Louise Chandler Moulton sings of
This brief delusion that we call our life,
Where all we can accomplish is to die,
and of the many figures in the literary, artistic, and social world of the day whom I met in Wilde’s company, some have achieved death, some, knighthood (Mr. Stephen Phillips once said in my hearing, he was not sure which was the better—or the worse), and some, distinction. Of the remainder, the worst that could be said against them is that they have since come a crash financially, as Wilde himself did. It was only in money matters that I ever had cause to think Wilde immoral.
In setting down these recollections and impressions I do not write as one of his intimates. We were friends, we corresponded, I dined with him and Mrs. Wilde at 16 Tite Street, and he with me, and we forgathered now and then at clubs, theatrical first nights, and literary at homes; but the occasions on which we met were not very many, all told; nor did I desire more closely to cultivate him, and for two reasons. One was that the expensive rate at which he lived made him impossible as other than a very occasional companion, and the other was that “straightness” in money matters is to me one of the first essentials in the man of whom one makes a friend. On this point Wilde and I did not see alike. He laughed at me when I said that, while counting it no dishonour to be poor, I did count it something of a dishonour deliberately and self-indulgently to incur liabilities one might not be able to meet. In his vocabulary there were few more contemptuous words than that of “tradesman,” as the following incident, which I may perhaps be pardoned for interpolating, will show.
When The Picture of Dorian Grey was in the press, Wilde came in to see me one morning.
“My nerves are all to pieces,” he said, “and I’m going to Paris for a change. Here are the proofs of my novel. I have read them very carefully, and I think all is correct with one exception. Like most Irishmen, I sometimes write ‘I will be there,’ when it should be ‘I shall be there,’ and so on. Would you, like a dear good fellow, mind going through the proofs, and if you see any ‘wills’ or ‘shalls’ used wrongly, put them right and then pass for press? Of course, if you should spot anything else that strikes you as wrong, I’d be infinitely obliged if you would make the correction.”
I agreed, went through proofs, made the necessary alterations, and passed for press. Two or three days after I had a telegram from Paris. “Terrible blunder in book, coming back specially. Stop all proofs. Wilde.” I did so, and awaited events. Wilde arrived in a hansom.
“It is not too late? For heaven’s sake tell me it is not too late?” he affected to gasp.
“Oh, make yourself easy. It was not too late. I stopped the proofs,” I answered.
“Thank God!” he exclaimed theatrically, throwing himself into a chair and making a great show of wiping away the perspiration from a perfectly dry brow. “I should never have forgiven myself, or you, had my book gone out disfigured by such a blunder—by such a crime as I count it against art.”