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Oscar Wilde, about whom so much is now being said, first achieved notoriety as a prostate apostle and then as the leader of the then infantile aesthetic craze. He carried his aesthetic peculiarities so far that he became the subject of Du Maurier's caricaturing pencil and Gilbert's satirizing fun. That may have been what he was trying for. Neither the caricaturist nor the satirist diminished the ardor with which Wilde pursued what was vaguely called aestheticism. The Bunthornes of "Patience" made up in exact imitation of Wilde, and he posed in the lobbies of the same theatres and composed phrases which outdid, in lily-like languor, the phrases Gilbert and thought to be satires. One of the songs of "Patience" which seemed to contain a more or less pointed allusion to Wilde ran:

Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashionShould excite your languid spleen;An attachment, a la Plato, for a bashful young potato,Or a not too French French bean;Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostleIn the sentimental band;If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lilyIn your mediaeval hand;And every one will sayAs you walk your mystic way,"If he's content with a vegetable love that would certainly not suit me.Why, what a most particularly pure young man this pure young man must be."

The more limp Du Maurier drew his caricature, the limper was Oscar when he confronted the next assemblage; the longer Du Maurier made his people's hair, the longer Wilde stayed away from the barber's.

Up to that time, fifteen years ago, Wilde had done little else to attract attention to himself. He was known to be the son of exceptionally clever parents and winner of the Newdigate at Oxford, but, besides cleverly advertising himself and writing a few verses, he had done no clever original work, and was not seriously considered. His reputation as lecturer, man of fashion, wit, poet, novelist, essayist, playwright has been made, in most particulars, in the last half dozen years, all since his lecturing tour in this country.

He came here about twelve years ago, frankly advertised as a freak lecturing on "aestheticism." He wore knee breeches, silk hose, lace cuffs, and was otherwise variously freakish in his dress. At Boston a half hundred Harvard boys marched into his lecture hall dressed as he was, each carrying a lily. Wilde's noted imperturbability did not desert him. He merely lisped, "How tenderly droll!" and went on with his lecture.

In a Western city he was the guest of a club, among whose members were a number of stout drinkers. They undertook to "tank up the aesthete," as they expressed it. The process was long. As the sun was breaking into the club windows, Wilde looked about the room strewn with the fallen braves, and said to one man still able to comprehend speech:"We've had a charmingly quiet little evening. Don't you feel like a bit of a run about town before breakfast?"

But those who met him under normal conditions found Mr. Wilde a witty and engaging talker; unusually well informed on a wide range of literary and art subjects, and quite able to care for himself in any mnental encounter. The public at large, not knowing this of him, refused to accept him or his cult seriously, and Wilde returned to England richer only in experiences and a few hundred pounds. He had apologists, not of his class, for his "lilylike" eccentricities. In 1880 Edmund Yates wrote of him in the London World:

"He came out with a great splurge; his hair, his watch fob, his costume, and his walking stick started him well; the living up to the lily, and his disappointment with the Atlantic, and other quaint phrases carried him on for a bit; but he made somewhat of a failure in his lecturing tour in America, and has not been much heard of since his return, so that there was a general impression that though he had come out well, he had gone in again. But those who were well acquainted with him knew better, and had perfect reliance on his unquestioniable cleverness and his determination to make a mark. They felt that in these days, when every gate is thronged with suitors, a little charlatanism to call attention to one's self is not merely admissible, but is necessary; granted always that when the attention has been attracted there is something really worth seeing in the show. Mr. Wilde has justified these good opinions by working unobtrusively, indeed, but always well."

At that time Wilde had been married several years to Miss Constance Lloyd, and was living in Chelsea in a house decorated in "harmonies of green and blue," and furnished with quaint Old World pieces, but he was doing little or nothing to attract attention; even "Dorian Grey" had not then been much noticed. But he had "come out," and was destined to "stay out" in the sense that he was soon to be talked of again more than he ever had been, and in a more reputable manner. His art criticisms in the London papers, his essays on the drama and his poems began to attract more and more attention, and serve to revive interest in "Dorian Grey." He was criticised extensively, and although the morality of much that he wrote was questioned or condemned, the literary ability of his work was generally conceded. He adopted Whistler's plan of quarreling with his critics, and of "making phrases."

Then, about three years ago, his play, "Lady Windermere's Fan," was produced in London, and later here, and that at once made him one of the most talked about playwrights living. There was not much seriously objectionable in the sentiments expressed in this play; not to theatre-goers who had become accustomed to "Divorcon," and its kind, and this did not seem to satisfy Mr. Wilde, He wrote "Salome," wrote it in French and arranged with Sarah Bernhardt to produce it in London, but the Lord Chamberlain refused to authorize its production, or, to put it the familiar way, prohibited it, and Wilde threatened to go to France to live—which the Marquis of Queensberry expressed a longing for him to do—but he did not. He said of this prohibition and of Sarah Bernhardt's rehearsals:

