MY interest in Oscar Wilde is a very old story: I went to hear him lecture when I was a boy, and, boy-like, I wrote and asked him for his autograph, which he sent me and which I still have.

It seems strange that I can look back through thirty years to his visit to Philadelphia, and in imagination see him on the platform of old Horticultural Hall. I remember, too, the discussion which his visit occasioned, preceded as it was by the publication in Boston of his volume of poems, the English edition having been received with greater cordiality than usually marks a young poet’s first production—for such it practically was.

At the time of his appearance on the lecture platform he was a large, well-built, distinguished-looking man, about twenty-six years old, with rather long hair, generally wearing knee-breeches and silk stockings. Any impressions which I may have received of this lecture are now very vague. I remember that he used the word “renaissance” a good deal, and that at the time it was a new word to me; and it has always since been a word which has rattled round in my head very much as the blessed word “Mesopotamia” did in the mind of the old lady, who remarked that no one should deprive her of the hope of eternal punishment.

CARICATURE OF OSCAR WILDE From an original drawing by Aubrey Beardsley
CARICATURE OF OSCAR WILDE
From an original drawing by Aubrey Beardsley

Now, it would be well at the outset, in discussing Oscar Wilde, to abandon immediately all hope of eternal punishment—for others. My subject is a somewhat difficult one, and it is not easy to speak of Wilde without overturning some of the more or less fixed traditions we have grown up with. We all have a lot of axioms in our systems, even if we are discreet enough to keep them from our tongues; and to do Wilde justice, it is necessary for us to free ourselves of some of these. To make my meaning clear, take the accepted one that genius is simply the capacity for hard work. This is all very well at the top of a copy-book, or to repeat to your son when you are didactically inclined; but for the purposes of this discussion, this and others like it should be abandoned. Having cleared our minds of cant, we might also frankly admit that a romantic or sinful life is, generally speaking, more interesting than a good one.

Few men in English literature have lived a nobler, purer life than Robert Southey, and yet his very name sets us a-yawning, and if he lives at all it is solely due to his little pot-boiler, become a classic, the “Life of Nelson.” The two great events in Nelson’s life were his meeting with Lady Emma Hamilton and his meeting with the French. Now, disguise it as we may, it still remains true that, in thinking of Nelson, we think as much of Lady Emma as we do of Trafalgar. Of course, in saying this I realize that I am not an Englishman making a public address on the anniversary of the great battle.

Southey’s life gives the lie to that solemn remark about genius being simply a capacity for hard work: if it were so, he would have ranked high; he worked incessantly, produced his to-day neglected poems, supported his family and contributed toward the support of the families of his friends. He was a good man, and worked himself to death; but he was not a genius.

On the other hand, Wilde was; but his life was not good, it was not pure; he did injury to his friends; and to his wife and children, the greatest wrong a man could do them, so that she died of a broken heart, and his sons live under an assumed name; yet, notwithstanding all this, perhaps to some extent by reason of it, he is a most interesting personality, and no doubt his future place in literature will be to some extent influenced by the fate which struck him down just at the moment of his greatest success.

Remembering Dr. Johnson’s remark that in lapidary work a man is not upon oath, it has always seemed to me that something like the epitaph he wrote for Goldsmith’s monument in Westminster Abbey might with equal justice have been carved upon Wilde’s obscure tombstone in a neglected corner of Bagneux Cemetery in Paris. The inscription I refer to translates: “He left scarcely any style of writing untouched and touched nothing that he did not adorn.”

I am too good a Goldsmithian to compare Goldsmith, with all his faults and follies, to Wilde, with his faults and follies, and vices superadded; but Wilde wrote “Dorian Gray,” a novel original and powerful in conception, as powerful as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”; and remembering that Wilde was also an essayist, a poet, and a dramatist, I think we may fairly say that he too touched nothing that he did not adorn.

But, to begin at the beginning. Wilde was not especially fortunate in his parents. His father was a surgeon-oculist of Dublin, and was knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—just why, does not appear, nor is it important; his son always seemed a little ashamed of the incident. His mother was the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England. She was “advanced” for her time, wrote prose and verse, under the nom de plume of “Speranza,” which were published frequently in a magazine, which was finally suppressed for sedition. If Lady Wilde was emancipated in thought, of her lord it may be said that he put no restraint whatever upon his acts. They were a brilliant, but what we would call to-day a Bohemian, couple. I have formed an impression that the father, in spite of certain weaknesses of character, was a man of solid attainments, while of the mother someone has said that she reminded him of a tragedy queen at a suburban theatre. This is awful.

