The real Oscar Wilde; to be used as a supplement to, and in illustration of "The life of Oscar Wilde"; by Robert Harborough Sherard, with numerous unpublished letters, facsimiles, portraits and illustrations

Front matter

ii

Bibliography of Oscar Wilde

By STUART MASON

Foreword

In the course of the trial of the unsuccessful libel action brought by Lord Alfred Douglas against Arthur Ransome and The Times Book Club in April, 1913, the plaintiff being in the witness-box, my name having arisen, Mr Justice Darling asked :

'' Who is Mr Sherard ? "

" Oh ! he's a journalist,'' said Lord Alfred, and pointing at me, where, as a witness subpoenaed on behalf of the defendants, I was sitting, overwhelmingly bored and disgusted, in the body of the Court, he added : '' That's him {sic). He's sitting there. I have lent him money. I have the greatest possible contempt for him. He writes books on Oscar Wilde. He is always writing books on Oscar Wilde. He does nothing else. It is, I believe, his sole source of income."

This sally amused me because already at that time I was projecting to write another book about my late friend, not indeed as a source of income, but prompted by some remarks of the Swedish professor. Doctor Ernest Bendz, • vii

Foreword

whose opinion of Oscar Wilde's place in English letters is quoted on the title-page of this work. In the same treatise from which that opinion is taken, he refers to my writings on my late friend as follows : — " Mr Sherard's books are universally known and need no further mention here. His great Life of Oscar Wilde (Werner Laurie — 1906), though it may not quite satisfy us on all points^, still remains our chief source of information concerning the external facts of the poet's life.'' The italics are mine, and all I have to say as to why, pace Alfred Douglas, I am writing a second book on Oscar Wilde ^ is that I am prompted to do so by the criticism conveyed in the words italicised.

Robert H. Sherard.

^My Life of Oscar Wilde, published in 1906 by Mr Werner Laurie, had, it is true, been preceded in 1902 by a brochure entitled : The Story of an Unhappy Friendship. But this book, which was privately printed, was in no sense of the word a biography. My subject was subjectively treated ; it was a description of Wilde " seen through a temperament," my own. The Werner Laurie book was my first book on Wilde — the present work is the second.

Vlll

Chapter I . . . . . . i

Oscar Wilde's Date of Birth — As to his Posing as Young — An Anecdote of Lord Alfred Douglas's — Le Beau Jeune Homme — His Impressions of Passy — My First Letters from Oscar Wilde — The Editor, the Baronne and the Process-Server — Oscar Wilde and Cotsford Dick — His Preference for Young Companions— His Indifference to Social Distinctions — A Supper at the Garrick Club

Chapter II . . . . . -17

Oscar Wilde and Lord Drumlanrig — Oscar Wilde's Friendship with Lord Lytton — At the Embassy Deathbed — Oscar Wilde and Outcasts — His Interest in Bibi-la-Puree — A Student of Thirty Years- Standing — De Montesquiou-Fezensac and Paul Verlaine — Petit Louis — A Brand from the Burning — The Bo'sun's Gratitude — Some of Wilde's Peculiarities— The Scarlet Shame of Red Shades

Chapter III . . . . -30

Posing as Extraordinary — Baudelaire and the Prefect of Pohce — Oscar Wilde on his Parents — The Veiled Woman — Oscar Wilde's Grandfather and Lineage — ' • The Small Chemist's Shop " — Oscar Wilde's Republicanism — A Call on Victor Hugo — The Princess and the Editor — Oscar Wilde's Defence of Swinburne — Swinburne's Attitude towards Wilde — Oscar Wilde and the Blackmailers — His Quarrel with Pierre Louys

Chapter IV ..... 45

A Reason for Parisian Hostility — Wilde's " Neronian Coiffure " — The Comments of Punch — Pierre Louys' Sonnet — The " Unrentable " Wilde — Lady Wilde at Home — As I saw Her — As Madame de Bremont saw Her — " Flowers for the Poet " — The Survival of a Worthless Book — Oscar Wilde as Critic — Madame de Bremont's Book — Oscar Wilde and his Wardrobe — Hi^ " Business Suits -- ix

