"Equally with all untruth must all impurity be excluded from art.

Purity and chastity are requirements resulting from the very nature

of art. But it is just because art is so closely connected with

sensuousness, that there is such obvious temptation to present the

sensuous in false independence, to call forth the mere

gratification of the senses. The sensuous must, however, be always

subordinated to the intellectual, for this is involved in the

demand for _ideality_, in other words, for that impress of

perfection given by the idea and the mind in every artistic

representation. And even if aesthetic ideality is present in a work

of art, it must be subordinated to ethic ideality, to the moral

purity in the artist's mind, a purity diffused throughout the

whole."

Enough has been said and quoted to prove to all those who believe that

art, while it is the chief regenerative force in life, cannot possibly

be dissociated from morals, that Wilde's view of art in its relation to

morals is entirely unsound and dangerous to the half-educated and those

who do not know how the greatest brains of the world have regarded this

question. It is not necessary to continue or to pile proof upon proof,

easy though this would be.

From the people who have a little culture, imagine they have much more,

and are dazzled by the splendour and beauty of Wilde's execution, it

will be idle to expect an assent. Those who believe in art for art's

sake as an infallible doctrine, may be divided into three classes.

First of all there are the very young, whose experience of life has not

taught them the truth. They have not seen or known life as a whole, and,

therefore, no sound ethical view can possibly disabuse them of the

heresy.

There are those again, older and more mature, who have not made

experience of life in its harsher and sadder aspects sufficient to wean

them from Wilde's theory, in which they are interested from a purely

academic point of view. And there is another class who are convinced

secretly in their own hearts that art for art's sake is an untenable

doctrine, but know that if they accepted it they would have to give up

much which they are unable to do without and which makes life pleasant

and dulls the conscience.

It is more satisfactory to turn to the consideration of "Intentions,"

and pay an enthusiastic and reverential meed of praise to this

perfection of art. Marred here and there perhaps by over-elaboration

and ornament, the book nevertheless remains a masterpiece. In its

highest expression, where paradox and point of view were not insisted

on, where pure lyric narrative fills the page, I know of nothing more

lovely. "Lovely" may be an exaggerated word, yet I think that it is

almost the only word which can be applied in this connection. Let me

give, as an example, a few lines from the marvellous and inspired pages

which treat of the Divine Comedy of Dante. Would that I could quote the

whole of the supreme and splendid passages! That is impossible. But

listen at least to these few lines.

The poet is describing his spiritual experiences while reading the

mighty harmonies of the Florentine:

"On and on we go climbing the marvellous stair, and the stars

become larger than their wont, and the song of the kings grows

faint, and at length we reach the seven trees of gold and the

garden of the Earthly Paradise. In a griffin-drawn chariot appears

one whose brows are bound with olive, who is veiled in white, and

mantled in green, and robed in a vesture that is coloured like live

fire. The ancient flame wakes within us. Our blood quickens through

terrible pulses. We recognise her. It is Beatrice, the woman we

have worshipped. The ice congealed about our heart melts. Wild

tears of anguish break from us, and we bow our forehead to the

ground, for we know that we have sinned. When we have done penance,

and are purified, and have drunk of the fountain of Lethe and

bathed in the fountain of Eunoe, the mistress of our soul raises us

to the Paradise of Heaven. Out of that eternal pearl, the moon, the

face of Piccarda Donati leans to us. Her beauty troubles us for a

moment, and when, like a thing that falls through water, she passes

away, we gaze after her with wistful eyes."

Do not these words strike almost the highest, purest, and most beautiful

note that any writer of prose has struck throughout the centuries. In

English, at least, I know of nothing more rapt and ecstatic. It is above

criticism and the man who wrote it must for ever wear in our minds one

of the supreme laurels that artistic achievement can bestow.

One more paragraph will show the author of "Intentions" in a different

mood, but yet one in which the supreme sense of beauty and of form

throbs out upon the page and fills our pulses with that divine and

awestruck excitement that great art can give.

"... wake from his forgotten tomb the sweet Syrian, Meleager, and

bid the lover of Heliodore make you music, for he too has flowers

in his song, red pomegranate-blossoms, and irises that smell of

myrrh, ringed daffodils and dark blue hyacinths, and marjoram and

crinkled ox-eyes. Dear to him was the perfume of the beanfield at

evening, and dear to him the odorous eared-spikenard that grew on

the Syrian hills, and the fresh green thyme, the winecup's charm.

The feet of his love as she walked in the garden were like lilies

set upon lilies. Softer than sleep-laden poppy petals were her

lips, softer than violets and as scented. The flame-light crocus

sprang from the grass to look at her. For her the slim narcissus

stored the cool rain; and for her the anemones forgot the Sicilian

winds that wooed them. And neither crocus, nor anemone, nor

narcissus was as fair as she was."

If the song of Meleager was sweet and if the suns of summer greet the

mountain grave of Helike, and the shepherds still repeat their legends

where breaks the blue Sicilian sea by which Theocritus tuned his lyre;

if the voice of Dante yet rings and sounds in the world-weary ears of

mortals of to-day; if "As You Like It" has still its appeal to our

modern ears as from a woodland full of flutes, then, indeed, this prose

of Oscar Wilde's, so beautiful and so august, will remain with us always

as an imperishable treasure of literature and as a lyric in our hearts.

