Quotes from Rupert Croft-Cooke

I found in them the qualities I looked for in professional writers and artists of all kinds, a total dedication to their work, not necessarily obvious but discernible all the same, compassion, intelligence rather than intellect, and that peculiar attitude to the world in general, half of mockery, half of deep concern...

He thought it exceedingly unlikely that he would ever have married any girl, however many millions she had, if he had not loved her, and this was probably true enough, for what it is worth. Love and a million dollars is obviously a more attractive proposition than love without it, especially to a young man whose only skills were sonneteering and riding, who had been brought up to the idea of wealth and who had just run through most of his inheritance.

I have found, though, that all the evidence shows that Douglas's conduct at the time, however impulsive and ill-advised, was honourable and courageous in a degree scarcely to be expected of a young man of twenty-four, faced with a tragic and dangerous situation and having only his own initiative, his own sense of loyalty, his own idea of right and wrong, to guide him. The selfish youth who goaded Wilde to his doom, and afterwards abandoned him is an artfully created myth.