Frank Harris - Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2)

F >> Frank Harris >> Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2)

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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 measured tunefulness,
I heard your golden voice and marked you trace
Under the common thing the hidden grace,
And conjure wonder out of emptiness,
Till mean things put on Beauty like a dress,
And all the world was an enchanted place.

And so I knew that it was well with you,
And that unprisoned, gloriously free,
Across the dark you stretched me out your hand.
And all the spite of this besotted crew,
(Scrabbling on pillars of Eternity)
How small it seems! Love made me understand.

ALFRED DOUGLAS.

December 10, 1900.

Whoever chooses to compare this first sketch of the sonnet of 1900 with
the sonnet as it was published in 1910 will remark three notable
differences.

The first sketch was entitled "To Oscar Wilde," the revision to "The
Dead Poet."

In the early draft, the first line:

"I dreamed of you last night, I saw your face," has become less
intimate, having been changed into:

"I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face."

Finally the sextet which in the first sketch was very inferior to the
rest has now been discarded in favour of six lines which are worthy of
the octave. The published sonnet is assuredly superior to the first
sketch, superb though that was.

THE STORY OF "MR. AND MRS. DAVENTRY"

(See page 534)

There has been so much discussion about the play entitled "Mr. and Mrs.
Daventry," and Oscar Wilde's share in it, that I had better set forth
here briefly what happened.

When I returned to London in the summer of 1899 after buying, as I
thought, all rights in the sketch of the scenario from Oscar, I wrote at
once the second, third and fourth acts of the play, as I had told Oscar
I would. I sent him what I had written and asked him to write the first
act as he had promised for the L50.

Some time before this I had seen Mr. Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Patrick
Campbell in "Hamlet," and Mrs. Patrick Campbell's Ophelia had made a
deeper impression on me than even the Hamlet of Forbes Robertson. I
wished her to take my play, and as luck would have it, she had just gone
into management on her own account and leased the Royalty Theatre.

I read her my play one afternoon, and at once she told me she would take
it; but I must write a first act. I told her that I was no good at
preliminary scenes and that Oscar Wilde had promised to write a first
act, which would, of course, enhance the value of the play enormously.

To my surprise Mrs. Patrick Campbell would not hear of it: "Quite
impossible," she said, "a play's not a patchwork quilt; you must write
the first act yourself."

"I must write to Oscar then," I replied, "and see whether he has
finished it already or not."

Mrs. Campbell insisted that the play, if she was to accept it, must be
the work of one hand. I wrote to Oscar at once, asking him whether he
had written the first act, adding that if he had not written it and
would send me his idea of the scenario, I would write it. I was
overjoyed to tell him that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had provisionally
accepted the play.

To my astonishment Oscar replied in evident ill-temper to say that he
could not write the first act, or the scenario, but at the same time he
hoped I would now send him some money for having helped to make my
_debut_ on the stage.

I returned to tell Mrs. Campbell my disappointment and to see if she had
any idea of what she wanted in the first act. She was delighted with my
news, and said that all I had to do was to write an act introducing my
characters, and that I ought, for the sake of contrast, to give her a
mother. Some impish spirit suggested to me the idea of making a mother
much younger than her daughter, that is, a very flighty ordinary woman,
impulsive and feather-brained, with a mania for attending sales and
collecting odds and ends at bargain prices. Full of this idea I wrote
the first act off hand.

Mrs. Patrick Campbell did not like it much, and in this, as indeed
always, showed excellent judgment and an extraordinary understanding of
the requirements of the stage; nevertheless she accepted the play and
settled terms. A little later I went to Leeds, where she was playing,
and read the play to her and her "Company." We discussed the cast, and I
suggested Mr. Kerr to play Mr. Daventry. Mrs. Patrick Campbell jumped at
the idea, and everything was settled.

I wrote the good news to Oscar, and back came another letter from him,
more ill-tempered than the first, saying he had never thought I would
take his scenario; I had no right to touch it; but as I had taken it, I
must really pay him something substantial.

The claim was absurd, but I hated to dispute with him or even appear to
bargain.