"Poems in Prose" that Oscar Wilde wrote were published first in _The

Fortnightly Review_, during July, 1894, when Mr Frank Harris was the

editor. We must remember the date because it was only a few months

before the absolute downfall of the author.

In criticising this work of Wilde's, we cannot help the reflection that

it was written at a time when enormous, sudden, and overwhelming success

had thrown him entirely from his mental balance, and had filled him with

an even greater egoism than he ordinarily had, at the time these fables,

or allegories, let us call them, were produced, Oscar Wilde was at the

very height of his success, and of his almost insane irresponsibility

also.

That they are beautiful it would be idle to deny. Still we have the sure

and dexterous pen employed upon them. There is no faltering in phrase,

no hesitation of artistry. It is said by many people who heard the poet

recite these stories upon social occasions, tell them to please, amuse,

or bewilder one of those gatherings in which he was the centre in a

constellation, that, spoken, they were far more beautiful than when at

length he wrote them down and published them in the review. I can well

believe it. On the two occasions when I myself heard Oscar Wilde

talking, I realised how unprecedented his talent for conversation was,

and wished that I also could hear him at times when he attempted his

highest flights. Yet, even as pieces of prose, the title the author

chose for them is perfectly justified. They are indeed "poems" in prose

and triumphant examples of technical accomplishment and mastery.

Yet, the condemnation of their teaching can hardly be too severe. With

every wish in the world to realise that a paradox is only a truth

standing on its head to attract attention, with every desire to give the

author his due, no honest man, no Christian, no Catholic, no Protestant,

but must turn from these few paragraphs of allegory with sorrow and a

sense of something very like shame.

And it is for this reason.

The poet has dared an attempt of invasion into places where neither he

nor any artist has right. With an insane pride he dares to patronise, to

limit and to explain the Almighty.

Nowhere in this Appreciation have I made a whole-hearted condemnation of

anything Wilde has written. Even at times when I most disagreed with his

attitude I have attempted, I hope with humility and sincerity, to

present the other side of the shield. Here I do not see there is

anything to be said in favour of at least two or three of the prose

poems--those two or three which give colour to the whole.

There is one of them called "The Doer of Good." It begins in this wise:

"It was night time and He was alone,

And He saw afar off the walls of a round city and went towards the

city."

Our Lord is meant.

The allegory goes on to say that when Christ came near to the city He

heard music and the sounds of happiness and joy. He knocked at the

gate and "certain of the gatekeepers opened to Him."

Our Lord passes through the beautiful halls of a palace and sees upon a

"couch of sea purple" a man bearing all the signs of an ancient Greek

stupefied by pleasure and by wine. The Protagonist asks the man He

sees--"Why do you live like this?"

Then Wilde's prose goes on to tell how the young man turns and

recognises his interlocutor and answers that he was a leper once, that

Christ had healed him. How else should he live?

Our Lord leaves the palace and walks through the city, and he sees

another young man pursuing a harlot, while his eyes are bright with

lust. He speaks to the young man and asks him the reason of his way of

life, and the young man turns and tells the Saviour of Mankind that he

was once blind and that He had given him sight, and, therefore, at what

else could he look?

The allegory goes on, but it is not necessary to continue an account of

it. All it is necessary and right to say is, that the allegory is

blasphemous and horrible--horrible with the insane pride of one who has

not realised his imminent fall, who has realised the horror of his

mental attitude no less than the life he was proved to have been

leading at the time.

I have purposely refrained from quotation here. But let it again be said

that the artistic presentment of these parables is without flaw.

I do not think it would be a kindness to the memory of Oscar Wilde, nor

be doing a service to anyone at all, to continue this ethical criticism

of the "Poems in Prose." Let me say only that Wilde, in another story,

takes a sinner to the Judgment Seat and introduces God the Father into a

dialogue in which the sinner silences the Almighty by his repartee. All

these "Poems in Prose" are written beautifully, as I have said, but also

with an extraordinarily adroit use of actual phrases from the New

Testament. I will permit myself one quotation before I conclude, which

is surely saddening in its significance in the view of after events.

And God said to the Man: "Thy life hath been Evil, and the Beauty I have

shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou did'st pass

by."

It remains to say something about Wilde's final essay, entitled "The

Soul of Man," which also appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_. Upon its

appearance it was called "The Soul of Man under Socialism," but it has

since been republished under the title of "The Soul of Man."

This essay, brilliant in conception, brilliant in execution, has none of

the old lyric beauty of phrase. It can in no sense be considered a

masterpiece of prose, but only a piece of fine and cultured writing. In

it paradox obscures the underlying truth. The very first words strike

the old weary note. "The chief advantage that would result from the

establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism

would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others, which,

in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon himself and

everybody."

As far as the prose artist is concerned, the essay has little to

recommend it. He was tired, tired out, and had no longer the wish or the

stimulus to produce the marvellous and glowing prose to which we have

been accustomed in these other statements of the writer's attitude

towards art, towards morals and towards beauty. Yet, at the same time,

the man's love of individualism drove him to write this essay, and at

certain points it comes strangely into impact with Catholic truth.

