as the others, of which I hope you received your copy. I should so
much like to write your name and a few words on the dedicatory page.
I look back with joy and regret to the lovely sunlight of the Riviera,
and the charming winter you so generously and kindly gave me: it was
most good of you: how can it ever be forgotten by me.
Next week a petroleum launch is to arrive here, so that will console me
a little, as I love to be on the water: and the Savoy side is starred
with pretty villages and green valleys.
Of course we won our bet--the phrase on Shelley is in Arnold's preface
to Byron: but M---- won't pay me! He suffers agony over a franc. It is
very annoying as I have had no money since my arrival here. However I
regard the place as a Swiss Pension--where there is no weekly bill....
Ever yours,
OSCAR.
I believe I answered; but am not sure. I was naturally delighted to have
just "An Ideal Husband" dedicated to me, because I had suggested the
plot of it to Oscar--not that the plot was in any true sense mine. An
interesting and clever American in Cairo, a Mr. Cope Whitehouse, had
given it to me as I tell in this book. The story Whitehouse told may not
be true; but my mind jumped at once to the thought of a story where an
English Minister would be confronted with some early sin of that sort. I
had hardly bettered the story given to me when I related it to Oscar who
used it almost immediately with great effect. Dedicatory words are
usually as flattering as epitaphs; those of "An Ideal Husband" run:
TO
FRANK HARRIS
A SLIGHT TRIBUTE TO
HIS POWER AND DISTINCTION
AS AN ARTIST
HIS CHIVALRY AND NOBILITY
AS A FRIEND
MRS. WILDE'S EPITAPH
(See page 447)
An evil fate seems to have pursued even Oscar's wife. She died in Genoa
and was buried in the corner of the Campo Santo set apart for
Protestants. This is what one reads on her tombstone:
CONSTANCE
DAUGHTER OF THE LATE
HORATIO LLOYD, Q.C.
BORN ---- DIED ----
No reference to her marriage or to the famous man who was the father of
her two sons.
The irony of chance wills it that the late Horatio Lloyd, Q.C., had been
more than suspected of sexual viciousness: cfr. "Criticisms by Robert
Ross" at end of Appendix.
SONNET
(See page 517)
TO OSCAR WILDE
I dreamed of you last night, I saw your face
All radiant and unshadowed of distress,
And as of old, in me
|