Oscar Wilde. Leonard Cresswell Ingleby
believe that the notoriety that has overtaken him has such a charm for him that it outweighs everything else. I remember, in the early days of the cult of æstheticism, hearing someone ask him how a man of his undoubted capacity could make such a fool of himself. He gave this explanation. He had written, he said, a book of poems, and he believed in their excellence. In vain he went from publisher to publisher asking them to bring them out: no one would even read them, for he was unknown. In order to find a publisher he felt that he must do something to become a personality. So he hit upon æstheticism. It succeeded. People talked about him; they invited him to their houses as a sort of lion. He then took his poems to a publisher, who—still without reading them—gladly accepted them."
This is thoroughly unsympathetic, but no doubt it represents a mood with some faithfulness. In criticising the work of critics one must be a psychologist. Religion, the Christian religion at anyrate, teaches tolerance. Its teachings are seldom obeyed. The four Hags of the litany—let us personify them!—Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Uncharitableness unfortunately intrude into religious life too often and too powerfully. But the real psychologist, not the scientist (vide Nordau) is able to understand better than anyone else the motives which have animated criticism at any given date. The psychologist more than any other type of man or woman has learnt the lesson Charles Reade tried to inculcate in "Put Yourself In His Place."
With a little effort, we can realise what Truth thought when these lines were written. We cannot blame the writer, we can only record his words as a part of the general statement dealing with Oscar Wilde's life and attitude during the "Æsthetic Period."
At this point the reader may possibly ask himself if the title given to the book—"Oscar Wilde: an Appreciation"—is entirely justified. "The writer of it," he may say to himself, "is giving us examples of hostile criticism of Wilde's first period, and though he endeavours to explain them, yet, in an appreciation, it rather seems that such quotations are out of place."
I do not think that if the point of view is considered for a moment, the stricture will be persisted in.
Eulogy, indiscriminating eulogy, is simply an ex parte statement which can have no weight at all. I shall endeavour to show, before this first part of the book is completed, not only how those who attacked Wilde were mistaken, not only how those who bestowed indiscriminate praise upon him made an over-statement, but finally and definitely what Wilde was as seen through the temperament of the writer, corrected by the statements of other writers both for and against him.
I am convinced that this is the only scientific method of arriving at a just estimation of the character of this brilliant and extraordinary man. No summing up of the æsthetic period could be complete without copious references to the great chronicler of our modern life—the pages of Mr Punch.
Punch has never been bitter. It has often been severe, but Mr. Punch has always, from the very first moment of his arrival among us, successfully held the balance between this or that faction, and, moreover, has faithfully reflected the consensus of public opinion upon any given matter.
The extraordinary skill with which some of the brightest and merriest wits have made our national comic paper the true diary of events cannot be controverted or disputed. Follies and fashions have been criticised with satire, but never with spleen. Addison said that the "appearance of a man of genius in the world may always be known by the virulence of dunces." Punch has proved for generations that its kindly appreciation or depreciation has never been virulent, but nearly always an accurate statement of the opinion and point of view of the ordinary more or less cultured and well-bred person.
It has always been a sign of eminence in this or that department of life to be mentioned in Punch at all. The conductors of that journal during its whole career have always exercised the wisest discrimination, and have always kept shrewd fingers upon the pulses of English thought. When a politician, for example, is caricatured in Punch that politician knows that he has arrived at a certain place and point in public estimation. When a writer is caricatured, either in line or words, he also knows that he has, at anyrate, obtained a hold of this or that sort upon the country.
Now those who would try to minimise the place of Oscar Wilde in the public eye during the æsthetic period have only to look at the pages of Punch to realise how greatly that movement influenced English life during its continuance.
Let it be thoroughly understood—and very few people will attempt to deny it—that Punch has always been a perfectly adjusted barometer of celebrity.
It is, therefore, not out of place, herein, to publish a bibliography of the references to Oscar Wilde which, from first to last of that cometlike career, appeared in the pages of Mr. Punch. Such a list proves immediately the one-sidedness of Dr. Max Nordau's and Mr. Labouchere's views. From extracts I have given from the remarks of these two eminent people the ordinary man might well be inclined to think that the æsthetic movement and the doings of Oscar Wilde in his first period were small and local things. This is not so, and the following carefully compiled list will show that it is not so.
The list has been properly indexed and is now given below. Afterwards I shall give a small selection from the witticisms of the famous journal to support the bibliography.
Those students of the work of Oscar Wilde and his position in modern life will find the references below of great interest. They date from 1881 to 1906, and those collectors of "Oscariana" and students of Wilde's work will doubtless be able to obtain the numbers in which the following articles, poems, and paragraphs have appeared.
1881
| February | 12, | p. | 62. | Maudle on the Choice of a Profession. |
| " | " | p. | 71. | Beauty Not at Home. |
| April | 9, | p. | 161. | A Maudle in Ballad. To His Lily. |
| " | 30, | p. | 201. | The First of May. An Æsthetic Rondeau. Substitution. |
| May | 7, | p. | 213. | A Padded Cell. |
| " | " | p. | 215. | Design for an Æsthetic Theatrical Poster. "Let Us Live Up To It." |
| " | 14, | p. | 218. | The Grosvenor Gallery. |
| " | " | p. | 220. | Fashionable Nursery Rhyme. |
| " | " | p. | 221. | Philistia Defiant. |
| " | 28, | p. | 242. | More Impressions. By Oscuro Wildegoose. La Fuite des Oies. |
| " | " | p. | 245. |