CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BEQUEST OF GEORGE JEAN NATHAN • CLASS OF -ISOi (iLN c*i»B««l( Mmlvurnlty Library The life of Oscar Wilde.lllustrated with 3 1924 013 572 155 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013572155 THE LIFE OF OSCAR WILDE BY ROBERT HARBOROUGH SHERARD ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS, FACSIMILE LETTERS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS NEW YORK BRENTANO'S 191 1 TO T. M. WHO, IN THE EXTREME OF ADVERSITY, PROVED HIMSELF THE TRUE FRIEND OP AN UNHAPPY MAK THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED " The heroes of literary as well as civil history have been very often no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved ; and volumes have been written only to enumerate the miseries of the learned, and relate their un- happy lives and untimely deaths. " To these mournful narratives I am about to add the life of . ^ . a man whose writings entitle him to an eminent rank in the classes of learning, and whose misfortunes claim a degree of compassion not always due to the unhappy, as they were often the consequences of the crimes of others rather than his own." Dr Samuel Johnson. Preface to the Original Edition The extract from the introductory passage of Dr Johnson's " Life of Richard Savage " which appears on one of the fly-leaves of this book sets forth in a manner singularly appropriate the impression which is produced on every thinking head and feeling heart by a contemplation of the career of Oscar Wilde, Who, that follows his ascension to that " eternity of fame," of which he speaks in " De Profundis," and watches his sudden and headlong fall, will not echo those further words of that great, good Dr Johnson, of whom it may be said that had his like been living, at the time of Wilde's catastrophe, the whole after-story of Wilde's life would assuredly have been a less pitiful one. " That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic and adventitious, and therefore easily separable from those by whom they are possessed, should very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they cannot give, raises no astonish- ment ; but it seems rational to hope that intellectual greatness should produce better effects ; that minds qualified for great attainments should first Prefece to the Original Edition endeavour their own benefit; and that they who are most able to teach others the way to happiness should, with most certainty, follow it themselves." At the same time this must not be taken to convey that any close coipparison can be instituted between Richard Savage and Oscar Wilde, either in point of capacity and performance, or of character, or indeed, except in respect of their vicissitudes, of career. It may, however, be of literary interest to observe one or two points of similitude in the characters of these two men. One reads of Richard Savage as to his choice of friends : " His time was spent in prison for the most part in study, or in receiving visits ; but sometimes he diverted himself with the conversation of criminals ; for it was not pleasing to him to be much without company; and though he was very capable of a judicious choice, he was often contented with the first that offered." It will be seen in the course of this book that even in prison Oscar Wilde took pleasure in the society and conversation of criminals. " The smaller natures and the meaner minds" still appealed to him, and he underwent punishment rather than forego their whispered exchange of words. And it will further b6 seen in the narrative of his prison life how truly it might be written of him what Dr Johnson wrote of Savage : Prefece to the Original Edition " But here, as in every other scene of his life, he made use of such opportunities as occurred to him of benefiting those who were more miser- able than himself, and was always ready to perform any office of humanity to his fellowrprisoners." And, generally, of both it is equally true, that : "Whatever was his predominant inclination, neither hope nor fear hindered him from complying with it; nor had opposition any other effect than to heighten his ardour, and irritate his vehemence." With equal appositeness can the moral which Dr Johnson draws from his narrative be appUed to this story also : " This relation will not be wholly without its use, if those who languish under any part of his sufferings shall be enabled to fortify their patience by reflecting that they feel only those afflictions from which his abilities did not exempt him; or those who, in confidence of superior capacities or attainments, disregarded the common maxims of life, shall be reminded that nothing will supply the want of prudence ; and that negligence and irregu- larity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." It is not, indeed, to point afresh this moral that the present book has been written. The age desiderates no such lessons, resents them rather. Life is to-day ordered by a reconcilement of inclin- ation and interest with the requirements of the written and unwritten laws. He sets out on a futile Preface to the Original Edition task who seeks to teach conduct from example however striking, for our present individualism will brook no such guidance. The purpose of this book is another and a threefold one. It is to give an authoritative record of the career of a remark- able man, of remarkable gifts and achievements : it is to give an account of the author's books and other works to that large section of the world which ignores his writings, which, like ninety-nine out of every hundred Frenchmen, for instance, has