“My dear fellow,” Wilde expostulated, “you have got it wrong. The play is a success. The only question is whether the first night’s audience will be one.” The first night’s audience turned out to be a brilliant success. The delicious absurdity of the opening dialogue between Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieffe, Worthing’s love-scene with Gwendolen, his story of his origin, Lady Bracknell’s indignation, and Algy’s intention to impersonate to Worthing’s pretty ward in the country Worthing’s quite imaginary wicked brother, kept the audience in delight until the curtain fell upon the first act; and in suspense until it rose upon the second. Perhaps the culminating moment of the farce — for a glorified farce is what it is — was when Worthing with a face of woe, dressed to his hat-band and his gloves and his pocket-handkerchief in the deepest mourning for the immoral brother who had died in Paris, paced on to the stage ignorant of what the audience knew; that the immoral brother in the person of Algernon Moncrieffe was actually within the house, making love to his ward. Alexander never acted with a lighter or more confident touch; he was well matched with Allan Aynesworth, a brilliant comedian with that power to sound a deeper emotion without which comedy is second-rate; the ladies were fair to look upon and had caught the fantastic spirit of the piece; and if, to use the American language, Guy Domville had been a flop, The Importance of Being Earnest was an indubitable wow.
When Wilde went round from his box to the long room, at the side of which Alexander dressed, Alexander said to him: “Well, wasn’t I right? What did you think of it?”
Wilde, his large face smiling, nodded his head in the odd, ponderous way of his and answered: “My dear Aleck, it was charming, quite charming. And, do you know, from time to time I was reminded of a play I once wrote myself, called The Importance of Being Earnest.”
The farce thus started upon what looked to be a golden career, but as everyone knows, a horrid disaster came with the summer. In 1902 it was revived for fifty-five nights and returned a slight profit. But it was not until the winter of 1909 that it received full recognition. Time had softened judgment, the work the man did was no longer to be obscured by the man’s faults. The Importance of Being Earnest ran for eleven months and remains alive amongst the few great farces which can survive the passing of the epoch in which they were written.
§
In the second volume of his Life of Oscar Wilde Frank Harris attacks Alexander on the ground that just before Wilde’s trial he took Wilde’s name off the bill as the author of the comedy. Harris contrasts Alexander’s conduct with that of Charles Wyndham. He makes Charles Wyndham say that if a play of Wilde’s was put on at his theatre, the author’s name must be on all bills and placards as usual. He would not allow his theatre to be used to insult a man upon his trial. All this sounds very heroic, and it is certain that Wilde’s name was taken off the bills of The Importance of Being Earnest and was retained on those of An Ideal Husband. But Alexander was better aware of the financial distress in which Wilde was labouring. The essential thing for him was money and again money — not money to pay old bills, but money for his immediate needs. The English public was more hypocritical in the last years of the nineteenth century than it is to-day. Alexander counted upon that hypocrisy. It seemed to him possible that with Wilde’s name off the bills the life of the play might be prolonged. Given time, it might even outsail the storm of vituperation and anger and hatred. If it did, there would be royalties to fill Wilde’s empty purse. In the event the plan failed. Not merely did justifiable indignation flame high, but every petty jealousy and rancour, all that there was of uncharitableness and ill-will brought out its little set of bellows to blow the flame still higher. There could be no mention of the man’s name, no discussion of his work. On the music-halls every red-nosed comedian made his little cheap joke to yells of laughter. The Importance of Being Earnest foundered, and it may be that Alexander made a mistake in taking Wilde’s name off the bills. He certainly did no good to himself. But to this extent he was justified. The Importance of Being Earnest was able to hold the stage for a month longer than An Ideal Husband. There were a month’s more royalties for the author. The last night of An Ideal Husband was April 13 th; that of The Importance of Being Earnest, May 10th.