I wrote to him that if I made anything out of the play I would send him
some more money. He replied that he was sure my play would be a failure;
but I ought to get a good sum down in advance of royalties from Mrs.
Patrick Campbell, and at once send him half of it. His letters were
childishly ill-conditioned and unreasonable; but, believing him to be in
extreme indigence, I felt too sorry for him even to argue the point.
Again and again I had helped him, and it seemed sordid and silly to hurt
our old friendship for money. I couldn't believe that he would talk of
my having done anything that I ought not to have done if we met, so as
soon as I could I crossed to Paris to have it out with him.

To my astonishment I found him obdurate in his wrong-headedness. When I
asked him what he had sold me for the L50 I paid him, he coolly said he
didn't think I was serious, that no man would write a play on another
man's scenario; it was absurd, impossible--"_C'est ridicule!_" he
repeated again and again. When I reminded him that Shakespeare had done
it, he got angry: it was altogether different then--today: "_C'est
ridicule!_" Tired of going over and over the old ground I pressed him to
tell me what he wanted. For hours he wouldn't say: then at length he
declared he ought to have half of all the play fetched, and even that
wouldn't be fair to him, as he was a dramatist and I was not, and I
ought not to have touched his scenario and so on, over and over again.

I returned to my hotel wearied in heart and head by his ridiculous
demands and reiterations. After thrashing the beaten straw to dust on
the following day, I agreed at length to give him another L50 down and
another L50 later. Even then he pretended to be very sorry indeed that I
had taken what he called "his play," and assured me in the same breath
that "Mr. and Mrs. Daventry" would be a rank failure: "Plays cannot be
written by amateurs; plays require knowledge of the stage. It's quite
absurd of you, Frank, who hardly ever go to the theatre, to think you
can write a successful play straight off. I always loved the theatre,
always went to every first night in London, have the stage in my blood,"
and so forth and so on. I could not help recalling what he had told me
years before, that when he had to write his first play for George
Alexander, he shut himself up for a fortnight with the most successful
modern French plays, and so learned his _metier_.

Next day I returned to London, understanding now something of the
unreasonable persistence in begging which had aroused Lord Alfred
Douglas' rage.

As soon as my play was advertised a crowd of people confronted me with
claims I had never expected. Mrs. Brown Potter wrote to me saying that
some years before she had bought a play from Oscar Wilde which he had
not delivered, and as she understood that I was bringing it out, she
hoped I would give it to her to stage. I replied saying that Oscar had
not written a word of my play. She wrote again, saying that she had paid
L100 for the scenario: would I see Mr. Kyrle Bellew on the matter? I saw
them both a dozen times; but came to no decision.

While these negotiations were going on, a host of other Richmonds came
into the field. Horace Sedger had also bought the same scenario, and
then in quick succession it appeared that Tree and Alexander and Ada
Rehan had also paid for the same privilege. When I wrote to Oscar about
this expressing my surprise he replied coolly that he could have gone on
selling the play now to French managers, and later to German managers,
if I had not interfered: "You have deprived me of a certain income:" was
his argument, "and therefore you owe me more than you will ever get from
the play, which is sure to fall flat."

A little later Miss Nethersole presented herself, and when I would not
yield to her demands, went to Paris, and Oscar wrote to me saying she
ought to stage the piece as she would do it splendidly, or at least I
should repay her the money she had advanced to him.

This letter showed me that Oscar had not only deceived me, but, for some
cause or other, some pricking of vanity I couldn't understand, was
willing to embarrass me as much as possible without any scruple.

Finally Smithers, the publisher of three of Oscar's books, whom I knew
to be a real friend of Oscar, came to me with a still more appealing
story. When Oscar was in Italy, and in absolute need, Smithers got a man
named Roberts to advance L100 on the scenario. I found that Oscar had
written out the whole scenario for him and outlined the characters of
his drama. This was evidently the completest claim that had yet been
brought before me: it was also, Smithers proved, the earliest, and
Smithers himself was in dire need. I wrote to Oscar that I thought
Smithers had the best claim because he was the first buyer, and
certainly ought to have something. Oscar replied, begging me not to be
a fool: to send him the money and tell Smithers to go to Sheol.
Thereupon I told Smithers I could not afford to give him any money at
the moment; but if the play was a success he should have something out
of it.