The more Catholic the conception of religion and of art becomes, the

more surely the socialistic idea obtains. Certainly our Lord taught that

individual character can only be developed through community. The great

socialistic organ of England attempted the value and weight of Oscar

Wilde's defence of Socialism in the following words:--

"Christ taught that individual character could only be developed

through community. Some say he opposed Socialism because, when two

young capitalists came to him wrangling about their private

property, he ignored them, saying, 'Who made me a divider among

you?' I suppose these objectors still think that Socialism means

dividing up. When his enemies were closing in upon him, and his

life hung in the balance, a woman came and anointed his feet, and

wiped them with her hair, and the good people were shocked, and

complained of the waste. Might not the ointment have been sold, and

the money doled out to the poor? Christ defended her generous

impulse, and remarked: 'The poor you have always with you. You have

plenty of opportunities of helping them. Me you have not always.'

This is erected into a great pronouncement that we must not attempt

to abolish poverty! To such amusing shifts are Christian

Individualists driven!

"But our contention is that although Christ was not a State

Socialist, his spirit, embodied in the Christian Church, inevitably

urges men to Socialism; that the political development of the

Catholic Faith is along the lines of Socialism; and that, as the

State captured the Church in the past, so now it is the business of

the Church to recapture the State, and through it to establish

God's Kingdom on earth."

I quote them here in order to show what sympathy the essay awakened,

even though that sympathy is utterly alien to the belief of the

chronicler. And now let us finally bid farewell to Oscar Wilde as

AEsthete, or, rather, as prophet and expounder of the aesthetic.

I have placed on record not only my own small opinion of his teachings,

but a very solid and weighty consensus of condemnation of his attitude.

And I hope, from the purely literary point of view, I have made

obeisance and given every credit to one of the greatest literary artists

of our time.

PART VIII

"DE PROFUNDIS"

"DE PROFUNDIS"

"I Have entered on a performance which is without example, whose

accomplishments will have no imitator. I mean to present my

fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature; and this

man shall be myself.

"I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like

anyone I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in

existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether

Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me,

can only be determined after having read this work.

"Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself

before the sovereign Judge with this book in my hand, and loudly

proclaim, Thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I.

With equal freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or

wicked, I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have

sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy

a void occasioned by defect of memory. I may have supposed that

certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted

as truth a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared

myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous,

generous, and sublime. Even as thou hast read my inmost soul, Power

eternal! assemble round thy throne an innumerable throng of my

fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush

at my depravity, let them tremble at my sufferings; let each in his

turn expose with equal sincerity the failings, the wanderings of

his heart, and, if he dare, aver, _I was better than that man_."

These are the first words in that book which it was supposed would

always stand as a type of real self-revelation and confession and which

now is thought of by all the world as merely a brilliant piece of

literature and an amazing tissue of misrepresentations.

Jean Jacques Rousseau never gave his real self to the world despite the

loud Gallic boast of the paragraphs above.

Did De Quincey? Did St Augustine? Did anyone ever tell the truth about

himself from the very beginnings of literature? Newman's "Apologia";

Bunyan's "Grace Abounding"; the Journals of Wesley; the Memoirs of

Madame de Stael de Launay; the diary of Madame D'Arblay; the "Ausmeinem

Leben" of Goethe, the "Lavengro" of Borrow--how much in all these and in

the hundred other works of like nature which crowd to the mind, how much

is self-deception, how much picturesque fiction?

Who can say?

There is only one way of determining the value of an autobiographical

statement--by a comparison of internal evidence with external historic

fact. In the case of people whose generation has passed away this task

is beset with difficulties, though not impossible. In the case of one

who has but recently died, whose friends and contemporaries are living

still, about whom documentary and oral evidence abounds, the task is

more easy, though still a hard and, possibly, a thankless one.

In a consideration and criticism, however, of Oscar Wilde's greatest

work, "De Profundis," such an attempt must undoubtedly be made.

Yet, this question of sincerity or reality is not the only one to be

determined, and it will be well, therefore, to treat of "De Profundis"

with the assistance of a definite plan of criticism.

Let us then divide this part of the book into several sections.

There are, undoubtedly, a great many people who have heard the name of

the book and read the extraordinarily copious reviews of it in the

public press, but have no further acquaintance with it than just that.

It will be necessary, therefore, in the first instance, to give an

account of the actual subject-matter in order to make the following

criticism intelligible and, it is to be hoped, to induce them to

purchase and read this marvellous monograph, which is one of the

world's minor masterpieces, for themselves.

Secondly, a purely literary criticism will not be out of place, a

criticism which treats of the book as a consummate work of art and a

piece of prose almost unparalleled for its splendour and beauty in

modern literature.

Thirdly, the vexed question of its conscious or unconscious sincerity

must be dealt with, while the fourth consideration should surely be

devoted to the philosophy and teaching, especially in its regard to the

Christian Faith, which is definitely promulgated within the book.

Lastly, a few words about its actual legacy to the Europe of to-day

should conclude this part of the Appreciation.

