LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15553, 7 September 1912, Page 14

LITERATURE.

I Special Reviews, : and Gleanings' from Various Sources,

S DIALOGUE IN DBAMA

_ |IIE PLAYS OF OSCAR WILDE.

3. Br Constant Header.

Irl his "I'ri'facfi" to that delightful 'little play "Tho Tinker's Wedding," J. -M. (Syjige- says :—" Tho drama is made (jcrious— in tho French sense of the word— iwlfby the degree in which it is taken up willi problems that arc serious in themselves, but by the degree in which it gives tlie'nourishment, not very easy to define, on "ivhich our imaginations live. We ahodld not go t<j the theatre as wo go to

a chemist's or a dram ahop, but as we go (o a dinner where the food we need is tiiken with pleasure and. excitement.

This was nearly always so in Spain and England and France when the drama was ; at its richest—the infancy and decay of - tlicidriuna tend to lw didactic—but in Hie* days the playhouse is 100- often • stocked with the drugs of many seedy ; problems or with, the • absinthe or vermouth of the last musical comedy. The drama, liko the symphony, decs not leach ' or prove anything. Analysts with their problems.and teachers with their systems arc Joon as old-fashioned ns tho pharmacopoeia of Galen—look at Ibsen and the ' • Cicrriians,—bill the best plays of Ben JonMolicrc can no more go out of ■ fashion than the blackberries on the hedges. Of the things which nourish the • imagination, humour is one of the most I' jiecqful. and it is dangerous lo limit or deo.stroy • it. _ Baudelaire calls laughter the ! '(jTciest sign of' the Satanic clement in , ■ mai?; and whore a country loses its I; luiiilotir. as mine towns in • Ireland arc '< j doiijg, there will be morbidity of mind, as Baudelaire's mind ;Was morbid."-- . Bc- > cause by '.reason of their sparkling humour

and their brilliant' persiflage, the society ■i comedies of Oscar Wilde nourish the im- '' agination, T incline to the idea that Wilde ~. will live longest in his plays. Mr J. M. ,i* Kennedy, in his recent volume "English - Literature, 1880-1908,:' in which, com- '-' mencingWitli Walter' Paler, he discusses Hie modern movement'in Enelish literature. (Italiii" with men like Wilde, the "Yellow Rook" school, lleardsley. ' Whistler. Shaw, Wells, Giving, Yeats, and • the Irish nalion.il school. Fiona Macjeod. Joliii Davidson..'Francis Thompson, and Birhard Le Gallicnric—delivers this dictum ;-•

While, however, Wilde's works arc not destined to be permanent in the sense

that We speak of Cicero or v Homer;-as permanent, they will neverlhless last 1 long.'.' Where our own language is concerned, they are distinctive. No other. English writer can give us at the same time'sjic.h,brillianl persiflage, such bit- . in? cynicism, and, such expressive style. Like Dr Johnson, indeed,'he may go down- lo posterity by his conversation nlon'o long after his' works have /been forgotten. In finite of the efforts of, many whom Wilde knew intimately,' however, it seems to me—more especially as Mr Holier! Hoss has up to the present held his hand—that a really complete account of the man has yet. to be prepared. Up was the leader of a movement, and he ha<f many disciples. TJut,' ; as he himself said, all" great men lnve\ Ih-ir disciples nowadays, and il is usually Judas who writes Ihe biography.

