The artist James Kelly called at the Brunswick Hotel on the morning of 21 August, and found Wilde distraught amid the daily papers. ‘I tried to say what I could in favor of [the play],’ he recalled, ‘but it was impossible to cheer him – he was cut too deep. Referring to the attacks, he said in a broken voice, “Kelly, Kelly, my first play!”’43
Although there was no appeal from the verdict, Wilde and Prescott did what they could to mitigate the damage. Wilde gave an interview saying ‘he considered Vera a success, in spite of the critics’ – while also admitting that it was overlong, and declaring that he would be pruning it ‘at once’.44 Prescott wrote to the New York Times citing ‘a number of letters’ she had received from ‘prominent citizens’ and literary men, expressing their ‘indignation’ at the treatment Wilde had received from the New York critics. Endorsements were sought: Lawrence Barrett pronounced the play ‘a marvel’; Steele Mackaye was enthusiastic.45 A friendly journalist was prevailed upon to write a piece in the New York Mirror, decrying the sneers of the newspapers, and insisting that the play was ‘the noblest contribution to its literature the stage has received in many years’.46
These moves, though they served to irritate the New York press – which kept up a disparaging editorial commentary on the play and its tribulations – did not encourage the public. Audiences dwindled rapidly. By Saturday night the receipts were under $150, having been almost $900 on the opening night. Prescott and Perzel were losing money heavily. They had booked the theatre for a three-week run, but it was unclear whether they could continue. They consulted with Wilde on the Monday – after the playwright had returned from a visit to Coney Island – suggesting that they might be able to revive the fortunes of the piece if Wilde were to take some part in the proceedings – either appearing in one of the roles, or perhaps giving a lecture between the acts. He wisely declined the offer. The play did not go on that night.47
The withdrawal of the piece was reported in the New York press the following day, and promptly relayed back to London. The English papers had already printed extracts from some of the worst American reviews. Wilde was able to deflect the first journalist to seek his reaction: ‘Ah,’ he told them, ‘but I am eating my breakfast, don’t you see.’ But the sangfroid was not easily maintained. The failure of the play was a bitter and very public humiliation.48 Everything he had striven for since leaving Oxford had led up to this point. He had written a play, and it had failed – spectacularly and horribly.
Wilde stayed on in America for a month. He visited Newport and Saratoga. But the contrast with the excited optimism of the previous summer must have been painful. He had an invitation to holiday with friends in the wilds of Ontario – and perhaps he went.49 Among the few incidents to distract Wilde from the anguish of Vera’s failure was a meeting with Thomas Edison. When Wilde had been in America the previous year, he had told Morse that the great inventor was one of the two men he most wanted to meet – the other was Emerson. Emerson was now dead. James Kelly, however, was able to arrange an interview for Wilde at Edison’s offices on 5th Avenue.
It was a cosy encounter, with the three men, and Edison’s assistant, Samuel Insull, all crammed unceremoniously into a tiny back office. Kelly recalled how Edison – who had admired Wilde’s poems – turned to the poet (squashed beside him on the sofa) and said, ‘I’ve seen you before’, and then began talking about Wilde’s play:
After discussing it a little, Wilde became more cheerful and said, ‘Dion Boucicault told me, “Oscar, from the way you have written your play, it would take Edwin Booth, Henry Irving, Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry and Ada Rehan to render it; you depend too much on the actors. Now when I write a play, if the leading man gets sick, or in any way fails me, I call up one of the ushers – and if he repeats my lines, the play will be a success.”’ Edison laughed heartily at this, winked at me, and jerking his head toward Wilde, said, ‘He’s laarnin – he’s laarnin – he’s laarnin!’ Then after lots of bright talk by Wilde, cheerful talk by Edison and earnest remarks by Insull, we parted; as we went down the stoop, Wilde dropped into a moody silence, probably thinking over the contrast of his fortunes with those of Edison.
They walked on in silence, and separated at the Franklin Square station. Wilde was going on to Brooklyn. Kelly’s last glimpse of him was sitting alone in the subway carriage: ‘He was looking forward.’ But to what?
