The "Lord of Language"

The Life of Oscar Wilde. By Robert Harhorongh.. Sherard. (T. Werner Laurie. 18s.) .

IT cannot be said that Mr. Sherard's Life of Oscar Wilde; the first edition of which was published in 1906, has worn well. Mr. Sherard felt unable to enter into any discussion of Wilde's -crime and imprisonment. He is, therefore, debarred from making any serious attempt at solving the riddle of his psychology: -No doubt such discretion was essential when Sherard wrote. MaYlk it would still be-essential itra biographer of to-day-;- but so long as -it is so,. no: Very.--Satia- factbry life of- Wilde is' possible. Mr. Sherard starts-his book with several chapters on Wilde'S parentage and early surroundings, on which he rightly lays great 'stress in- the formation of Wilde's character. No

doubt, too, he is psychologically justified in giving great . „ space to a character study of La dy Wilde, his mother; for, as in all men of his type, the influence of his mother was very strong in Oscar Wilde. He also makes us realize the curious, cultured, and yet irregular and Bohemian Irish 'home from which Wilde came. The following passage oirtainly makes one understand something of the extraordinary - atmosphere which produced this extraordinary. man

, .

" Lady Wilde was a wonderful classical scholar, she had the sheer delight in Latin and Greek literature thaf;:trise scholars ncianifest, and made of the Roman orators or the Greek tragedians _ her favourite reading. A lady once called at No. 1, Merriton - Square and found Sir William's house in the possession of the bailiffs. ' There were two strange men,' this ' sitting in the hall, and I heard from the weeping servant that they were " men in possession." I felt so sorry for poor Lady Wilde and hurried upstairs to the drawing-room, where I 'mew I should find her. Speranza was there, indeed, and seemed not in-the least troubled by the state of affairs in the house. I found her lying on the sofa reading the Prometheus Vincttq of Aeschylus, from _ which she began to declaim passages to me, with exslted.enthusiasm. ' She would not let me slip in a word of condolence, but seemed very anxious that I should share her entire admiratien for the , beauties of the Greek tragedian which she was reciting.' "

- Unfortunately, some of Mr. Sherard's pages make almost . .

grotesque reading to-day, when we can see Wilde's talents, his achievements, and his sins, in calm perspective. What • could be more absurd, for example, to our ears than this : comparison between Oscar Wilde and Napoleon ?

" There are many points in Oscar Wilde's career which allow of a comparison between him and the great Napoleon ; and this deliberate delight in provoking enmities, this sheer recklessness and uncharitable combativeness, is not the least striking character-

istic common to both." -

Mr. Sherard gives some interesting chapters on Wilde's 'social ambitions and activities in London, and shows how Small and precarious was the social success he achieved. The 'aristocratic London society of the day entertained the strongest :antipathy for him 'long before there was any scandal attached :to his name. Mr. Sherard quotes an interesting letter to -.this effect from a London society hostess, who herself seems to have liked Wilde :—

, Alcohol was poison to Wilde and made his Jekyll into a -km* a of Hyde. But modern psychology has thrown so much :light on persons of Wilde's temperament that we can hardly accept .this sort of crude . explanation any longer. One :wdnders, as one reads the closing chapters of Mr. Sherard's

" I knew him," so runs the letter, " first at a Huxley dinner, just after he left Oxford. I was then old'enough to be his mother, but I thought I had never met so wonderful and brilliant a creature. Even you," she adds, addressing the person to whom this letter was written, " seem hardly to know how the ordinary run of English society hated him. I was never allowed to ask him to our house. How unconscious he must have been of this hatred when he . thought that society would stand by him. Poor thing, that he should have represented an aristocrat to the howling crowds is . most curious."

' Mr. Sherard gives a chronological account of _ Wilde's _various publications and makes us realize his complete financial -failure Until only six years before the.crash. But he does not _discuss the baneful influence .which came into Wilde's life at about the same time as his theatrical success, and encompassed his ruin, nor does he attempt any real estimation 'of- the literary value of Wilde's work. He does, hoirever;

give a series of quotations from contemporary reviews of each of:- Wilde's books, as they dame out, which - are certainly interesting: •

The story of -Oscar Wilde's prosecution and trial is not ;given. The author's defence • for his hero's acts is the plea

- of insanity :— - -

" Max Norden was in the right when he spoke of Oscar Wilde as 'a degenerate, and his essay would have had More effect had if ' been worded with more charity and less rancour. There was in 'the composition of that wonderful brain, hidden somewhere, a deinone factor, which the coup de Joust of alcohol and excess of .stimulating food could lash into periodical activity. The evidence _is very strong that Oscar Wilde's special form of diseaie was epilepti- forin; as indeed are all the most cruel afflictions of the brain. One striking characteristic of these formidable maladies is that their victim, who while under the influence of the paroxYam commits :the most atrocious deeds, is, when he recovers his sanity, - totally

'unponscious of what he has done."- -

book describing the behaviour of both Wilde and the public during the trial, whether the same sort of scenes would take place to-day. Perhaps society has changed very little, and would act with no greater intelligence. Medical science his, indeed, advanced very far since the 'nineties, but its influence upon criminal procedure is very slight. We still indiscriminately pitch feeble-minded pickpockets, clever absconding solicitors, epileptics who have committed a murder, and persons who like Wilde have some sexual abnormality, all together into the same utterly inappropriate prisons. Until we do better than that, we have no real right to feel superior to the epoch which produced and sentenced such an individual as Oscar Wilde.