MR. ARTHUR CRUTHENDEN,
Poste Restante, G.P.O., Reading,

with just these lines:

Dear friend,

The enclosed will interest you. There is also another letter
waiting in the post office for you from me with a little money.
Ask for it if you have not got it.

Yours sincerely,

C.3.3.

I have no one but you, dear Robbie, to do anything. Of course the letter
to Reading must go at once, as my friends come out on Wednesday morning
early.


This letter displays almost every quality of Oscar Wilde's genius in
perfect efflorescence--his gaiety, joyous merriment and exquisite
sensibility. Who can read of the little Chapel to Notre Dame de Liesse
without emotion quickly to be changed to mirth by the sunny humour of
those delicious specimens of self-advertisement: "Mr. Beerbohm Tree also
writes: 'Since I have tried it, I am a different actor, my friends
hardly recognise me.'"

This letter is the most characteristic thing Oscar Wilde ever wrote, a