3
Man of the Day
‘The romance of life is that one can love so many people and marry but one.’
oscar wilde
The New York Sun took particular delight in announcing that Wilde’s ‘doom’ was now sealed in America. One satirical paper published a full-page cartoon to send the playwright on his way back across the Atlantic, juxtaposing the dashing young Aesthete who had arrived barely twenty months ago with the crushed and defeated figure now slinking out of the country, a battered copy of Vera under his arm. The British press was no less gleeful. Punch declared that his play had been ‘Vera bad’; Alfred Bryan, who had caricatured Wilde as one of the men-of-the-year for the World in 1881, now depicted him for Entr’acte, collapsed in Willie’s arms and being consoled with the fraternal observation, that other ‘great men’ had endured ‘dramatic failures.’1 There was, as one lone paper protested, ‘a spirit of exultation’, as if Wilde were ‘a notorious criminal who had at last been convicted’.2
Wilde got back to England in late September 1883, at least able to bury himself in a very full season of lecturing. The work had none of the glamour and novelty that had enlivened his American lecture tour, but it gave him a sense of purpose. Almost sixty talks were scheduled before the end of the year. Although Wilde started at Wandsworth Town Hall (on 24 September) most of the dates were well away from London – scattered from Exeter to Aberdeen, from Hastings to Birkenhead. Otho Lloyd, who saw Wilde that October, during one of his few days back in the capital, reported, ‘He is lecturing still, going from town to town, but in the funniest way, one day he is at Brighton, the next he will be at Edinburgh, the next at Penzance in Cornwall, the next in Dublin; he laughed a good deal over it and said that he left it entirely to his manager.’3 There was some customary exaggeration in Wilde’s description – but the distances that he covered were prodigious, and a tribute to the extent of Victorian rail network.4 Wilde filled the tedious hours of travel by setting himself to learn German with the aid of a small pocket dictionary and volume of Heine.5
Besides his ‘Personal Impressions of America’, Wilde was also offering, as an alternative, a lecture on ‘The House Beautiful’ – a variation on the practical guide to home decoration and dress that he had developed during his American tour. The failure of Vera – if it had dented his reputation in London – had not destroyed his appeal across the provincial cities of Britain: in most places he received good houses and positive notices. People may have gone out of curiosity ‘to see what the much talked-of “Oscar” was like’, but they almost invariably left impressed by his ‘literary grace’, his intelligence, his new haircut and his humour.6 Remuneration depended on the size of the venues, and the deals struck by Morse: sometimes a flat fee, sometimes a percentage of the gross receipts. From his lecture at the Manchester Free Trade Hall (despite a difficult audience) Wilde took away a handsome £24 3s 9d; Weymouth produced a more modest £3. Nevertheless by mid-October Wilde had earned, after expenses, a very useful £91 9s.7
Back in London to receive this payment, Wilde was able to see something of Constance. She attended his mother’s Saturday ‘salon’, and he called at her grandfather’s house the following day. Although Constance was about to depart on an extended visit to her Atkinson and Hemphill relatives in Dublin, any separation would be brief. Wilde was scheduled to lecture in the Irish capital that November. They might meet there.8
Confiding to her his disappointment about Vera, he gave her one of the privately printed copies of the play, and asked for her verdict on it. From Dublin she sent a generous, well-measured, rather earnest l
etter of consolation, praising the play’s ‘good dramatic situations’ and ‘impassioned’ calls for liberty – rather than its moments of wit. ‘I cannot understand why you should have been so unfortunate in its reception unless either the acting was very inferior or the audience was unsympathetic to the political opinion expressed in it.’ Allying herself to his own defiant stance, she suggested, ‘The world surely is unjust and bitter to most of us; I think we must either renounce our opinions and run with the general stream or else totally ignore the world and go on our own way regardless of all, there is not the slightest use in fighting against existing prejudices for we are only worsted in the struggle.’9
