMS

The most important event in Oscar's early life happened while he was still

an undergraduate at Oxford: his father, Sir William Wilde, died in 1876, leaving

to his wife, Lady Wilde, nearly all he possessed, some L7,000, the interest

of which was barely enough to keep her in genteel poverty. The sum is so small

that one is constrained to believe the report that Sir William Wilde in his

later years kept practically open house--"lashins of whisky and a good larder,"

and was besides notorious for his gallantries. Oscar's small portion, a little

money and a small house with some land, came to him in the nick of time: he used

the cash partly to pay some debts at Oxford, partly to defray the expenses of a

trip to Greece. It was natural that Oscar Wilde, with his eager sponge-like

receptivity, should receive the best academic education of his time, and should

better that by travel. We all get something like the education we desire, and

Oscar Wilde, it always seemed to me, was over-educated, had learned, that is,

too much from books and not enough from life and had thought too little for

himself; but my readers will be able to judge of this for themselves.

In 1877 he accompanied Professor Mahaffy on a long tour through Greece. The

pleasure and profit Oscar got from the trip were so great that he failed to

return to Oxford on the date fixed. The Dons fined him forty-five pounds for

the breach of discipline; but they returned the money to him in the following

year when he won First Honours in "Greats" and the Newdigate prize.

This visit to Greece when he was twenty-three confirmed the view of life which

he had already formed and I have indicated sufficiently perhaps in that talk

with Pater already recorded. But no one will understand Oscar Wilde who for

a moment loses sight of the fact that he was a pagan born: as Gautier says,

"One for whom the visible world alone exists," endowed with all the Greek

sensuousness and love of plastic beauty; a pagan, like Nietzsche and Gautier,

wholly out of sympathy with Christianity, one of "the Confraternity of

the faithless who "cannot" believe," (His own words in "De Profundis.")

to whom a sense of sin and repentance are symptoms of weakness and disease.

Oscar used often to say that the chief pleasure he had in visiting Rome was

to find the Greek gods and the heroes and heroines of Greek story throned in

the Vatican. He preferred Niobe to the Mater Dolorosa and Helen to both; the

worship of sorrow must give place, he declared, to the worship of the beautiful.

Another dominant characteristic of the young man may here find its place.

While still at Oxford his tastes--the bent of his mind, and his temperament--

were beginning to outline his future. He spent his vacations in Dublin and

always called upon his old school friend Edward Sullivan in his rooms at

Trinity. Sullivan relates that when they met Oscar used to be full of his

occasional visits to London and could talk of nothing but the impression made

upon him by plays and players. From youth on the theatre drew him irresistibly;

he had not only all the vanity of the actor; but what might be called the born

dramatist's love for the varied life of the stage--its paintings, costumings,

rhetoric--and above all the touch of emphasis natural to it which gives such

opportunity for humorous exaggeration.

"I remember him telling me," Sullivan writes, "about Irving's 'Macbeth,' which

made a great impression on him; he was fascinated by it. He feared, however,

that the public might be similarly affected--a thing which, he declared, would

destroy his enjoyment of an extraordinary performance." He admired Miss Ellen

Terry, too, extravagantly, as he admired Marion Terry, Mrs. Langtry, and Mary

Anderson later.

The death of Sir William Wilde put an end to the family life in Dublin, and

set the survivors free. Lady Wilde had lost her husband and her only daughter

in Merrion Square: the house was full of sad memories to her, she was eager to

leave it all and settle in London.

The "Requiescat" in Oscar's first book of poems was written in memory of this

sister who died in her teens, whom he likened to "a ray of sunshine dancing

about the house." He took his vocation seriously even in youth: he felt that he

should sing his sorrow, give record of whatever happened to him in life. But he

found no new word for his bereavement.

Willie Wilde came over to London and got employment as a journalist and was

soon given almost a free hand by the editor of the society paper "The World".