"Every rehearsal has been a source of intense pleasure to me. To hear my own vwords spoken by the most beautiful voice in the world has been the greatest artistic joy that it is possible to experience. So that, you see, as far as I am concerned, I care very little about the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain to allow my plays to be produced. What I do care about is this, that the censorship apparently reggards the stage as the lowest of all the arts, and looks on acting as a vulgar thing. The painter is allowed to take his subjects where he chooses. He can go to the great Hebrew and Hebrew-Greek literature of the Bible, and can paint Salome dancing, or Christ on the cross, or the Virgin with her child. Nobody interferes with the painter. Nobody says: 'Painting is such a vulgar art that you must not paint sacred things.' The sculptor is equally free. He can carve St. John the Baptist in his camel hair, and fashion the Madonna or Christ in bronze or in marble, as he wills. Yet nobody says to him: 'Sculpture is such a vulgar art that you must not carve sacred things.' And the writer—the poet—he also is quite free. I can write about any subject I choose. For me there is no censorship. I can take any incident I like out of sacred literature and treat it as I choose, and there is no one to say to the poet: 'Poetry is such a vulgar art that you must not use it in treating sacred subjects.' But there is a censorship over the stage and acting, and the basis of that censorship is that, while vulgar subjects may be put on the stage and acted, while everything that is mean and low and shameful in life can be portrayed by actors, no actor is to be permitted to present, under artistic conditions, the great and ennobling subjects taken from the Bible. The insult in the suppression of 'Salome' is an insult to the stage as a form of art, and not to me."

A year and a half ago Mr. Wilde managed to contrive and have ventilated in the Pall Mall Budget a quarrel with T. P. O'Connor, in which he expressed his opinion of the "ordinary journalist" in a manner intended to increase the scope of the quarrel, but it did not. This is his first letter in the series published in the Budget:

"Sir: Will you allow me to draw your attention to a very interesting example of the ethics of modern journalism, a quality of which we have all heard so much and seen so little?"About a month ago Mr. T. P. O'Connor published in the Weekly Sun some doggerel verses entitled 'The Shamrock,' and had the amusing impertinence to append my name to them as their author. As for some years past all kinds of scurrilous personal attacks had been made on me in Mr. O'Connor's newspapers, I determined to take no notice at all of the incident."Enraged, however, by my courteous silence, Mr. O'Connor returns to the charge this week. He now solemnly accuses me of plagiarizing the poem he had the vulgarity to attribute to me."This seems to me to pass beyond even those bounds of coarse humor and coarser malice that are, by the contempt of all, conceded to the ordinary journalist, and it is really very distressing to find so low a standard of ethics in a Sunday newspaper. I remain, sir, your obedient servant,"OSCAR WILDE."

The reply to this was signed, "The Assistant Editor," which gave Mr. Wilde an opportunity to say this:

"Sir: The assistant editor of the Weekly Sun, on whom seems to devolve the arduous duty of writing Mr. T. P. O'Connor's apologies for him, does not, I observe with regret, place that gentleman's conduct in any more attractive or more honorable light by the attempted explanation that appears in the letter published in your issue of today. For the future it would be much better if Mr. O'Connor would always write his own apologies. That he can do so exceedingly well no one is more ready to admit than myself. I happen to possess one from him."

In spite of the harsh things which have been written lately about the moral quality of his later literary work, a recent London o critic wrote of him:

"Mr. Oscar Wilde has a very wholesome influence upon contemporary thought, though there are people who think otherwise. It is not that he is original, or even absurd. He is never entirely either. But he sticks his pen into the somewhat torpid consciousness of the average Englishman, and digs up the clods of truth which have caked and hardened therein. He turns upside down the proverbial wisdom which most of us regard as eternal verity, and shows us that it looks as well one way as the other."

"Oscar Wilde dropped all his eccentricities of dress when he left America, which he visited fifteen years ago. He also dropped the O'Flaherty from his name. The Oscar Wilde who returned to England was the conventional nineteenth century gentleman, quiet in dress and reserved in manner.

"The very first place in any history of the Wilde family, however, should be given to Oscar's mother. Half the good things Oscar Wilde says were first said by his mother. She was a Miss Elgie. She is a wonderful old woman, now in the seventies, but as bright and alert as she was thirty years ago. As a girl she achieved a great reputation as a poet, writing under the name of 'Speranza' for Ireland's liberty. Dr. Wilde, her husband, was knighted for services he had rendered to his country as an oculist. He possessed wonderful skill in this direction. It was owing to the success of an operation performed by him upon King Oscar of Sweden that that monarch acted as godfather to the little Oscar Wilde.

The Wilde Home in Dublin.

"The Wilde home during Oscar's childhood was in Merrion Square, Dublin. It's hospitality was famous. Oscar Wilde's wife is an Irish woman, and was a Miss Constance Lloyd. She intherited a large sum of money on the death of her father, who had great shipping interests.

Wilde's Literary Work.

Swayed in Turn by Christian and Pagan Influences, but Still a True Poet.

Oscar Wilde comes of parentage distinguished alike in social, and in intellectual life. His father was Sir William Wilde, the late eminent surgeon, who for many years was surgeon oculist to Queen Victoria, who was the founder and lifelong chief of staff of St. Mark's Ophtalmic and Aural Hospital of Dublin, who had a European reputation in his profession, who wielded an immense personal influence in Ireland through his magnetic qualities and wide information, and who was known to antiquaries and historians by his passionate devotion to the study of archaeology.

Twice he was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. His published works, "The Shores of Lough Corrib and Lough Mask," are everywhere recognized as scholarly, contributions to the early history of Ireland. He was knighted in 1853 in recognition both of his professional skill and of his arduous and successful labors in producing the first elaborate and reliable census of his native land.

Oscar Wilde's mother, who is still alive, at the age of 77, is perhaps the most famous woman poet of Ireland. Her patriotic poems and lyrics, produced under the pseudonym of "Speranza," endeared her to the hearts of her countrymen. One especially, "The Famine in Ireland," is still remembered, and may be found in almost any anthology of poetry. It is a grim and masterly description of the desolation produced by the famine of 1849.

In Dublin she built up the literary salon which existed there. Her receptions were always crowded by literary and political celebrities, and especially by those who had the cause of young Ireland at heart.