* * * * *

"De Profundis" was published by Messrs Methuen & Company on 23rd

February 1905. It was written by Oscar Wilde when in prison, by special

permission of the Home Secretary. A fuller account of these details will

be found in Part I. of this book.

Directly "De Profundis" made its appearance the whole press of England,

almost without exception, devoted a large space to its consideration.

The sensation the book occasioned was extraordinary and almost without

parallel in modern times. An enormous controversy arose about it

immediately. Every possible aspect of the book was canvassed and

discussed, and, strange as it may seem, a vast amount of venom and

bitterness was mingled with the bulk of eulogy. The student of

contemporary literature, or perhaps, in view of what I am going to say,

it would be better to call it contemporary book publishing, can find no

parallel to the interest and excitement this book occasioned, save only

in the case of a very different production called "When it was Dark," an

over-rated sensational novel by a Mr "Guy Thorne," whose views excited

the various religious parties in the Church of England to a sort of

frenzy for and against them.

In pure literature I know of nothing which, upon its appearance, made

such an immediate stir as "De Profundis."

With the various views of various sections of the community, I propose

to deal later. With the doubts that were thrown on its authenticity as a

genuine prison manuscript I have already dealt. I may here, however,

quote a few words of a statement made by the editor of "De Profundis,"

Mr Robert Ross, to a representative of an evening paper. They will

explain for the reader all that he will further find necessary to

introduce him to the circumstances under which "De Profundis" appeared.

"My object," he said, "in publishing this book, as I have indicated in

the preface and in my letter to _The St James's Gazette_, was that Mr

Oscar Wilde might come to be regarded as a factor in English literature

along with his distinguished contemporaries. The success of 'De

Profundis' and the reviews lead me to believe that my object has been

achieved.

"I cannot expect the world to share my admiration of Mr Oscar Wilde as a

man of letters, at present, although that admiration is already shared

by many distinguished men of letters in England, by the whole of

Germany, and by a considerable portion of the literary class in France.

"With regard to the authenticity of the manuscript, I may say that it

was well known that during his incarceration at Reading Gaol he was

granted the privileges of pen and paper, only permitted in exceptional

cases, at the instance of influential people not his personal friends.

The manuscript of 'De Profundis,' about which he wrote to me very often

during the last months of his imprisonment, was handed to me on the day

of his release. The letters he had written to me in reference to it are

published in the German edition of the work, and later on, perhaps, they

may appear in England, if I think it desirable to publish them here.

"Contrary to general belief the manuscript contains nothing of a

scandalous nature, and if there was another object in publishing the

work it was to remove that false impression which had gained ground.

The portions which I have omitted in the English publication, apart from

the letters to which I have already referred as appearing in the German

edition, are all of a private character. There are one or two

unimportant passages which the English publisher--very wisely, I

think--deemed unsuitable for immediate reproduction in England.

"In Germany Mr Oscar Wilde's place in English literature had already

been accepted. 'Salome,' for instance, is now part of the repertoire,

and Strauss, the great musician, is engaged on an opera based on Mr

Wilde's work, which he selected out of many others because of its

popularity in Germany, and also, no doubt, on account of the dramatic

intensity of Mr Wilde's interpretation of the Biblical story.

"It is not for me to criticise or to appreciate 'De Profundis' on which

many competent writers have given their opinions, but I should have

imagined that it was sufficiently clear that Mr Oscar Wilde had not

attempted to throw any blame for his misfortune on anyone but himself.

"The manuscript is written on blue prison foolscap. There are a few

corrections. Although Mr Wilde gave me very full instructions with

regard to those portions which he wished published he allowed me

absolute discretion in the matter, which he did about all his other

manuscript and letters."

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF "DE PROFUNDIS"

I have said that for those who have not read the book, a short synopsis

of its contents is necessary here. But I am immediately confronted with

a difficulty because, probably, no book is more difficult to sum up, to

make a _precis_ from, than this. However, I do all that is possible, and

only ask my readers to remember that this bald catalogue will be

elucidated further on in the article. In the preface to the book a

letter of Oscar Wilde to the editor is quoted in which he says:

"I don't defend my conduct. I explain it. Also there is in my

letter certain passages which deal with my mental development in

prison, and the inevitable evolution of my character and

intellectual attitude towards life that has taken place; and I want

you and others who still stand by me and have affection for me to

know exactly in what mood and manner I hope to face the world. Of

course, from one point of view, I know that on the day of my

release I shall be merely passing from one prison into another....

Prison life makes one see people and things as they really are.

That is why it turns one to stone.... I have 'cleansed my bosom of

much perilous stuff.' I need not remind you that mere expression is

to an artist the supreme and only mode of life.... For nearly two

years I have had within a growing burden of bitterness, of much of

which I have now got rid."

This, in some sort of way, will give the reader an idea of what the book

consists or, at anyrate, of its other view about it.

He begins the work by a statement of the terrible suffering he is

undergoing in prison. The iron discipline, the paralysing immobility of

a life which is as monotonous and regular as the movement of a great

machine, are set forth subjectively by a presentment of the effects they

are having upon the prisoner's brain. "It is always twilight in one's

cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart."

