The editor of "De Profundis" replied in a short letter saying, in effect, that he was not concerned to add anything to his definite statement in the preface of the book, a course with which everyone will be in agreement. To answer a busybody throwing doubts upon the statement of an honourable gentleman is a mistake. The matter, however, went a little further and was eventually set finally at rest.
InThe Daily Mirrora facsimile of a page of the manuscript written on prison paper was reproduced, and Mr Hamilton Fyfe accompaniedthe letterpress by informing the public that he had seen the whole of the manuscript of "De Profundis." It was written on blue foolscap paper with the prison stamp on the top. There were about 60,000 words, of which altogether not more than one-third were published in the English edition. The explanation of the fact that the prisoner was allowed to write in his cell is perfectly simple.
Oscar Wilde handed this roll of paper to Mr Robert Ross on the day of his release, and gave him absolute discretion as to printing it. He had written most of it during the last three months of his two years' sentence. It was during the last half-year of his term that Wilde was allowed the special privilege of writing as much as he pleased. His friends represented to the Home Office that a man who had been accustomed to use his brain so continually was in danger of having his mind injured by being unable to write for so long a time as two years.
Dr Nicholson, of Broadmoor, who was consulted on the point, said he thought this danger was quite a real one. So the necessary permission was given, and Wilde could write whatever he liked.
Later on the prison regulations were relaxed again. As a rule, prisoners are not allowed to take away with them what they have written in their cells. Strictly, the MS. of "De Profundis"ought to have remained among the archives of Reading Gaol.
The authorities realised, however, that to enforce this rule in Wilde's case would have been harsh and unreasonable, so when (in order to defeat the intentions of the late Lord Queensberry and his hired bullies) he was removed from Reading to Wandsworth Prison, on the evening before his release he took the MS. with him; and he had it under his arm when he left the gloomy place next morning a free man.
This statement, and the facsimile printed above, should make it impossible henceforward for anyone to suggest, as many have been suggesting quite recently, that there is any doubt about the whole of the book having been written by Oscar Wilde during the time he was in prison.
The development of Oscar Wilde during his incarceration has, of course, been summed up and stated for all time by himself in the marvellous pages of "De Profundis." Yet, there are various accounts of that time of agony which do but go to show what a really purifying and salutary influence even the awful torture he underwent had upon the unhappy man. By those who knew him in prison he is described as living a life which, in its simple resignation, its kindly gentleness, its sweetness of demeanour, was the life of a saint. No bitterness or harshword ever escaped him. When opportunity occurred of doing some tiny and furtive kindness that kindness was always forthcoming. Those who rejoiced at the fact of Wilde's imprisonment may well pause now when the true story of it has filtered through various channels and is generally known. He himself told Monsieur André Gide a strange and pathetic story of those silent, unhappy hours.
He speaks of one of the Governors under whose rule he lay in durance, and says that this gentleman imposed needless suffering upon his unhappy charges, not because of any inherent cruelty or contravention of the rules for prison discipline, but because he was entirely lacking in imagination.
On one occasion, during the hour allowed for exercise, a prisoner who walked behind Wilde upon the circular pathway of the yard addressed him by name, and told him that he pitied him even more than he pitied himself, because his sufferings must be greater than his. Such a sudden word of sympathy from an unknown fellow-convict gave the poor poet an exquisite moment of pleasure and pain. He answered him appropriately with a word of thanks. But one of the warders had been a witness of the occasion, and the matter was reported to the Governor. Two convicts had been guilty of the outrage of exchanging a few words. The unknown convictwas taken first before the Governor. It is a prison regulation that the punishment is not the same for the man who speaks first and the man who answers him. The first offender has to pay a double penalty. The Convict X., when before the Governor, stated that he was the culprit and that he had spoken first. When afterwards Wilde was taken before the martinet, he very naturally told him that he himself was the principal offender. The Governor stated that he was unable to understand the matter at all. He grew red and uneasy, and told Wilde that he had already given X. fifteen days' solitary confinement. He then stated that as Wilde had also confessed to be the principal offender he should award him fifteen days' solitary confinement also!
This touching incident shows both Wilde and the unknown convict in a noble light, but the gentle way in which Oscar told of the incident to the French journalist is even a greater tribute to the innate dignity of his character, so long obscured by the exigencies of his life, so beautifully laid bare when he had paid his debt to society.
There are other anecdotes extant which confirm the above. All go to show that the third period brought out the finest traits in Wilde's character. We have in this period another and most touching side of the complex temperamentof this great genius, this extraordinary and unhappy man. Much will have to be said on this point when the criticism of "De Profundis" is reached.
Meanwhile, I close the "third period" with a sense that here, at anyrate, there is nothing to be said which is not wholly fragrant and redolent of sincerity.
It is with a sense of both reluctance and relief that I enter upon a short account of the fourth period, insomuch as this or that incident during it throws a light upon the character of him of whom we speak.
With a relief, because it is a far happier and more gracious task to endeavour to criticise and appreciate the literary works of a great genius than it is to chronicle facts in the life of a most unhappy man which may help to elucidate the puzzle of his personality.
With reluctance, because the fourth period is again one of almost unadulterated gloom and sadness. I shall be as brief as possible, and too much already has been written about the last days of Oscar Wilde after his release from prison.
A considerable amount of information has been placed at my disposal, but I design to usenone of it. The facts that are already known to those who have taken an interest in Oscar Wilde may be briefly touched upon here, and that is all. An eloquent plea from a near relation of the poet should be respected here, and only such few facts as are really necessary to complete this incomplete study shall be given. "Nothing could have horrified him more than that men calling themselves his friends should publish concerning his latter days details so disgusting as those appearing in your issue of yesterday." Thus a paragraph from the appeal I have mentioned, an appeal which was prompted by the publication of many controversial articles as to the truth, or otherwise, of Mr Wilde's reception into the Roman Church, his debts, his manner of living towards the end. "I should be glad to think that this expression of my wish may put an end to this unpleasant correspondence. If it does not, I can only appeal to your correspondents to be very careful of what they write, and to reflect upon what Mr Oscar Wilde would think if he could read their letters. In life, he never said or countenanced a coarse or common thing. Personally, I write with too much reluctance to reply to them again, and I leave the matter to their sense of decency and chivalry."
Immediately upon his release from prison Oscar Wilde wrote his famous letters toTheDaily Chronicleon "Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Life in Gaol." He told a terrible story of a poor little child whose face was "like a white wedge of sheer terror," and in his eyes "the mute appeal of a hunted animal." Wilde had heard the poor little fellow at breakfast-time crying and calling to be let out. He was calling for his parents, and every now and then the elder prisoner could hear the harsh voice of the warder on duty telling the little boy to be quiet. The child had not been convicted of the offence with which he was charged, but was simply on remand. A kind-hearted warder, finding the little fellow crying with hunger and utterly unable to eat the bread and water given it for breakfast, brought it some sweet biscuits. This, Mr Wilde truthfully said, was a "beautiful action on the warder's part." The child, grateful for the man's kindness, told one of the senior warders about it. The result was that the warder who had brought the biscuits to the starving child was reported and dismissed from the service.