While Mr Kennedy mny be correct in liis sunnise that the Teal biography, of Oscar Wilde has yet to be'written and published, nu«j that Mr Itobert Hops is the' man for the 'tusk, still Mr Arthur Jtansomo lias-made an important contribution to a right understanding of the man and llis work in his-"Critical Study," issued n few .months back by Martin Seeker In a "series which .contains valuable .= Btudica of I M. Sy'ngc; llciirik Ibsen, Edgar Allan Poe, and Thomas ,Lovc Peacock. Mr llniisoinc writes :—" Impatient of such criticism of Wilde as saw a law • court in 'Tho House of Pomegranates/ and heard (he clink of handcuffe in the flowing music of ' Intentions,' 1 wished at 'first to write ,a hook on Wilde's work in which no mention of the man or his tragedy- ''should have a place, I remembered Hint he Ihoiishl Waincwriglit, Hie'poisoner and essayist.; loo\ lately dead to lie treated in ' that, fine spirit, of disinterested curiosity to which wo owe so ninny rlianning studies.of the great criminals of'the Italian llc'iiaissancc'.' . . . I wnfi wrong, of course. Such wilful evasion.would have liecn foolish in aeon, temporary critic of Shelley, worse than 'foolish in a critic of Wilde. ... H would have been ridiculous to study the writings alone of a man who said, and nol without truth. Unit he mil his genius into his life, keeping only llis talent for llis books. x 1 therefore cliangcd my original' intention, and while concerned throughout with Wilde as artist awl critic rather than as criminal, read his biographers and talked with his friends that 1 niij.'bt lie so far from forgetting as contiuuallv to perceive behind the hooks the spectacle of the man vividly living his life mid filling it as completely as he filled liis works with his strange nnd brilliant lH>r.sonalily." Mr liansonic's well-con-sidered opinion as to the place and influence of" Oscar Wilde in KngHsh literature carries, therefore, no little weight:— It is already clear Hmf Wilde has an historical important too wily »m,?restiiuaicd. His indirect influence is in- • calculable, for bis altitude in writing «ave literature new standards of valuation, and men are writing under their influence who would indignantly deny that their work was in any way dictated bv Wilde. . *A personality as vivid ae his exercised at nnro IhrotiJh boob and indirect but iH'ihnps less intimate sociiil intercourse cannot suddenly be wiped away like a picture on a slide. No man's life was crossed by Wilde's without expericucin" a change. Men lived more vividly in lii.R' presence anil bilked heller than themselves. No common man lives and dies without altering to some extent the life/about-him.and, so-the history of the world.' How inueli wider is their influence, who live their lives like flames hurrying to death through their own enjoyment and expenditure, alike of their bodies and their brains. " Pard-

like npirils. beautiful and swift," arc sullicicntly rare ami notable to bo ensured against oblivion, (lis personality was stronger (lian his will. When, as ho often did, lio eel

himself l<> imitalo. lie could not prevent himself from leaving his mark upon tho counterfeit- He stole freely, but often

mounted other men's jewels so well that

tlwjy are belter in.his work than inthoir owi'i. It is impossible t<> dismiss even hi* e'arlv poetry as without significance.11« left'no form of literature exactly as liul (omul il. He brought buck to tho Mulish stage a spirit of comedy that hud been for many years in mourning. Ild wrote a new romantic play which necessitated a new manner of production, and may be considered the starting point of the revolution in st.ie.emanagement thai happily is still provceUing. Ho showed both in practice and theorv tho possibilities of. creation open to tho critic. Uo found a new use for dialogue, and brought to Kngland a new variety of tho novel. His work continually upset accepted C.UIOIIS and received views. It placed, for example, the apparently settled question of sincerity in a new obscurity, and the distinction between decoration and realism in a new light. . . . Wide sets tho subtlest, problems before a?, and I shall not ho wasting lime in posin* them and showing Hint, his work h\-n at least this quality of what is fcciJUtiful and new that it is impossible to apply to it definitions that were snflbent before it.

'' Denied Hio delights of "The Wuo Bird," and treated instead to the sickly senti- : mentalities of " Ben Hot," I eeleem the production bv the Plimmer-Dennislon r Offinany of Oscar-Wilde's.-" Woman of

