Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde

by Franny Moyle

  14. Bertha Vyver, Memoirs of Marie Corelli (Alston Rivers, London, 1930).

  15. Sarasate signed Constance’s autograph book in 1889, and Corelli the following year.

  16. Corelli notes the shared popularity of Sarasate in her memoirs. In addi tion, in a letter to Lady Mount-Temple’s daughter Juliet, Constance notes: ‘I went to Marie Corelli’s and talked to Sarasate, rather an ordeal.’ Constance to Juliet Latour Temple, I9june 1889. BR 57/11/1.

  17. Marie Corelli, The Silver Domino, or Side Whispers, Social and Literary (Lamley & Co., London, 1892), p. 166.

  18. Two women with whom Constance was acquainted, Annie Besant and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, had taken up this opportunity.

  19. The Standard (18 Dec 1888).

  20. Constance to Mrs Stopes, undated. BL Add. MS 58454, Stopes Papers.

  21. BL Add. MS 58454.

  22. Constance to Otho, March 1888. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  23. Complete Letters, p. 365.

  24. Oscar mentions his wife’s ill health has taken her to Brighton. In a letter to Mrs Stopes on 13 March 1889 Constance revealed that ‘Mrs Charles Hancock is giving a drawing room meeting … I don’t expect to be at it unless I am better.’ BL Add. 58454.

  25. Constance to Juliet Latour Temple, 19 June 1889. BR 57/11/1.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Complete Letters, p. 411.

  29. Cyril inherited this tendency to over-reaction from Oscar, who was also known to be very sensitive and prone to tears. Lillie Langtry wit nessed this deep sensitivity in Oscar: ‘After a frank remark I made on one occasion, I happened to go to the theatre, and, as I sat in my box, I noticed a commotion in the stalls – it was Oscar who, having per ceived me suddenly, was being led away in tears.’ Langtry, The Days I Knew, pp. 82–3.

  30. Constance to Emily Thursfield, 1 Sept 1889. Clark Library.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 27 Nov 1890. BR 57/11/3. Russell Gurney, an eminent judge and Tory politician, and his wife, Emelia, were part of Lady Mount-Temple’s set.

  33. Constance lectured at the Somerville on 6 Nov 1888, on the topic: ‘Clothed in our right minds’. Women’s Penny Paper, 17 Nov 1888.

  34. Man About Town notes her involvement in its issue of 15 Nov 1890.

  35. Belfast Newsletter (16 Aug 1892). The writer also notes that the pioneer ladies were wearing a big smile at the prospect of a Gladstone government.

  36. Israel Zangwill, The Old Maids’ Club (Tait & Co., New York, 1892).

  Chapter 9: Qui patitur vincit

  1. Belfast Newsletter (1 Nov 1888).

  2. The York Herald (21 Dec 1888).

  3. Anna Kingsford to Speranza, 11 March 1884. BL Eccles 81731.

  4. Anna Kingsford to Constance, 20 July 1884. Clark Library.

  5. Molloy himself would become a member of the Golden Dawn, but not until 1893.

  6. George Bernard Shaw, The Diaries 1885–1897, vols 1 and 2, ed. Stanley Weintraub (Pennsylvania State University Press, Philadelphia, 1986), p 303.

  7. This description based on A. E. Waites’s memoir in the Occult Review (April 1919).

  8. Ellic Howe (ed.), The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn: The Letters of the Revd W. A. Ayton to F. L. Gardner and Others, 1886-1905 (Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1985).

  9. R. A. Gilbert, The Golden Dawn Companion (Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, 1986), pp. 43–4.

  10. Ibid., p. 31.

  11. Brémont, Oscar Wilde and His Mother, p. 13.

  12. Ibid.

  13. W. B. Yeats, Autobiographies: Reveries over Childhood and Youth and the Trembling of the Veil (Macmillan & Co., London, 1926), pp. 230–31.

  14. In 1893 Constance was in Italy and wrote to Myers: ‘I am enjoying so thoroughly my first visit to Italy and just before your letter came I had been gazing at the Raphael fresco in the Vatican, of St Peter being led out of prison by the angel. Do you remember the photograph of it at Babbacombe, and how you said it was an allegory to us of the delivery of the soul from the bondage of materialism?’ BL Eccles 8173. Constance’s letters to Lady Mount-Temple indicate that she took her friends Sir Hugh and Lady Low to meet Myers at the Psychical Research Society.

