"All envy, Frank, and malice. What do I care? I go to Clumber this summer; besides I am doing another play which I rather like. I always knew that play-writing was my province. As a youth I tried to write plays in verse; that was my mistake. Now I know better; I"m sure of myself and of success."
Somehow or other in spite of his apparent a.s.surance I felt he was in danger and I doubted his quality as a fighter. But after all it was not my business: wilful man must have his way.
It seems to me now that my mistrust dated from the second paper war with Whistler, wherein to the astonishment of everyone Oscar did not come off victorious. As soon as he met with opposition his power of repartee seemed to desert him and Whistler, using mere rudeness and man-of-the-world sharpness, held the field. Oscar was evidently not a born fighter.
I asked him once how it was he let Whistler off so lightly. He shrugged his shoulders and showed some irritation.
"What could I say, Frank? Why should I belabour the beaten? The man is a wasp and delights in using his sting. I have done more perhaps than anyone to make him famous. I had no wish to hurt him."
Was it magnanimity or weakness or, as I think, a const.i.tutional, a feminine shrinking from struggle and strife. Whatever the cause, it was clear that Oscar was what Shakespeare called himself, "an unhurtful opposite."
It is quite possible that if he had been attacked face to face, Oscar would have given a better account of himself. At Mrs. Grenfell"s (now Lady Desborough) he crossed swords once with the Prime Minister and came off victorious. Mr. Asquith began by bantering him, in appearance lightly, in reality, seriously, for putting many of his sentences in italics.
"The man who uses italics," said the politician, "is like the man who raises his voice in conversation and talks loudly in order to make himself heard."
It was the well-known objection which Emerson had taken to Carlyle"s overwrought style, pointed probably by dislike of the way Oscar monopolised conversation.
Oscar met the stereotyped attack with smiling good-humour.
"How delightful of you, Mr. Asquith, to have noticed that! The brilliant phrase, like good wine, needs no bush. But just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising or lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweller--an excusable love of one"s art, not all mere vanity, I like to think"--all this with the most pleasant smile and manner.
In measure as I distrusted Oscar"s fighting power and admired his sweetness of nature I took sides with him and wanted to help him. One day I heard some talk at the Pelican Club which filled me with fear for him and quickened my resolve to put him on his guard. I was going in just as Queensberry was coming out with two or three of his special cronies.
"I"ll do it," I heard him cry, "I"ll teach the fellow to leave my son alone. I"ll not have their names coupled together."
I caught a glimpse of the thrust-out combative face and the hot grey eyes.
"What"s it all about?" I asked.
"Only Queensberry," said someone, "swearing he"ll stop Oscar Wilde going about with that son of his, Alfred Douglas."
Suddenly my fears took form: as in a flash I saw Oscar, heedless and smiling, walking along with his head in the air, and that violent combative insane creature pouncing on him. I sat down at once and wrote begging Oscar to lunch with me the next day alone, as I had something important to say to him. He turned up in Park Lane, manifestly anxious, a little frightened, I think.
"What is it, Frank?"
I told him very seriously what I had heard and gave besides my impression of Queensberry"s character, and his insane pugnacity.
"What can I do, Frank?" said Oscar, showing distress and apprehension.
"It"s all Bosie."
"Who is Bosie?" I asked.
"That is Lord Alfred Douglas" pet name. It"s all Bosie"s fault. He has quarrelled with his father, or rather his father has quarrelled with him. He quarrels with everyone; with Lady Queensberry, with Percy Douglas, with Bosie, everyone. He"s impossible. What can I do?"
"Avoid him," I said. "Don"t go about with Lord Alfred Douglas. Give Queensberry his triumph. You could make a friend of him as easily as possible, if you wished. Write him a conciliatory letter."
"But he"ll want me to drop Bosie, and stop seeing Lady Queensberry, and I like them all; they are charming to me. Why should I cringe to this madman?"
"Because he is a madman."
"Oh, Frank, I can"t," he cried. "Bosie wouldn"t let me."