heard of his attainder, but knows nothing of his distinction ; it is further to remove the false impres- sions, the misstatements of fact, the lying rumours, which, although the grave in Bagneux churchyard closed upon him only one bare lustre since, have gathered round his name and story in a cloud of misrepresentation of astonishing magnitude. It is, indeed, this last purpose which may be allowed to plead the opportunity of the present publication. It is now not too late to establish fact, to refute falsehood and to present a story freed from the supercharges of error or of malice. These float- ing rumours have not yet had the time to come together, to coagulate, and to crystalise. Rumour can yet be unmasked as rumour, legend has not yet hardened into history, posthumous pasquinade has not yet dried on the tombstone. It was one of the dead wit's sayings that of all the disciples of a man it is always Judas who writes his biography. In the present instance this paradox Prefece to the Original Edition has less truth than ever. The writer was in no sense the disciple of Oscar Wilde ; he was indeed as strongly antagonistic to most of his principles, ethical, artistic, and philosophical, as he was warmly disposed to him for his many endearing qualities and captivating graces. His qualifications arise from the facts that for the period of sixteen years preceding Oscar Wilde's death he was intimately acquainted with him, that his friendship with him — of which elsewhere a true record exists — ^was continuous and uninterrupted save by that act of God which puts a period to all human com- panionships, that he was with him at times when all others had withdrawn, and that for the very reason that he was not in sympatiby with any of the affectations which towards others Oscar Wilde used to assume, the man as he truly was, the man as God and Nature had made him, was perhaps better known to him than to most of his other associates. The method of treatment which was adopted in that earlier record, to which reference has been made above, being no longer imperative here, has been abandoned, with all the more alacrity on the part of the author that he has ever been in complete concordance with the general prefer- ence of objective to subjective treatment in the matter of biography. To-day, what three years ago was utterly impossible, he may yield to his own inclinations, because to-day it has become admissible that a biography of Oscar Wilde may zi Preface to the Original Edition be written and made public. The writer has no longer to seek how to arouse interest in his subject through the graduated emotions of curiosity^ pity, amazement and sympathy. It is open to him to record facts, without having to palliate the offence of so recording them by an exposition of their incidence upon others. The upward climb, the attainment, the joys of conquest, the catastrophe, the precipitation, and the horrors of the abyss may now be depicted upon his canvas in plain fashion. The reader shall see them as they were ; he shall no longer be coaxed by a cunning elicitation of his sympathy for the teller of the story to listen to a tale against which prejudice, the voice of public opinion, and his own conception of what it is seemly and expedient for him to hear are ever prompting him to close his ears. Robert Harborough Sherard. CONTENTS FAGE ■i Chapter i . . . • • I Chapter ii 26 Chapter in 46 Chapter iv 56 Chapter v 73 Chapter vi 92 Chapter vn "3 Chapter vm 145 Chapter ix 176 Chapter x 207 Chapter xi 225 Chapter xu 240 Chapter xiii ■ 256 Chapter xiv . 285 Chapter xv • 309 Chapter xvi • 332 Chapter xvii . 348 Chapter xvin • 364 Bibliography • 389 Index • • 405 XIU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS f Portrait of Oscar Wilde W. G. Wills Sir William Wilde Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital I Merrion Square I Merrion Square Oscar Wilde as a Lad Portora Royal School . Paul Adam .... RUSKIN .... Caricature in Punch (Sunflower) Caricature in Punch (Salvation Army) i6 TiTE Street Reading Gaol Jean Joseph-Renaud Henri de Regnier . Caricature by Harry Furniss Oscar Wilde's Writing . XV Pacing Title Facing page i6 ■ . , ,, i6 \L , , „ 20 , „ So . „ 8o , „ 112 1 , ., "2 , „ 128 • 1 , „ 128 • . , „ 149 my) , , .. 153 ■ . . ,, 240 • ) , » 240 , ,, 256 • . , „ 256 , ,, 306 , . .. 319 List of Illustrations In Memoriam— Lady Wilde Death Certificate — Constance Wilde mons. dupoirier . Madame Dupoirier Bill at the Hotel d 'Alsace Death Certificate — Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde's Grave Bed in the Hotel d'Alsace Facing page 336 .DE , , » 339 • . , ,, 368 • 1 , „ 368 • 1 , » 381 • I , » 382 . ,, 384 . , „ 384 The Life of Oscar Wilde CHAPTER I The Necessity of carefully tracing Oscar Wilde's Descent — ^The Real Date of his Birth — Probable Cause of the Error — Admission to Sir Edward Carson — His bistinguished Kinships — Early Tastes — Early Successes — Alcohol as a Preserver of Life — Possible Consequences of a Dangerous Delusion — ^William Wilde's Skill as a Surgeon — " The Man whose Throat he Cut " — Another Famous Operation — The Voyage of The Crusader— :A Successful First Book — His First Professional Earnings — ^What he did with them — He Founds a Hospital — His Noble Charity— ^The Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital — Honours and Knighthood — As a Land-Owner — His Literary Labours — Tributes to his Surgical Skill— " The Father of Modem Otology " — A Wife's Recognition — Other Traits of his Character. When Nature has bountifully endowed a man with every gracious gift that should ensure for him success and