It is not too much to say that this story, told in the prose of a master of prose, written with a crushing and sledgehammer force all the more powerful because it was most marvellously simple, thrilled the whole of England. There followed an even more terrible story.
Three months or so before his release, Wildehad noticed, among the prisoners who took exercise with him, a young prisoner who was obviously either half-witted or trembling upon the verge of insanity. This poor creature used to gesticulate, laugh and talk to himself. "At chapel he used to sit right under the observation of two warders, who carefully watched him all the time. Sometimes he would bury his head in his hands, an offence against the chapel regulations, and his head would be immediately struck up by a warder.... He was on more than one occasion sent out of chapel to his cell, and of course he was continually punished.... I saw that he was becoming insane and was being treated as if he were shamming." There was a terrible denouement to this hideous story. Mr Wilde went on to say in words that do him eternal credit and which no one who has read them could ever forget:
"On Saturday week last, I was in my cell at about one o'clock occupied in cleaning and polishing the tins I had been using for dinner. Suddenly I was startled by the prison silence being broken by the most horrible and revolting shrieks, or rather howls, for at first I thought some animal like a bull or a cow was being unskilfully slaughtered outside the prison walls. I soon realised, however, that the howls proceeded from the basement of the prison, and I knew that some wretched man was being flogged. Ineed not say how hideous and terrible it was for me, and I began to wonder who it was being punished in this revolting manner. Suddenly it dawned upon me that they might be flogging this unfortunate lunatic. My feelings on the subject need not be chronicled; they have nothing to do with the question."The next day, Sunday, I saw the poor fellow at exercise, his weak, ugly, wretched face bloated by tears and hysteria almost beyond recognition. He walked in the centre ring along with the old men, the beggars and the lame people, so that I was able to observe him the whole time. It was my last Sunday in prison, a perfectly lovely day, the finest day we had had the whole year, and there, in the beautiful sunlight, walked this poor creature—made once in the image of God—grinning like an ape, and making with his hands the most fantastic gestures."
"On Saturday week last, I was in my cell at about one o'clock occupied in cleaning and polishing the tins I had been using for dinner. Suddenly I was startled by the prison silence being broken by the most horrible and revolting shrieks, or rather howls, for at first I thought some animal like a bull or a cow was being unskilfully slaughtered outside the prison walls. I soon realised, however, that the howls proceeded from the basement of the prison, and I knew that some wretched man was being flogged. Ineed not say how hideous and terrible it was for me, and I began to wonder who it was being punished in this revolting manner. Suddenly it dawned upon me that they might be flogging this unfortunate lunatic. My feelings on the subject need not be chronicled; they have nothing to do with the question.
"The next day, Sunday, I saw the poor fellow at exercise, his weak, ugly, wretched face bloated by tears and hysteria almost beyond recognition. He walked in the centre ring along with the old men, the beggars and the lame people, so that I was able to observe him the whole time. It was my last Sunday in prison, a perfectly lovely day, the finest day we had had the whole year, and there, in the beautiful sunlight, walked this poor creature—made once in the image of God—grinning like an ape, and making with his hands the most fantastic gestures."
The story continued with even more terrible details than these. It is no part of my plan to harrow the feelings of my readers by a reprint of such horrors. I have said enough, I trust, to fulfil my purpose in quoting Oscar Wilde's letters to all—to show how powerfully he himself was moved with pity, and how he strove, even in his own terrible re-entrance to a world which would have none of him, to influence public opinion on the behalf of one who was being done to death, not perhaps by consciouscruelty, but by the awful stupidity of those who live by an inflexible rule which can make no allowance for special circumstances, which is as hard as the nether millstone and as cold as death itself.
So Oscar Wilde passed out of England with pity flowing from his pen and with pity in his heart. I wish that it was possible to end this memoir here. As I have set out to give all the facts which seem necessary to provide a complete picture for readers who know little or nothing of Oscar Wilde's nature, beyond the fact of his triumphs as a playwright and his subsequent disgrace, I must not shrink from proceeding to the end, as I have not shrunk from frankly recording facts in the first and second periods. It would be a fault, and insincere, to allow a deep and very natural sympathy to interfere with the performance, however inadequately it has been carried out, of the task I set out to complete.
Oscar Wilde crossed immediately to Dieppe, and shortly afterwards installed himself in a villa at a small seaside place some miles away from the gay Norman bathing place. His life at Berneval was simple and happy. His biographer, Mr Robert Harborough Sherard, who visited him there, has told of the quiet repose and healing days which Oscar Wilde enjoyed. He had a sufficient sum of money to live in comfort fora year or so, and all would doubtless have gone well with him had it not been for certain malign influences which had already been prominent factors in wrecking his life, and which now appeared again to menace his newly found salvation of mind and spirit. Such references are not within the province of the book, the story has been told elsewhere. The thing would not have been referred to at all, did it not illustrate the impatience and weakness of Wilde's character, even at this point in his history. The malign influences eventually had their way with the poet—that is to say, certain companions whom it was most unwise of him to see or recognise, once more entered into his life in a certain degree.
A letter which was written to a gentleman who has translated a French memoir dealing with the poet, says: "No more beautiful life has any man lived, no more beautiful life could any man live than Oscar Wilde lived during the short period I knew him in prison. He wore upon his face an eternal smile; sunshine was on his face, sunshine of some sort must have been in his heart. People say he was not sincere: he was the very soul of sincerity when I knew him. If he did not continue that life after he left prison, then the forces of evil must have been too strong for him. But he tried, he honestly tried, and in prison he succeeded." The forces ofevil were too strong.
Oscar Wilde spent the last few years, and alas! miserable years, of his life in alternations of sordid poverty and sudden waves of temporary prosperity, in the city of Paris. There have been all sorts of stories about these last few years. The truth is simply this. Wilde's intellect was crushed and broken. The creative faculty flamed up for the last time in that brilliant and terrible poem, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Then it sank again and was never revived. When I say "creative faculty" I mean the faculty of producing a sustained artistic effort. As a talker the poet was never more brilliant. "Every now and again one or other of the very few faithful English friends left to him would turn up in Paris and take him to dinner at one of the best restaurants, and anyone who met him on these occasions would have found it difficult to believe that he had ever passed through such awful experiences. Whether he was expounding some theory, grave or fantastic, embroidering it the while with flashes of impromptu wit, or deepening it with extraordinary intimate learning, or whether he was keeping the table in a roar with his delightfully whimsical humour, a summer lightning that flashed and hurt no one, he was equally admirable. To have lived in his lifetime and not to have heard him talk is as though one had lived at Athens without going to lookat the Parthenon."
I think we should be glad to know that in the wrecked life of this period the poet had some happy moments when he could reconstruct in bright and brilliant surroundings some slight renewal of other days that were gone for ever. There is no doubt at all that friends, both those who had had a good and those who had had a bad influence on his past life, were very kind to him.