Oscar Wilde was a second son, born in Dublin, on the 16th of October, 1854. He went to a school at Enniskillen, afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, and finally to Magdalen College, Oxford. He had already begun to make a name for himself at Trinity, where he won a gold medal for an essay on the Greek comic poets; but when, in June, 1878, he received the Newdigate Prize for English verse for a poem, “Ravenna,” which was recited at the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, it can fairly be said that he had achieved distinction.

While at Magdalen, Wilde is said to have fallen under the influence of Ruskin, and spent some time in breaking stones on the highways, upon which operation Ruskin was experimenting. It may be admitted that the work for its own sake never attracted Wilde: it was the reward which followed—breakfast-parties, with informal and unlimited talk, in Ruskin’s rooms.

One does not have to read much of Wilde to discover that he had as great an aversion to games, which kept him in the open, as to physical labor. Bernard Shaw, that other Irish enigma, who in many ways of thought and speech resembles Wilde, when asked what his recreations were, replied, “Anything except sport.” Wilde said that he would not play cricket because of the indecent postures it demanded; fox-hunting—his phrase will be remembered—was “the unspeakable after the uneatable.” But he was the leader, if not the founder, of the Æsthetic cult, the symbols of which were peacock-feathers, sunflowers, lilies, and blue china. His rooms, perhaps the most talked about in Oxford, were beautifully paneled in oak, decorated with porcelain supposed to be very valuable, and hung with old engravings. From the windows there was a lovely view of the River Cherwell and the beautiful grounds of Magdalen College.

He soon made himself the most talked-of person in the place: abusing his foes, who feared his tongue. His friends, as he later said of someone, did not care for him very much—no one cares to furnish material for incessant persiflage.

When he left Oxford Oscar Wilde was already a well-known figure: his sayings were passed from mouth to mouth, and he was a favorite subject for caricature in the pages of “Punch.” Finally, he became known to all the world as Bunthorne in Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera, “Patience.” From being the most talked-of man in Oxford, he became the most talked-of man in London—a very different thing: many a reputation has been lost on the road between Oxford and London. His reputation, stimulated by long hair and velveteen knee-breeches, gave Whistler a chance to say, “Our Oscar is knee plush ultra.” People compared him with Disraeli. When he first became the talk of the town, great things were expected of him; just what, no one presumed to say. To keep in the going while the going was good, Wilde published his volume of Poems (1881); it followed that everyone wanted to know what this singular young man had to say for himself, and paid half a guinea to find out. The volume immediately went through several editions, and, as I have mentioned, was reprinted in this country.

Of these poems the “Saturday Review” said,—and I thank the “Saturday Review” for teaching me these words, for I think they fitly describe nine tenths of all the poetry that gets itself published,—“Mr. Wilde’s verses belong to a class which is the special terror of the reviewers, the poetry which is neither good nor bad, which calls for neither praise nor blame, and in which one searches in vain for any personal touch of thought or music.”

It was at this point in his career that Wilde determined to show himself to us: he came to America to lecture; was, of course, interviewed on his arrival in New York, and spoke with the utmost disrespect of the Atlantic.

Considering how little ballast Wilde carried, his lectures here were a great success: “Nothing succeeds like excess.” He spoke publicly over two hundred times, and made what was, for him, a lot of money. Looking back, it seems a daring thing to do; but Wilde was always doing daring things. To lecture in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston was all very well; but it would seem to have required courage for Wilde, fresh from Oxford, his reputation based on impudence, long hair, knee-breeches, a volume of poems, and some pronounced opinions on art, to take himself, seriously, west to Omaha and Denver, and north as far as Halifax. However, he went and returned alive, with at least one story which will never die. It was Wilde who said that he had seen in a dance-hall in a mining-camp the sign, “Don’t shoot the pianist; he is doing his best.” The success of this story was instant, and probably prompted him to invent the other one, that he had heard of a man in Denver who, turning his back to examine some lithographs, had been shot through the head, which gave Wilde the chance of observing how dangerous it is to interest one’s self in bad art. He remarked also that Niagara Falls would have been more wonderful if the water had run the other way.