The play was a success: it was stopped for a week by Queen Victoria's
death, in January, and was, I think, the only play that survived that
ordeal. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was good enough to allow me to rewrite the
first act for the fiftieth performance, and it ran, if I remember
rightly, some 130 nights. About the twentieth representation I paid
Smithers.

For the first weeks of the run I was bombarded with letters from Oscar,
begging money and demanding money in every tone. He made nothing of the
fact that I had already paid him three times the price agreed upon, and
paid Smithers to boot, and lost through his previous sales of the
scenario whatever little repute the success of the piece might have
brought me. Nine people out of ten believed that Oscar had written the
play and that I had merely lent my name to the production in order to
enable him, as a bankrupt, to receive the money from it. Even men of
letters deceived themselves in this way. George Moore told Bernard Shaw
that he recognised Oscar's hand in the writing again and again, though
Shaw himself was far too keen-witted to be so misled. As a matter of
fact Oscar did not write a word of the play and the characters he
sketched for Smithers and Roberts were altogether different from mine
and were not known to me when I wrote my story.

I have set forth the bare facts of the affair here because Oscar managed
to half-persuade Ross and Turner and other friends that I owed him money
which I would not pay; though Ross had discounted most of his
complaints, even before hearing my side.

Oscar got me over to Paris in September under the pretext that he was
ill; but I found him as well as could be, and anxious merely to get more
money out of me by any means. I put it all down to his poverty. I did
not then know that Ross was giving him L150 a year; that indeed all his
friends had helped him and were helping him with singular generosity,
and I recalled the fact that when he had had money he never showed any
meanness, or any desire to over-reach. Want is a dreadful teacher, and I
did not hold Oscar altogether responsible for his weird attitude to me
personally.

OSCAR'S LAST DAYS!

LETTER FROM ROBERT ROSS TO ----

Dec. 14th, 1900.

On Tuesday, October 9th, I wrote to Oscar, from whom I had not heard for
some time, that I would be in Paris on Thursday, October the 18th, for a
few days, when I hoped to see him. On Thursday, October 11th, I got a
telegram from him as follows:--"Operated on yesterday--come over as soon
as possible." I wired that I would endeavour to do so. A wire came in
response, "Terribly weak--please come." I started on the evening of
Tuesday, October 16th. On Wednesday morning I went to see him about
10.30. He was in very good spirits; and though he assured me his
sufferings were dreadful, at the same time he shouted with laughter and
told many stories against the doctors and himself. I stayed until 12.30
and returned about 4.30, when Oscar recounted his grievances about the
Harris play. Oscar, of course, had deceived Harris about the whole
matter--as far as I could make out the story--Harris wrote the play
under the impression that only Sedger had to be bought off at L100,
which Oscar had received in advance for the commission; whereas Kyrle
Bellew, Louis Nethersole, Ada Rehan, and even Smithers, had all given
Oscar L100 on different occasions, and all threatened Harris with
proceedings--Harris, therefore, only gave Oscar L50 on account,[59] as
he was obliged to square these people first--hence Oscar's grievance.
When I pointed out to him that he was in a much better position than
formerly, because Harris, at any rate, would eventually pay off the
people who had advanced money and that Oscar would eventually get
something himself, he replied in the characteristic way, "Frank has
deprived me of my only source of income by taking a play on which I
could always have raised L100."

I continued to see Oscar every day until I left Paris. Reggie and myself
sometimes dined or lunched in his bedroom, when he was always very
talkative, although he looked very ill. On October 25th, my brother
Aleck came to see him, when Oscar was in particularly good form. His
sister-in-law, Mrs. Willie, and her husband, Texeira, were then passing
through Paris on their honeymoon, and came at the same time. On this
occasion he said he was "dying above his means" ... he would never
outlive the century ... the English people would not stand him--he was
responsible for the failure of the Exhibition, the English having gone
away when they saw him there so well-dressed and happy ... all the
French people knew this, too, and would not stand him any more.... On
October the 29th, Oscar got up for the first time at mid-day, and after
dinner in the evening insisted on going out--he assured me that the
doctor had said he might do so and would not listen to any protest.

