It is my intention that none shall read these words for the next—let us say—100 years. But that is not as much out of the well of modesty for which I am widely known and justly admired; but from a desire that I shall trouble no one with my peccadillos, and no one shall trouble me with their approbation. I am quite able to disapprove of myself without outside assistance.”There it breaks off. Below it on the page are a few random thoughts.Without the approbation of one’s friends where would one be?And:One lives for joy and wit and friendship—but I can’t make out what one dies for.These words are on the first page of an otherwise pristine notebook on the cover of which is printed “OFOW January 91.”The playwright, poet, novelist and gadfly Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wilde left the notebook in my house sometime during the second week in, as it happens, January of 1891. He never called to reclaim it; perhaps in the flurry of that month’s events, he forgot its existence. Perhaps he began again in some other notebook, recounting the events to their sad conclusion, and put the narrative someplace where, in time, his version of the tale will be revealed.Here is my version.My name is Benjamin Barnett and I am the proprietor of the North Atlantic Cable News Service, bringing news of Britain and the Continent to North American readers.