On his return to England he at once engaged attention by his remark, “There is nothing new in America—except the language.” Of him, it was observed that Delmonico had spoiled his figure. From London he went almost immediately to Paris, where he found sufficient reasons for cutting his hair and abandoning his pronounced habiliments. Thus he arrived, as he said of himself, at the end of his second period.

Wilde spoke French fluently and took steps to make himself at home in Paris; with what success, is not entirely clear. He made the acquaintance of distinguished people, wrote verses, and devoted a good deal of time to writing a play for Mary Anderson, “The Duchess of Padua,” which was declined by her and was subsequently produced in this country by Lawrence Barrett and Minna Gale. In spite of their efforts, it lived for but a few nights.

Meanwhile it cost money to live in Paris, especially to dine at fashionable cafÉs, and Wilde decided to return to London; but making ends meet is no easier there than elsewhere. He wrote a little, lectured when he could, and having spent the small inheritance he had received from his father, it seemed that “Exit Oscar” might fairly be written against him.

But to the gratification of some, and the surprise of all, just about this time came the announcement of his marriage to a beautiful and charming lady of some fortune, Constance Lloyd, the daughter of a deceased barrister. Whistler sent a characteristic wire to the church: “May not be able to reach you in time for ceremony; don’t wait.” Indeed, it may here be admitted that in an encounter between these wits it was Jimmie Whistler who usually scored.

Of Whistler as an artist I know nothing. My friends the Pennells, at the close of their excellent biography, say, “His name and fame will live forever.” This is a large order, but of Whistler, with his rapier-like wit, it behooved all to beware. In a weak moment Wilde once voiced his appreciation of a good thing of Whistler’s with, “I wish I had said that.” Quick as a flash, Jimmie’s sword was through him, and forever: “Never mind, Oscar, you will.” It may be that the Pennells are right.

But to return. With Mrs. Wilde’s funds, her husband’s taste, and Whistler’s suggestions, a house was furnished and decorated in Tite Street, Chelsea, and for a time all went well. But it soon became evident that some fixed income, certain, however small, was essential; fugitive verse and unsigned articles in magazines afford small resource for an increasing family. Two sons were born, and, driven by the spur of necessity, Wilde became the Editor of “The Woman’s World,” and for a time worked as faithfully and diligently as his temperament permitted; but it was the old story of Pegasus harnessed to the plough.

Except for editorial work, the next few years were unproductive. “Dorian Gray,” Wilde’s one novel, appeared in the summer of 1890. It is exceedingly difficult to place: his claim that it was the work of a few days, written to demonstrate to some friends his ability to write a novel, may be dismissed as untrue—there is internal evidence to the contrary. It was probably written slowly, as most of his work was. In its first form it appeared in “Lippincott’s Magazine” for July, 1890; but it was subjected to careful revision for publication in book form. Wilde always claimed that he had no desire to be a popular novelist—“It is far too easy,” he said.

“Dorian Gray” is an interesting and powerful, but artificial, production, leaving a bitter taste, as of aloes in the mouth: one feels as if one had been handling a poison. The law compels certain care in the use of explosives, and poisons, it is agreed, are best kept in packages of definite shape and color, that they may by their external appearance challenge the attention of the thoughtless. Only Roosevelt can tell without looking what book should and what should not bear the governmental stamp, “Guaranteed to be pure and wholesome under the food and drugs act.” Few, I think, would put this label on “Dorian Gray.” Wilde’s own criticism was that the book was inartistic because it has a moral. It has, but it is likely to be overlooked in its general nastiness. In “Dorian Gray” he betrays for the first and perhaps the only time the decadence which was subsequently to be the cause of his undoing.

I have great admiration for what is called, and frequently ridiculed as, the artistic temperament, but I am a believer also in the sanity of true genius, especially when it is united, as it was in the case of Charles Lamb, with a fine, manly, honest bearing toward the world and the things in it; but alone it may lead us to yearn with Wilde

It has been suggested on good authority that it is very unpleasant to wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve. To expose one’s soul to the elements, however interesting in theory, must be very painful in practice: Wilde was destined to find it so.

Why the story escaped success at the hands of the adapter for the stage, I never could understand. The clever talk of the characters in the novel should be much more acceptable in the quick give-and-take of a society play than it is in a narrative of several hundred pages; moreover, it abounds in situations which are intensely dramatic, leading up to an overwhelming climax; probably it was badly done.