felicity in life; when she has made him the fit subject for the boundless admiration or the unrestrained envy of his contemporaries, and when this favoured and fortunate man suddenly discloses leanings, propensities, instincts, which, rapidly developing into passions he appears utterly powerless to bridle, precipitate him amidst the exuberant exultation of his enemies and the stone- The Life of Oscar Wilde eyed dismay of his friends into an abyss of disgrace and misery, it becomes more particularly the duty of an equitable biographer to inquire if either here- dity, or parental example, or early training and environment can iii any degree help the world to understand the formidable physiological problem, |iow in one and the same man can be allied, supreme intelligence with reckless imprudence, a remarkable respect for society with an utter defi- ance of social observances, and the most refined hedonism with a taste for the coarsest frequent- ations. In the case of Oscar Wilde, the problem, when his descent and kinship have been studied, becomes even more intricate and perplexing. For while in his immediate parentage will be discovered people whose incontestable genius was united, as is so often the case, with pronounced moral degeneracy, his ascending lines, traced back to remote generations, display such solid qualities of sane normality and civic excellence, that this unhappy man's aber- ration must appear one of those malignant, morbid developments which alarm and confound the psychologist when they unexpectedly produce themselves in a man's mentality, no less than as by the sudden development in the body of malig- nant and morbid growths the practitioner is con- founded and alarmed. The Life of Oscar Wilde It therefore becomes necessary, before proceed- ing to the account of the strange vicissitudes of his life, to investigate with more than usual care, his descent ai;id affinities. In this way alone can it be hoped that some light may be thrown upon the disquieting problem which his career discloses. It is an investigation, which, when the laws of atavism shall, with the progress of science, be better understood, may enable an enhghtened posterity to judge a most remarkable man, in many ways an ornament to humanity, with the justice which was refused to him in his lifetime, and will continue to be refused to his memory as long as the mediaeval obscurantism, from which we are only just beginning to emerge, still enswathes the minds of men. So important is the object to be attained by this investigation — for what purpose can transcend the attainment of justice ? — that if in its course personal considerations are ousted, and the pious reverence due to the dead may appear to be disregarded, these sacrifices cannot but be considered as impera- tively imposed. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born at No. I, Merrion Square, in the city of Dublin, on the 1 6th October, 1854. In such biographical notices of him as exist, the year in which this unhappy man was ushered into a world where he 3 The Life of Oscar Wilde was to suffer so greatly is given as 1856. He was not born in 1856, but two years earlier. This inaccuracy probably arose from his own misstatement. He professed an adoration for youth ; his works contain many almo'^t rhapsodical eulogies of physical and mental immaturity; and no doubt that as he himself drew nearer to what he satirised in his plays as " the usual age," he gave as the year of his birth a date which made him appear two years younger than he really was. A friend of his, on one occasion endeavoured to point out to him that a man might derive far greater satisfaction in giving out his age as more advanced than it really was, in posturing as old in years while younger in fact, in hugging to his heart the secret reserve of days. But he refused to admit it. In his cross-examination by Mr (afterwards Sir Edward) Carson during the trial of Lord Queens- berry he was forced to admit the truth as to the date of his birth. The following remarks were then exchanged between the prosecutor and the Marquess's counsel: Mr Carson : " You stated your age as thirty-nine. I think you are over forty ? " The Witness : " I am thirty-nine or forty. You have my birth-certificate and that settles the matter." The Life of Oscar Wilde Mr Carson: "You were born in 1854-^that makes you over forty ? " The Witness: "Ah!" This " Ah ! " sounded Hke a sarccistic note of admiration for the barrister's skill in arithmetic. How it was calculated to wound the defending counsel will be indicated later. For months before Oscar Wilde was born his mother had earnestly desired that the child should be a girl.* She often expressed her conviction that a daughter was going to be born to her. She used to tell friends of the things she was going to do " after my little girl is born," and used to discuss the education She proposed to give to her daughter. When Oscar was born, her disappoint- ment was great. She refused to admit that her new child was a boy. She used tb treat him, to speak of him as a girl, and as Idng as it was pos- sible to do so, she dressed him like one. To pathologists these facts will appear of importance. Oscar Wilde was the second son and child, issue of the marriage between William Robert Wills Wilde, oculist and ofolbgist (1815-1876), and of Jane Francesca Elgee, poetess and pamphleteer (1826-1896), which was celebrated in Dublin in 1851. * This fact, like every other fact recorded in this book, is given on unimpeachable authority. 