From WolfWikis

ENG 463: The Victorian Period

Cari Corbett

Contents 1 Robert Baldwin Ross 2 Class, Tradition, and Money 2.1 Class & Tradition 2.2 Money 3 Working Life 4 Science and the Urban World 4.1 Science 4.2 The Urban World 5 Government & the Law 5.1 Government 6 House, Food, and Clothes 6.1 Clothes 6.2 House 7 Family and Social Rituals 8 Education 9 Health and Medicine 10 Sport and Recreation 11 Religion and Reform 12 Morality 13 England/Empire 14 References

Robert Baldwin Ross

Robert "Robbie" Baldwin Ross (May, 25, 1869 - October 5, 1918) was a French-born Canadian-descendant English writer, journalist, art critic, and literary executor. Today his fame arises primarily from his close association with Oscar Wilde, the Aesthetic Movement, and many individually acclaimed artists.

Artists with whom Ross was connected:

• Irish playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde, with whom Ross' life is integrally entwined.
• Wilde-illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, who Ross himself wrote autobiographically on.
• Wilde-biographer and writer Frank Harris, whom Ross helped with his account of Wilde.
• Sculptor Jacob Epstein, by commissioning Wilde's tomb, which Ross now shares.
• WWI poet Wilfred Owen, with whom Ross maintained close artistic relations.

Ross' Pound-like artistic associates:

Class, Tradition, and Money

"Are not the rich and poor brothers?" asked the young King.

"Ay," answered the man, "and the name of the rich brother is Cain."

-Oscar Wilde, The Young King ^[4]

Class & Tradition

By Victorian England's strict class distinctions, it is difficult to tell if Ross was upper-class or upper-middle-class. First, he was not English born; Ross was born in Tours, France, but age of one moved to Canada. After the death of his father in 1871, the 2-year old Ross moved with his family to London. ^[5] Here he was educated, and attended Cambridge for a short time, writing controversially in the university's journal. Ross dropped out of Cambridge after a bout with bullying that climaxed with a dunking in a Cambridge quad.

Ross worked, but with his mind, not with his hands. He was a critic, editor, writer, journalist, and executor. What money he made at such efforts, however, was not to support himself; he lived off of family inheritance, and further allowances from relatives. Ross' relations included power and fame in the likes of Robert Baldwin, Ross' grandfather, who was one of the first democratically-elected leaders of Canada and arguably that country's first Prime Minister.

Through his literary work itself greater light is shed upon his rank in Victorian class-structured society. In "Swinblake: a Prophetic Book, with Zarathrusts," an essay-like fictional flourish full of allusion on the subject of Blake and Swindborne, Ross writes:

We came to a printing-house and found William Morris reverting to type and transmitting art to the middle classes.

‘The great Tragedy of Topsy’s life,’ said Theodormon, ‘is that he converted the middle classes to art and socialism, but he never touched the unbending Tories of the proletariat or the smart set. You would have thought, on homœopathic principles, that cretonne would appeal to cretins.’ ^[6]

First, the reader is drawn to the language Ross employs; it is not that of the "common" language which Wordsworth and prior poets so grandly espoused. The language we find here is riddled with "educated" word choice and word play. Intellectual word sound play may be seen in "cretonne" to "cretin." Ross also indulges in the typical "educated" topics of art and politics. From this we see a distinction between the chosen speaker and the “middle classes.” The tone of this selection connotes an "us and them" quality. Even if Ross is writing in fictional voice entirely devoid of his own, the picture drawn for us is still one of class distinction, and one where the semi-fictional character portrayed is that of the upper-class.

In Masques & Phases is seen the stereotypical upper-class education in the inclusion of Latin, where piece titles include:

• EGO ET MAX MEUS. (Rough translation: I and my Max)
• NON ANGELI SED ANGLI. (Rough translation: Not Angels but Angels) ^[8]

These titles lend an air of aristocracy to Ross' works and, coupled with his dependency upon allowances and inheritance and his having attended Cambridge, seem to hint towards coming from the higher tiers, though his seeming work ethic, and his money-wise nature stereotypically associated with middle-classes continue to muddle the clarity of Ross' place in the class system of Victorian England.

Class is not always as simple as birth, or money,^[9] so we must turn to opinion.

First, in Ross's own playful tone, he recounts in The Bystander a moment in his youth, in which he references of both his Scottish clan, family, and his thoughts of himself as a kilted youth, as he was accustomed to don such wear at times:

The Ross tartan is particularly hideous, and wounded my nascent Aesthetic sense. We were not even entitled to wear it, having no connection with he noble family that bears our name...However, [the kilt] must have attracted the attention of the author of Sartor Resartus [Tomas Carlyle, Ross seems to always have been connected]. He patted my head on several occasions, and addressed me in a language generally incomprehensible to my little Cockney ears. One day he inquired my name. I replied that it was Bobby. He animadverted thereon, in words I do not profess to remember, and urged that it should be Robbie - a reminiscence, no doubt, of Burns. ^[10]

Fryer, Ross's biographer, notes that "by no stretch of the imagination could [Ross be] justifiably called a cockney, even though he chose London as his main residence for much of his life" and that Ross always spoke with a definitive Canadian accent, a point that gives homage back to his Canadian father and grandfather, the second of whom is mentioned earlier in this discourse of class. ^[11]

For a contemporary's view on the matter of class, we turn to Oscar Wilde. Though opinion is opinion, it is interesting to see the distinctions made and it is touching to read. In a letter to Ross on the topic of Lord Alfred Douglas’ rising cruelty towards Ross, Wilde lends a final fullness to the picture of Ross’ social status:

As regards Bosie, I feel you have been, as usual, forbearing and sweet, and too good-tempered. What he must be made to feel is that his vulgar and ridiculous assumption of social superiority must be retracted and apologized for. I have written to him to tell him that ‘’quand on est gentilhomme on est gentilhomme’’, and that for him to try and pose as your social superior because he is the third son of a Scotch marquis and you are the third son of a commoner is offensively stupid. There is no difference between gentlemen. Questions of titles are matters of heraldry—no more. I wish you would be strong on this point; the thing should be thrashed out of him. As for his coarse ingratitude in abusing you, to whom, as I have told him, I owe any possibility I have of a new and artistic career, and indeed of life at all, I have no words in which to express my contempt for his lack of imaginative insight, and his dullness to sensitive nature. It makes me quite furious. So pray write, when next you do so, quite calmly, and say that you will not allow any nonsense of social superiority and that if he cannot understand that gentlemen are gentlemen and nor more, you have no desire to hear again from him. ^[12]

Money

"I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, and I never pay mine."

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray ^[14]

Robert Ross and Oscar Wilde are forever entwined, not only for their love affair and artistic relationship, but also for their relationship over money. Wilde often fell into money troubles after his release from prison, however before, during, and after Wilde's imprisonment Ross handled money, people, and many other affairs of his friend Wilde's life.

We see in a passage from Frank Harris' Oscar Wilde" one such occurrence at the time of the trial. After "judgment had been given in favor of Queensbury," Ross was given the task of obtaining ₤200 from Wilde. The thought is that he had intended to flee, but there seems to be no other sign of this intention; Wilde seemed intent on staying. Ross was then given task of informing Wilde's wife, Constance, what had occurred. She, too, urged that he should flee, but still he was not assuaged into compliance. Ross was also sent as Wilde's representative to a reporter that came to speak to him. The reporter informed that a warrant was already out for Wilde. ^[15]

A moment later Oscar asked Ross to give him the money he had got at the bank, though he had refused it several times in the course of the day. Ross gave it to him, naturally taking it for a sign that he had at length made up his mind to start, but immediately afterwards Oscar settled down in his chair and said, "I shall stay and do my sentence whatever it is"...

