influence over men who were anything but literary in their tastes. Mr. Beckett
had a party of Yorkshire squires, chiefly fox-hunters and lovers of an outdoor
life, at Kirkstall Grange when he heard that Oscar Wilde was in the neighbouring
town of Leeds. Immediately he asked him to lunch at the Grange, chuckling to
himself beforehand at the sensational novelty of the experiment. Next day
"Mr. Oscar Wilde" was announced and as he came into the room the sportsmen
forthwith began hiding themselves behind newspapers or moving together in groups
in order to avoid seeing or being introduced to the notorious writer. Oscar
shook hands with his host as if he had noticed nothing, and began to talk.

"In five minutes," Grimthorpe declares, "all the papers were put down and
everyone had gathered round him to listen and laugh."

At the end of the meal one Yorkshireman after the other begged the host to
follow the lunch with a dinner and invite them to meet the wonder again. When
the party broke up in the small hours they all went away delighted with Oscar,
vowing that no man ever talked more brilliantly. Grimthorpe cannot remember a
single word Oscar said: "It was all delightful," he declares, "a play of genial
humour over every topic that came up, like sunshine dancing on waves."

The extraordinary thing about Oscar's talent was that he did not monopolise the
conversation: he took the ball of talk wherever it happened to be at the moment
and played with it so humorously that everyone was soon smiling delightedly.
The famous talkers of the past, Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle and the others,
were all lecturers: talk to them was a discourse on a favourite theme, and in
ordinary life they were generally regarded as bores. But at his best Oscar
Wilde never dropped the tone of good society: he could afford to give place to
others; he was equipped at all points: no subject came amiss to him: he saw
everything from a humorous angle, and dazzled one now with word-wit, now with
the very stuff of merriment.