Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 262 pages of information about Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2).

Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 262 pages of information about Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2).

“Did you sy they was niked?”

“Of course,” Oscar replied, “nude, clothed only in sunshine and beauty.”

“Oh, my,” giggled the lad in his unspeakable Cockney way.  I could not stand it.

“I am in an impossible position,” I said to my opponent, who was the amateur chess player, Montagu Gattie.  “Come along and let us have some dinner.”  With a nod to Oscar I left the place.  On the way out Gattie said to me: 

“So that’s the famous Oscar Wilde.”

“Yes,” I replied, “that’s Oscar, but I never saw him in such company before.”

“Didn’t you?” remarked Gattie quietly; “he was well known at Oxford.  I was at the ’Varsity with him.  His reputation was always rather—­’high,’ shall we call it?”

I wanted to forget the scene and blot it out of my memory, and remember my friend as I knew him at his best.  But that Cockney boy would not be banned; he leered there with rosy cheeks, hair plastered down in a love-lock on his forehead, and low cunning eyes.  I felt uncomfortable.  I would not think of it.  I recalled the fact that in all our talks I had never heard Oscar use a gross word.  His mind, I said to myself, is like Spenser’s, vowed away from coarseness and vulgarity:  he’s the most perfect intellectual companion in the world.  He may have wanted to talk to the boys just to see what effect his talk would have on them.  His vanity is greedy enough to desire even such applause as theirs....  Of course, that was the explanation—­vanity.  My affection for him, tormented by doubt, had found at length a satisfactory solution.  It was the artist in him, I said to myself, that wanted a model.

But why not boys of his own class?  The answer suggested itself; boys of his own class could teach him nothing; his own boyhood would supply him with all the necessary information about well-bred youth.  But if he wanted a gutter-snipe in one of his plays, he would have to find a gutter-lad and paint him from life.  That was probably the truth, I concluded.  So satisfied was I with my discovery that I developed it to Gattie; but he would not hear of it.

“Gattie has nothing of the artist in him,” I decided, “and therefore cannot understand.”  And I went on arguing, if Gattie were right, why two boys?  It seemed evident to me that my reading of the riddle was the only plausible one.  Besides it left my affection unaffected and free.  Still, the giggle, the plastered oily hair and the venal leering eyes came back to me again and again in spite of myself.

CHAPTER XI

There is a secret apprehension in man counselling sobriety and moderation, a fear born of expediency distinct from conscience, which is ethical; though it seems to be closely connected with conscience acting, as it does, by warnings and prohibitions.  The story of Polycrates and his ring is a symbol of the instinctive feeling that extraordinary good fortune is perilous and can not endure.

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Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.