We see money rise again between the two friends after Wilde rises again from prison, and is living in Paris. He lends and borrows, and harps about Frank Harris (whom he thinks owes him money in regards to a play) not paying him in full. Money takes over his thoughts, at times, and his health worsens, until there are many scenes between the two that are heart-wrenchingly occupied with finance. Despite having claimed in his fictional works otherwise, Wilde's conscience was plagued with debts, especially near the end of his days. He became obsessed with debt, and obsessed that his debts be paid off, especially after death. We see this affixation portrayed in a letter Ross writes, accounting Wilde's last days, in many instances.

• Ross names three persons, then says:

"had all given Oscar ₤100 on different occasions, and all had threatened Harris with proceedings--Harris, therefore, only gave Oscar ₤50 on account, as he was obliged to square these people first--hence Oscar's grievance...."Frank has deprived me of my only course of income by taking a play on which I could have always have raised ₤100.""

• Ross relays Wilde's comments upon money, in one of their last conversations, before Wilde's death:

"He [Wilde] said he did not care if he had only a short time to live and then went off on to the subject of his debts, which I gather amounted to something over more than ₤400 [later found to be ₤620]. He asked me to see that at all events some of them were paid if I was in the position to do so after he was dead; he suffered remorse about some of his creditors....I felt anxious. that night I wrote to Douglas saying that I was compelled to leave Paris--that the doctor thought Oscar very ill--that...ought to pay some of his bills as they worried him very much, and the matter was retarding his recovery."

Through this, we see how important finances were even to the man who wrote, in The Picture of Dorian Gray: "[money] is only people who pay their bills who want that, and I never pay mine."

• In their last conversation, Wilde again mentions his debts.

I got up to go. Suddenly Oscar asked Reggie...to leave the room for a minute, as he wanted to say good-bye. He rambled at first about his debts in Paris: and then he implored me not to go away...Suddenly he broke into violent sobbing, and said he would never seem me again because he felt that everything was at an end--this very painful incident lasted about three-quarters of an hour.

• Ross mentions money once more in his letter in regards to discussing, after Wilde's death, with the proprietor of the hotel Wilde's debt there.

Just before I left Paris Oscar told me he owed him [the proprietor, John Dupoirier] over ₤190. From the day Oscar was laid up he never said anything about it. He never mentioned the subject to me until after Oscar's death, and then I never started the subject. He was present at Oscar's operation, and attended to him personally every morning. He paid himself for luxuries and necessities ordered by the doctor or by Oscar out of his own pocket. I hope that--or--will at any rate pay him the money still owing. Dr. Tucker is also owed a large sum of money. ^[17]

Working Life

I see no future for any of the arts except needlework, of which, I am told, there is a hopeful revival.

-Robert Ross, in "The Jaded Intellectuals. A Dialogue."

But what is the difference between literature and journalism?...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.

-Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891

Ross' work was that of association. If it was editing, managing, hiring, it is through his connection with other artists that the great work of his life is achieved. However, he did do some creative and non-fictional work of his own, the most famous of which are Masques & Phases, a collection of his various works, and Aubrey Beardsley, on Beardsley's art and life.

Using Gutenberg’s copy of Masques & Phases as a text corpus, we can learn through the number of certain general words Ross’ literary preoccupation with certain subjects.

Subjects Searched:

• Hate- 1

• Earnest-2

• Money-8

• Love- 25

• Artist-23

• Art-94

• Work-96

Work, in its different uses through out this collection of Ross’ own work, shows his almost constant occupation (for the collection is fairly short, especially when compared to contemporary Victorian authors) with the meanings of “work.” We will be using "word" of "work" to identify with the appearance of "work" in its different forms, verbs (working), adjective (work horse), noun (art work), and as parts of compound nouns (needlework).

Now that we have a healthy number of uses of one word, “work,” we may now annotate its uses, then analyze the respective meanings in terms of Ross’ and his outlook on working life, through a few quotes. Work and art in Ross' writing are very much intertwined. We have many occurrences of Ross' calling an artistic piece a "work." Other usages utilize the word's ability to term a particular type of manual labor, such as "wicker-work," or "needlework."

One interesting use of the term "work" appears in a short biography Ross wrote, which appears in Masques and Phases. The biography is on Simeon Solomon, a Pre-Raphaelite painter who was jailed twice: once in 1873 for public exposure (with a sentence of 18 months, which was lessened to police supervision), and "Simeon spent his final years living alternately in the St. Giles Workhouse and on the street. He often was reduced to begging." ^[21] In an excerpt from this biography, Ross writes for us a picture of the work (both his and a portrait of the artist in question), as well as using the term "work", in reference to Solomon's inability to work, or rather produce "works".

When I had the pleasure of seeing him last, so lately as 1893, he was extremely cheerful and not aggressively alcoholic. Unlike most spoilt wastrels with the artistic temperament, he seemed to have no grievances, and had no bitter stories or complaints about former friends, no scandalous tales about contemporaries who had remained reputable; no indignant feeling towards those who assisted him. This was an amiable, inartistic trait in his character, though it may be a trifle negative; and for a positive virtue, as I say, he enjoyed his drink, his overpowering dirt, and his vicious life. He was full of delightful and racy stories about poets and painters, policemen and prisons, of which he had wide experience. He might have written a far more diverting book of memoirs than the average Pre-Raphaelite volume to which we look forward every year, though it is usually silent about poor Simeon Solomon. Physically he was a small, red man, with keen, laughing eyes.

By 1887 he entirely ceased to produce work of any value. He poured out a quantity of pastels at a guinea apiece. They are repulsive and ill-drawn, with the added horror of being the shadows of once splendid achievements. Long after his name could be ever mentioned except in whispers, Mr. Hollyer issued a series of photographs of some of the fine early sanguine, Indian ink, and pencil drawings. The originals are unique of their kind. It is very easy to detect the unwholesome element which has inspired many of them, even the titles being indicative: ‘Sappho,’ ‘Antinous,’ ‘Amor Sacramentum.’ One of the finest, ‘Love dying from the breath of Lust,’ of which also he painted a picture, became quite popular in reproduction owing to the moral which was screwed out of it. ^[22]

We see "workhouse" appear in the following quote, as to exemplify the 'shakespeares that may be in workhouses'. The overall work semblance gathered from this excerpt of Ross's work of fiction "A Case at the Museum" is of art, forgery, and the art of science.

‘If you knew it was a forgery, why did you waste my time and your own in bringing it here? In order to tell me a long story about yourself, which if true is extraordinarily dull?’

It is almost an established convention for experts to be rude when they have given an adverse opinion on anything submitted to them. It gives weight to their statements. In the present case, however, the Professor was really annoyed.

‘I wanted to know if you recognised the papyrus,’ said Carrel, and he smiled disingenuously. The Professor was startled.

‘Yes; it was offered to me in Cairo last winter by a German dealer in antiquities. I recognised it at once. May I felicitate the talented author?’

‘No. You would have been taken in if I were the author.’