PAGE

Chapter V . . . . . .63

Oscar Wilde's Mother — Her Plain-Speaking — " Astonishing the Bourgeois '-'- — Lady Wilde's Bills — The Little Rack in Oakley Street — Oscar Wilde's Generosity — " Friends Always Share '-' — How he helped me — The Warder's Five-Pound Note — Oscar and Ouida — The Pubhsher's Fiver — " Manna in the Desert -' — Ernest Dowson's Loan — The Villa Guidice — Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson

Chapter VI ..... 79

My Last Interview with Oscar Wilde — Ernest Dowson's Name my Passport — How I met Dowson — His Literary Achievements — The Comedy of Masks — A Case of Neurasthenia — Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson — Ernest Dowson's Last Days — A Rencontre in the Bodega — The Bricklayer's Cottage at Catford — Ernest Dowson's Death — ^Wilde at Naples — Pen-Pictures of Lady Wilde

Chapter VII . . . . -95

Was Oscar Wilde Effeminate ? — Madame de Bremont and his " Feminine Soul " — His Prediction about De Profundis — This Book as an Asset — The Poet's Disappearance — Sex and Character — Genius and Athleticism — Ernest Renan and the Drill Sergeant — Oscar Wilde as a Man of Courage — The Interview with Lord Queensberry — Oscar Wilde and the Apaches — The Courage to live — " If '■■*-

Chapter VIII . . . . .110

As to Wilde's Manliness and Courage — The Poet, the Painter and the Police — Oscar keeps the Door — An Escape by the Roof — Oscar Wilde and John Barlas — Barlas and his Muse at Charles Street — Oscar Wilde and the Cab-Drivers — Barlas on Wilde — Fatality for Wilde's Friends — Genius and Courage— Wilde's alleged Affectations — Wilde as a Talker

Chapter IX . . . . .129

Oscar Wilde's Absolute Discreetness — The Charge of Effeminacy — Oscar Wilde and Alcohol — Alfred Douglas's Indictment — My own Experience — " BaUooning '' — '- Vine-Leaves in the Hair '-' — Oscar Wilde a Freemason — A Prison Rencontre — The " Sign of the Widow's Son "—Wilde's Reluctance to respond — The Reason for it — The Two Governors of Reading Gaol — Two Documents — Wilde's Absolute Secrecy — The Murderer and the Judge

X

PAOB

Oscar Wilde's Improvidence — Bishop Berkeley's Medal — Hepreserves itall his Life — Wilde's Absolute Discreetness — Did Wilde bear another's Burden ? — A Prison Admission — A Friend's Refusal to believe It — " EUe et Lui " — Oscar's One Amourette — Fatality again — The Pother about De Profundis — Socrates and Xantippe — Oscar Wilde as a Boy

Chapter XI ..... 166

An Unfortunate Characteristic — WiUie Wilde's Insouciance — The Family Honour — Oscar's Gratitude— Harboured Grievances — The Mummer and his Gloves — Brookfield as Private Detective — Oscar Wilde at School — An Unboyish Boy — Oscar Wilde and Verlaine — And the Acrobat — His Reserve and his Ostentation — Irish Reluctance to speak about Oscar Wilde

Chapter XII . . . . .182

Oscar Wilde at Oxford — An Effective Antithesis — Had Oxford Anything to give him ? — A Portrait of Wilde — What it reveals — Why he attracted little Attention — Oscar Wilde as a Bibliophile — Oscar Wilde and a Rare Book — He approves of an Extraordinary Publication — The Bibliophily in Dorian Gray — An Etymological Error — Wilde, the Police and the Warders — Instinctive Anarchy — The crassa Minerva of the Plehs — A Ragging at Magdalen — Wilde's Affection for Oxford — Wilde's Gallant Sons