With rare unselfishness, or, if you will, with Celtic clannishness, he did a

good deal to make Oscar's name known. Every clever thing that Oscar said or

that could be attributed to him, Willie reported in "The World". This puffing

and Oscar's own uncommon power as a talker; but chiefly perhaps a whispered

reputation for strange sins, had thus early begun to form a sort of myth around

him. He was already on the way to becoming a personage; there was a certain

curiosity about him, a flutter of interest in whatever he did. He had published

poems in the Trinity College magazine, "Kottabos", and elsewhere. People were

beginning to take him at his own valuation as a poet and a wit; and the more

readily as that ambition did not clash in any way with their more material

strivings.

The time had now come for Oscar to conquer London as he had conquered Oxford.

He had finished the first class in the great World-School and was eager to try

the next, where his mistakes would be his only tutors and his desires his

taskmasters. His University successes flattered him with the belief that he

would go from triumph to triumph and be the exception proving the rule that

the victor in the academic lists seldom repeats his victories on the battlefield

of life.

It is not sufficiently understood that the learning of Latin and Greek and

the forming of expensive habits at others' cost are a positive disability and

handicap in the rough-and-tumble tussle of the great city, where greed and

unscrupulous resolution rule, and where there are few prizes for feats of memory

or taste in words. When the graduate wins in life he wins as a rule in spite of

his so-called education and not because of it.

It is true that the majority of English 'Varsity men give themselves an

infinitely better education than that provided by the authorities. They devote

themselves to athletic sports with whole-hearted enthusiasm. Fortunately for

them it is impossible to develop the body without at the same time steeling the

will. The would-be athlete has to live laborious days; he may not eat to his

liking, nor drink to his thirst. He learns deep lessons almost unconsciously;

to conquer his desires and make light of pain and discomfort. He needs no

Aristotle to teach him the value of habits; he is soon forced to use them as

defences against his pet weaknesses; above all he finds that self-denial has its

reward in perfect health; that the thistle pain, too, has its flower. It is a

truism that 'Varsity athletes generally succeed in life, Spartan discipline

proving itself incomparably superior to Greek accidence.

Oscar Wilde knew nothing of this discipline. He had never trained his body

to endure or his will to steadfastness. He was the perfect flower of academic

study and leisure. At Magdalen he had been taught luxurious living, the delight

of gratifying expensive tastes; he had been brought up and enervated so to speak

in Capua. His vanity had been full-fed with cloistered triumphs; he was at

once pleasure-loving, vainly self-confident and weak; he had been encouraged

for years to give way to his emotions and to pamper his sensations, and as the

Cap-and-Bells of Folly to cherish a fantastic code of honour even in mortal

combat, while despising the religion which might have given him some hold on

the respect of his compatriots. What chance had this cultured honour-loving

Sybarite in the deadly grapple of modern life where the first quality is will

power, the only knowledge needed a knowledge of the value of money. I must not

be understood here as in any degree disparaging Oscar. I can surely state that

a flower is weaker than a weed without exalting the weed or depreciating the

flower.

The first part of life's voyage was over for Oscar Wilde; let us try to see him

as he saw himself at this time and let us also determine his true relations to

the world. Fortunately he has given us his own view of himself with some care.

In Foster's "Alumni Oxonienses", Oscar Wilde described himself on leaving Oxford

as a "Professor of aesthetics, and a Critic of Art"--an announcement to me at

once infinitely ludicrous and pathetic. "Ludicrous" because it betrays such

complete ignorance of life all given over to men industrious with muck-rakes:

"Gadarene swine," as Carlyle called them, "busily grubbing and grunting in

search of pignuts." "Pathetic" for it is boldly ingenuous as youth itself with

a touch of youthful conceit and exaggeration. Another eager human soul on the

threshold longing to find some suitable high work in the world, all unwitting

of the fact that ideal strivings are everywhere despised and discouraged--

jerry-built cottages for the million being the day's demand and not oratories

or palaces of art or temples for the spirit.

