Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2)

nd blizzard. Summer comes like a goddess; in a twinkling the snow vanishes and Nature puts on her robes of tenderest green; the birds arrive in flocks; flowers spri

ory which shows Oscar Wilde's influence over men who were anything but literary in their tastes. Mr. Beckett had a party of Yorkshire squires, chiefly fox-hunters and lovers of an outdoor life, at Kirkstall Grange when he heard that Oscar Wilde was in the neighbouring town of Leeds. Immediately he asked him to lunch at the Grange, chuckling to himself beforeha

ll the papers were put down and everyone h

the party broke up in the small hours they all went away delighted with Oscar, vowing that no man ever talked more brilliantly. Grimthorpe cannot remembe

amous talkers of the past, Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle and the others, were all lecturers: talk to them was a discourse on a favourite theme, and in ordinary life they were generally regarded as bores. But at his best Oscar Wilde never dropp

ng, and in constant demand, he still read omnivorously,

Boswell's "Life of Johnson" being the other two. It was strange, he thought, that the greatest man had written the worst biography; Plato made of Socrates a mere phonograph, into which he talked his own theories: Renan did better work, and Boswel

onsummate painters than Boswell, though they, too, left a great deal too much to the imagination. L

st for Oscar; he was always weaving li

had always had the strongest attraction for me, and so

tumbled over the miracles and came to grief. Claus Sluter's head of Jesus in the museum of Dijon is a finer portrait, and so is the imaginative picture of Fra Ange

to enjoy the jarring antinomy which resulted. One or two of his stories were surprising in ironical suggesti

t thy grief must be, for certainly that Man was a just Man.' But the young man made answer, 'Oh, it is not for that I am weeping. I am weeping because I too have wrought miracles. I also have given si

e-story of genius for all time, eternally true. He never looked outside himself, and as the fruits of success were now sweet in his mouth, a pursuing Fate seemed to him the most mythical of myths. His child-like self-confidence was pathetic. The laws that govern human affairs had little interest for the man who was

ry of the Man of Sorrows who had sounded all the depths of suffering. Just when he himself was about to enter the Dark Valley, Jesus w

best

wore earth

inclined to show it. Habitually he lived in humorous talk, in the epithets

ce that he was about to try a new ex

rd "lose" at the

en lose our characters; but we must never lose our temper. That is ou

I asked, smiling, "or in an articl

been bothering me to write a play for some time and I've got an idea I rather like. I wonder can I do it in a week, or will it take three? It ought not to ta

vancing him ￡100 before the scenario was even outlined. A couple of months later he told me that Alexande

s how I get all the names of my personages, Frank. I take up a map of the English counties, and there they are. Our English villages have often

first act was as old as the hills, but the treatment gave charm to it if not freshness. The delightful, unexpected humour set off the com

found the critics in much the same mind. There was an

unreal." Seeing that I did

you thi

u critics to an

's own peculiar way, 'Little promise

r's way," I retorted. "It is the l

ed Knight, "you cannot

ble of judging original work. They seem to live in a sort of fog, waiting for someone to

t at any of the rehearsals; but so far it is surely the

ck and stared at me; t

w. "'Lady Windermere's Fan' better than any comedy o

y, too, it is on a higher intellectual level. I can only compare it to the best of Congreve, and I think it's better." With

ournalist, and their judgment was that it was a most brilliant and interesting play. Though the humour was often

. The house rose at him and cheered and cheered again. He was smiling, with

like my play.[10] I feel sure you estimate the

Some clever Jewesses and, strange to say, one Scotchman were the loudest in applause. Mr. Archer, the well-known critic of The World, was the first and only journalist to perceive that the play was a classic by vi

ruth and The Times, for example, were poisonously puritanic, but thinking people came over to his side in a body. The halo of fame was about him, and the incense of it in his nostrils made him more charming, more irresponsibly gay, more