Then, in response to a piteous appeal, Johnson wrote a brief letter for Dodd to send to the King, begging him at least to save him from the horror and ignominy of a public execution; and this was accompanied by a brief note.

As the time for Dodd’s execution drew near, he wrote a final letter to Johnson, which, on its delivery, must have moved the old man to tears. It was written at midnight on the 25th of June, 1777.

“Hanging Days” were usually holidays. Crowds collected in the streets, and as the day wore on, they became mobs of drunken men, infuriated or delighted at the proceedings, according to their interest in the prisoners. At nine o’clock the Felon’s Gate was swung open and the prisoners were brought out. On this occasion, there were only two; frequently there were more—once indeed as many as fifteen persons were hanged on the same day. This was counted a great event.

Dodd was spared the ignominy of the open cart in which the ordinary criminal was taken to the gallows, and a mourning coach drawn by four horses was provided for him by some of his friends. This was followed by a hearse with an open coffin. The streets were thronged. After the usual delays the procession started, but stopped again at St. Sepulchre’s, that he might receive a nosegay which was presented him, someone having bequeathed a fund to the church so that this melancholy custom could be carried out. Farther on, at Holborn Bar, it was usual for the cortège to stop, that the condemned man might be regaled with a mug of ale.

Owing to the crowds, the confusion, and the out-of-the-way course selected, it was almost noon when the procession reached Tyburn. We do not often think, as we whirl in our taxis along Oxford Street in the vicinity of Marble Arch, that this present centre of wealth and fashion was once Tyburn. There is nothing now to suggest that it was, a century or two ago, an unlovely and little-frequented outskirt of the great city, given over to “gallows parties.”

Let it be said that there were some who had their doubts as to the wisdom of such exhibitions. Might not such frequent and public executions have a bad effect upon public taste and morals? “Why no, sir,” said Dr. Johnson; “executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators they do not answer their purpose. The old method is satisfactory to all parties. The public is gratified by a procession, the criminal is supported by it.” And his biographer, Hawkins, remarks complacently: “We live in an age in which humanity is the fashion.”

“And so they have hanged Dodd for forgery, have they?” casually remarked the Bishop of Bristol, from the depths of his easy-chair. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“How so, my Lord?”

MY interest in Oscar Wilde is a very old story: I went to hear him lecture when I was a boy, and, boy-like, I wrote and asked him for his autograph, which he sent me and which I still have.

It seems strange that I can look back through thirty years to his visit to Philadelphia, and in imagination see him on the platform of old Horticultural Hall. I remember, too, the discussion which his visit occasioned, preceded as it was by the publication in Boston of his volume of poems, the English edition having been received with greater cordiality than usually marks a young poet’s first production—for such it practically was.

Southey’s life gives the lie to that solemn remark about genius being simply a capacity for hard work: if it were so, he would have ranked high; he worked incessantly, produced his to-day neglected poems, supported his family and contributed toward the support of the families of his friends. He was a good man, and worked himself to death; but he was not a genius.

On the other hand, Wilde was; but his life was not good, it was not pure; he did injury to his friends; and to his wife and children, the greatest wrong a man could do them, so that she died of a broken heart, and his sons live under an assumed name; yet, notwithstanding all this, perhaps to some extent by reason of it, he is a most interesting personality, and no doubt his future place in literature will be to some extent influenced by the fate which struck him down just at the moment of his greatest success.

I am too good a Goldsmithian to compare Goldsmith, with all his faults and follies, to Wilde, with his faults and follies, and vices superadded; but Wilde wrote “Dorian Gray,” a novel original and powerful in conception, as powerful as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”; and remembering that Wilde was also an essayist, a poet, and a dramatist, I think we may fairly say that he too touched nothing that he did not adorn.

But, to begin at the beginning. Wilde was not especially fortunate in his parents. His father was a surgeon-oculist of Dublin, and was knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—just why, does not appear, nor is it important; his son always seemed a little ashamed of the incident. His mother was the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England. She was “advanced” for her time, wrote prose and verse, under the nom de plume of “Speranza,” which were published frequently in a magazine, which was finally suppressed for sedition. If Lady Wilde was emancipated in thought, of her lord it may be said that he put no restraint whatever upon his acts. They were a brilliant, but what we would call to-day a Bohemian, couple. I have formed an impression that the father, in spite of certain weaknesses of character, was a man of solid attainments, while of the mother someone has said that she reminded him of a tragedy queen at a suburban theatre. This is awful.

