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From Herbert Beerbohm Tree: Some Memories of Him and of His Art collected by Max Beerbohm (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1920), from the section, ‘Herbert and I’ by Maud Tree, p.84:
The year closed somewhat gloomily: for The Tempter, in spite of its success, was too expensive and over-peopled a production to spell money-making. It ended, and a short revival of Captain Swift filled in the few weeks while Herbert was rehearsing The Charlatan by Robert Buchanan. This, a pretty enough play, gave Herbert a part, eerie, poetic, half- villain, half-hero, such as only an Irving or a Tree could enact. It recalled several of his brilliant successes: Macari, the Duke of Guisebury, Captain Swift and Hamlet; being compounded of, and yet distinctive from them all; the kind of performance which in a highly-successful play would have become historic. I was given the wonderful part of the heroine, and was allowed to sing “Der Asra” of Rubinstein to Lily Hanbury’s accompaniment (how did I dare?). It was appropriate to the situation and to the characters. Isabel (my part) was the Princess, Philip Woodville (Herbert’s) the slave—who daily grew pale and more pale for love of her. There were the elements but not the accomplishment of a fine drama in The Charlatan.
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The Charlatan v. The Wonder-Worker
Buchanan was accused of plagiarism with regard to his play, The Charlatan, principally by Stuart Cumberland. The following items include a review of Mr. Cumberland’s day job, letters from the Pall Mall Gazette, and a review of The Wonder-Worker, by Stuart Cumberland. More information about Stuart Cumberland is available on the Society for Psychical Research site and the Internet Archive has his 1888 book, A Thought-Reader’s Thoughts.
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Aberdeen Weekly Journal (18 January, 1894)
MR STUART CUMBERLAND AND MISS BENTLEY IN ABERDEEN. _____
Mr Stuart Cumberland, the world-famous thought-reader, and his scarcely less well-known niece, Miss Phyllis Bentley, yesterday gave two entertainments in the Music Hall Buildings, Aberdeen. The reputation which Mr Cumberland had gained for himself on the occasion of his previous visit to the Granite City was in itself sufficient to guarantee that there would be a large gathering at the entertainment, but when there was added to this the attraction of Miss Phyllis Bentley, who has of late been mystifying and at the same time delighting the crowned heads of Europe by her wonderful performances, it would have been surprising had there not been a crowded attendance. At the afternoon performance, which was given in the Ballroom, there was not a vacant seat. The feats both of Mr Cumberland and Miss Bentley, although widely different in character, were alike in the manner in which they bewildered and yet delighted all present. Many were the theories which were held as to the manner in which the feats were performed. One section of the audience seemed to think they were nothing less than “second sight”; others looked on them as merely clever tricks; while others, even more sceptical, attributed Mr Cumberland’s success to collusion. This last theory, however, was absolutely precluded by the appointment of a committee of ten well-known gentlemen selected from the audience, presided over by Captain Brook and including a clergyman. Perhaps the best way to give some idea of the nature of Mr Cumberland’s feats will be to give a plain unvarnished account of a few of them. Mr Cumberland at the outset explained his mode of procedure, and said all he asked was that the person being experimented with should think clearly, distinctly, and honestly. He could not make any person think if he couldn’t; nor could he do so if they wouldn’t. The first experiment was as follows — A member of the committee was asked to think of a particular lady to whom Mr Cumberland should present a flower in a particular way. Mr Cumberland, who had meanwhile been blindfolded, then laid the tips of his fingers on the wrist of the “medium,” whom he led through the hall. For a few minutes he wandered fruitlessly among the seats, sometimes going near the centre of the hall, returning to the front, going back to the centre, and so on, until at length he selected a lady sitting in the front row of seats to whom with a graceful bow he presented the flowers. This proved to be the lady on whom the gentleman had thought. Explaining by the way that this experiment was the mere A B C of the thought-reading art, Mr Cumberland next asked a member of the committee to think of a picture. This having been done Mr Cumberland, with the medium’s finger tips resting on his hand, drew on a blackboard an outline portrait of Mr Gladstone, which, although very crude, was quite recognisable, and proved to be very similar to the portrait which the member subsequently drew on the board. The next drawing thought of was a steeple, and although in this case the result was scarcely so satisfactory, the