Chapter MCMV

TO

DONALD BRUCE WALLACE,

OF NEW YORK,

IN MEMORY OF A VISIT LAST SUMMER TO

BAGNEUX CEMETERY,

A PILGRIMAGE OF LOVE WHEN WE

WATERED WITH OUR TEARS THE ROSES AND LILIES

WITH WHICH WE COVERED

THE POET'S GRAVE.

Oxford,

September, 1905.

[The little poem on the opposite page first saw the light in the pages of the _Dublin University Magazine_ for September, 1876. It has not been reprinted since. The Greek quotation is taken from the _Agamemnon_ of Æschylos, l. 120. ]

Αἴλινον, αἴινον εἰπὲ,

Τὸ δ᾽ ευ̉ νικάτω

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the plashing of the rain,
The crashing down of forest trees.

O well for him who ne'er hath known
The travail of the hungry years,
A father grey with grief and tears,
A mother weeping all alone.

But well for him whose feet hath trod
The weary road of toil and strife,
Yet from the sorrows of his life
Builds ladders to be nearer God.

Oscar F. O'F. Wills Wilde.

_S. M. Magdalen College,_

_Oxford._

NOTE.

M. Gide's Study of Mr. Oscar Wilde (perhaps the best account yet written of the poet's latter days) appeared first in _L'Ermitage_, a monthly literary review, in June, 1902. It was afterwards reprinted with some few slight alterations in a volume of critical essays, entitled _Prétextes_, by M. Gide. It is now published in English for the first time, by special arrangement with the author.

S. M.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Poem by Oscar Wilde .................................... xi

Introductory ........................................... 1

Inscription on Oscar Wilde's Tombstone ................. 11

Letters from M. André Gide ............................. 12

Oscar Wilde: from the French of André Gide ............. 15

Sonnet 'To Oscar Wilde,' by Augustus M. Moore .......... 89

List of Published Writings of Oscar Wilde .............. 93

Bibliographical Notes on The English Editions .......... 107

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Cartoon: 'How Utter' .......................... Frontispiece
(From a Cartoon published by Messrs. Shrimpton at
Oxford about 1880. By permission of Mr. Hubert
Giles, 23 Broad St., Oxford).

Oscar Wilde at Oxford, 1878 ............................ 16
(By permission of Mr. Hubert Giles).

Oscar Wilde in 1893 .................................... 48
(From a Photograph by Messrs. Gillman & Co., Oxford).

The Grave at Bagneux ................................... 80
(By permission of the Proprietors of _The Sphere_
and _The Tatler_).

Reduced Facsimile of the Cover of _'The Woman's World'_ 96

* * * * *

Oscar Wilde

Introductory.

Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born at 1 Merrion Square, North, Dublin, on October 16th, 1854. He was the second son of Sir William Robert Wilde, Knight, a celebrated surgeon who was President of the Irish Academy and Chairman of the Census Committee. Sir William Wilde was born in 1799, and died at the age of seventy-seven years.

Oscar Wilde's mother was Jane Francesca, daughter of Archdeacon Elgee. She was born in 1826, and married in 1851. She became famous in literary circles under the pen-names of 'Speranza' and 'John Fenshawe Ellis,' among her published writings being _Driftwood from Scandinavia_ (1884), _Legends of Ireland_ (1886), and _Social Studies_ (1893). Lady Wilde died at her residence in Chelsea on February 3rd, 1896[1].

Oscar Wilde received his early education at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, which he entered in 1864 at the age of nine years. Here he remained for seven years, and, winning a Royal scholarship, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, on October 19th, 1871, being then seventeen years of age. In the following year he obtained First Class Honours in Classics in Hilary, Trinity and Michaelmas Terms; he also won the Gold Medal for Greek[2] and other distinctions. The Trinity College Magazine _Kottabos_, for the years 1876-9, contains some of his earliest published poems. In 1874 he obtained a classical scholarship[3], and went up to Oxford, where, as a demy, he matriculated at Magdalen College on October 17th, the day after his twentieth birthday. His career at Oxford was one unbroken success. In Trinity Term (June), 1876, he obtained a First Class in the Honour School of Classical Moderations (_in literis Græcis et Latinis_), which he followed up two years later by a similar distinction in 'Greats' or 'Honour Finals' (_in literis humanioribus_). In this same Trinity Term[4], 1878, he further distinguished himself by gaining the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize for English Verse with his poem, 'Ravenna[5],' which he recited at the Encænia or Annual Commemoration of Benefactors in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26th. He proceeded to the degree of B. A. in the following term[6]. He is described in Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_ as a 'Professor of Æsthetics and Art critic.'

He afterwards lectured on Art in America[7], 1882, and in the provinces on his return to England. About this time he wrote his poems, _The Sphinx_ and _The Harlot's House_ (1883), and his tragedy in blank verse, _The Duchess of Padua_. The latter was written specially for Miss Mary Anderson, but she did not produce it. This was, however, played in America by the late Lawrence Barrett in 1883, as was also another play in blank verse, entitled _Vera, or the Nihilists_, during the previous year. He had already published in America and England a volume of _Poems_, which went through several editions in a few months.

In 1884 Oscar Wilde married[8] Miss Constance Mary Lloyd, a daughter of the well-known Q. C., by whom he had two sons, born in June, 1885, and November, 1886, respectively. Mrs. Wilde died in 1898, and his only brother, William, in March of the following year.

During the next five or six years after his marriage, articles from his pen appeared in several of the leading reviews, notably 'The Portrait of Mr. W. H.' in _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ for July, 1889, and those brilliant essays afterwards incorporated in _Intentions_, in _The Nineteenth Century_ and _The Fortnightly Review_. In 1888 he was the editor of a monthly journal called _The Woman's World_. In July, 1890,_ The Picture of Dorian Gray_ appeared in _Lippincott's Monthly Magazine_. It was the only novel he ever wrote, and was published in book form with seven additional chapters in the following year, and is one of the most remarkable books in the English language.