Chapter XIII . . . . -197

My First Meeting with Oscar Wilde — Oscar Wilde and Burne-Jones — The Wooing of Paris — Her Indifference— A Prejudice and its Cause — Oscar of the Second Period — Aristophanes revealing Aristotle — The Statute of Limitations — A Murderer's Decoration— Metempsychosis — Oscar Wilde and John Sargent — Wilde seen for the First Time — Effect produced — The Survival of Personahty — " Oscar is Sixty To-day "- — Doctor Fairbairn on Wilde — Emile Zola's Moral Indignation

Chapter XIV ..... 212

The Universities and Oscar Wilde — A Notable Exception — Dr Warren and Oscar Wilde — Wilde after Death — A Conversation d' Outre Tombe — Wilde's Spirit discusses the Hereafter — An Unpublished Wilde Poem — A Blake-like Intuition — Oscar Wilde at Work — Living en Prince — Oscar Wilde and Elagabalus — Mr Stuart Hay's Book, The

xi

PAGE

Chapter XIV — continued

A mazing Emperor — Comparisons that suggest themselves— Romantic Friendships — How misunderstood— Wilde's Memorable Defence of Same

Chapter XV ..... 229

Wilde as a Trencherman — A Gourmet, not a Gourmand— His Care of his Figure — A Note written in Prison — Cooking an Art — The Lady of the Red Roses — Red and Yellow Wine — The Duchess of Padua — Wilde's Agreement with Mary Anderson — " Dining with the Duchess " — Mary Anderson's Decision — Wilde's Sang-froid — Consequences to Oscar Wilde — The Duchess no longer entertains — " Quite a Nice Little Place " — Wilde's Faith in the Duchess — Opus Secundum — Its Fate on the Stage — Was the Duchess a Hoodoo ?

Chapter XVI . . . . . 243

Oscar Wilde and Theodore Child — Oscar Wilde and the Painters — Whistler's Attack — Wilde's Riposte — Oscar Wilde as a Draughtsman — Ambition to become a Painter — Success as a Caricaturist — His Assumption of Qualities — No Maestria without Apprenticeship — His Cult for Balzac — Our Noctambulous Conversations — A Definition of the Classics — " Ossie " and Isola — Oscar Wilde and the Macabre — A Soirde with Maurice Rollinat — Wilde's Worship of Shelley and Keats — His Advice to study Chatterton — ^Wilde's Kindness to Literary Aspirants — A Letter from Wilde

Chapter XVII ..... 257

Oscar Wilde no Reader — His Way with Newspapers— His Knowledge of the News — Mrs Langtry 's Jewels — His Daily Paper in Gaol — A Surprise Visit from the Governor — A Terrible Suspense — The Warder and the Weeklies — Wilde on Meredith — Meredith on Wilde — Swinburne and Wilde — Swinburne and Myself — The Way of the World — A " Well-pretending Friendship " — Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt — The Offer of Salome — A Warning disregarded— What Sarah lost — The Writing of The Sphinx

Chapter XVIII . . . . -277

The Oscar Wilde of 1883 — His great Lehensglaede — His Great Kindness — Oscar Wilde as a Business Reference — A Meeting at Clapham Junction — Twelve Years later — The British Lascivia di Sangue — TravelUng Third Class — Charles Street, Grosvenor Square — Oscar's Landlord and Landlady — Dining xii

Chapter XVIII — continued page

with Whistler — Days of Impecuniosity — A Visit to the Police Court — Lecture at the Prince's Hall — Vezin as a Coach — Oscar's Letter to Vezin — Vezin's Regard for Oscar Wilde — Anecdotes about Oscar — Why of Doubtful Authenticity — The Vanity Fair Caricature — The Name of Mr Hopper — Reading Lady Windermere' s Fan