I had urged him to get up some days before as the doctor said he might
do so, but he had hitherto refused. We went to a small cafe in the Latin
Quartier, where he insisted on drinking absinthe. He walked there and
back with some difficulty, but seemed fairly well. Only I thought he had
suddenly aged in face, and remarked to Reggie next day how different he
looked when up and dressed. He appeared _comparatively_ well in bed. (I
noticed for the first time that his hair was slightly tinged with grey.
I had always remarked that his hair had never altered its colour while
he was in Reading;[60] it retained its soft brown tone. You must
remember the jests he used to make about it, he always amused the
warders by saying that his hair was perfectly white.) Next day I was not
surprised to find Oscar suffering with a cold and great pain in his ear;
however, Dr. Tucker said he might go out again, and the following
afternoon, a very mild day, we drove in the Bois. Oscar was much
better, but complained of giddiness; we returned about 4.30. On Saturday
morning, November 3rd, I met the Panseur Hennion (Reggie always called
him the Libre Penseur), he came every day to dress Oscar's wounds. He
asked me if I was a great friend or knew Oscar's relatives. He assured
me that Oscar's general condition was very serious--that he could not
live more than three or four months unless he altered his way of
life--that I ought to speak to Dr. Tucker, who did not realise Oscar's
serious state--that the ear trouble was not of much importance in
itself, but a grave symptom. On Sunday morning I saw Dr. Tucker--he is a
silly, kind, excellent man; he said Oscar ought to write more--that he
was much better, and that his condition would only become serious when
he got up and went about in the usual way. I begged him to be frank. He
promised to ask Oscar if he might talk to me openly on the subject of
Oscar's health. I saw him on the Tuesday following by appointment; he
was very vague; and though he endorsed Hennion's view to some extent,
said that Oscar was getting well now, though he could not live long
unless he stopped drinking. On going to see Oscar later in the day I
found him very agitated. He said he did not want to know what the doctor
had told me. He said he did not care if he had only a short time to live
and then went off on to the subject of his debts, which I gather
amounted to something over more than L400.[61] He asked me to see that
at all events some of them were paid if I was in a position to do so
after he was dead; he suffered remorse about some of his creditors.
Reggie came in shortly afterwards much to my relief. Oscar told us that
he had had a horrible dream the previous night--"that he had been
supping with the dead." Reggie made a very typical response, "My dear
Oscar, you were probably the life and soul of the party." This delighted
Oscar, who became high-spirited again, almost hysterical. I left feeling
rather anxious. That night I wrote to Douglas saying that I was
compelled to leave Paris--that the doctor thought Oscar very ill--that
---- ought to pay some of his bills as they worried him very much, and
the matter was retarding his recovery--a great point made by Dr. Tucker.
On November 2nd, All Souls' Day, I had gone to Pere la Chaise with ----.
Oscar was much interested and asked me if I had chosen a place for his
tomb. He discussed epitaphs in a perfectly light-hearted way, and I
never dreamt he was so near death.

On Monday, November 12th, I went to the Hotel d'Alsace with Reggie to
say good-bye, as I was leaving for the Riviera next day. It was late in
the evening after dinner. Oscar went all over his financial troubles. He
had just had a letter from Harris about the Smithers claim, and was much
upset; his speech seemed to me a little thick, but he had been given
morphia the previous night, and he always drank too much champagne
during the day. He knew I was coming to say good-bye, but paid little
attention when I entered the room, which at the time I thought rather
strange; he addressed all his observations to Reggie. While we were
talking, the post arrived with a very nice letter from Alfred Douglas,
enclosing a cheque. It was partly in response to my letter I think.
Oscar wept a little but soon recovered himself. Then we all had a
friendly discussion, during which Oscar walked around the room and
declaimed in rather an excited way. About 10.30 I got up to go. Suddenly
Oscar asked Reggie and the nurse to leave the room for a minute, as he
wanted to say good-bye. He rambled at first about his debts in Paris:
and then he implored me not to go away, because he felt that a great
change had come over him during the last few days. I adopted a rather
stern attitude, as I really thought that Oscar was simply hysterical,
though I knew that he was genuinely upset at my departure. Suddenly he
broke into a violent sobbing, and said he would never see me again
because he felt that everything was at an end--this very painful
incident lasted about three-quarters of an hour.