He was supplied with enough money to have lived in considerable comfort had he not been incurably reckless and a spendthrift. It has been said that he died in wretched poverty and in debt. This is partly true, but it was entirely his own fault. There is indubitable proof of the fairly large sums he received from time to time. Some of his letters to a man in London, who occasionally employed his pen, have been sold to the curious, and such poignant passages as: "I rely on your sending me a little money to-morrow. I have only succeeded in getting twenty francs from the Concierge, and I am in a bad way," or, "I wish to goodness you could come over, also—send me, if you can, £4 or even £3. I am now trying to leave my hotel and get rooms where I can be at rest, and so stay in during the morning."
These letters seem to show that Oscar Wilde was nearly starving. I can assure my readersthis was not the case. With the realisation that there would never be any more place for him in the world had come a carelessness and recklessness to all but immediate and petty sensual gratifications from day to day.
His landlord stated that towards the end it became very difficult for Wilde to write at all. "He used to whip himself up with cognac. A litre bottle would hardly see him through the night. And he ate little. And he took little exercise. He used to sleep till noon, and then breakfast, and then sleep again till five or six in the evening."
This is enough. I have said as little as can well be said. But let us remember the frightful and crushing disabilities under which Wilde suffered. Who is there who dare cast a stone? His death came as a happy release, and it was sordid and dreadful enough to complete the grim tragedy of his life without deviation from its completeness. True, an attached friend was by him at the end. True, the offices of the Holy Catholic Church lightened his passing. Yet, nevertheless, there was an abiding and sinister gloom about all his last hours. Details can be found in other places. "How Oscar Wilde died" was a journalistic sensation at the time.
I will simply quote the words of a French critic, who, after the end, went to pay his lastsad duties to the shell which had held the poet's soul: "... The hotel in which he died was one of those horrible places which are called in the popular papers 'Houses of Crime.' A veritable Hercules of a porter led me through a long, evil-smelling corridor. At last the odour of some disinfectant struck my nostrils. An open door. A little square room. I stood before the corpse. His whitish, emaciated face, strangely altered through the growth of a beard after death, seemed to be lost in profound contemplation. A hand, cramped in agony, still clutched the dirty bed cloth. There was no one to watch by his body. Only much later they sent him some flowers. The noise of the street pierced the thin walls of the building. A stale odour filled the air. Ah, what loneliness, what an end!"
If I have quoted this ugly and vulgar picture of the poet's body in the sordid room I have done so with intention.
It is in the contemplation of such scenes as this that our minds and hearts are uplifted from the material to the supreme hope of all of us. The man who had suffered and sinned and done noble things in this world had gone away from it. Doubtless, when the Frenchman with his prying eyes and notebook was gloating over the material sensation of the scene, the soul of the poet was hearing harmonies too long unknown to it, and was beginning to undergo the Purification.
Requiescat.
Oscar Wilde was always a loving student of Dante. In that contempt for the world's opinion, which is sometimes the strength and also the ruin of great geniuses, Wilde bore a strong resemblance to the great Italian who said "Lascia dir le genti." The versatility of Oscar Wilde was supreme, and that is in itself the real solution of whatever is most astonishing in his power or startling in his madness, of all that most draws us towards him or repels us with an equal strength. "A variety of powers almost boundless, a pride not less vast in displaying them—a susceptibility of new impressions and impulses, even beyond the usual allotment of genius ... such were the two great and leading sources of all that varied spectacle which his life exhibited; and that succession of victories achieved by his genius, in almost every field of mind that genius ever trod, and of all those sallies of character in every shape and direction that unchecked feeling and dominant self-will can dictate."
It is not for the author of this memoir, whose attitude has been studiously impersonal throughout, to attempt any dictation to his readers as to the judgment they shall ultimately form upon the character of Oscar Wilde.
At the same time, he hopes that it may notbe forbidden him to give his own, and doubtless very imperfect, view. He thinks that in regarding the whole field of the poet's life, as far as it can be known to others, one finds him to be a sweet and noble nature with much of the serenity of "highness" which accompanies a great genius, yet, obscured, soiled, overlapped, and periodically destroyed by a terrible and riotous madness, both of talk and of thought. It is a facile and dangerous thing to attribute all the good and noble actions of any man to his "real self," and to say that all the evil he wrought and did came from madness or irresponsibility. If such a doctrine were to be generally accepted and believed, laws would lose theirraison d'être, punishment would become a mockery, and society would inevitably end.
Yet, possibly it may be that some few souls exist and have existed of whom such a statement may be true. If such exceptions do exist and have existed, then surely Oscar Wilde was one of them. There seems to be no other explanation of him but just this; and if we do not accept it I, at anyrate, cannot see any other.
Let each reader of this book appropriate his own, and I conclude the first part of it by repeating the old, old prayer—
Requiescat.
THE MODERN PLAYWRIGHT
When Mr George Alexander produced "Lady Windermere's Fan" at the St James's Theatre, in the spring of 1892, it created an unprecedented furore among all ranks of the playgoing public, and placed the author at once upon a pedestal in the Valhalla of the Drama; not on account of the plot, which was frankly somewhatvieux jeu, nor yet upon any striking originality in the types of the personages who were to unravel it, but upon the sparkle of the dialogue, the brilliancy of the epigrams, a condition of things to which the English stage had hitherto been entirely unaccustomed. The author was acclaimed as a playwright who had at last succeeded in clothing stagecraft with the vesture of literature, and with happy phrase and nimble paradox delighted the minds of his audience. What promise of a long succession of social comedies, illuminated by the intimate knowledge of his subject that he so entirely possessed, was held out to us! Here was a man who treated society as it really exists; who was himself living in it; portraying its folk as he knew them, with their virtues and vices coming to them as naturally as the facile flow of their conversation; conversation interlarded with no stilted sentences,no well- (or ill-) rounded periods, but such as that which falls without conscious effort from the lips of people who, in whatever surroundings they may be placed, are, before all things, and at all times, thoroughly at their ease. It may be objected that people in real life, even in the higher life of the Upper Ten, do not habitually scatter sprightly pleasantries abroad as they sit around the five-o'clock tea-table. That Oscar Wilde made every personage he depicted talk as he himself was wont to talk.Passe encore.The real fact remains that heknewthe social atmosphere he represented, had breathed it, and was familiar with all its traditions and mannerisms. He gave us thetoneof Society as it had never before been given. He was at home in it. He could exhibit a ball upon the stage where real ladies and gentlemen assembled together, quite distinct from the ancient "Adelphi guests" who had hitherto done yeoman's service in every form of entertainment imagined by the dramatist. The company who came to his great parties were at leastvraisemblables, beings who conducted themselves as if they really might have been there. And so it was in every scene, in every situation. His types are drawn with the pen of knowledge, dipped in the ink of experience. That was his secret, the keynote of his success. And with what power he used it the world is now fully aware. It is not too much to say that OscarWilde revolutionised dramatic art. Henceforth it began to be understood that the playwright who would obtain the merit of a certain plausibility must endeavour to infuse something of the breath of life into his creations, and make them act and talk in a manner that was at least possible.