5 The Life of Oscar Wilde For his parents he ever felt the deepest affection and respect. For his mother in particular this affection reached the degree of veneration. The feelings which he entertained towards his mother and father are expressed in language of eloquence in the book, " De Profundis," which he wrote while a prisoner in Reading Gaol, during the last six months of his confinement there. He has referred to his mother's death, and he adds : " No one knew how deeply I loved and honoured her. Her death was terrible to me ; but I, once a lord of language, have no words in which to express my anguish and my shame. She and my father had bequeathed me a name they had made noble and honoured, not merely in literature, art, archaeology, and science, but in the public history of my own country, in its evolution as a nation. I have disgraced that name eternally. I have made it a low byword among low people, I have dragged it through the very mire. I have given it to brutes that they might make it brutal, and to foes that they might turn it into a synonym for folly. What I suffered then, and still suffer, is not for pen to write, or paper to record. My wife, always kind and gentle to me, rather than that I should hear the news from indifferent lips, travelled, ill as she was, all the way from Genoa to 6 The Life of Oscar Wilde England to break to me herself the tidings of so irreparable, so irredeemable, a loss." Mr William Wilde (afterwards, Sir William Wilde), the surgeon, was a product of that inter- mixture of races in Ireland of which, speaking at a meeting of the British Association held in Belfast, he said : " I think that there cannot be a better fusion of races than that of the Saxon with the Celt." His grandfather, Ralph Wilde, was the son of a Durham business-man, and towards the middle of the eighteenth century was sent over to Ireland to seek his fortunes. The region which was selected for him for the exercise of his ability was that Connaught which Cromwell's soldiers describ*ed as the alternative to Hell.^ Here, after a while, he became land-agent to the Sandford family. He settled in Castlerea, in the county of Roscommon, where he married a Miss O'Flyn, the daughter of a very ancient Irish family which gave its name to a district in Roscommon, still known as O'Flyn's County. Ralph Wilde had several children. One of them, Ralph Wilde, who was a distinguished scholar, and who like his grand- nephew, Oscar Wilde, won the distinction of the Berkeley Gold medal at Trinity College, Dublin, became a clergyman; another, Thomas Wilde, 1 "To Hell or Connaught " was the alternative propoied by the English invaders to the Irish peasants whom they hunted oS their lands like wild beasts. 7 The Life of Oscar Wilde was a country physician. This Thomas Wilde married a Miss Fynn, who was related by descent to the eminent families of Surridge and Ouseley of Dunmore in the county of Galway. The Ouseleys were most distinguished people. Sir Ralph Ouseley, Bart., who was a famous Oriental scholar, was British Ambassador to Persia. His brother, Sir William Ouseley, was secretary to Lord Wellesley in India. General Sir Ralph Ouseley won distinction in the Peninsular War. His brother was a preacher and writer of theo- logical works, of which the most famous is the book entitled " Old Christianity." Of this kinsman Oscar Wilde used to relate many anecdotes. He appeared to be much impressed by the sonority and suggestiveness of his name : Gideon Ouseley. On one occasion speaking of titles of novels he recommended to a friend to write a book of which the hero should bear the name of " Gideon Ouseley," and to use the hero's name as the title of the story. He declaf ed that a book with such a title could not fail to appeal to the public. Gideon Ouseley, Methodist, was the John Wesley of Ireknd. His sermons in the Irish language, addressed to the people at the fairs and markets, are still preserved in the memory of people living in the western province from hearsay from their parents. The Life of Oscar Wilde William Robert Wills Wilde was the son of Dr Thomas Wilde by his marriage with Miss Fynn. He was born in Castlerea in 1815, and received his education at the Royal School, Banagher. It is, however, reported of him that " fishing occupied more of his attention than school studies, for which he had an admirable teacher in the person of Paddy Walsh, afterwards immor- talised by the pupil in his ' Irish Popular Super- stitions.' " In the Dublin University Magazine the follow- ing account is given of youthful tastes which led to studies of which in later life he was to make such excellent use. " The delight of the fisher lad was to spend his time on the banks of the lakes and rivers within his reach, talk Irish with the people, and listen to the recital of the fairy legends and tales ; his know- ledge of which he so well turned to account in the ' Irish Popular Superstitions.' His taste for antiquarian research was €arly exhibited, and much fostered by his repeated examinations of the cahirs, forts and caves of the early Irish which exists in the vicinity of Castlerea, as well as by visits to the plain of Ruthcragan, the site of the great palace and cemetery of the chieftains of the West. In the district around were castles, whose legends he learned, patterns, where he witnessed the 9 The Life of Oscar Wilde strange mixture of pilgrimage, devotion, fun and frolic ; cockfights for which Roscommon was then famous; and the various superstitions and cere- monies connected with the succession of the festivals of the season — all these made a deep impression on the romantic nature of young Wilde, and many of them have been handed down to posterity by his facile pen." His professional