see it because it fortifies your opinion about
Douglas' ridiculous contention; though I could explode the whole thing
by Wilde's letters to myself from Berneval. Certain verses were indeed
added at Naples. I do not know what you will think, but to me they prove
the mental decline due to the atmosphere and life that Wilde was leading
at the time. Let us be just and say that perhaps Douglas assisted more
than he was conscious of in their composition. To me they are terribly
poor stuff, but then, unlike yourself, I am a heretic about the Ballad.

Page 411. In fairness to Gide: Gide is describing Wilde after he had
come back from Naples in the year 1898, not in 1897, when he had just
come out of prison.

Appendix Page 438 Line 20. Forgive me if I say it, but I think your
method of sneering at Curzon unworthy of Frank Harris. Sneer by all
means; but not in that particular way.

[Robert Ross is mistaken here: no sneer was intended. I added Curzon's
title to avoid giving myself the air of an intimate. F.H.]

Page 488 Line 17. You really are wrong about Mellor's admiration for
Wilde. He liked his society but loathed his writing. I was quite angry
in 1900 when Mellor came to see me at Mentone (after Wilde's death, of
course), when he said he could never see any merit whatever in Wilde's
plays or books. However the point is a small one.

Page 490 Line 6. The only thing I can claim to have invented in
connection with Wilde were the two titles "De Profundis" and "The
Ballad of Reading Gaol," for which let me say I can produce documentary
evidence. The publication of "De Profundis" was delayed for a month in
1905 because I could not decide on what to call it. It happened to catch
on but I do not think it a very good title.

Page 555 Line 18. Do you happen to have compared Douglas' translation of
Salome in Lane's First edition (with Beardsley's illustrations) with
Lane's Second edition (with Beardsley's illustrations) or Lane's little
editions (without Beardsley's illustrations)? Or have you ever compared
the aforesaid First edition with the original? Douglas' translation
omits a great deal of the text and is actually wrong as a rendering of
the text in many cases. I have had this out with a good many people. I
believe Douglas is to this day sublimely unconscious that his text, of
which there were never more than 500 copies issued in England, has been
entirely scrapped; his name at my instance was removed from the current
issu