While at Magdalen, Wilde is said to have fallen under the influence of Ruskin, and spent some time in breaking stones on the highways, upon which operation Ruskin was experimenting. It may be admitted that the work for its own sake never attracted Wilde: it was the reward which followed—breakfast-parties, with informal and unlimited talk, in Ruskin’s rooms.

He soon made himself the most talked-of person in the place: abusing his foes, who feared his tongue. His friends, as he later said of someone, did not care for him very much—no one cares to furnish material for incessant persiflage.

Of these poems the “Saturday Review” said,—and I thank the “Saturday Review” for teaching me these words, for I think they fitly describe nine tenths of all the poetry that gets itself published,—“Mr. Wilde’s verses belong to a class which is the special terror of the reviewers, the poetry which is neither good nor bad, which calls for neither praise nor blame, and in which one searches in vain for any personal touch of thought or music.”

It was at this point in his career that Wilde determined to show himself to us: he came to America to lecture; was, of course, interviewed on his arrival in New York, and spoke with the utmost disrespect of the Atlantic.

On his return to England he at once engaged attention by his remark, “There is nothing new in America—except the language.” Of him, it was observed that Delmonico had spoiled his figure. From London he went almost immediately to Paris, where he found sufficient reasons for cutting his hair and abandoning his pronounced habiliments. Thus he arrived, as he said of himself, at the end of his second period.

Meanwhile it cost money to live in Paris, especially to dine at fashionable cafés, and Wilde decided to return to London; but making ends meet is no easier there than elsewhere. He wrote a little, lectured when he could, and having spent the small inheritance he had received from his father, it seemed that “Exit Oscar” might fairly be written against him.

But to the gratification of some, and the surprise of all, just about this time came the announcement of his marriage to a beautiful and charming lady of some fortune, Constance Lloyd, the daughter of a deceased barrister. Whistler sent a characteristic wire to the church: “May not be able to reach you in time for ceremony; don’t wait.” Indeed, it may here be admitted that in an encounter between these wits it was Jimmie Whistler who usually scored.

Of Whistler as an artist I know nothing. My friends the Pennells, at the close of their excellent biography, say, “His name and fame will live forever.” This is a large order, but of Whistler, with his rapier-like wit, it behooved all to beware. In a weak moment Wilde once voiced his appreciation of a good thing of Whistler’s with, “I wish I had said that.” Quick as a flash, Jimmie’s sword was through him, and forever: “Never mind, Oscar, you will.” It may be that the Pennells are right.

Except for editorial work, the next few years were unproductive. “Dorian Gray,” Wilde’s one novel, appeared in the summer of 1890. It is exceedingly difficult to place: his claim that it was the work of a few days, written to demonstrate to some friends his ability to write a novel, may be dismissed as untrue—there is internal evidence to the contrary. It was probably written slowly, as most of his work was. In its first form it appeared in “Lippincott’s Magazine” for July, 1890; but it was subjected to careful revision for publication in book form. Wilde always claimed that he had no desire to be a popular novelist—“It is far too easy,” he said.

I have great admiration for what is called, and frequently ridiculed as, the artistic temperament, but I am a believer also in the sanity of true genius, especially when it is united, as it was in the case of Charles Lamb, with a fine, manly, honest bearing toward the world and the things in it; but alone it may lead us to yearn with Wilde

It has been suggested on good authority that it is very unpleasant to wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve. To expose one’s soul to the elements, however interesting in theory, must be very painful in practice: Wilde was destined to find it so.

It is with a feeling of relief that one turns from “Dorian Gray”—which, let us agree, is a book which a young girl would hesitate to put in the hands of her mother—to Wilde’s other prose work, so different in character. Of his shorter stories, his fairy tales and the rest, it would be a delight to speak: many of them are exquisite, and all as pure and delicate as a flower, with as sweet a perfume. They do not know Oscar Wilde who have not read “The Young King and the Star Child,” and the “Happy Prince.” That they are the work of the same brain that produced “Dorian Gray” is almost beyond belief.

What a baffling personality was Wilde’s! Here is a man who has really done more than William Morris to make our homes artistic, and who is at one with Ruskin in his effort that our lives should be beautiful; he had a message to deliver, yet, by reason of his flippancy and his love of paradox, he is not yet rated at his real worth. It is difficult for one who is first of all a wit to make a serious impression on his listeners. I think it is Gilbert who says, “Let a professed wit say, ‘pass the mustard,’ and the table roars.”

Just about the time that London had made up its mind that Wilde was nothing but a clever man about town, welcome as a guest because of the amusement he afforded, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” appeared in the “Fortnightly Magazine” for February, 1891. London was at once challenged and amazed. This essay opens with a characteristic statement, one of those peculiarly inverted paradoxes for which Wilde was shortly to become famous. “Socialism,” he says, “would relieve us from the sordid necessity of living for others”; and what follows is Wilde at his very best.

