FOOTNOTES
[1] [Transcriber's Note: Printer error. In the 1930 U.S. edition the word "in" is deleted.]
[2] As he has died since this was written, there is no longer any reason for concealing his name: R.Y. Tyrrell, for many years before his death Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin.
[3] Oscar was always fond of loosely quoting or paraphrasing in conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers. He said them exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as the original. This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of originality. In especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence upon him, almost as great indeed as Pater.
[4] "Stain," not "pain," in the original.
[5] His own words in "De Profundis."
[6] In her "Recollections" Miss Terry says that she was more impressed by the genius of Oscar Wilde and of Whistler than by that of any other men.
[7] By way of heaping coals of fire on the students' heads Oscar presented a cast of the Hermes (then recently unearthed) to the University of Harvard.
[8] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."
[9] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."
[10] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."
[11] "The Promise of May" was produced in November, 1882.
[12] I am very glad that Bernard Shaw has lately put in print his memory of this conversation. The above account was printed, though not published, in 1911, and in 1914 Shaw published his recollection of what took place at this consultation. Readers may judge from the comparison how far my general story is worthy of credence. In the Introduction to his playlet, "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets," Shaw writes:
"Yet he (Harris) knows the taste and the value of humour. He was one of the few men of letters who really appreciated Oscar Wilde, though he did not rally fiercely to Wilde's side until the world deserted Oscar in his ruin. I myself was present at a curious meeting between the two when Harris on the eve of the Queensberry trial prophesied to Wilde with miraculous precision exactly what immediately afterwards happened to him and warned him to leave the country. It was the first time within my knowledge that such a forecast proved true. Wilde, though under no illusion as to the folly of the quite unselfish suit-at-law he had been persuaded to begin, nevertheless so miscalculated the force of the social vengeance he was unloosing on himself that he fancied it could be stayed by putting up the editor of The Saturday Review (as Mr. Harris then was) to declare that he considered Dorian Gray a highly moral book, which it certainly is. When Harris foretold him the truth, Wilde denounced him as a faint-hearted friend who was failing him in his hour of need and left the room in anger. Harris's idiosyncratic power of pity saved him from feeling or showing the smallest resentment; and events presently proved to Wilde how insanely he had been advised in taking the action, and how accurately Harris had gauged the situation."
[13] The words which Mr. Carson could not read were: "I would sooner be rented than, etc." Rent is a slang term for blackmail.
[14] A famous Italian restaurant in Soho: it had several "private rooms."
[15] This early poem of Lord Alfred Douglas is reproduced in the Appendix at the end of this book together with another poem by the same author, which was also mentioned in the course of the trial.
[16] Mr. Carson here made a mistake; there is no such incident in the story: the error merely shows how prejudiced his mind was.