Professor Lachsyrma waved a white hand, loaded with scarabs and gems, in a deprecatory, patronising manner towards Carrel.

‘I must apologise if I have wronged you. I am hardened to these little amenities between brother palæographers. Envy, jealousy, call it what you will, attacks those in high places. There may be unrecognised artists, mute inglorious Miltons, Chattertons, starving in garrets, Shakespeares in the workhouse, while dull modern productions are applauded on the silly English stage, and poetasters are crowned by the Academies; but believe me that in Archæology, in the deciphering of manuscripts, the quack is detected immediately. The science has been carried to such a state of perfection that, if our knowledge is still unhappily imperfect, our materials inadequate, the public recognition of our services quite out of proportion to our labours, there is now no permanent place for the charlatan or the forger. ^[23]

Ross's own work is disscussed in following sections in different facets, however, a few quotes here may be of service to give a glimpse of work. Ross was always a connected man, and defined by those whom he helped, served, and befriended. We see in this quote from William Butler Yeats, Ross' involvment in the arts, as well as tight times for money that befell artists and others with the first World War.

1916 [the year of Yeats's famous poem, "Easter, 1916"]

My dear Ross, You ask me to put my name to the Mĕstrović circular [a purchase fund, "from which was bought a low-relief wooden panel...presented to the Tate Gallery in 1919]. I would do so with great pleasure for I have much admiration for his work, more indeed than for any sculptor of our time, but I could hardly do so without giving a subscription and that, alas, I cannot afford. I am just now discovering how the war has cut off my funds.

W.B. Yeats ^[24]

In 1917, Ross is sent a letter inviting him to join a committee. The letter is marked from number 10, Downing Street.

Dear Sir, The first Lord of Treasury desires me to inform you that after consideration with the Trustees of the National Gallery it has been decided to constitute a seperate Board of Trustees for the National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery).

The new Board will consist of ten members....The tenure of office for these Additional Trustees will be seven years.

Mr. Lloyd George [the then Prime Minister, taking over after H. H. Asquith] is anxious that the new Board should be of a fullly representative character, and he would be much gratified to hear that you would consent to serve on it.

J.T. Davies ^[25]

Ross served on this new board, though it contained eight members instead of the planned ten. This letter, and Yeats' letter, give us a glimpse of Ross's late working life.

Science and the Urban World

Science

Ross finds himself fascinated with the science of Archeology in his Masques & Phases, speaking often of it in his fiction, or having his plot revolve around its study. He speaks as to fame for museums of the science: "Everyone who knows anything about art, archæology, or science has heard of the famous FitzTaylor Museum at Oxbridge." He mentions in many instances such curators, and toilers in the realms of thought, and often associates the craft with the intense studies that can occur in the arts. Speaking of dead poets' works, Ross, in his work "The Eleventh Muse," references Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer in allusion through his word choice "the survival of the unfittest," as he speaks more specifically to writing a creative work to conjure a dead man's life, for the great dead men of the world "cannot retort."

And the entertaining volume would illustrate that curious artistic law—the survival of the unfittest, of which we are only dimly beginning to realise the significance. It is like the immortality of the invalid, now recognised by all men of science. You see it manifested in the plethora of memoirs. All new books not novels are about great dead men by unimportant little living ones. When I am asked, as I have been, to write recollections of certain ‘people of importance,’ as Dante says, I feel the force of that law very keenly.

Through a look at those around and influencing Ross' and all of Victorian England, we may better see this topic of "science" in its proper lights. The above passage well suits to set up one such an "unimportant little living one," Frank Harris, and his biographical works on "great dead men," such as Wilde and as we shall see Shakespeare, as a source of Ross' science.

Frank Harris, biographer of Wilde and close associate of Ross, wrote, in his lengthy work on Shakespeare, a short analogy between the literatures and the sciences. His metaphor was drawn from Realistic depiction as a science. He is speaking of how he himself shall depict Shakespeare, in the following pages of The Man Shakespeare:

And this work of description and classification should be done as a scientist would do it: for criticism itself has at length bent to the Time-spirit and become scientific. And just as in science, analysis for the moment has yielded pride of place to synthesis, so the critical movement in literature has in our time become creative. The chemist, who resolves any substance into its elements, is not satisfied till by synthesis he can re-create the substance out of its elements: this is the final proof that his knowledge is complete. And so we care little or nothing to-day for critical analyses or appreciations which are not creative presentments of the person. "Paint him for us," we say, "in his habit as he lived, and we will take it that you know something about him."

Harris wishes a scientifically realistic, yet creative in its lively re-enlivenment, depiction of a once living person. Such a depiction Harris attempted to create with Shakespeare, and with Wilde. Harris' ideas on biography, creativity, and the science thereof, cast Victorian light upon the feelings towards science: new, and to be strived for.

To paint a moment about Wilde, in Harris' biography, he relays the words of a childhood friend of Wilde's on Wilde's childhood intellectual admirations towards the amours of science:

[Wilde] never took any interest in mathematics either at school or college. He laughed at science and never had a good word for a mathematical or science master, but there was nothing spiteful or malignant in anything he said against them; or indeed against anybody.

Science was admired, to varying degrees, but not the main focus. Ross saw it as an admirable intellectual pursuit; Harris, a proper analogy. To Wilde, as were many things in life, was science a laughing matter.

The Urban World

All manner of Artists greatly influenced the Aesthetes during the Victorian Era. Their influence in crafting a picture of the then modern world for the Aesthetes is no exception. Through the eyes of the modern artists, we might see through the eyes of those they influenced, namely Ross' and his comrades, too, in art.

One such influential artist is Guy de Maupassant. The influence of Wilde's literary contemporary, Maupassant, upon Wilde is undeniable, after reading his letters. Wilde, writing of Maupassant in a personal letter, gives a good Aesthetics' view of the French author.

I have been reading much of Maupassant lately, and I now find much tenderness in him—a great pity for life....Balzac would have been filled at wonder at it.

Maupassant paints in quite realistic terms the world around him, hence he often depicts the new urban situation, including transportation by train, cab, and omnibus. In this page excerpt, we see depicted in "Love's Awakening" a plot-central omnibus of the Victorian period; this omnibus serves a young married man the cover by which he strips his newly wed wife of her dowry escaping with all her capital, all without her noticing until it is too late. We see here the attitudes towards the luxury of a cab, and the common economy of the omnibus, as well as a word to middle-class morals of thriftiness, and of course a depiction visually of the experience of using an omnibus.

“Oh! yes,” she said, “let us breakfast in some restaurant. Is it far from here?”

“Yes, rather far, but we will take an omnibus.”

She was astonished: “Why not a cab?” she asked.

He groaned as he said smilingly: “And you are economical! A cab for five minutes’ ride, at six sous per minute! You do not deprive yourself of anything!”

“That is true,” said she, a little confused.

A large omnibus was passing, with three horses a trot. Lebrument hailed it: “Conductor! eh, Conductor!”

The heavy carriage stopped. The young notary pushed his wife inside, saying hurriedly, in a low voice: “You get in while I climb up on the outside to smoke at least a cigarette before breakfast.”

She had not time for any answer. The conductor, who had seized her by the art to aid her in mounting the steps, pushed her into the ‘bus, where she handed, half-frightened, upon a seat, and in a sort of stupor watched the feet of her husband through the windows at the back, as he climbed to the top of the imperial.

