The exclusive musical rights having been already secured by
Dr. Strauss, Lieutenant Marriotte's work cannot be performed
regularly. One presentation, however, was permitted at Lyons, the
composer's native town, where I am told it made an extraordinary
impression. In order to give English readers some faint idea of the
world-wide effect of Wilde's drama, my friend Mr. Walter Ledger has
prepared a short bibliography of certain English and Continental
translations.
At the time of Wilde's trial the nearly completed MS. of La Sainte
Courtisane was entrusted to Mrs. Leverson, the well-known novelist,
who in 1897 went to Paris on purpose to restore it to the author.
Wilde immediately left the only copy in a cab. A few days later he
laughingly informed me of the loss, and added that a cab was a very
proper place for it. I have explained elsewhere that he looked on
his works with disdain in his last years, though he was always full
of schemes for writing others. All my attempts to recover the lost
work failed. The passages here reprinted are from some odd leaves
of a first draft. The play is, of course, not unlike Salome, though
it was written in English. It expanded Wilde's favourite theory
that when you convert some one to an idea, you lose your faith in
it; the same motive runs through Mr. W. H. Honorius the hermit, so
far as I recollect the story, falls in love with the courtesan who
has come to tempt him, and he reveals to her the secret of the love
of God.
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