He was, poor fellow, bigotedly intolerant of the Catholics and seeing me ‘on the brink’ struck me out of his will. It is a terrible disappointment to me; you see I suffer a good deal from my Romish leanings, in pocket and mind.
My father had given him a share in my fishing lodge in Connemara, which of course ought to have reverted to me on his death; well, even this I lose ‘if I become a Roman Catholic for five years’ which is very infamous.
Fancy a man going before ‘God and the Eternal Silences’ with his wretched Protestant prejudices and bigotry clinging still to him.
However, I won’t bore you with myself any more. The world seems too much out of joint for me to set it right.
I send you a little notice of Keats’s grave I have just written which may interest you. I visited it with Bouncer and Dunskie.
If you would care to see my views on the Grosvenor Gallery send for the enclosed, and write soon to me. Ever yours
OSCAR WILDE
I heard from little Bouncer from Constantinople lately: he said he was coming home. Love to Puss.
To William Ward
[Postmark 19 July 1877] 1 Merrion Square North
Dear old Boy, I hear you are back: did you get my telegram at the Lord Warden? Do write and tell me about the Turks. I like their attitude towards life very much, though it seems strange that the descendants of the wild Arabs should be the Sybarites of our day.
I sent you two mags, to Frenchay: one with a memoir of Keats, the other religious.
Do you remember our delightful visit to Keats’s grave, and Dunskie’s disgust. Poor Dunskie: I know he looks on me as a renegade; still I have suffered very much for my Roman fever in mind and pocket and happiness.
I am going down to Connemara for a month or more next week to try and read. I have not opened a book yet, I have been so bothered with business and other matters. I shall be quite alone. Will you come? I will give you fishing and scenery – and bring your books – and some notebooks for me. I am in despair about ‘Greats’.
It is roughing it, you know, but you will have
(I) bed
(2) table and chair
(3) knife and fork
(4) fishing
(5) scenery – sunsets – bathing – heather – mountains – lakes
(6) whisky and salmon to eat. Write and say when you can come, and also send me please immediately the name and address of Miss Fletcher whom I rode with at Rome, and of her stepfather. I have never sent her some articles of Pater’s I promised her.
I want you to read my article on the Grosvenor Gallery in the Dublin University Magazine of July – my first art-essay.
I have had such delightful letters from many of the painters, and from Pater such sympathetic praise. I must send you his letter: or rather do so, but return it in registered letter by next post: don’t forget. Ever yours OSCAR After all I can’t trust my letter from Pater to the mercies of the postman, but I send you a copy:
Dear Mr Wilde, Accept my best thanks for the magazine and your letter. Your excellent article on the Grosvenor Gallery I read with very great pleasure: it makes me much wish to make your acquaintance, and I hope you will give me an early call on your return to Oxford.
I should much like to talk over some of the points with you, though on the whole I think your criticisms very just, and they are certainly very pleasantly expressed. The article shows that you possess some beautiful, and, for your age, quite exceptionally cultivated tastes: and a considerable knowledge too of many beautiful things. I hope you will write a great deal in time to come. Very truly yours
WALTER PATER
You won’t think me snobbish for sending you this? After all, it is something to be honestly proud of.
O. F. W.
To William Ward
[August 1877] Illaunroe Lodge, Lough Fee, Connemara
My dear Bouncer, So very glad to hear from you at last: I was afraid that you were still seedy.
I need not say how disappointed I was that you could not come and see this part of the world. I have two fellows staying with me, Dick Trench and Jack Barrow, who took a lodge near here for July and came to stay with me about three weeks ago. They are both capital fellows, indeed Dick Trench is I think my oldest friend, but I don’t do any reading someway and pass my evenings in ‘Pool, Ecarte and Potheen Punch’. I wish you had come; one requires sympathy to read.
I am however in the midst of two articles, one on Greece, the other on Art, which keep me thinking if not writing. But of Greats work I have done nothing. After all there are more profitable studies, I suppose, than the Greats course: still I would like a good Class awfully and want you to lend me your notes on Philosophy: I know your style, and really it would be a very great advantage for me to have them – Ethics, Politics (Republic) and general Philosophy. Can you do this for me? If you could send them to me in Dublin? Or at least to Oxford next term? And also give me advice – a thing I can’t stand from my elders because it’s like preaching, but I think I would like some from you ‘who have passed through the fire’.
The weather is fair but not good for fishing. I have only got one salmon but our ‘bag’ yesterday of ‘twelve white trout and twenty brown’ was not bad. I have also had capital hare-shooting, but mountain-climbing is not my forte.
I heard, by the same post which brought me your letter, from Miss Fletcher, who is still in the Tyrol. She sends her best wishes to you of course, and writes as cleverly as she talks: I am much attracted by her in every way.
Please give my very best wishes to your sister on her approaching marriage. I remember Mr St John’s window very well, and will hope to have the pleasure of knowing him some day. He must be a very cultured artist. Will the wedding be soon? What form you will be in! Ever yours
OSCAR WILDE
I am going to Longford on Friday to shoot. Write to me Clonfin House, Granard, Co. Longford.
Few letters survive from his last year at Oxford, if indeed many were written, since Oscar was, as he put it, ‘reading hard for a Fourth in Greats’. In the end his Finals papers were judged overall to be the best of his year and he had achieved the coveted distinction of a ‘Double First’ in Mods and Greats. And if that was not enough, he was also awarded the Newdigate poetry prize. He left Oxford in a blaze of academic glory.
To William Ward
[Circa 24 July 1878] Magdalen College
My dear old Boy, You are the best of fellows to telegraph your congratulations: there were none I valued more. It is too delightful altogether this display of fireworks at the end of my career. I cannot understand my First except for the essays which I was fairly good in. I got a very complimentary viva voce.
The dons are ‘astonied’ beyond words – the Bad Boy doing so well in the end! They made me stay up for the Gaudy and said nice things about me. I am on the best terms with everyone including Allen! who I think is remorseful of his treatment of me.
Then I rowed to Pangbourne with Frank Miles in a birchbark canoe! and shot rapids and did wonders everywhere – it was delightful.
I cannot, I am afraid, yacht with you. I am so troubled about my law suit, which I have won but find my own costs heavy,