main idea was produced with fair accuracy. Figure-writing was the subject of the next experiment. The number of a bank-note belonging to a member of the committee was thought on by the chairman and written on the board by Mr Cumberland. The next experiment, which caused considerable astonishment, and, when completed, excited loud applause, was performed through a lady medium. Mr Cumberland approached a lady sitting near the front of the hall, and after overcoming the proverbial difficulty of finding her pocket, abstracted therefrom a scent bottle, which he presented to another lady sitting some distance off—all as the medium had desired. The concluding feat was of an amusingly grotesque character. Mr Cumberland, accompanied by the chairman, having retired from the room, a member of the committee selected a gentleman from the back of the hall, took him to the platform, and then in melo-dramatic fashion pretended to cut his throat from ear to ear with a large pocket-knife. Not content with this, the executioner caused his victim to kneel on the platform, and, with a chair serving him as a block, chopped off his head with an imaginary axe. The murdered man then resumed his seat amid considerable laughter. Mr Cumberland on re-entering the room was blindfolded. he then walked without hesitation to the back of the hall, selected the “victim,” marched him back to the platform, and imitated exactly the manner in which he had previously been executed. No less wonderful was the performance of Miss Bentley, who was then introduced to the audience. The effect of the feats which she performed was heightened by the cool and easy manner in which she performed them. Even the most difficult were carried out with apparently as much ease as those which, comparatively speaking, were simpler. Holding a billiard cue in diagonal fashion, she invited members of the committee to endeavour to push it to the ground. Several of them struggled might and main to do so, but even although two tried it at one time Miss Bentley defied all their efforts with a quiet smile of triumph at their discomfiture. Baillie McKenzie, who was seated among the audience, on the invitation of Mr Cumberland endeavoured to push the cue to the ground, but he, too, had to retire beaten. In the same way, Miss Bentley, holding the cue horizontally, and standing on one foot, was able to withstand the efforts of the committee to push her backwards. The various members of committee put forth their utmost strength, and, to judge from the athletic appearance of several of them, that was not a little. So much for what may be called Miss Bentley’s passive feats. To turn to her marvellous exhibition of lifting powers. Three members of the committee placed both hands on the top of the billiard cue, and seated above all was a member of the committee. Each exerted his utmost power to keep the cue on the ground, but Miss Bentley, by what appeared to be simply placing her hands on the cue, lifted it several inches from the ground. Then four members of committee were seated on a large, high-backed, and substantial-looking chair. Miss Bentley placed the palms of her hands on the back of the chair, and lifted it clear off the stage. To make the feat even more wonderful, Miss Bentley repeated it while members of the committee placed their hands between hers and the chair. The gentlemen afterwards stated that they felt no pressure on their hands. Miss Bentley’s performance was watched with great interest, and the applause which followed her feats was loud and frequent. Mr Cumberland having thanked the members of committee, the proceedings terminated. The entertainment was repeated in the Music Hall in the evening. Again there was a crowded attendance, and the performance was, if possible, even more successful. The principal experiments were repeated, and a number of new and interesting features were introduced. Baillie Edwards was chairman of the committee.
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The Pall Mall Gazette (23 January, 1894 - p.3)
THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE EXTRAORDINARY.
To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.
SIR,—A really extraordinary instance of “thought transference” has come to pass. Over two years ago I wrote a Theosophistic play, entitled, “An Adept,” which I submitted to Mr. Tree; it was not produced. To-day Mr. Buchanan produces a Theosophistic play entitled “The Charlatan,” at the Haymarket, which in plot bears a curious resemblance to my play, whilst some of the characters are almost identical. My charlatan was an Anglo-Parsee; he had a hypnotic gift, and established an influence over his host’s niece; there was a séance, followed by a next-morning confession, and the charlatan of my story, as in Mr. Buchanan’s, leaves a reformed man, to return another day to the lady he has deceived. It is all such an extraordinary instance of thought-transference that I shall be glad of any light that can be thrown upon it.— Your obedient servant, Station Hotel, Inverness, Jan. 21. STUART C. CUMBERLAND.