  15. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, St Andrew’s Day 1892. BR 57/17/6.

  16. Yeats, Autobiographies, p. 135.

  17. Constance to Juliet Deschamps, 8 June 1890. BR 57/11/12.

  18. The Sun (17 Nov 1889).

  19. Complete Letters, p. 426.

  20. McKenna, Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, p. 123.

  21. Amor, Mrs Oscar Wilde, p. 96.

  22. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Jan 1891. BR/45/2.

  Chapter 10: My own darling mother

  1. Richard Le Gallienne, The Romantic ’90s (Putnam & Co., London, 1951), p 103.

  2. ‘I had a delightful dinner with the Lows last evening and our conversation was chiefly on spiritual matters … they … (have) a great belief in spirituality as a Dynamite Force in the world. I think her enlightenment came through Professor Drummond as did mine too.’ Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 5 March 1891. BR 57/45/6.

  3. Constance to Emily Thursfield, 2 Sept 1889. Clark Library.

  4. Georgina’s own diary indicates meetings with Oscar on at least two occasions during the course of the year – one imagines when she called on Constance at home.

  5. Mr and Mrs Bowles, noted as talking at these Sunday lectures, were an apparently popular duo who also turned up in November 1889 talking to the Women’s Liberal Association on ‘The Difficulties of the Peace Question’, according to the Women’s Penny Paper (23 Nov 1889). This seems to indicate an interactivity and overlap between the political and religious groups to which Constance belonged.

  6. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 26 Dec 1890. BR 57/11/4.

  7. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 27 Dec 1890. BR 57/11/6.

  8. Le Gallienne, Romantic ’90s, p. 165.

  9. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 2 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/4.

  10. ‘I see a great deal now of Paradise Walk but I feel hopeless to do anything there. Still you begged me once to work there and they all come to me now to help them, so at any rate your part of the wish is fulfilled.’ Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Oct 1892. BR 57/48/13.

  11. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Jan 1891. BR 57/45/3.

  12. Aberdeen Weekly Journal (16 July 1890).

  13. Clark Library.

  14. Noted in Georgina’s diary, June 1890.

  15. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 6 Feb 1891. BR 57/45/4.

  16. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/11/19.

  17. ‘I do not attempt any explanation, that on each occasion the ancestral silver from my father’s side of the family was left untouched.’ V. Holland, Sow of Oscar Wilde, p. 42.

  18. Clark Library.

  19. BR 57/12/14.

  20. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 15 Oct 1891. BR 57/13/12.

  21. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 9 Oct 1891. BR 57/13/6.

  22. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 21 Oct 1891. BR 57/13/14.

  23. Lord Alfred Douglas, Autobiography (Seeker, London, 1929), p. 59.

  24. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 22 Oct 1891. BR 57/13/15.

  25. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 26 Oct 1891. BR 57/12/1.

  26. Some days were, by Constance’s own admission, ‘begun in deep depression’. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 12 Nov 1891. BR57/12/10. Speranza’s letters to Oscar at this time also relate that, despite her busy life, Constance felt lonely. In an account of a visit from Constance that November, her mother-in-law noted, ‘She is so nice to me always. I am very fond of her. Do come home. She is very lonely, and mourns for you.’ Clark Library.

  27. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 28 Oct 1891. BR 57/12/2.

  28. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 2 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/4.

  29. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 15 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/13. The play was Salome.

  30. Oscar w
as so evidently tempted by Rome as a young man that his half brother Henry Wilson made it a specification in his will that Oscar would only qualify for a small legacy he had left him on the basis that he was still an Anglican.

  31. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 12 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/10.

  32. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 20 Nov 1891. BR 57/12/16.

  33. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 27 Nov 1891. BR 57/14/4.

  34. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Nov 1891. BR 57/14/1.

  35. Undated letter from Oscar to Lady Mount-Temple. Private collection.

  36. ‘While in London one hides everything, in Paris one reveals everything … the lowest dive interests me as much as the most elegant café.’ McKenna, Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, p. 223.

  37. Constance to Otho, 22 July 1892. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  38. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/15/16.

  39. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 23 Aug 1892. BR 57/15/18.