There she remained immovable between a large gentleman who smelled of a pipe and an old woman who smelled of a dog. All the other travelers, in two mute lines,—a grocer’s boy, a workman with gold-rimmed spectacles and a silk cap with enormous visors, like gutters, and two ladies with an important, mincing air, which seemed to say: we are here, although we should be in a better place. Then there were two good sisters, a little girl in long hair, and an undertaker. The assemblage had the appearance of a collection of caricatures in a freak museum, a series of expressions of human countenance, like a row of grotesque puppets which one knocks down at a fair.

The jolts of the carriage made them toss their heads a little, and as they shook, the flesh of their cheeks trembled; and the disturbance of the rolling wheels gave them an idiotic or sleepy look.

Mary Cassatt was one of the vastly influential Impressionist painters of the late 19th century; the impressionist painters that so influenced the Asthetic Movement members, such as Wilde and Ross, helped created the perceived image of the Victorian world. As seen in Wilde's "The Decay of Lying," the Aesthetes held, though playfully, that the world was painted real through the brushes of such artists. Ross had different ideas about the Impressionist Movement, but their influence was still undeniable. For Wilde, however, the world could be seen the way it was only after the eye was shown, by a painting or writing, how it was meant to be seen. Cassatt's own view of the Omnibus, her "In the Omnibus," is seen left of this text.

Through Cassatt and Maupassant, we can see the urban world as the Aesthetes did— through the veil of artists' craft.

Government & the Law

The government, and the enforcement of its laws, was perpetually a part of Ross' life. The most famous such involvement were the trials of Oscar Wilde. This large instance of the most influential man in Ross' world was by no means the only encounter Ross had with the law and its government.

Government

Before Robert Ross' birth his grandfather, Robert Baldwin, whom Ross seems to be named after, was a Canadian statesman. Baldwin served as joint leader of the first and second Liberal administrations in Canada, a position that is argued to be the equivalent to the "first prime minister," in some ways. Baldwin ended up retiring from such public service, spending his remaining days in a devotion towards improving Anglo-Frano relations.^[29] Though Ross could not have personally known this great figure, since he died in 1858 and Ross was born in 1869, their being relatives and the proximity of their existences and sharing the "Baldwin" name, must have had an effect on Ross's life. Throughout Ross' life we continue to see connections with politics and thus a spotlight through connection.

Ross had, during his adult life, a great number of political acquaintances, as he did in many fields of his time, but the greatest and most prevalent political connection Ross had was with a man who would rise to the top, taking the post of Prime Minister; he would be entwined, on his way up, in the lives of Ross and those in his circle.

The Right Honorable Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Kg, PC, grew in the time that Ross knew him: from the Liberal MP for East Fife who advised Wilde not to publish ‘The Portrait of W.H,’ for it would have an “unhealthy influence on young people,” (a moment both Ross and Harris “later agreed…was the moment that the seeds of Wilde’s downfall were sown”), ^[30] to the Home Secretary during the trials and imprisonment of Wilde, ^[31] to Prime Minister in 1908.

Ross, as we shall see in our section on Social Rituals, was a favorite of many households as a guest. The Minister's was no exception, and Asquith’s wife, Margot Asquith, was most particularly fond of Ross. In a candid letter she wrote to Ross from Number Ten, we can see a moment of unveiled political life, through the Wildean playfulness with words of a prime minister’s wife:

10 Downing Street, Whitehall- Sat. [May, 1914]

Dearest Mr. Ross, I’m in in bed as I feel head-achy and have got to go dine with the King. I’ve not ‘’got’’ to go at all!

but I think it is always gay dining with Kings— ^[32]

One can almost imagine such a letter from such a woman being a part of Wilde's plays, and perhaps she is. We see similar caring and playful characters in An Ideal Husband.

As noted earlier, Wilde was acquainted with H. H. Asquith. In a passage from Harris’ biography of Wilde, we can see a portrait of Ross’ political social friend through his interaction with Wilde. We see the future P.M.’s literary side, which we must image emerged in discussions with Ross; we also see, as painted by Harris, a slightly less friendly relationship with Wilde and Asquith, than Asquith and Ross. Though, through Harris' language we may think his terms of “fight” and “attack” to be a little strong.

It is quite possible that if he had been attacked face to face, Oscar would have given a better account of himself. At Mrs. Grenfell’s (now Lady Desborough) he crossed swords once with the Prime Minister [or, as Harris could have more accurately put it: P.M. to be. Asquith was then still a lawyer about to be elected to the House of Commons in 1886 ^[34]] and came off victorious. Mr. Asquith began by bantering him, in appearance lightly, in reality, seriously, for putting many of his sentences in italics.

….

Oscar met the stereotyped attack with smiling good-humour.

”How delightful of you, Mr. Asquith, to have noticed that! The brilliant phrase, like good wine, needs no bush. But just as the orator marks his good things by dramatic pause, or by raising or lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweler—an excusable love of one’s art, not all mere vanity, I like to think.”—all this with the most pleasant smile and manner.

In measure as I distrusted Oscar’s fighting power and admired his sweetness of nature I took sides with him and wanted to help him. ^[35]

To further fill out our portrait of this political figure through our experiences with Ross, we look to see a moment of pain handled by the PM, relayed to Ross. Asquith was Prime Minister during the first World War, and in the midst of it, lost his son to the struggle. As many of Ross' friends, too, were dying, and a few were returning, Raymond, Asquith's son, was reported dead. Violet Asquith, Herbert Henry Asquith's daughter by his first marriage, told Ross:

It is very hard to see Father suffering so - though he has been wonderfully brave. Raymond's life was a romance to him - which he watched unfolding with a thrilled expectancy he never felt about his own. ^[36]

Here in the words of Asquith's daughter written to Ross, we get a glimpse of a high-ranking political official, who lived through the Victorian Age, showing a selfless love and a vulnerable emotion in his private life. Even in the world of politics and government we are given glimpses of the familiarity, loyalty, and friendship with which Ross conducted his life.

In a final note on government, we turn to Ross's own writing, in his lecture "There is no Decay", Ross speaks to prophetic fall of governments, his feelings against such a fall of England, and his own connections to the society which is government.

Every few years distinguished men lift their voices, and tell us that all is over, decay has begun. The obscure and the anonymous echo the sentiment in the London Press. With the fall of any Government its supporters prophesy p. 278the rapid decomposition of the Empire; in the pulpit eloquent preachers of every sect and communion, thundering against the vices of Society, declare that Society is breaking up. Of course, not being in Society, I am hardly in a position to judge; and the vices I know only at second-hand—from the preachers. Yet I see no outward signs of decay in Society; it dresses quite as well, in some ways better than, it did. Society eats as much, judging from the size and number of new restaurants; its patronises as usual the silliest plays in London, and buys in larger quantities than ever the idiotic novels provided for it. Have you ever been to a bazaar in aid of Our Dumb Friends’ League? Well, you see Society there, I can tell you; it is not dumb. And the conversation sounds no less vapid and no less brilliant than we are told it was in the eighteenth century; the dresses and faces are quite as pretty. But much as I should like to discuss the decay of English Society and the English nation, I feel that such lofty themes are beyond my reach. I am concerned only with the so-called decay of humbler things, the abstract manifestations of the human intellect, the Arts and Sciences. ^[37]

House, Food, and Clothes

In an age where the decorum of the wealthy went with more somber, humble attire than previous ages, some like Oscar Wilde maintained a flamboyance. Robert Ross, however, seems to have dressed and acted in a more conventional way with the time's manner. In the available pictures of him, he seems always to be dressed in a modest dignity similar to the pro-ported ideals of a middle-class driven idyllic time, of the Victorian day.