... He is transferred to a new prison. Three months elapse, and he is

told of his mother's death. He speaks of his deep love and veneration

for her and says that he who was once a "lord of language" has now no

words left in which to tell of the appalling shame which has seized upon

his heart and mind. He realises the infamy with which he has covered

that honoured name.

An anecdote comes into these sorrowful pages. It is an anecdote of his

sad and guarded appearance among the world of men when he was brought

to appear before the Court of Bankruptcy. As he walked manacled in the

corridor towards the Court Room, a friend of his, who was waiting,

lifted his hat and bowed. Waited, "that, before the whole crowd, whom

such an action so sweet and simple hushed into silence, he might raise

his hat to me, as, handcuffed and with bowed head, I passed him by."

A page or two is occupied with the poor convict's gratitude for this

simple, sweet and dignified action. A marvellous eulogy is pronounced

upon it.

What prison means to a man in the upper ranks of life is set forth in

words of anguish, and then, following these paragraphs, is a frank

admission that Wilde had ruined himself. "I am quite ready to say so. I

am trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment.

This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself."

He describes the great and brilliant position he had held in the world.

He tells of all the splendid things with which fortune had endowed him.

He admits that he allowed pleasure to dominate him and that his end came

with irremediable disgrace.

He has lain in prison for nearly two years, and now he begins to

describe his mental development during the long torture. Humility, he

says, is what he has found, like a treasure in a field. From this newly

discovered treasure he builds up a method of conduct which he will

pursue when he is released from durance. He knows, indeed, that kind

friends will await him on the other side of the prison door. He will not

have to beg his bread, but, nevertheless, humility shall bloom like a

flower in his heart.

He begins to speak of religion, and avows his atheism. "The faith that

others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look

at." There is no help for him in religion.

He goes on to speak of reason. There is no help for him in reason.

Reason tells him that the laws under which he was convicted were wrong

and unjust laws, the system under which he suffered a wrong and unjust

system.

Yet, in pursuance of his determination of Humility, he resolves to make

all that has happened to him into a spiritualising medium. He is going

to weave his pain and agony into the warp and woof of his life with the

same readiness with which he wove the time of pleasure and success into

the completion of his temperament.

Then there comes a long discussion of his own position at the moment, a

common prisoner in a common gaol, and of what his position will be

afterwards. He tells of occasions on which he was allowed to see his

friends in prison, and afterwards describes a moment of his deepest

degradation, when he was jeered at in convict dress as he stood, one of

a chained gang, on Clapham Junction platform. The story is utterly

terrible. On the occasion of his removal from London to Reading, he

says, "I had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in

convict dress and handcuffed, for all the world to look at.... When

people saw me they laughed. Each train as it came up swelled the

audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement. That was, of course,

before they knew who I was. As soon as they had been informed they

laughed still more. For half-an-hour I stood there, in the grey November

rain, surrounded by a jeering mob."

We find now, in our short survey of the book, the widely discussed

passages about the personality and message of Christ. These form the

greater part of this strange and moving masterpiece. They will be

treated of hereafter.

Finally, come anticipations of release and plans for the future, and "De

Profundis" concludes with an especially poignant and almost painfully

beautiful passage which anticipates the kindliness of Nature to heal a

bruised soul to which man has given no solace:

"But Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have

clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose

silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so

that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the

wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt; she will

cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole."

"DE PROFUNDIS" AS A PIECE OF PROSE

There is very little of the wise and sensuous geniality of Horace in

Oscar Wilde's outlook upon life. But some lines of the poet, never a

great favourite with Wilde by the way, certainly have a direct

application upon the style of the author of "De Profundis"--

"Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint

Scripturus; neque te ut miretur turba labores,

Contentus paucis lectoribus."--S. I. 10, 72.

A piece of prose to Oscar Wilde was always, in a sense, like a definite

musical composition in which words took the place of notes, and he

carried out the poet's injunction to polish and rewrite with meticulous

care.

Wilde had, in a marvellously developed degree, the sense that a piece of

prose was a built-up thing proceeding piece by piece, movement by

movement, sentence by sentence, and word by word towards a definite and

well-understood effect. "It was the architectural conception of work

which foresees the end in the beginning and never loses sight of it, and

in every part is conscious of all the rest, till the last sentence does

but, with undiminished vigour, unfold and justify the first."

These lines were written by Oscar Wilde's master in English prose,

Walter Pater, and we shall see how entirely Wilde has adhered to such an

artistic attitude. Like the Greeks, he believed in an elaborate

criticism of language, and the metrical movements of prose were

scientifically and artistically interesting to him, as any student of

harmony takes pleasure in a contrapuntal exercise. The analogy is

perfectly correct, and Wilde himself has drawn attention to it more than

once in his prose writings. Counterpoint consisted, in the old days of

music, when a system of sounds called points were used for notation, in

two or more lines of these points; each line represented a melody which,

when set against each other and sounded simultaneously, produced correct

harmony.

