And here, I suppose, lies the great difference between the mirror of Art and the mirror of popular opinion: the mirror of Art is not broken in a tantrum when the object becomes less acceptable to the public gaze. But the public is shocked in its sense of decency when it finds it has been looking at itself under an alias, applauding its own sorry features in the mask of success. The mask falls away, and there, instead, are the quite ordinary features of a poor human criminal, very like all the rest of us, if only it could be known: no wonder, then, that the mirror gets broken. In the mirror there is no such break: the interest holds on. And so, from the non-popular standpoint, I had sufficient reason for putting on record my last meeting with so conspicuous a failure as Oscar Wilde. Our previous acquaintance, except by correspondence, had been very slight. Only once before had I met him at a friend’s house. He was then at the height of his fame and success, and I an unknown beginner, still undecided whether to be book-illustrator or author. But I had recently published a short story, with illustrations of my own, in the _Universal Review_; and a few minutes after our introduction Mr. Wilde turned and, addressing me for the first time, said: “And when, pray, are we to have another work from your pen?” Like most of his remarks, the enquiry was phrased with a certain decorative solemnity, in excess of what the occasion required; but the kindness and the courtesy of it were very real, and of course it pleased and encouraged me. I learned later that a certain descriptive phrase, “The smoke of their wood-fires lay upon the boughs, soft as the bloom upon a grape,” had attracted him in my story; he had quoted it as beautiful, adding that one day he should use it himself, and, sure enough, in _The Picture of Dorian Grey_, I came upon it not long afterwards, slightly altered; and again I was pleased and complimented; for it meant that he had really liked something in my story, and had not praised merely to please. I did not see him again to speak to, until we met in Paris some seven years later, the year before his death. Upon his release from prison I had sent him my recently published book, _All-Fellows: seven legends of lower Redemption_, hoping that its title and contents would say something on my behalf, which, in his particular case, I very much wished to convey. A fortnight later a courteous and appreciative letter reached me from the south of France, telling me incidentally that by the same post had come a copy of _A Shropshire Lad_, sent with the good wishes of the author, whom he had never met. “Thus you and your brother,” he wrote, “have given me a few moments of that rare thing called happiness.” From that time on I sent him each of my books as they appeared, and received letters of beautifully ornate criticism; and as I passed through Paris on my way back from Italy in the autumn of 1899, we met once more in the company of friends.