Constance had become important to Wilde. When he arrived in Dublin on 21 November he at once gravitated into her orbit. He found a note waiting at his hotel, inviting him round to the Atkinson home on Ely Place, and he went without delay. As Constance reported to her brother, he was ‘decidedly extra affected, I suppose partly from nervousness’ – but, nevertheless, he made himself ‘very pleasant’. He continued to pay court over the following days, coming to tea, and securing a theatre box for the family. Constance and her cousins attended his two lectures (both matinees), much preferring the practical wisdom of ‘The House Beautiful’ to the discursive wit of his ‘Personal Impressions of America’.* Although Constance might write disingenuously to Otho about how her cousin, Stanhope Hemphill, ‘chaffs my life out of me about O.W., such stupid nonsense’, it was clear to all that Wilde’s attentions were those of a suitor.10
Wilde was due to lecture at Shrewsbury on 26 November, so time was limited. He made his declaration on Sunday 25 November, proposing in the drawing room at Ely Place. Constance accepted him at once. She was ‘perfectly and insanely happy’, as she told her brother, when she wrote to him with the ‘astounding’ news. The Dublin cousinage shared her pleasure. ‘Mama Mary’ considered her ‘very lucky’. Constance had some anxieties about her own ‘cold and practical’ family, especially Aunt Emily, but hoped she could count on the support of Otho, and the approval of her grandfather – ‘as he is always so pleased to see Oscar’.11
Oscar was going to write to Horatio Lloyd, as well as to Otho and to Constance’s mother, from Shrewsbury, and then come up to London, between lectures, at the end of the week, to seek personal interviews with the various family members.12 His own mother was ‘extremely pleased’ at the news, hopeful for the happiness of ‘the two lovers’, and excited at the stability Constance’s resources might bring: ‘What lovely vistas of speculation open out. What will you do in life? Where live?... I would like you to have a small house in London and live the literary life and teach Constance to correct proofs, and eventually go into Parliament.’13 Willie too was enthusiastic: ‘My dear old Boz,’ he wrote, ‘This is indeed good news, brave news, wise news, and altogether charming and amazing in the highest and most artistic sense… She is lovely, and lovable, and all that is sweet and right.’14 Constance’s mother, Mrs Swinburne-King, also approved, writing back to tell Oscar how pleased she should be to have him as her son-in-law.15
Passionate letters raced between the now separated lovers. Only two days after the proposal Constance was writing:
My own Darling Oscar, I have just got your letter, and your letters always make me mad for joy and yet more mad to see you and feel once again that you are mine and that it is not a dream but a living reality that you love me. How can I answer your letters, they are far too beautiful for any words of mine, I can only dream of you all day long and it seems as if everyone I meet must know my secret and see in my face how I love you, my own love.
She called Oscar her ‘hero’ and her ‘god.’16
Amid the passion there were some complications to overcome. Constance’s letter to her brother announcing the ‘astounding news’ of her engagement had crossed with one from him, expressing his doubts about Wilde as a suitor, and mentioning some tale he had heard against him. It was unfortunate, and – as Constance told him – ‘rather ill timed’: ‘I don’t wish to know the story but even if there were foundation for anything against him it is too late to affect me now. I will not allow anything to come between us… Please for my sake and because my happiness is dependent upon this thing do not oppose it.’17 He did not, writing generously to Wilde to welcome him as ‘a new brother’.18
Constance’s grandfather, Horatio Lloyd, did indeed like Wilde, and – having received his letter – was minded to support the union, but on certain conditions. Too ill to reply himself, he instructed Aunt Emily to pass on his views. She informed Wilde, by return, that the old man had ‘no objections to you personally as a husband for Constance. He believes that you and she are well suited to each other. He has confidence you will treat her kindly… But he thinks it right as her guardian to put one or two questions to you… He would like to know what your means are of keeping a wife… [and also] if you had any debts.’ Having been informed on these points, he would ‘give a considered consent’.19
