Featuring Oscar Wilde
Since it is the first day of the New Year, we’ve tried to collect
some of our much-loved narratives featuring the great Oscar Wilde and his wit.
Oscar Wilde is known for his dialog as much as for his literary works. Here are
some of the wittiest and most thought-provoking stories featuring him, as well
as being a great wit, was also often rather astute, too.
The most famous anecdote involving Oscar Wilde concerns his advent
in the United States in the 1880s, when he was already a known figure in
England. Asked by customs if he had anything to declare, Wilde extraordinarily
replied, ‘Only my genius.’ Unlike
many prominent stories that appear to have passed into the kingdoms of folktale,
this one actually happened.
Another anecdote concerns Wilde’s stint as an undergraduate
at Oxford. When Wilde was studying Classics, he had to undertake an oral
examination, for which he had to translate from the Greek version of the New
Testament. The selected passage for translation was from the story of the
Passion of Christ. Wilde began to translate, and the examiners were satisfied,
and told him that he had done enough but Wilde snubbed them and continued to
translate. Again the examiners tried to stop him, and this time succeeded,
telling him that they were happy with his conversion. `Oh, do let me go on,’ said Wilde, ‘I want to see how it ends.’
Oscar Wilde was at breakfast with guests one day, and,
despite his own line that ‘only dull
people are brilliant at breakfast’, on this occasion Wilde continued to show
his shiny wit. The host of the breakfast was chatting to a good-looking blonde
woman, and Wilde asked the host’s wife if she was green-eyed. She assured Wilde
that her hubby didn’t know an attractive lady when he saw one. Another guest politely
interrupted, ‘I beg to differ – what about yourself?’ The wife answered, ‘Oh, I
was an accident.’ ‘Rather,’ Wilde
responded, ‘a catastrophe!’
Another story concerns the subject of jealousy. Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, who shared a famous dinner party with Wilde, described how Wilde
told the next story, after conversation had turned to the way in which the luck
of our friends makes us unhappy. ‘The
devil,’ said Wilde, ‘was once
crossing the Libyan Desert, and he came upon a spot where a number of small beasts
were tormenting a holy hermit. The
sainted man easily shook off their evil suggestions. The devil watched their failure
and then he stepped forward to give them a lesson. “What you do is too crude,”
said he. “Permit me for one moment.” With that he whispered to the holy man,
“Your brother has just been made Bishop of Alexandria.” A stare of evil
jealousy at once troubled the calm face of the hermit. “That,” said the devil
to his imps, “is the sort of thing which I should recommend.”‘ This same
dinner party was also the occasion on which both Doyle and Wilde agreed to
write, respectively, the second Sherlock Holmes novel and The Picture of Dorian
Gray.
On another instance, Wilde stated that he was working hard rewriting
his poetry. ‘I was working on the proof
of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma,’ he said. ‘And in
the afternoon?’ his friend asked. ‘In the
afternoon,’ responded Wilde, ‘– well,
I put it back again.’
Another anecdote concerns Wilde’s stint as an undergraduate
at Oxford. When Wilde was studying Classics, he had to undertake an oral
examination, for which he had to translate from the Greek version of the New
Testament. The selected passage for translation was from the story of the
Passion of Christ. Wilde began to translate, and the examiners were satisfied,
and told him that he had done enough but Wilde snubbed them and continued to
translate. Again the examiners tried to stop him, and this time succeeded,
telling him that they were happy with his conversion. `Oh, do let me go on,’ said Wilde, ‘I want to see how it ends.’
Our final beloved tale concerns a joke at Wilde’s expense.
The renowned actress Sarah Bernhardt – who was the first person to play Hamlet
on film – was once talking to Wilde when he went to light up a cigarette. He asked,
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Bernhardt
shot back, ‘Oscar, I don’t mind if you burn.’ In Bernhardt, one wonders, had
the witty Wilde met his match?
A very entertaining review, thank you. Full marks to Ms Bernhardt, we had no idea she had managed the impossible and out quoted Oscar Wilde! But poor Oscar, such a tragic end to a gifted but troubled life. We recently found a wonderful old postcard of him looking very young and dapper. The postcard and a bit about his final months (and humiliations) in France here
http://www.normandythenandnow.com/the-importance-of-being-sebastian-in-dieppe/