Her Career in London.

More recently she removed to London, and still continued to cultivate the society of the most eminent men and women of the time. Her cozy drawing room, whose curtains are always closely drawn, is softly lighted with crimson silken shaded lamps. The hostess, tall and dignified, and richly dressed, moves among her guests with a dignified and gracious manner, conversing easily and intelligently on the leading topics of the day in a sympathetic voice that reveals her warm Irish nature.

Thus, the boy; who was born on Oct. 16, 1856, was brought up in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and agitation. He was constantly with his father and mother, always among grown persons, and before he was in his teens had heard every creed advocated and attacked at his father's dinner table. His early education was conducted at home, where he was given the finest of all educators—the best literature of the day. He traveled much, both in France and Germany, and imbibed a love for Heine and for Goethe.

Training at Oxford.

Before going to Oxford he spent a year in Dublin University, where he captured a scholarship and the gold medal for Greek. Then, in 1874, he matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in the four years he was there took two scholarships and won the guerdon most coveted by ambitious students, the Newdigate prize for poetry. His subject was "Ravenna."

It was at Oxford that he became a passionate disciple of Ruskin, who lectured there on Florentine art. Ruskin was not content with mere lecturing. Four days in every week he devoted himself to teaching the flower of British youth how to devote its strength to the practical art of hewing stones for the highways. Young Wilde was even then a Sybarite, careful of his comfort and fond of luxury. Yet, under the influence of the master, he would cheerfully rise at early dawn to earn the glory of filling Ruskin's own special wheelbarrow with stones broken by his own right arm.

His rooms were gorgeously decorated with treasures of art and virtu, from Burne Jones' pictures to Damascus tiles, and the famous blue china, which was always a part of his cult in his vacation.

He followed Rusklin to Italy. Wilde came back to England, in aesthetic feeling, at least, a Catholic.

It was then that he produced his first poems, many of which were published in Catholic periodicals. One of these, on "Rome Unvisited," attracted the attention of Cardinal Newman. A lecture by the other great Catholic, Cardinal Manning, on "Catholic Oxford," which Wilde attended at this period of transition, almost induced him to follow many of his friends into open adherence to Rome. But now a new influence stepped into his life.

Prof. J. P. Mahaffey, the Greek scholar, had been strongly attracted by the ardent young poet. He took Oscar to Greece. He inspired him with his own love for Hellenic life, literature and art.

Paganism triumphed over Christian Catholocism. Young Wilde returned to Oxford a confirmed classicist. Poetry was still the medium through which he expressed his new cult. In 1878 he took his degree. Then he went to live in London.

As a Poet.

Perhaps Oscar found it to his interest not to resent the stage caricatures. At the very height of the "Patience" fever came the announcement of Oscar Wilde's poems. Then it was seen that the young man was only pretending to be an idiot. His verses on "England;" his "Ave Imperatrix," though too Tennysonian, and his "Garden of Eros," though too Swinburnian; his neo-Catholic poems, gathered under the general head of "Rosa Mystica," had the ring.

But the most sincere and genuine of all was the introductory sonnet, full of sad, vain longing and regret. Here it is in entire. It casts a curious light upon a curious personality:

Helas!To drift with every passion till my soulIs a stringed lute, on which all winds can play.Is it for this that I have given awayMine ancient wisdom, and austere control?—Methinks my life is a twice written scrollScrawled over on some boyish holidayWith idle songs for pipe and virelayWhich do but mar the secret of the whole.Surely there was a time I might have trodThe sunlit heights, and from life's dissonanceStruck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:Is that time dead? Lo! with a little rodI did but touch the honey of romance—And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

He has fallen so deep that no hand can raise him without being besmirched with his own infamy. But in the gutter where he lies we can, without offence, do him such justice, at least, as he deservd. He was certainly a good son, patient, loving, devoted. He appeared to be a kind husband and a fond father, and his work had much in it that was useful. It is a pity that his hatred of conventionality and traditional shams had so much in it that was itself, a sham, and worse.

We live in times of change, alarm, surprise. Old traditions and old conventions are being assailed on all sides. Time alone will tell how much of the old will be left after the new upheaval has subsided. In the armies of light and leading sharpshooters, armed with the weapons of wit and sarcasm, they have their uses. But they must be sure of the purity of their ammunition, or they will be doubly damned. Their very colleagues must condemn them more fiercely even than their enemies.

In the fall of Oscar Wilde art and literature have innocently suffered. But better no art and no literature than the acceptance of Wilde.

LONDON, April 6, 1895. - Oscar Wilde's friend, Alfred Taylor, was arrested and taken to the Bow Street Police Station this morning.

Oscar Wilde was arraigned in the Bow Street Police Station this morning and charged with inciting young men to commit crime and also with having actually committed crime himself. Taylor was also placed in the prisoners' dock, charged with being accessory to Wilde's crime. As Taylor stepped into the dock Wilde smilingly recognized him. Taylor is man of medium size, with sharp features and a fair complexion.

Charles Parker, nineteen years of age, was the first witness examined. He gave in detail the particulars of his introduction to Wilde by Taylor, and stated that tbe latter said Wilde was "good for money." Parker testified that he had frequently dined with Wilde at various restaurants, and detailed the conversations between them on those occasions. He also told of visits to the Savoy Hotel with Wilde and of meeting Wilde at his chambers in St. James' place. He made frequent visits to the latter place. Parker swore that he had received money and other presents upon almost every occasion.