Wilde interrupted his tour to come up to London (from Newcastle) for the weekend of 1 and 2 December; Constance arrived back from Dublin at the same time. Wilde was invited to dine on the Saturday evening at her grandfather’s house, along with Otho and Aunt Emily, and he returned to Lancaster Gate the following day for further discussions about future plans and hopes.20 Wilde wrote subsequently, giving Horatio Lloyd a frank account of his finances, and admitting to debts of around £1,500 (a very substantial figure). His extravagance was certainly a cause for concern, but it was matched by his industry and ambition. He had, he said, already paid off £300, and he was able to point to his current earnings, and to a full lecturing schedule, which was already extending into the following year.† Perhaps, too, he spoke of his hopes for The Duchess of Padua – and even for the American touring production of Vera. Horatio Lloyd was, in some measure, reassured.21
He wanted to do what he could to help the young lovers. Constance’s happiness was his first consideration, and he felt she would be happy with Wilde. At that time she was receiving an allowance from her grandfather of £250 a year, though, on the event of his death, she was due to inherit a portion of his estate. He proposed that this arrangement be brought forward, and £5,000 be settled in a trust fund, to provide Constance with an immediate income of some £400 per annum. It was a generous provision.22 And to Wilde, beset with his debts and unsure of his earnings, it must have registered as a huge relief. It appeared to offer the prospect of a life free from immediate financial worry.
Not that Wilde was allowed to abandon his cares. A date for the wedding had still to be set, and Constance’s grandfather suggested it be delayed at least until Wilde had paid off a further £300 of debt. Wilde, full of self-confidence, thought this could be achieved by the coming April.23
Happy plans and reveries about Constance now dominated his thoughts as he travelled around the country, ‘civilizing the provinces’. He devoted himself to doing ‘all the foolish things which wise lovers do’. He wrote to her often and telegraphed her twice a day. He would race back to London to see her between lectures, sometimes even forgoing supper to snatch an evening with his beloved. He presented her with an engagement ring of his own design: two pearls enclosed in a heart formed of diamonds. The meetings were joyous; the partings brought sorrow. ‘My darling love,’ Constance wrote after one fleeting visit, ‘I am sorry I was so silly: you take all my strength away. I have no power to do anything but just love you when you are with me, and I cannot fight against my dread of your going away… I know it is only for three days.’24
Wilde seems to have told Constance something of his past attachments – to Florence Balcombe, to Lillie Langtry, perhaps even to Violet Hunt and Hattie Crocker. He received a generous absolution. ‘I don’t think I shall ever be jealous, certainly not jealous now of anyone: I trust in you for the present. I am content to let the past be buried, it does not belong to me: for the future trust and faith will come, and when I have you for my husband, I will hold you fast with chains
of love and devotion so that you shall never leave me, or love anyone as long as I can love and comfort [you].’25
The news that Wilde was to be married appeared first in the World at the beginning of December (placed there, no doubt, by Willie), and rapidly spread through the press.‡ His bride-to-be’s name began to be reported in mid-December, before being formally announced later in the month. Wilde was used to being ‘paragraphed’, but for Constance it must have been a rude shock to find herself the object of so much coarse journalistic speculation – regarding the size of her dowry, her artistic tastes and her chances of happiness; one newspaper rated them low on the grounds that ‘to please Oscar long will require more than human perfection’.26
Wilde’s last lecture of the year was at the Crystal Palace. Constance attended with her aunt, Mary Napier. After that there was a break in the schedule over Christmas, and Wilde was able to spend the days in London, and with Constance. They went together to the theatre most evenings. At St James’s the cast peeked through the curtains at the interval to glimpse ‘Bunthorne’ and his bride-to-be.27
Whistler entered enthusiastically into Wilde’s happiness. He insisted on hosting one of his Sunday breakfasts in Constance’s honour. There was some doubt, though, as to whether she would be able to attend, Aunt Emily deeming such bohemian gatherings unsuitable for a ‘young unmarried lady’. But, after a plea from Wilde, the objections were waived on the condition that it should not establish ‘a precedent for any more visiting of a like kind’, and that Otho should accompany her as chaperone.28
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