In despair, and knowing that George Wyndham had had a great liking for Oscar, and admiration for his high talent, I asked him to lunch at the Savoy; laid the matter before him, and begged him to give me his name.
He refused, and in face of my astonishment he excused himself by saying that, as soon as the rumour had reached him of Oscar's intimacy with Bosie Douglas, he had asked Oscar whether there was any truth in the scandalous report.
"You see," he went on, "Bosie is by way of being a relation of mine, and so I had the right to ask.

Oscar gave me his word of honour that there was nothing but friendship between them.

He lied to me, and that I can never forgive." A politician unable to forgive a lie--surely one can hear the mocking laughter of the gods! I could say nothing to such paltry affected nonsense.

Politician-like Wyndham showed me how the wind of popular feeling blew, and I recognised that my efforts were in vain.
There is no fellow-feeling among English men of letters; in fact they hold together less than any other class and, by himself, none of them wished to help a wounded member of the flock.

I had to tell Sir Ruggles Brise that I had failed.
I have been informed since that if I had begun by asking Thomas Hardy, I might have succeeded.