Clothes

Those things which define a man, his attire, the length by which he may indulge his desires of appetite, and the size of his home, define his place in society. Oscar Wilde's Aesthetic movement covered not only written art, but also all forms of visual art and clothing. His flamboyant dressing style, however, seems to have left Ross little influenced. Wilde advocated comfort and beauty for both men and women, whilst modern Victorian England rejected much of previous centuries' pomp and flourish, adopting a more practical, business-like mode of dress, especially for men.

To illustrate men’s clothing trends, sported by the well-off likes of Ross, we shall look at a sketch of Aubrey Beardsley, published in Ross’s illustrated biography and study of Beardsley. This large gentleman is by no means dressed to the norms of Victorian appearance, but we can see some of the changes from earlier times, (toning down of some of the ruffles of old, for instance) and some similarities to the old retained by Beardsley’s illustration (for example, the cape with the ruff). This gentleman’s dress is of an upper-class appearance, and has qualities to it that are more ornate that are usually seen in Victorian England. We see the cape has a about its top, lying over our man’s left shoulder, with a ruff like quality to it. As for the collar, this looks Victorian, as we see to the left, in an ad from Sears, Roebuck & Co.. The gentleman's hat looks expensive, and can be seen donned, below, on a multitude of the tailor-made suit models in another ad from Sears, Roebuck & Co., ^[42]

House

To turn from published Aesthetic drawings to written literature, or rather essay, we see Ross describe a poet's home.

In "A mislaid poet, of Masques and Phases, Ross discusses a poet he has found while "poaching in a library." The poet is Mrs. Georgiana Farrer, an evangelical of the Victorian period, whose world Ross relays to the reader through her poetry. At one point he ventures to construct for us Mrs. Farrer's rooms and home.

I would like to reconstruct Mrs. Farrer’s home, with its stiff Victorian chairs, its threaded antimacassars, its pictorial paper-weights, its wax flowers under glass shades, and the charming household porcelain from the Derby and Worcester furnaces. There must have been a sabbatic air of comfort about the dining-room which was soothing. I can see the engravings after Landseer: ‘The Stag at Bay,’ ‘Dignity and Impudence’; or those after Martin: ‘The Plains of Heaven,’ and ‘The Great Day of His Wrath’; and ‘Blucher meeting Wellington,’ after Maclise. I can see on each side of the mirror examples of the art of Daguerre, which have already begun to produce in us the same sentiment that we get from the early Tuscans; and on the mantelpiece a photograph of Harriet in a plush frame, the one touch of modernity in a room which was otherwise severely 1845. Then, on a bookshelf which p. 112hung above the old tea-caddy and cut-glass sugar-bowl, Georgiana’s library—‘Line upon Line,’ ‘Precept upon Precept,’ ‘Jane the Cottager,’ ‘Pinnock’s Scripture History,’ and a few costly works bound in the style of the Albert Memorial. The drawing-room, just a trifle damp, must have contained Mr. Hunt’s ‘Light of the World,’ which Mrs. Farrer never quite learned to love, though it was a present from a missionary, and rendered fire and artificial light unnecessary during the winter months. Would that Mrs. Farrer’s home-life had come under the magic lens of Mr. Edmund Gosse, for it would now be classic, like the household of Sir Thomas More. ^[43]

From this image that Ross gives us of the victorian home, and from the Ross's published biography's illustration by Beardsley, we are given a glimpse of the victorian times, and a feel for that time. Comfortable but pretentious, both, at the same time, seems to be two words that well suit the Victorian vanity of attire and home; it seems a paradox, and it is, but it is in this parados that we see the changing fashions of Victorian life.

Family and Social Rituals

In every party there is the peacock, whom everyone admires, and there is the pleasant uncle whom everyone loves. Everyone loved Robert Ross. He was a desired attendee in social circles. Despite what we might assume about the Victorian prudish nature, Ross, even with his close connections to many “fallen” men (similar to the typical “fallen woman” plot lines of his time), including Wilde and Millard, was the pleasant caring man that all wanted to be near. Despite his public acknowledgment of the imprisoned Wilde, and his following loyalty to the playwright despite Bosie’s attacks, despite his own nature, Ross remains what he always was to his friends: a pleasant, caring man.

In a letter of Wilde’s, written to Alfred Lord Douglas from “H.M. Prison, Reading,” we see Wilde’s view of and his own influence from Robert Ross. This letter was not posted from Reading, but was handed to Ross, who handled it, edited it, and had two typed copies made. Ross sent one to Douglas, who denied later ever receiving it. In 1905 Ross published extracts of the letter, and it became the famous “De Profundis.” ^[44]

One of the most delightful dinners I remember ever having had is one Robbie and I had together in a little Soho café, which cost about as many shillings as dinners with you used to cost pounds. Out of my dinner with Robbie came the first and best of my dialogues [“The Decay of Lying”]. Idea, title, treatment, mode, everything was struck out at a 3 franc 50 c….Out of the reckless dinners with you nothing remains but the memory that too much was eaten and too much was drunk. And my yielding to your demands was bad for you. ^[45]

The following quote, from "The Brand of Isis," could easily fit into many catigories, however it does best to blend out of society and into education. It gives a good picture of the social world in which Ross lived, as well as a depiction of both "the Oxford man" and the "American" characters of society. This piece of Ross' is an essay and a memory he wrote in order to hold a mirror up to the Oxford man. The essay's vivacity at capturing the spirit of society is quite clear, and shows more what is in the forefront in the mirror.

I once had the good fortune to take down to dinner a young American lady of some personal attractions. Her vivacity and shrewdness were racial; her charm peculiar to herself. Her conversation consisted in a rather fierce denunciation of Englishmen, young Oxford Englishmen in particular. Their thoughts, their dress, their speech, their airs of superiority offended one brought up with that Batavian type of humanity, the American youth, to whom we have nothing exactly corresponding in this country except among drawing-room conjurors. But I was startled at her keen observation when I inquired with a smile p. 34how she knew I was not an Oxford man myself.

‘Had you been one, you would never have listened to what I have been saying,’ she retorted. Rather nettled, I challenged her to pick out from the other guests those on whom she detected the brand of Isis. A pair of gloves was the prize for each successful guess. She won seven; in fact all the stakes during the course of the evening. Over one only she hesitated, and when he mentioned that he had neither the curiosity nor the energy to cross the Atlantic, she knew he came from Oxford. ^[47]

Education

Give children beauty, not the record of bloody slaughters and barbarous brawls, as they call history, or the latitude and longitude of places nobody cares to visit, as they call geography.

Oscar Wilde, A lecture in America ^[48]

But all of us must hear the tales of blood, and learn there are countries and worlds of cultures outside of our village and our imaginations. Both Ross and Wilde were quite educated men, though Wilde in some breaths would brag of it and others deny being very educated at all. At least, in Wilde's epigram mind, neither of them were so vulgar as to teach, and both were students of their own tutelage for a lifelong pupillage.

Robbie "Bobbie" Baldwin Ross, embarked on his educational career in the traditional English style. Despite being born in Tours, France, and being moved as an young child to Canada, to finally end up in England at the age of two, Robbie (as we shall call him in this part of this section on Education, that part of his youth) received a fairly English education, with a few large moments of unconventionality.