The story told by Parker. If true, proves the case of the treasury against Wilde. Counsel for Wilde and Taylor reserved their right to cross-examine Parker, who was bound over in the sum of £85 to give evidence in the Old Bailey proceedings.

TAYLOR'S TEA PARTIES.

William Parker, a brother of the first witness called, was placed on the stand, and confirmed the story of the first meeting between his brother and Wilde In March, 1893. The landlady of the house in which Taylor lodged was next examined, and gave testimony regarding the youths who attended the tea parties given by Taylor. She said she had heard Taylor address somebody as Oscar, but did not recognize Wilde as having been one of her lodger's visitors.

Alfred Wood, the man whose passage to America was paid by Wilde, upon being sworn, testified that he met Wilde at the Cafe Royal, in January 1803. He went to Wilde's house, No. 16 Tite street, Chelsea, S. W.

The witness said Wilde has given him altogether £35, upon tbe receipt of which sum he had handed over to Wilde a number of letters written by him. Subsequently he went to America, remaining abroad fourteen months. He desired to go to America, he said, to get away from Wilde and certain other persons, who are now absent from England.

The next witness was a youth named Mavor, who absolutely denied that he had been guilty of any misconduct with Wilde, and also denied positively that he bad admitted to the Marquis of Queensbury or the latters solicitor that there bad been anything wrong in his relations with Wilde.

Wilde and Taylor were remanded in custody. A request was made that the prisoners be adinitted to ball, but bail was refused.

MORALITY AND ART.

The Westminster Gazette, commenting on the result of Wilde's prosecution of the Marquis of Queensberry. says: -"The case proves that it is untrue to say art has nothing to do with morality. Wilde's art rests on a basis of rottenness and corruption."

Archibald Edward Douglas, brother of the Marquis of Ouceusberry, has written a letter repudiating the statement made to-day in the course of an interview by Lord Douglas, of Hawke, eldest living son of tbe Marquis, to the effect that no member of the family, except his father, believes the charges against Wilde.

In refutation of this statement the writer of the letter says:-"My mother, my sisters and myself believe the allegations made against Oscar Wilde."

The charge against Wilde is meantime being prosecuted under the Criminal Law Amendment act, which classes his offense as a misdemeanor, the maximum penalty for which is two years' imprisonment for conviction.

MRS. LESLIE'S TRIBUTE.

She Speaks in Praise of the Poet as Husband, Father and Friend.

There is probably no one individual in this country more deeply grieved and shocked over the disclosures which have brought about the downfall of Oscar Wilde than Mrs. Frank Leslie.

Mrs. Leslie's marital difficulties with his brother never at any time disturbed tbe cordial relations which existed between herself and Oscar Wilde. She saw him frequently during her yearly sojourns in London, and was always a welcome guest, both at his own home and that of his mother, Lady Wilde.

Mrs. Leslie regards Oscar Wilde as easily the most brilliant conversationalist of his time. She says she would not have believed evil of him from any other lips than his own, and now that he stands convicted by his own admissions she is still loth to credit them, for she declares they do not tally with tbe wonderful purity and affection which pervade tbe man's private life.

Mrs. Leslie's acquaintance with Oscar Wilde dates from the time of his visit to this country fifteen years ago, when he flashed upon us the brilliant eccentricity of his aesthetic fad, then in the zenith of its extravagance.

The friendship then formed has continued ever since. Mrs. Leslie since that time has been on terms of the closest intimacy with the Wilde family, so that no one is better entitled to speak authoritatively of the character and home life of the brilliant man whose career seems to be about ended. Mrs. Leslie's remarks in this direction will be found both spicy and entertaining.

THE PUZZLE OF HER LIFE.

"This terrible thing that has come upon Mr. Wilde," said Mrs. Leslie yesterday, "is the greatest puzzle of my life. I cannot reconcile it with what I know of Oscar Wilde. Remember, my opinion is based upon what I've seen of him in his home, as husband, son and friend. He has always been a devoted son. Never a day passes but that he visits his delightful old mother, bearing with him some gift of flowers or fruit. He has said to me, the tears welling up in his eyes, 'Ah, it will be the blackest day in my life when my mother is taken from me.' I was moved by his emotion, and said, 'How you love her!' 'Yes,' he replied, 'she's the best mother that ever lived.'

"Oscar Wilde is the youngest of three children. There were also William and Isola. The latter, who was named for some old Irish princess died when she was fourteen years old. Oscar was certainly the flower of the flock, both mentally and physically. You know at Oxford he graduated with the very highest honors. Perhaps, alas! he contracted this bad habit, if indeed he is guilty of it, at the University.

"The unfortunate thing, however , is that in London this abuse is very widespread. In my residence there I have been continually hearing of it as the by-play to almost every celebrated divorce suit that was in the mouths of the gossips.

"Why it had even gone so far, while I was there, as to smirch the name of the brother or a certain Duke whose wife is Queen Victoria's dearest friend. The Queen speedily silenced scandal, however, by inviting him to go to Italy with her.

"In the case of Wilde these revelations must necessarily damn him forever in English society, in which he had made both for himself and his family a proud position. Indeed, the Wildes went everywhere, and at their well appointed home in Tite street one was always sure of meeeting the very brightest persons in England.

FIRST MEETING WITH WILDE.

"My first meeting with Oscar Wilde occurred fifteen years ago. when he visited this country. He brought letters of introduction to me, and I did all I could for him in the way of advertising him in my publications and printing his picture. I shall never forget how incensed he was at some of the interviews with him which appeared in the dally papers. He hated reporters, and poured out his soul to me on the subject. I tried to instruct him in our ways, and later be said to me that it was a beautiful mystery to him how he had got along so well as he did!