Not the time for a "professor of aesthetics," one would say, and assuredly

not the place. One wonders whether Zululand would not be more favourable for

such a man than England. Germany, France, and Italy have many positions in

universities, picture-galleries, museums, opera houses for lovers of the

beautiful, and above all an educated respect for artists and writers just

as they have places too for servants of Truth in chemical laboratories and

polytechnics endowed by the State with excellent results even from the

utilitarian point of view. But rich England has only a few dozen such places

in all at command and these are usually allotted with a cynical contempt for

merit; miserable anarchic England, soul-starved amid its creature comforts,

proving now by way of example to helots that man cannot live by bread alone:--

England and Oscar Wilde! the "Black Country" and "the professor of aesthetics"--

a mad world, my masters!

It is necessary for us now to face this mournful truth that in the quarrel

between these two the faults were not all on one side, mayhap England was even

further removed from the ideal than the would-be professor of aesthetics,

which fact may well give us pause and food for thought. Organic progress we

have been told; indeed, might have seen if we had eyes, evolution so-called

is from the simple to the complex; our rulers therefore should have provided

for the ever-growing complexity of modern life and modern men. The good

gardener will even make it his ambition to produce new species; our politicians,

however, will not take the trouble to give even the new species that appear a

chance of living; they are too busy, it appears, in keeping their jobs.

No new profession has been organized in England since the Middle Ages. In the

meantime we have invented new arts, new sciences and new letters; when will

these be organized and regimented in new and living professions, so that young

ingenuous souls may find suitable fields for their powers and may not be forced

willy-nilly to grub for pignuts when it would be more profitable for them and

for us to use their nobler faculties? Not only are the poor poorer and more

numerous in England than elsewhere; but there is less provision made for the

"intellectuals" too, consequently the organism is suffering at both extremities.

It is high time that both maladies were taken in hand, for by universal consent

England is now about the worst organized of all modern States, the furthest

from the ideal.

Something too should be done with the existing professions to make them worthy

of honourable ambition. One of them, the Church, is a noble body without a

soul; the soul, our nostrils tell us, died some time ago, while the medical

profession has got a noble spirit with a wretched half-organized body. It says

much for the inherent integrity and piety of human nature that our doctors

persist in trying to cure diseases when it is clearly to their self-interest to

keep their patients ailing--an anarchic world, this English one, and stupefied

with self-praise. What will this professor of aesthetics make of it?

Here he is, the flower of English University training, a winner of some of the

chief academic prizes without any worthy means of earning a livelihood, save

perchance by journalism. And journalism in England suffers from the prevailing

anarchy. In France, Italy, and Germany journalism is a career in which an

eloquent and cultured youth may honourably win his spurs. In many countries

this way of earning one's bread can still be turned into an art by the gifted

and high-minded; but in England thanks in the main to the anonymity of the press

cunningly contrived by the capitalist, the journalist or modern preacher is

turned into a venal voice, a soulless Cheapjack paid to puff his master's wares.

Clearly our "Professor of aesthetics and Critic of Art" is likely to have a

doleful time of it in nineteenth century London.

Oscar had already dipped into his little patrimony, as we have seen, and he

could not conceal from himself that he would soon have to live on what he could

earn--a few pounds a week. But then he was a poet and had boundless confidence

in his own ability. To the artist nature the present is everything; just for

to-day he resolved that he would live as he had always lived; so he travelled

first class to London and bought all the books and papers that could distract

him on the way: "Give me the luxuries," he used to say, "and anyone can have

the necessaries."

In the background of his mind there were serious misgivings. Long afterwards

he told me that his father's death and the smallness of his patrimony had been

a heavy blow to him. He encouraged himself, however, at the moment by dwelling

on his brother's comparative success and waved aside fears and doubts as

unworthy.

It is to his credit that at first he tried to cut down expenses and live

laborious days. He took a couple of furnished rooms in Salisbury Street off the

Strand, a very Grub Street for a man of fashion, and began to work at journalism

while getting together a book of poems for publication. His journalism at first

was anything but successful. It was his misfortune to appeal only to the best

heads and good heads are not numerous anywhere. His appeal, too, was still

academic and laboured. His brother Willie with his commoner sympathies appeared

to be better equipped for this work. But Oscar had from the first a certain

social success.