studies commenced in 1832. As a medical student he acted as clinical clerk to Dr Evory Kennedy in the Lying-in Hospital, and obtained the annual prize there against several English and Irish competitors. In studying for this examination he so overworked himself that his health broke down, and a fever setting in, his life was for some time despaired of. He was actually suffering from the fever which went so nigh to kill him, on the very day of the examina- tion. The case, indeed, was despaired of, until Dr Robert Greaves having been sent for, an hourly glass of strong ale was prescribed as the only remedy from which any results might be expected. It was held at the time that it was, indeed, the administration of this stimulant which saved his life. The idea was no doubt an erroneous one, according to modern medical science, and the delusion may very possibly have been the cause of much subsequent mischief in the young man's JO The Life of Oscar Wilde family. As to which it should be added here that although Oscar Wilde was in no sense a hard drinker, and never by his most intiniate friends was once seen in a state of intoxication, it is on record that every single foolish and mad act which he did in his life, acts which had for him the most disastrous consequences, was done under the influence of liquor. No doubt that, because in his home in Merrion Square, he had always heard the virtues of alcohol celebrated as a drug which on a famous occasion had saved his father's Hfe, he did not attach importance to the teachings of later and more advanced science, which would have taught him that in his case the poison might produce results the most disastrous. William Wilde is still remembered as a surgeon of particular resource and courage. Even as a medical apprentice he displayed these qualities. It is related of him on reaching the parish church in Cong, in the County Mayo, one Sunday morning, he found the place in a state of huge commotion. It appeared that a small boy of about five years of age, having swallowed a piece of hard boiled potato, which had stuck in his throat, was in the act of choking. The, young medical student, with the readiness which afterwards dis- tinguished him amongst his contemporaries, saw at a glance that an immediate operation must be n The Life of Oscar Wilde effected if the child's life was to be saved. He happened to have a pair of scissors in his pocket ; he was fortunately not restrained by the modern terror of using any instrument which had not been rendered antiseptic; and he boldly cut into the boy's throat. The operation was entirely successful, and the child recovered. He may be living still, for when he was last heard of, in Phila- delphia in 1875, he was a middle-aged man, who took a particulaf pride and pleasure in showing people a scar on his neck " where," as he used to say, " the famous Sir William Wilde of Dublin cut my throat." It was with similar readiness that Sir William once saved the sight of a Dublin fisherman, who was brought to him with a darning- needle embedded up to the head in his right eye. The flapping of a sail in which the needle was sticking had driven it in with terrible force. An ordinary operation was oyt of the question ; there was not enough of the head protruding to allow of any hold being got on it with a forceps by which it might have been drawn from its place. The man was suffering terrible agony. Sir William saw at once what was the only means of extracting the needle. He sent for a powerful electro- magnet, by the help of which in the shortest time the steel bar was extracted. There are on record many similar instances of his energy, courage, and fertility of resource. ^^Iready as a young man he distinguished himself 12 The Life of Oscar Wilde in the field of lettefs. While still a medical student he sailed in charge of a sick gentleman on board the yacht Crusader, visiting many places in the Mediterranean and in the East, during a cruise which lasted many months. The account of this cruise he published on his return to Ireland. He found in the Messrs Curry ready and liberal publishers. For the copyright of this young man's book they paid him a sum of ;^25o. The specu- lation was a profitable one for them. The first edition consisted of 1,250 copies of the book, which was issued in two volumes at 28s. This edition was sold out immediately; a second edition was as rapidly disposed of, and other editions followed. The book has long since been out of print. The young man continued his medical -studies in London, Berlin and Vienna, and finally started in medical practice in July, 1841, selecting as special branches, those of oculist and otologist. * He took as the motto of his professional career, the words : " Whatever thou has to do, do it with all thy might. " His reputation was already so good, that in the first year of his practice he earned in professional fees the sum of £^OQ>, which it appears, is an amount very rarely reached by the fees of a surgeon in his first year. This money he devoted in its entirety to the charitable purpose of founding a hospital where 13 The Life of Oscar Wilde the poor could be treated for eye and ear diseases. At that time no such institution existed in the Irish capital. He did more than this. He applied the first thousand pounds of his professional earn- ings to his noble purpose. To him in this manner the city of Dublin and the whole country of Ireland owe the foundation of St Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital/ which for sixty-four years has rendered such inestimable services to the suffering Irish poor, and which increases