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Title: A Peep into the Past
Author: Max Beerbohm
Release Date: March 10, 2022 [eBook #67604]
Language: English
Produced by: Donald Cummings from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
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A PEEP INTO THE PAST
By
MAX BEERBOHM
PRIVATELY PRINTED
1923
This hitherto unpublished essay was written
by Max Beerbohm for the first number of The
Yellow Book, but it was held over to make way
for his famous Defence of Cosmetics, which duly
appeared in April, 1894. Whether this change
was made because of the impending Wilde scandal
it is, of course impossible to say with certainty,
but the probabilities favour this
explanation. The Wilde case did not come to
the ears of the general public until the spring
of 1895, just one year after the founding of The
Yellow Book, but literary London was aware
of what was happening long before that date,
and already in 1894 Wilde’s friends were very
anxious about the recklessness of his behaviour.
It is significant that Oscar Wilde, the archetype
of the Decadent Nineties, did not contribute
either to The Yellow Book or The Savoy, which
were the literary organs of that whole movement.
It is difficult not to see some connection
between the remarkable absence of Wilde’s name
from these periodicals and the fact that this brilliant
essay on him was never published.
The essay itself is one of the deftest and cleverest[4]
pieces of writing which Max Beerbohm
has ever achieved. In it one can see how from
the very beginning of his career Beerbohm was
destined to be the satirist of the period with
which he is associated, although he never displayed
any of the qualities—or defects—of the
Decadents. No cartoon of his is more devastating
and illuminating than this solemn buffoonery
of Wilde in terms of a domesticity as
preposterous as Wilde’s own pose of diabolism.
At the same time Wilde had no more devoted
admirer or faithful friend. It is characteristic
of the good nature of Max’s satire that it does
not necessarily imply disapproval. It is just
his fun.
Oscar Wilde! I wonder to how many
of my readers the jingle of this name suggests
anything at all? Yet, at one time, it
was familiar to many and if we search back
among the old volumes of Punch, we shall find
many a quip and crank out at its owner’s expense.
But time is a quick mover and many of us are
fated to outlive our reputations and thus, though
at one time Mr. Wilde, the old gentleman, of
whom we are going to give our readers a brief
account, was in his way quite a celebrity; today
his star is set, his name obscured in this busy,
changeful city.
Once a welcome guest in many of our Bohemian
haunts, he lives now a life of quiet retirement in
his little house in Tite Street with his wife and his
two sons, his prop and mainstay, solacing himself
with many a reminiscence of the friends of his
youth, whilst he leaves his better-known brother,
William, to perpetuate the social name of the
family. Always noted for his tenacious memory,
it is one of the old gentleman’s keenest pleasures
to regale a visitor from the outer world with stories
of the late Mr. Frank Niles, Mr. Godwin, the[10]
architect, Mr. Robert Browning or the Earl of
Lytton, who was not the only member of the
upper ten thousand to honour Mr. Wilde with his
personal friendship. “All, all are gone, the old
familiar faces” and with the quiet resignation of
one who knows that he is the survivor of a bygone
day, Mr. Wilde tends more and more to exist in
its memory or to solace himself with the old classics
of which he was ever so earnest a student, with his
Keats and his Shakespeare, his Joseph Miller and
the literal translations of the Greek Dramatists.
Not that he is a mere laudator temporis acti, a
bibliophile and nothing more. He still keeps up
his writing, is still the glutton for work that he
always was. He has not yet abandoned his old
intention of dramatising Salome and the amount
of journalistic matter that he quietly produces and
contributes anonymously to various periodicals is
surprising. Only last year an undergraduate
journal called the Spirit Lamp accepted a poem of
his in which there were evidences that he has lost
little of his old talent for versification.
Mr. Wilde is an early riser. Every morning,
winter and summer at 4:30 A. M. his portly form—(he
is in appearance not unlike Sir William
Harcourt and still stands six foot three in his
slippers)—may be seen bending over the little
spirit-kettle, at which he boils himself his cup of[11]
hot cocoa. Donning his work-a-day clothes, he
proceeds at once to his study and commences
work, continuing steadily to breakfast, which he
takes in company with his wife and sons. Himself
most regular in his habits, he is something of a
martinet about punctuality in his household and
perhaps this accounts for the constant succession
of page-boys, which so startles the neighbourhood.
Breakfast over, the master of the house enjoys his
modest cigarette—no costly cigar nor precious
meerschaum ever passes his lips—he is a strict
believer in simplicity of life as the handmaiden of
hard work. He never nowadays even looks at the
morning papers, so wholly has he cut himself off
from society, though he still goes on taking in the
Athenaeum, in the hopes that it may even now
do the same to him. So without dawdling over the
perusal of news, he immediately resumes work
and does not desist until the stroke of twelve,
when punctually he folds up his papers, wipes his
pen, puts away his books of references and starts
for an hour’s walk up and down the King’s Road,
Chelsea. With his tall, bowed figure, carefully
brushed silk hat and frockcoat which though old-fashioned
was evidently cut by a good tailor, old
Mr. Wilde is well-known to all frequenters of the
thoroughfare. The trades people, too, know him
well and often waylay him as he attempts to pass on.