Frank Harris puts the complaint into the mouth of Wilde himself with other assertions which are open to flat disproof. There are pages and pages of a conversation between Harris and Wilde, which is supposed to have taken place in 1898, that is, eighteen years before the Life was published. The conversations are in inverted commas, the supposed actual words which were spoken. I-said-to-him-and-he-said-to-me stories, whether told or written, are always untrue. When told, they are even more intolerably tedious than untrue. For you see them being made up in front of you, and they are pointless, and you cannot escape without some explosion of ill-manners. You are held by the narrator’s eye, even as the ancient mariner held one of three. It is related that the late Lord Birkenhead, being detained in some such bondage in his club, rang for the waiter and said to that astonished man, “Will you please hear the rest of this story for me? I haven’t the time.” Most of us weaker vessels have not that courage. We sit, shifting in our chairs, the prisoners of tedium and disbelief. A good story is trim and neat and makes his bow smartly and has done with it. But the I-said-to-him kind is a sloven among stories and the teller of it is Public Enemy No i. When, however, those stories are written down, they may not be so tedious — for you can skip them — but they are infinitely more false. Long conversations, word by word, cannot be remembered for eighteen years. The author’s own predilections colour them. What he wants to be said slips in as having been said. The author’s thoughts, even his imaginings, are attributed to the other partner in the dialogue. They are uttered with a greater authority that way. Thus Wilde is represented as saying:
I was sitting by the roadside on the way to Cannes. I had taken out a Vergil with me and had begun reading it. As I sat there reading, I happened to raise my eyes, and who should I see but George Alexander — George Alexander on a bicycle. I had known him intimately in the old days, and naturally I got up delighted to see him, and went towards him. But he turned his head aside and pedalled past me deliberately. He meant to cut me.... Think of Alexander, who made all his money out of my works, cutting me, Alexander! It is too ignoble. Wouldn’t you be angry, Frank?
It is very possible that this bitter speech was never made at all. On the other hand, the gentlest man will, under a grievance, mistaken or true, utter an injustice — and hope that his biographer will not print it in his book afterwards. But these words have been printed and so they must be examined. Let us take first of all the phrase “Alexander, who made all his money out of my works”. An additional reason for doubting that these words were ever spoken, or if spoken, were spoken seriously, is that Wilde knew and must have known that they were untrue.
Here are the facts. The date of this diffuse conversation is a day towards the end of the year 1898. Up to that time, the net profits (that is, after the author’s royalties, the cost of the dresses and the scenery, the salaries of the actors, actresses, and those concerned in the business management, and the weekly cost of the theatre, had been discharged) from Lady Windermere s Fan amounted to:
On the London run, Feb. 20th to July 29th, 1892...... £5712 0 6
On the tour from August 22nd to October 29th. . . . . 451 13 4
£6163 13 10
Less the loss on the revival in London from Oct. 31st-Nov. 30th, 1892. . . 717 16 6
£5445 17 4
Lady Windermere’s Fan shared the bill on the tour of 1893 with The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Liberty Hall, and The Idler, and its share of the net profit amounted to. 124 3 — 7
£5570 O 11
The play was not revived again until the autumn of 1904. So that at this time, the winter of 1898, £5570: o: 11 had been made by Alexander out of Wilde’s works.
From this sum, however, must be deducted the loss on the first run of The Importance of Being Ea
rnest — it was not until the year 1909-1910 that the comedy made its triumphant success — and this amounted to £289: 8: 4.
The net result is that Alexander had made, at the time when Wilde is described as making this statement, out of Wilde’.s works, exactly:
But Alexander had then been in management for eight years and the net profit of those eight years, as audited by his accountants, apart altogether from Wilde’s works, came to
This total leaves out the money lost upon failures. All that is required here is the proportion which the profits on Wilde’s works bore to the sum of the profits upon the other plays. And it is clear from these figures that anyone claiming that Wilde was at this date responsible for Alexander’s financial success would be talking the sheerest nonsense.
The speech attributed to Wilde, however, contains a grave charge. It states that Alexander bicycling on a road which passed Napoule in the South of France cut Wilde dead. The simplest answer is to print the following letter written two years afterwards: —
July 1900 HOTEL D’ALSACE
MY DEAR ALECK, — RUE DES BEAUX (ARTS?) PARIS
It was really a great pleasure to see you again and to receive your friendly grasp of the hand after so many years, nor shall I forget your dear wife’s charming and affectionate greeting of me. I know now the value of things like that.
