Chapter III: Part II (1)

1885

May 30, p. 253. Ben Trovato.

June 27, p. 310. Interiors and Exteriors. No. 13.
At Burlington House. The
"Swarry."

December 7, Almanack for 1886. The Walnut Season.
"Here Y' ar'. Ten a Penny.
All Cracked."

1887

December 10, p. 276. Our Booking-Office. _Woman's
World._

1889

January 5, p. 12. Our Booking-Office. Article in
_The Fortnightly_.

July 6, p. 12. Advertisement of _Blackwood's
Magazine_, containing "The
Portrait of Mr W. H." by Oscar
Wilde.

October 5, p. 160. Appropriate Subject.

1890

July 19, p. 26. Our Booking-Office. _Dorian Gray._

September 20, p. 135. Development.

Christmas Number. Punch Among the Planets.

1891

March 14, p. 123. Desdemona to the Author of
"Dorian Gray." (_Apropos of
his paragraphic Preface._)

" " p. 125. Wilde Flowers.

May 30, p. 257. Our Booking-Office. _Intentions._

1892

March 5, p. 113. A Wilde "Tag" to a Tame Play.
With Fancy Portrait. "Quite
Too-Too Puffickly Precious."

March 12, p. 123. Lord Wildermere's Mother-in-Law.

" " p. 124. Pathetic Description of the
Present State of Mr George
Alexander.

April 30, p. 215. Staircase Scenes.--No. 1, Private
View, Royal Academy.

June 25, p. 304. The Playful Sally.

July 2, p. 315. A Difficulty.

" 9, p. 1. A Wilde Idea; Or, More Injustice
to Ireland.

" 16, p. 16. On the Fly-leaf of an Old
Book.

" 16, p. 23. Racine, With the Chill Off.

1893

January 19, p. 29. "To Rome for Sixteen Guineas."

April 22, p. 189. The B. and S. Drama at the
Adelphi.

" 29, p. 193. Stray Thoughts on Play-Writing.

" " p. 195. The Premier at the Haymarket
last Wednesday.

May 6, p. 213. A Work--of Some Importance.

" 13, p. 221. Wilder Ideas; _Or, Conversation as
she is spoken at the Haymarket_.

" 27, p. 246. A Wylde Vade Mecum. (_By
Professor H-xl-y_)

June 3, p. 257. Second Title for the Play at the
Haymarket.

July 15, p. 13. An Afternoon Party.

" 15, p. 22. "The Play is Not the Thing."

" 29, p. 46. At The T. R. H.

August 26, p. 94. Still Wilder Ideas. (_Possibilities
for the next O. Wilde Play._)

December 30, pp. 304-5. New Year's Eve at Latterday Hall.
An Incident. Dorian Gray
taking Juliet in to Dinner.

1894

February 17, p. 73. "Blushing Honours."

March 10, p. 109. She-Notes. By Borgia Smudgiton.

July 21, p. 33. The Minx.--A Poem in Prose.

August 4, p. 60. Our Charity Fete.

October 13, p. 177. The O.B.C. (Limited).

" 20, p. 185. The Blue Gardenia. (_A Colourable
Imitation._)

" 27, p. 204. Morbidezza.

November 10, p. 225. The Decadent Guys. (_A Colour-Study
in Green Carnations._)

December 15, p. 287. The Truisms of Life. (Note 12.)

1895

January 12, p. 24. Overheard Fragment of a Dialogue.

" 19, p. 29. "To Rome for Sixteen Guineas."

" " p. 36. "A penny Plain--But Oscar
Coloured."

February 2, p. 54. A Wilde "Ideal Husband."

" " p. 60. A God in the Os-Car.

" 23, p. 85. The O. W. Vade Mecum.

March 2, p. 106. "The Rivals" at the A.D.C.

" " p. 107. The Advisability of Not Being
Born in a Handbag.

" 16, p. 121. The Advantage of Being Consistent.

April 6, p. 157. April Foolosophy. (_By One of
Them._)

" 13, p. 171. The Long and Short of It.

" " p. 177. Concerning a Misused Term; _viz._
_Art_, as recently applied to a
certain form of Literature.

1906

January 3, p. 18. Our Booking-Office. (R. H.
Sherard's "_Twenty Years in
Paris_.")

This list at least spells, and spelt, celebrity and a recognition of the importance of the AEsthetic movement.

Especially did the American lecturing tour of Oscar Wilde excite the comment and ridicule of _Punch_.

I quote some paragraphs from a pretended despatch from an "American correspondent."

A POET'S DAY

(_From an American Correspondent_)

OSCAR AT BREAKFAST! OSCAR AT LUNCHEON!!
OSCAR AT DINNER!!! OSCAR AT SUPPER!!!!

"You see I am, after all, but 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

in the evident enjoyment of which, after a brief interchange of
international courtesies, I left the Poet.

The irresponsible but not ungenial and quite legitimate fun of this is a fairly representative indication of the way in which the young "Apostle of Beauty" was thought of in England during his American visit.

The writer goes on to tell how, later in the day, he once more encountered the "young patron of Culture." It is astonishing to us now to realise how even the word "culture" was distorted from its real meaning and made into the badge of a certain set. At anyrate, Mr Punch's contributor goes on to say that "Oscar" was found at the business premises of the

CO-OPERATIVE DRESS ASSOCIATION.