""Wouldn"t let you"? I repeated angrily. "How absurd! That Queensberry man will go to violence, to any extremity. Don"t you fight other people"s quarrels: you may have enough of your own some day."
"You"re not sympathetic, Frank," he chided weakly. "I know you mean it kindly, but it"s impossible for me to do as you advise. I cannot give up my friend. I really cannot let Lord Queensberry choose my friends for me. It"s too absurd."
"But it"s wise," I replied. "There"s a very bad verse in one of Hugo"s plays. It always amused me--he likens poverty to a low door and declares that when we have to pa.s.s through it the man who stoops lowest is the wisest. So when you meet a madman, the wisest thing to do is to avoid him and not quarrel with him."
"It"s very hard, Frank; of course I"ll think over what you say. But really Queensberry ought to be in a madhouse. He"s too absurd," and in that spirit he left me, outwardly self-confident. He might have remembered Chaucer"s words:
Beware also to spurne again a nall; Strive not as doeth a crocke with a wall; Deme thy selfe that demest others dede, And trouth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] "The Promise of May" was produced in November, 1882.
CHAPTER XII
These two years 1893-4 saw Oscar Wilde at the very zenith of success.
Thackeray, who always felt himself a monetary failure in comparison with d.i.c.kens, calls success "one of the greatest of a great man"s qualities," and Oscar was not successful merely, he was triumphant.
Not Sheridan the day after his marriage, not Byron when he awoke to find himself famous, ever reached such a pinnacle. His plays were bringing in so much that he could spend money like water; he had won every sort of popularity; the gross applause of the many, and the finer incense of the few who const.i.tute the jury of Fame; his personal popularity too was extraordinary; thousands admired him, many liked him; he seemed to have everything that heart could desire and perfect health to boot. Even his home life was without a cloud. Two stories which he told at this time paint him. One was about his two boys, Vyvyan and Cyril.
"Children are sometimes interesting," he began. "The other night I was reading when my wife came and asked me to go upstairs and reprove the elder boy: Cyril, it appeared, would not say his prayers. He had quarrelled with Vyvyan, and beaten him, and when he was shaken and told he must say his prayers, he would not kneel down, or ask G.o.d to make him a good boy. Of course I had to go upstairs and see to it. I took the chubby little fellow on my knee, and told him in a grave way that he had been very naughty; naughty to hit his younger brother, and naughty because he had given his mother pain. He must kneel down at once, and ask G.o.d to forgive him and make him a good boy.
""I was not naughty," he pouted, "it was Vyvyan; he was naughty."
"I explained to him that his temper was naughty, and that he must do as he was told. With a little sigh he slipped off my knee, and knelt down and put his little hands together, as he had been taught, and began "Our Father." When he had finished the "Lord"s Prayer," he looked up at me and said gravely, "Now I"ll pray to myself."
"He closed his eyes and his lips moved. When he had finished I took him in my arms again and kissed him. "That"s right," I said.
""You said you were sorry," questioned his mother, leaning over him, "and asked G.o.d to make you a good boy?"
""Yes, mother," he nodded, "I said I was sorry and asked G.o.d to make Vyvyan a good boy."
"I had to leave the room, Frank, or he would have seen me smiling.
Wasn"t it delightful of him! We are all willing to ask G.o.d to make others good."
This story shows the lovable side of him. There was another side not so amiable. In April, 1893, "A Woman of No Importance" was produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree at The Haymarket and ran till the end of the season, August 16th, surviving even the festival of St. Grouse. The astonishing success of this second play confirmed Oscar Wilde"s popularity, gave him money to spend and increased his self-confidence.
In the summer he took a house up the river at Goring, and went there to live with Lord Alfred Douglas. Weird stories came to us in London about their life together. Some time in September, I think it was, I asked him what was the truth underlying these reports.
"Scandals and slanders, Frank, have no relation to truth," he replied.
"I wonder if that"s true," I said, "slander often has some substratum of truth; it resembles the truth like a gigantic shadow; there is a likeness at least in outline."