ing I had misseen or misjudged in Wilde, or any prominent trait
of his character I had failed to note, the sin, whether of omission or
commission, could scarcely have escaped this other pair of keen eyes.
Now indeed this biography of Wilde may be regarded as definitive.

Shaw says his judgment of Wilde is severer than mine--"far sterner,"
are his words; but I am not sure that this is an exact estimate.

While Shaw accentuates Wilde's snobbishness, he discounts his "Irish
charm," and though he praises highly his gifts as dramatist and
story-teller he lays little stress on his genuine kindness of nature
and the courteous smiling ways which made him so incomparable a
companion and intimate.

On the other hand he excuses Wilde's perversion as pathological, as
hereditary "giantism," and so lightens the darkest shadows just as he
has toned down the lights.

I never saw anything abnormal in Oscar Wilde either in body or soul
save an extravagant sensuality and an absolute adoration of beauty and
comeliness; and so, with his own confessions and practises before me,
I had to block him in, to use painters' jargon, with black shadows,
and was delighted to find high lights to balance them--lights of
courtesies, graces and unselfish kindness of heart.

On the whole I think our two pictures are very much alike and I am
sure a good many readers will be almost as grateful to Shaw for his
collaboration and corroboration as I am.

POSTSCRIPT

Since writing this foreword I have received the proof of his
contribution which I had sent to Shaw. He has made some slight
corrections in the text which, of course, have been carried out, and
some comments besides on my notes as Editor. These, too, I have
naturally wished to use and so, to avoid confusion, have inserted them
in italics and with his initials. I hope the sequence will be clear to
the reader.

MY MEMORIES OF OSCAR WILDE

BY BERNARD SHAW

MY DEAR HARRIS:--

"I have an interesting letter of yours to answer; but when you ask me
to exchange biographies, you take an unfair advantage of the changes
of scene and bustling movement of your own adventures. My
autobiography would be like my best plays, fearfully long, and not
divided into acts. Just consider this life of Wilde which you have
just sent me, and which I finished ten minutes ago after putting aside
everything else to read it at one stroke.

"Why was Wilde so good a subject for a biography that none of the
previ