He talked about various things which I can scarcely repeat here. Though
it was very harrowing, I really did not attach any importance to my
farewell, and I did not respond to poor Oscar's emotion as I ought to
have done, especially as he said, when I was going out of the room,
"Look out for some little cup in the hills near Nice where I can go when
I am better, and where you can come and see me often." Those were the
last articulate words he ever spoke to me.

I left for Nice the following evening, November 13th.

During my absence Reggie went every day to see Oscar, and wrote me short
bulletins every other day. Oscar went out several times with him
driving, and seemed much better. On Tuesday, November 27th, I received
the first of Reggie's letters, which I enclose (the others came after I
had started), and I started back for Paris; I send them because they
will give you a very good idea of how things stood. I had decided that
when I had moved my mother to Mentone on the following Friday, I would
go to Paris on Saturday, but on the Wednesday evening, at five-thirty, I
got a telegram from Reggie saying, "Almost hopeless." I just caught the
express and arrived in Paris at 10.20 in the morning. Dr. Tucker and Dr.
Kleiss, a specialist called in by Reggie, were there. They informed me
that Oscar could not live for more than two days. His appearance was
very painful, he had become quite thin, the flesh was livid, his
breathing heavy. He was trying to speak. He was conscious that people
were in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether he
understood. He pressed our hands. I then went in search of a priest, and
after great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunn, of the Passionists,
who came with me at once and administered Baptism and Extreme
Unction--Oscar could not take the Eucharist. You know I had always
promised to bring a priest to Oscar when he was dying, and I felt rather
guilty that I had so often dissuaded him from becoming a Catholic, but
you know my reasons for doing so. I then sent wires to Frank Harris, to
Holman (for communicating with Adrian Hope) and to Douglas. Tucker
called again later and said that Oscar might linger a few days. A _garde
malade_ was requisitioned as the nurse had been rather overworked.

Terrible offices had to be carried out into which I need not enter.
Reggie was a perfect wreck.

He and I slept at the Hotel d'Alsace that night in a room upstairs. We
were called twice by the nurse, who thought Oscar was actually dying.
About 5.30 in the morning a complete change came over him, the lines of
the face altered, and I believe what is called the death rattle began,
but I had never heard anything like it before; it sounded like the
horrible turning of a crank, and it never ceased until the end. His eyes
did not respond to the light test any longer. Foam and blood came from
his mouth, and had to be wiped away by someone standing by him all the
time. At 12 o'clock I went out to get some food, Reggie mounting guard.
He went out at 12.30. From 1 o'clock we did not leave the room; the
painful noise from the throat became louder and louder. Reggie and
myself destroyed letters to keep ourselves from breaking down. The two
nurses were out, and the proprietor of the hotel had come up to take
their place; at 1.45 the time of his breathing altered. I went to the
bedside and held his hand, his pulse began to flutter. He heaved a deep
sigh, the only natural one I had heard since I arrived, the limbs seemed
to stretch involuntarily, the breathing came fainter; he passed at 10
minutes to 2 p.m. exactly.

After washing and winding the body, and removing the appalling _debris_
which had to be burnt, Reggie and myself and the proprietor started for
the Maine to make the official declaration. There is no use recounting
the tedious experiences which only make me angry to think about. The
excellent Dupoirier lost his head and complicated matters by making a
mystery over Oscar's name, though there was a difficulty, as Oscar was
registered under the name of Melmoth at the hotel, and it is contrary to
the French law to be under an assumed name in your hotel. From 3.30 till
5 p.m. we hung about the Maine and the Commissaire de Police offices. I
then got angry and insisted on going to Gesling, the undertaker to the
English Embassy, to whom Father Cuthbert had recommended me. After
settling matters with him I went off to find some nuns to watch the
body. I thought that in Paris of all places this would be quite easy,
but it was only after incredible difficulties I got two Franciscan
sisters.

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