Chapter XIX ..... 296

Lecturing in the Provinces — Wilde's Friendship with Edmund Yates — How it ended — A Conspiracy of Silence — The Anecdote about Lewis Morris — Esprit d'escalier — Ellen Terry on Whistler and Wilde — Her Great Loyalty to Wilde's Memory — Oscar Wilde's Study of German — Austin Harrison on Wilde's German Popularity — An Unjustified Statement — Contrary Evidence — Dr Max Meyerfeld and Oscar Wilde — The Book by an Unknown Author — An Unfortunate Dinner-table Remark — What it led to — Subsequent Booms in Germany — Dr Bendz on the Wilde " Boom " — Dr Strauss and Salomd Chapter XX ..... 313

Oscar Wilde as a Patriot — Ave Imperatrix — Were Wilde alive To-day — Wilde and the Kultur-Gentry — 'Wilde as a Pioupiou — " Well, and why not ? " — Oscar Wilde's Marriage — His Cynicism about Married Life — " Act dishonourably '- — Willie Wilde's Disastrous Marriage — The Baronne de Bazus — Her Tardy Remorse — A Deathbed Promise — The Victim of a Wealthy Marriage — Willie Wilde portrayed — Constance Wilde — My Last Meeting with her

Chapter XXI ..... 327

A Newspaper Sensation — Doubts about Wilde's Death — Mr Cravan Lloyd — The New York Times and the Canard — Ross's Account of the Death — A Supreme Act of Devotion — Jacob Epstein's Monument— Would Wilde have approved of it ? — Oscar Wilde and the Sculptors — Donoghue of Chicago — A Dutch Sculptor — Oscar Wilde and Beardsley — The Real Discoverer of Beardsley — A Beardsley Portrait of Wilde—" The Man in the Moon "—The Friendship between Smithers and Oscar Wilde

Chapter XXII ..... 346

Necessary Correction — My Acquaintance with Robert Ross — Lord Alfred Douglas's Testimony — Oscar Wilde a^ Jourij^list — Fits of Depression — His

xiii

Chapter XXII — continued page

Threats of Suicide — Two Letters to Smithers — Wilde Autographs — A Neglected Bargain — "Wilde Items " — A Stolen Letter — The Word " Love " — Voyagez et oubliez — The Attitude in Paris — An Article in Le Gaulois — Is he really important ? — " Oscariana " and their Price — An Emperor of the Decadence

Chapter XXIII . . . . .363

Playwriting — " Too easy " — Despises yet desires Popularity — Wilde on Trollope and Besant — The Information against Lord Queensberry — Public Opinion — Paris Unsympathetic — ''Qa ne se fait pas" — Alphonse Daudet and British Justice — British Justice and Daudet's Sapho — My Visit to Oakley Street — Wilde's Repugnance for Flight — Wilde's Physical Collapse — His Moral Strength — Mr Justice Wills and Sir Frank Lockwood — The Last Scene

Chapter XXIV . . . . .381

Oscar Wilde in Prison — The Alleviations that he found — ' ' Prison calms ' '—The Effect on his Health — My First Visit to Wandsworth — On Oakum-picking — ^The Magistrate's Two Ounces — A Universal Outcry— Action of the Home Ofhce — Oscar Wilde under Observation — What the Doctors saw — One Good Result of Wilde's Sufferings — The Article in La Revue Blanche — On the Exhaustion of the Brain — The Similar Case of Willie Wilde — Wilde revisited — A Necessary Correction

Chapter XXV . . . . .400

Wilde untainted by Prison — A Curious Psychological Fact — Our First Meeting at Dieppe — The Life at Berneval — His Letter to Ross — Wilde and the Detective — Wilde's Literary Market- value — His Financial Position — The Cacoethes tacendi — Pathetic Efforts at Self-discipline — His Attempts to Work — Monsieur Dupoirier's Testimony — The De Profundts Resolutions — A Pity the Book was not published — Warring Counter-influences

Chapter XXVI . . . . .414

The Clemency of Paris — Anglo-Saxon Intolerance — Rencontres with Wilde — My Last Meeting with Him — An Atmosphere of Respect at his Hotel — Refused Admission, but recalled — A FUppant Conversation— The " Pernodian " Spring— His Brain as active as ever — His Very Last Word — The Grin of Voltaire — The Verdict of Paris — A Prophecy realised

xiv

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Caricature of Oscar Wilde, by " Ape,'' in Vanity Fair . . . .