No Importance"—if for one night only— a precious privilege. "It, is important," writre Arthur Hansome, " in considering Wilde's early comedies to remember tlic character of the Audience with 'which he had to contend. His wis a public.that asked to feel as well as to smile, a' public that had grown accustomed to smile villi tears in iU eyes, a public that was best pleased to laugh loudly and to;sob into handkerchiefs, and judged a play by the loudness of the laughs and the number of Itajidkcichiefs that it made necessary." .Mr Kennedy's criticism on some of the plays of Bernard Shaw, notably "Man and Superman," " Gcttinp Married," and " The- Showing up of HLinco Posncl-,'' is Hint " they arc not plays at all in the strictly, dramatic sense of the word. They are a series of conversations." Indeed, by Mine writers, and, I think, by Chesterton, although 1 am unable at the moment to 1 put my finger on the reference, Bernard Shaw is given the credit which rightly belongs to Oscar Wilde of introducing a new j element into modern drama. But Archibald Henderson puis Ihe case correctly when he writes of " A Woman of No Importance" :—" The opening scene is something new in drama, the forerunner of ' Don Juan in Hell' and ' Gelling Married'; indeed. Wilde declared Hint he j wrole the first act of ' A Woman of No | Importance' in answer to the complaint of tho critics that 'Lady Windermerefi Fan ' was lacking in action. 'In the act in question,' said Wilde, 'there was absolutely no action at all. It was a perfect .net!''" Herein consists Wilde's triumph, :i triumph which he bequeathed to Hernnrd Sliaw, indignantly as the liviiigpkywright would disavow the heritage-thai he was able to hold an audience by tlic epigrammatic brilliance of his dialogue, which dialogue was in "its turn only a faint reflection of the quality of his conversation For as Arthur Rnnsonic pertinently points out, Wilde's society comedies " served as the machinery to keen an audience interested and carry Wilde's voice across the footlights:" Andrc'Gidc, meetin* Wilde in Algeria in January, 1895onlyafew months before his disaster and downfall-asked'the question: ''Why is it your plays' arc not bettor? Tlic best that is in von, you talk; why do you not write it?" "Oh, well," Wilde cried immediately, "my plays are not good I know, and T don't trouble about that, but if von nnlv knew how much amusement Ihev afford! They arc. nearly all the result of a bet. So was-'Dorian Gray-1 wrole that in a few days because a friend of mine declared lliat',l could liol write a novel. Writing- bores me so. Anent which Arthur Hanspmc's comments arc apropos :— I know <i travelling showman who makes "enjoy" an active verb, and speaks of "enjoying the poor folk when for coppers he lets them ride on ' merry-go-rounds and agitato themselves in swing boats which offer him no maniior of ■amusement. In just this way Wiide "enjoyed" the Undon audiences with liis early plays. He did not enjoy them himself. I sav to carry Wilde's voice across the focllighls: that is exactly what his plavs do. Those neat, polished- sentences, snapping like snuffboxes, are often taken from the books that Hold what he chose lo preserve of his conversation.' Aii aphorism Hint lias served tho author of " Tho Soul of Man' and shone for a moment in " Dorian Gray , is given a new vitality by Lord Illingworth, aiid what is good enough for " l*uly Narborough is a little better in the mouth of Dumby. Wilde was never without the power sluired by all amateurs of genius of using up the odds and ends from one pastime to fill out the detail of another. Doing lliiigs, like Merimce, for wagers with himself, he would make plays that should bo powerful in their effect on other people, but he would reserve Hie right to show, even while making them, that he could do something else. He learnt from Musset.niid Wlieved with Forlunio that ."a pun is a consolation for many ills and a.play »1 )0 " words as good* a way. as another of playing with thoughts, actions, and people." He consoled 'himself for bis plots by taking extraordinary liberties with tlieiii, and amused himself -with quips, lion-mots, epigrams, and repartee that had really nothing to do with the business in hand. Most of his witty sayings would bear transplanting from one play to another, and it is necessary lo consult the book if we would remember ill whose mouth they were placed. This is a very different thing from the dialogue (if Congrevc on the one hand or of J. M. Synge on tlic other. The whole arrangement in conversation, as he might appropriately have called either " Lady Windermere's Fan," " An ideal Husband," or "A Woman of No Importance," was very much lighter than the story that served as its excuse and sometimes rudely interrupted it. It was so sparkling, good-humoured, and novel that even the audience for whom he had constructed the story forgavo him for pulling n brake upon its speed with this quite separate verbal entertainment. ,

The likeness between (he dramatic methods of Hcrnavd Shaw ami Oscar Wilde is brought out in the following passage from llolbrook Jackson's monograph : " The plays of Bernard Shaw arc tragicomedies conceived in the form of dialogue with dramatic interludes. .Most of them would answer tc his description of .Major Barbara, which lie frankly called a 'discussion.' The tendency latterly has boon towards this element. Discussion has liecomo the predominant partner in the dramatic arrangement— indeed, tho (iction has tii'cnmn discussion. As Shaw lias grown towards mvsticism bis plays have become more sialic. His characters talk _ dynamics, but they do next to nothing. The point to realise here is that his discussions still retain that interest without which the drama would fail in its object—they are. still dramatic, ltiit the action is no longer the conflict between men and things, nor yet between man and man. It is a conflict of ideas as expressed in varying temperaments nod by differing wills. His characters do not kill each oilier, ncilhcr do they kill themselves: material force lias become akin to action rather than theme. They talk to each other, they discuss," It is interesting to compare Bernard Shaw's own: criticism of Oscar Wilde's plays when Shaw was dramatic critic for the Saturday Review. Shaw did not commence tin's work until January. 1895. Consequently ho has no notice of "A Woman of No Importance," first produced at the London ITavmarkct by H. Nocrbohm-Tree on April 19. 1893: this, the second of Wilde's dramatic ventures, having been preceded by " Txidy Windermere's Fan" at the St. James's, produced by Oeorgc Alexander on-February 22, 1892. Hut" amongst the earlier of Shaw's collected " Dramatic Opinions" is a critique ot "The Ideal Husband," Hie'-third of Wilde's society comedies, produced by Bcorhohm-Tieo at the llaymarket on January 5, 1695—just three mouths before Wilde's arrest and committal.—and tin's is instructive, as giving Shaw's opinion of Wilde when the latter was in tho heyday of his fame and popularity:—