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The Pall Mall Gazette (24 January, 1894 - p.3)
“THE CHARLATAN.”
To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.
SIR,—My attention has been directed to a letter in your issue of this evening, in which Mr. Stuart Cumberland states that he submitted to Mr. Tree, over two years ago, a play very similar in plot to “The Charlatan,” now running at the Haymarket Theatre. I can truthfully say that Mr. Tree has never mentioned any such play to me, and that he first became acquainted with “The Charlatan” some six weeks before its production. The manuscript of my first three acts was in existence nearly two years ago, when it was read by me to Mr. George Alexander, of the St. James’s Theatre. Mr. Alexander no doubt remembers the fact, and can, if necessary, substantiate my statement. Of Mr. Cumberland’s play I, of course, know nothing. —I am, &c., ROBERT BUCHANAN. Prince of Wales’s Club, Coventry-street, W., Jan. 23.
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To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.
SIR,—I notice in this evening’s issue of your paper a letter from Mr. Stuart C. Cumberland referring to the curious resemblance of his play, “An Adept,” to Mr. Buchanan’s “The Charlatan.” May I be allowed to add my cry to the list? On Tuesday, December 19, 1893, at St. George’s Hall, I produced a four-act play entitled “An Unpaid Debt,” in which I treated the subject of hypnotism, and in which exactly the same scene occurred—that of a woman being brought from one room to another by the power of hypnotism. I wrote my play three years ago, and it has been read and criticised by Mr. Kendal, Mr. F. H. Macklin, Mr. John Lart, and Miss Geneviève Ward, and is now in the hands of Mr. Willard in America. I merely mention these facts, as some of the dramatic critics have described Mr. Buchanan’s play as being strikingly original.—Yours truly, 14, Mortimer-crescent, N.W., Jan. 23. CHARLES H. DICKINSON.
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The Stage (7 June, 1894 - p.14)
‘THE WONDER-WORKER.’
On Friday, June 1, 1894, was produced at the Royal, Margate, a new and original play, in three acts, by Stuart Cumberland, entitled:—
The Wonder-Worker.
Asa ... ... ... ... Mr. Berte Thomas Alexander Walton ... ... Mr. Metcalfe Wood Edward Walton ... ... Mr. Cosmo Stuart General Hiram P. Walker ... Mr. J. Denis Coyne Robert Doncaster ... ... Mr. Temple G. Stamm Benjamin Nathan ... ... Mr. William J. Miller Evelyn Walton ... ... Miss Evelyn Neillda Mrs. Moxon ... ... Miss Ethel Christian Rose Moxon ... ... Miss Louise Cove Jenkins ... ... Miss Travers
Though now produced for the first time, this play was written some three years ago, and it may be remembered that when Robert Buchanan’s play, The Charlatan, was produced at the Haymarket in January, a discussion took place between the two authors with regard to certain alleged similarities of plot, situations, and dialogue. The plot is well defined and unencumbered by side issues. Asa, a young student of mysticism and an “adept,” has been discovered in Bombay, in a destitute condition, by one General Hiram P. Walker, an American company promoter and theosophist, who, seeing an opportunity of using the magnetic powers possessed by Asa for financial purposes, renders him assistance, and concludes an alliance by which Asa undertakes to further the General’s financial schemes. The whole of the action takes place in the drawing-room of Mr. Alexander Walton’s residence in Grosvenor-square. Mr. Walton is a London financier, into whose family circle, Asa, who adds to his magnetic gifts and agreeable person, has been introduced by the General and his associate, Benjamin Nathan, editor of the Financial Slasher. The family circle consists of Walton’s daughter Evelyn (in love with Asa); his sister, Mrs. Moxon; his niece, Rose Moxon, and his son Edward. The last-named, seeing with anger the dangerous influence which Asa has over his father and sister, denounces him as an impostor, and desires him to leave the house. For a moment Asa is inclined to relinquish the dishonourable part he is playing and retire, but his love for Evelyn has grown