Robbie's early years were spent with his sister in a Nursery situation with a nanny. When his mother ventured into English society and travel, she sent Robbie off to a school near London. He attended Sandroyd at Cobham in Surrey. This school prepares students, with its "small and intimate" size, for attending public school, like that of the famed Eton. Of course public schools were more akin to our modern-day private schools in America. Robbie was here educated at Sandroyd in both athletics and academics. ^[50] Robbie won a classical scholarship to Clifton College, which is near Bristol (a city on the western coast of England); he was then thirteen. However, he was not to attend. His mother, instead, opted to have Robbie study with her and a series of tutors at home over the next four years. She believed his constitution was too weak, essentially, to endure secondary school. His studies during this time often involved travel on the continent (Germany, Austria, Italy, France, to name a few countries visited), in which Robbie seems to have been a model student and companion for his mother. ^[51] His interest in both his own Catholicism and the topic of history intensified his experience, and allowed him to gather during this time in his life a great knowledge of the art that was all around him. When he returned to London, his family urged him to attend Covent Garden, in order to study and acquire the knowledge necessary to attend Cambridge, which his family felt was an important part of making a life in London--a university education. After Robbie's first few months at this establishment, he moved out of his home (in order to allow his mother to travel once again), and "lodged as a paying guest with a family". ^[52]

It was at 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, that Ross roomed with Mr. And Mrs. Oscar Wilde. Thus, by renting rooms in the year 1887, and sometime in 1886 having seduced Wilde ^[53], Robert Ross started his life-long relationship and friendship with Oscar Wilde, as Ross worked at his studies in order to attend university.

In a letter to Ross, upon his acceptance into Cambridge, Wilde wrote:

My dear Bobbie, I congratulate you. University life will suit you admirably, though I shall miss you in town. Enclosed is the praise of the Philistines. Are you in College or Lodgings? I hope in College; it is much nicer. Do you know Oscar Browning? You will find him everything that is kind and pleasant.

I have been speaking at Stratford about Shakespeare, but in spite of that enjoyed my visit immensely. My reception was semi-royal [the year was 1888], and the volunteers played God Save the Queen in m honour. Ever yours,

Oscar Wilde ^[54]

As to Wilde's own education, at Oxford, we can look at Ross's definition of an Oxford-man, which he essays on in "The Brand of Isis":

He is invariably a coward, but dreadfully fascinating all the same; though he scorns women he has an hypnotic influence over them; something in his polished Oxford manner is irresistible. Throughout a career of crime his wonderful execution on the piano, his knowledge of Italian painting, and his Oxford manner never seem to desert him. We feel, not for the first time, how dangerous it must be to allow our simple perky unspoiled Colonials to associate with such deleterious exotic beings, who, though in fiction horsewhipped or (if heroes) shot in the last chapter, in real life are so apt to become prosperous city men or respected college officials.

The Oxford manner is, alas, indefinable; I was going to say indefensible. Perhaps it is an attitude—a mental attitude that finds physical expression in the voice, the gesture, the behaviour. ^[55]

Wanting to continue expanding his knowledge of history, as he had done in his trips abroad, Ross chose King's College at Cambridge to attend. Ross did in-fact befriend and study under Oscar Browning, on Wilde's advice. Ross' stay at Cambridge was somewhat short, and on and off. Due to his writings in the school published paper, Ross was subject to some measure of bullying. One night, potentially with one faculty member's sanction, young Ross was dunked in the fountain. ^[56] This experience left him both with physical and mental difficulties. His personal anguish lasted, deteriorating his health. Ross was taken by his brother, Aleck Ross, to Naples, in hopes of rejuvenating his spirit. But Ross's mood still oscillated. He asked Aleck to "seek legal opinion about whether criminal charges could be brought against his attackers-a clear indication how the dunking incident had indeed been blown out of all proportion in his mind" ^[57]. At the end of April, Ross returned to King's College, but through the stress of seeking justice, or rather revenge, through college authorites for what happened to him, Ross contracted measles. He was taken to his mother's home to recoup. The prospect, however, of returning to Cambridge in the fall did not appeal to him, so he chose not to. Ross maintained his friendships made there, many of which were important for later in his career, while in London. ^[58]

Health and Medicine

Robbie Ross was plagued his whole life with bouts of ill health; his life was surrounded by the likes of Wilde and Sassoon, with their ailments. But through it he seemed to only have a weakness cast upon him at times, an extreme maddening fatigue, rather than a catastrophic illness, as did Wilde.

In chronological order, the following arose in Ross's life as health issues:

• After his bout with bulling, and his leaving Cambridge, Ross contracted the measles. ^[59]

• With Beardsley's tuberculosis health problems, and keeping faith with both Bosie and Wilde, as he was in still in prison and in contact (to a large degree through Ross) with Bosie, the stress of everything hit Ross. ^[60] An incident at school as a boy, where a cricket ball had hit him on the kidneys, had caused permanent damage to one of his kidneys. His pain increased during this time, and he suffered fevers. It was decided that he needed an operation in order to remove the painful kidney, a potentially fatal ordeal. Sir Frederick Treves was Ross's surgeon; Treves was the founder of the British Red Cross Society. Ross, prior to the operation, wrote his will in the event of death. ^[61]

• In 1896, with the sea air to aid his health, More Adey wrote to Wilde in prison, saying: "Robbie is still at the sea, with his brother and mother, who has taken a house for him....Robbie is going on well, the doctors say, but he suffers a great deal of dyspepsia which affects his spirits very much. You know how much he thinks and feels for you. He looks very ill still." ^[63]

• In 1900, Ross contracted influenza, "which made him feel 'like a washed out cat'" ^[64]. In a dictated letter from Wilde, dictated due to his own ill health, after relaying that he couldn't attend Ross in his ill health in Rome, and after relaying his dining with Aleck and Bosie, wrote "[Alec] was most friendly and pleasant and gave me a depressing account of you. I see that you, like myself, have become a neurasthenic [a somewhat new term at the time, the OED tells us, then, as now, meaning the having of "a disorder characterized by feelings of fatigue and lassitude, with vague physical symptoms such as headache, muscle pain, and subjective sensory disturbances, originally attributed to weakness or exhaustion of the nerves and later considered a form of neurotic disorder" ^[65]] I have been so for four months, quite unable to get out of bed till the afternoon, quite unable to write letters of any kind. My doctor has been trying to cur me with arsenic and strychnine but without much success, as I became poisoned through eating mussels, so you see what an exacting and tragic life I have been leading." ^[66]

• Near the end of his life, and thusly through the first World War, for the year was 1918, Ross was stressed and fatigued. He suffered frequent illnesses, one from his kidney's removal, and mental stress of his friend's pains added to this overall ill-health.

• October 3, that same year, Ross parted with Sassoon (the World War one poet), as Sassoon was leaving, Ross "came downstairs quickly and stood beside [Sassoon]. 'He said nothing but took my hand and looked up at me for a long moment. His worn face, grey with exhaustion and ill-health, was beatified by sympathy and affection." ^[67]

• On October 5th, 1918, at the age of 49, Ross, after a lunch with friends, complained of chest pains, suspecting it was indigestion. He went upstairs for a "lie-down," but when he was meant to wake and dress for dinner, he was found dead. Upon his death, Sassoon wrote of his passed friend, with his force of compassion: "While resting before dinner, he died of heart failure. It seems reasonable to claim that this was the only occasion on which his heart failed him." ^[68]

Sport and Recreation

I am afraid I play no outdoor games at all, except dominoes...I have somtimes played dominoes outside French cafés.