On this occasion the Poet, by special request, appeared in the
uniform of an English Officer of the Dragoon Guards, the dress, I
understand, being supplied for the occasion from the elegant
wardrobe of Mr D'OYLEY CARTE'S "Patience" Company.

Several ladies expressed their disappointment at the "insufficient
leanness" of the Poet's figure, whereupon his Business Manager
explained that he belonged to the fleshy school.

To accommodate Mr WILDE, the ordinary lay-figures were removed from
the showroom, and, after a sumptuous luncheon, to which the _elite_
of Miss ----'s customers were invited, the distinguished guest
posed with his fair hostess in an allegorical tableau, representing
_English Poetry extending the right hand to American Commerce_.

"This is indeed Fair Trade," remarked Mr Wilde lightly, and
immediately improvised a testimonial advertisement (in verse) in
praise of Miss ----'s patent dress-improver.

At a dinner given by "JEMMY" CROWDER (as we familiarly call him),
the Apologist of Art had discarded his military garb for the
ordinary dress of an

ENGLISH GENTLEMAN

in which his now world-famed knee-breeches form a conspicuous item,
suggesting indeed the Admiral's uniform in Mr D'OYLEY CARTE'S
"Pinafore" combination.

"I think," said the Poet, in a pause between courses, "one cannot
dine too well"--placing everyone at his ease by his admirable tact
in partaking of the thirty-six items of the _menu_.

The skit continues wittily enough, but it is not necessary to quote more of it. The paragraphs sufficiently explain the attitude of Mr Punch, which was the general attitude at the time.

It was hammered in persistently. "Oscar Interviewed" appeared under the date of January 1882, and again, in the following extracts the reader will recognise the same note.

"DETERMINED to anticipate the rabble of penny-a-liners ready to
pounce upon any distinguished foreigner who approaches our shores,
and eager to assist a sensitive Poet in avoiding the impertinent
curiosity and ill-bred insolence of the Professional Reporter, I
took the fastest pilot-boat on the station, and boarded the
splendid Cunard steamer, the _Boshnia_, in the shucking of a
peanut."

HIS AESTHETIC APPEARANCE

He stood, with his large hand passed through his long hair, against
a high chimney-piece--which had been painted pea-green, with panels
of peacock-blue pottery let in at uneven intervals--one elbow on
the high ledge, the other hand on his hip. He was dressed in a
long, snuff-coloured, single-breasted coat, which reached to his
heels, and was relieved with a sealskin collar and cuffs rather the
worse for wear. Frayed linen, and an orange silk handkerchief, gave
a note to the generally artistic colouring of the _ensemble_, while
one small daisy drooped despondently in his buttonhole.... We may
state that the chimney-piece, as well as the sealskin collar, is
the property of OSCAR, and will appear in his Lectures "on the
Growth of Artistic Taste in England."

HE SPEAKS FOR HIMSELF

"Yes; I should have been astonished had I not been interviewed!
Indeed, I have not been well on board this Cunard _Argosy_. I have
wrestled with the glaukous-haired Poseidon, and feared his
ravishment. Quite: I have been too ill, too utterly ill.
Exactly--seasick in fact, if I must descend to so trivial an
expression. I fear the clean beauty of my strong limbs is somewhat
waned. I am scarcely myself--my nerves are thrilling like throbbing
violins--in exquisite pulsation.

"You are right. I believe I was the first to devote my subtle
brain-chords to the worship of the Sunflower, and the apotheosis of
the delicate Tea-pot. I have ever been jasmine-cradled from my
youth. Eons ago, I might say centuries, in '78, when a student at
Oxford, I had trampled the vintage of my babyhood, and trod the
thorn-spread heights of Poesy. I had stood in the Arena and torn
the bays from the expiring athletes, my competitors."

* * * * *

LECTURE PROSPECTS

"Yes; I expect my Lecture will be a success. So does DOLLAR
CARTE--I mean D'OYLEY CARTE. Too-Toothless Senility may jeer, and
poor, positive Propriety may shake her rusty curls; but I am here
in my creamy lustihood, to pipe of Passion's venturous Poesy, and
reap the scorching harvest of Self-Love! I am not quite sure what
I mean. The true Poet never is. In fact, true Poetry is nothing if
it is intelligible. She is only to be compared to SALMACIS, who is
not a boy or girl, but yet is both."

And so forth, and so forth.

About the conversation and superficial manner of Oscar Wilde there must have been something strangely according to formula. Among intimate friends, friends who were sympathetic to his real ideals, his talk was wonderful. That fact is vouched for in a hundred quarters, it is not to be denied.

As I write I have dozens of undeniable testimonies to the fact, I myself can bear witness to it on at least one occasion. But when Wilde was not with people for whose opinion of him he cared much--really cared--his odd perversity of phrase, his persistent wish to astonish the fools, his extraordinary carelessness of average opinion often compelled him to talk the most frantic nonsense which was only redeemed from mere childish inversion of phrase by the air and manner with which it was said, and the merest tinsel pretence of wit. The wittiest talker of his generation, certainly the wittiest writer, gave the very worst of his wit to the pressmen who pestered him but who, and this was the thing he was unable to appreciate at its true value, represented him to the world during this "first period."

The mock interviews in _Punch_ which have been quoted from are really no very wide departures from the real thing. A year or two after the AEsthetic movement was not so prominent in the public eye as was the success of Wilde as a writer of plays, an actual interview with him appeared in a well-known weekly paper in which he talked not much less extravagantly than he was caricatured as talking in _Punch_. A play of his had been produced and, while it was a complete and satisfying success, it had been assailed in that unfortunately hostile way by the critics to which he was accustomed.