With regard to your proposal to spread the payment for the plays over a certain time, I know it was dictated by sheer kindness and the thoughtfulness of an old friend. If you would send Robert Ross £20 on the first of every month for me it would be a great boon. He would send it on to me as he looks after all my affairs. His address is R. B. Ross, 24 Hornton St., Kensington, W. I would then have before me a year free from worry, and perhaps may do something you would like.
Could you do this for me?
I was very delighted to see you so well and so unchanged.
Kindest wishes to your wife, OSCAR WILDE
Sincerely, It is incredible that if Alexander and his wife were greeting Wilde in Paris with so much friendliness in the summer of 1900, Alexander bicycling alone on a country road in the South of France, eighteen months before, should have cut him dead. There is too great an inconsistency. If there were any basis for the story at all, it might be that either Wilde mistook his bicyclist or Alexander did not see Wilde. But it may well have been manufactured. Frank Harris was not very scrupulous whether the blow was fair, so long as the blow was dealt. Wilde’s own letter must hold the field. There is, besides, heaps of evidence to show that all the way to the end of his life Alexander was the “good wise friend” of Wilde’s earlier letter. He bought the acting rights of Lady Windermere s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest when Wilde went bankrupt; he had got a bargain and might have stood upon his rights as many another man in similar cases has. But he did not whilst he lived. And when he died he bequeathed the rights he held to Oscar Wilde’s son.
§
Earlier in this chapter mention has been made of a scenario, for which a sum in advance of the royalties on the completed play had been paid by Alexander. Here is the scenario. It will be seen that it is addressed from Worthing, and therefore cannot be of a date later than the summer of 1894. For Wilde did not go back there. It was written out in fact whilst Wilde was working upon The Importance of Being Earnest.
THE HAVEN
DEAR ALECK, — ESPLANADE, WORTHING
What do you think of this for a play for you? A man of rank and fashion marries a simple sweet country girl — a lady — but simple and ignorant of fashionable life. They live at his country place and after a time he gets bored with her, and invites down a lot of fashionable fin-de-siècle women and men; the play opens by his lecturing his wife how to behave — not to be prudish, etc. and not to mind if anyone flirts with her — he says to her, “I have asked Gerald Lancing who used to admire you so much — flirt with him as much as you like”.
The guests arrive, they are horrid to the wife — they think her dowdy and dull. The husband flirts with Lady X. Gerald is nice and sweet and friendly to the wife.
Act II. The same evening — after dinner — Love scene between the husband and Lady X: they agree to meet in the drawing-room after everyone has retired. The guests bid good-night to the wife. The wife is tired and falls half asleep on a sofa. Enter husband: he lowers the lamps: then Lady X arrives — he locks the door. Love scene between them — wife hears it all. Suddenly violent beating on the door. Voice of Lady X’s husband outside — desiring admittance. Terror of Lady X! Wife rises, turns up the lamp and goes to the door and unlocks it — Lady X’s husband enters! Wife says “I am afraid I have kept Lady X up too late; we were trying an absurd experiment in thought reading” (anything will do). Lady X retires with her husband. Wife then left alone with her own husband. He comes towards her. She says “Don’t touch me”. He retires.
Then enter Gerald — says he has been alarmed by noises — thought there were robbers — wife tells him everything — he is full of indignation, it is evident he loves the wife. She goes to her room.
Act III. Gerald’s rooms — wife comes to see him — it is clear that they love each other. They settle to go away together — enter servant with card! The husband has called. No one is frightened, but Gerald consents to see him. Wife retires into another room.
Husband is rather repentant. He implores Gerald to use his influence with the wife to make her forgive him. (Husband is a gross sentimental materialist.) Gerald promises that he will do so — it is evident that it is a great act of self sacrifice for him — exit husband with maudlin expressions of gratitude.