-Oscar Wilde, In Conversation ^[69]

Upon being asked if he played sports at school:

No, I never liked to kick or be kicked.

-Oscar Wilde, In Conversation ^[70]

As a young boy, Ross joined in on school sport, though his small stature and health left him ill prepared for such activity. Once, occupied in sport, he was "felled when one of his kidneys was struck by a cricket ball." ^[71]

In his essay, The Brand of Isis, Ross discusses the Oxford man, one paragraph is laid aside for the "athlete":

Athletes require an essay to themselves. In later age they seem to me more melancholy than their Cambridge peers and less successful. These splendid creatures are really works of art, and form our only substitute for sculpture in the absence of any native plastic talent. From the collector’s point of view they belong to the best period, while the graceful convention of isocephaly, which has raised the standard of height, renders them inapt for the ‘battles’ of life, however well equipped for those of their College where the cuisine is at all tolerable. ^[73]

Ross had little else to do with sport, per se, but had ample to do with with the arts, especially with the Post-Impressionist Movement of the likes of Van Gogh and Cézanne.

In a speech given at Old Blue Coat School, a historic grammar school in Liverpool founded in 1708, which served until the 1940s also as an orphanage ^[74], on 1908, Ross used sport as a metaphor to delve into the many of his favorite topics in the arts with passion.

Briefly, I have no orange up my sleeve.

Let there be no deception or disappointment. I want you to play with an idea as children play at ball—not football—but the old game of catch. And out of this discussion, for I trust that you will all differ, if not with me, at least with each other, trains of thought may be quickened; mental grassland ploughed up; hidden perspectives unveiled. Above all, I would stimulate you to an appreciation of your contemporaries and of contemporary literature, contemporary drama, and contemporary art.^[76]

During the rise of Post-Impressionism in painting, Ross was instrumental in a heated debate at the time in England: whether the new style was of worth. Ross was one of the opponents to the new movement. He has always enjoyed more classical paintings and structures, and felt that the new style was diverting too far from that, saying that these new paintings look like the undercoat, or first draft of a real painting. In a column of the Morning Post he said as much:

To my uninitiated eyes they appear cketches or underpaintings of picture by someone who if he cannot draw very well, sees though he does not seize the trus aspects of Nature at rather commonplace moments. We are told, "that he aimed at design which should produce the coherent architectural effect of the masterpiece of primitive art". All I can say is that he failed; wheter from insufficient knoledge of the manipulation of pain or an entire misunderstanding of the aims of methods of the primities I do not profess to judge. ^[77]

Of Gauguin, as a part of the movement, however, Ross said:

an artist with a fresh idea, a curious technique, and a fantastic vision.

His vociferous position against such a growing and popular movement (with many critics, even, at its side), as a large showing of this movement opened, helped to bring these new Impressionists more into the spotlight. His being so vehemently against them helped to validate them, ironically, helping to set it as a rebellion against the previous classical painters. This was one of his most influential positions as an art critic, and was also one of the reasons he was passed over for a position in the art world as Directorship of the Tate Gallery. Though he remained on good terms with other critics, who opposed his position, during this time, this stance may have affected his chances. ^[78] Ross's life in the art buisness continued, as did his critiquing of art. This glimpse shows us his involvment and influence on the recreation of the arts that Ross had.

Religion and Reform

In a letter to Oscar Wilde on the topic of the reception of his newly released The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ross writes:

I heard a clergyman extolling it, he only regretted some of the sentiments of Lord Henry as apt to lead people astray. ^[80]

At the same time as Ross said this Constance Wilde, Oscar's Wife, stated:

"Since Oscar wrote Dorian Gray, no one will speak to us." ^[81]

Ross takes the softer more pleasing side of life, as he often did, and in his kind tone his religion may be heard.

Ross’s Catholicism had strengthened as he aged. Having never seen homosexuality as a sin, his Christian and religious life was untainted, unlike the blackened in their own eyes sins of the likes of Douglas.

While Ross was recovering from his operation to remove his kidney, Ross found solace in prayer. In earlier days, Wilde had dubbed Ross “Saint Robert of Phillimore, Lover and Martyr” (Phillimore, for that was where Ross and his mother lived). ^[82] Wilde wrote a letter, to Ada Leverson “the sphinx”, another fairy-tale:

There was a certain saint, who was called Saint Robert of Phillimore. Every night, while the sky was yet black, he would rise from his bed and, falling on his knees, pray God that He, of His great bounty, would cause the sun to rise and make bright the earth. And always, when the sun rose, Saint Robert knelt again and thanked God that this miracle had been vouchsafed. Now, one night, Saint Robert, wearied by the vast number of more than usually good deeds he had done in that say, slept so soundly that when he awoke the sun had already risen, and the earth was already bright. For a few moments Saint Robert looked grave and troubled, but presently he fell down on his knees and thanked God that, despite his neglectfulness of His servant, He had yet caused the sun to rise and make bright the earth.

In a letter to Ross, Wilde, after his release from prison, expounded on this saintly image, as well as rendered a very touching intimate moment in words. There can be no better way to fill out the religious picture of Ross, than by a portrait of his true humanity, compassion, and love. In the following long passage, written in 1987, wee see such a portrait; Wilde wrote:

If I were rich again and sough to repeat my former life I don’t think you would care very much to be with me. I think you would regret what I was doing, but now, dear boy, you come with the heart of Christ, and you help me intellectually as no on else can or ever could do. You are helping me to save my soul alive, not in the theological sense, but in the plain meaning of the words, for my soul was really dead in the slough of coarse pleasures, my life was unworthy of an artist: you can heal me and help me. No other friend have I now in this beautiful world. And I want no other. Yet I am distressed to think that I will be looked on as careless of your own welfare, and indifferent of your good. You are made to help me. I weep with sorrow when I think of much I need help, but I weep with Joy when I think I have you to give it to me.

I do hope to do some work in these six weeks, that when you come I shall be able to read you something. I know you love me, but I want to have your respect, your sincere admiration, or rather, for that is a word of illomen, your sincere appreciation of my effort to recreate my artistic life. But if I have to think that I am harming you, all pleasure in your society will be tainted for me. With you at any rate I want to be free of any sense of guilt, the sense of spoiling another’s life. Dear boy, I couldn’t spoil your life by accepting the sweet companionship you offer me from time to time. It is not for nothing that I named you in prison St Robert of Phillimore. Love can canonise people. The saints are those who have been more loved.

I only made one mistake in prison in things I wrote of you or to you in my book. My poem should have run, “When I came out of prison ‘’you’’ [instead of “some”] met me with garmets with spices, with wise counsel. You met me with love.” No others did, but you. ^[83]

Morality

Ross, from what we can still read of him today, seems in all manners to have been a moral man: temperate, caring, earnest, hardworking, respectable. Somehow, his sexuality does not seem to taint his moral image, as it seems to have during the period for Wilde, in both homosexuality itself, and having multiple partners. Ross through his life was faithful, in a way, to his relationship with Wilde, in his affection and in his fidelity to Wilde’s work, but Ross had many, many romanitic relationships, presumably sexual, before and after Wilde’s death with other men.

