Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions Volume II Part 25

Had I gone with you on the driving tour, where we would have of necessity been in immediate contact with each other from dawn to sunset, I would have certainly broken off the tour the third day, probably broken down the second. You would have then found yourself in a pitiable position: your tour would have been arrested at its outset: your companion would have been ill without doubt: perhaps might have needed care and attendance, in some little remote French village. You would have given it to me, I know. But I felt it would have been wrong, stupid, and thoughtless of me to have started an expedition doomed to swift failure, and perhaps fraught with disaster and distress. You are a man of dominant personality: your intellect is exigent, more so than that of any man I ever knew: your demands on life are enormous: you require response, or you annihilate: the pleasure of being with you is in the clash of personality, the intellectual battle, the war of ideas.

To survive you, one must have a strong brain, an a.s.sertive ego, a dynamic character. In your luncheon parties, in the old days, the remains of the guests were taken away with the _debris_ of the feast. I have often lunched with you in Park Lane and found myself the only survivor. I might have driven on the white roads, or through the leafy lanes, of France, with a fool, or with the wisest of all things, a child: with you, it would have been impossible. You should thank me sincerely for having saved you from an experience that each of us would have always regretted.

Will you ask me why then, when I was in prison, I accepted with grateful thanks your offer? My dear Frank, I don't think you will ask so thoughtless a question. The prisoner looks to liberty as an immediate return to all his ancient energy, quickened into more vital forces by long disuse. When he goes out, he finds he has still to suffer: his punishment, as far as its effects go, lasts intellectually and physically just as it lasts socially: he has still to pay: one gets no receipt for the past when one walks out into the beautiful air....

I have now spent the whole of my Sunday afternoon--the first real day of summer we have had--in writing to you this long letter of explanation.

I have written directly and simply: I need not tell the author of "Elder Conklin" that sweetness and simplicity of expression take more out of one than fiddling harmonics on one string. I felt it my duty to write, but it has been a distressing one. It would have been _better_ for me to have lain in the brown gra.s.s on the cliff, or to have walked slowly by the sea. It would have been kinder of you to have written to me directly about whatever harsh or hurt feelings you may have about me. It would have saved me an afternoon of strain, and tension.

But I have something more to say. It is pleasanter to me, now, to write about others, than about myself.

The enclosed is from a brother prisoner of mine: released June 4th: pray read it: you will see his age, offence, and aim in life.

If you can give him a trial, do so. If you see your way to this kind action, and write to him to come and see you, kindly state in your letter that it is about a situation. He may think otherwise that it is about the flogging of A.2.11., a thing that does not interest _you_, and about which _he_ is a little afraid to talk.

If the result of this long letter will be that you will help this fellow prisoner of mine to a place in your service, I shall consider my afternoon better spent than any afternoon for the last two years, and three weeks.

In any case I have now written to you fully on all things as reported to me.

I again a.s.sure you of my grat.i.tude for your kindness to me during my imprisonment, and on my release.

And am always

Your sincere friend and admirer

OSCAR WILDE.

_With regard to Lawley_

All soldiers are neat, and smart, and make capital servants. He would be a good _groom_: he is, I believe, a 3rd Hussars man--he was a quiet, well-conducted chap in Reading always.

Naturally I replied to this letter at once, saying that he had been misinformed, that I was not angry and if I could do anything for him I should be delighted: I did my best, too, for Lawley.

Here is his letter of thanks to me for helping him when he came out of prison.

Sandwich Hotel, Dieppe.

MY DEAR FRANK:

Just a line to thank you for your great kindness to me--for the lovely clothes, and for the generous cheque.

You have been a real good friend to me--and I shall never forget your kindness: to remember such a debt as mine to you--a debt of kind fellows.h.i.+p--is a pleasure.

About our tour--later on let us think about it. My friends have been so kind to me here that I am feeling happy already.

Yours,

OSCAR WILDE.

If you write to me please do so under cover to R.B. Ross, who is here with me.

In the next letter of his which I have kept Oscar is perfectly friendly again; he tells me that he is "entirely without money, having received nothing from his Trustees for months," and asks me for even 5, adding, "I drift in ridiculous impecuniosity without a sou."

THE MYSTERY OF PERSONALITY

I transcribe here another letter of Oscar to me from the second year after his release to show his interest in all intellectual things and for a flash of characteristic humour at the expense of the Paris police.

The envelope is dated October 13, 1898:--

From M. Sebastian Melmoth, Hotel d'Alsace, Rue des Beaux-arts, Paris.

MY DEAR FRANK:

How are you? I read your appreciation of Rodin's "Balzac" with intensest pleasure, and I am looking forward to more Shakespeare--you will of course put all your Shakespearean essays into a book, and, equally of course, I must have a copy. It is a great era in Shakespearean criticism--the first time that one has looked in the plays not for philosophy, for there is none, but for the wonder of a great personality--something far better, and far more mysterious than any philosophy--it is a great thing that you have done. I remember writing once in "Intentions" that the more objective a work of art is in form, the more subjective it really is in matter--and that it is only when you give the poet a mask that he can tell you the truth. But you have shown it fully in the case of the one artist whose personality was supposed to be a mystery of deep seas, a secret as impenetrable as the secret of the moon.

Paris is terrible in its heat. I walk in streets of bra.s.s, and there is no one here. Even the criminal cla.s.ses have gone to the seaside, and the gendarmes yawn and regret their enforced idleness. Giving wrong directions to the English tourists is the only thing that consoles them.

You were most kind and generous last month in letting me have a cheque--it gives me just the margin to live on and to live by. May I have it again this month? or has gold flown away from you?

Ever yours,

OSCAR.

THE DEDICATION OF "AN IDEAL HUSBAND"

I received the following letter from Oscar early in 1899 I imagine. It was written in the spring after the winter we spent in La Napoule.

From M. Sebastian Melmoth, Gland, Canton Vaud, Switzerland.

MY DEAR FRANK:

I am, as you see from above, in Switzerland with M----: a rather dreadful combination: the villa is pretty, and on the borders of the lake with pretty pines about: on the other side are the mountains of Savoy and Mont Blanc: we are an hour, by a slow train, from Geneva. But M----is tedious, and lacks conversation: also he gives me Swiss wine to drink: it is horrible: he occupies himself with small economies, and mean domestic interests, so I suffer very much. _Ennui_ is the enemy.

I want to know if you will allow me to dedicate to you my next play, "The Ideal Husband"--which Smithers is bringing out for me in the same form as the others, of which I hope you received your copy. I should so much like to write your name and a few words on the dedicatory page.

I look back with joy and regret to the lovely sunlight of the Riviera, and the charming winter you so generously and kindly gave me: it was most good of you: how can it ever be forgotten by me.

Next week a petroleum launch is to arrive here, so that will console me a little, as I love to be on the water: and the Savoy side is starred with pretty villages and green valleys.

Of course we won our bet--the phrase on Sh.e.l.ley is in Arnold's preface to Byron: but M---- won't pay me! He suffers agony over a franc. It is very annoying as I have had no money since my arrival here. However I regard the place as a Swiss Pension--where there is no weekly bill....

Ever yours,

OSCAR.