Читать книгу Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters - Оскар Уайльд, Merlin Holland, F. H. Cornish - Страница 56

[9 February 1882] Prospect House, Niagara Falls, Canada Side

My dear Mr Lewis, Things are going on very well, and you were very kind about answering my telegrams. Carte blundered in leaving me without a manager, and Forbes through the most foolish and mad jealousy tried to lure me into a newspaper correspondence. His attack on me, entirely unprovoked, was one of the most filthy and scurrilous things I ever read – so much so that Boucicault and Hurlbert of the World both entreated me to publish it, as it would have brought people over to my side, but I thought it wiser to avoid the garbage of a dirty-water-throwing in public. It was merely on Forbes’s part that the whole thing began, I really declining always to enter into any disquisition. I will show you his letter – it was infamous. He has been a dreadful failure this year and thought he would lure me on to a public quarrel.

I am hard at work, and I think making money, but the expenses seem very heavy. I hope to go back with £1000: if I do it will be delightful.

Your friend Whitelaw Reid, to whom I brought two letters of introduction, has not been very civil – in fact has not helped me in any way at all. I am sorry I brought him any letters, and the New York Herald is most bitter. I wonder could you do anything for it? Pray remember me to Mrs Lewis, and with many thanks, yours most affectionately

OSCAR WILDE