snap-shot which remained in my memory, and made me ask myself afterwards how I
could have been so slow of understanding.

Looking back and taking everything into consideration--his social success, the
glare of publicity in which he lived, the buzz of talk and discussion that arose
about everything he did and said, the increasing interest and value of his work
and, above all, the ever-growing boldness of his writing and the challenge of
his conduct--it is not surprising that the black cloud of hate and slander which
attended him persistently became more and more threatening.




CHAPTER IX--THE SUMMER OF SUCCESS: OSCAR'S FIRST PLAY



No season, it is said, is so beautiful as the brief northern summer. Three-
fourths of the year is cold and dark, and the ice-bound landscape is swept by
snowstorm and blizzard. Summer comes like a goddess; in a twinkling the snow
vanishes and Nature puts on her robes of tenderest green; the birds arrive in
flocks; flowers spring to life on all sides, and the sun shines by night as by
day. Such a summertide, so beautiful and so brief, was accorded to Oscar Wilde
before the final desolation.

I want to give a picture of him at the topmost height of happy hours, which will
afford some proof of his magical talent of speech besides my own appreciation of
it, and, fortunately, the incident has been given to me. Mr. Ernest Beckett,
now Lord Grimthorpe, a lover of all superiorities, who has known the ablest
men of the time, takes pleasure in telling a story which shows Oscar Wilde's