I know nothing like it: it is as fresh as paint, and like fresh paint it sticks to one; in its brilliant, serious, and unexpected array of fancies and theories, in truths inverted and distorted, in witticisms which are in turn tender and hard as flint, one is delighted and bewildered. Wilde has only himself to blame if this, a serious and beautiful essay, was not taken seriously. “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” is the work of a consummate artist who, taking his ideas, disguises and distorts them, polishing them the while until they shine like jewels in a rare and unusual setting. Naturally, almost every other line in such a work is quotable: it seems to be a mass of quotations which one is surprised not to have heard before.

Interesting as Wilde’s other essays are, I will not speak of them; with the exception of “Pen, Pencil and Poison,” a study of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, the poisoner, they will inevitably be forgotten.

After several attempts in the field of serious drama, in which he was unsuccessful, by a fortunate chance he turned his attention to the lighter forms of comedy, in which he was destined to count only the greatest as his rivals. Pater says these comedies have been unexcelled since Sheridan; this is high praise, though not too high; but it is rather to contrast than to compare such a grand old comedy as the “School for Scandal” with, say, “The Importance of Being Earnest.” They are both brilliant, both artificial; they both reflect in some manner the life and the atmosphere of their time; but the mirror which Sheridan holds up to nature is of steel and the picture is hard and cold; Wilde, on the other hand, uses an exaggerating glass, which seems specially designed to reflect warmth and fluffiness.

The first comedy, “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” was produced at the St. James’s, February 22, 1892. Its success, despite the critics, was instant: full of saucy repartee, overwrought with epigrams of the peculiar kind conspicuous in the “Soul of Man,” it delighted the audience. “Punch” made a feeble pun about Wilde’s play being tame, forgetting the famous dictum that the great end of a comedy is to make the audience merry; and this end Wilde had attained, and he kept his audiences in the same humor for several years—until the end. Of his plays this is, perhaps, the best known in this country. It was successfully given in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, only a year or two ago. It might, I think, be called his “pleasant play”: for a time it looks as if a pure wife were going astray, but the audience is not kept long in suspense: the plot can be neglected and the lines enjoyed, with the satisfactory feeling that it will all come out right in the end.

Wilde called this a trivial comedy for serious people. It is clever beyond criticism; but, as one critic says, one might as well sit down and gravely discuss the true inwardness of a soufflé. In it Wilde fairly lets himself loose; such talk there never was before; it fairly bristles with epigram; the plot is a farce; it is a mental and verbal extravaganza. Wilde was at his best, scintillating as he had never done before, and doing it for the last time. He is reported to have said that the first act is ingenious, the second beautiful, and the third abominably clever. Ingenious it is, but its beauty and cleverness are beyond praise. To have seen the lovely Miss Millard as Cecily, the country girl, to have heard her tell Gwendolen, the London society queen (Irene Vanbrugh), that “flowers are as common in the country as people are in London,” is a delight never to be forgotten.

Wilde was now at the height of his fame. That the licenser of the stage had forbidden the performance of “Salome” was a disappointment; but Sarah Bernhardt had promised to produce it in Paris, and, not thinking that when his troubles came upon him she would break her word, he was able to overcome his chagrin.

To those mental scavengers, the psychologists, I leave the determination of the exact nature of the disease which was the cause of Wilde’s downfall: it is enough for me to know that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

The next two years Wilde spent in solitary and degrading seclusion; his sufferings, mental and physical, can be imagined. Many have fallen from heights greater than his, but none to depths more humiliating. Many noble men and dainty women have been subjected to greater indignities than he, but they have been supported by their belief in the justice or honor of the cause for which they suffered.

“De Profundis” may be in parts offensive, but as a specimen of English prose it is magnificent; it is by way of becoming a classic: no student of literature can neglect this cry of a soul lost to this world, intent upon proving—I know not what—that art is greater than life, perhaps. Much has been written in regard to it: by some it is said to show that even at the time of his deepest degradation he did not appreciate how low he had fallen; that to the last he was only a poseur—a phrase-maker; that, genuine as his sorrow was, he nevertheless was playing with it, and was simply indulging himself in rhetoric when he said, “I, once a lord of language, have no words in which to express my anguish and my shame.”

One would say that it was not the sort of book which would become popular; nevertheless, more than twenty editions have been published in English, and it has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Russian.

