here faithfully I am showing him at his worst. I am aware
that the incident does not reveal him at his best. He has proved since
in his writings and notably in some superb sonnets that he had a real
affection and admiration for Oscar Wilde. If I have been in any degree
unfair to him I can best correct it, I think, by reproducing here the
noble sonnet he wrote on Oscar after his death: in sheer beauty and
sincerity of feeling it ranks with Shelley's lament for Keats:

_The Dead Poet_[37]

I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face All radiant and unshadowed
of distress, And as of old, in music measureless, I heard his golden
voice and marked him trace Under the common thing the hidden grace, And
conjure wonder out of emptiness, Till mean things put on beauty like a
dress And all the world was an enchanted place.

And then methought outside a fast locked gate I mourned the loss of
unrecorded words, Forgotten tales and mysteries half said Wonders that
might have been articulate, And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing
birds And so I woke and knew that he was dead.

[37] In the Appendix I have published the first sketch of this fine
sonnet: lovers of poetry will like to compare them.

CHAPTER XXVI

In a day or two, however, the clouds lifted and the sun shone as
brilliantly as ever. Oscar's spirits could not be depressed for long: he
took a child's joy in living and in every incident of life. When I left
him in Paris a week or so later, in midsummer, he was full of gaiety and
humour, talking as delightfully as ever with a touch of cynicism that
added piquancy to his wit. Shortly after I arrived in London he wrote
saying he was ill, and that I really ought to send him some money. I had
already paid him more than the amount we had agreed upon at first for
his scenario, and I was hard up and anything but well. I had chronic
bronchitis which prostrated me time and again that autumn. Having heard
from mutual friends that Oscar's illness did not hinder him from dining
out and enjoying himself, I received his plaints and requests with a
certain impatience, and replied to him curtly. His illness appeared to
me to be merely a pretext. When my play was accepted his demands became
as insistent as they were extravagant.

Finally I went back to Paris in September to see him, persuaded that I
could settle everything amicably in five minutes' talk: he must remember
our agreement.

I found him well in health, but