  40. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/16/5. The line is in fact from Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’. Either Oscar misattributed the line, or Constance misremembered what Oscar said.

  41. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 1 Sept 1892. BR 57/16/6.

  42. Constance to Oscar, 3 Sept 1892. Clark Library.

  Chapter 11: A dark bitter forest

  1. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/14/93.

  2. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 10 Aug 1883. BR 57/49/11.

  3. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/50/5.

  4. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/14/93.

  5. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/50/02.

  6. Constance to Otho, 26 Oct 1892. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  7. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 16 Aug 1892. BR 57/15/11.

  8. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 17 Nov 1892. BR 57/17/10.

  9. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 4 Dec 1892. BR 57/46/7.

  10. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 12 Dec 1892. 57/18/6.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 16 Dec 1892. BR 57/46/8.

  13. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 21 Nov 1892. BR 57/17/12.

  14. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 2 Feb 1893. BR 57/46/10.

  15. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, from via Michele, Florence, 4 Feb 1893. BR 57/46/11.

  16. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 4 Feb 1893. BR 57/46/11.

  17. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 11 Feb 1893. BR 57/46/15.

  18. Complete Letters, p. 547.

  19. Complete Letters, p. 556.

  20. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 19 Feb 1893. BR 57/49/2.

  21. Complete Letters, p. 691.

  22. Ibid.

  23. ‘Saint C’ was the pet name for John Ruskin used by Lady Mount- Temple and others of his close friends. In his book on Florence, Ruskin wrote: ‘rise with the sun, and go to Santa Croce, with a good opera- glass in your pocket, with which you shall for once, at any rate, see an “opus” … Walk straight to the chapel on the right of the choir (“K” in your Murray’s guide). When you first get into it, you will see noth ing but a modern window of glaring glass, with a red hot cardinal in one pane – which piece of modern manufacture takes away at least seven-eighths of the light (little enough before) by which you might have seen what is worth sight. Wait patiently till you get used to the gloom. Then guarding your eyes from the accursed modern window as best you may, take your opera glass and look to the right, at the uppermost of the two figures beside it. It is St Louis, under campanile architecture, painted by – Giotto … or the last Florentine painter who wanted a job – over Giotto?’John Ruskin, Mornings in Florence (George Allen, London, 1875), p. 3.

  24. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 9 March 1893. BR 57/49/6.

  25. Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (20 April 1893).

  26. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 9 Sept 1893. BR 57/50/7.

  27. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 21 Aug 1893. BR 57/49/17.

  28. Complete Letters, p. 693.

  29. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/50/02.

  30. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 13 Sept 1893. BR 57/50/8.

  31. Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up (Icon Books, London, 1962), p. 98.

  32. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated. BR 57/50/02.

  33. E. Nister, A Dandy Chair (London, c. 1892)

  34. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 30 Sept 1893. BR 57/50/11.

  35. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 9 Oct 1893. BR 57/48/1.

  36. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 10 Oct 1893. BR 57/48/2.

  37. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 12 Oct 1893. BR 57/48/4.

  38. Complete Letters, p. 693.

  39. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 18 Oct 1983. BR 57/48/9.

  40. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 18 Oct 1893. BR 57/48/9.

  41. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 19 Oct 1893. BR 57/48/10.

  Chapter 12: Modern-day Martha

  1. Complete Letters, p. 693.

  2. Lord Cromer was Agent and Consul-General in Egypt at this time.

  3. Complete Letters, p. 575.

  4. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 30 Oct 1893. BR 57/47/2.

  5. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, All Souls’ Day 1893. BR 57/47/3.

  6. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 10 Nov 1893. BR 57/47/11.

  7. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 17 Nov 1893. BR 57/47/15.

  8. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 22 Oct 1893. BR 57/48/12.

  9. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 17 Nov 1893. BR 57/47/15.

  10. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 29 Nov 1893. BR 57/47/17.

  11. Complete Letters, p. 695.

  12. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated BR 57/19/10.

  13. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, undated BR 57/19/11.

  14. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 11 March 1894. BR 57/20/2.

  15. New York Times (10 Dec 1893).

  16. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 10 Oct 1893? BR 57/17/3.