It has been a popularposeamong certain superior persons, equally devoid of humour themselves as of the power of appreciating it in others, that Oscar Wilde sacrificed dramatic action to dialogue; that his plays were lacking in human interest, his plots of the very poorest; a fact that was skilfully concealed by the sallies of smart sayings and witty repartee, which carried the hearers away during the representation, so that in the charm of the style they forgot the absence of the substance. But such is by no means the case. The author recognised, with his fine artisticflair, that mere talk, however admirable, will not carry a play to a successful issue without a strong underlying stratum of histrionic interest to support it. There are situations in his comedies as powerful in their handling as could be desired by the most devout stickler for dramatic intention. There are scenes in which the humorist lays aside his motley, and becomes the moralist, unsparing in his methods to enforce,à l'outrance, the significance of his text. In each of his plays there aremoments in which the action is followed by the spectator with absorbed attention; incidents of emotional value treated in no half-hearted fashion. Such are the hall mark of the true dramatist who can touch, with the unerring instinct of the poet, the finest feelings, the deepest sympathies of his audience, and which place Oscar Wilde by the side of Victorien Sardou. As has been well written by one of our most impartial critics: "No other among our playwrights equals this distinguished Frenchman, either in imagination or in poignancy of style."
Again, it has been contended, with a sneer, that the turning out of witty speeches is but a trick, easy of imitation by any theatrical scribe who sets himself to the task. But how many of Wilde's imitators—and there have been not a few—have accomplished such command of language, such literary charm, such "fineness" of wit? Who among them all has ever managed to hold an audience spellbound in the same way? How many have succeeded in drawing from a miscellaneous crowd of spectators such spontaneous expressions of delighted approval as "How brilliant! How true!" first muttered by each under the breath to himself, and then tossed loudly from one to the other in pure enjoyment, as the solid truth, underlying the varnish of the paradox, was borne home to them? Surely, not one can be indicated. Nor is thereason far to seek. For in all Oscar Wilde's seemingly irresponsible witticisms it is not only the device of the inverted epigram that is made a characteristic feature of the dialogue; there is real human nature behind the artificialities, there is poetry beneath the prose, the grip of the master's hand in seemingly toying with truth. And it is the possession of these innate qualities that differentiates the inventor from his imitators, and leaves them hopelessly behind in the race for dramatic distinction.
To invent anything is difficult, and in proportion to its merits praiseworthy. To cavil at that which has been devised, to point with the finger of scorn at its imperfections, to "run it down," is only too easy a pastime. Oscar Wilde was before all an inventor. Whatever he touched he endowed with the gracious gift of style that bore the stamp of his own individual genius. He originated a new treatment for ancient themes. For there is no such thing as an absolutely new "plot." Every play that has been written is founded on doings, dealings, incidents that have happened over and over again. Love, licit or illicit, the mainspring of all drama, is the same to-day as it was yesterday, and will be for ever and ever in this world. One man and one woman, or one woman and two men, or again, as a pleasant variant, two women and one man. Such are the eternal puppets that play the gameof Love upon the Stage of Life; the unconscious victims of the sentiment which sometimes makes for tragedy. They are always with us, placed in the same situations, and extricating themselves (or otherwise) in the same old way. So that when a new playwright is condemned by the critics as a furbisher-up of well-knownclichéshe is hardly treated. He cannot help himself. He must tread the familiar paths,faute de mieux. And the public, with its big human heart and unquestioning traditions, knows this, and is satisfied therewith. Nothing really pleases people so much as to tell them something they already know. What an accomplished dramatist can do is to rehabilitate his characters by the power of his own personality, and by felicitous treatment invest his action with fresh interest. And this is what Oscar Wilde effected in stagecraft. He vitalised it.
It is well-nigh impossible, under the existing conditions of the theatre in England, to form any just appreciation of the dramatist's work at all. A novel may be read at any time, but a play depends on the caprice of a manager to "present" it or not, as suits his commercial convenience. Happily for us the comedies of Oscar Wilde are printed and published, and can be enjoyed equally in the study as in the stalls. We must go back to Congreve and Sheridan to find a parallel. It is the triumph of thelittérateurover the histrionic hack, the man whose volumes are taken down from the shelves where they repose, again and again, and require no adventitious aid of scenery and costume to enhance the pleasure they afford. Albeit that the habit of reading plays is not particularly an English one. The old Puritan feeling that all things theatrical were tainted with more or less immorality still clings to many a mind. Emotion is yet looked upon with suspicion, and as the theatre is the hotbed of emotion it is even now regarded in some quarters as a dangerous, if exciting, pleasure-ground. Sober-minded folk prefer rather to take their doses of love tales in the form of the novel, however inexpert, than in that of the play, however masterly it may be. Let an author put to the vote his appeal to his public through their eyes or their ears, it will be found that the eyes have it. They prefer to stop at home and read, as they consider, seriously, than to go abroad and listen to what they hold to be, trivialities. Oscar Wilde has, in great measure, been instrumental in putting these illiberal views to flight. Men and women are now to be found in the theatre when his pieces are represented who not so long ago pooh-poohed the drama from an intelligent standpoint. He has turned attention to the fact that the dramatic method of telling a story may be made as intellectually interesting as in the best-written romances ofthe novelist. He brought to bear upon his work a singular power of observation, a fine imagination, a unique wit, and above all, and beneath all, an extensive knowledge of human life, and human character. Plays imbued with all these qualities were bound to make their mark. He knocked away the absurd conventions, the stereotyped phrases of the stage as he knew it. He placed on it living people in the place of mechanical puppets, and by his happy inspiration created a new order in the profession of dramaturgy.
It would be an interesting subject for speculation—were it not such a deeply sad one—how far Oscar Wilde, had he been permitted to live, would have gone in the newvoiehe had chosen for the expression of his artistic perceptions. Between "Lady Windermere's Fan" and "The Importance Of Being Earnest," the first and last of his comedies, there is evidence of very marked and rapid advancement in his art. In the former he shows us the invention of a hitherto unhandseled form of histrionic composition—the dialogue-drama. But he is feeling his way in this new departure of his, diffident of its success; while in the latter he has perfected what was more or less crude, incomplete, found wanting, and what was originally the natural hesitation of the novice has developed into the assured pronouncements of the adept. He was movingonwards. He was making theatrical history. He was becoming a power. And we who now read, mark, learn, be it on the stage or in the study, what he achieved in the production of but four modern comedies, can only premise that to-day he would have "arrived" at the meridian of his art. For, not in vain, was born the delicate wit that played around a philosophy of life, founded upon subtle observation, and one that has animated some of the most prominent literary and dramatic productions of our generation. Not in vain was struck that note of truth and sincerity in social ethics, unheard in thead captandumstrains of our professional novelists. Underlying those "phraseological inversions," so daintily cooed by the dove, was the wisdom of the serpent. It is the spirit of the poet speaking through the medium of prose. It is the utterance of the great artist that must compel attention even from the Philistines who sit in the seats of the scornful.
