As a certain friend of mine, who has
made a prolonged study of the nature of cats, said when he first
heard the tale, 'Catslove eyes.' The Wilde family was clearly of
the sort that fed the imagination of Charles Lever, dirty, untidy,
daring, and what Charles Lever, who loved more normal activities,
might not have valued so highly, very imaginative and learned.
Lady Wilde, who when I knew her received her friends with blinds
drawn and shutters closed that none might see her withered face,
longed always perhaps, though certainly amid much self mockery,
for some impossible splendour of character and circumstance. She
lived near her son in level Chelsea, but I have heard her say, 'I
want to live on some high place, Primrose Hill or Highgate,
because I was an eagle in my youth.' I think her son lived with no
self mockery at all an imaginary life; perpetually performed a
play which was in all things the opposite of all that he had known
in childhood and early youth; never put off completely his wonder
at opening his eyes every morning on his own beautiful house, and
in remembering that he had dined yesterday with a duchess and that
he delighted in Flaubert and Pater, read Homer in the original and
not as a school-master reads him for the grammar.
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