Mr Oscar Wilde's new play at the HaytiKirkel is .1 dangerous subject, because, he has the property of making his critics dull. They laugh angrily at his epigrams like a child who is 'coaxed into being amused in tlw very act of setting up a yell of rage and agony. They protest that the trick is obvious, and that such epigrams can be turned out by the score by anyone right-mimled enough to condescend to such frivolity. As far as I can ascertain, I nm the only person in liOiidon who cannot t.il down and write an Oscar Wilde play at will. The fact that his plays, though apparently lucrative, remain unique under those circumstances, says nuie)' for the selfdenial of our scribes. In a certain sense Mr Wilde is to me our only thorough playwright. . lie plays with everything;

with wit,.with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the wholo theatre. Such a fact scandalises this Englishman, who can no more play with wit and philosophy than he can with/football or a cricket hat. He works at Mil, and has the consolation if he cannot make people laugh, of being the best cricketer and footballer in the world. Xow it is the mark of the artist that lie will not work. Just as people with social ambitions will practise the meanest economics in order to live expensively, so the artist will starve his way through incredible toil and discouragement sooner than go and earn a week's honest wftges. Mr Wilde, an arch-artist, is so colossally lazy that he (rillcs even with the work by "which an artist escapes work, lie distils the very and gets as product plays which are so unapproachably playful that they are the delight of every playgoer with Iwcpeiin'orlh of barins.'The English critic, always protesting thai the drama should not be didactic, and yet always complaining if the drainatistdoes not find sermons in stones, and good in everything, will be conscious of a subtle and pervading levity in " An Ideal Husband." All the literary dignity of tho play, all the imperturbable good sense and good maimers with which Mr Wilde makes his wit pleasant to his comparatively stupid audience, cannot quite overcome the fact that Ireland is of all countries the most foreign to England,, and tFiafc to the Irishman there is nothing in. the world quite so exquisitely comic as an Englishman's seriousness. It becomes tragic, perhaps, when the Englishman acts on it; but thai occurs 100 seldom to bo taken into account, a fact which intensifies the humour of tho situation, the total result being tho Englishman 'utterly unconscious of his real self, Mr Wilde keenly observant of it, and playing on the self-consciousness with irresis. tilnVhumour, and finally, of course, tho Englishman annoyed with himself for being amused at his own expense and for being unable to convict Mr Wilde of what seems an obvious misunderstanding of human nature. . . . And to complete the oddity of the situation Mr Wilde touching what he himself reverences, is absolutely the most sentimental dramatist of the day.

Mr L. C. Ingleby says that of all Wilde's plays, "A Woman Of No Importance" provoked the most discussion at the time of its production at the Haymarket, in April, 18951—"It was llis second venture in the histrionic field, and people expected much. . . . How far wero tliese expectations realised?, How (lid the first-night audience of public and critics receivo the new play? It must bo confessed it was with « feeling akin to disappointment. People at first were undeniably disconcerted. They had come prepared to witness drama, possibly of striking interest, and what thev lieard was dialogue, of brilliant quality' indeed, but which 14) to n certain point 'had little to do in forwarding the action of the piece. .It was a surprise to most of them, a not altogether grateful one. And it came in the first net. Here the author had actually been bold enough to defy popu. Jar traditions and to place his characters seated in a semi-circle tillering epigram after epigram, and paradox after paradox, without any regard to whatever plot there might lie." Yet,as Mr Ingleby remarks :"lt_ speaks volumes of p'raise 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 tho critical test of revival. For at the moment of writing these these words Mr Tree has reproduced 'A 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 tho author." The Comlcsse de Bremcyil, in her " Memoir of Oscar Wilde and His Mother," says that Oscar was often addicted to plagiarism, " but with the supreme arrogance of genius his brain so assimilated and digested the sources upon which it fed that they bloomed into a new and original form. ' He had the power to mako old sayings and situations appear fresh and sparkling, to extract from them 6iil)tlc pcrfumo nnd colour of which the original writer was unconscious. This is specially proved by his dramas. In ' A Woman Of No Importance,' for instance, we sec the 'School for Scandal' from another point of view, with different perspective and vistas that reveal old characters rehabilitated and witticisms transformed by paraphrase." Ingleby's summing up of the literary value of "A j Woman Of No Importance'" seems to me quite sound :— j