(Produced by Mr George Alexander at the St James's Theatre on 22nd February 1892)
I Have endeavoured to indicate, I trust more or less successfully, the manner in which an enthusiastic public received the first of Oscar Wilde's comedies. Let us now glance at the attitude affected by the critics. It is not too much to say that it was of undoubted hostility. Their verdict was decidedly an inimical one. They had received an unexpected shock, and were staggering under it in an angry, helpless way. The new dramatist was a surprise, and an unpleasing one. He had in one evening destroyed the comfortable conventions of the stage, hitherto so dear to the critic's heart. He had dared to break down the barriers of ancient prejudice, and attempt something new, something original. In a word, he had dared to be himself, the most heinous offence of all! They could not entirely ignore his undeniable talent. Public opinion was on his side. So they dragged in side issues to pointtheirlittle moral, and adorntheirlittle tale. This is how Mr Clement Scott writes after the first performance of "Lady Windermere's Fan":
"Supposing, after all, Mr Oscar Wilde is a cynic of deeper significance than we takehim to be. Supposing he intends to reform and revolutionise Society at large by sublime self-sacrifice. There are two sides to every question, and Mr Oscar Wilde's piety in social reform has not as yet been urged by anybody. His attitude has been so extraordinary that I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. It is possible he may have said to himself, 'I will show you, and prove to you, to what an extent bad manners are not only recognised, but endorsed in this wholly free and unrestricted age. I will do on the stage of a public theatre what I should not dare to do at a mass meeting in the Park. I will uncover my head in the presence of refined women, but I refuse to put down my cigarette. The working man may put out his pipe when he spouts, but my cigarette is too 'precious' for destruction. I will show no humility, and I will stand unrebuked. I will take greater liberties with the public than any author who has ever preceded me in history. And I will retire scatheless. The society that allows boys to puff cigarette smoke in the faces of ladies in the theatre corridors will condone the originality of a smoking author on the stage.' This may be the form of Mr Oscar Wilde's curious cynicism. He may say, 'I will test this question of manners, and show that they are not nowadays recognised.'"
"Supposing, after all, Mr Oscar Wilde is a cynic of deeper significance than we takehim to be. Supposing he intends to reform and revolutionise Society at large by sublime self-sacrifice. There are two sides to every question, and Mr Oscar Wilde's piety in social reform has not as yet been urged by anybody. His attitude has been so extraordinary that I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. It is possible he may have said to himself, 'I will show you, and prove to you, to what an extent bad manners are not only recognised, but endorsed in this wholly free and unrestricted age. I will do on the stage of a public theatre what I should not dare to do at a mass meeting in the Park. I will uncover my head in the presence of refined women, but I refuse to put down my cigarette. The working man may put out his pipe when he spouts, but my cigarette is too 'precious' for destruction. I will show no humility, and I will stand unrebuked. I will take greater liberties with the public than any author who has ever preceded me in history. And I will retire scatheless. The society that allows boys to puff cigarette smoke in the faces of ladies in the theatre corridors will condone the originality of a smoking author on the stage.' This may be the form of Mr Oscar Wilde's curious cynicism. He may say, 'I will test this question of manners, and show that they are not nowadays recognised.'"
So far Mr Clement Scott, then the leader ofthe critic band who took his tone and cheerfully followed where he led—the old story of "Les brebis de Pannege." And to show how universal was this inordinate enmity, I will quote a paragraph from, at that time, the leading journal of historical criticism, written on the withdrawal of the play after a successful "run" of nine months. After endorsing the general opinion of the play as "A comedy of Society manners pure and simple which may fairly claim its place among the recognised names in that almost extinct class of drama," the writer goes on to say in the conclusion of his article—"Not the least amusing reminiscence will be the ferocious wrath which, on its first appearance, the play provoked among the regular stage-critics, almost to a man. Except that Mr Wilde smoked a cigarette when called on, it is difficult to see why—unless it was because the comedy ran off the beaten track which is just what they are always deprecating." In this last sentence lies theclouof the whole situation. The entire band had been clamouring for years for something fresh, "off the beaten track," and this is how they received it when they got it! Verily, the ways of criticism are indeed marvellous, and difficult of comprehension. But the author triumphed over them all and won his laurels despite the forces arrayed against him. His first comedy was a splendidsuccess.
It must be conceded that there is nothing new in the plot of "Lady Windermere's Fan." It is an old tale of intrigue which has done duty on the stage over and over again. It has inspired many a play. But as I before observed, it is in its treatment by the accomplished hand that the novelty of drama lies. And here we have an interesting example of how old lamps may be made to look new at the touch of the magician's wand.
Lord and Lady Windermere have been married for a couple of years when the action of the play commences. It was a love-match, and the sky of happiness has hitherto been without a cloud. But the cloud at last appears in the guise of a certain Mrs Erlynne, a somewhat notoriousdivorcée, who has managed to gain admission into Society, in a half-acknowledged way, by means of her charms and her cash. The cash is supplied by Lord Windermere, and is in the nature of hush-money. For Mrs Erlynne turns out to be no other than Lady Windermere's mother, supposed to be long dead, and the "cloud" might prove an uncommonly inconvenient one if allowed suddenly to burst upon the unsuspiciousménage. So she is kept quiet by the cheques of her son-in-law. But her friends are not backward in enlightening Lady Windermere as to her husband's frequent visitsto Mrs Erlynne, and one of them, the Duchess of Berwick, is more outspoken than the others, and succeeds in persuading poor innocent-minded Lady Windermere that the worst constructions should be placed upon his lordship's conduct. Mrs Erlynne has managed to induce Lord Windermere to send her a card for his wife's birthday ball, whereat, Lady Windermere, when she hears of this from her husband's lips, declares she will insult the guest openly if she arrives. But she does arrive and she is not insulted, although the celebrated fan is grasped ready to strike the blow! The ball passes off quietly enough, without any open scandal. But Lady Windermere, surprising, as she imagines, her husband in a compromisingtête-à-têtewith the fascinating intruder, determines in a moment of nervous tension to leave the house, and betake herself to the rooms of Lord Darlington, who earlier in the evening has offered her his sympathy, and his heart. Before she departs, however, she writes her husband a letter informing him of her intentions. This letter she leaves on a bureau where he is sure to find it. It is not he who finds it, however, but Mrs Erlynne. With the instinct born of a past and vast experience she scents danger, and opens and reads it. Then her better feelings and worse heart are suddenly awakened, and she determines, at all risks, to save her daughter. Whereupon shefollows her to Lord Darlington's rooms, and, after a long scene between the two women, induces Lady Windermere to return to her husband before her flight is discovered. But it is too late. Lord Darlington, with a party of friends including Lord Windermere, is returning. Their voices are heard outside the door. Lady Windermere hides behind a curtain ready to escape on the first opportunity, while Mrs Erlynne—when Lord Windermere's suspicions are aroused at the sight of his wife's fan, and he insists on searching the room—comes forth from the place where she had concealed herself, and boldly takes upon herself the ownership of the fatalpièce á conviction. Lady Windermere is saved, and at the end of the play is reconciled to her husband without uncomfortable explanations, while Mrs Erlynne marries an elderly adorer, who is brother to the Duchess of Berwick.