in usefulness every year of its existence. The last annual report gives a record of benevolent activity which few hospitals, which started with resources so meagre, can show. It is a noble institution, the foundation stone of which was the noble sacrifice of a noble man. Through a Mr Grimshaw, a dentist, William Wilde obtained the use of a stable in Frederick Lane, which was to form the nucleus of the hospital, which afterwards developed into auch a splendid institution. Having provided a few fixtures, the young surgeon commenced his gratuitous labours, which he continued through- out the whole of his career. An inscription in the front of the hospital records the name of its founder, * Since its amalgamation with the National Eye and Ear Infirmary, Molesworlh Street, Dublin, this institution has become known as the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital. The Life of Oscar Wilde and in the hall stands a bust of Sir William Wilde, which was purchased by direction of the head surgeon at the sale of the effects of William Wilde, his eldest son, after his death in Cheltenham Terrace, Chelsea. In 1848 he published what has been described as " one of the most chivalrous literary efforts," his account of " The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life." Two years after his marriage with Miss Jane Francesca Elgee, that is to say in 1853, he was appointed Surgeon-Oculist-in-Ordinary to the Queen, which was the first appointment of the kind made in Ireland. In 1857 he visited Stockholm, and was created a Chevalier of the Kingdom of Sweden, and was, further, decorated with the Order of the Polar Star.- Seven years later, at the conclusion of a chapter of the Knights of St Patrick, held for the installation of new members of this Order, and after the knights had left the hall, the genial L9rd Carlisle, Viceroy, from his place on the throne addressed the great surgeon, beckoning to him to approach, and said: " Mr Wilde, I propose to confer on you the honour of knighthood, not so much in recognition of your high professional reputation, which is European, and has been recognised by many countries in Europe, but to mark my sense of the services you 15 The Life of Oscar Wilde have rendered to Statistical Science, especially in connection with the Irish Census." There was nothing of the cynic in Lord Carlisle, and his remarks to William Wilde were sincere as a compliment. One can imagine the mental reser- vations that say Lord Beacons field or Lord Lytton Woiild have made Jiad they been in Lord Carlisle's place and had they been called upon to announce the impending honour to the man who had distin- guished himself by his labours on behalf of the Irish Census. For no document more than an Irish Census Report contains so scathing an indictment of Castle rule; nothing that Speranza ever wrote constituted a more violent appeal to Irish Nationalists ; no Fenian denunciation of the Sassenach has ever exceeded in bitterness of reproach the simple total of numerals which WiUiam Wilde's labours compelled the British Government to lay before the people of Europe. For the rest, the honour of icnighthood appears to be distributed with greater largesse in Ireland than even in England or Scotland, and it really seems that it is in Dubhn a distinction for a pro- fessional man not to have received the tap of the viceroy's sword. Wilde's acceptance of the honour was resented in some places,, for it was thought that the husband of Speranza ought not to have taken favours from the Castle. i6 ►J '_ >. o The Life of Oscar Wilde In a biographical notice of Sir William Wilde which was published in 1875, one year before his death, where reference is made to another honour which was won by him, the following passage occurs, which read to-day, has a peculiarly pathetic interest. " In connection with "the award of the Cunning- ham medal of the Royal Irish Academy in 1873 to Sir William Wilde, it is a remarkable fact, worthy of record, that within a few months of its presentation, his two sons, William and Oscar, were each awarded a medal of Trinity College— the former (who had just been called to the Irish Bar) by the College Philosophical Society for ethics and logic, and the latter (who is now [1875] a dis- tinguished scholar at Oxford) for the best answer- ing in the Greek drama." Sir William Wilde was too hospitable and too charitable a man to amass any large fortune such as would have been acquired by most men of his professional ability and European reputation, but at the time of his death he was in the comfortable position of a substantial landowner. " Some years ago," says a notice of him, "' Sir William Wilde became a proprietor in the county of Mayo, where he has most successfully carried out schemes of improvement, and has shown that he can reclaim land and profitably carry on farming operations, 17 B The Life of Oscar Wilde which is what few of even resident proprietors can boast. Finding a portion of the ancestral estate of the O'Flyns (from whom he is maternally descended) for sale in the Land Estate Court, he became the purchaser. The portion in cultivation was covered by a wretched pauper tenantry, numbers of whom it became necessary to remove to enable those remaining to have a means of comfortable existence. Understanding somewhat of the language of the people, and being, as they said, " one of the ould stock," he was able with advice from the Catholic clergy to carry out his plans without exciting discontent or involving the sacrifice of large sums of money, and he gave an ample tenant right to those that remained on the property over twelve