He was asked what he thought about the attitude of the critics towards his play.

"For a man to be a dramatic critic," he is said to have replied, "is as foolish and inartistic as it would be for a man to be a critic of epics, or a pastoral critic, or a critic of lyrics. All modes of art are one, and the modes of the art that employs words as its medium are quite indivisible. The result of the vulgar specialisation of criticism is an elaborate scientific knowledge of the stage--almost as elaborate as that of the stage-carpenter, and quite on a par with that of the call-boy--combined with an entire incapacity to realise that a play is a work of art, or to receive any artistic impressions at all."

He was told that he was rather severe upon the dramatic critics.

"English dramatic criticism of our own day has never had a single success, in spite of the fact that it goes to all the first nights," was his reply.

Thereupon the interviewer suggested that dramatic criticism was at least influential.

"Certainly; that is why it is so bad," he replied, and went on to say:

"The moment criticism exercises any influence it ceases to be criticism. The aim of the true critic is to try and chronicle his own moods, not to try and correct the masterpieces of others."

"Real critics would be charming in your eyes, then?"

"Real critics? Ah, how perfectly charming they would be! I am always waiting for their arrival. An inaudible school would be nice. Why do you not found it?"

Oscar Wilde was asked if there were, then, absolutely no critics in London.

"There are just two," he answered, but refused to give their names. The interviewer goes on to recount his exact words:

"Mr Wilde, with the elaborate courtesy for which he has always been famous, replied, 'I think I had better not mention their names; it might make the others so jealous.'

"'What do the literary cliques think of your plays?'

"'I don't write to please cliques; I write to please myself. Besides, I have always had grave suspicions that the basis of all literary cliques is a morbid love of meat-teas. That makes them sadly uncivilised.'

"'Still, if your critics offend you, why don't you reply to them?'

"'I have far too much time. But I think some day I will give a general answer, in the form of a lecture, in a public hall, which I shall call "Straight Talks to Old Men."'

"'What is your feeling towards your audiences--towards the public?'

"'Which public? There are as many publics as there are personalities.'

"'Are you nervous on the night that you are producing a new play?'

"'Oh no, I am exquisitely indifferent. My nervousness ends at the last dress rehearsal; I know then what effect my play, as presented upon the stage, has produced upon me. My interest in the play ends there, and I feel curiously envious of the public--they have such wonderful fresh emotions in store for them.'

"I laughed, but Mr Wilde rebuked me with a look of surprise.

"'It is the public, not the play, that I desire to make a success,' he said.

"'But I'm afraid I don't quite understand----'

"'The public makes a success when it realises that a play is a work of art. On the three first nights I have had in London the public has been most successful, and had the dimensions of the stage admitted of it, I would have called them before the curtain. Most managers, I believe, call them behind.'"

There are pages more of this sort of thing, and the earlier and pretended interview in _Punch_ differs a little in period but very little in manner from this real interview.

_Punch_ continued its gibes during the whole time of the first period. Really witty parodies of Oscar Wilde's poems and plays appeared from time to time. Pictures of him were drawn in caricature by well-known artists. It was the same in almost every society. The band of enthusiasts listened to the message, but gave more prominence to the poses and extravagances which accompanied it. The message was obscured and it was the fault of Oscar Wilde's eccentricity.

We are reaping the benefit of it all now, at present I am merely the chronicler of opinion when the movement was in what the unobservant thought was its heyday, but which has proved to be its infancy.

The chorus of dislike and mistrust was almost universal. At Oxford itself, popularly supposed to be a stronghold of aestheticism at the time, a debate on the question took place at the Union. A very prominent undergraduate of the day, Mr J. A. Simon, of Wadham College, reflected the bulk of Oxford opinion when he spoke as follows:--

"Mr J. A. Simon (Wadham) said he felt nervous, for it was an
extraordinary occasion for him to be on the side that would gain a
majority. He did not consider that the motion had at all the
meaning the mover gave it. He quite agreed with him as to the
advances made in the illustrated press, and other things, and that
many of these selected changes were good. The motion, however,
evidently referred to the movement headed by Oscar Wilde, and
represented by such things as the 'Yellow Book,' etc. He always
thought that the mover was most natural when he was on the stage
(applause) and they had all been given pleasure by his
impersonations (applause). He believed, though, that he had been
acting that night, and the speaker quoted from the speeches of
Bassanio passages which he considered described the way the mover
had led them off the scent. He intended to discuss the matter
seriously. As a book entitled 'Degeneracy' pointed out, the new
movement was the outcome of a craving for novelty, and the
absurdities in connection with it would do credit to a madhouse.
People were eccentric in the hope that they would be taken to be
original (applause). It was not a development at all; it was but a
jerk or twitching, the work of a moment. Oscar Wilde had actually
signed his name to a most awful pun, as those who had seen 'The
Importance Of Being Earnest' would understand. The writer's many
epigrams were doubtless clever, for next to pretending to be drunk,
pretending to be mad was the most difficult (applause). The process
was to turn a proverb upside down, and there was the epigram. Then
Aubrey Beardsley's figures, if they showed anything, showed
extraordinary development; they certainly were not delicate; in
fact, he should call them distinctly indelicate. For one thing,
such creatures never existed, and it was a species of art that was
absolutely imbecile. Oscar Wilde, though, had said that until we
see things as they are not we never really live. But all he could
say was that he hoped he should never live (applause). It was
really not art at all, for art was nearly allied to nature,
although Oscar Wilde said that the only connecting link was a
really well-made buttonhole. That sort of thing was the art of
being brilliantly absurd (applause). It was insignificant to lay
claim to manners on the ground of personal appearance; such were
not manners but mannerisms. Aubrey Beardsley's figures were but a
mannerism of this sort (applause). A development must be new and
permanent, and the pictures referred to were not new, for similar
ones could be found on the old Egyptian monuments (applause). This
cult were not even original individually, for where one led all the
rest followed. Oscar Wilde talked about a purple sin: the others
did the same. By-the-by, that remark was not original, for scarlet
sins had been mentioned in very early days; it was indeed all of it
but a resuscitation of what was old and had been long left behind
by the rest of the world (applause). The movement was not
permanent, as might be seen by the aesthetic craze of fifteen years
ago. Velvet coats and peacock feathers were dying out, and soon it
would not be correct to wear the hair long (laughter). It was but a
phase; if everyone were to talk in epigrams it would be
distinguished to talk sense. He was in a difficulty, for if he got
a large majority against the motion, to be in a minority was just
what would please the aesthetes most. Therefore, let as few vote
against as possible (laughter). To be serious, he considered that
true art should give pleasure and comfort to people who were in
trouble or down in the world, and who, he asked, would be helped by
the art of either Aubrey Beardsley or Oscar Wilde? (applause). In
conclusion, he would ask the House to give the movers the
satisfaction of having as few as possible voting for them
(applause)."