Portrait of Sir William Wilde as a Young Man \

Portrait of Sir William Wilde

Oscar Wilde's Birthplace 1

House in Merrion Square J

"Speranza," Lady Wilde

Facsimile of Poem by Pierre Louys

Oscar Wilde's Eccentricities .

** Ouida," Facsimile of Letter from

Balance-sheet, Ernest Dowson's

Oscar Wilde, Portrait of

Facsimile of Page from Oscar Wilde's Aristophanes

Oscar Wilde in a Christmas Card

Oscar Wilde's Last Bill

Oscar Wilde as a Freemason .

Oscar Wilde's Certificate of Freemasonry

Facsimile of Letter from Robert Ross .

Isaacson's Reply to Same

Frontispiece To face page 4

» » 32

• 42, 43 47'

• 70, 71 76

To face page 96 126 130

To face page 136

138 141

De Profundis^ Facsimiles of Original Manuscript of 158, 159

To face page 162

To face page 171

173 To face page 174

Oscar Wilde as a Child

Facsimile of Article in The Daily Chronicle

Paul Verlaine, Portrait of

Facsimile of Letter from Constance Wilde

Constance Wilde, Portrait of .

Portora Royal School

Oscar Wilde as a Lad

XV

List of Illustrations

Magdalen College, Oxford . . To face page \^2

Oscar Wilde as an Undergraduate \

Oscar Wilde in a Group at Oxford J ' " " ^

Oscar Wilde as an Esthete . . . .201

Duchess of Padua^Yd.Q.^\m\\.Q oiY\x%t\^t.2S. oi . . 235

Duchess of Padua^ Facsimile of Title-Page of . . 240

Two Resting Places — Reading Gaol and Bed To face page 258

Facsimile of Inscription on Ballad of Reading Gaol . 266

The Sphmx, Reduced Facsimile of MS. of . . 273

The Sphinx, Reduced Facsimile of MS. of . . 2 74

Facsimile of Letter to Hermann Vezin . . 289

Oscar Wilde as a French Pioupiou . . .317

Oscar Wilde after Death . . To face page 330

Death Certificate of Mrs Oscar Wilde . . -331

Aubrey Beardsley's First Drawing for Salome To face page 339

Oscar Wilde at Work (A. B.) . . . . 340

The Harlofs House, Althea Gyles, Illustration to . . . . To face page 342

Facsimile of Letter to Smithers . . . 344

Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm's Caricature of To face page 348 Facsimile of Letter from Walter Pater . -387

Facsimiles of Title-pages of The Ballad of

Reading Gaol . . . . -393

Madame Dupoirier \ ^ y ^ o

. . V • • • To face page 418

Monsieur Dupoirier J

XVI

THE

REAL OSCAR WILDE

Chapter I

Oscar Wilde's Date of Birth — As to his Posing as Young — An Anecdote of Lord Alfred Douglas's — Le Beau Jeune Homme — His Impressions of Passy — My First Letters ^from Oscar Wilde — The Editor, the Baronne and the Process-Server — Oscar Wilde and Cotsford Dick — His Preference for Young Companions — His Indifference to Social Distinctions — A Supper at the Garrick Club.

When, on 3rd April 1895, at the trial of John Sholto Douglas, eighth Marquess of Queensberry, who was being prosecuted at the Old Bailey for an alleged criminal libel upon Mr Oscar Wilde, the prosecutor's examination-in-chief had been concluded by a most emphatic denial of the truth of any one of the many allegations which had been made by the defence in justification of the libel, Mr Edward Carson (as he then was), who was leading counsel for Lord Queensberry, rose to cross-examine, his first question bore on the date of Oscar Wilde's birth. He spoke as follows : —

" You stated that your age was thirty-nine.