It is with a feeling of relief that one turns from “Dorian Gray”—which, let us agree, is a book which a young girl would hesitate to put in the hands of her mother—to Wilde’s other prose work, so different in character. Of his shorter stories, his fairy tales and the rest, it would be a delight to speak: many of them are exquisite, and all as pure and delicate as a flower, with as sweet a perfume. They do not know Oscar Wilde who have not read “The Young King and the Star Child,” and the “Happy Prince.” That they are the work of the same brain that produced “Dorian Gray” is almost beyond belief.

What a baffling personality was Wilde’s! Here is a man who has really done more than William Morris to make our homes artistic, and who is at one with Ruskin in his effort that our lives should be beautiful; he had a message to deliver, yet, by reason of his flippancy and his love of paradox, he is not yet rated at his real worth. It is difficult for one who is first of all a wit to make a serious impression on his listeners. I think it is Gilbert who says, “Let a professed wit say, ‘pass the mustard,’ and the table roars.”

Wilde was a careful and painstaking workman, serious as an artist, whatever he may have been as a man; and in the end he became a great master of English prose, working in words as an artist does in color, trying first one and then another until he had secured the desired effect, the effect of silk which Seccombe speaks of. But he affected idleness. A story is told of his spending a week-end at a country house. Pleading the necessity of working while the humor was on, he begged to be excused from joining the other guests. In the evening at dinner his hostess asked him what he had accomplished, and his reply is famous. “This morning,” he said, “I put a comma in one of my poems.” Surprised and amused, the lady inquired whether the afternoon’s work had been equally exhausting. “Yes,” said Wilde, passing his hand wearily over his brow, “this afternoon I took it out again.”

Just about the time that London had made up its mind that Wilde was nothing but a clever man about town, welcome as a guest because of the amusement he afforded, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” appeared in the “Fortnightly Magazine” for February, 1891. London was at once challenged and amazed. This essay opens with a characteristic statement, one of those peculiarly inverted paradoxes for which Wilde was shortly to become famous. “Socialism,” he says, “would relieve us from the sordid necessity of living for others”; and what follows is Wilde at his very best.

What is it all about? I am not sure that I know: it seems to be a plea for the individual, perhaps it is a defense of the poor; it is said to have been translated into the languages of the downtrodden, the Jew, the Pole, the Russian, and to be a comfort to them; I hope it is. Do such outpourings do any good, do they change conditions, is the millennium brought nearer thereby? I hope so. But if it is comforting for the downtrodden, whose wants are ill supplied, it is a sheer delight for the downtreader who, free from anxiety, sits in his easy-chair and enjoys its technical excellence.

I know nothing like it: it is as fresh as paint, and like fresh paint it sticks to one; in its brilliant, serious, and unexpected array of fancies and theories, in truths inverted and distorted, in witticisms which are in turn tender and hard as flint, one is delighted and bewildered. Wilde has only himself to blame if this, a serious and beautiful essay, was not taken seriously. “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” is the work of a consummate artist who, taking his ideas, disguises and distorts them, polishing them the while until they shine like jewels in a rare and unusual setting. Naturally, almost every other line in such a work is quotable: it seems to be a mass of quotations which one is surprised not to have heard before.

Interesting as Wilde’s other essays are, I will not speak of them; with the exception of “Pen, Pencil and Poison,” a study of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, the poisoner, they will inevitably be forgotten.

Of Wilde’s poems I am not competent to speak: they are full of Arcady and Eros; nor am I of those who believe that “every poet is the spokesman of God.” A book-agent once called on Abraham Lincoln and sought to sell him a book for which the President had no use. Failing, he asked Lincoln if he would not write an indorsement of the work which would enable him to sell it to others. Whereupon the President, always anxious to oblige, with a humor entirely his own, wrote, “Any one who likes this kind of book will find it just the kind of book they like.” So it is with Wilde’s poetry: by many it is highly esteemed, but I am inclined to regard it as a part of his “literary wild oats.”