"_Ars longa est!_ All know what once that meant;
But cranks corrupt so sickeningly have shindied
About _their_ ART of late, 'tis evident
The rendering now must be, 'Art is long-winded!'
For _Vita brevis_,--all true men must hope,
Brief life for such base Art--and a short rope!"

said a popular rhyme of the time. It sums up average opinion and may fittingly close this summary of it during the "AEsthetic" period.

We are forced to admit that the general misunderstanding was partially due to the fashion in which the new doctrines were presented. The thing was well worth saying, but it was not said seriously enough. It was a lamentable mistake, but it helps us to understand a certain aspect of Oscar Wilde: the man.

THE SECOND PERIOD

At the time in which what I have called the "second period" may be said to have begun, Wilde was emerging from the somewhat obscuring influences of the AEsthetic movement and was in a state of transition.

He was then editing a magazine known as _The Woman's World_, and doing his work with a conscientiousness and sense of responsibility which shows us another side of him and one which, to the sane, if limited, English temperament is a singularly pleasant one. He had moaned, money must be earned, and he earned it faithfully under a discipline. It is a speculation not without interest when we wonder to what heights such a man might not have risen if a discipline such as this had been more continuous.

"Lord of himself, that heritage of woe," sang Lord Byron, well aware from personal experience of the constant dangers, the almost certain shipwreck that the life of perfect freedom has for such as he was, and for such a temperament as Wilde's also.

Oscar was living in a beautiful house at Chelsea, and it is a remarkable instance of how surely the first period had merged into the second when we find that the decorations of his home were beautiful indeed, but not much like those he had preached about and insisted on in his aesthetic lectures and writings.

There was an utter lack of so-called aesthetic colouring in the house where Mr and Mrs Wilde had made their home. The scheme consisted, indeed, of faded and delicate brocades, against a background of white or cream painting, and was French rather than English.

Rare engravings and etchings formed a deep frieze along two sides of the drawing-room, and stood out on a dull-gold background, while the only touches of bright colour in the apartment were lent by two splendid Japanese feathers let into the ceiling, while, above the white, carved mantelpiece, a gilt-copper bas-relief, by Donaghue, made living Oscar Wilde's fine verses, "Requiescat."

Not the least interesting work of art in this characteristic sitting-room was a quaint harmony in greys and browns, purporting to be a portrait of the master of the house as a youth; a painting which was a wedding present from Mr Harper Pennington, the American artist.

The house could boast of an exceptionally choice gallery of contemporary art. Close to a number of studies of Venice, presented by Mr Whistler himself, hung an exquisite pen-and-ink illustration by Walter Crane. An etching of Bastien Le Page's portrait of Sarah Bernhardt contained in the margin a few kindly words written in English by the great tragedienne.

Mrs Oscar Wilde herself had strong ideas upon house decoration. She once told an inquirer that "no one who has not tried them knows the value of uniform tints and a quiet scheme of colouring. One of the most effective effects in house decoration can be obtained by having, say, the sitting-room pure cream or white, with, perhaps, a dado of six or seven feet from the ground. In an apartment of this kind, ample colouring and variety will be introduced by the furniture, engravings, and carpet; in fact, but for the trouble of keeping white walls in London clean, I do not think there can be anything prettier and more practical than this mode of decoration, for it is both uncommon and easy to carry out. I am not one of those," continued Mrs Wilde, "who believe that beauty can only be achieved at considerable cost. A cottage parlour may be, and often is, more beautiful, with its unconsciously achieved harmonies and soft colouring, than a great reception-room, arranged more with a view to producing a magnificent effect. But I repeat, of late, people, in their wish to decorate their homes, have blended various periods, colourings and designs, each perhaps beautiful in itself, but producing an unfortunate effect when placed in juxtaposition. I object also to historic schemes of decoration, which nearly always make one think of the upholsterer, and not of the owner of the house."

