Melbourne Punch - Thursday, April 11, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
PEOPLE WE KNOW
OSCAR O'FLAHERTY WILDE is the father of two remarkably handsome young sons.
LADY WILDE, Oscar's mother, used to go about London with short skirts, strong lace-up boots and flowing hair. She was frequently followed by a crowd of dirty boys and girls to her own door. She called them children of Nature, and, therefore, never dismissed them. She always talked in the most extravagant fashion, and was the centre of an eccentric literary set.
WILLIE WILDE never had any of his brother's genius, but at one time he kept himself very much before the public by doing outre things, for which he was always forgiven upon the supposition that he was not "quite right." A fellow collegian of his at Trinity, Dublin, tells the story of his ordering a fine wedding breakfast at an hotel, affirming that he was going to be married to a beautiful young lady. He didn't go through the formality of going to church; but he told all his guests that she existed in his dreams, and the breakfast was to celebrate his marriage to her in the spirit, where ever she was. His relations had to pay for the breakfast. It was at this time he used to propose to every woman he met. He would have been in a predicament had anyone accepted him, if he had not a penny and was so ugly as to be described "as a cross between a pig and a donkey."
MRS. OSCAR WILDE is a handsome and clever woman of artistic and literary tastes. She is much to be pitied, and will probably be the greatest sufferer by reason of the horrible scandal disclosed in the course of the recent libel action between Oscar Wilde and the Marquis of Queensberry. Wilde was never so highly respected and admired as on the day previous to the opening of the case. The great literary and financial successes of his dramas had raised him to a high place in public estimation, his undoubted talents having at length formed a popular form of expression. Although he is still, in the eye of the law, an innocent man, the fearful and unspeakable disclosures made during the hearing of the libel case have caused a revulsion of feeling wherever his crime is known, and it is pretty certain that his reputation is blasted for ever, and his career practically ended. Men do not recover from such changes, even when the law is satisfied of a man's innocence. The horror of the charge clings to him and he remains a social pariah till the end.