As soon as he reached London he stepped boldly into the limelight, going to

all "first nights" and taking the floor on all occasions. He was not only an

admirable talker but he was invariably smiling, eager, full of life and the joy

of living, and above all given to unmeasured praise of whatever and whoever

pleased him. This gift of enthusiastic admiration was not only his most

engaging characteristic, but also, perhaps, the chief proof of his extraordinary

ability. It was certainly, too, the quality which served him best all through

his life. He went about declaring that Mrs. Langtry was more beautiful than

the 'Venus of Milo,' and Lady Archie Campbell more charming than Rosalind and

Mr. Whistler an incomparable artist. Such enthusiasm in a young and brilliant

man was unexpected and delightful and doors were thrown open to him in all sets.

Those who praise passionately are generally welcome guests and if Oscar could

not praise he shrugged his shoulders and kept silent; scarcely a bitter word

ever fell from those smiling lips. No tactics could have been more successful

in England than his native gift of radiant good-humour and enthusiasm. He got

to know not only all the actors and actresses, but the chief patrons and

frequenters of the theatre: Lord Lytton, Lady Shrewsbury, Lady Dorothy Nevill,

Lady de Grey and Mrs. Jeune; and, on the other hand, Hardy, Meredith, Browning,

Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold--all Bohemia, in fact, and all that part of

Mayfair which cares for the things of the intellect.

But though he went out a great deal and met a great many distinguished people,

and won a certain popularity, his social success put no money in his purse.

It even forced him to spend money; for the constant applause of his hearers

gave him self-confidence. He began to talk more and write less, and cabs and

gloves and flowers cost money. He was soon compelled to mortgage his little

property in Ireland.

At the same time it must be admitted he was still indefatigably intent on

bettering his mind, and in London he found more original teachers than in

Oxford, notably Morris and Whistler. Morris, though greatly overpraised during

his life, had hardly any message for the men of his time. He went for his

ideals to an imaginary past and what he taught and praised was often totally

unsuited to modern conditions. Whistler on the other hand was a modern of the

moderns, and a great artist to boot: he had not only assimilated all the newest

thought of the day, but with the alchemy of genius had transmuted it and made it

his own. Before even the de Goncourts he had admired Chinese porcelain and

Japanese prints and his own exquisite intuition strengthened by Japanese example

had shown him that his impression of life was more valuable than any mere

transcript of it. Modern art he felt should be an interpretation and not a

representment of reality, and he taught the golden rule of the artist that the

half is usually more expressive than the whole. He went about London preaching

new schemes of decoration and another Renaissance of art. Had he only been a

painter he would never have exercised an extraordinary influence; but he was a

singularly interesting appearance as well and an admirable talker gifted with

picturesque phrases and a most caustic wit.

Oscar sat at his feet and imbibed as much as he could of the new aesthetic

gospel. He even ventured to annex some of the master's most telling stories

and thus came into conflict with his teacher.

One incident may find a place here.

The art critic of "The Times", Mr. Humphry Ward, had come to see an exhibition

of Whistler's pictures. Filled with an undue sense of his own importance, he

buttonholed the master and pointing to one picture said:

"That's good, first-rate, a lovely bit of colour; but that, you know," he went

on, jerking his finger over his shoulder at another picture, "that's bad,

drawing all wrong . . . bad!"

"My dear fellow," cried Whistler, "you must never say that this painting's good

or that bad, never! Good and bad are not terms to be used by you; but say, I

like this, and I dislike that, and you'll be within your right. And now come

and have a whiskey for you're sure to like that."

Carried away by the witty fling, Oscar cried:

"I wish I had said that."

"You will, Oscar, you will," came Whistler's lightning thrust.

Of all the personal influences which went to the moulding of Oscar Wilde's

talent, that of Whistler, in my opinion, was the most important; Whistler taught

him that men of genius stand apart and are laws unto themselves; showed him,

too, that all qualities--singularity of appearance, wit, rudeness even, count

doubly in a democracy. But neither his own talent nor the bold self-assertion

learned from Whistler helped him to earn money; the conquest of London seemed

further off and more improbable than ever. Where Whistler had missed the laurel

how could he or indeed anyone be sure of winning?

A weaker professor of aesthetics would have been discouraged by the monetary

and other difficulties of his position and would have lost heart at the outset

in front of the impenetrable blank wall of English philistinism and contempt.

