Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd on May 29, 1884. Below, Wilde outlines the outset of their engagement to Waldo Story, an English sculptor and friend.
To Waldo Story
22 January 1884
Royal Victoria Hotel, Sheffield
Yes! my dear Waldino, yes! Amazing of course—that was necessary.
Naturally I did not write—the winds carry tidings over the Apennines better than the 2½d post: of course it accounts for the splendid sunsets about which science was so puzzled…Well, we are to be married in April, as you were, and then go to Paris, and perhaps to Rome—what do you think? Will Rome be nice in May? I mean, will you and Mrs Waldo be there, and the Pope, and the Peruginos?…
Her name is Constance and she is quite young, very grave, and mystical, with wonderful eyes, and dark brown coils of hair: quite perfect except that she does not think Jimmy the only painter that ever really existed: she would like to bring Titian or somebody in by the back door: however, she knows I am the greatest poet, so in literature she is all right: and I have explained to her that you are the greatest sculptor: art instruction cannot go further.
We are, of course, desperately in love. I have been obliged to be away nearly all the time since our engagement, civilising the provinces by my remarkable lectures, but we telegraph to each other twice a day, and the telegraph clerks have become quite romantic in consequence. I hand in my messages, however, very sternly, and try to look as if “love” was a cryptogram for “buy [Canadian railway shares]” and “darling” a cypher for “sell out at par.” I am sure it succeeds.
OSCAR WILDE.