be too glad for
you to get a comfortable place," and I gave him the money he wanted. He
lingered on at Nice for nearly a week. I saw him several times. He
lunched with me at the Reserve once at Beaulieu, and was full of delight
at the beauty of the bay and the quiet of it. In the middle of the meal
some English people came in and showed their dislike of him rudely. He
at once shrank into himself, and as soon as possible made some pretext
to leave. Of course I went with him. I was more than sorry for him, but
I felt as unable to help him as I should have been unable to hold him
back if he had determined to throw himself down a precipice.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross."

[29] The incident is worth recording for the honour of human nature. At
the moment of Oscar's trial Charles Wyndham had let his theatre, the
Criterion, to Lewis Waller and H.H. Morell to produce in it "An Ideal
Husband" which had been running for over 100 nights at the Haymarket.
When Alexander took Oscar's name off the bill, Wyndham wrote to the
young Managers, saying that, if under the altered circumstances they
wished to cancel their agreement, he would allow them to do so. But if
they "put on" a play of Mr. Wilde's, the author's name must be on all
the bills and placards as usual. He could not allow his theatre to be
used to insult a man who was on his trial.

[30] Cfr. end of Appendix:--A Last Word.

[31] Cfr. end of Appendix:--A Last Word.

[32] This was written years before a Home Secretary, Mr. Reginald
MacKenna, tortured women and girls in prison in England by forcible
feeding, because they tried to present petitions in favour of Woman's
Suffrage. He afterwards defended himself in Parliament by declaring that
"'forcible feeding' was not unpleasant." The torturers of the
Inquisition also befouled cruelty with hypocritical falsehood: they
would burn their victims; but would not shed blood.

CHAPTER XXV

"The Gods are just and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us."

It was full summer before I met Oscar again; he had come back to Paris
and taken up his old quarters in the mean little hotel in the Rue des
Beaux Arts. He lunched and dined with me as usual. His talk was as
humorous and charming as ever, and he was just as engaging a companion.
For the first time, however, he complained of his health:

"I ate some mussels and oysters in Italy, and they must have poisoned
me; fo