Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 | Page 4

unpleasant. Nor did the upper part of his face
redeem the lower part. His eyes were small and round, mean and prying
in expression. There was no candour in the doctor's countenance, where
one looked for candour." Dr. Quilp's quarrel with his victim, it
appeared, was that she was "unnaturally passionless."
The publication of such a pamphlet was calculated to injure both Sir
William and Lady Wilde in public esteem, and Miss Travers was not

content to let the matter rest there. She drew attention to the pamphlet
by letters to the papers, and on one occasion, when Sir William Wilde
was giving a lecture to the Young Men's Christian Association at the
Metropolitan Hall, she caused large placards to be exhibited in the
neighbourhood having upon them in large letters the words "Sir
William Wilde and Speranza." She employed one of the persons
bearing a placard to go about ringing a large hand bell which she,
herself, had given to him for the purpose. She even published doggerel
verses in the Dublin Weekly Advertiser, and signed them "Speranza,"
which annoyed Lady Wilde intensely. One read thus:--
Your progeny is quite a pest To those who hate such "critters"; Some
sport I'll have, or I'm blest I'll fry the Wilde breed in the West Then you
can call them Fritters.
She wrote letters to Saunders Newsletter, and even reviewed a book of
Lady Wilde's entitled "The First Temptation," and called it a
"blasphemous production." Moreover, when Lady Wilde was staying at
Bray, Miss Travers sent boys to offer the pamphlet for sale to the
servants in her house. In fine Miss Travers showed a keen feminine
ingenuity and pertinacity in persecution worthy of a nobler motive.
But the defence did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient
provocation for Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to state
that Miss Travers had applied to Sir William Wilde for money again
and again, and accompanied these applications with threats of worse
pen-pricks if the requests were not acceded to. It was under these
circumstances, according to Lady Wilde, that she wrote the letter
complained of to Dr. Travers and enclosed it in a sealed envelope. She
wished to get Dr. Travers to use his parental influence to stop Miss
Travers from further disgracing herself and insulting and annoying Sir
William and Lady Wilde.
The defence carried the war into the enemy's camp by thus suggesting
that Miss Travers was blackmailing Sir William and Lady Wilde.
The attack in the hands of Serjeant Armstrong was still more deadly
and convincing. He rose early on the Monday afternoon and declared at

the beginning that the case was so painful that he would have preferred
not to have been engaged in it--a hypocritical statement which deceived
no one, and was just as conventional-false as his wig. But with this
exception the story he told was extraordinarily clear and gripping.
Some ten years before, Miss Travers, then a young girl of nineteen, was
suffering from partial deafness, and was recommended by her own
doctor to go to Dr. Wilde, who was the chief oculist and aurist in
Dublin. Miss Travers went to Dr. Wilde, who treated her successfully.
Dr. Wilde would accept no fees from her, stating at the outset that as
she was the daughter of a brother-physician, he thought it an honour to
be of use to her. Serjeant Armstrong assured his hearers that in spite of
Miss Travers' beauty he believed that at first Dr. Wilde took nothing
but a benevolent interest in the girl. Even when his professional
services ceased to be necessary, Dr. Wilde continued his friendship. He
wrote Miss Travers innumerable letters: he advised her as to her
reading and sent her books and tickets for places of amusement: he
even insisted that she should be better dressed, and pressed money
upon her to buy bonnets and clothes and frequently invited her to his
house for dinners and parties. The friendship went on in this
sentimental kindly way for some five or six years till 1860.
The wily Serjeant knew enough about human nature to feel that it was
necessary to discover some dramatic incident to change benevolent
sympathy into passion, and he certainly found what he wanted.
Miss Travers, it appeared, had been burnt low down on her neck when
a child: the cicatrice could still be seen, though it was gradually
disappearing. When her ears were being examined by Dr. Wilde, it was
customary for her to kneel on a hassock before him, and he thus
discovered this burn on her neck. After her hearing improved he still
continued to examine the cicatrice from time to time, pretending to note
the speed with which it was disappearing. Some time in '60 or '61 Miss
Travers had a corn