years ago. The reclamation that followed, with the addition of erecting a resi- dence for himself in a most picturesque situation, has converted a locality characterised only a few years ago by the usual evidences of neglect, into one of the most attractive and charming spots in the country. In fact, Mayhera House, near Cong, with the surrounding grounds and estate, may be fairly claimed as one of the numerous triumphs of the enterprising proprietor." He wrote many works on Irish history and archaeology, and was engaged on a biographical work at the time of his death. He founded the i8 The Life of Oscar Wilde Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science. His life is one long record of beneficent activity. He carried out to the end the motto which he had taken for his guide at the outset of his career. He is recognised as one of the greatest surgeons of the last century, and the recognition is universal. And it should be remembered that the reputation of a great surgeon cannot be disturbed by the dis- coveries of posterity as is the case with men, who as doctors, have obtained in one age the fame of gfreat luminaries of science, and who, as know- ledge progresses, reveal themselves to a mocking world to have been the veriest merry-andrews. " Wilde's Arbeitsfeld war die KHnik " (Wilde's field was the operating-room), says of him a great German writer on surgery. Elsewhere in German medical books of the highest authority, the Irish surgeon is referred to in the most eulogistic terms. Now praise from German scientific men, who for the most part seem to hold that light can come from nowhere in the world but a German university town, and who have too oft^n distinguished them- selves by a manifestation of envy and a spirit of almost feminine dinigrement, is the sincerest praise that a British subject may ever 'hope to reap. One writer describes Wilde as, " ein Meister in genialer Schlussfolgerungen " (a master in deduc- tions inspired by genius). Another German 19 The Life of Oscar Wilde authority says of him : " auch in seinem lebhaften und praktischen Interesse fuer Taubstumme erinnert uns Wilde an Itard" (in his strong and practical interest in deaf mutes also, Wilde reminds us of Itard). Schwarze describes him as " the father of modern otology." Indeed, it appears that as an otologist he was even greater than as an ocuUst. At a recent conference of medical men in Zuerich when the great pioneers of modern surgery were being discussed in a lecture, only three British surgeons were named, and these were Graves, Stokes, and Wilde. In Dublin medical circles he is still spoken of with the highest respect. Most contemporary doctors of his day would now be mentioned with the pitying smile with which modern physicians refer to all their predecessors whose studies were completed before the year rSSg swept away the clouds which had obscured the vision of the men who profess to heal. Mr J. B. Story, F.R.C.S.I., who was senior surgeon of the St Mark Ophthalmic Hospital, and who since its transformation into the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital is continuing the work of Sir William Wilde at that splendid institution, is most eloquent in the praise of his predecessor's skill and sciehce. He also holds that Sir William was greater as an aural sutgeon than as an eye-doctor, but in both fields he considers him to have been 20 The Life of Oscar Wilde one of the most distinguished surgeons that Great Britain has yet produced. The same unanimity of praise is accorded to his literary work. Perhaps the most interesting reference to his qualities as a writer on the special subjects which he chose is contained in a passage which occurs in the preface which his wife, Lady Wilde, wrote to the life of Beranger, which her husband had left uncompleted at the time of his death, and which Lady Wilde finished. She begins by saying what diffidence she feels to take up the pen which her husband had let fall, so strongly does she feel her inferiority to him, and goes on to say : " There was probably no man of his generation more versed in our national literature, in all that concerned the land and the people, the arts, archi- tecture, topography, statistics, and even the legends of the country ; but, above all, in his favourite department, the descriptive illustration of Ireland, past and present, in historic and prehistoric times, he has justly gained a wide reputation, as one of the most learned and accurate, and at the same time one of the most popular writers of the age on Irish subjects— in the misty cloudland of Irish antiquities he may especially be looked upon as a safe and steadfast guide." His charitableness and compassion for human 22 The Life of Oscar Wilde suffering were such that although he was a pleasure-loving man he was ever ready at a moment's notice, to leave the gayest and happiest social reunion to attend to the wants of some patient who might be in need of his gratuitous assistance. An anecdote in Fitzpatrick's " Life of Lever," communicated to the biographer by John Lever, the novelist's nephew, illustrates this benevolent trait in the great surgeon's character. " On one occasion he (Lever) wanted Wilde to come and meet at dinner some friends he had assembled, and calling at Merrion Square was told that the doctor could not possibly appear. Being denied several times, my uncle at last put his handkerchief in bandage form over his merry, twinkling eyes; his expedient brought the oculist to the door in a moment ; the rencontre ending in a hearty laugh at the success of the trick — ^which continued to afford much amusement at