V Class / /T, (T8Z3 Rook Ar Copyright^?, COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT This edition consists of fifty copies on imperial vellum, num- bered from i to 50, and signed, and two hundred and fifty copies on Grolier laid paper, numbered from 51 to 300. This is ~Z<3 OSCAR WILDE FRAGMENTS AND MEMORIES OSCAR WILDE FRAGMENTS AND MEMORIES BY MARTIN BIRNBAUM h NEW YORK JAMES F. DRAKE, INC. 1914 TR^a 3 Copyright, 19 14, by Martin Birnbaum Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England SEP 22 1914 AU rights reserved & & 'CU379585 Olo h OSCAR WILDE FRAGMENTS AND MEMORIES OSCAR WILDE FRAGMENTS AND MEMORIES ARLY in the nineties an ambitious young American had a play produced in Lon- don. After the final cur- tain some rowdies in the pit coaxed the inexperienced playwright to appear before the footlights and proceeded to "boo" and hiss him off as soon as he stepped in view. But the young man was not crushed. "They will have to applaud me yet," he ex- claimed, and his subsequent meteoric career proved that he had fine talents. At that time, however, there were few in London who would listen to his verses, stories, and plays, and fewer still to buy them. In a note- Da book of the period we find him paraphras- ing an ancient pessimistic troubadour, — My fate is like the nightingale's, That singeth all night long, While still the woodlands mournfully But echo back his song. Sympathetic criticism and encouragement meant a great deal to him, and these were given him by Oscar Wilde. Like all generous spirits, the latter liked to praise, and when they met socially at the houses of London's smart set the kindly interest of the celebrity was highly appreciated by the aspiring play- wright. Their acquaintance had long since ripened into a fine friendship. Wilde's ex- quisite fairy tales had evidently inspired the young fellow, and one of the stories in the latter's first published book, — which breathes a spirit as pure and delightful as Wilde's own work, — contains a charming dedication to the author of " The Happy Prince." It was to these stories that Wilde probably re- ferred in the following note, which was re- cently found among his friend's papers: [16 Tite Street, Chelsea, N. WJ Dear . . . Just a line to tell you how sorry I am that you have left town, and how much I shall miss you. When you return we must make merry over a flagon of purple wine, and invent new tales with which to charm the world. O. W. One gloomy, rainy afternoon, the two men met in a deserted street. Wilde was driving in a hansom and he invited his friend to take the vacant seat beside him. X . . . accepted, and at once began to remonstrate with Wilde regarding certain ugly rumors which were circulating in London about him. The poet attempted to turn the matter into an epigram, but his friend would not be put off. He wanted a plain answer to the charges. Wilde refused to discuss the topic and finally called to the driver: "Stop to let this man out! I invited him for a drive, but he is not a gentleman!" The incident reads like a page from " Dorian Gray." The old relationship ended then and there, but X . . . always admitted his obligation as an artist to Wilde, contin- ued to look upon him as his intellectual in- spiration, and was among those who came to Wilde's aid after his release from prison. Before the rupture a voluminous correspon- dence existed between them, and X . . . 's library contained presentation copies of most of Wilde's works. "To X . . . , to whom the world has given both laurels and love, from his friend who wrote this book, May, '91 " is the typical inscription in one of them. Between the leaves of another volume there is one of Wilde's many beautiful, useless tele- grams which reads simply: "What a charm- ing day it has been! " Unfortunately, almost all the letters which passed between them seem to have been destroyed. A few happy notes from Wilde's wife to the young play- wright's mother still remain, in one of which she writes that Oscar "has become mad about golf, and spends two or three hours on the links every day, and this is so good for him." Cyril and Vivian, the children, have been having birthdays and whooping-cough. De- tails of her domestic happiness are given which are painfully touching in the light of the trials that were in store for her a few short years after these letters were written. The most precious souvenir of the friend- ship between the two men is the manuscript of the following poem, found in a presenta- tion copy of "Intentions." It has no title, and is signed "Oscar." Out of the mid-wood's twilight, Into the meadow's dawn, Ivory-limbed and brown-eyed Flashes my faun. He skips through the copses singing, And his shadow dances along, And I know not which I should follow, Shadow or song. O Hunter snare me his shadow, nightingale catch me his strain, For, moonstruck by madness and music 1 seek him in vain. The poem was published under the tide "In the Forest," in 1889, in the Christmas number of "The Lady's Pictorial Magazine," and the last two lines were there changed to read : Else, moonstruck with music and madness, I track him in vain ! The calligraphy is large, clear, and