too strong, and after some soliloquised self- reproaches and rending of soul, he decides to compromise by breaking with the General and leaving his fate in the hands of the ladies. He announces to them that he intends to leave them for ever, and, as he anticipated, they beg him to remain, and the curtain falls on Asa triumphant, Edward baffled. Act two opens with a conversation, which does not materially advance the plot, between Mrs. Moxon and her daughter Rose, whom she reproaches with materialism, in that she prefers “Ouida” to wonder-working. Their exit is followed by an interview, in which there is some smart dialogue, between Asa and the General, to whom he announces his intention of retiring from the partnership, of which Benjamin Nathan has become an active member, from conscientious motives; but learning that Miss Walton’s fortune has been invested by her father in a certain gold mining company which he controls, and out of the manipulation of which the confederates hope to make profit by obtaining information by means of Asa’s magnetic influence over Walton, Asa temporises, and does not openly break with his partners, thinking that his power over the father may enable him to serve their interests. Their departure is followed by the entrance of Walton with a telegram from the mine, announcing that it is played out. Walton, much perturbed, decides not to take advantage of his early information to save his own and his daughter’s money. Asa enters, and perceiving Walton’s distraction, and that the telegram is from the mine, decides to learn its contents by hypnotising him, and to compel him to save Evelyn’s money, notwithstanding that the professor, Dr. Doncaster, has warned him that Walton’s heart is affected. Walton is hypnotised, Asa learns the particulars of Evelyn’s investment, and causes Walton to write instructions to his brokers to sell her shares. This done, Walton falls back in his chair. Asa, unable to restore him, cries, “My God, he is dead!” and the curtain falls on an effective and dramatic situation. In the third act there is a very good scene between Evelyn and Asa, in which he confesses his imposture, and she confesses her love. It transpires that Walton is not dead. He fainted, but recovered; and when it also transpires that Asa’s motive was not the despicable one of personal profit, but the highly commendable one of saving Evelyn’s fortune, he is forgiven everything by everybody, including Edward. The play, which was produced at this theatre for copyright purposes, is perhaps more suited to a London than a provincial audience; but, nevertheless, it obtained a very favourable reception, and at the conclusion the author was called. Asa is not an impossibility; he is merely a man of strong magnetic nature, capable of exercising hypnotic powers over weaker natures, who facilitate his control by belief in his powers, and who is tempted into increasing his influence by trickery. The character gives opportunity for powerful acting. The Colonel is also a part which requires to be in strong hands, for, with the exception of Evelyn, the remaining parts are more or less subordinate. The characterisation is lucid, and perhaps the weak part of the play is its somewhat tame ending. Mr. Berte Thomas, who appeared by permission of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, by his strong personality and his fine voice and presence somewhat overshadowed the other performers, though great praise is due to Mr. J. Denis Coyne for his very able performance as General Hiram P. Walker, and also to Miss Evelyn Neillda, who imparted much charm to the character of Evelyn Moxon. Mr. Metcalfe Wood as Alexander Walton showed real ability, and Mr. Temple G. Stamm as the elderly savant displayed good powers of characterisation. Mr. Cosmo Stuart and Mr. W. J. Miller were clever as Edward Walton and the editor of the Financial Slasher respectively, and Miss Louise Cove played prettily as Rose Moxon. Miss Ethel Christian was a satisfactory Mrs. Moxon, Miss Travers was an efficient Jenkins, and, considering that the piece had been in rehearsal only six days, the whole Co. deserve great credit for the finished character of the performance.