But Oscar Wilde was conscious of great ability and was driven by an inordinate

vanity. Instead of diminishing his pretensions in the face of opposition he

increased them. He began to go abroad in the evening in knee breeches and silk

stockings wearing strange flowers in his coat--green cornflowers and gilded

lilies--while talking about Baudelaire, whose name even was unfamiliar, as a

world poet, and proclaiming the strange creed that "nothing succeeds like

excess." Very soon his name came into everyone's mouth; London talked of

him and discussed him at a thousand tea-tables. For one invitation he had

received before, a dozen now poured in; he became a celebrity.

Of course he was still sneered at by many as a mere "poseur"; it still seemed

to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be beaten down

under the myriad trampling feet of middle-class indifference and disdain.

Some circumstances were in his favour. Though the artistic movement inaugurated

years before by the Pre-Raphaelites was still laughed at and scorned by the

many as a craze, a few had stood firm, and slowly the steadfast minority had

begun to sway the majority as is often the case in democracies. Oscar Wilde

profited by the victory of these art-loving forerunners. Here and there among

the indifferent public, men were attracted by the artistic view of life and

women by the emotional intensity of the new creed. Oscar Wilde became the

prophet of an esoteric cult. But notoriety even did not solve the monetary

question, which grew more and more insistent. A dozen times he waved it aside

and went into debt rather than restrain himself. Somehow or other he would fall

on his feet, he thought. Men who console themselves in this way usually fall

on someone else's feet and so did Oscar Wilde. At twenty-six years of age and

curiously enough at the very moment of his insolent-bold challenge of the world

with fantastic dress, he stooped to ask his mother for money, money which she

could ill spare, though to do her justice she never wasted a second thought on

money where her affections were concerned, and she not only loved Oscar but was

proud of him. Still she could not give him much; the difficulty was only

postponed; what was to be done?

His vanity had grown with his growth; the dread of defeat was only a spur

to the society favourite; he cast about for some means of conquering the

Philistines, and could think of nothing but his book of poems. He had been

trying off and on for nearly a year to get it published. The publishers told

him roundly that there was no money in poetry and refused the risk. But the

notoriety of his knee-breeches and silken hose, and above all the continual

attacks in the society papers, came to his aid and his book appeared in the

early summer of 1881 with all the importance that imposing form, good paper,

broad margins, and high price (10/6) could give it. The truth was, he paid for

the printing and production of the book himself, and David Bogue, the publisher,

put his name on for a commission.

Oscar had built high fantastic hopes on this book. To the very end of his

life he believed himself a poet and in the creative sense of the word he was

assuredly justified, but he meant it in the singing sense as well, and there his

claim can only be admitted with serious qualifications. But whether he was a

singer or not the hopes founded on this book were extravagant; he expected to

make not only reputation by it, but a large amount of money, and money is not

often made in England by poetry.

The book had an extraordinary success, greater, it may safely be said, than any

first book of real poetry has ever had in England or indeed is ever likely to

have: four editions were sold in a few weeks. Two of the Sonnets in the book

were addressed to Ellen Terry, one as "Portia," the other as "Henrietta Maria";

and these partly account for the book's popularity, for Miss Terry was delighted

with them and praised the book and its author to the skies. (In her

"Recollections" Miss Terry says that she was more impressed by the genius of

Oscar Wilde and of Whistler than by that of any other men.) I reproduce the

"Henrietta Maria" sonnet here as a fair specimen of the work:

QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA

In the lone tent, waiting for victory,

She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,

Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:

The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,

War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry,

To her proud soul no common fear can bring:

Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,

Her soul aflame with passionate ecstasy.

O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face!

Made for the luring and the love of man!

With thee I do forget the toil and stress,

The loveless road that knows no resting-place,

Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness,

My freedom and my life republican.

Lyric poetry is by its excellence the chief art of England, as music is the

art of Germany. A book of poetry is almost sure of fair appreciation in the

English press which does not trouble to notice a "Sartor Resartus" or the first

essays of an Emerson. The excessive consideration given to Oscar's book by the

critics showed that already his personality and social success had affected the

reporters.