Many of the epigrams in this play were lifted bodily from " Tho Picture of Dorian Gray," but after theso are eliminated there remain enough lo establish tho reputation of any dramatist as a wit and cpigrammatisto'f the very first rank. Much would be forgiven for one definition alone, that of the foxlumter, "Ihe unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." And Sheridan 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. ... As literature alone the play deserves to live, and will livo as a picco do theatre. 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 (o seek— it is essentially human, and tho woman's interest—the keynote of the story—appeals lo man and woman eqilally. 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 were unfolded before them. A play llian can do that is imperishable, and it is no disparagement lo tlie 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.

I find myself ever championing the cause, of Oscar Wilde against prejudice and misunderstanding! ami 1 am hopeful that the one-night performance of " A Woman of No Importance" may contribute not a little to a correct and charitable judgment of, the man and his work. Probably to this end no better selection could have been made than the play in question, since the dialogue as well as the plot of I lie piece illustrates at one and the same time Wilde's sincerity and his brilliancy. I know there are those who, forced to admit the brilliancy of Wilde's work, question bis sincerity, and see in him only tho inveterate poseur. Even Archibald Henderson exhibits this prejudice when he allows himself to remark that "in ' A Woman of No Importance' Wilde piiktends to break a lance in behalf of even justice at the hands of society for men and women who have committed indiscretions." But it must be a strangely prejudiced mind and warped understanding' that can detect pose and pretence in n scene like the following, which, to my idea, positively rings with passion and pathos :— T/ady Caroline: There are a great may things you haven't got in America 1 am told," Miss WorsTey. They say vou have no ruins and no curiosities.

Mrs Allonby (to I,ady Stutfield): What nonsense! They have (heir mothers and their manners.

Hester: The English aristocracy supply us with our curiosities, Lady Caroline. They are sent over to us every summer regularly in the steamer?, and propose to us Hie day after they land. As for ruins, we are trying to build up something that will last longer than brick or" stone. (Gets up to take her fan from table.)

Udy Hunstanton : What _is that, dear?' Ah, yes, an iron exhibition,is it nut, at that'place thai has the curious name ?

Hester (standing by table) : We are trying to build up life. Lady Hunstanton, on a better, truer, purer basis than life rest* <m here. This sounds strange to you all. no doubt. How could it sound other than strange? Von rich jvople in England, you don't know how ynu are living. How could you know? You ehut out from your society the

gentle and the good. You laugh.r.t the simple awl the pure. Living as you all do on others, and by them, you sneer at self-sacrifice, and if you throw bread to the poor it'is merely to keep 1 them ijitict for a season. With all your, pomp and wealth and ait yon don't know how to live—you don'f even know that. You lovo the beauty that you can sec and touch and handle, the beaiily lhatroii can destroy, and do destroy," but of the unseen "beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing. You have lost life's secret. Oh, your English society seems to mo shallow, selfish, foolish. It has blinded its eyes and stepped its ears. H lies like a leper in purple, ft sits like a dead thing smeared with gold. II is all wrong, all wrong. Lady Stutficld : I don't think one should know of theso things. It is not very very nice, is it? Lady 'Hunstanton:' My dear Miss Worsl'ey, I thought you liked English society"™ much. You were such a success in it. And you were so much admired bv the best people. I quite forget what Lord Heiirv Weston said of you, but it was most coniplimenfary, and you know what an authority he is on beautV. Hester': Lord Henry Weston! I remember him, Lndv Hunstanton, a man with a hideous smile and a hideous past. He is asked everywhere. No dinner party is complete 'without him. What of those whose ruin is due to him' Thcv are outcasts. They are nameless. If vou met them in the streets you would turn your head away. I don't complain of 'their punishment. Let all women who have sinned be punished.

