Poursuivant mon exploration de l’univers wildien, je suis en train de lire The Green Carnation de Robert S. Hichens, un roman de 1894 satirisant lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde et toute la fine société uranienne de l’époque. Survolté, perfide, drôle, un ouvrage aussi venimeux (Hichens ne se réconcilia jamais avec sa propre homosexualité) que fascinant, comme témoignage d’un temps.

« In his own opinion he was very beautiful, and he tought it right to appreciate his own qualities of mind and of body. He hated those fantastic creatures who are humble even in their self-communings, cowards who dare not acknowledge even to themselves how exquisite, how delicately fashioned they are. Quite franckly he told other people that he was very wonderful, quite franckly he awoved it to himself. There is a nobility in fearless thruthfulness, is there not? and about the magic of his personality he could never be induced to tell a lie. »