Such, in brief, is the plot of "Lady Windermere's Fan." Every playgoer will at once recognise its situations, and hail its intrigue as an old and well-tried friend; the loving husband and wife, the fascinating adventuress who comes between them and cannot be explained; the tempter who offers substantial consolation to the outraged wife; the compromising fan, or scarf, or glove (selon les gôuts) found by the husband in the room of the other man; the convenient curtain closely drawn as if to inviteconcealment; the hairbreadth escape of the wife leaving theonusof the scandal to fall upon the shoulders of some self-sacrificing friend; the final reconciliation of husband and wife without any infelicitous catechism; are not these things written in the pages of all the plays that—as George Meredith so happily puts it—"deal with human nature in the drawing-rooms of civilised men and women." With certain variations they are the mainstay—the French word isl'armature—of every comedy of genteel passions and misunderstandings that ever existed. Now, how does Oscar Wilde contrive to clothe this dramatic skeleton with the flesh and blood of real life? How invest the familiar figures with the plausible presentment of new-born interest? Simply by the wonderful power of his personality, which dominates all he touches, and rejuvenates the venerable bones of hisdramatis personæ, compelling them, after the fashion of the "Pied Piper," to dance to any tune he chooses to call. Or, perhaps, "sing" would be a better expression than "dance." For it is in what they say, rather than what they do, that our chief interest in them lies. We do not ask: "What are they going to do next?" That is more or less a forgone conclusion. But what we wait for with alert attention is what they are going to say next. And so we come back to that brilliant dialogue which is, as it should be, the chief feature of the playalbeit that play is as well constructed as any could desire, straightforward and convincing. As a critic once wrote of it from the craftsman's point of view: "'Lady Windermere's Fan' as a specimen of true comedy is a head and shoulders above any of its contemporaries. It has nothing in common with farcical comedy, with didactic comedy, or the 'literary' comedy of which we have heard so much of late from disappointed authors, whose principal claim to literature appears to consist in being undramatic. It is a distinguishing note of Mr Wilde that he has condescended to learn his business, and has written a workmanlike play as well as a good comedy. Without that it would be worthless." In corroboration of this statement it is only necessary to note how skilfully, when it comes to the necessity of dramatic action, these scenes are handled. Take the one in the second act, where Mrs Erlynne, more or less, forces her way into Lady Windermere's ballroom. It is an episode of extreme importance, and how well led up to! Lord and Lady Windermere are on the stage together.
Lord Windermere.Margaret, Imustspeak to you.Lady Windermere.Will you hold my fan for me, Lord Darlington? Thanks. (Comes down to him.)Lord Windermere.(Crossing to her.) Margaret,what you said before dinner was, of course, impossible?Lady Windermere.That woman is not coming here to-night!Lord Windermere.(R.C.) Mrs Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way annoy or wound her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both. Remember that! Ah, Margaret! only trust me! A wife should trust her husband.Lady Windermere.London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognise them. They look so thoroughly unhappy. I am not going to be one of them. (Moves up.) Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please? Thanks.... A useful thing a fan, isn't it?... I want a friend to-night, Lord Darlington. I didn't know I would want one soon.Lord Darlington.Lady Windermere! I knew the time would come some day: but why to-night?Lord Windermere.Iwilltell her. I must. It would be terrible if there were any scene. Margaret....Parker(announcing). Mrs Erlynne.(Lord Windermere starts. Mrs Erlynne enters, very beautifully dressed and very dignified. Lady Windermere clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor. She bows coldly to Mrs Erlynne, who bows to her sweetly in turn,and sails into the room.)
Lord Windermere.Margaret, Imustspeak to you.
Lady Windermere.Will you hold my fan for me, Lord Darlington? Thanks. (Comes down to him.)
Lord Windermere.(Crossing to her.) Margaret,what you said before dinner was, of course, impossible?
Lady Windermere.That woman is not coming here to-night!
Lord Windermere.(R.C.) Mrs Erlynne is coming here, and if you in any way annoy or wound her, you will bring shame and sorrow on us both. Remember that! Ah, Margaret! only trust me! A wife should trust her husband.
Lady Windermere.London is full of women who trust their husbands. One can always recognise them. They look so thoroughly unhappy. I am not going to be one of them. (Moves up.) Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please? Thanks.... A useful thing a fan, isn't it?... I want a friend to-night, Lord Darlington. I didn't know I would want one soon.
Lord Darlington.Lady Windermere! I knew the time would come some day: but why to-night?
Lord Windermere.Iwilltell her. I must. It would be terrible if there were any scene. Margaret....
Parker(announcing). Mrs Erlynne.
(Lord Windermere starts. Mrs Erlynne enters, very beautifully dressed and very dignified. Lady Windermere clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor. She bows coldly to Mrs Erlynne, who bows to her sweetly in turn,and sails into the room.)
If this is not effective stagecraft, I do not know what is. And the dramatist strikes a deeper, and more tragic, note in the scene later on (in the same act) where Mrs Erlynne discovers the letter of farewell that Lady Windermere had written to her husband.
(Parker enters, and crosses towards the ballroom, R. Enter Mrs Erlynne.)Mrs Erlynne.Is Lady Windermere in the ballroom?Parker.Her ladyship has just gone out.Mrs Erlynne.Gone out? She's not on the terrace?Parker.No, madam. Her Ladyship has just gone out of the house.Mrs Erlynne(Starts and looks at the servant with a puzzled expression on her face). Out of the house?Parker.Yes, madam—her Ladyship told me she had left a letter for his Lordship on the table.Mrs Erlynne.A letter for Lord Windermere?Parker.Yes, madam.Mrs Erlynne.Thank you.(Exit Parker. The music in the ballroom stops.)Gone out of her house! A letter addressedto her husband!(Goes over to bureau and looks at letter. Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear.)No, no! it would be impossible! Life doesn't repeat its tragedies like that! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies?(Tears letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish.)Oh, how terrible! the same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! And how bitterly I have been punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-night, is now!
(Parker enters, and crosses towards the ballroom, R. Enter Mrs Erlynne.)
Mrs Erlynne.Is Lady Windermere in the ballroom?
Parker.Her ladyship has just gone out.
Mrs Erlynne.Gone out? She's not on the terrace?
Parker.No, madam. Her Ladyship has just gone out of the house.
Mrs Erlynne(Starts and looks at the servant with a puzzled expression on her face). Out of the house?
Parker.Yes, madam—her Ladyship told me she had left a letter for his Lordship on the table.
Mrs Erlynne.A letter for Lord Windermere?
Parker.Yes, madam.
Mrs Erlynne.Thank you.
(Exit Parker. The music in the ballroom stops.)
Gone out of her house! A letter addressedto her husband!
(Goes over to bureau and looks at letter. Takes it up and lays it down again with a shudder of fear.)
No, no! it would be impossible! Life doesn't repeat its tragedies like that! Oh, why does this horrible fancy come across me? Why do I remember now the one moment of my life I most wish to forget? Does life repeat its tragedies?
(Tears letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish.)
Oh, how terrible! the same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! And how bitterly I have been punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to-night, is now!
I have quoted these two episodes from the second act to demonstrate how equal was the playwright to the exigencies of his art. But it is in the third act, laid in Lord Darlington's rooms, that he reaches the level of high dramatic skill. First, in the scene between the mother and daughter, written with extraordinary power and pathos, and later on, when each of the women are hidden, the "man's scene" which ranks with the famous club scene in Lord Lytton's "Money." Theblaséand genial tone of these men of the world is admirably caught.Their conversation sparkles with wit and wisdom—of the worldbien entendu. But it is in Mrs Erlynne's appeal to her daughter, with all its tragic intent that the author surpasses himself. Just read it over. It is a masterpiece of restrained emotion.
