7 September 1900

 

In the first years of marriage, my greatest fear was of poverty.  Constance had a small income but that barely covered ordinary household expenses; money is rather like companionship - when one has it, one hardly thinks of it and, when one does not, one thinks of nothing else.  It was only in this state of extreme need that I turned to journalism - I cannot imagine any other reason for doing so.  I wrote criticism for the Pall Mall Gazette and other newspapers: I have always written quickly, with the fluency of the artist who has nothing whatever to say, and of course I never took my own criticism seriously, although I believe others did.  It was astonishing to me how the latest novel, or the most recent volume of verse, could become such a matter of contention.  I could find in them material only for humour.  Modern English writing is not of great importance: bad work is always over-rated and good work is never understood.  That is all.  But it is absurd to discuss such matters with the public: you can convince a fool of anything except his own folly.

      Life is a very complex thing.  There are those who, like Medusa, long for death and are granted eternal life instead; and there are those who, like Endymion, desire life and are frozen in endless sleep.  It was much the case with me: I wished to do immortal work, and was offered the editorship of Woman's World.  My wife urged me to take the post, while my friends merely laughed at it.  And so, assailed on all sides, I amazed London with my self-sacrifice and became an editor.

      Indeed it gave me the position in society which I had been in danger of losing.  I was no longer the marvellous boy of my aesthetic period and I had not yet written the work which was to astonish my contemporaries.  My editorship granted me, once more, a certain note of predominance.  I commissioned, from influential ladies, articles on the effect of morals upon fabrics, or fabrics upon morals, I cannot remember which.  I demonstrated conclusively that there was indeed lief after Rider Haggard and Lippencott's, and that women could write more interestingly than men on the really important topics of civilisation: dress, food and furniture.

      It was only when I joined the magazine, however, that I experienced the rigours of daily life.  I would rise early to kiss the pink fingers of dawn immortalised by Marie Corelli, eat a substantial breakfast, discuss the news of the day with the children, and then walk in state down the King's Road.  It is a drab little thoroughfare - an Oxford Street which is all street and no Oxford - but it leads unerringly to Sloane Square and the fiery-coloured world of the underground railway.  The journey from Sloane Square to Charing Cross was endlessly fascinating for me: never have I been so close to the middle-classes, and I watched them intently for signs of life.  Alas, I was disappointed.

      Office life was strangely interesting: it was as if I had become part of a large family consisting almost entirely of mad aunts, and nephews who did not know how to spell.  As an editor, it was my duty to be as interested in certain matters as others were - the correction of proofs, for example, which would have been better left to die unaided - and the rigours of my post exhausted me.  The events of each day were exact and unvarying.

      'Mr Wilde is in,' the office secretary would say as soon as I arrived, despite the fact that I was often alone with him in the room.

      'Yes, Mr Cardew, I am in.'

      'It is a little milder today, I think, Mr Wilde.'

      'Yes, I felt it quite distinctly, Mr Cardew.'

      'And are you well, Mr Wilde?'

      'I am perfectly well, Mr Cardew.  My wife is well, and my children are well also.'

      'I am pleased to hear it.'

      'Is there are urgent correspondence, Mr Cardew?'

      He would hand me a number of letters.  I would open them at once, while standing beside his desk - a habit which he detested, I believe, but I can never resist a sealed envelope.  I must attack it at once.

      'There seems to be nothing here of any importance, Mr Cardew.'

      'Shall I reply to them in the customary manner?'

      'That is a delightful idea, Mr Cardew.'  I wonder what happened to Cardew?

      I was bored with my life, then, but nevertheless office existence lent a form to my days which otherwise they would have lacked.  I felt myself as an artist quite dead: the brilliant future which everyone had anticipated for me seemed already behind me.

      And so my days passed, with the drama of my imagination reserved only for my correspondence.  I did no serious work for the first three years of my marriage, except for the writing of my fairy stories - and I owe the inspiration for those entirely to my children.  The nursery is the proper home of melodrama and I used to tell Vyvyan and Cyril stories of the Irish fairies - of the old woman who lived in the valley near our home in Moytura.  She had stayed with the fairies for seven years.  When she came home, she had no toes: she had worn them out in her wanderings after the little people.  Cyril would sit wide-eyed in his bed when I told him of the leprechaun, the little shoemaker, who repaired the fairies' shoes after they had finished their passionate dancing.

      Sometimes I would tell them my own stories.  They were about the love which is stronger than death, although it too must die, but they were of so perfect a shape that there was no sorrow within them, only a fiery joy.  There was pain, but I placed the pain where no-one would notice it.  The boys were too young to understand, of course - and I believe I was also.

      William Yeats came one year to spend Christmas with us and that willowy, awkward young man's face changed utterly when he spoke of faery things.  He entranced the children with stories of the Fear-Gorta and the Water-Sheerie, of the little people who drink the new milk of the cows and the tall, white-armed women who come out of the air and crown themselves with roses and with lilies.  Then, much to Cyril's amusement, he stood up and imitated their slow, dream-like walk.

      By now William had roused himself to a pitch of excitement and, after Constance and the children had left the room, he talked animatedly to me of the Great Secret: Irishmen are always interested in secrets for we have been forced, too long, to live among the obvious.  I knew of such things from the work of Eliphas Levi, but I did not wish to disillusion him.  When the Sun has entered the Ram and before he has passed the Lion, there is a moment which trembles with the Song of the Immortal Powers - I remember Yeats leaning forward to touch me - and whoever listens to that song will become like the Immortal Powers themselves.  I do not think, however, that they will sing to me.  I must stop now: my cigarette has made me feel quite dizzy.