It was inevitable that “De Profundis” should become the subject of controversy: Oscar Wilde’s sincerity has always been challenged; he was called affected. His answer to this charge is complete and conclusive: “The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.”

Only a few years ago I heard a cultured lady say, “I never expected to hear his name mentioned in polite society again.” But the time is rapidly approaching when Oscar Wilde will come into his own, when he will be recognized as one of the greatest and most original writers of his time. When shall we English-speaking people learn that a man’s work is one thing and his life another?

It is much to be regretted that Wilde’s life did not end with “De Profundis”; but his misfortunes were to continue. After his release from prison he went to France, where he lived under the name of Sebastian Melmoth: but as Sherard, his biographer, says, “He hankered after respectability.” It was no longer the social distinction which the unthinking crave when they have all else: this great writer, he who had been for a brief moment the idol of cultured London, sought mere respectability, and sought it in vain.

The life begun with such promise drew to a close: an outcast, deserted by his friends, the few who remained true to him he insulted and abused. He became dissipated, wandered from France to Italy and back again. In mercy it were well to draw the curtain. The end came in Paris with the close of the century he had done so much to adorn. He died on November 30, 1900, and was buried, by his faithful friend, Robert Ross, in a grave which was leased for a few years in Bagneux Cemetery.

The kindness of Robert Ross to Oscar Wilde is one of the most touching things in literary history. The time has not yet come to speak of it at length, but the facts are known and will not always be withheld. Owing largely to his efforts, a permanent resting-place was secured a few years ago in the most famous cemetery in France, the Père Lachaise. There, in an immense sarcophagus of granite, curiously carved, were placed the remains of him who wrote:—

It is too early to judge Wilde’s work entirely apart from his life: to do so will always be difficult: we could do so the sooner if we had a Dr. Johnson among us to speak with authority and say, “Let not his misfortunes be remembered, he was a very great man.”

TO have been born and lived all his life in Philadelphia, yet to be best known in London and New York; to have been the eldest son of a rich man and the eldest grandson of one of the richest men in America, yet of so quiet and retiring a disposition as to excite remark; to have been but a few years out of college, yet to have achieved distinction in a field which is commonly supposed to be the browsing-place of age; to have been relatively unknown in his life and to be immortal in his death—such are the brief outlines of the career of Harry Elkins Widener.

The accident had occurred at midnight; the sea was perfectly calm, the stars shone clearly; it was bitter cold. The ship was going at full speed. A slight jar was felt, but the extent of the injury was not realized and few passengers were alarmed. When the order to lower the boats was given there was little confusion. The order went round, “Women and children first.” Harry and his father were lost, his mother and her maid were rescued.

In all that subsequently appeared in the press,—and for days the appalling disaster was the one subject of discussion,—the name of Harry Elkins Widener appeared simply as the eldest son of George D. Widener. Few knew that, quite aside from the financial prominence of his father and the social distinction and charm of his mother, Harry had a reputation which was entirely of his own making. He was a born student of bibliography. Books were at once his work, his recreation, and his passion. To them he devoted all his time; but outside the circle of his intimate friends few understood the unique and lovable personality of the man to whom death came so suddenly on April 15, 1912, shortly after he had completed his twenty-seventh year.

Harry Elkins Widener was born in Philadelphia on January 3, 1885. He received his early education at the Hill School, from which he was graduated in 1903. He then entered Harvard University, where he remained four years, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1907. It was while a student at Harvard that he first began to show an interest in book-collecting; but it was not until his college days were over that, as the son of a rich man, he found, as many another man has done, that the way to be happy is to have an occupation.

He lived with his parents and his grandfather in their palatial residence, Lynnewood Hall, just outside Philadelphia. He was proud of the distinction of his relatives, and used to say, “We are a family of collectors. My grandfather collects paintings, my mother collects silver and porcelains, Uncle Joe collects everything,”—which indeed he does,—“and I, books.”

His first folio of Shakespeare was the Van Antwerp copy, formerly Locker Lampson’s, one of the finest copies known; and he rejoiced in a copy of “Poems Written by Wil. Shakespeare, Gent,” 1640, in the original sheepskin binding. His “Pickwick,” if possibly inferior in interest to the Harry B. Smith copy, is nevertheless superb: indeed he had two, one “in parts as published, with all the points,” another a presentation copy to Dickens’s friend, William Harrison Ainsworth. In addition he had several original drawings by Seymour, including the one in which the shad-bellied Mr. Pickwick, having with some difficulty mounted a chair, proceeds to address the Club. The discovery and acquisition of this drawing, perhaps the most famous illustration ever made for a book, is indicative of Harry’s taste as a collector.