Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions by Frank Harris
page 47 of 288 (16%)
page 47 of 288 (16%)
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shepherd there is a Stella Maris to guide it home. But you and More,
especially More, treat me as a Dissenter. It is very painful and quite unjust. Yesterday I attended Mass at 10 o'clock and afterwards bathed. So I went into the water without being a pagan. The consequence was that I was not tempted by either sirens or mermaidens, or any of the green-haired following of Glaucus. I really think that this is a remarkable thing. In my Pagan days the sea was always full of Tritons blowing conchs, and other unpleasant things. Now it is quite different. And yet you treat me as the President of Mansfield College; and after I had canonised you too. Dear boy, I wish you would tell me if your religion makes you happy. You conceal your religion from me in a monstrous way. You treat it like writing in the _Saturday Review_ for Pollock, or dining in Wardour Street off the fascinating dish that is served with tomatoes and makes men mad.[11] I know it is useless asking you, so don't tell me. I felt an outcast in Chapel yesterday--not really, but a little in exile. I met a dear farmer in a corn field and he gave me a seat on his banc in church: so I was quite comfortable. He now visits me twice a day, and as he has no children, and is rich, I have made him promise to adopt _three_--two boys and a girl. I told him that if he wanted them, he would find them. He said he was afraid that they would turn out badly. I told him everyone did that. He really has promised to adopt three orphans. He is now filled with enthusiasm at the idea. He is to go to the _Curé_ and talk to him. He told me that his own father had fallen down in a fit one day as they were talking together, and that he had caught him in his arms, and put him to bed, where he died, and that he |
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