  17. This scene was recounted in court by Wilde. McKenna, Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, p. 385.

  18. Constance to Otho, 8 June 1892. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  19. Constance to Arthur Humphreys, 1 June 1894. BL Eccles 81732.

  20. Constance to Arthur Humphreys, 11 August 1894. BL Eccles 81732.

  21. This sum is revealed in Constance’s letter to her brother Otho dated 31 August 1894. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  22. Henry Scott Holland, A Lent in London: A Course of Sermons on Social Subjects Organized by the London Branch of the Christian Social Union and Preached during Lent 1895 (Longman, London, 1895).

  23. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 11 Aug 1894. BR 57/20/11.

  24. Complete Letters, p. 599.

  25. Ibid., p. 623.

  26. Oscar to Bosie, August 1894. Complete Letters, p. 598.

  27. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 25 Aug 1894. BR 57/20/14.

  28. Constance to Otho, 31 Aug 1894. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  29. Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, p. 421.

  30. Oscar to Bosie, 8 Sept 1894. Complete Letters, p. 607.

  31. Constance to Otho, 31 Aug 1894. MSS collection of Merlin Holland.

  32. Scribbled in the back pages of Otho’s copy of Leonard Ingleby’s Oscar Wilde. MSS collection of John Holland.

  33. Constance to Arthur Humphreys, 22 Oct 1894. Clark Library.

  34. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 10 Nov 1894. BR 57/21/16.

  35. ‘Your letter puzzles me very much, but I have finally come to the conclusion that your suggestion is for the best and that I will come to you later on after the boys go back to school.’ Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 8 Dec 1894. BR- 57/22/4.

  36. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 8 Dec 1894. BR 57/22/4.

  37. The Clark Library holds a response to one such greeting from Florence Stoker, née Balcombe.

  38. Vyvyan Holl
and, Son of Oscar Wilde, p. 55.

  39. Constance to Lady Mount-Temple, 31 Dec 1894. BR 57/22/7.

  40. BL Eccles 81727.

  41. Complete Letters, p. 634.

  42. Both Willie and Speranza also felt that Oscar should face the courts rather than flee, as a matter of honour.

  43. Constance to Robbie Ross, 12 March 1895. Clark Library.

  44. In letters between Jane Simon and Lady Mount-Temple after Constance’s death, Laura recounted that Aunt Napier had strongly advised against surgery, as had Constance’s doctors. BR 57/23/4.

  45. This anecdote was copied by Otho from an unknown source. MSS collection of John Holland.

  46. Pall Mall Gazette (28 March 1895).

  47. Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde (Constable & Co., London, 1938), p. 138.

  48. BL Eccles 81732.

  49. Douglas, Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up, p. 97.

  Chapter 13: The strife of tongues

  1. Complete Letters, p. 637.

  2. H. Montgomery Hyde, Oscar Wilde: The Aftermath (Methuen, London, 1963), p. 227.

  3. Ellen Terry to Constance, ‘Thursday’, undated. MSS collection of John Holland.

  4. MSS collection of John Holland.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Autograph letter to Juliet Latour Temple, undated. BR 54/13.

  8. Susie to Constance, dated 7 April 1895. MSS collection of John Holland.

  9. Vyvyan Holland, Son of Oscar Wilde, p. 61.

  10. MSS collection of John Holland.

  11. Vyvyan Holland, Son of Oscar Wilde, p. 61.

  12. Philip Burne-Jones to Constance, 11 April 1895. MSS collection of John Holland.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Constance to Mrs Robinson, 19 April 1895. BL Eccles 8173.

  16. Mrs Robinson to Constance, undated MSS collection of John Holland.

  17. Speranza to Constance. MSS Collection of John Holland.

  18. Vyvyan Holland, Son of Oscar Wilde, p. 62.

  19. A subsequent letter from Arthur Clifton contained a cheque for fy 2s 9d, ‘for the last two weeks hotel bills ending the 4thJuly’, and another cheque for ‘£6 payable to Mme Schuwer’. These, it seems, were the expenses incurred by the boys and their French governess, now being met by the generosity of friends. Clifton went on to say that ‘about £63 or £64 has been spent of the money raised for the children. £25 went in travelling and two months salary at the outset and since the boys started I have written cheques for £39.’ Arthur Clifton to Constance, 14 July 1895. MSS collectionjohn Holland.