or every fruit. Besides, he
couldn't write with creditors at the door. Like Bossuet he was unable
to work when bothered about small economies:--_s'il etait a l'etroit
dans son domestique_.

What was to be done? Suddenly he cut the knot and married the daughter
of a Q.C., a Miss Constance Lloyd, a young lady without any particular
qualities or beauty, whom he had met in Dublin on a lecture tour. Miss
Lloyd had a few hundreds a year of her own, just enough to keep the
wolf from the door. The couple went to live in Tite Street, Chelsea,
in a modest little house. The drawing-room, however, was decorated by
Godwin and quickly gained a certain notoriety. It was indeed a
charming room with an artistic distinction and appeal of its own.

As soon as the dreadful load of poverty was removed, Oscar began to go
about a great deal, and his wife would certainly have been invited
with him if he had refused invitations addressed to himself alone; but
from the beginning he accepted them and consequently after the first
few months of marriage his wife went out but little, and later
children came and kept her at home. Having earned a respite from care
by his marriage, Oscar did little for the next three years but talk.
Critical observers began to make up their minds that he was a talker
and not a writer. "He was a power in the art," as de Quincey said of
Coleridge; "and he carried a new art into the power." Every year this
gift grew with him: every year he talked more and more brilliantly,
and he was allowed now, and indeed expected, to hold the table.

In London there is no such thing as conversation. Now and then one
hears a caustic or witty phrase, but nothing more. The tone of good
society everywhere is to be pleasant without being prominent. In every
other European country, however, able men are encouraged to talk; in
England alone they are discouraged. People in society use a debased
jargon or slang, snobbish shibboleths for the most part, and the
majority resent any one man monopolising attention. But Oscar Wilde
was allowed this privileged position, was encouraged to hold forth to
amuse people, as singers are brought in to sing after dinner.

Though his fame as a witty and delightful talker grew from week to
week, even his marriage did not stifle the undertone of dislike and
disgust. Now indignantly, now with contempt, men spoke of him as
abandoned, a creature of unnatural viciousness. There were certain
houses in the best set