:•;: The Rf^Jar Oscar Wilde

I think that you are over forty. You were born on i6th October 1854 ? ''

'' I had no wish to pose as being young/' answered the prosecutor. " I am thirty-nine or forty. You have my certificate and that settles the matter.'' To this he added an ironical " Ah, very well " when Mr Carson pointed out that anyone born on i6th October 1854 would be more than forty on 3rd April 1895. The motive of the defending counsel, no doubt, was to cast, ah initio, a doubt on the prosecutor's truthfulness. At the same time it was well for the purposes of the defence that it should be possible to speak of him as '' a man of over forty," when the question of the disparity in the ages of himself and his friends — ^all very young men — was to be used as a weapon against him.

Oscar Wilde told Mr Carson that he had no wish to pose as being young. In that unworthy book of his entitled Oscar Wilde and Myself, Lord Alfred Douglas declares that his former friend was always most keenly solicitous lest his appearance should betray the loss of youth. He describes how careful he was about his toilet, how sedulously he used to brush his hair many times a day, and gives an amusing anecdote about Oscar Wilde's indignation when he overheard an Algerian hotel porter speaking of him to Lord Douglas as *' votre papa/' Douglas says that whenever, afterwards, he wished to quiz Wilde he used to say '* votre papa."

Now I first met Oscar Wilde in the early part of 1883, when he had just passed his twentyeighth birthday, and was frequently in his company during the seventeen years which elapsed, some trite and banal, a few splendid and opulent, and the rest squalid and unhappy, between our first rencontre and his mournful death on 30th November 1900, and during the whole of that time I never once heard him say anything to make people believe him younger than he was, nor saw him ever posture as the beau jeune homme, as he was once described to me. It was shortly after we had first met and he had called to see me at the secluded house, deep down in a garden in the rue de la Tour in Passy, where I was living. I was out at the time of his call, and when I returned I was told that a beau jeune homme had been to see me. I hardly realised that it was my new friend, for Oscar Wilde had a repose and dignity which one does not usually associate with youth. However, next morning I received a delightful letter from him chiding me for my absence. I re-

*3 member that I sent him a pneumatic telegram, in which, as sole reply to his upbraidings, I wrote the French saying : Les absents ont toujours tort. He tried in his paradoxical way to establish that people who live in remote suburbs and who have friends in the metropolis who are likely to come to see them have no right whatever at any time to absent themselves from their homes. With reference to his expedition itself he said that Passy might best be described as a place, driving to which the cabman would get down every five minutes to ask for something on account of his pourboire. The letter, which was one of the first I received from him, and which I remember was addressed to the " Citoyen Sherard,'' was many years ago, with other papers of mine, stolen from my house in Paris, at a time when being frequently seen in attendance at General Boulanger's house, or in the company of his friends and adherents, such as Henri Rochefort, Chincholle and members of the Royalist party, I had come under the suspicion of the French political police. There were other letters from Wilde in the bundle of papers which some zealous mouchard, no doubt, abstracted. I never ceased to regret their loss, for they were so characteristic of the man as he was in those days of his new incarnation, when, aestheticism jettisoned, he was sailing with a fair wind to a land of promise. Perhaps I regretted them most at the time when I came to write what Dr Bendz calls my "great Life of Oscar Wilde,'' because as documents they would have been most illuminative of the man's psychology at the period referred to. And then, by the irony of things, after the book had been published, I heard of my missing letters — ^just about twenty years after they had vanished. I was on the Riviera at the time, and one day received from the editor of an important review published in Berlin a letter asking me if I had authorised a certain Baronne X., residing in Paris, to traffic with several letters written to me in 1883 by Oscar Wilde. The editor said that in view of the colossal interest that was being taken at that time in Germany in Oscar Wilde, and in everything he had ever written, he would have only been too pleased to purchase this correspondence, even at the exorbitant price asked for the letters by the Baronne, but that he thought it his duty to ask me what I knew about the matter before concluding the bargain. A few days later I further received a letter from her ladyship herself. She informed me that she had found these letters at one of the bookshops on the Quai Voltaire.

