It is too early to judge Wilde’s work entirely apart from his life: to do so will always be difficult: we could do so the sooner if we had a Dr. Johnson among us to speak with authority and say, “Let not his misfortunes be remembered, he was a very great man.”
XIII
A WORD IN MEMORY
TO have been born and lived all his life in Philadelphia, yet to be best known in London and New York; to have been the eldest son of a rich man and the eldest grandson of one of the richest men in America, yet of so quiet and retiring a disposition as to excite remark; to have been but a few years out of college, yet to have achieved distinction in a field which is commonly supposed to be the browsing-place of age; to have been relatively unknown in his life and to be immortal in his death—such are the brief outlines of the career of Harry Elkins Widener.
It is a curious commentary upon human nature that the death of one person well known to us affects us more than the deaths of hundreds or thousands not known to us at all. It is for this reason, perhaps, at a time when the papers bring us daily their record of human suffering and misery from the war in Europe, that I can forget the news of yesterday and live over again the anxious hours which followed the brief announcement that the Titanic, on her maiden voyage, the largest, finest, and fastest ship afloat, had struck an iceberg in mid-ocean, and that there were grave fears for the safety of her passengers and crew. There the first news ceased.
The accident had occurred at midnight; the sea was perfectly calm, the stars shone clearly; it was bitter cold. The ship was going at full speed. A slight jar was felt, but the extent of the injury was not realized and few passengers were alarmed. When the order to lower the boats was given there was little confusion. The order went round, “Women and children first.” Harry and his father were lost, his mother and her maid were rescued.