With the production and immediate success of _Lady Windermere's Fan_ early in 1892, he was at once recognised as a dramatist of the first rank. This was followed a year later by _A Woman of No Importance_, and after brief intervals by _An Ideal Husband_ and _The Importance of Being Earnest_[9]. The two latter were being played in London at the time of the author's arrest and trial.

Into the melancholy story of his trial it is not proposed to enter here beyond mentioning the fact that he was condemned by the newspapers, and, consequently, by the vast majority of the British public, several weeks before a jury could be found to return a verdict of 'guilty.' On Saturday, May 25th, 1895, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour, most of which period was passed at Wandsworth and Reading.

On his release from Reading on Wednesday, May 19th, 1897, he at once crossed to France with friends, and a few days later penned that pathetic letter, pregnant with pity, in which he pleaded for the kindlier treatment of little children lying in our English gaols. This letter, with his own name attached, filled over two columns in _The Daily Chronicle_ of May 28th. It created considerable sensation--a well-known Catholic weekly comparing it 'in its crushing power to the letter with which Stevenson shamed the shameless traducer of Father Damien.' A second letter on the subject of the cruelties of the English Prison system appeared in the same paper on March 24th, 1898. It was headed: 'Don't Read This if You Want to be Happy To-day,' and was signed 'The Author of _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_.' _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ was published early in this same year under the _nom de plume_ 'C.3.3.,' Oscar Wilde's prison number. Its authorship was acknowledged shortly afterwards in an autograph edition. Since that time countless editions of this famous work have been issued in England and America, and translations have appeared in French, German and Spanish. Of this poem a reviewer in a London journal said,--'The whole is awful as the pages of Sophocles. That he has rendered with his fine art so much of the essence of his life and the life of others in that _inferno_ to the sensitive, is a memorable thing for the social scientist, but a much more memorable thing for literature. This is a simple, a poignant, a great ballad, one of the greatest in the English language.'

Of the sorrows and sufferings of the last few years of his life, his friend Mr. Robert Harborough Sherard has written in _The Story of an Unhappy Friendship_, and M. Gide refers to them in the following pages.

After several weeks of intense suffering 'Death the silent pilot' came at last, and the most brilliant writer of the nineteenth century passed away on the afternoon of November 30th, 1900, in poverty and almost alone. The little hotel in Paris--Hotel d'Alsace, 13 rue des Beaux Arts,--where he died, has become a place of pilgrimage from all parts of the world for those who admire his genius or pity his sorrows. He was buried, three days later, in the cemetery at Bagneux, about four miles out of Paris.

STUART MASON.

[1] In 1890 Lady Wilde received a pension of £50 from the Civil List.

[2] The subject for this year, 1874, was 'The Fragments of the Greek Comic Poets, as edited by Meineke.' The medal was presented annually, from a fund left for the purpose by Bishop Berkeley.

[3] The demyship was of the annual value of £95, and was tenable for five years. Oscar Wilde's success was announced in the _University Gazette_ (Oxford), July 11, 1874.

[4] On Wednesday, May 1st, Oscar Wilde, dressed as Prince Rupert, was present at a fancy dress ball given by Mrs. George Herbert Morrell at Headington Hill Hall.

[5] 'The Newdigate was listened to with rapt attention and frequently applauded.'--_Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal_, June 27, 1878.

[6] The degree of B. A. was conferred upon him on Thursday, Novemher 28, 1878.

[7] Amongst the places he visited were New York, Louisville (Kentucky), Omaha City and California. In the autumn of this same year, 1882, after leaving the States, Mr. Wilde went to Canada and thence to Nova Scotia, arriving at Halifax about October 8th.

[8] The announcement in _The Times_ of May 31, 1884, was as follows:--'May 29, at S. James's Church, Paddington, by the Rev. Walter Abbott, Vicar, Oscar, younger son of the late Sir William Wilde, M. D., of Dublin, to Constance Mary, only daughter of the late Horace Lloyd, Esq., Q. C.'

[9] Of _The Importance of Being Earnest_ the author is reported to have said, 'The first act is ingenious, the second beautiful, the third abominably clever.' It was revived by Mr. George Alexander at the St. James's Theatre on January 7, 1902; and _Lady Windermere's Fan_ on November 19, 1904.

* * * * *

Oscar Wilde

OCT. 16TH, 1854--NOV. 30TH, 1900.

VERBIS MEIS ADDERE NIHIL AUDEBANT
ET SUPER ILLOS STILLABAT ELOQUIUM
MEUM.

JOB XXIX, 22

R. I. P.

_Inscription on Oscar Wilde's Tombstone._

* * * * *

_Letters from M. André Gide._

I.

CHÂTEAU DE CUVERVILLE,

PAR CRIQUETOT L'ESNEVAL,

SNE. INFERIEURE.

Monsieur,

Quelque plaisir que j'aurai de voir mon étude sur Wilde traduite en anglais, je ne puis vous répondre avant d'avoir correspondu avec mon éditeur. L'article en question, après avoir paru dans 'l'Ermitage,' a été réunie à d'autres études dans un volume, _Prétextes_, que le _Mercure de France_ édita l'an dernier. Un traité me lie à cette maison et je ne suis pas libre de décider seul.

Votre lettre a mis quelque temps à me parvenir ici, où pourtant j'habite. Dès que j'aurai la réponse du _Mercure de France_ je m'empresserai de vous la faire savoir.

Veuillez croire, Monsieur, à l'assurance de mes meilleurs sentiments.

ANDRÉ GIDE.

_Septembre 9, 1904._