I have since been assured, on what should be excellent authority, that the evil
reputation which attached to Oscar Wilde in those early years in London was
completely undeserved. I, too, must say that in the first period of our
friendship, I never noticed anything that could give colour even to suspicion
of him; but the belief in his abnormal tastes was widespread and dated from his
life in Oxford.

From about 1886-7 on, however, there was a notable change in Oscar Wilde's
manners and mode of life. He had been married a couple of years, two children
had been born to him; yet instead of settling down he appeared suddenly to have
become wilder. In 1887 he accepted the editorship of a lady's paper, "The
Woman's World", and was always mocking at the selection of himself as the
"fittest" for such a post: he had grown noticeably bolder. I told myself that
an assured income and position give confidence; but at bottom a doubt began to
form in me. It can't be denied that from 1887-8 on, incidents occurred from
time to time which kept the suspicion of him alive, and indeed pointed and
strengthened it. I shall have to deal now with some of the more important of
these occurrences.




CHAPTER VIII--OSCAR'S GROWTH TO ORIGINALITY ABOUT 1890



The period of growth of any organism is the most interesting and most
instructive. And there is no moment of growth in the individual life which
can be compared in importance with the moment when a man begins to outtop his
age, and to suggest the future evolution of humanity by his own genius. Usually