In conjunction with her husband, Mrs Wilde had also thought out the right place of flowers in the decoration of a house. She would say: "It is impossible to have too many flowers in a room, and I think that scattering cut blossoms on a tablecloth is both a foolish and a cruel custom, for long before dinner is over the poor things begin to look painfully parched and thirsty for want of water. A few delicate flowers in plain glass vases produce a prettier effect than a great number of nosegays, and yet, even though people may see that something is wrong, many do not realise how easily a charming effect might be produced with the same materials somewhat differently disposed.

"A Japanese native room, for example, is furnished with dainty simplicity, and one flower and one pot supply the Jap's aesthetic longing for decoration. When he gets tired of his flower and his pot, he puts them away, and seeks for some other scheme of colour produced by equally simple means."

Oscar Wilde now began to take a definite place in the English social world. His wit, his brilliance of conversation, his singular charm of manner all combined to render him a welcome guest, and in many cases a valued friend, in circles where distinction of intellect and charm of personality are the only passports. He began to make money and to indulge a natural taste for profusion and splendour. Yet, let it be said here, and said with emphasis, that greatly as he desired, and acquired, the elegances of life, increasing fortune found him as kind and generous as before. It is a known fact that he gave away large sums of money to those less fortunate in the effort to make an income by artistic pursuits. His purse was always open to the struggling and the unhappy and his influence constantly exerted on their behalf.

Suddenly all London was captured by the brilliant modern comedies he began to write. Success of the completest kind had arrived, the poet's name was in everyone's mouth. Curiously enough it is the French students of Wilde's career who have paid the most attention to Wilde in this second period. The man of society, the witty talker, the maker of epigrams--Wilde at his apogee just before his fall--this is the picture on which the Latin psychologists have liked to dwell.

"In our days, the master of repartee and the after-dinner speaker
is foredoomed to forgetfulness, for he always stands alone, and to
gain applause has to talk down to and flatter lower-class
audiences. No writer of blood-curdling melodramas, no weaver of
newspaper novels is obliged to lower his talent so much as the
professional wit. If the genius of Mallarme was obscured by the
flatterers that surrounded him, how much more was Wilde's talent
overclouded by the would-be-witty, shoddy-elegant, and
cheaply-poetical society hangers-on, who covered him with incense.
We are told that the first attempts of the sparkling talker were by
no means successful in the Parisian salons.

"In the house of Victor Hugo, seeing he must wait to let the
veteran sleep out his nap whilst others among the guests slumbered
also, he made up his mind to astonish them. He succeeded, but at
what a cost! Although he was a verse writer, most sincerely devoted
to poetry and art, and one of the most emotional and sensitive and
tender-hearted amongst modern wielders of the pen, he succeeded in
gaining only a reputation for artificiality.

"We all know his studied paradoxes, his five or six continually
repeated tales, but we are tempted to forget the charming dreamer
who was full of tenderness for everything in nature."

Thus M. Charles Grolleau, and there is much in his point of view. The writer of "The Happy Prince" and "The House of Pomegranates" is a different person from the paradoxical _causeur_ who went cometlike through a few London and Paris seasons before disappearing into the darkness of space.

And it was the encouragement and applause bestowed upon Oscar Wilde during the second period that not only confirmed him in his determination to live as the complete _flaneur_, but which prevented even sympathetic critics from appreciating his work at its true worth.

The late M. Hugues Rebell, who knew him fairly intimately, said of him:

"It is true that Mallarme has not written much, but all he has done
is valuable. Some of his verses are most beautiful, whilst Wilde
seemed never to finish anything. The works of the English aesthete
are very interesting, because they characterise his epoch; his
pages are useful from a documentary point of view, but are not
extraordinary from a literary standpoint. In the 'Duchess of
Padua,' he imitates Hugo and Sardou; the 'Picture of Dorian Gray'
was inspired by Huysmans; 'Intentions' is a _vade mecum_ of
symbolism, and all the ideas contained therein are to be found in
Mallarme and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. As for Wilde's poetry, it
closely follows the lines laid down by Swinburne. His most original
composition is 'Poems in Prose.' They give a correct idea of his
home-chat, but not when he was at his best; that, no doubt, is
because the art of talking must always be inferior to any form of
literary composition. Thoughts properly set forth in print after
due correction must always be more charming than a finely sketched
idea hurriedly enunciated when conversing with a few disciples. In
ordinary table-talk we meet nothing more than ghosts of new-born
ideas foredoomed to perish. The jokes of a wit seldom survive the
speaker. When we quote the epigrams of Wilde, it is as if we were
exhibiting in a glass case a collection of beautiful butterflies,
whose wings have lost the brilliancy of their once gaudy colours.
Lively talk pleases, because of the man who utters it, and we are
impressed also by the gestures which accompany his frothy
discourse. What remains of the sprightly quips and anecdotes of
such celebrated _hommes d'esprit_ as Scholl, Becque, Barbey
d'Aurevilly! Some stories of the eighteenth century have been
transmitted to us by Chamfort, but only because he carefully
remodelled them by the aid of his clever pen."

Yet during all the time of his success, when he was receiving flattery enough, celebrity enough, money enough to turn the head of a far stronger-willed man than he was, there is abundant evidence of a frequent aspiration after better things. Serene and lofty moods came to him now and again and found utterance in his words or writings.

