[Footnote 1: This method of heightening the tension would have been somewhat analogous to that employed by Oscar Wilde in Lady Windermere's instructions to her butler, cited on p. 115.]

Such was the place sought and obtained by the unfortunate Wilde as a refuge from domestic wretchedness.

For a few moments, indeed, the result of the struggle seemed doubtful, and Mrs. Wilde at length, by a violent effort, raised herself almost upright, with the infuriated slave still hanging to her throat; but the latter converted this into an advantage, by suddenly throwing her whole weight upon the breast of her mistress, thus casting her violently backward across the head-board of the bed, and dislocating the spine.

What we really desire, if we could have our way, is not one, or both, but neither." Sir Lewis Morris was complaining to Oscar Wilde about the neglect of his poems by the press.

The Oscar Wilde of modern legend were not more as a dweller in Nirvana.

Now, if it be true that the application, or rather the misapplication, of this philosophy led Oscar Wilde to Reading Gaol, it is none the less true that another application of it led Marius to something like Christian martyrdom, and Walter Pater himself along an ever loftier and serener path of spiritual vision.

Faith, and I am founderd with slinging to and fro with Chesnuts, Hazel-nuts, Bullaze and wildings for presents from my maister to the faire shepheardesse.