Before he had listened long, I have been told, the youth declared his
admiration passionately. They were an extraordinary pair and were
complementary in a hundred ways, not only in mind, but in character.
Oscar had reached originality of thought and possessed the culture of
scholarship, while Alfred Douglas had youth and rank and beauty,
besides being as articulate as a woman with an unsurpassable gift of
expression. Curiously enough, Oscar was as yielding and amiable in
character as the boy was self-willed, reckless, obstinate and
imperious.
Years later Oscar told me that from the first he dreaded Alfred
Douglas' aristocratic, insolent boldness:
"He frightened me, Frank, as much as he attracted me, and I held away
from him. But he wouldn't have it; he sought me out again and again
and I couldn't resist him. That is my only fault. That's what ruined
me. He increased my expenses so that I could not meet them; over and
over again I tried to free myself from him; but he came back and I
yielded--alas!"
Though this is Oscar's later gloss on what actually happened, it is
fairly accurate. He was never able to realise how his meeting with
Lord Alfred Douglas had changed the world to him and him to the world.
The effect on the harder fibre of the boy was chiefly mental: to
Alfred Douglas, Oscar was merely a quickening, inspiring, intellectual
influence; but the boy's effect on Oscar was of character and induced
imitation. Lord Alfred Douglas' boldness gave Oscar _outrecuidance_,
an insolent arrogance: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in
aristocratic disdain. Without knowing the cause the change in Oscar
astonished me again and again, and in the course of this narrative I
shall have to notice many instances of it.
One other effect the friendship had of far-reaching influence. Oscar
always enjoyed good living; but for years he had had to earn his
bread: he knew the value of money; he didn't like to throw it away; he
was accustomed to lunch or dine at a cheap Italian restaurant for a
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