[12]
After early dinner, the time is passed pleasantly
in reading Ruskin to his two youngsters; after that
more literary work, a light supper, a glass of grog
and bed-time. But not always rest! Often, his
good lady tells me, has she woken at three or four in
the morning to find her husband still sitting up
in bed or pacing up and down the bedroom in
parturition of that same joke of which he sketched
for her the outline as they were retiring to rest.
Yes, and it is in this indomitable perseverance,
this infinite capacity for taking pains, this “grit,”
as they call it in the North, that lies Mr. Wilde’s
secret. True that the whole body of his signed
works is very small—a book of parodies upon
Rossetti, a few fairy-tales in the manner of Hans
Anderson, an experimental novel in the style of
Poe, a volume of essays, which Mr. Pater is often
obliged blushingly to repudiate, a French play
written in collaboration with Mr. Louÿs and one
or two English ones in collaboration with Mr.
G. R. Sims. But surely we must judge an artist,
not so much by his achievement as by his methods
of procedure and though such a story as the
The Theory of Mr. W. S. (I came across a copy
of it lately at an old book-stall in Vigo Street)
occupied only the extreme middle of no more
than forty pages, the author has given me his word
that it took him six months hard unremitting
labour to complete.
[13]
After all, it is not so much as a literary man
that Posterity will forget Mr. Wilde, as in his old
capacity of journalist. The visit to America, that
is still so fresh in the old gentleman’s memory,
doubtless influenced his style in no small degree
and many an old pressman can testify to the great
vivacity and humour of their colleague, though
they may envy the indomitable vitality which
enables one so far past his meridian to continue
“producing.” Perhaps the most startling feature
of his career was the manner in which, putting
his broad shoulder to the wheel, he was able so
late in life to strike out into dramatic writing—a
branch that he had never till then attempted.
When Mr. Sydney Cooper contributed to the last
Academy but one a picture of a hunt scene, everyone
was surprised, but that Oscar Wilde should
have written a four act play and got it produced
by a London manager, fairly beat all records of
senile enterprises. We critics were really touched
and—who will blame us for it?—agreed to withhold
those criticisms which we should otherwise
have been forced to make upon the production.
It was a pretty occasion and anyone who was
present, as I was at the first night, will look back
with affection at its memory. The play itself a
chapter of reminiscences—the audience good natured
and respectful—the hearty calls of “Author”—and[14]
finally his appearance before the curtain,
bowing with old fashioned grace to the Public,
whom he has served so faithfully. Those of us
who had known him in the old days, observed that
he seemed for the moment dazed and noted with
feelings of pity that in his great excitement he had
forgotten to extinguish his cigarette, an oversight
that the Public was quick to pardon in the old
gentleman.
Not long ago, wishing to verify one or two
facts for an article I was writing upon the life of
the Early Victorian Era and knowing that Mr.
Sala was out [of] town, I paid a visit to the little
house in Tite Street. I found everything there
neat and clean and, though, of course, very simple
and unpretentious, bearing witness to womanly
care and taste. As I was ushered into the little
study, I fancied that I heard the quickly receding
frou-frou of tweed trousers, but my host I found
reclining, hale and hearty, though a little dishevelled
upon the sofa. With one hand, readjusting
the nut-brown Georgian wig that he is
accustomed to wear, he motioned me with a
courteous gesture of the other to an armchair.
The old gentleman was unaffectedly pleased to
receive a visit from the outer world, for, though he
is in most things “a praiser of past times,” yet he
is always interested to hear oral news of the[15]
present, and many young poets can testify to the
friendly interest in their future taken by a man
who is himself contented to figure in their past.
As it was, when I had enriched myself from the
storehouse of his still unclouded memory, we fell
to talking about things in general, and I was
struck by the quaint humour which still pervades
his talk as well as by the delightfully old-fashioned
way in which he rolls out his well-rounded periods.
Many a modern conversationalist, I thought,
might do worse than take a hint or two from his
style. Nor has he lost any of that old Irish
readiness for which he was once famed. It is said
that a dinner given once at which many were
present, Mr. Whistler, then quite a young boy,
perpetrated some daring epigram and Wilde,
beaming kindly across the table, said, to encourage
him, “How I wish I had said that!”
Young impudence cried, “You will, Sir, you will.”
“No. I won’t,” returned the elder man, quick as
thought and young impudence relapsed into silence
abashed. Since then, the old journalist has
contracted a strange habit of chuckling to himself
inordinately at whatever he says and to such a
degree has this habit grown upon him that at the
last dinner-party he ever attended it was decided
that he had the rare faculty of keeping a whole
table perfectly serious, whilst he himself was convulsed[16]
with laughter. I think, however, it is only
one of the mannerisms of age and certainly I
found him as amusing as ever he was and as prone
to utter those bulls which are an Irishman’s
privilege and are known in England by the rather
pretentious name of paradox. One instance will
suffice. After we had chatted together for a while
somebody entered to say that an old lady had
called for the character of her new page-boy and
as my host with his passion for literary work
seemed anxious to write it, I felt I had better take
my leave. Just as I was leaving the room I observed
that the weather had become very sultry and I
feared we should have a storm. “Ah, yes,” was
the reply, “I expect we shall soon see the thunder
and hear the lightning!” How delightful a perversion
of words! I left the old gentleman chuckling
immoderately at his little joke.
MAX BEERBOHM.
Transcriber’s Notes:
A facsimile of author’s manuscript precedes the text content.
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
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