Do you think the idea absurd?

I got the Chronicle, many thanks.  I see the writer on Prince—­A.2.11.—­does not mention my name—­foolish of her—­it is a woman.

I, as you, the poem of my days, are away, am forced to write.  I have begun something that I think will be very good.

I breakfast to-morrow with the Stannards:  what a great passionate, splendid writer John Strange Winter is!  How little people understand her work! Bootle’s Baby is an “oeuvre symboliste”—­it is really only the style and the subject that are wrong.  Pray never speak lightly of Bootle’s Baby—­Indeed pray never speak of it at all—­I never do.

Yours,

OSCAR.

Please send a Chronicle to my wife.

     MRS. C.M.  HOLLAND,
     Maison Benguerel,
     Bevaix,
     Pres de Neuchatel,

just marking it—­and if my second letter appears, mark that.

Also cut out the letter[19] and enclose it in an envelope to: 

     MR. ARTHUR CRUTHENDEN,
     Poste Restante, G.P.O., Reading,

with just these lines: 

    Dear friend,

    The enclosed will interest you.  There is also another letter
    waiting in the post office for you from me with a little money. 
    Ask for it if you have not got it.

    Yours sincerely,

    C.3.3.

I have no one but you, dear Robbie, to do anything.  Of course the letter to Reading must go at once, as my friends come out on Wednesday morning early.

This letter displays almost every quality of Oscar Wilde’s genius in perfect efflorescence—­his gaiety, joyous merriment and exquisite sensibility.  Who can read of the little Chapel to Notre Dame de Liesse without emotion quickly to be changed to mirth by the sunny humour of those delicious specimens of self-advertisement:  “Mr. Beerbohm Tree also writes:  ’Since I have tried it, I am a different actor, my friends hardly recognise me.’”

This letter is the most characteristic thing Oscar Wilde ever wrote, a thing produced in perfect health at the topmost height of happy hours, more characteristic even than “The Importance of Being Earnest,” for it has not only the humour of that delightful farce-comedy, but also more than a hint of the deeper feeling which was even then forming itself into a master-work that will form part of the inheritance of men forever.

“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” belongs to this summer of 1897.  A fortunate conjuncture of circumstances—­the prison discipline excluding all sense-indulgence, the kindness shown him towards the end of his imprisonment and of course the delight of freedom—­gave him perfect physical health and hope and joy in work, and so Oscar was enabled for a few brief months to do better than his best.  He assured me and I believe that the conception of “The Ballad” came to him in prison and was due to the alleviation of his punishment and the permission accorded to him to write and read freely—­a divine fruit born directly of his pity for others and the pity others felt for him.