my chair and shrieked with laughter. How he may
have described the scene, what explanation he gave of it, what vile
gloss he may have invented, I don't know and I don't care. I have no
doubt he wagged his head and pursed his lips and looked unutterable
things. But really it takes a saint to suffer such fools gladly."

I could not help smiling when I thought of the vicar's face, but
Oscar's tone was not pleasant.

The change in him had gone further than I had feared. He was now
utterly contemptuous of criticism and would listen to no counsel. He
was gross, too, the rich food and wine seemed to ooze out of him and
his manner was defiant, hard. He was like some great pagan determined
to live his own life to the very fullest, careless of what others
might say or think or do. Even the stories which he wrote about this
time show the worst side of his paganism:

"When Jesus was minded to return to Nazareth, Nazareth was so changed
that He no longer recognised His own city. The Nazareth where he had
lived was full of lamentations and tears; this city was filled with
outbursts of laughter and song....

"Christ went out of the house and, behold, in the street he saw a
woman whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod
with pearls, and behind her walked a man who wore a cloak of two
colours, and whose eyes were bright with lust. And Christ went up to
the man and laid His hand on his shoulder, and said to him, 'Tell me,
why art thou following this woman, and why dost thou look at her in
such wise?' The man turned round, recognised Him and said, 'I was
blind; Thou didst heal me; what else should I do with my sight?'"

The same note is played on in two or three more incidents, but the one
I have given is the best, and should have been allowed to stand alone.
It has been called blasphemous; it is not intentionally blasphemous;
as I have said, Oscar always put himself quite naively in the place of
any historical character.

The disdain of public opinion which Oscar now showed not only in his
writings, but in his answers to criticism, quickly turned the public
dislike into aggressive hatred. In 1894 a book appeared, "The Green
Carnation," which was a sort of photograph of Oscar as a talker and a
caricature of his thought. The gossipy story had a surprising success,
altogether beyond its merits, which simply testified to the intense
interest the suspicion of extraordinary viciousness has for common
minds. Oscar's g