Wilde's prose was moulded entirely upon an appreciation of these facts,

and the ear must always be the critic of the excellence of his prose

rather than the intelligence, in the first instance, as reached by the

eye. If we read aloud passages of "De Profundis" the full splendour of

them strikes us far more poignantly than in any other way. It is true

that Wilde's prose makes an appeal _ad clerum_, and it is not necessary

for the connoisseur, the initiate, to apply the test of the spoken

word. But those who are not actually conversant with the more technical

niceties of style will do well to read Wilde's prose aloud. They will

discover in it new and unsuspected beauties.

Wilde, at one period of his career, published a series of short

paragraph stories which he called "Poems in Prose." With him there were

many points of contact between prose and poetry. The two things could

overlap and intermingle, though in his hands neither lost its own

individuality in the process. There has been too much said in the past

about the old principle of sharp division between poetry and prose. This

was a classical tradition and was one which well applied to the Greek

and Latin languages. It was maintained, until a late era in our own

English literature, by the Gibbons and Macaulays who moulded themselves

upon Cicero and Livy. But during the last century the force of the old

tradition weakened very much. A newer and more flexible style of writing

became permissible. Coleridge, De Quincey, Swift, Lamb, to mention a few

names at random, showed that, at anyrate, prose need no longer be

written as a stately cataract of ordered words with due balance and

antithesis, and with certain rigid movements which were thought

indispensable to correct writing.

Dr Boswell said, apropos of style--"Some think Swift's the best; others

prefer a fuller and grander way of writing." To whom Dr Johnson

replied--"Sir, you must first define what you mean by style, before you

can judge who has good taste in style and who has bad. The two classes

of persons whom you have mentioned don't differ as to good and bad. They

both agree that Swift has a good neat style, but one loves a neat style,

another a style of more splendour. In the like manner one loves a plain

coat, another loves a laced coat; but neither will deny that each is

good in its kind."

Although Johnson and his contemporaries certainly had a great sense of

rhythm and harmony in prose they were the last defenders of the old

axiom that poetry and prose were two entirely separate things. It was

Walter Pater who, in our own times, finally demolished the old

tradition, and opened the way for a writer, such as Oscar Wilde, to

bring the new discovery to its fullest perfection. Walter Pater showed

that it was not true that poetry differs only from prose by the presence

of metrical restraint.

Wilde, understanding this, most thoroughly, resolved early in his

literary career that his prose should be beautifully coloured, jewelled,

ornate, and yet capable of every delicate nuance, every almost lyric

echo that could be caught from the realms of poesy and welded into the

many-coloured fabric.

In Wilde's "Intentions" we have an example of his most ornamented and

decorated prose, so marvellously musical that it reminds us of a fugue

played on a mighty organ with innumerable stops. Yet, at the same time,

in this book of Essays, Oscar Wilde frequently laid himself open to the

charge of precocity and over-elaboration. It is possible to obscure the

grand and massive lines of a building by an over-elaboration of detail.

Beautiful as decorated Gothic is, I have in mind the Cathedral of

Cologne, there is a more massive grandeur in the early mediaeval work

than anything the later style can give.

"De Profundis" is purged of all the faults--one might almost say the

faults of excellence--that the hypercritical student may sometimes find

in the earlier prose of its author. Just as the man himself was purged

and purified in mind by the terrible experiences of prison, so his style

also became stronger and more beautiful, and what was once reminiscent

of a marvellous nocturne or ballade of Chopin, or "some mad scarlet

thing by Dvorak" inherent with all the beauty of just this, now acquires

the harmony and strength of a great wind blowing through a forest.

The prose is still full of the old symbolism and imagery, but these two

means of producing an effect are used with much more restraint of

language and simplicity of words. Note, for example, how the following

paragraph, especially when read aloud, proceeds from symbol to symbol

with a marvellously adroit use of the dactyl and the spondae, or rather

their equivalents in English prosody, until the final thought is

enunciated, the voice drops, the sentence is complete. "When one has

weighed the sun in the balance and measured the steps of the moon, and

mapped out the seven Heavens, star by star, there still remains

oneself."

Here we notice in addition, the extraordinary influence that the words

of the Bible always had upon the prose of Oscar Wilde. In his lonely

prison cell, where nearly the whole of his reading must have consisted

of Holy Scripture, the influence was naturally greater than ever before.

No one can read "De Profundis" with its rhythmic repetitions of phrase

without realising this in an extraordinary degree. Take the passage I

have just quoted and the following paragraph, which, let me assure my

readers, I have taken quite at random, opening a Bible and turning over

but a very few leaves of the Old Testament without any regular

search,--"So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut

down out of the forest; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and

they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed

them, saith the Lord God."

Yes! there can be no possible doubt that much of the inspiration of "De

Profundis"--that is, the purely literary inspiration--came from the

solemn harmonies and balanced phrases of the old Hebrew singers and

poets.

With Job, Oscar Wilde might well have said, and his own lamentations are

strangely reminiscent of the phrase, "My harp is turned to mourning and

my organ into the voice of them that weep."