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The World (New York) (8 July, 1894 - p.21)
THE STAGE ABROAD. _____
“The Wonder Worker,” Stuart Cumberland’s play, from which, he alleges, Robert Buchanan secured his inspiration for “The Charlatan,” was recently acted for copyright purposes at Margate. The play was well received, and in idea is not unlike the piece Beerbohm Tree produced earlier in the season at the Haymarket.
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The Daily Mail and Empire (20 July, 1895 - p.10)
Mr. George Alexander will shortly produce a psychological problem in one act, entitled “A Question of Conscience,” by Mr. Stuart Cumberland. It is quite a new departure, and will doubtless furnish material for reflections and controversy. Mr. Cumberland, who left England a fortnight ago, to attend to the production of his drama, “The Wonder Worker,” in Berlin, in which the famous actor Hon. Josef Kainz sustains the leading role, has just finished a new romantic play in four acts for Mr. E. S. Willard, who is anxious to encourage new writers for the stage.
[Back to The Charlatan]
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From Oscar Wilde as a Character in Victorian Fiction by Angela Kingston (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2007) (pp. 187-193).
Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray
The Charlatan (1895)
Two far more favourable Wildean fictions were published before the Wilde scandal erupted in April and May 1895. The fìrst of these was an adaptation of an 1894 drama featuring a younger, ‘fìrst phase’ Wildean aesthete named Mervyn Darrell. The Scottish journalist, poet, novelist and playwright Robert Williams Buchanan (1841-1901) was in the habit of including real personalities in his work; 1882’s The Martyrdom of Madeline, for example, contained portraits of Walter Pater, Edmund Yates, Henry Labouchere and himself. 725 Buchanan created the epigram-spouting Oxford student Darrell for his 1894 play The Charlatan, the story of a fraudulent occultist and his cohort Madame Obnoskin, and their influence over an aristocratic English family. (Obnoskin is a satirical portrait of Madame Blavatsky, also fictionalised in Rosa Praed’s Affinities, discussed in Part One.) Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the actor-manager and half-brother of Max Beerbohm, had commissioned the play for the Haymarket Theatre and played the title character. (The actor cast as Darrell in that production, Frederick Kerr, modelled his interpretation on Wilde. 726) The play enjoyed a modest success upon opening, and the story was soon serialised for newspaper publication before appearing in novel form in 1895, the novel being written in collaboration with Henry Murray. The novel of The Charlatan has been categorised as one of the many ‘potboilers’ Buchanan produced in the 1880s and 1890s to relieve financial difficulties. 727 Despite his premature baldness, Darrell is a throwback to the stereotypical Wildean aesthete of the 1880s, already examined in Part One. He is languid, supercilious and affects indifference on every subject save art, philosophy and himself (he avers ‘self is the only reality’):
Among the more frequent and favoured guests at Wanborough Castle was the Honourable Mr. Mervyn Darrell, a nephew of the Earl, a young gentleman
— 725 Christopher D. Murray, ‘Robert Buchanan’, Victorian Novelists After 1885, eds. Ira B. Nadel and William E. Fredeman, vol. 18, Dictionary of Literary Biography (Detroit: Gale Research, 1983) p.21. 726 Tanitch., Oscar Wilde on Stage and Screen p. 18. Kerr was doubtless coached by Tree, a friend of Wilde’s who had previously performed Wildean roles in Albery’s Where’s the Cat? and Cowley’s The Colonel in the 1880s. 727 Nash, Buchanan, Robert Williams, The Literary Encyclopedia, 1 May 2002. —
188 blessed with a couple of thousands a year, perfect nerves and digestion, a more than moderate share of intelligence, and a colossal belief in himself. One of his few earthly troubles was that he had but very recently left his teens ... There are a good many sorts of ambitions and aspirations in the world, and the Honourable Mervyn’s chief aspiration was to be superior to everything and everybody ... 728