"You know, however, that he dropped all his eccentricities of dress when he left this country. He also dropped the O'Flaherty from his name. The Oscar Wilde who returned to England was the conventional nineteenth ceutury gentleman, quiet in dress and reserved in manner.

"The very first place in any history of the Wilde family, however, should be given to Oscar's mother. Half the good things Oscar Wilde says were first said by his mother. She was a Miss Elgie, and comes of a fine old Irish family. She is a wonderful old woman, now in the seventies, but as bright and alert as she was thirty years ago. As a girl she achieved a great reputation as a poet, writing under tile name of 'Speranza' for Ireland's liberty. The story goes that her spirited call to arms was attributed to an eminent public man, who was arrested on the charge.

"When she heard of it this slender girl arose in court and publicly acknowledged the authorship of the dangerous lines in question. She was always a heroine, brave, intrepid, lofty of soul. Dr. Wilde, her husband, was knighted for services he had rendered to his couutry as an oculist. He possessed wonderful skill in this direction. It was owing to the success of his operation performed by him upon King Oscar of Sweden that that monarch condescended to act as godfather to tbe little Oscar Wilde.

THE WILDE HOME IN DUBLIN.

"The Wilde home during Oscar's childhood was ia Merrion square, Dublin. It's hospitality was famous. Mrs. Wilde entertained right royally. It was a common thing to that house for the table to be set with forty covers. Everybody was welcome. There never was a board where so much wit scintillated as at Lady Wilde's. I have never seen any one with her grace in entertaining.

"Lady Wilde was always fond of dress, and is so to this day. Old as she is, and bedridden, she is still as dainty about her person as an aristocratic belle in her first season. Her home was and is a rendezvous for Americans. Her Saturday afternoons at her house In Chelsea were, until her illness, one of the marvels of the city.

"She had a passion for dim religious light. The curtains were always drawn and the gas jets shaded with red globes. The effect was most peculiar, and so dark were her rooms that the guests frequently fell over one another in moving about. Lady Wilde to this day has the heart of a young girl. She reads every new book and is as conversant with what is going on in this country as I am.

"Now. I do not place so much stress on that letter to Lord Alfred Douglas. It coutains simply the jargon of that set of which Wilde is the acknowledged leader. You will find the same thing in "The Green Carnation," the book which is now having as extensive vogue in London as Trilby had here. In the book Esmee is Oscar Wilde, and Lord Reggie is Lord Alfred Douglas. The Marquis of Queensberry is easily recognizable, and so is Madame Gabrielli, another famous figure in London society. This book was really the last straw to the Marquis of Queensberry. He couldn't stand its subtle allusion.

OF MRS. OSCAR WILDE.

"I want to tell you about Oscar Wilde's wife. She is an Irish woman and was a Miss Constance Lloyd. She inherited a large sum of money on the death of her father, who had great shipping interests. She is the prettiest, daintiest, most graceful woman you ever saw, and after fifteen years of married life she still adores her husband. While his dress is now strictly conventional, she continues to affect the aesthetic in all her costumes.

"Why, she's the purest, simplest thing. She wouldn't even tell a society fib. She's as cold as marble, but through the ice you can see the warm glimmer of heartfelt admiration for her husband. Her reception days are Wednesdays, and a marvellous feature of them is the invariable presence of her husband. He always stays a home on her reception days, a remarkable thing, I think, after fifteen years of wedded life. It to beautiful to observe how she is always looking up to him, always appealing for his approval of everything she says.

"Their home in Tite street, Chelsea, is a marvel of well ordered appointment and elegant taste. The drawing room is decorated in white and gold, but the furniture reproduces in its models, and combinations the 'greenery yallery' effect. Some of the finest water colors I ever saw adorn the walls. And then the persons you meet there are the wittiest and brainiest In London. There you will see Swinburne, ever an intimate and admirer of Oscar Wilde, and Whistler, who got off that famous joke which set the whole literary world laughing and wagging its head. It happened at a dinner party. Whistler had said something remarkably clever and Wilde remarked, 'I wish to heavens, Whistler, I'd said that myself.' To which the artist responded, 'You will, Oscar. You will in time.'

WILDE'S TWO BOYS.

"When I think of this delightful home, of the lovely woman who presides over it, of the mother whose sole stay and support that son is, and of the two lovely children, the fruit of a union of hearts. I find it hard to believe that Oscar Wilde is the creature men say he is. Oscar Wilde's boys are Vivian and Clarence, thirteen and eleven years old, respectively. They are splendid fellows, with the mop of Wilde hair growing low over their foreheads. This Wilde hair is a marvel. It keeps the members of this remarkable family in the realm of perpetual youth. Even at her advanced age it covers, when released, the shoulders of Lady Wilde like a thick veil.

"But let me tell you about these boys. They have been most carefully nurtured. Oscar's fad has been that they should never go to school until they were thoroughly robust physically. The consequence is that their education has been directed, so far, exclusively by the father and mother. Mr. Wilde would never have a tutor at his house, or indeed, for that matter, a male servant of any description. It is a notice-able fact that at all his great dinners Mr. Wilde's guests are alway s served by women waiters.

"These boys are such perfect gentlemen. Their home life is so well ordered. I remember on one occasion asking Vivian whether he had been to see a certain one of his father's plays. His reply was so astounding that I have never forgotten it. 'No,' he said, 'there are certain epigrams in that play which mamma doesn't think it fit for me to hear.' Imagine that baby discussing epigrams!

