nd woman in a garden and ends--with
Revelations._

OSCAR WILDE

Yes, most fellows' book of life may be said to begin at the chapter
where woman comes in; mine did. She came in years ago, when I was a raw
undergraduate. With the sober thought of retrospective analysis, I may
say she was not all my fancy painted her; indeed now that I come to
think of it there was no fancy about the vermeil of her cheeks, rather
an artificial reality; she had her bower in the bar of the Golden Boar,
and I was madly in love with her, seriously intent on lawful wedlock.
Luckily for me she threw me over for a neighbouring pork butcher, but at
the time I took it hardly, and it made me sex-shy. I was a very poor man
in those days. One feels one's griefs more keenly then, one hasn't the
wherewithal to buy distraction. Besides, ladies snubbed me rather, on
the rare occasions I met them. Later I fell in for a legacy, the
forerunner of several; indeed, I may say I am beastly rich. My tastes
are simple too, and I haven't any poor relations. I believe they are of
great assistance in getting rid of superfluous capital, wish I had some!
It was after the legacy that women discovered my attractions. They found
that there was something superb in my plainness (before, they said
ugliness), something after the style of the late Victor Emanuel,
something infinitely more striking than mere ordinary beauty. At least
so Harding told me his sister said, and she had the reputation of being
a clever girl. Being an only child, I never had the opportunity other
fellows had of studying the undress side of women through familiar
intercourse, say with sisters. Their most ordinary belongings were
sacred to me. I had, I used to be told, ridiculous high-flown notions
about them (by the way I modified those considerably on closer
acquaintance). I ought to study them, nothing like a woman for
developing a fellow. So I laid in a stock of books in different
languages, mostly novels, in which women played title roles, in order to
get up some definite data before venturing amongst them. I can't say I
derived much benefit from this course. There seemed to be as great a
diversity of opinion about the female species as, let us say, about the
salmonidae.

My friend Ponsonby Smith, who is one of the oldest fly-fishers in the
three kingdoms, said to me once: Take my word for it, there are only
four true salmo; the salar, the trutta, the fario, the ferox; all the
rest are just v