youth- ful, quite unlike the almost illegible, flowing scrawl of his last letters, some of which we shall quote, or the neat, tiny hand of his middle period, when the following transcript of a dialogue with Coquelin was written. The conversation took place when Wilde was living in Paris at the Hotel Voltaire, on the quai of that name overlooking the Louvre and the river Seine. The first draft of " The Sphinx '' was also written there. Oscar's radiant personality was in those days a feature of the French literary salons. Sher- ard, in his book "The Story of an Un- happy Friendship," mentions the meeting between Coquelin and Wilde at a luncheon, m and adds that tjie actor was not greatly impressed by the poet. The dialogue is fol- lowed by some French " phrases and philos- ophies " and scraps of criticism, all taken from a large commonplace-book, bought at the sale of Wilde's effects, and printed here exactly as they were left. Coquelin: Qu'est-ce-que c'est la civilization, Mon- sieur Wilde? Ego: L'amour du beau. Coquelin : Qu'est-ce-que c'est le beau ? Ego: Ce que les bourgeois appelent le laid. Coquelin: Et ce que les bourgeois appelent le beau? Ego: Cela n'existe pas. Mon drame ? Du style seulement. Hugo et Shake- speare ont partage tous les sujets : il est impossible d'etre original, meme dans le peche" : ainsi il n'y a pas demo- tions, seulement des adjectifs extraordinaires. Le fin est assez tragique, mon heros au moment de son triomphe fait un epigramme que manque tout-a-fait d'effet, alors on le condamne a etre academicien avec discours forces. (Ego to Coquelin.) La poesie c'est la grammaire idealisee. (O. W.) L'art, c'est le desordre. (Garcon at the Voltaire.) BO Les maitres anciens, c'est la momie, n'est ce pas ? (Concierge at the Louvre.) Artiste en poesie, et poete ; deux choses tres difFer- ents : c. q. Gautier et Hugo. (O. W.) Baudelaire : un peu lourd : Zola : voit simple, et voit clair ; peut faire des masses. Pour ecrire il me faut de satin jaune. (O. W.) II me faut des lions dans des cages dorees : c'est af- freux, apres la chair humaine les lions aiment 1'or, et on ne le leur donne jamais. (O. W.) Un ami d'Ephrussi avait un tortue doree avec des em- erauds sur le dos : il me faut aussi des emerauds : des bibelots vivants. The only schools worth founding are schools without disciples. (O. W.) II y a quelque chose plus terrible encore que le bour- geois, — c'est l'homme qui nous singe. (Degas to Walter.) J'aime assez les applaudissements, mais enfin j'ai trouve que le public ne peut pas decouvrir les fautes : dans les arts monsieur, on peut toujours dissimuler ; moi-meme j'ai fait des fautes: mais je les ai toujours cache. . . . Quand je vois dans un nouveau pays j 'observe les coif- fures; je sais bien qu'il y a des gens qui s'occupent avec les batiments publics mais je me fiche de tout ca : pour on moi rien n'existe que les coiffures . . . mais pour etre coiffeur il faut etre physionomiste aussi. (My hair-dresser's conversation, Rue Scribe.) Interruptions have not merely their artistic value in giving the impression that the dialogue is created by the actors and not by the author, but they have their physi- cal value also, they give to the actor time to breathe, and fill his lungs again. Nothing is worth painting except what is not worth looking at. The Greeks discovered that "le beau etait beau": we, that " le laid est beau aussi." Ready-made beauty — for the bourgeois. Then follows what is apparently the table- talk of the poet Maurice Rollinat, who tried to rival Baudelaire on his own ground, and was going to pieces mentally and physically when Wilde and Sherard knew him. "It was drugs," writes Sherard — " drugs with him morning and night, drugs for food and drugs for sleep; cerebral excitement all the time. The result as we saw it was a terrible one, and we could fancy the nerve-wreck of Charles Baudelaire, before the bow snapped, from the ravaged picture before us." Rol- linat checked himself in time, however, and wrote some interesting decadent poetry, not- ably " Les Nevroses." Wilde invited him to a good dinner at the Voltaire, and our quotation may be Wilde's transcription of the French poet's own words, or ideas sug- gested to Wilde by what Rollinat said, or by the verses which he recited on that occa- sion. The page in Wilde's note-book is headed " Rollinat." II n'y-a q'une forme pour le beau mais pour chaque chose chaque individu a un formule: ainsi on ne com- prend pas les poets : Je ne crois pas au progres : mais je crois au stagnation de la perversite humaine. II me faut les reves, le fantastique ; j 'admire les chaises Japonais parce-que ils n'ont pas etait faits pour s'asseoir. — his idea of music continuing the beauty of the poetry without its idea.