In "De Profundis" the special passages of rare and melodious beauty

which star the printed page at no long intervals, have been very widely

commented upon and quoted. By this time they are quite familiar to all

who take an interest in modern literature, and this masterpiece of it in

particular. Yet, in considering the prose of "De Profundis" we must not

forget to pay a due meed of praise to the great substance of the book in

which an extraordinary ease and dignity of style, an absolute simplicity

of effect, which conceals the most elaborate art and the most profound

knowledge of the science of words, links together those more memorable,

because more striking, passages which leap out from the page and plant

themselves in the mind of the appreciative reader like arrows.

"There is hardly a word in 'De Profundis' misplaced, misused, or

used at all unless the fullest possible value is got from its

presence in the sentence. Even now and then, when, in the midst of

the grave rhetoric of his psychology, the author descends into

colloquialism, the ear is not offended in the least. He knows the

precise moment when the little homely word will bring back to the

reader the fact that he is reading a human document written by a

human sufferer in a prison cell.

"If, after I am free, a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not

invite me to it, I should not mind a bit, I can be perfectly happy

by myself."

Here in the midst of passages of calculated and cadenced beauty we have

a little carefully devised sentence to which, though the ordinary reader

will not realise the art and cunning of its employment, it will have

precisely the effect upon the brain of the ordinary reader that Oscar

Wilde designed when he wrote it.

The literary man himself, accustomed to deal with words, can, and will,

appreciate the art of the artist in this regard.

It is with the profoundest appreciation and admiration for the

marvellous skill of presentation, the perfect power and flexibility of

the prose that I leave the consideration of the purely artistic merits

of the book and turn to its real value as a human document.

As Oscar Wilde said of himself, he was indeed a "lord of language."

"DE PROFUNDIS" AS A REVELATION OF SELF

We now come to a consideration of "De Profundis" as a revelation, or

not, of the real sentiments and thoughts of the man who wrote it.

To the British temperament it is always far more important, in the

judgment of a book, that the writer should be sincere in the writing

than that what he wrote should be perfectly artistic.

The British public, indeed, the whole Anglo-Saxon world, has never been

able to adapt itself to the French attitude that, provided a thing is a

flawless work of art, the sincerity of the writer has nothing whatever

to do with its worth. This attitude Wilde himself consistently preached

in season and out of season. For example, he wrote a study of

Wainwright, the poisoner, which, read from the ordinary English ethical

point of view, would seem to show him a most sympathetic advocate of

crime, provided only the criminal committed his crimes in an artistic

manner and had also a sense of art in life.

When a friend reproached the monster Wainwright with the murder of an

innocent girl, Helen Abercrombie, to whom he owed every duty of kindness

and protection, he shrugged his shoulders and said--"Yes, it was a

dreadful thing to do, but she had very thick ankles." If we are to take

Oscar Wilde's essay, "Pen, Pencil and Poison," quite seriously we must

believe him to be utterly indifferent to the monstrous moral character

of the hero of his memoir. He speaks of him as being not merely a poet

and a painter, an art critic and antiquarian, a writer of prose and a

dilettante of things delightful, but also a forger of no mean nor

ordinary capacities, and as a subtle and secret poisoner almost without

rival in this or any age.

When "De Profundis" first made its appearance and the flood of criticism

began, dozens of critics pounced upon the book, admitted its marvellous

literary charm and achievement, and said that its author was absolutely

and utterly insincere in all he wrote about himself. _The Times_ for

example, which still holds a certain pre-eminence of place, although it

is the fashion of a younger generation to decry it and to pretend that

it has lost all its influence, owing both to the change of public taste

in journalistic requirements and certain business enterprises which have

been associated with its name, spoke out to this effect with careful and

calculated sincerity.

In an article which was extremely well written and had indubitably a

certain psychological insight, the leading journal condemned "De

Profundis" from an ethical point of view with no uncertain voice. It

said that, while it was possessed by every wish to understand the author

and to sympathise with him in the hideous ruin of his brilliant career,

it was impossible, except in a very few instances, to regard his

posthumous book as anything but a mere literary feat.

The excellence of that was granted, but it was not allowed to be

anything more than that.

It was not in this way, so said the writer in _The Times_, that souls

were laid bare, this was not sorrow, but the most dextrous counterfeit

of sorrow. Wilde, so the review stated, was "probably unable to cry from

the depths at all." His book simply showed that there was an armour of

egotism which no arrow of fate was able to pierce. Even in "De

Profundis" the poseur supplemented the artist, and the truth was not in

him. If the heart of a broken man showed at all in the book it must,

said _The Times_, "be looked for between the lines. It was rarely in

them."

In short, so the review, when summed up and crystallised, implied, Wilde

was incapable of telling the truth about himself, or about anything at

all. Sometimes in his writings he fell upon the truth by accident, and

then his works contained a modicum of truth. Consciously, he was never

able to discover it, consciously, he was never able to enunciate it.

Now, that is a point of view which is natural enough, but which, after

careful study, I cannot substantiate in any way. Over and over again

the same thing was said. Everybody was prepared, at last, to admit that

Wilde was a great artist--in direct contradiction to that condemnation

of even his literary power which was poured upon his works at the time

of his downfall--but the general opinion of the leading critics seemed

to point to the fact of "De Profundis" being a pose and insincere.