From the very beginning of his career he had been in the public eye. Now he had, it seemed, come into his own. The years of ridicule and misrepresentation, the years of the first period, were over and done with. A real and solid popularity seemed to be his. Yet, just as he had spoilt and obscured his aesthetic message by those eccentricities which the Anglo-Saxon mind will not permit in anyone who comes professing to teach it, so now Oscar Wilde was to spoil the triumphs of the second period by a mental intoxication that led him step by step to ultimate ruin and disgrace.

At this moment let us sum up the results at which we have arrived in the study of this complex character. We are all of us complex, but Wilde was more strangely compounded than the ordinary man in exact proportion as his intelligence was greater and his power beyond the general measure. This much and no more.

We have seen that the great fault of Wilde's career up to this period was that of an unconquerable egoism. He was complex only because such mighty gifts as those with which he was dowered were united to a temperament naturally gracious, kindly, and that of a gentleman in the best sense of the word, while both were obscured by a self-appreciation and confidence which reached not only the heights of absurdity but surely impinged upon the borders of mental failure. As he himself said over and over again after his downfall, he had nobody but himself to blame for it. Generous-hearted, free with all material things, kind to the unfortunate, gentle to the weak--Oscar Wilde was all these things. Yet, at the same time, he committed the most dreadful crimes against the social well-being; without a thought of those his influence led into terrible paths, without a thought of those nearest and dearest to him, he deliberately imposed upon them a horror and a shame with an extraordinary and almost unparalleled callousness and hardness of heart.

Bound up in the one man were the twin natures of an angel of light and an angel of dark. It is the same with all men, but never perhaps in the history of the world, certainly never in the history of literature, is there to be found a contrast so astonishing. It is not for the writer of this study to hold the balance and to say which part of his nature predominated. Opinion about him is still divided into two camps, and this book is a statement from which everyone can draw his own conclusion, and does not attempt to do more than provide the materials for doing so. Yet, the explanation of it all, if explanation there is, seems simple enough. There was an extraordinary and abnormal divorce between will-power and intelligence. Heavy indulgence grew and grew and gradually obscured the finer nature until he imagined his will was supreme and his wishes the only law. The royal intellect dominated the soul and grew by what it fed on, until it unseated the reason, and Wilde fell never to rise again, except only in his work.

At the end of the second period came the frightful exposure and scandals which sent the author into prison. It is no part of this book to touch upon these scandals or to do more than breathe the kindly hope that Wilde was unconscious of what he did, and was totally incapable of realising its enormity.

The third period, in this attempt at chronicling the various phases of his life and temperament, might be said to have begun on the day of his arrest, when his long agony and punishment were to begin. Greatly as he deserved a heavy punishment, not so much as for what he did to himself but because of the corrupting influence his life and association with others had upon a large section of society, it is yet a moot point whether he did not suffer for others and was made their scapegoat. The true history of this terrible period cannot be written and never will be written. Yet, those who know it in its entirety will say that Wilde bore the penalty for the transgressions of many other people in addition to the just punishment he received for his own.

Few nobler things can be said of any man than this. Let it be eternally placed to his credit that he made no endeavour to lighten his own punishment by implicating others. In more than one instance the betrayal of a friend would undoubtedly have lessened the cumulative burden of the indictment brought against him. He betrayed none of his friends.

THE THIRD PERIOD

This beautiful thread of brightness in the dark warp and woof of Wilde's life at this moment must not be forgotten by those who would estimate his character. It is one of the few relieving lights in the blackness with which the third period opens. And yet, there is still something that can be said for Wilde at this time which certainly provides the student with another aspect of him. It is the way in which he met his fate and was prepared to endure his punishment, although it would have been simple for him to have avoided it. To avoid the consequences of what he had done, inasmuch as the ruin of his career is concerned, was, of course, impossible. That, indeed, was to be the heaviest part of his penalty. Yet, had he so chosen, imprisonment and the frightful agony of the two years need never have been his portion. A French critic writing of him in the _Mercure de France_ takes an analytical view of this fact, which I do not think is the true one, though, nevertheless, it is interesting. He says: "Neither his own heedlessness nor the envious and hypocritical anger of his enemies, nor the snobbish cruelty of social reprobation were the true cause of his misfortunes. It was he himself who, after a time of horrible anguish, consented to his punishment, with a sort of supercilious disdain for the weakness of human will, and out of a certain regard and unhealthy curiosity for the sportfulness of fate. Here was a voluptuary seeking for torture and desiring pain after having wallowed in every sensual pleasure. Can such conduct have been due to aught else but sheer madness?"

That is all very well, but it does not bear the stamp of truth. It is an interesting point of view and nothing more. The conduct of Wilde when he at last came athwart the horror of his destiny, when he realised what all the world realised, that he must answer for his sins before the public justice of England, was not unheroic, nor without a fine and splendid dignity. At this time I would much prefer to say, and all the experiences of those around him confirm it, that Wilde knew that it was his duty to himself to endure what society was about to mete out to him. To say that he was a mere gloomy and jaded voluptuary who wished to taste the pleasures of the most horrible and sordid pain, is surely to talk something perilously like nonsense, though full of one of those minute psychological presumptions so dear to a certain type of Latin mind.

Let it be remembered that Oscar Wilde refused to betray his friends, and in the light of that fact, let us see whether his motive for remaining in England to "face the music," as his brother, William Wilde, expressed it, was not something high and worthy in the midst of this hideous wreck and bankruptcy of his fortune. A friend who was with him then, his biographer, and a man of position in English letters, said that when the subject of flight was discussed, he declared to Wilde that, in his opinion, it was the best thing he could do, not only in his own interests but in those of the public too. This self-sacrificing friend offered to take all the responsibility of the flight upon his own shoulders and to make all the arrangements for it being carried out.

