Socially most inconvenient
Brian Martin
MORE LETTERS OF OSCAR WILDE edited by Rupert Hart-Davis John Murray, f12.50 In 1962 Rupert Hart-Davis, of Lyttelton Hart-Davis correspondence fame, pub- lished his edition of The Letters of Oscar Wilde. Now more have come to light which are most welcome in both affording more enjoyment from the great wit, and giving a better understanding of his sad life which he himself described, 'Yes, artistically it is perfect; socially most inconvenient.' One of these additional letters is his application to be considered for the Secretaryship of the Beaumont Trust; it gives an admirably compact curriculum vitae, 'During my uni- versity career I obtained two First Classes, the Newdigate Prize, and other honours, and since taking my degree, in 1878, I have devoted myself partly to literature and partly to the spreading of art-knowledge and art-appreciation among the people.' Such was his life until 1886: what is omitted was to come, his affair with Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas, his affray with Lord Queensberry, his trial and committal to gaol, his exile in destitution abroad, and his final bewildered reproach of Frank Harris for money owed which would have paid his last medical expenses.
Graham Greene has described in his autobiographical A Sort of Life Wilde paying 'with the only currency he had', his wit. Greene's father was holidaying in Naples with a friend, a clerical headmaster, when a dishevelled man on hearing English spoken asked if he might join them at their table: there was 'something familiar and to them vaguely disagreeable about his face, but he kept them charmed for more than an hour before he said goodbye'. He left them to pay cash for his drink. Right about the earning capacity of Wilde's talk even in exile, Greene nevertheless does Wilde a slight injustice: 'Think how lonely he must have been to have expended so much time and wit on a couple of school-masters on holiday.' Wilde thought highly of the voca- tion: he recommended a young Cambridge friend, Harry Marillier, to teach:
I wonder you dislike the idea of being a schoolmaster. With your quick sympathies, your delicate tuition, and your enthusiasm, you could teach wonderfully. You have the power of making others love you, which is the first essential of a teacher. For my own part, I think the life of a teacher the loveliest in the world.
What sentiments to lift the morale of that presently beleagured profession.
Of course, the letters have traces of Wilde's entertainingly recognisable, but inimitable, contrivances composed for the startling effect. To Mrs Bernard Beere he wrote about his American travels, don't know where I am but I am among canons and coyotes: one is a sort of fox, the other a deep ravine: I don't know which is which, but it does not really matter in the West;' and to Mrs W.H.Grenfell, he commented on a production of Hedda Gabler at the Vaudeville Theatre, 'I went there on Thursday night, and the house was dreary — the pit full of sad vegetarians, and the stalls occupied by men in mackintoshes and women in knitted shawls of red wool.' At the same time, the letters give evidence of his unequivocal stand as an aesthete. One or two in this collection are written by other hands than his own. One is from an early acquaintance, George Macmillan of the publishing family, who was one of a party which visited Italy in 1877: he com- municated his impressions of Wilde to his father, 'He is aesthetic to the last degree, passionately fond of secondary colours, low tones, Morris papers, and capable of talking a good deal of nonsense there- upon.' But Wilde's authentic voice is heard in his writing to Ellen Terry, 'Your love is more wonderful even than a crystal caught in bent reeds of gold . . .'; and again when Leo Maxse, the diehard Tory editor of the National Review, misjudged his aim and asked Wilde to write an article attacking what is known by the term Fin de Siecle, `All that is known by that term I particular- ly admire and love. It is the fine flower of our civilisation: the only thing that keeps -the world from the commonplace, the coarse, the barbarous;' and he added, 'But perhaps your letter was intended for some- one else.'
What led to Wilde's downfall, as we all know, was his 'art-appreciation' of the remarkable beauty he saw in the male form and his expression of it which proved too outrageous for his time. To indulge his decadent admirations abroad was one thing; to flaunt them in the face of Lord Queensberry, quite another. Entangle- ments with Bosie abroad were out of sight, but at home under scrutiny. Just before his prosecution in 1895 he visited Algiers with Bosie. He wrote to Robbie Ross,
There is a great deal of beauty here. The Kabyle boys are quite lovely . . . and Bosie and I have taken to haschish: it is quite exquisite: three puffs of smoke, then peace and love. Bosie wakes up at night and cries like a child for his haschish.
He added a postscript in the tone of a typical simpering queen, 'The most beauti- ful boy in Algiers is said by the guide to be "deceitful": isn't it sad? Bosie and I are awfully upset about it.'
Such sentiments are just one aspect of the letters. Elsewhere he reveals himself as a great stickler for detail in the rehearsal and production of his plays (Details in life are of no importance, but in art details are vital'), and he lets us into a secret: he wrote to the American, Arthur Pickering, about The Picture of Dorian Gray, 'The fatal book that Lord Henry lent Dorian is one of my many unwritten works. Some day I must go through the formality of putting it on paper.' Another letter written from H.M.Prison, Reading tells how he gave a copy of Treasure Island to its library and how popular it proved with his fellow- prisoners: he notes the library's need for novels by Scott and Thackeray and 'new writers' such as Stanley Weyman and H. G. Wells.
Reproduced, too, are a photograph of Wilde's hand from a palmist's book pub- lished in 1911 and two recorded conversa- tions with Wilde which have not been in print for years. Nowhere does Sir Rupert intrude. By the occasional useful note, or a reference back to his former volume of letters, he lends a helping hand. Otherwise he stands courteously in the background, and all is Wilde.
The final years were full of pathos, especially his last one, 1900. The sit cle had ended: it was time for Wilde to go: even so, it had to be done with style. He wrote to Robbie Ross from Hotel D'Alsace, 'I am now neurasthenic. My doctor says I have all the symptoms. It is comforting to have them all, it makes one a perfect type.'
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