A PROUD, LOVING FATHER.

"Mr. Wilde never discussed morals with me except so far as his boys were concerned. He spoke of them with such pride and looked on them so lovingly. He emphasized again and again the wish that they should be strong physically. He deprecated their association with other children, and was especially happy at the thought that their mother had taught them everything. And they are so fond of him; so proud of him; so happy, in his society. I vow I could shed bitter tears as I think of all these things.

"As I said before, Oscar Wilde is simply devoted to his mother. He said to me last summer that she was 'the dearest thing in life to him. 'My relations with him have been unbroken for years. There has never been a summer that I haven't seen him.

"Whatever occurred between his brother and myself never affected our friendship. I had been his first friend In America, and then when he moved into Tite street I was at his house warming. I ever found him a courteous, splendid gentleman. So far as affairs of gallantry with women are concerned, the breath f scandal has never touched him. He was always strictly exact about money matters. He was never in his life under the influence of liquor. He drinks like a gentleman. His wife is just as free from all scandal.

BLACK OUTLOOK FOR OSCAR.

"Undoubtedly they'll make a severe example of him. In England, these thing have been going on too long not to react most fearfully upon the first man to be definitely found out. How odd it must be for him to be in jail!

"But he's plucky-he's no coward. I remember when a certain editor said of him in print that he was so conceited that he ought to be kicked Mr. Wilde rose early the next morning, went down to the editor's office and told him that he would break his head then and there unless be printed a retraction. It is needless to say that the retraction was duly published. You see, Mr. Wilde is so clever that be has made as many enemies as friends.

"I want to say that the reports in circulation to the effect that Mr. Wilde is slovenly in dress are utterly untrue. Without being ultra-fashionable in his attire, he is one of the best dressed men in London. His linen is always immaculate. He now wears his hair cropped close, and in all respects might pass anywhere as a well groomed, sensible English gentleman. He is a hard worker, too. Indeed, it is hard for me to conceive that be could be, the low debauchee he is pictured, without having thrown some of the contamination upon his home. And yet the fact is that his home is one of the roost beautiful and well ordered in England. He always seemed to me to have the highest moral tone. Time and time again I have heard him reprobate evil in terms of withering scorn. Mr. Wilde is in the enjoyment of a large income derived principally from royalties upon his plays."

The book., "Green Carnation," published anonymously in London, and which portrays the Wilde-Douglas set in flaming colors, is particulary rough upon Willie Wilde, the divorced husband of Mrs. Leslie. In one passage Oscar is made re discourse about his brother In this wise:-- "Whenever I see him (Willie Wilde) he's blind drunk or else blind sober. I wonder a bobby don't run him in."

Another passage decants upon Mme. Gabrielli, who is made to say, in speaking of Willie Wilde:--"Why, I'll either have to put your brother down or my carriages, as keeping them both would ruin me."

This book it was which really provoked the Marquis of Queensberry to the extreme course which brought the Wilde-Douglas affair into the courts. As Mrs. Leslie remarked, it must always be a matter of wonderment to Oscar Wilde's friends that he did not blow out his brains when he saw the "game was up."

WILDE'S LITERARY LIFE.

Swayed in Turn by Christian and Pagan Influences, but Still a True Poet.

Oscar Wilde comes of parentage distinguished, alike in social and intellecteual life. His father was Sir William Wilde, the late eminent surgeon, who for many years was surgeon oculist to Queen Victoria, who was the founder and lifelong chief of staff of St. Mark's Opthalmic and Aural Hospital, of Dublin; who had in European reputation in his profession, who wielded an immense personal influence in Ireland through his magnetic qualities and wide information, and who was known to antiquarians and historians by his passionate devotion to the study of archaeology.

Twice he was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. His published works, "The Shores of Lough Corrib and Lough Mask," are everywhere recognised as scholarly contributions to the early history of Ireland. He was knighted, in 1853 in recognition both of his professional skill and of his arduous and successful labors in producing the first elaborate and reliable census of his native land.

Oscar Wilde'a mother, who is still alive, at the age of seventy-seven, is perhaps the most famous woman poet of Ireland. Her patriotic poems and lyrics, produced under the pseudonym of "Speranza, endeared her to the hearts of her countrymen. One especially, "The Famine In Ireland," is still remembered, and may be found in almost any anthology of poetry. It is a grim and masterly description of the desolation produced by the famine of 1849.

In Dublin she built up the literary salon which existed there. Her receptions were always crowded by literary and political celebrities, and especially by those who had the cause of young Ireland at heart.

HER CAREER IN LONDON.

More recently she removed to London and still continued to cultivate the society of the most eminent men and women of the time. She is not without some affectations which aftward brought her son into noteriety. Her cosey drawing room, whose curtains are always closely drawn and softly lighted with crimson silken shaded lamps. The hostess, tall and dignified, and richly dressed, moves among her guests with a dignified and gracious manner, conversing easily and intelligently on the leading topics of the day in a sympathetic voice that reveals her warm Irish nature. A confirmed woman's right woman, she recently, In company with Lady Henry Somerset, led a movement whose purpose was the securing from the crown titles of honor for her sex similar to those which are conferred on men. If the latter, she argued, could be made barons or baronets for notable deeds done, why should women be exempted?

Thus, the boy who was born on October 16, 1856, was brought up in an atmosphere of enthusiasm "and agitation. He was constantly with his father and mother, always among grown persons, and before he was in his teens had heard every creed advocated and attacked at his father's dinner table. His early education was conducted at home, where he was given the finest of all educators, the best literature of the day. He travelled much, both in France and Germany, and imbibed a love for Heine and for Goethe, but more especially for the French poets, romancers and novelists, whose influence, not always for the best, remains with him to this day.