* * Errors in accents, spelling, and grammar have been printed as they appear in the original manuscript. M The book from which these fragments were taken contained much more, but the dealer into whose hands it fell was in the habit of tearing out the sheets and inserting them into copies of first editions of Wilde's books, to enhance their value for the many bibliophiles who collect his works. The propriety of publishing such scraps, left be- hind without an author's final revisions, is open to question, but the French fragments quoted above seem exceptional, for the slight errors and peculiarities of style throw some light on the alleged debt which Wilde owed to Marcel Schwob, through whose hands the manuscript of "Salome" passed before it was printed. At some future time we hope to be able to find a short German poem which Wilde wrote, after his imprisonment, on the fly-leaf of Peter Hille's " Petrarca," while he was reading it on the shores of Lake Garda, in the company of Hans Heinz Ewers. The latter has written a rather lurid account of Wilde's sojourn in Capri, where Ewers is remembered on account of his ex- ploration of the caves on the island. In publishing letters no such apology is necessary. The more spontaneous they are, the greater their value as personal docu- ments. As examples of epistolary style many of Wilde's letters are not particularly good, but had his correspondence with the play- wright, whom we have already mentioned, been preserved, it would have formed an interesting commentary on the works, for Wilde was fond of discussing literary experi- ments with his friend. A large number of Wilde's letters have already been sold in the auction rooms. If collected, these would be invaluable for some future biographer who will disassociate the man from the strange confusion of ideas which already attaches to his name, who will not fall into the error of sentimentalizing, and will write a literary, not a pathological, history. Richard Butler Glaenzer, in his book entitled "Decorative Art in America," M has published the letters to Miss Marie Prescott relating to the performance of Wilde's first play, " Vera," in New York, August 20, 1883; also a fine letter to Joaquin Miller, thanking him for the sym- pathy he extended to Wilde when the latter was insulted on his American lecture tour. Many more, which it is to be hoped Glaen- zer will bring together in a single volume, are still in his possession. The most im- portant of these are the letters, some of them facetious, to Leonard Smithers, relat- ing to the publication of the "Ballad of Reading Gaol "; a few charming social notes to the publisher's wife; a clever letter to Thomas Hutchinson, the book collector; and many relating to his American tour. Several of his letters to Richard Le Galli- enne were recently put up for sale. Like the famous " prose sonnet," which was read with terrible effect at the trial, and the letter reproduced in facsimile in Sherard's book, these last are full of those extrava- gant but quite innocent expressions which characterize most of Wilde's letters to friends. Colonel Morse, Wilde's manager, whose faith in the poet's character is to this day unfaltering, could also add many facts. His account of Wilde's delivery, in Boston, of the lecture on the English Renaissance of Art is particularly vivid and amusing. When the Colonel looked through the stage door and saw fifty or sixty Harvard students file into front rows with a Bunthorne gait, wearing knee- breeches and long silk stockings, blond wigs of flowing hair, bright satin cravats, coats, and even shoes, decorated with lilies or sun- flowers, he at once insisted that Wilde should change his aesthetic costume for a more conventional one. After some persua- sion he complied with his manager's request. The plucky Irishman, as Colonel Morse still calls him, then walked without any hesitation down the long stage, amid noisy cheers and howls, and at once turned the tables on the young burlesquers,. "As a college man, I greet you ! " he began, thus taking the wind out of their sails. Then he started his lec- ture by flattering the great audience, but feeling that the students required more at- tention, he again interrupted the thread of his argument, ran his eye over them, and remarked ironically that he considered it an honor to lecture in Boston, because he seemed to see certain signs of an artistic movement in the lecture hall. This was greeted by a prolonged roar of laughter, which was renewed when Wilde added that on seeing the young men he was compelled to breathe for the first time a silent prayer to be delivered from his disciples. J. M. Stoddart, the publisher of "Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf," can also give many interesting facts concerning Wilde's sojourn in America. Few people know that the cu- rious paper on which that book is printed was originally intended for early paper cur- rency, and was found in an old Philadelphia warehouse, where it had been stored since the Revolution. Some of the emblems scattered through the book were engraved on wood from sketches by the distinguished pioneer in American art, James Edward Kelly. The most interesting picture is the one, on the title-page, of the seal of a ring given to Wilde by his mother. Kelly saw a great deal of the poet, especially when the latter sat for the small bronze relief portrait which, when finished, won Wilde's enthusiastic ap- proval. "A bas-relief," he told the sculptor, "should be carved like a jewel. It must be full. There must be no waste spaces." Kelly's plaque and his etching (only the head of which was used as the frontispiece for the American edition of "De Profundis"), Albert Sterner's portrait for "La Plume," Toulouse-Lautrec's extraordinary sketch of Wilde on trial, Harper Pennington's oil por- trait, and W. P. Frith's sketch are, curiously enough, almost the only known authentic portraits of Wilde made by any of his nu- - "- :..' , The southwest corner of Irving Place and Seventeenth Street, New York City. The corner house was at one time the home of Washington Irving. Wilde resided in the building adjoining on the left. merous artist friends.