"The Athenaeum" gave the book the place of honour in its number for the 23rd of

July. The review was severe; but not unjust. "Mr. Wilde's volume of poems," it

says, "may be regarded as the evangel of a new creed. From other gospels it

differs in coming after, instead of before, the cult it seeks to establish.

. . . . We fail to see, however, that the apostle of the new worship has any

distinct message."

The critic then took pains to prove that "nearly all the book is imitative"

. . . . and concluded: "Work of this nature has no element of endurance."

"The Saturday Review "dismissed the book at the end of an article on "Recent

Poetry" as "neither good nor bad." The reviewer objected in the English fashion

to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up fairly enough: "This book is not

without traces of cleverness, but it is marred everywhere by imitation,

insincerity, and bad taste."

At the same time the notices in "Punch" were extravagantly bitter, while of

course the notices in "The World", mainly written by Oscar's brother, were

extravagantly eulogistic. "Punch" declared that "Mr. Wilde may be aesthetic,

but he is not original . . . . a volume of echoes. . . . . Swinburne and water."

Now what did "The Athenaeum" mean by taking a new book of imitative verse so

seriously and talking of it as the "evangel of a new creed," besides suggesting

that "it comes after the cult," and so forth?

It seems probable that "The Athenaeum" mistook Oscar Wilde for a continuator

of the Pre-Raphaelite movement with the sub-conscious and peculiarly English

suggestion that whatever is "aesthetic" or "artistic" is necessarily weak and

worthless, if not worse.

Soon after Oscar left Oxford "Punch" began to caricature him and ridicule the

cult of what it christened "The Too Utterly Utter." Nine Englishmen out of ten

took delight in the savage contempt poured upon what was known euphemistically

as "the aesthetic craze" by the pet organ of the English middle class.

This was the sort of thing "Punch" published under the title of "A Poet's Day":

"Oscar at Breakfast! Oscar at Luncheon!!

Oscar at Dinner!!! Oscar at Supper!!!!"

"'You see I am, after all, mortal,' remarked the poet, with an ineffable affable

smile, as he looked up from an elegant but substantial dish of ham and eggs.

Passing a long willowy hand through his waving hair, he swept away a stray

curl-paper, with the nonchalance of a D'Orsay.

"After this effort Mr. Wilde expressed himself as feeling somewhat faint; and

with a half apologetic smile ordered another portion of Ham and Eggs."

"Punch"'s verses on the subject were of the same sort, showing spite rather

than humour. Under the heading of "Sage Green" (by a fading-out aesthete) it

published such stuff as this:

My love is as fair as a lily flower.

("The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!")

Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower.

("Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!")

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

And woe is me that I never may win;

("The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!")

For the Bard's hard up, and she's got no tin.

("Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!")

Taking the criticism as a whole it would be useless to deny that there is an

underlying assumption of vicious sensuality in the poet which is believed to

be reflected in the poetry. This is the only way to explain the condemnation

which is much more bitter than the verse deserves.

The poems gave Oscar pocket money for a season; increased too his notoriety;

but did him little or no good with the judicious: there was not a memorable

word or a new cadence, or a sincere cry in the book. Still, first volumes of

poetry are as a rule imitative and the attempt, if inferior to "Venus and

Adonis," was not without interest.

Oscar was naturally disappointed with the criticism, but the sales encouraged

him and the stir the book made and he was as determined as ever to succeed.

What was to be done next?

CHAPTER V--OSCAR'S QUARREL WITH WHISTLER AND MARRIAGE

The first round in the battle with Fate was inconclusive. Oscar Wilde had

managed to get known and talked about and had kept his head above water for

a couple of years while learning something about life and more about himself.

On the other hand he had spent almost all his patrimony, had run into some debt

besides; yet seemed as far as ever from earning a decent living. The outlook

was disquieting.

Even as a young man Oscar had a very considerable understanding of life. He

could not make his way as a journalist, the English did not care for his poetry;

but there was still the lecture-platform. In his heart he knew that he could

talk better than he wrote.