Darrell studies at Oxford, where he is ‘doing the honours to a certain German Professor’ of metaphysics, perhaps a deliberately suggestive phrase. Like Wilde, Darrell is derisive in speaking of Dickens, referring to him as a ‘[v]ulgar optimist’. 729 Darrell’s Wildean philosophy is encapsulated in the novel he reads—The Sublimation of Personality, or the Quintessence of the Ego—whích he describes as
‘... an essay on the imperfections of human society. It shows, absolutely and conclusively, that everything is wrong except one’s inner self—that Society, Morality, Duty, Respectability, and the other shibboleths, are only terms to express various phases of exploded bourgeois superstition’. 730
Darrell’s cousin Lottie, in speaking of Mervyn’s post-university career, provides a tongue-in-cheek description of Wilde’s:
‘... At college you had the aesthetic scarlatina, and babbled about lilies, and sunflowers, and blue china. Then you became affected with Radicalism—went about disguised in corduroys, and lectured at Toynbee Hall. Then, after a few serious ailments, you caught the last epidemic, from which you are still suffering ... Individualism you call it, I believe; I call it the dumps’. 731
Darrell is described as having a ‘chubby, solid’ face, perhaps a reflection of the 1890s Wilde. 732 There may also be an updated reference to the contemporary Wilde in Darrell’s appreciation of ‘the aroma of social decay’ for purposes of artistic and intellectual inspiration. 733 This reference may have been inspired by the ‘questionable’ company Wilde was keeping in the mid-1890s, particularly lower-class ‘renters’; indeed, ‘intellectual and artistic inspiration’ was the justification Wilde offered for these acquaintances at trial.
— 728 Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray, The Charlatan (London: Chatto and Windus, 1896) p. 15. 729 lbid. pp. 21,211. 730 lbid. p. 19. 731 Ibid. P. 18. 732 Ibid. p. 88. 733 Ibid. p. 21. —
189 Although Buchanan’s portrait of Darrell is less than complimentary, it is not entirely damning. Mervyn chivalrously undertakes to locate Phillip Woodville, the charlatan of the title, who goes into hiding toward the end of the novel, for the sake of his cousin Lottie. Although Mervyn is acquainted with the fraudulent Woodville due to his interest in theosophy, they are not close friends. Darrell quickly perceives that Woodville is a ‘humbug’, although in true Wildean style he does not condemn “Woodville for it:
‘I have always had the greatest respect for impostors. They are men of genius, who perceive by instinct the utter absurdity of human existence. They only do on a small scale what the spirit of the Universe does on a large scale—conceal the sublimely hideous realtty with the amusing mask of Idealism’. 734
It soon becomes apparent that, despite the surface evidence to the contrary, Darrell is a well-meaning man with a ‘good heart’. Lottie remarks ‘You’re a good fellow, Mervyn ... when you aren’t posing and pretending to be something you’re not’. 735 This would appear to be an accurate refection of Buchanan’s own opinion of Wilde. Buchanan might initially appear an unlikely ally of the arch-aesthete, particularly in light of his scathing 1872 attack on Pre-Raphaelite aestheticism entitled ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry’, a pamphlet which emphatically derided the affectations and artistic ‘immorality’ of Rossetti and his circle. (Buchanan later regretted his attack on Rossetti, which earned him a reputation for insensitivity, hostility and cowardice, and symbolically dedicated a novel about the futility of hatred—God and the Man (1881)—to ‘The Old Enemy’. 736) Buchanan was a man whose outlook was heavily influenced by religious questioning; as his contemporary Archibald Stodart-Walker noted: ‘to Mr. Buchanan life is a serious concern and poetry a serious mission...’. 737 However, despite their opposing opinions on the relation of art to morality, Buchanan and Wilde had much in common. Both grew up in free-thinking
— 734 lbid. p.154. 735 Ibid. pp.19, 216. 736 Nash, Buchanan, Robert Williams. Dennis Denisoff has noted that ‘... as time passed and the direction of the tide of popularity and fame became more apparent, Buchanan refashioned himself as a critic who could appreciate these writers, even though his role in the cultivation of their fame had been based on disparagement'’.Denisoff, Aestheticism and Sexual Parody 1840-1940 p. 27. 737 Archibald Stodart-Walker, Robert Buchanan: The Poet of Modern Revolt (London: Grant Richards, 1901) p.305. —