Mrs Erlynne.(Starts with a gesture of pain. Then restrains herself, and comes over to where Lady Windermere is sitting. As she speaks, she stretches out her hands towards her, but does not dare to touch her.) Believe what you choose about me. I am not without a moment's sorrow. But don't spoil your beautiful young life on my account. You don't know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don't know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at—to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one's face, and all the while to hear the laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don't know what it is. One pays for one's sin, and then one pays again, and all one's life one pays. You must never know that. As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to-night you have made a heart in onewho had it not, made it and broken it. But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You—why you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven't got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn't stand dishonour. No! go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. (Lady Windermere rises.) God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God, if his life is ruined through you? Back to your house, Lady Windermere—your husband loves you. He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you. But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child. If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child. If he abandoned you your place is with your child.(Lady Windermere bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands.)(Rushing to her). Lady Windermere!Lady Windermere(holding out her hands to her, helplessly, as a child might do). Take me home. Take me home.
Mrs Erlynne.(Starts with a gesture of pain. Then restrains herself, and comes over to where Lady Windermere is sitting. As she speaks, she stretches out her hands towards her, but does not dare to touch her.) Believe what you choose about me. I am not without a moment's sorrow. But don't spoil your beautiful young life on my account. You don't know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don't know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at—to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one's face, and all the while to hear the laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don't know what it is. One pays for one's sin, and then one pays again, and all one's life one pays. You must never know that. As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to-night you have made a heart in onewho had it not, made it and broken it. But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You—why you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven't got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn't stand dishonour. No! go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. (Lady Windermere rises.) God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God, if his life is ruined through you? Back to your house, Lady Windermere—your husband loves you. He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you. But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child. If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child. If he abandoned you your place is with your child.
(Lady Windermere bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands.)
(Rushing to her). Lady Windermere!
Lady Windermere(holding out her hands to her, helplessly, as a child might do). Take me home. Take me home.
Few people who witnessed that situation couldhave done so without being deeply moved. It is Oscar Wilde the poet who speaks, not to the brain but to the heart.
Then turn from the shadow of that scene to the shimmer of the one that follows immediately, full of smartness andjeu d'esprit. The sprightly and irresponsible chatter of men of the world.
Dumby.Awfully commercial, women nowadays. Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mill, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them.Lord Augustus.You want to make her out a wicked woman. She is not!Cecil Graham.Oh! wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.Dumby.In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst, the last is a real tragedy.Cecil Graham.What is a cynic?Lord Darlington.A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.Cecil Graham.And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd valuein everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.Dumby.Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.Lord Windermere.What is the difference between scandal and gossip?Cecil Graham.Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I'm glad to say.
Dumby.Awfully commercial, women nowadays. Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mill, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them.
Lord Augustus.You want to make her out a wicked woman. She is not!
Cecil Graham.Oh! wicked women bother one. Good women bore one. That is the only difference between them.
Dumby.In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst, the last is a real tragedy.
Cecil Graham.What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington.A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham.And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd valuein everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.
Dumby.Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Lord Windermere.What is the difference between scandal and gossip?
Cecil Graham.Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I'm glad to say.
And so we take our leave of "Lady Windermere's Fan."
(First produced at the Haymarket Theatre by Mr Beerbohm Tree on 19th April 1903)
Perhaps of all Oscar Wilde's plays "The Woman Of No Importance" provoked the most discussion at the time of its production. It was his second venture in the histrionic field, and people expected much. They felt that he should now be finding his feet, that whatever shortcomings, from the point of view of stagecraft, there may have been in "Lady Windermere's Fan," should now be made good. His first comedy was a well-constructed play of plot and incidents. But now, expectation rose high, and required of the author something better, something greater, something more considerable than what he had achieved before. How far were these expectations realised? How did the first-night audience of public, and critics, receive the new play? It must be confessed it was with a feeling akin to disappointment. People at first were undeniably disconcerted. They had come prepared to witness drama, possibly of stirring interest, and what they heard was dialogue of brilliant quality, indeed, but which, up to a certain point, had little to do in forwarding the action of the piece. It was a surprise, and, to most of them, a not altogether grateful one.And it came in the first act. Here the author had actually been bold enough to defy popular traditions, and to place his characters seated in a semicircle uttering epigram after epigram, and paradox upon paradox, without any regard to whatever plot there might be; for it is not until the curtain is about to fall that we get an indication, for the first time, that something is going to happen in the next act. Here was an upset indeed! A subversion of all preconceived ideas as to how a play should begin! "Words! words!" they muttered captiously, although the words were as the pearls and diamonds that fell from the mouth of the maiden in the fairy tale. And so on, through scene after scene, until we come to the unexpected meeting of Lord Illingworth with the woman he had, long ago, betrayed and abandoned. Then quickly follows the pathetic interview between mother and son, culminating in Mrs Arbuthnot's confession that the man who would befriend her son is no other than his own father, to whom he should owe nothing, save the disgrace of his birth, leading up to thescene-à-fairein the final act, where Lord Illingworth's offer to make reparation to the woman he has wronged is acknowledged by a blow across the face. Here at last was drama, treated in the right spirit, and of an emotional value that cannot be too highly recognised. But the shock of the earlier acts had been asevere one, and it took all the intense human interest of the last two acts to atone for the outraged conventions of the two first. It speaks volumes of praise for the playwright's powers that he was enabled to carry his work to a successful issue, and secure for it a long run. And not only that, but to stand the critical test of revival. For, at the moment of writing these words, Mr Tree has reproduced "The Woman Of No Importance" at His Majesty's Theatre, which is crowded, night after night, with audiences eager to bring a posthumous tribute to the genius of the author.
Aproposof the first act where all thedramatis personæare seated in a semicircle engaged only in conversation, and which was likened, on the occasion of the first production of the play, by an eminent critic to "Christy Minstrelism Crystallised," it may not be uninteresting to note,en passant, a similar arrangement of characters in a play of Mr Bernard Shaw's recently performed at the Court Theatre. This is called "Don Juan in Hell"—the dream from "Man and Superman"—mercifully omitted when that play was produced. It had nothing whatever to do with the comedy in which it was included, but is a Niagara of ideas, clumsily put together, and is more or less an exposition of the Shawian philosophy.
"Hear the result"—I quote from the critique in one of our leading journals—"The curtainrose at half-past two on a darkened stage draped in black. Enter, in turn, Don Juan, Dona Ana de Ulloa, the statue of her father, and the devil. They sat down, and for an hour and a half delivered those opinions of Mr Shaw with which we are all so terribly familiar. Every now and then there was a laugh, as, for example, when Don Juan said: 'Wherever ladies are is hell,' or, again, when he said: 'Have you ever had servants who were not devils?' It was all supposed to be very funny and very naughty, of course, especially when the statue said to Don Juan: 'If you dwelt in heaven, as I do, you would realise your advantages.' And so on, and so on,ad nauseum."
