d I belabour the beaten? The man is
a wasp and delights in using his sting. I have done more perhaps than
anyone to make him famous. I had no wish to hurt him."

Was it magnanimity or weakness or, as I think, a constitutional, a
feminine shrinking from struggle and strife. Whatever the cause, it
was clear that Oscar was what Shakespeare called himself, "an
unhurtful opposite."

It is quite possible that if he had been attacked face to face, Oscar
would have given a better account of himself. At Mrs. Grenfell's (now
Lady Desborough) he crossed swords once with the Prime Minister and
came off victorious. Mr. Asquith began by bantering him, in
appearance lightly, in reality, seriously, for putting many of his
sentences in italics.

"The man who uses italics," said the politician, "is like the man who
raises his voice in conversation and talks loudly in order to make
himself heard."

It was the well-known objection which Emerson had taken to Carlyle's
overwrought style, pointed probably by dislike of the way Oscar
monopolised conversation.

Oscar met the stereotyped attack with smiling good-humour.

"How delightful of you, Mr. Asquith, to have noticed that! The
brilliant phrase, like good wine, needs no bush. But just as the
orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising or
lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams
with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweller--an
excusable love of one's art, not all mere vanity, I like to
think"--all this with the most pleasant smile and manner.

In measure as I distrusted Oscar's fighting power and admired his
sweetness of nature I took sides with him and wanted to help him. One
day I heard some talk at the Pelican Club which filled me with fear
for him and quickened my resolve to put him on his guard. I was going
in just as Queensberry was coming out with two or three of his
special cronies.

"I'll do it," I heard him cry, "I'll teach the fellow to leave my son
alone. I'll not have their names coupled together."

I caught a glimpse of the thrust-out combative face and the hot grey
eyes.

"What's it all about?" I asked.

"Only Queensberry," said someone, "swearing he'll stop Oscar Wilde
going about with that son of his, Alfred Douglas."

Suddenly my fears took form: as in a flash I saw Oscar, heedless and
smiling, walking along with his head in the air, and that violent
combative insane creature pouncing on h