* His point of view and criticisms were highly valued by Kelly, who was in the habit of transcribing in Bos- wellian fashion all the remarks of his brilliant sitter. He dwells with mournful interest on the visits to Wilde's attractive temporary New York home on Irving Place, next to the building once occupied by Washington Irving; his delightful walks up Fifth Avenue on "sunny Oscar Wilde mornings"; the social call on Lily Langtry and the heated dispute with her about the most becoming arrange- ment of Oscar's wavy locks ; the meeting at Wilde's request with Thomas Edison, whom the poet considered the greatest man in America ; the sparkling conversations between Wilde and John Boyle O'Reilly, at that time a handsome figure in Boston's literary circles ; Oscar's clever posing when interviewed by * Hermann Struck's charming etching, as well as most of the frontispieces to books about Wilde, were not made from life. A good drawing by an unknown artist is in the possession of Robert Ross. Beardsley and less important graphic artists often made caricatures of him. M American reporters; his witticisms and his inspired audacity; his superstitious dread of some catastrophe when his mother's ring, already mentioned, was found broken; his genuine grief over the failure of "Vera," jeered at quite justly by the critics as soon as the violent heroine appeared in a flaming vermilion gown, for which the playwright himself had purchased the material ; above all, his glowing eulogy of the lamented genius John Donoghue, whose beautiful figure of the young Sophocles leading the chorus of youths at Salamis is one of America's mas- terpieces. Wilde not only bought some of the sculptor's work, but in the course of a lecture in Chicago he went out of his way to praise the then unknown artist and made him famous. Poor Donoghue! Less than three years after his patron and discoverer had been laid to rest in the cemetery at Bag- neux, he went away to a lonely corner to com- mit suicide, and there was only one steadfast friend to see him to his humble resting-place. Robert Blum, the gifted painter whose fine works adorned the walls of Mendelssohn Hall in New York, was another artist whom Wilde admired. He would often walk into Blum's extraordinary studio, decorated with frescos of strutting peacocks, and amuse the sitters with his vein of gentle humour, his at- titudes, and his curious clothes. To one woman posing for Blum he suggested that she should wear his favourite colours, — cafe au lait and sage green, with a yellow tea rose. To another he remarked that Blum's de- licious tints gave him a sensation similar to eating a yellow satin dress. His repartee was brilliant and amusing, but not infre- quently he was compelled to retreat. On one occasion an American lady described something to him as " awfully nice." Oscar looked bored and exclaimed, "But 'nice' is such a nasty word!" Quick as a flash she replied, " Really, Mr. Wilde? But is < nasty' such a nice word ? " In a more or less intimate way, Wilde also enjoyed the society and hospitality of Julia Ward Howe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa Al- cott, Kate Field, General Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, William Chase, and many other American celebrities. The lecture tour brought him into touch with many noble natures and aroused his finest ambitions. America put him on his mettle by treating him like a great personality. He ceased to become a mere dilettante and experimenter. The long locks of hair and posturings which went with them were all discarded. It was, however, long after his return to England that he did his best work — "The Soul of Man under Socialism," of which he was pardonably proud ; the delicate fairy tales, " Intentions," and the plays, scintillating with the wittiest epigrammatic dialogue written since the days of Aristophanes. It was this enviable measure of success in life and in every form of literary endeavour that made the scandal of his downfall so shocking and deplorable. He was brought to a full stop at the very height of his splen- did career, and was suddenly driven back into the depths where he had once gone for sen- sations, after tiring, as he said, of being on the heights. His imagination was struck by lightning. Dublin's Greek medallist and the winner of the Newdigate was called upon to suffer an agony acute beyond ordinary human endurance. When he faced the world again the flowers in his fancy's wreath were scattered, and he finally returned to Paris to seek among its social outcasts a merciful oblivion, near the salons where