Enter wife: Gerald asks her to go back to her husband. She refuses with scorn — he says, “You know what it costs me to ask you to do that. Do not you see that I am really sacrificing myself?” Etc. She considers: “Why should you sacrifice me? — I love you. You have made me love you — you have no right to hand my life over to anyone else. All this self sacrifice is wrong, we are meant to live. That is the meaning of life.” Etc. She forces him by her appeals and her beauty and her love to take her away with him.
Three months afterwards: Act IV. Gerald and wife together — she is reading Act IV of Frou-Frou — they talk about it. A duel between Gerald and the husband is fixed for the day on which the scene takes place — she is confident he will not be killed — he goes out. Husband enters. Wife proclaims her love for her lover — nothing would induce her to go back to her husband — of the two she wishes him to die. “Why?” says husband. “Because the father of my child must live.” Husband goes out — pistols are heard — he has killed himself.
Enter Gerald, the husband not having appeared at the duel. “What a coward”, says Gerald. “No”, she answers, “not at the end — he is dead.”
“We must love one another devotedly now.” Curtain falls with Gerald and the wife clinging to each other as if with a mad desire to make love eternal — Finis.
What do you think of this idea?
I think it extremely strong. I want the sheer passion of love to dominate everything. No morbid self sacrifice. No renunciation — a sheer flame of love between a man and a woman. That is what the play is to rise to — from the social chatter of Act I, through the theatrical effectiveness of Act II, up to the psychology with its great dénouement in Act III, till love dominates Act IV and accepts the death of the husband as in a way its proper right — leaving love its tragedy — and so making it a still greater passion.
Of course I have only scribbled this off — I only thought of the plot this morning — but I send it to you — I see great things in it — and, if you like it when done, you can have it for America.
Yours, OSCAR
In his Life of Oscar Wilde, Frank Harris gives another of his conversations with that author. He speaks of a scene which Wilde described to him, calling it a great stage picture. It is spoken of again as “a screen scene”, and in the scenario above it is the scene in the second act where the wife unlocks the door. Frank Harris continues:<
br />
That evening thinking over what he had said, I realised all at once that a story I had in mind to write would suit “the screen scene” of Oscar’s scenario; why shouldn’t I write a play instead of a story? When we met next day I broached the idea to Oscar:
“I have a story in my head”, I said, “which would fit into that scenario of yours, so far as you have sketched it to me. I could write it as a play and do the second, third, and fourth acts very quickly, as all the personages are alive to me. Could you do the first act?”
The idea of the collaboration was a mistake; but it seemed to me at the moment the best way to get him to do something. Suddenly he asked me to give him £50 for the scenario at once, then I could do what I liked with it.
After a good deal of talk I consented to give him the £50 if he would promise to write the first act; he promised and I gave him the money.
It appears from this narrative that all that the play was to owe to Wilde was the first act in which this scene presumably was to have been incorporated. But that story won’t do. Mrs Patrick Campbell produced Frank Harris’ play of Mr and Mrs Daventry at the Royalty Theatre on October 25 th, 1900. It not only had the screen scene in just the same position as it occupied in Wilde’s letter to Alexander, but the rest of his scenario too, the same characters, the same dénouement. No doubt the play would have been a totally different thing if Wilde had written it. But the story and the characters which made it live were Wilde’s from the beginning to the end. Frank Harris adds an appendix to his book which does not succeed in diminishing his debt and does not make any greater acknowledgment of it. He is not to be trusted.
§
Years afterwards, on May 10th, 1914, Alexander revived An Ideal Husband. But the last act of that play was never satisfactory. According to Wilde’s executor Robert Ross, John Hare refused the play on that account. There were too many exits and entrances, and there was a certain fussiness when the comedy should be moving quite definitely and certainly to its end. It ran only to July 27th and lost nearly two thousand pounds. Ross was anxious that Alexander should produce a translation of Wilde’s play of Salome and persuade the Censor to lift the ban upon it. In one form or another Salome was performed regularly in the United States and in all the countries of Europe except England. But Alexander was not attracted to the subject and Ross’ plan came to nothing.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 844