Sir Max Beerbohm

“ Breakfast over, the master of the house enjoys his modest cigarette—no costly cigar nor precious meerschaum ever passes his lips—he is a strict believer in simplicity of life as the handmaiden of hard work. ”

“ Once a welcome guest in many of our Bohemian haunts, he lives now a life of quiet retirement in his little house in Tite Street with his wife and his two sons, his prop and mainstay, solacing himself with many a reminiscence of the friends of his youth, whilst he leaves his better-known brother, William, to perpetuate the social name of the family. ”

“ The play itself a chapter of reminiscences—the audience good natured and respectful—the hearty calls of “Author”—and [14] finally his appearance before the curtain, bowing with old fashioned grace to the Public, whom he has served so faithfully. Those of us who had known him in the old days, observed that he seemed for the moment dazed and noted with feelings of pity that in his great excitement he had forgotten to extinguish his cigarette, an oversight that the Public was quick to pardon in the old gentleman. ”

“ Wilde tends more and more to exist in its memory or to solace himself with the old classics of which he was ever so earnest a student, with his Keats and his Shakespeare, his Joseph Miller and the literal translations of the Greek Dramatists. ”

“ With his tall, bowed figure, carefully brushed silk hat and frockcoat which though old-fashioned was evidently cut by a good tailor, old Mr. Wilde is well-known to all frequenters of the thoroughfare. The trades people, too, know him well and often waylay him as he attempts to pass on. ”

“ Wilde, as in his old capacity of journalist. The visit to America, that is still so fresh in the old gentleman’s memory, doubtless influenced his style in no small degree and many an old pressman can testify to the great vivacity and humour of their colleague, though they may envy the indomitable vitality which enables one so far past his meridian to continue “producing.” ”

“ But time is a quick mover and many of us are fated to outlive our reputations and thus, though at one time Mr. Wilde, the old gentleman, of whom we are going to give our readers a brief account, was in his way quite a celebrity ”

“ He never nowadays even looks at the morning papers, so wholly has he cut himself off from society, though he still goes on taking in the Athenaeum, in the hopes that it may even now do the same to him. ”