• 5

She had purchased them and was anxious — merely for the sake of Oscar Wilde's greater glory — as a specimen of his heau style epistolaire, to give them to the world par Ventremise of a leading German periodical. My authorisation, however, was necessary to enable her to accomplish this act of filial, literary piety. As I had been forewarned as to her real motives, I vouchsafed no other answer to this letter than an exploit, or notice, from a huissier at Cannes, warning her that the letters were stolen property and that any use of them would bring down upon her all the terrors of the penal code. I remember that the name of the huissier or process-server was a sonorous one : Maitre Tixador. He charged me a louis for the exploit and promised me to draw it up in a proper fashion, quelque chose de soignee, he said. It must have been particularly soignee, for from that day to this I have never heard of the Baronne again, nor have these letters ever been published. Possibly her ladyship concluded a deal with some merchant in autographs, and if so — ^as the value of Wilde autographs goes nowadays— must have realised at least five times the sum which the Berlin editor looked upon as an exorbitant amount.

If I never once heard le heau jeune homme — as the writer of these letters was described by my porter at Passy — vaunt youthfulness for himself, in common with all who knew him I was aware of his admiration of youth. His writings abound in allusions to his preference for young people to those whom in one of his plays he spoke of as '' of the usual age/' The homme d'un certain age, as the middle-aged man is described in France, was, perhaps unfairly, censured by Wilde as necessarily tedious. I remember pointing out to him that one man d'un certain age, and indeed beyond it, who used to speak of himself as ''us youth,'' the immortal Falstaff, to wit, was anything but a very tedious personality. And all that Wilde could find to answer was : '' Oh yes, Falstaff — Falstaff. But then he was a genius. And besides, he was a villain, and those whom the gods hate die old."

His preference for young people would exact no such lengthy exposition as has been given to it here, if it had not been cast up against him for offence and suspicion both before his trials and in their course. There is no doubt that the fact that he was rarely seen about town in other society but that of very young men was malevolently commented upon both in London and in Paris, and contributed to the volume of prejudice by which in 1895, far more than by anything which was satisfactorily proved against him, he was overwhelmed. In which connection I remember entering the Cafe Royal one evening with a somewhat priggish person, who, like many Englishmen of his class, was only too ready to condemn.

" Oh," I said, " there's Oscar Wilde over there. Come over to his table and I will introduce you to him."

'' Oh no, thank you," he said. '* I shouldn't mind so much if he were alone. But he has got a youth with him, and if there's anything in the world that bores me, it is the conversation of your cocksure young man. Give me maturity, I say, at all times."

" A youth, that ! " I cried. " Why, that's Cotsford Dick."

At that time Cotsford Dick, wit and poet, was considerably over forty years old. He certainly, under artificial light and at a distance, could be taken for twenty years younger.

His fondness for young people was over and over again cast up against him during his three trials with tedious insistence. Such a question as '' Did you know So-and-So ? " would, on an affirmative reply having been given, immediately be followed by " How old was he ? "

On one occasion, on 4th April, during the Queensberry trial, Mr Carson asks him as to various of his acquaintances : " Were all these young men about twenty ? '' and he answers quite frankly : '' Yes, twenty or twenty-one/' And he adds : " I like the society of young men." A little later on, referring to a particular person, Mr Carson asks again : ** How old was he ? " and Wilde, who was getting rather hipped at this line of cross-examination, retorts : *' Really I do not keep a census/' Carson says : " Never mind about a census. Tell me how old he was." The answer is : "I should say he was about twenty. He was young and that was one of his attractions." A few minutes later Wilde formulated his creed in the following words : — '' I delight in the society of people much younger than myself. I like those who may be called idle and careless. I recognise no social distinctions at all of any kind ; and to me youth, the mere fact of youth, is so wonderful that I would sooner talk to a young man for half-an-hour than be even — well, cross-examined in Court."

At the last trial, in answer to a question from Sir Frank Lockwood (previously one of his friends), he told '' Mr Solicitor " that he preferred the companionship of young people