TRAINING AT OXFORD.

Before going to Oxford he spent a year in Dublin University, where he captured scholarship and the gold medal for Greek. Then, in 1874, he matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in the four years he was there took two scholarships and won the guerdon most coveted by ambitious students, the Newdigate prize for poetry. His subject was "Ravenna."

It was at Oxford that he became a passionate disciple of Ruskin, who lectured there on Florentine art. Ruskin was not content with mere lecturing. Four days in every week he devoted himself to teaching the flower of British youth how to devote its strength to the practical art of hewing stones for the highwares. Young Wilde was even then a Sybarite, careful of his comfort and fond of luxury. Yet under the influence of the master he would cheerfully rise at early dawn to earn the glory of filling Ruskin's own special wheelbarrow with stones broken by his own right arm.

His rooms were gorgeously decorated with treasures of art and virtu, from Burne Jones' pictures to Damascus tiles, and the famous blue china which was always a part of his cult in his vacation.

He followed Ruskin to Italy. In Florence he found a new inspiration and a new passion in the gorgeous ceremonials, the color and glow of the Catholic Church. Protestantism always seemed crude and raw to him, and in Ireland even Catholicism forgets its potentiality of charm. Wilde came back to England th aesthetic feeling at least a Catholic.

It was then that he produced his first poems, which show the influence of this new cult, and many of which were published in Catholic periodicals. One of these, on "Rome Unvisited," attracted the attention of Cardinal Newman. A lecture by the other great Catholic, Cardinal Manning, on Catholic Oxford, which Wilde attended at this period of transition, almost induced him to follow many of his friends into open adherence to Rome. But now a new influence stepped into his life.

HIS VISIT TO GREECE.

Professor J. P. Muhaffey, the Greek scholar, had been strongly attracted by the ardent young poet. He took Oscar to Greece, he inspired him with his own love for Hellenic life, literature and art.

Paganism triumphed over Christian Catholicism. Young Wilde returned to Oxford a confirmed classicist. Poetry was still the medium through which he expressed his new cult. In 1878 he took his degree. Then be went to live in London.

Here he soon began to attract attention by his eccentricities. He frequented the drawing rooms of Mme. Modjeska and Mrs. Langtry, for both of whom he expressed the wildest devotion. The first treated him only with the politeness and amiability which she was accustomed to extend to every habitue of her drawng room. As for Mrs. Langtry, she viewed him at first as an amusing lunatic, and when his rhapsodies and dreams failed to divert her he was seen less frequently at his rose-colored afternoon teas, one peculiarity of which, borrowed from his mother, was the drawn blinds and the dim, mysterious light, which made it almost impossible for fellow guests to recognise one another. Once a stranger at these assemblies asked in an awed whisper which was Mrs. Langtry. Oscar overheard him. "What an absurd question!" he cried, brusquely. "If the sun shone I should know it was the sun."

HIS APPRECIATION IN DRESS.

Sandwiched between "the sun that shone" and "the haunting eyes" of Modjeska was the great Bernhardt, whom Oscar began to cultivate as soon as she established herslef at her house in Prince's Gate. He had a mania for distinguished foreigners. He acted as interpreter between Henry Irving and Bastien Le Page when the latter was painting the actor's portrait. He amused all London by the famous description of Irving's legs--"one is a poem and the other is a symphony."

And now he developed a new affectation in his dress. He clad himself in black velvet, with knickerbockers and black silk stockings. He sported a Byronic collar. He wore his hair long. He carried a lily in his hand, even on the streets. Even at the most stifling receptions he would not doff his fur lined overcoat.

Du Maurier got hold of him and caricatured him as Postelwaite in Punch. It was eveb hinted that Oscar supplied Du Maurier with material for many of his caricatures of the aesthetic craze, whose avowed apostle he now became, including even the famous "Let us try to live up to our blue china," and the drawing, supplemented with the statement that he never bathed, because he hated to see himself foreshortened in the water. Nevertheless, it is certain that he objected to Mr. Beerbohm Tree's singularly accurate reproduction of him in Burmand's satiric comedy, "Where's the Cat?" at the Criterion Theatre.

SATIRIZED IN COMIC OPERA.

Tree had studied Oscar's peculiarities very closely and the caricature was recognized at once by press and public. Oscar, in great indignation, wrote the actor a protest against him having taken advantage of the "accident" of their acquaintance.

Then came a greater than Burnard, in William S. Gilbert. "Patience" completed the work of theatrical devastation. The ridicule of the stage absolutely frightened many of his disciples into everyday garb and an attempt at common sense conversation. The undaunted Oscar would not yield. He found it to his profit not to do so. Even at a slipper party graced by the presence of the Prince of Wales he appeared in his characteristic costume.

It happened that Grossmith the original Bunthorne, was also present: He yielded to the general importuuity to sing the famous Bunthorne solo. The presence of the original of the "Pure Young man," gave additional zest to the verses. At their close the admirer of "a bashful young potato, or a not too French French bean" what a hideous though then unconscious sarcasm in view of later developments!) was dragged bodily up before His Royal Highness with the words, "This is the man," But Oscar imperturbably preserved his placid smile amid the general merriment.

A TRUE POET.

Perhaps Oscar found it to his interest not to resent the stage caricatures. At the very height of the "Patience" fever came the announcement of Oscar Wilde's poems. Then it was seen that the young man was only pretending to be an Idiot. His verses on "England," his "Ave Imperatrix," though too Tennysonian, and his "Garden of Eros," though too Swinburnian," his neo-Catholic poems, gathered under tbe general head of ''Rosa Mystica," had the right ring. They announced that a true poet had been born.

