This story shows the lovable side of him. There was another side not so
amiable. In April, 1893, "A Woman of No Importance" was produced by Herbert
Beerbohm Tree at The Haymarket and ran till the end of the season, August 16th,
surviving even the festival of St. Grouse. The astonishing success of this
second play confirmed Oscar Wilde's popularity, gave him money to spend and
increased his self-confidence. In the summer he took a house up the river at
Goring, and went there to live with Lord Alfred Douglas. Weird stories came to
us in London about their life together. Some time in September, I think it was,
I asked him what was the truth underlying these reports.

"Scandals and slanders, Frank, have no relation to truth," he replied.

"I wonder if that's true," I said, "slander often has some substratum of
truth; it resembles the truth like a gigantic shadow; there is a likeness
at least in outline."

"That would be true," he retorted, "if the canvas, so to speak, on which the
shadows fall were even and true; but it is not. Scandals and slander are
related to the hatred of the people who invent them and are not in any shadowy
sense even, effigies or images of the person attacked."

"Much smoke, then," I queried, "and no fire?"

"Only little fires," he rejoined, "show much smoke. The foundation for what you
heard is both small and harmless. The summer was very warm and beautiful, as
you know, and I was up at Goring with Bosie. Often in the middle of the day we
were too hot to go on the river. One afternoon it was sultry-close, and Bosie
proposed that I should turn the hose pipe on him. He went in and threw his
things off and so did I. A few minutes later I was seated in a chair with a
bath towel round me and Bosie was lying on the grass about ten yards away, when