he admired. I got him to dinner and asked him to sign the
petition; he refused, but on grounds other than those taken by Meredith.

"Of course Wilde ought to get out," he said, "the sentence was a savage
one and showed bitter prejudice; but I have children, and my own way to
make in the world, and if I did this I should be tarred with the Wilde
brush. I cannot afford to do it. If he were really a great man I hope I
should do it, but I don't agree with your estimate of him. I cannot
think I am called upon to bell the British cat in his defence: it has
many claws and all sharp."

As soon as he saw the position was unworthy of him, he shifted to new
ground.

"If you were justified in coming to me, I should do it; but I am no one;
why don't you go to Meredith, Swinburne or Hardy?"

I had to give up the Professor, as well as the poet. I knocked in turn
at a great many doors, but all in vain. No one wished to take the odium
on himself. One man, since become celebrated, said he had no position,
his name was not good enough for the purpose. Others left my letters
unanswered. Yet another sent a bare acknowledgment saying how sorry he
was, but that public opinion was against Mr. Wilde; with one accord
they all made excuses....

One day Professor Tyrrell of Trinity College, Dublin, happened to be in
my office, while I was setting forth the difference between men of
letters in France and England as exemplified by this conduct. In France
among authors there is a recognised "_esprit de corps_," which
constrains them to hold together. For instance when Zola was threatened
with prosecution for "Nana," a dozen men like Cherbuliez, Feuillet,
Dumas _fils_, who hated his work and regarded it as sensational, tawdry,
immoral even, took up the cudgels for him at once; declared that the
police were not judges of art, and should not interfere with a serious
workman. All these Frenchmen, though they disliked Zola's work, and
believed that his popularity was won by a low appeal, still admitted
that he was a force in letters, and stood by him resolutely in spite of
their own prepossessions and prejudices. But in England the feeling is
altogether more selfish. Everyone consults his own sordid self-interest
and is rather glad to see a social favourite come to grief: not a hand
is stretched out to help him. Suddenly, Tyrrell broke in upon my
exposition:

"I don't know whether my name is of any good to you," he said, "but I
agree with all you