OSCAR WILDE
“To the memory of one who by some strange madness, beyond understanding, made shipwreck of his own life and of the life of others; one of whom the world speaks in whispers, but of whom I say openly that I never heard an objectionable word from his lips and saw in him at no time anything more vicious than vanity; to the memory of
Oscar Wilde,
actor (in a great life tragedy as in everything else), artist (in more crafts than one, including flattery), poet, critic, convict, genius, and, as I knew him, gentleman: I dedicate these pages in memory of many kindnesses.”
In these words I wished, soon after Wilde’s death, to dedicate a book, but the publisher of the book in question was obdurate. He would not, he said, have Wilde’s name on the dedication page of any work issued by him, and went so far as to urge me not to fulfil the intention I had even then formed of one day writing a chapter on Oscar Wilde as I knew him. Yet in Oscar Wilde as I knew him, as stated in the above dedication, except for his vanity there was no offence.
The preface, since my relations with the publisher of whom I speak were pleasant and friendly, I withdrew. If I have let sixteen years elapse before writing the chapter, it was for no other reason than that I felt the thing could wait—would perhaps be the better for waiting—and that the pressure of other work kept me employed.
But one day a man, who to my knowledge has eaten Wilde’s salt and received many kindnesses from him in the season of Wilde’s prosperity, called to see me concerning some literary project. On my shelves are books given and inscribed to me by Wilde and signed “from his sincere friend,” and on my mantelshelf stands a portrait similarly inscribed and signed. Seeing this portrait, my caller observed:
“If I were you I should put that thing out of sight, and, if you happen at any time to hear his name mentioned, I should keep the fact that he had been a friend of yours to yourself.”
That decided me to write my long delayed chapter. I begin by a protest. In his very interesting Notes from a Painter’s Life, my friend Mr. C. E. Hallé speaks of Wilde’s “repulsive appearance.” At the time of Wilde’s conviction some of the sketches of him, presumably made in court and published in certain prints, did so portray him, possibly because, as he was just then being held up to public execration, so to picture him fitted in with the popular conception. Mr. Hallé wrote “after the event” of Wilde’s downfall, when it is easy not only to be wise, but also to see in the outer man some signs of the evil within. But from the statement that Wilde’s appearance was “repulsive” I entirely dissent. It is true there was a flabby fleshiness of face and neck, a bulkiness of body, an animality about the large and pursy lips—which did not close naturally, but in a hard, indrawn and archless line—that suggested self-indulgence, but did not to me suggest vice. Otherwise, except for this fleshiness and for the animality of the mouth, I saw no evil in Wilde’s face. The forehead, what was visible of it—for he disposed brown locks of his thick and carefully parted hair over either temple—was high and finely formed. The nose was well shaped, the nostrils close and narrow—not open and “breathing” as generally seen in highly sensitive men. The eyes were peculiar, the almond-shaped lids being minutely out of alignment. I mean by this that the lids were so cut and the eyes so set in the head that the outer corners of the lids drooped downwards very slightly and towards the ears, as seen sometimes in Orientals. Liquid, soft, large and smiling, Wilde’s eyes, if they seemed to see all things—life, death, other mortals and most of all himself—half banteringly, met one’s own eyes frankly. His smile seemed to me to come from his eyes, not from his lips, which he tightened rather than relaxed in laughter. His general expression—always excepting the mouth, which, its animality notwithstanding, had none of the cruelty which goes so often with sensuality—was kindly.
The best portrait I have seen of Wilde is one in my possession which has never been published. It was taken when he was the guest of the late Lady Palmer (then Mrs. Walter Palmer), with whom I had at the time some acquaintance. She was a close friend of Wilde (who christened her “Moonbeam”) and of George Meredith (whom she sometimes half-seriously, half-playfully spoke of as “The Master”). In the portrait, Lady Palmer is seated with Meredith, Mrs. Jopling Rowe being seated on her right and Mr. H. B. Irving on her left. Behind Meredith’s chair stands Wilde with Miss Meredith (afterwards Mrs. Julian Sturgis), Sir J. Forbes-Robertson, and I think Mr. David Bisham on his right. The portrait of Wilde, if grave, is frank, untroubled, and attractive, for, when he chose to be serious, the large lines of his face and features sobered into a repose and into a massiveness which were not without dignity. Too often, however, Dignity suddenly let fall her cloak, and Vanity, naked and unashamed, was revealed in her place.
Yet there is this to be said of Wilde’s vanity, that its very nakedness was its best excuse. A loin-cloth, a fig-leaf would have offended, but it was so artlessly naked that one merely smiled and passed on. Moreover, it was never a jealous or a malicious vanity. It was so occupied in admiring itself in the mirror that the smile on its face was never distorted into a scowl at sight of another’s success. Wilde’s vanity, I repeat, was as entirely free from venom as was his wit. No one’s comments on society, on the men and women he met, the authors he read, were more incisive or more caustic, but I remember none in which the thought was slanderous or the intention spiteful.
A propos of Wilde’s vanity, here is a story told me long ago by Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer, who then held a post of some sort in connection with the Masters in Lunacy. Visiting the Zoological Gardens one day—in his private capacity, I assume, not in connection with the Lunacy Commission—he entered the Monkey House. Within the big cement wire enclosure a certain liveliness—the war phrase seems to have come to stay—was evident. What it was all about Colonel Spencer did not know, but with one exception the occupants were very excited, leaping wildly from end to end of the cage, and from top to bottom, jabbering, groaning, snarling, emitting shrill shrieks of terror or hoarse howls of rage.