190 households and both were socialists and humanitarians. Doubtless Buchanan, a strong believer in the brotherhood of man who wrote passionately on unpopular social themes like vivisection, censorship, religious hypocrisy and the victimisation of women, would have particularly appreciated Wilde’s fairy tales and essays which promoted humanitarian and utopian themes. Both were also avid admirers of Walt Whitman and visited the poet in America: Wilde in 1882, Buchanan in 1884. The history of Wilde and Buchanan’s relationship is a fascinating one. Wilde reviewed two of Buchanan’s works in 1887: his novel That Winter Night (in the Pall Mall Gazette of 2 May) and his play The Blue Bells of Scotland (in the Court and Society Review of 14 September). Wilde reviewed the former unfavourably (he declared the book ‘quite unworthy of any man of letters’), and the latter favourably (finding in it a great deal of curious and interesting lore about queer and interesting people’). We know that Wilde and Buchanan occasionally moved in the same social circles; both were present at an 1889 luncheon party given by Mrs and Mrs Skirrow, along with Marie Corelli, Robert Browning, Ellen Terry and Sir Henry Irving. 738 We also know that Wilde continued to see Buchanan's plays after The Blue Bells of Scotland; his letters show that he planned to attend performances of Dr Cupid in 1889 and Clarissa in 1890. 739 Whether Wilde and Buchanan were first acquainted socially, or whether they met as a consequence of Wilde’s patronage of Buchanan’s plays (Wilde often wrote personally to authors to congratulate them on their work), is unclear. It also appears that Buchanan was acquainted with Wilde’s brother Willie, as he mentions knowing two brothers by the name of Wilde in a letter to the editor of the Whitehall Review, thought to be written on 2l February 1890. 740 We also know that by 1891 the two authors had exchanged correspondence; a letter from Buchanan to Wilde dated 5 August 1891, recently drawn to the attention of Wilde scholars by Ian Small, reveals that Wilde sent Buchanan a presentation copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray soon after it was published in book form. 741 The letter also
— 738 Vyver, Memoirs of Marie Corelli pp. 91-92. 739 Wilde, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde pp. 390, 422. 740 Robert Buchanan, letter to E. C. K. Wilde, 21 February (circa 1890), Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, Delaware. 741 Small offers an explanation for Wilde sending Dorian Gray to Buchanan, a book whose themes were most unlikely to appeal to the latter: ‘Wilde, ever the opportunist, was simply attempting to enlist an ally, or at the very least attempting to forestall overt criticism from a potential opponent. The practice of mutual log-rolling—that is, of averting hostile criticism by enlisting one’s friends as potential and therefore favourable reviewers—was well-known among late nineteenth-century authors, and Wilde himself often indulged in it’. Small, Oscar Wilde Revalued: An Essay on New Materials and Methods of Research p. 71. —
191 reveals that the two men acknowledged their antithetical approaches to life, and demonstrates that Buchanan admired Wilde regardless:
My dear Oscar Wilde, I ought to have thanked you thus for your present of Dorian Gray, but I was hoping to return the compliment by sending you a work of my own: this I shall do in a very few days. You are quite right as to our divergence, which is temperamental. I cannot accept yours as a serious criticism of life. You seem to me like a holiday maker throwing pebbles into the sea, or viewing the great ocean from under the awning of a bathing machine. I quite see, however, that this is only your ‘fun’, and that your very indolence of gaiety is paradoxical, like your utterances. If I judged you by what you deny in print, I should fear that [you] were somewhat heartless. Having seen and spoken with you, I conceive that you are just as poor and self-tormenting a creature as any of the rest of us, and that you are simply joking at your own expense.