Temple- rogue." Sir William Wilde died after a long illness on Wednesday, 19th April 1876, and was buried at Mount Jerome cemetery. His hearse was followed to the grave by a large and representative pro- cession. The principal mourners were Mr W. Wilde, Mr Oscar Wilde, and the Rev. Mr Noble. All the Dublin papers published long obituary 33 The Life of Oscar Wilde notices of the man, and the whole country deplored his loss. It must, however, be briefly stated that together with a high reputation as a man of science and as kind-hearted, genial and charitable. Sir William Wilde had also the repute of being a man of strong, unbridled passions. His son Oscar used to relate of his mother as an instance of her noble serenity towards Hfe how, when she was nursing his father on his dying bed, each morning there used to come into the sickroom the veiled and silent figure of a woman in deep mourning who sat and watched but never spoke, and at nightfall went away, to return on the following morning. It may be noted as a significant fact that the son seemed to see no aspersion on his father's reputation in this story. It appeared to him to be an apt illus- tration of his mother's nobility of character. Sir William Wilde left besides his legitimate children a number of natural offspring. One natural son of his was established by him as a surgeon-oculist in a practice in Lower Baggot Street, about two hundred yards from his wife's home. The man died some years ago, but is still remembered as the son of Sir William Wilde. Another trait in his character which it may be worth while to note, was his great neglect of him- self. He was Very shabby and careless about his 24 The Life of Oscar Wilde appearance. He used to be spoken of as one of the untidiest men in Ireland. An anecdote is told of Father Healj which illustrates the reputation that Sir William had in this respect. At a dinner- party at which the Father was present, arid which was held shortly after Sir William W^ilde had been knighted, an Englishman who had just crossed from Holyhead was complaining of the sea-passage he had been through. " It was, I think," he said, " the dirtiest flight I have ever seen." " Oh," said Father Healy, " then it must have been wild." The portraits of Sir William which exist, showing him at different ages, reveal, as few physiognomies can do, an extraordinary mixture of intellectuality and animaUsm. Mr Harry Furness has included him in his gallery of " Ugly Men and Women." The qualification is hardly a just one. As to the upper part of his face. Sir William was remarkably handsome. No one with such a forehead and such eyes could be called ugly. But the lower part of his face and especially the almost simian mouth are very bad. In his son Oscar the same extraordinary contrast between the upper and lower parts, of his face was to be observed. He had the forehead and eyes of a genius. His mouth was ugly, almost abnormal. 25 CHAPTER II Oscar Wilde's Mother— Her Gift for Languages— Oscar's Extreme Linguistic Facility- Lady Wilde's Scholarship— The Consolations of iEschylus— Her Serenity— Her Schwaemerei— Oscar's Dissimilarity in this Respect— The Preponderating Maternal Influence— Probable Physio- logical Consequences— The Elgee's Italian Descent- Archdeacon Elgee— " One of the Saints of the Wexford Calendar "—Lady Wilde not his Grand-daughter— An Incident of 1798— Dr Kingsbury— Lady Wilde's Distin- guished Relations— The Rev. Charles Maturin— Balzac's Tribute to Maturin — How he stood Sponsor to Oscar- Clarence Mangan's Description of Maturin — Francesca Elgee's Nationalism—" Speranza " and " John Fenshaw Ellis " — Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Revolutionary— ^The villa Marguerite, Nice — His Journal, The Nation — Number 304—" Jacta Alea Est "—Other Contents of Number 304. There can be no doubt that from his mother, for whom he ever felt so great a love and so deep a reverence, Oscar Wilde inherited many of the gifts and graces which distinguished him amongst his contemporaries. Even as Lady Wilde, Oscar had great facility for learning languages. " My favourite study," she once related, " was languages ; I succeeded in mastering two European languages before my eighteenth year." It is on record that Oscar Wilde was able to learn the diffii^ult German 26 The Life of Oscar Wilde language in an incredibly short time. We are informed in " The Story of the Unhappy Friend- ship," that " during the railway journeys which he took in England in connection with his lecturing tour in the winter of 1 883-1 884, carrying a small pocket-dictionary and a volume of Heine with him, one book in each pocket of his fur-lined overcoat, he taught himself German so thoroughly that afterwards the whole of German literature was open to him." Lady Wilde was a wonderful classical scholar; she had the sheer delight in Latin and Greek literature that true scholars manifest; and made of the Roman orators or the Greek tragedians her favourite reading. A lady once called at No. i, Merrion Square and found Sir WiUiam's house in the possession of the bailiffs. " There were two strange men," this lady relates, " 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 knew I should find her. Speranza was there, indeed, but seemed not in the least troubled by the state of affairs in the house. I found her lying on the sofa reading the Prometheus Vinctus of iEschylus, from which she began to declaim passages to me, with exalted en- thusiasm. She would not let me slip in a word of condolence, but seemed very anxious that I should 27 The Life of Oscar Wilde share her entire admiration for the beauties of the