But the most sincere and genuine of all was the Introductory sonnet, full of sad, vain longing and regret. Here it is entire. It casts a curious light upon a curious personality:-

HELAS! To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute, on which all winds can play, Is it for tills that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?- Methinks my life is a twice written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelay Which do not but mar the secret of whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God: Is that time dead? Lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance- And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

Is there not true feeling here, true pathos? Is it not an awful wail from the depths? Helas, Indeed! The depths were deeper than anybody then imagined.

EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA.

"Patience" and the poems crossed over to America. And D'Oyley Carte, the clever manager, who had brought the opera over, saw his opportunity. He brought over not only the caricature, but the caricatured. Oscar Wilde landed in America, and was greeted with a hilarious but exuberant welcome. He landed In knee breeches, Byronic collar, silk hose and fur lined overcoat, just as he had been expected. His first remark that "he was disappointed with the Atlantic Ocean" was hailed as eminently characteristic.

He became the butt of the papers. But his object was won. His lectures attracted throngs. It Is said that they netted him $50,000. Then he went home and cut his hair and assumed the garb of a rational being. He was notorious, he was comparatively wealthy. He had the leisure and he now developed the ambition to become famous.

Not that with the short hair and the rational clothes he had shed all his eccentricities. He still preserved his horror of the commonplace and the bourgeois. He still breathed uncompromising warfare against the Philistine. But he now used the more legitimate weapons of wit and sarcasm. For a time, indeed, he seemed to have lapsed into obscurity. A little startled ripple of reminiscence was aroused by the announcement of his marriage to Miss Constance Lloyd, the daughter of an eminent barrister. This, too, subsided.

NOVELS AHD DRAMAS.

Then after a long pause came in quick succession his novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and his dramas, "Lady Windermere's Fan, " "A Woman of No Importance" and "The Importance of Being in Earnest."

There is a similarity in all these works. They have all the same meretricious brilliancy, the running fire of sparkling epigrams which explode in the air and vanish. At first it seemed that these were harmless enough-that they left no trace behind. Yet a nice scent might discover that many of these explosives left behind them a remnant of hideous miasmic odor, a something hinted at, yet never named, and which to name were in itself an offence.

Occasionally a protest was heard, yet the voice that raised It was rarely very loud. In fact, the public at large had not even yet learned to take Wilde quite seriously.

HIS VIEW OF LIFE AND MORALS.

The following sentiment, quoted by a recent interviewer, seems to sum up Wilde's attitude toward life and morals, and insofar is more sincere than most of his published utterances:-

The tendency to sin is inborn. Sin, therefore, enters, ipso facto into the scheme of the universe as much as virtue. Now there are variations of sin as well as shades of virtue.

Since virtue carried to success is nauseating, and can only be praiseworthy when practised from ethical motives, is not its antithesis sin, also a means to certain ends? Cannot sin be studied with a view to its utility as a servant instead of as a master? Has any one ever made a study of the possibilities of sin? Has sin ever been dissected and experimented with from worthy motives?

No. The physician who exposes himself to the contagion of smallpox and consumption that he may better know how to battle with those disease is a hero in the cause of science. Similarly the being who exposes himself to every form of temptation and yields his spotless soul to the debaucheries of a Tiberius at Capta or practises the exquisite wickedness that have rendered the name of Heliogabains synonymous with sensual slavery will, if prompted by worthy motives, retain every vestige of his innocence. One may sin-sin knowingly and deliberately-from worthy motives.

WILDE'S DOWNFALL.

But though the British matron was not aroused, British manhood was. For years past Oscar Wilde was quietly avoided by the better class, even of men about town.

It was intimated, though under the breath, that he was a person not to be courted. Vague whispers, all the more awful, perhaps, for their very vagueness, passed from masculine lips about the horror of his inner life. The whispers did not reach the blazonment of print, they did not pollute the ears of the innocent. None the less, they caused Oscar Wilde to be shunned by those whose taboo is a stigma and a reproach. At last an angry father uttered aloud what others had only whispered. With that utterance, Oscar Wilde fell.

He has fallen so deep that no hand can raise him without being besmirched with his own infamy. But in the gutter where he lies we can, without offence, do him such justice, at least, as he deserved. He was certainly a good son, patient, loving, devoted. He appeared to be a kind husband and a fond father, and his work had much in It that was useful. It is a pity that his hatred of conventionality and traditional shams had so much in it that was itself a sham, and worse.

Literature, art and life in England, as elsewhere, need an apostle who should clear it of cant. Even Oscar Wilde's favorite trick-that of taking the worn out proverbs, the so called axioms and truisms which that portentous thing, the bourgeois respectability of England, accepts as its canons, and inverting them-even this, though not a feat of the highest wit, at least served the purpose of showing that they looked as well and sounded as smart in one way as another, and pointed out the hollowness of much of what bourgeois respectability held to be sacred.

We live in times of change, alarm, surprise. Old traditions and old conventions are being assailed on all sides. Time alone will tell how much of the old will be left after the new upheaval has subsided. In the armies of light and leading sharpshooters, armed with the weapons of wit and sarcasm, they have their uses. But they must be sure of the purity of their ammunition, or tbey will be doubly damned. Their very colleagues must condemn themmore fiercely than their enemies.

In the fall of Oscar Wilde art and literature have innocently suffered. But better no art and no literature than the acceptance of Wilde.