he once rev- elled in the joy of life. The shy Ernest Dowson, who was then translating French classics and writing verses while on the verge of starvation, saw him occasionally in the cafes of the quarter. The lord of language, the embodiment of eternal youth and laugh- ter, had become a bankrupt and a byword, a terrible warning to men who dared defy society. The one pleasant incident in the record of this part of his career is his meet- ing with Fritz Thaulow at Dieppe. Wilde had been insulted by some English residents of the town in the presence of the big Northerner, when the painter walked up to the poet, and said in a clear voice which all the prudes could hear, " Mr. Wilde, my wife and I would feel honoured to have you dine with us en famille this evening." There he found Charles Conder, the decorator of exqui- site fans, and both men recovered something of their former gaiety in the charming atmo- sphere of the Thaulow home, filled with golden-haired children and their infectious laughter. Christian Krogh, the Norwegian painter, a relative of Thaulow's by marriage, has preserved some of the poet's conversation and made a pen-and-ink sketch of him, in a book entitled, "Smaa Dagsreiser" (Chris- tiania, 1897). Unfortunately, Wilde did not remain at Dieppe. His Irish spirit was gone, and soon we hear of him living under an assumed name in the Parisian mire, among soiled lives. Shunning the sunny places, he wandered about the mean streets where that curious problem of French literature, the mad De Nerval, had written masterpieces, where Rimbaud and Verlaine had lived so feverishly, where Josiah Flynt, the born vaga- bond, had chosen to roam because the squalid section of Paris was to him the most inter- estingly human. Leonard Smithers, who had helped Beardsley and who was advancing money to Dowson, now came to Wilde's aid also, and the pathos of the following letters to his publisher and friend requires no com- ment. June 23, 1898. My dear Smithers — Please send me £10. — and you will receive the MS. with its due corrections — I don't think you can receive it if you don't, as I am quite pen- niless, and on the brink of expulsion from my hotel — I do not receive anything till July 1st — I hope you will make up your mind about this coming to Paris, as Rob- bie has a suit of clothes for me and if you don't come I shall have to wait till I can pay the duty. I have gone to a little inn at Nogent — Address — M. Sebastian Melmoth L'Idee Le Perreux Nogent-sur-Marne on as I dare not go back to my Hotel and at Nogent I have credit. — Do please do this for me ai once* Yours O. W. Paris Aug. 12, 1898. Friday. My dear Smithers, Thank you very much for the cheque, which was a great boon, to the patron of the Hotel primarily, and in a secondary degree to myself. I am much obliged to you. I hope to receive my proofs soon. It is so hot in Paris that I simply cannot write a letter — at night it is charming but by day a tiger's mouth. If I could get away to the sea, all would be well. I saw Carrington the other night — he tells me of a wonderful book of poems you have published and has promised to let me see it. Carrington looked triste and hysterical— what a curious type he is — ! The English are very unpopular in Paris now — as all those who are over here under Cook's direction are thor- oughly respectable. There is much indignation on the boulevards. I try to convince them that they are our worst specimens — but it is a difficult task. Yr O. W. Even when he was an outcast the wit of the once blithe-spirited aesthete could not be suppressed, and it was peculiarly fitting that he should die jesting. Publishers and theat- rical managers had been trying to kindle his talents into flame. It was small wonder, however, that with his life's tragedy brand- ing him, he could not sufficiently concentrate his thoughts to find consolation in literature, although Andre Gide's essay shows that he was still a master of searching, matchless words. Having written his pathetic plea for imprisoned children and sung his sombre ballad, one of the most perfect poems of its kind, he closed his imperial lips forever. How amusing his comments would have been could he have read the apocryphal mat- ter written about him, and the long list of his literary progeny at home and abroad. How pleased he would be to know that his spirit is permeating the literature of Europe — of Germany especially. We are too near to be impersonal, and judgment in such a case will always be a matter of temperament. The tragedy of an unfulfilled life was his — a life abounding in pitiful paradoxes, con- trasts, and jarring notes of insincerity, from which his finest works are fortunately free. A lasting, immortal loveliness is theirs, and the words from the Book of Job carved on his first tombstone at Bagneux were happily chosen : October 16th 1854 — November 30th 1900. Verbis meis addere nihil audebant et super illos stilla- bat eloquium meum. — Job xxix, 22. R. I. P. M Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: May 2009 PreservationTechnologie A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATI 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111