He got his brother to announce boldly in "The World" that owing to the

"astonishing success of his 'Poems' Mr. Oscar Wilde had been invited to

lecture in America."

The invitation was imaginary; but Oscar had resolved to break into this new

field; there was money in it, he felt sure.

Besides he had another string to his bow. When the first rumblings of the

social storm in Russia reached England, our aristocratic republican seized

occasion by the forelock and wrote a play on the Nihilist Conspiracy called

"Vera". This drama was impregnated with popular English liberal sentiment.

With the interest of actuality about it "Vera" was published in September, 1880;

but fell flat.

The assassination of the Tsar Alexander, however, in March, 1881; the way

Oscar's poems published in June of that year were taken up by Miss Terry and

puffed in the press, induced Mrs. Bernard Beere, an actress of some merit, to

accept "Vera" for the stage. It was suddenly announced that "Vera" would be put

on by Mrs. Bernard Beere at The Adelphi in December, '81; but the author had to

be content with this advertisement. December came and went and "Vera" was not

staged. It seemed probable to Oscar that it might be accepted in America; at

any rate, there could be no harm in trying: he sailed for New York.

It was on the cards that he might succeed in his new adventure. The taste of

America in letters and art is still strongly influenced, if not formed, by

English taste, and, if Oscar Wilde had been properly accredited, it is probable

that his extraordinary gift of speech would have won him success in America as

a lecturer.

His phrase to the Revenue officers on landing: "I have nothing to declare

except my genius," turned the limelight full upon him and excited comment and

discussion all over the country. But the fuglemen of his caste whose praise had

brought him to the front in England were almost unrepresented in the States, and

never bold enough to be partisans. Oscar faced the American Philistine public

without his accustomed "claque", and under these circumstances a half-success

was evidence of considerable power. His subjects were "The English Renaissance"

and "House Decoration."

His first lecture at Chickering Hall on January 9, 1882, was so much talked

about that the famous impresario, Major Pond, engaged him for a tour which,

however, had to be cut short in the middle as a monetary failure. "The Nation"

gave a very fair account of his first lecture: "Mr. Wilde is essentially a

foreign product and can hardly succeed in this country. What he has to say is

not new, and his extravagance is not extravagant enough to amuse the average

American audience. His knee-breeches and long hair are good as far as they go;

but Bunthorne has really spoiled the public for Wilde."

"The Nation" underrated American curiosity. Oscar lectured some ninety times

from January till July, when he returned to New York. The gross receipts

amounted to some L4,000: he received about L1,200, which left him with a few

hundreds above his expenses. His optimism regarded this as a triumph.

One is fain to confess today that these lectures make very poor reading. There

is not a new thought in them; not even a memorable expression; they are nothing

but student work, the best passages in them being mere paraphrases of Pater and

Arnold, though the titles were borrowed from Whistler. Dr. Ernest Bendz in his

monograph on "The Influence of Pater and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of

Oscar Wilde" has established this fact with curious erudition and completeness.

Still, the lecturer was a fine figure of a man: his knee-breeches and silk

stockings set all the women talking, and he spoke with suave authority. Even

the dullest had to admit that his elocution was excellent, and the manner of

speech is keenly appreciated in America. In some of the Eastern towns, in

New York especially, he had a certain success, the success of sensation and of

novelty, such success as every large capital gives to the strange and eccentric.

In Boston he scored a triumph of character. Fifty or sixty Harvard students

came to his lecture dressed to caricature him in "swallow tail coats, knee

breeches, flowing wigs and green ties. They all wore large lilies in their

buttonholes and each man carried a huge sunflower as he limped along." That

evening Oscar appeared in ordinary dress and went on with his lecture as if he

had not noticed the rudeness. The chief Boston paper gave him due credit:

"Everyone who witnessed the scene on Tuesday evening must feel about it very

much as we do, and those who came to scoff, if they did not exactly remain to

pray, at least left the Music Hall with feelings of cordial liking, and, perhaps

to their own surprise, of respect for Oscar Wilde." (By way of heaping coals of

fire on the students' heads Oscar presented a cast of the Hermes (then recently

unearthed) to the University of Harvard.)