After several attempts in the field of serious drama, in which he was unsuccessful, by a fortunate chance he turned his attention to the lighter forms of comedy, in which he was destined to count only the greatest as his rivals. Pater says these comedies have been unexcelled since Sheridan; this is high praise, though not too high; but it is rather to contrast than to compare such a grand old comedy as the “School for Scandal” with, say, “The Importance of Being Earnest.” They are both brilliant, both artificial; they both reflect in some manner the life and the atmosphere of their time; but the mirror which Sheridan holds up to nature is of steel and the picture is hard and cold; Wilde, on the other hand, uses an exaggerating glass, which seems specially designed to reflect warmth and fluffiness.

Wilde was the first to produce a play which depends almost entirely for its success on brilliant talk. In this field Shaw is now conspicuous: he can grow the flower now because he has the seed. It was Wilde who taught him how, Wilde who, in four light comedies, gave the English stage something it had been without for a century. His comedies are irresistibly clever, sparkle with wit, with a flippant and insolent levity, and withal have a theatrical dexterity which Shaw’s are almost entirely without. While greatly inferior in construction to Pinero’s, they are as brilliantly written; the plots amount to almost nothing: talk, not the play, is the thing; and but for their author’s eclipse they would be as constantly on the boards to-day in this country and in England as they are at present on the Continent.

The first comedy, “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” was produced at the St. James’s, February 22, 1892. Its success, despite the critics, was instant: full of saucy repartee, overwrought with epigrams of the peculiar kind conspicuous in the “Soul of Man,” it delighted the audience. “Punch” made a feeble pun about Wilde’s play being tame, forgetting the famous dictum that the great end of a comedy is to make the audience merry; and this end Wilde had attained, and he kept his audiences in the same humor for several years—until the end. Of his plays this is, perhaps, the best known in this country. It was successfully given in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, only a year or two ago. It might, I think, be called his “pleasant play”: for a time it looks as if a pure wife were going astray, but the audience is not kept long in suspense: the plot can be neglected and the lines enjoyed, with the satisfactory feeling that it will all come out right in the end.

“A Woman of No Importance” is in my judgment the least excellent of his four comedies; it might be called his “unpleasant” play: it is two acts of sheer talk, in Wilde’s usual vein, and two acts of acting. The plot is, as usual, insignificant. A certain lazy villain in high official position meets a young fellow and offers him a post as his secretary. The boy, much pleased, introduces his mother, and the villain discovers that the boy is his own son. The son insists that the father should marry his mother, but she declines. The father offers to make what amends he can, loses his temper, and refers to the lady as a woman of no importance; for which he gets his face well smacked. The son marries a rich American Puritan. This enables Wilde to be very witty at the expense of American fathers, mothers, and daughters. Tree played the villain very well, it is said.

Never having seen Wilde’s next play acted, I once innocently framed this statement for the domestic circle: “I have never seen ‘An Ideal Husband’”; and when my wife sententiously replied that she had never seen one either, I became careful to be more explicit in future statements. No less clever than the others, it has plot and action, and is interesting to the end. Of all his plays it is the most dramatic. On its first production it was provided with a splendid cast, including Lewis Waller, Charles Hawtrey, Julia Neilson, Maude Millett, and Fanny Brough. In the earlier plays all the characters talked Oscar Wilde; in this Wilde took the trouble, for it must have been to him a trouble, to conceal himself and let his people speak for themselves: they stay in their own characters in what they do as well as in what they say. “An Ideal Husband” was produced at the Haymarket early in 1895, and a few weeks later, at the St. James’s, “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

Wilde called this a trivial comedy for serious people. It is clever beyond criticism; but, as one critic says, one might as well sit down and gravely discuss the true inwardness of a soufflÉ. In it Wilde fairly lets himself loose; such talk there never was before; it fairly bristles with epigram; the plot is a farce; it is a mental and verbal extravaganza. Wilde was at his best, scintillating as he had never done before, and doing it for the last time. He is reported to have said that the first act is ingenious, the second beautiful, and the third abominably clever. Ingenious it is, but its beauty and cleverness are beyond praise. To have seen the lovely Miss Millard as Cecily, the country girl, to have heard her tell Gwendolen, the London society queen (Irene Vanbrugh), that “flowers are as common in the country as people are in London,” is a delight never to be forgotten.

Wilde was now at the height of his fame. That the licenser of the stage had forbidden the performance of “Salome” was a disappointment; but Sarah Bernhardt had promised to produce it in Paris, and, not thinking that when his troubles came upon him she would break her word, he was able to overcome his chagrin.

