was always about him the magic of a
rich and _puissant_ personality; like some great actor he could take a
poor part and fill it with the passion and vivacity of his own nature,
till it became a living and memorable creation.

He gave the impression of wide intellectual range, yet in reality he was
not broad; life was not his study nor the world-drama his field. His
talk was all of literature and art and the vanities; the light
drawing-room comedy on the edge of farce was his kingdom; there he ruled
as a sovereign.

Anyone who has read Oscar Wilde's plays at all carefully, especially
"The Importance of Being Earnest," must, I think, see that in kindly,
happy humour he is without a peer in literature. Who can ever forget the
scene between the town and country girl in that delightful farce-comedy.
As soon as the London girl realises that the country girl has hardly any
opportunity of making new friends or meeting new men, she exclaims:

"Ah! now I know what they mean when they talk of agricultural
depression."

This sunny humour is Wilde's especial contribution to literature: he
calls forth a smile whereas others try to provoke laughter. Yet he was
as witty as anyone of whom we have record, and some of the best epigrams
in English are his. "The cynic knows the price of everything and the
value of nothing" is better than the best of La Rochefoucauld, as good
as the best of Vauvenargues or Joubert. He was as wittily urbane as
Congreve. But all the witty things that one man can say may be numbered
on one's fingers. It was through his humour that Wilde reigned supreme.
It was his humour that lent his talk its singular attraction. He was the
only man I have ever met or heard of who could keep one smiling with
amusement hour after hour. True, much of the humour was merely verbal,
but it was always gay and genial: summer-lightning humour, I used to
call it, unexpected, dazzling, full of colour yet harmless.

Let me try and catch here some of the fleeting iridescence of that
radiant spirit. Some years before I had been introduced to Mdlle. Marie
Anne de Bovet by Sir Charles Dilke. Mdlle. de Bovet was a writer of
talent and knew English uncommonly well; but in spite of masses of fair
hair and vivacious eyes she was certainly very plain. As soon as she
heard I was in Paris, she asked me to present Oscar Wilde to her. He had
no objection, and so I made a meeting between them. When he caught sight
of her, he stopped short: seei