The Yorkshire Evening Post - Thursday, April 25, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
GOSSIP OF THE DAY.
OSCAR WILDE'S BEDROOM.
Oscar Wilde's belongings at 16, Tite Street, Chelsea, were sold by auction yesterday by order of the sheriff, acting upon three writs representing somewhere about £400. The creditors enforcing the proceedings claimed principally for cigarettes and cigarette cases. The major part of the furniture and effects had been removed under the right of Mrs. Wilde. Oscar Wilde's bedroom was the chief point of attraction. It is a little apartment -dingy one might call it, with furniture about fitted to a servant's room; but over the entrance, on the inside, was inscribed, in elongated type-written characters, these lines:—
"Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile;
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
Some few there are to whom thy radiant
smile
Is better than a thousand victories."
Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile, They are not dead, thine ancient votaries. Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile, Is better than a thousand victories.
"Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile;They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;Some few there are to whom thy radiant smileIs better than a thousand victories."
The curiosity of this musical inscription is that the letter "O" in each word where it occurs is made a very small circle. Above the inscription referred to there were arranged a series of sunflowers in glowing gilt; above them, in painted arrangement, a series of flaming "Aureoles."
OSCAR'S MSS.
In a chest of drawers in this bedroom—which, by the way was lighted by a curious copper lamp of oriental design—lay a choice selection of Oscar Wilde's MSS, said to include a yet unproduced play.