Ross, by our modern standards, with his always knowing his sexual orientation, and his never hiding it or his affection, is a very moral man. It is interesting to see that he was, for the most part, seen with respect in his age as well. His professional life, as an art critic and a literary executor, seems untainted. Perhaps it is because in what scandalized society, Ross was often a background player: unimportant and forgotten. He was a witty, and very Catholic, man and was in his own life very invested in respectable moral living. Wilde, in his letters and conversation, seems to chide and tease Ross often on this note. It must have been a central point of his visible character.

In one particular letter to Ross, Wilde wrote in 1898 on this very topic:

My Dear Robbie...

It is a curious think, dear little absurd Robbie, that you now always think that I am in the wrong.

It is a morbid reaction against your former, and more rational estimate of me.

The only think that consoles me is that your moral attitude towards yourself is even more sever than your moral attitude towards others.

Yours is the pathological tragedy of the hybrid--the Pagan-Catholic. You exemplify the beauty and uselessness of conscience.

When I read, often bitter, censures of me, and your stern lectures, I think of your censures of yourself-of your awful curtain-lectures--delievered alone--listened to in silence--unaswerable merely because they are not answered--Judge and prisoner the same person--yourself your own gaoler. Why not sometimes think I may be in the right?...I often wonder what would have happened to those in pain if, instead of Christ, there had been a Christian... ^[84]

Cyril Holland, Wilde's eldest son, while he was away as a soldier in Deccan, India, wrote to Robert Ross, as he often did. In this letter there is a moment addressing his growing admiration for Ross's conduct prior, and thusly, his morality:

Well, no more of that. There; turn on the unsophisticated [sic]. Love without loyalty-that's a contradiction in terms, though it may express the facts of life. You and those others were loyal indeed. The more I experience of life in all its sordid vulgarity and mediocrity, in all its cowardice and egotism, the more I realize the nobility of your conducts.

So it is I send a little something to show I've not forgotten-and never can... ^[86]

Upon Ross's death, there was also a great outpouring of upstanding moral ideal. Sassoon put it best, in the quote we saw in an earlier section, "While resting before dinner, he died of heart failure. It seems reasonable to claim that this was the only occasion on which his heart failed him." ^[87]. Though heart seems to be a more valued criteria of morality in today's age, we see resembled in our ideas of heart a sort of earnestness and fidelity that was greatly valued in the Victorian times. To further reverberate the humble morality of this portrait, a poem from Sassoon to Ross fills out our picture.

To Robert Ross

Your dexterous wit will haunt us long,

Wounding your grief with yester-day.

Your laughter is a broken song;

And death has found you, kind and gay.

We may forget these transient things

That made your charm and our delight:

But loyal love has deathless wings

That rise and triumph out of night.

So, in the days to come, your name

Shall be as music that ascends

When honour turns a heart from shame

O heart of hearts! O friend of friends!

October 5th, 1918 [the day Ross died] Siegfried Sassoon ^[88]

England/Empire

In his essay on Oxford, The Brand of Isis, Ross speaks on the Empire, and one of the Empire's greatest money makers: Mr. Cecil Rhodes. Ross employs strong language, and somewhat of an uncharacteristic unkind tone. This says a great deal about the feelings of educated, kind citizens of the Victorian Period, towards such men as Rhodes.

I often wonder whether Mr. Cecil Rhodes, while he had the English Government in one pocket, the English Press in the other, and South Africa in the hollow of his hand, felt a certain impotency before Oxford. He had to acknowledge its influence over himself—an influence stronger than Dr. Jameson or the Afrikander Bond. He was never quite sure whether he admired more the loneliness of the Matoppos or the rather over-crowded diamond mines of Kimberley. On the grey veld he used to read Marius the Epicurean, and sought in Mr. Pater the key to the mystery he was unable to solve. He turned to the Thirty-nine Articles (more tampered with at Oxford than in any other cathedral city) with the same want of success. That always seems to me a real touch of Oxford in what some one well said, was an ‘ugly life.’ What a wonderful subject for the brush of a Royal Academician! no ordinary artist could ever do it justice: the great South African statesman on the lonely rocks where he had chosen his tomb; a book has fallen from his hand (Mr. Pater’s no doubt); his eyes are gazing from canvas into the future he has peopled with his dreams. By some clever device of art or nature the clouds in the sky have shaped themselves into Magdalen Tower—into harmony with his thoughts, and the setting sun makes a mandorla behind him. He is thinking of Oxford, and round his head Oriel clings as in ‘The Blessed Damozel.’

He could terrorise the Colonial Secretary, he could foment a war and add a new empire to England; he could not overcome his love of Oxford, the antithesis of all sordid financial intrigue and political marauding. Athens was after all a dearer name than Groot-Schuurr. He set fire to both.

I speculate sometimes whether the University was aware of his testamentary dispositions before it conferred on him an honorary degree. I hope not. He deserved it as the greatest son of Oxford, the greatest Englishman of his time. Imre Kiralfy, who has done for a whole district of London what Mr. Rhodes tried to do for the empire, is but an impresario beside him. A French critic says we cannot admire greatness in England; and this was shown by the timid way a large number of Imperialists, while professing to believe the war a righteous one, thought they would seem independent if they disclaimed approval of Mr. Rhodes, by not having the pluck to admit the same motives though ready enough to share the plunder. You may compare the ungrateful half-unfriendly obituaries in the press with the leaders a few days later, after the will was opened.

But what immediately concerns us here is the intention of Mr. Rhodes. Was it entirely benevolence, or some wish to test the strength of Oxford—to bring undergraduates into contact with something coarser, some terrific impermeable force that would be manner-proof against Oxford? Would he conquer from the grave? ^[90]

Mr. Cecil Rhodes was born in Hertfordshire, England, but died in Muizenberg, Cape Colony. Not only was he an empire builder in South Africa, and a financer, he was also prime minister of the colony. The lands of Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe, Zambia,and Malawi)^[91] hold his name. Rhodes is still famous today for his founding of the diamond-mining company, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., in 1888, and is ever tied, as Ross examines in his essay, to Oxford after the grave, having the Rhodes Scholarship at the university in his name. ^[92]

Taking off on the seventh wonder of the world “Colossus of Rhodes,” a caricature of Rhodes was published in ‘’Punch’’, in 1982. The piece was titled “The Colossus of Rhodes, spanning from Cape to Cairo.”

In a few excerpts from the poem in Punch, accompanying the sketch, we get a popular sketch of the personage that was Rhodes, and a sketch of the English Empire:

Sullen Boers may prove bores to a man of less tact,

A duffer funk wiles Portuguesy--tuguesy;

But Dutchmen, black potentates, all sorts, in fact,

To RHODES the astute come quite easy--quite easy.

….

The British South-African Company's shares

_May_ be at a discount--(Trade-martyrs!--trade-martyrs!)--

But he, our Colossus, strides on, he declares,

Whether with or without chums or charters--or charters.

Hooray! We brave Britons are still to the front--

Provided we've someone to boss us--to boss us;

And Scuttlers will have their work cut out to shunt

This stalwart, far-striding Colossus--Colossus! ^[93]

Through Ross’s essay, and thus through Cecil Rhodes, we see a portion of England as an Empire; we are given a glimpse of what was, and how people and publications received it. The Empire seems to have been not wholly well received.

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