It must be remembered that, at the time Wilde was out on bail, and it has since been proved, with as much certainty as anything of the sort can be proved, that he was not watched by the police, and that even between the periods of his first and second trials, if he had secretly left the country and sought a safe asylum on the Continent, everybody would have felt relieved and the public would have been spared a repetition of the horrors which had already filled the pages of the newspapers to repletion. After the collapse of the action Oscar Wilde brought against Lord Queensberry, he was allowed several hours before the warrant for his arrest was executed in order that he might leave the country. "But imitative of great men in their whims and fancies, he refused to imitate the base in acts which he deemed cowardly. I do not think he ever seriously considered the question of leaving the country, and this, in spite of the fact that the gentleman who was responsible for almost the whole of the bail, had said, 'it will practically ruin me if I lose all that money at the present moment, but if there is a chance, even after conviction, in God's name let him go.'"

Whatever Wilde's motive was for staying to "face the music," we cannot deny that it was fine. Either he felt that he must endure the punishment society was to give him because he had outraged the law of society, or else he was unwilling to ruin the disinterested and noble-minded man--a gentleman who had only the slightest acquaintance with him--who had furnished the amount of his bail.

Let these facts be written to his credit and considered when the readers of this memoir pass their judgment upon his character.

At the beginning of this third period public opinion which, but a short time ago, had simply meant a chorus of public adulation, except for a minority of people who either envied his successes or honestly reprobated his attitude towards art and life, was now terribly bitter, venomous, and full of spleen and hatred.

Society, however much society was disposed to deny the fact, had set up an idol in their midst. It was partly owing to the senseless and indiscriminate adulation of its idol that its foundations were undermined and that it fell with so resonant a crash. When it was down society assailed it with every ingenuity of reprobation and hatred that it knew how to voice and use.

Nothing was too bad to be said about the erstwhile favourite who, let it be remembered, was not yet adjudged guilty but who, if ever a man was, was denied the application of the prime principle of English criminal law, which says that every man accused is to be deemed innocent until guilt has been proved against him. People gloated over the downfall.

When Wilde was first arrested and placed in Holloway, and before he was admitted to bail, the more scurrilous portion of the press was full of sickening pictures, both in line and words, of the fallen creature's agony.

Contrasts were drawn by little pens dipped in venom, and the writer of this memoir has in his possession a curious and saddening collection of the screeds of those days, a collection which shows how innate the principle of cruelty is still in the human mind despite centuries of civilisation and the influence of the Cross, which forbids gladiators to slay each other in the arena but allows a more subtle and terrible form of savage sport than anything that Nero or Caligula ever saw or promulgated.

It is unnecessary to quote largely from the productions which disgraced the English press at this time. One single article will serve to prove the point. Let those who read it learn tolerance from this mock sympathy and cruel dwelling upon the tortures of one so recently high in public popularity and esteem, still presumably innocent by English law, and yet placed under the vulgar microscope of the morbid-minded and the lovers of sensation at any cost.

"Figuratively speaking but yesterday Oscar Wilde was the man of the
hour, and to him, and him alone, we looked for our wit, our
epigrams, and our learned and interesting plays. But what a change!
To-day, Oscar Wilde, the wit, the epicure, is gone from his world,
and is languishing in a dreary cell in Holloway Prison. In short,
Mr Wilde, in a moment of weak-headedness, walked over the side of
the mountain of fame and fell headlong from its height to the
morass below, to lie there forgotten, neglected and abused.

"Yes, although I have little or no sympathy with Oscar Wilde I
cannot but help feeling for him in his altered circumstances. He is
a man who from his very infancy has been nursed in the lap of
luxury, and has systematically lived on the fat of the land. Mr
Wilde's residence in Tite Street was elegantly and luxuriously
furnished. His rooms at the Cadogan Hotel were all that comfort
could desire. His room, or rather cell, in Holloway Prison is
altogether undesirable, is badly furnished, ill-lighted, and
uncomfortable. Picture to yourself this change--yes, a change
effected within twenty-four hours--and then you can imagine what
the mental and physical sufferings of a man of the Oscar Wilde
temperament must be. It is in this sense alone that my sympathy
goes out towards him, and I feel as a man for another man who has
been suddenly snatched from the lap of indolent, free livelihood
and suddenly pitched foremost into the icelike crevasse of a
British prison cell.

"I will now describe in as few words as I possibly can, but with
absolute accuracy and detail, the cell in which Mr Wilde spends his
time and the manner in which he lives. The cell in which Oscar is
incarcerated is not an ordinary one--that is, it is not one that is
used by any condemned or ordinary prisoner under remand. The cell
is known in prison _parlance_ as a 'special cell,' for the use of
which a fee is payable to the authorities, and is the same one as
was occupied by a certain well-known Duchess some few months back
when she was committed by the Queen's Bench Judges for contempt of
court. The prison authorities only supply the 'cell,' the prisoner
himself has to find his own furniture, which he usually hires, by
the advice of one of the warders, from a local firm who have a
suite they keep for the use of this 'special cell' in Holloway.
When Mr Wilde arrived at the prison last Saturday week afternoon
this 'cell' was vacant. He promptly gave orders for the furniture
to be brought in, and in an incredibly short space of time the cell
was furnished, and the distinguished prisoner took possession of
his apartment. I will first describe the room, and then take one
typical day in the prison routine, which will clearly show the
kind of life that Mr Wilde is compelled to live.