Only a year or two before, he had been in need, if not in abject poverty. He was now in receipt of large royalties. No form of literary effort makes money faster than a successful play. Wilde had two, running at the best theatres. His name was on every lip in London; even the cabbies knew him by sight; he had arrived at last, but his stay was only for a moment. Against the advice and wishes of his friends, with “fatal insolence,” he adopted a course which, had he been capable of thought, he must have seen would inevitably lead to his destruction.

To those mental scavengers, the psychologists, I leave the determination of the exact nature of the disease which was the cause of Wilde’s downfall: it is enough for me to know that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

The next two years Wilde spent in solitary and degrading seclusion; his sufferings, mental and physical, can be imagined. Many have fallen from heights greater than his, but none to depths more humiliating. Many noble men and dainty women have been subjected to greater indignities than he, but they have been supported by their belief in the justice or honor of the cause for which they suffered.

Wilde was not, however, sustained by the consciousness of innocence, nor was he so mentally dwarfed as to be unable to realize the awfulness of his fate. The literary result was “De Profundis.” Written while in prison, in the form of a letter to his friend Robert Ross, it was not published until five years after his death: indeed, only about one third of the whole has as yet appeared in English.

“De Profundis” may be in parts offensive, but as a specimen of English prose it is magnificent; it is by way of becoming a classic: no student of literature can neglect this cry of a soul lost to this world, intent upon proving—I know not what—that art is greater than life, perhaps. Much has been written in regard to it: by some it is said to show that even at the time of his deepest degradation he did not appreciate how low he had fallen; that to the last he was only a poseur—a phrase-maker; that, genuine as his sorrow was, he nevertheless was playing with it, and was simply indulging himself in rhetoric when he said, “I, once a lord of language, have no words in which to express my anguish and my shame.”

One would say that it was not the sort of book which would become popular; nevertheless, more than twenty editions have been published in English, and it has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Russian.

It was inevitable that “De Profundis” should become the subject of controversy: Oscar Wilde’s sincerity has always been challenged; he was called affected. His answer to this charge is complete and conclusive: “The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.”

For many years, indeed until quite recently, his name cast a blight over all his work. This was inevitable, but it was inevitable also that the work of such a genius should sooner or later be recognized.

Only a few years ago I heard a cultured lady say, “I never expected to hear his name mentioned in polite society again.” But the time is rapidly approaching when Oscar Wilde will come into his own, when he will be recognized as one of the greatest and most original writers of his time. When shall we English-speaking people learn that a man’s work is one thing and his life another?

It is much to be regretted that Wilde’s life did not end with “De Profundis”; but his misfortunes were to continue. After his release from prison he went to France, where he lived under the name of Sebastian Melmoth: but as Sherard, his biographer, says, “He hankered after respectability.” It was no longer the social distinction which the unthinking crave when they have all else: this great writer, he who had been for a brief moment the idol of cultured London, sought mere respectability, and sought it in vain.

Only when he was neglected and despised, miserable and broken in spirit, sincere feeling at last overcame the affectation which was his real nature and he wrote his one great poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” No longer could the “Saturday Review” “search in vain for the personal touch of thought and music”: the thought is there, very simple and direct and personal without a doubt: the music is no longer the modulated noise of his youth. The Ballad is an almost faultless work of art. What could be more impressive than the description of daybreak in prison:—

The life begun with such promise drew to a close: an outcast, deserted by his friends, the few who remained true to him he insulted and abused. He became dissipated, wandered from France to Italy and back again. In mercy it were well to draw the curtain. The end came in Paris with the close of the century he had done so much to adorn. He died on November 30, 1900, and was buried, by his faithful friend, Robert Ross, in a grave which was leased for a few years in Bagneux Cemetery.

The kindness of Robert Ross to Oscar Wilde is one of the most touching things in literary history. The time has not yet come to speak of it at length, but the facts are known and will not always be withheld. Owing largely to his efforts, a permanent resting-place was secured a few years ago in the most famous cemetery in France, the PÈre Lachaise. There, in an immense sarcophagus of granite, curiously carved, were placed the remains of him who wrote:—

“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rock where I may hide, and sweet valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt; she will cleanse me in great waters and with bitter herbs make me whole.”

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.”

MS. Inscription to J. E. Dickinson, from Oscar Wilde