Lady Hunstanton: My dear young lndv!

Hester: It is right that they should be punished, but don't let them be the only ones to suiter. If a man anil woman have sinned let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be bmnded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don't punish the one and let the other go free. Don't have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be an infamy in n man you will always be unjust, and Highl, thai pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will he made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen not re-

glinted. Lady Caroline: Might I, dear Miss Worsley, as you are standing up, ask you for my cotton that is just behind vou? Thank vou. ',

Andre Hide, says that the best of Oscar Wilde's writing is but a poor rellection of his conversation. " Those who have heard him talk Hud him disappointing to read." And this is the verdict of all his friends and acquaintances. " His conversation to those who knew him best," writes Arthur Hansome, "seemed more valuable than his books." And Again: —'' Beside Lamb's stuttered Jest, Hazlitt's incisions, Coleridge's billowy eloquence, Wilde's tapestried speech must 'bis set abong the regrettable things of which time has carelesslv deprived us." Luther Munday, in his gossippy "Chronicles of Friendships," gives his impiessious of Wilde. "Though 1 knew Oscar Wilde at the Lyric Club," be says, "I can add little lustre to his meteoric Hash through London. His tourneys of repartee were tilted cit Whistler and many other at the Lyric in my hearing almost daily and for years. 1 regret now 1 never m'ade a note at tho time of many of his Hashes of wit, his brilliant sayings, which went unrecorded. . . . He said of Whistler that 'he had no enemies, but was intensely disliked by his friends.' Of Hall Caino that' he wrote at the top of his voice.' Of Hudyard Kipling that 'he revealed life by splendid Hashes of vulgarity.' Of Henry .lames that 'he wrote fiction as if it were a painful duty,' and of Marion Crawford that ho ' immolated himself on the altar of local colour.' His most unpleasant sayings were accompanied by a pleasing laugh, and always voiced in studied melody. I never remember during three years where his daily sayings rippled forth ot the Lyric, that he uttered a word that I could not reproduce ill these Memoirs. To h largo extent they were wasted upon us, and it stakes me to-day as very strange that his conversation evoked so little response, considering that his plays stand revival so well" Arthur Ransomc's tribute is well worth quoting: —

And now that mouth ik closed from which, as from Alain Charter's "so many golden words have proceeded" Death has given the kiss of tho Lady Anne of Brittany, and the glittering words are blown n\yay, 'or fallen in the pages of other men's books to gild a meagro ground. In 50 years' time the lost of those who heard him speak will bo old men, and dull of memory or garrulous with tedious invention. The talk is gone. Wilde had no Boswell. All that largesse of genius has been carried awav and spent or thro\yn away and forgotten. A talker is like nn actor, ft is only possible to eay he was wonderful on such an evening or on such another, and as time goes on and this becomes a matter of hearsay, why it is as if his achievement had never been. For the flowers of his talk bloom only in dead men's memories and have been buried with their skulls.

'it may be asserted without much fear of contradiction that Wilde is seen and heard at high-water,mark in "Intentions," for the dialogues' in " The Decay of Lying V mid "The Critic as Artist" stand unsurpassed in the records of' literature. This may he thought a bold stuttmcnl, but I' confidently challenge its contradiction. Arthur Ransome does but speak the truth when lie says of " Intentions" : "It is that ono of Wilde's books that most nearly rcprr-nts him. In nothing else that he wrote did he come fo near to pouring into literature the elixir of intellectual vitality that he royally' spilled over his conversation." Unfortunately, few folks nowadays can he persuaded to read essays, whereas almost everybody goes to the play. To render Wilde popular, therefore, " the play's the thing"; and there is another reason pointed out by Ransome: " It is actually difficult to read Wilde in silence. His sentences lift the voice as well as the thoughts of the writer from the printed l>age.'' George Henry Sargent prefaces a little collection of Wilde's " Kpigrams and Aphorisms" with tho remark; "Whatever may be thought of the writings of Oscar Wilde ns a whole, it is certain that in his epigrams and aphorisms we have the very flower and blossom of his genius. Just ns Rochefoucald put together the best of his own ideas and adaptations,of the thoughts of the ancients in his ' Mnxims,' and Franklin voiced the practical wisdom of his time in the sayings of 1 Poor Richard,' and Chateaubriand established for Joiihert permanent fame in the ' Pcnsecs,' so in this compilation the literary genius of Oscar Wilde is revealed us in no other way. and we may trace through bis writings the gradual evolution from palpable insincerity and striving for effect to conscious truth and literary expression for tht* sake of the idea conveyed rather than for the expression's sake. Flippancy, lightness of toitch, dilettantism, were, after all. only masks worn for the time, although the wearer himself was conscious only of the impression created by the mask, forgetting there was nevertheless something behind the mask which gave it the appearance of life. Under the insouciance there was something real, something tangible—a message conveyed to those who were capable of receiving it." Many of Wilde's most brilliant epigrams and aphorisms are dotted throughthe acts of "A Woman of No Importance." It has heen said thai paradoxes are onlv unfamiliar truths, and. moreover, that paradox is a proof of vitality and adventurous thought, and these thin'cs are sometimes the 'companions of charm. These sentiments I have had in mind ulic-ii selecting from the dialogue of " A Woman of No Importance" a garland of Wilde's most brilliant paradoxes:—

Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin, but twenty yoars of marriage make her something like a public building. To get into the best society nowadays one lias either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people.

. Women are pictures, men aro problems. If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her, don't listen to her.

There' is no such thing as romance in our day; women have become too brilliant; nothing spoils a romance so niuch as a sense of humour in the woman.

Children begin by loving their jwrents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. Clever people never listen and stupid /tcople never talk. There is no objection to plain women being Puritans; it is the only excuse thcv have for being plain. The Soul is bom old, bat it grows young; that is the comedy of life. Tho body is bom young and grows old; that is life's tragedy. After a good dinner ono could forgive anybody, even one's-own relatibns. .Men arc horribly tedious when they are good husbands and abominably conceited when they are not.

One can survive everything but Death, and live down everything except a good reputation. Tlie history of woman is the lu'storv of the worst form of tyranny tho world has ever known—tho' tyranny of the weak over tho strong, 'it is the only tyranny that lasts.

When a man is old enough to do wroat ho should be old enough to do right also. •

When one.has never hoard a man's name'in the course of one's life it speaks volumes-for. him: he must-be quite respectable,

English women conceal their feelings until they.are married, then they show them.

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell that would tell everything, One should never lake sides in anything—taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly after, and tho human being becomes a bore.

The only difference between a sainl and a sinner is that every saint lias a past, and every sinner has a future,

Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness.

Women have a much licttcr lime than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.

A husband is a sort of promissory note—a woman is tired of meeting him.

It is sorrowful to remember that so great brilliance terminated in so great tragedy, and that the popularity of Wilde's plays precipitated his downfall. I have no intention of dwelling upon this painful episode: sufiicc is to say that, had Wilde remained poor and struggling, his carwr might have had quite another ending; he dreamed dreams of opulence in his days of adversity; yet when opulence came it found him unable to use it except to his hurt. The public which had ridiculed him turned round and idolised him, and lavished upon him all their favours. Then they turned a-sain and rent him. The sequel is briefly glanced at, hy Arthur ftaiisome— with whose words I conclude this article :—

Before the success of the plays Wilde had been an adventurer on thin ice, exhibiting a brave superiority to forluno but painfully conscious that bis income was far smaller than tli.it on which it was possible to live with the happy extravagance that was natural to him. He hud been born with tho ghost of a silver spoon in his mouth, but had never been ablo to materialise it. It was his rightto live luxuriously, since that task was one that he was peculiarly fitted to perform. Some carelessness hi the inviting of his fairy godmothers, somo inattention on the part of tlie presiding gods, had denied him that right. When the success of Uio plays suddenly raised his income to several thousands of pounds a year lie lost no time in living up to and above it. Some of his extravagances were of the simplest, most childish kind. He over-fed like a school.

boy in a tu.-v -nop with an unexpected sovereign in hu hand. Flowers ho.had always woni, hansom cabs he bad always used. But now ho bought the most expensive buttonholes and kept his cabs wailing "1! day. His friendships bokudo prooorlionatclv costly, for ho div nic<l nothing to those he liked, and some of them never forgot to ask. He hurriedly ruined himself with prosperity like the |wor man in tho fairy (ale whose wish for all the gold in the world was granted by a mischievous destiny. 6 '