"Now to the cell. The room is situated at the far end of the east
wing of the prison, and is entered from the long passage which runs
from the head warder's rooms past the convict cells, and terminates
at the door which protects Oscar from the common herd, and helps to
make him secure. The door is an ordinary prison cell door,
possessing spyholes and flaptrap, and large iron bars and locks.
The cell itself is about 10 ft. broad, 12 ft. long, and 11 ft.
high. The walls are not papered but whitewashed, and the light by
which the room is supplied is obtained through an iron-barred
window in the wall placed high up and well out of the prisoner's
reach. A small fireplace is also fixed securely at the end of the
room, but it is seldom lit, as the room is well heated by hot-water
pipes. Now to the furniture in the room. Just on the right-hand
side of the window is placed a table made of hard, white wood. No
cloth covers it, but at the back is placed a looking-glass, whilst
on the table itself is a water jug and a Bible. Near the table and
almost under the window is an arm-chair, in which Oscar spends most
of his time. But more of this anon. In the corner near the
fireplace is placed a small camp bedstead, which is so small that
it seems almost an impossibility that so massive a form as that of
Oscar could recline with any ease upon so small a space. No feather
bed is upon the iron supports, and the sleeper is compelled to
repose upon hard--probably too hard--mattresses. The bed is
supplied with sheets, blankets, and a cover quilt, made up of
patches of all colours of the rainbow. This quilt is not pretty,
and most considerably upsets the artistic being of a man like
Wilde. A small table on the other side of the room, another chair,
and a small metal washing stand, go to make up all the furniture
the room possesses. No carpet is on the floor, but the boards are
kept scrupulously clean. This I think briefly comprises a
description of Mr Wilde's residential and sleeping compartment. Now
to his daily routine and the life he is compelled to lead. He is
awakened by a warder at six o'clock, and whether he likes it or
not, is compelled to get up. After washing himself in cold
water--hot is not permitted--and using ordinary common soap, Mr
Wilde dresses himself, and to do him justice, he turns himself out
very neat and span considering he has no valet to wait upon him. At
seven o'clock one of the convicted prisoners enters Mr Wilde's
cell, cleans up the room, makes the bed, and generally tidies up
the place. For this service the prisoner receives 1s. per week, and
it usually takes him quite half-an-hour per day to get through his
work. Truly a munificent remuneration, but then prison
regulations, whenever reasonable, are on the side of liberality. At
half-past seven o'clock Wilde's breakfast, usually consisting of
tea, ham and eggs, or a chop, toast and bread and butter, arrives
from a well-known restaurant in Holloway. Of course Mr Wilde pays
for the food, and, within reason, can eat and drink what he
pleases.

"At nine o'clock Mr Wilde is compelled to leave his cell, and
proceed to the exercising yard of the prison, and for one hour he
is compelled to walk at regulation pace round a kind of tower
erected in the centre of the yard. After exercise the distinguished
prisoner returns to his cell, and the daily newspapers are brought
to him, for which he also pays. Mr Wilde sits during the time he is
in his cell in the chair by the window, and then reads his papers.
He, however, has moments of very low-spiritedness, and becomes
almost despondent in the moods. The sketch in this issue represents
him seated in his favourite chair, with a paper in his hand, and,
after an interview with his solicitor, Mr Wilde is very fond, when
his active brain is working too deeply, to push back his hair from
off his forehead and then leave the hand on the head, and, as if
staring into vacancy, sit for hours in this position thinking
deeply. But, to continue, at twelve o'clock Mr Wilde's lunch
arrives from the restaurant, for which he pays. It consists of a
cut off the joint, vegetables, cheese, and biscuits and water, or
one glass of wine. After lunch he is again taken to the exercise
ground for an hour, and then sent back to his cell. Still seated in
his chair, he still reads his papers, and thinks out improbable
problems. Sometimes one of his friends comes to see him. On these
occasions he brightens up, but after the visits of his solicitor he
is visibly very low-spirited and morose. At six o'clock Mr Wilde's
dinner--for which he pays--arrives. It consists usually of soup,
fish, joint, or game, cheese, and half-a-pint of any wine he
chooses to select. The dinner finished, Mr Wilde sits again in his
chair, and the agony he endures at not being allowed even a whiff
at his favourite cigarette must to him be agony indeed. At eight
o'clock a warder enters his room and places a lamp on the table to
light the room. At nine o'clock the same warder again enters the
room and gives Oscar five minutes to undress himself and get into
bed. He complies willingly but with a sigh. When he is safely in
bed the warder removes the lamp, bolts and locks the door, and
leaves Oscar to sleep or remain awake thinking, just as he pleases.
Oscar, however, does not sleep much. He is out of bed most of the
night, and in unstockinged feet paces the room in apparently not
too good a mood. Yes, poor Oscar, I do pity you."

So much for popular kindness!

The trial, at which the accused man was admitted by everyone to have comported himself with a dignity and resignation that had nothing of that levity and occasional pose which must be allowed to have characterised his attitude during the two former ordeals, came to a close. Wilde was sentenced to prison for two years' hard labour.

During the trial, of course, no comment was permissible, though there were not wanting some papers who committed contempt of court. When, however, the sentence had been pronounced and Wilde as a man with a place in society--I am using the word society here not in its limited but its economic sense--had ceased to exist, then the thunders of the important and influential journals were let loose.