Don’t think me rude in saying that Dorian Gray is very very clever. It is more—it is suggestive and stimulating, and has (tho’ you only outlined it) the anxiety of a human Soul in it. You care far less about Art, or any other word spelt with a capital, than you are willing to admit, and [therein?] lies your salvation, as you will presently discover. Though here and there in your pages you parade the magnificence of the Disraeli waistcoat, that article of wardrobe fails to disguise you. One catches you constantly in puris naturalibus, and then the Man is worth observing. With thanks & all kind wishes, Yours truly, Robert Buchanan 742
While this letter demonstrates that the two authors were on friendly terms in 1891, in 1893 Buchanan was unable to resist a literary dig at Wilde and his ‘divergent’ temperament in his poem ‘The Dismal Throng’. This composition is a satiric denunciation of the ‘literature of a sunless Decadence’ and what Buchanan saw as its defining characteristics of ‘gloom, ugliness, prurience, preachiness, and weedy flabbiness of style’. 743 Among the authors he derides for their ‘dreary, dolent airs’, devoid of ‘Health ... Mirth, and Song’, are Zola, Verlaine, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Maupassant, George Moore, Mark Twain, George Meredith and Wilde:
And while they loom before our view, Dark’ning the air that should be sunny, Here’s Oscar, growing dismal too, Our Oscar, who was once so funny! Blue China ceases to delight The dear curl’d darling of society,
— 742 Ibid. p. 81. 743 Robert Buchanan, ‘The Dismal Throng’, The ldler 1893: p. 612. —
Changed are his breeches, once so bright, 192 For foreign breaches of propriety! 744
Despite his prior commendation of Dorian Gray as ‘suggestive and stimulating’, The Dismal Throng makes it clear that Buchanan remained far from appreciative of the literature of the English decadence. However, Buchanan’s satirical, yet relatively sympathetic portrait of Wilde in 1895’s Mervyn Darrell suggests that he retained a degree of respect for the self-proclaimed leader of the decadents. This hypothesis is also evinced by Buchanan’s protest against Wilde’s treatment in the press while awaiting trial in 1895. On 15, 19, 22 and 23 April 1895 Buchanan wrote a series of letters to the editor of the Star newspaper pleading for mercy towards ‘a brother artist’. The spirit of this correspondence is encapsulated in the following excerpt from his letter of 15 April:
Sir, Is it not high time that a little charity, Christian or anti-Christian, were imported into this land of Christian shibboleths and formulas? ... I for one, at any rate, wish to put on record my protest against the cowardice and cruelty of Englishmen towards one who was, until recently, recognised as a legitimate contributor to our amusement, and who is, when all is said and done, a scholar and a man of letters ... His case still remains sub judice ... Even if one granted for a moment that the man was guilty, would that be any reason for condemning work which we know in our hearts to be quite innocent? ... Let us ask ourselves, moreover, who are casting these stones, and whether they are those ‘without sin amongst us’ of those ‘who are notoriously corrupt. Yours etc. Robert Buchanan. 745
On 22 April Buchanan reiterated
... no criminal prosecution whatever will be able to erase his name from the records of English literature. That I say advisedly, though we are far as the poles asunder in every artistic instinct of our lives, and though on more than one occasion I have ridiculed some of his opinions. 746
Buchanan’s courageous and compassionate words, which implied an abiding belief in Wilde’s ‘good heart’ while society at large was baying for his blood, were long
— 744 lbid.: p. 610. It is not certain which ‘foreign breaches of propriety’ Buchanan refers to here; perhaps he ìntended Wilde’s recently published controversial play Salomé, written in French. Wilde’s latest overseas trip had been for a ‘rest cure’ in Bad Homberg in 1892, accompanied by Lord Alfred Douglas. However, Wilde’s biographers make no mention of any controversy or remarkable incident on that excursion. 745 Wilde, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde pp. 710-11n. 746 Jonathan Goodman, The Oscar Wilde File (W. H. Allen, 1988) p. 98. —
193 remembered by Wilde. In 1898 he sent Buchanan a copy of his poem ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ inscribed: ‘Robert Buchanan, from the author, in admiration and gratitude. Paris ’98’. 747
— 747 Ellman, Oscar Wilde p.526. —
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