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March 1882 95 “I do not think there is any connection between poverty and radicalism, but there is between handicrafts and republicanism. I mean that to work at any handicraft produces that sense of individualism which is the key note of all republicanism. Then, in great cities there is a constant spirit of discussion and a certain clash of ideas which make men think for themselves, so that the political thought of England progresses always in the manufacturing towns and never in the agricultural places. An agricultural laborer’s view of politics is founded entirely on the weather.” Mr. Wilde looks as if his western trip had agreed with him. 1. Henry Du Pré Labouchère (1831–1912), a radical and independently wealthy British politician, writer, and publisher, married the actress Henrietta Hodson in 1887. Hodson was Lily Langtry’s teacher and promoted her career. Discussing his last Chicago interview in a letter he wrote to Mrs. George Lewis later in March, Wilde said, “I turned the conversation on three of my heroes, Whistler, Labouchere, and Irving, and on the adored and adorable Lily” (Complete Letters , 154). Ironically, Labouchère was the author of the so-called Labouchère amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 (also known as “the blackmailer’s charter”)—the very law Wilde was convicted of violating a decade later. Wilde was given the maximum sentence the law permitted. 2. Augustin Daly adapted and translated Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy’s French play Frou Frou: A Comedy of Powerful Human Interest, in Five Acts, in 1870. 3. The English actor H. B. Conway (1850–1909). 4. Helen Modjeska (1840–1909), born Helen Opid, was a renowned Polish actress who specialized in Shakespearean roles. 5. Harold Kyrle Bellew (1855–1911), another English actor. 6. Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853–1937) was considered one of the premier Shakespearean actors during his four decades on the stage. 7. Norman Forbes-Robertson (1858–1936), who acted under the name Norman Forbes, was a distinguished Shakespearean. 8. Charles Bradlaugh (1833–91), a popular English political activist and atheist, was elected M.P. for Northampton several times, but his refusal to take the religious Oath of Allegiance prevented him from serving as a voting member until 1886. 9. Edmund Hodgson Yates (1831–94), Scottish-born novelist and dramatist best known as the editor of The World. 26. “David and Oscar,” Chicago Tribune, 5 March 1882, 5 Mr. Oscar Wilde was in the city yesterday afternoon, and, understanding that he had something to say in answer to Prof. David Swing’s criticism i-xii_1-196_Wild.indd 95 8/4/09 9:11:47 AM 96 March 1882 of him, published in a recent number of the Alliance, a representative of The Tribune called on him at the Grand Pacific Hotel. He lectured Friday evening in Aurora, appeared in Racine last evening, and discourses on the beautiful in art to the Philistines of Milwaukee this evening. As Milwaukee has been represented to him as a good town for Sunday shows, he thought he would try his Sunday experiment there first. He greeted the reporter in his usual cordial manner yesterday, and, in answer to a question regarding Prof. Swing’s article, he said: “While in Rockford, Ill., recently, I was informed that an important attack on me had been published by Prof. David Swing, of your city, in a paper called the Alliance. I was told that this article had so influenced the proprietress of a ladies’ school there, who had purchased two tickets for my lecture—one for herself and the other for the best behaved pupil—that she returned the tickets to the box office in consequence of Prof. Swing’s attack.1 Of course I felt that any attack which would have such a marked and immediate influence on a whole city must be most remarkable and intellectual, and I quite looked forward to the pleasure of reading it this morning,2 for, next to a staunch friend, the best thing that a man can have is a brilliant enemy. There is nothing more depressing than to be attacked by a fool, as one cannot answer and does not fight with the same weapons. “I confess, however,” he continued with a smile, “to have been greatly disappointed at what I read this morning, because if a man attacks one for the clothes that one likes to wear he should go for his answer to one’s tailor, and if...

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