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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: that of a Frenchman. The play was passed for press, however, by no
less a writer than Marcel Schwob whose letter to the Paris
publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight
alterations, is still in my possession. Marcel Schwob told me some
years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the
spontaneity and character of Wilde's style if he had tried to
harmonise it with the diction demanded by the French Academy. It
was never composed with any idea of presentation. Madame Bernhardt
happened to say she wished Wilde would write a play for her; he
replied in jest that he had done so. She insisted on seeing the
manuscript, and decided on its immediate production, ignorant or
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