See now, how the parallel scene of "only talk" as written by Oscar Wilde was noticed upon its revival the other day. I quote from another journal. "Let all that can be urged against this play be granted. None the less is it worth watching thedramatis personædo nothing, so long as the mind may be tickled by this unscrupulous, fastidious wit. And, even if all the characters speak in the same accents of paradox, their moods, the essentials of them, are differentiated with a brilliancy of expression which condones the lack of dramatic movement. These things, alone, evoke my gratitude to Mr Tree for reviving so interesting and individual a comedy.... For even those utterances which seem to be mere phraseological inversions arefraught with much wisdom, and the major part of the dialogue reflects the mind of a subtle and daring social observer." And it was this "mind," keen of observation, and equipped with no ordinary wit, that dominates an audience and compels them to sit, as it were, spellbound before the demonstration of the power of its unique personality. I am informed that, to-day, in Germany, the only two modern English dramatists who are listened to are Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw—the poet and the proser. Truly may it be remarked: "Les extrêmes se touchent."
The story of "The Woman Of No Importance" is quickly told.
Lord Illingworth, a cynicalroué, has, in his youth, betrayed a too trusting young lady, who, in consequence, gave birth to a son, by her named Gerald. When the play begins this young fellow is nineteen years old, and has, most hopelessly it would seem, fallen in love with an American heiress whose name is Hester Worsley. He is living with his mother, called Mrs Arbuthnot, at a quiet country village, where also resides Lady Hunstanton, who acts as hostess to all the smart Society folk who appear upon the scene, and among whom Lord Illingworth is the most prominent. His lordship, ignorant of their real relationship, has taken a fancy to Gerald, and offers him a private secretaryship. Whereuponhis future prospects brighten up considerably. But when Mrs Arbuthnot discovers that Lord Illingworth is no other than the man who had wronged her, she does all in her power to persuade her (and his) son to refuse the offer, and, driven to extremity in her distress, tells Gerald her own history, as that of another woman. Her efforts are futile. The boy only says that the woman must have been as bad as the man, and that, as far as he can see, Lord Illingworth is now a very good fellow, and so he means to stick to him. Consequently, when his lordship insists upon Gerald keeping to the bargain, and reminds his mother that the boy will be her "judge as well as her son," should the truth of her past be brought to light, Mrs Arbuthnot is induced to hold it still secret. Unfortunately for this secret, Mrs Allonby, one of Lady Hunstanton's guests, has goaded Lord Illingworth into promising to kiss Miss Hester Worsley. This he does, much to the disgust of the fair Puritan, who loudly announces that she has been insulted. Gerald's eyes are suddenly opened to Lord Illingworth's turpitude, and with the unbridled passion of the headstrong lover cries out that he will kill him! Which, apparently, he would have done, had not Mrs Arbuthnot stepped forward, and to everybody's surprise intervened with the dramatic: "No—he is your father!"
Tableau.In the final act Hester Worsley,now that she knows Mrs Arbuthnot, and is determined in spite of all to marry Gerald, solves every difficulty by carrying off the mother and son to her home in the New World, where we may presume the young couple marry, and live happily ever afterwards. Before her departure from England, however, Mrs Arbuthnot, maddened by the cynical offer of tardy reparation by marriage on the part of Lord Illingworth, strikes him across the face with a glove, and at the end of the play alludes to him as "a man of no importance"; which balances his earlier description of her as "a woman of no importance."
As I have pointed out elsewhere, many of the epigrams in this play were lifted bodily from "The Picture of Dorian Gray," but after these are eliminated there remain enough to establish the reputation of any dramatist as a wit and epigrammatist of the very first rank. Much would be forgiven for one definition alone, that of the foxhunter—"the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." And Sheridan himself might envy the pronouncement that "the youth of America is its oldest tradition."
But apart from brilliant repartee and amusing paradox, the piece is full of passages of rare beauty and moments of touching pathos. Hester Worsley's speech anent Society, which she describes as being "like a leper in purple," "a dead thing smeared with gold," is as finelywritten a piece of declamation as any actress could desire, apart from its high literary qualities; and Mrs Arbuthnot's confession to her boy and her appeal to him for mercy are conceived in a spirit of delicacy and reticence that only the highest art can attain. Her pathetic peroration: "Child of my shame, be still the child of my shame," touches the deepest chords of human sorrow and anguish. With a masterly knowledge of what the theatre requires, he gives us Hester at the beginning of the play inveighing against any departure from the moral code and quoting the Old Testament anent the sins of the father being visited on the children. "It is God's law," she ends up—"it is God's terrible law." Later, when she begs Mrs Arbuthnot to come away to other climes, "where there are green valleys and fresh waters" and the poor woman for whom the world is shrivelled to a palm's breadth confronts her with her own pronouncement, how beautifully introduced is her recantation: "Don't say that, God's law is only love." It has been objected to Hester that she is a prig, but no girl could be a prig who could utter a sentiment like that. She is a fine specimen of the girlhood of the late nineteenth century, travelled, cultured, frank, and fearless, and above all pure. In the artificial atmosphere of Hunstanton, where the guests are all mere worldlings, her purity and goodness stand out in high relief. If there is aprig it is Gerald who, whether he be listening to Lord Illingworth's worldly teaching as to "a well-tied tie being the first serious step in life," or hearing the story of his mother's sin, is a singularly uninteresting and commonplace young man. As to the other characters they are all admirable sketches of Society folk. Lady Caroline Pontefract tyrannising over her husband and making that gay old gentleman put on his goloshes and muffler is a delightful type of those old-fashionedgrandes dameswho have the peerage at their fingers' ends. Nothing could be more delightfully characteristic than her opining, when Hester tells her that some of the States of America are as big as France and England put together, that they must find it very draughty. Lady Hunstanton too, who prattles away about everybody and everything and gets mixed up in all her statements, as for instance, when referring to somebody as a clergyman who wanted to be a lunatic, she is uncertain if it was not a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, but who at anyrate wore straws in his hair or something equally odd, is drawn with a fidelity to nature that shows what a really great student of character Oscar Wilde was. No less admirable a portrayal is that of the worldly archdeacon whose wife is almost blind, quite deaf and a confirmed invalid, yet, nevertheless, is quite happy, for though she can no longer hear his sermons she reads them athome. He it is whom Lord Illingworth shocks so profoundly, first by his assertion that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future, and finally by the flippant remark that the secret of life is to be always on the lookout for temptations, which are becoming so exceedingly scarce that he sometimes passes a whole day without coming across one. As literature alone, the play deserves to live, and will live, as apiece de théâtre. It has met with more success than any play of the first class within the last twenty years. The reason for that is not far to seek—it is essentially human, and the woman's interest—the keynote of the story—appeals to man and woman equally. I have seen rough Lancashire audiences, bucolic boors in small country towns, and dour hard-headed Scotsmen, sit spellbound as the story of the woman's sin and her repentance was unfolded before them. A play that can do that is imperishable, and it is no disparagement to the other brilliant dramatic works of the author that, as a popular play which will ever find favour with audiences of every class and kind, on account of its human interest and its pathos, "A Woman Of No Importance" is certain of immortality.