The Oscar Wilde Rule

Abstract

During this breezy interchange of sentiments Queensberry was stamping round the West End of London vowing vengeance against Wilde, defaming his character, and threatening to shoot, thrash, assault, fight, ruin, disgrace, or otherwise incommode him. As time went on the subject of Wilde went to his head, taking the place previously occupied there by Christianity, though he identified the man with Satan, not with Jesus; and at last, having simmered for a year, he boiled over and dashed into action. Accompanied by a prizefighter, the ‘screaming scarlet Marquis’, as Wilde used to speak of him, called at No. 16 Tite Street. The two boxing ‘stars’ were shown into the library by the seventeen-years-old footman, who was small in stature and tremblingly nervous at the sight of the ex-champion and his fellow-bruiser. Wilde got up and stood by the fireplace to receive his visitors, quite capable of taking on half a dozen of such between the puffs of a cigarette, and having no more physical fear of Queensberry than if he had been a tame rabbit.

The Life of Oscar Wilde (London: Methuen, 1946) pp. 272–3. Editor’s title.