Now, if the book was merely an excursion in attitude, a considered work

of art without any very profound relation to the truth of its personal

psychology, then I think the book would be a less saddening thing than

it undoubtedly is. Surely, the author had a perfect right, if he so

wished, to produce a psychological romance. This I know is not a

generally held opinion, but I do not see how anybody who knows anything

about the brain of the artist and the ethics of creation can really deny

it. If the work is absolutely sincere, as I believe it to be, then, from

the moral point of view, it is indeed a terrible document. It shows us

how little the extraordinary, complex temperament of Oscar Wilde was

really chastened and purified. It provides us with a moral picture of

monstrous egotism set in a frame of jewels.

As has been said so often before in this book, the worse and insane side

of Oscar Wilde must always obscure and conquer the better and beautiful

side of him.

Oscar Wilde describes himself as a "lord of language." This is perfectly

true. He goes on to say that he "stood in symbolic relations to the art

and culture of his time." This is only half true. He continues that "I

felt it myself and made others feel it." The first half of this sentence

is too true, the second half is untrue, inasmuch as it implies that he

made everyone feel it, whereas he mistook the flattery and adulation of

a tiny coterie for the applause and sanction of a nation. Oscar Wilde

always lived within four very narrow walls. At one time they were the

swaying misty walls conjured up by a few and not very important voices,

at another they were the walls of concrete and corrugated iron, the

whitewashed walls of his prison cell. He says that his relations to his

time were more noble, more permanent, of more vital issue, of larger

scope than Byron's relation to his time. Then, almost in the same

breath, he begins to tell us that there is only one thing for him now,

"absolute humility." That something hidden away in his nature like a

treasure in a field is "humility."

Comment is almost cruel here.

In another part of "De Profundis" the author airily and lightly touches

upon those horrors which had ruined him and made him what he was, and

which kept him where he was.

"People thought it dreadful of me to have entertained at dinner

the evil things of life, and to have found pleasure in their

company. But then, from the point of view through which I, as an

artist in life, approached them, they were delightfully suggestive

and stimulating. The danger was half the excitement...."

Is this Humility and is this Repentance? To me it seems as terrible a

conviction of madness and inability to understand the depth to which he

had sunk as one could find in the whole realm of literature.

"People thought it dreadful of me to have entertained," etc. etc. Does

not the very phrase suggest that Wilde still thinks in his new-found

"humility" that it was not dreadful of him at all and that he had a

perfect right to do so?

There is no doubt of his absolute sincerity. He is absolutely incapable

of understanding. He still thinks, lying in torture, that he has done

nothing wrong. He has made an error of judgment, he has misapprehended

his attitude towards society. He has not sinned. Once only does he

admit, in a single sentence, that any real culpability attached to him.

"I grew careless of the lives of others." This shows that a momentary

glimpse of the truth had entered that unhappy brain, but it is

carelessly uttered, and carelessly dismissed. All he cared for, if we

believe this book to be sincere, as I think nobody who really

understands the man and his mental condition at the time that it was

written, can fail to believe, is, that every fresh sensation at any cost

to himself and others, was his only duty towards himself and his art.

Doubtless when he wrote "De Profundis" Oscar Wilde believed absolutely

in his own attitude. He was no Lucifer in his own account, no fallen

angel. He was only a spirit of light which had made a mistake and found

itself in fetters. That is the tragedy of the book, that its author

could never see himself as others saw him or realise that he had sinned.

When Satan fell from Heaven, in Milton's mighty work, he made no attempt

to persuade himself that he had found something hidden away within him

like a treasure in a field--"Humility." There was in the imaginary

portrait of the Author of Evil still an awful and impious defiance of

the Forces that controlled all nature and him as a part of nature.

Oscar Wilde could look back upon all he did to himself and all the

incalculable evil he wrought upon others and say quite calmly that he

did not regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. He tells

us that he threw the "pearl of his soul into a cup of wine," that he

"went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes." And then, after

living on honeycomb he realises that to have continued living on

honeycomb would have been wrong, because it would have arrested the

continuance of his development.

"I had to pass on."

Let us pass on also to a consideration of Wilde's teaching on

Christianity in "De Profundis."

THE AUTHOR'S VIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

It is necessary to deal with this part of "De Profundis" which treats of

the unhappy author's "discoveries" in Christianity, because his views

were put so perfectly, with such a wealth of phrase, with such apparent

certainty of conviction, that they may well have an influence upon young

and impressionable minds which will be, and possibly has been, dangerous

and unsettling.

There is no doubt but that the teaching of "De Profundis," or rather the

point of view enunciated in it, which deals with Christianity, shows

that Oscar Wilde had failed to gain any real insight into the Faith. It

is quite true that various of the sects within the English Church,

especially those which dissent from the Establishment, might find

themselves in accordance with much that Wilde said. A Catholic, however,

cannot for a moment admit that the poet's teachings are anything but

paradoxical, dangerous, and untrue.

A minister of the Protestant Church, Canon Beeching, preaching at

Westminster Abbey on "The Sinlessness of Christ," referred to the

portions of "De Profundis," with which I am dealing now, in no uncertain

way.

There are here and there things that a Catholic would not entirely

endorse in Canon Beeching's sermon, yet, on the whole, it is a very sane

and fair presentation of what a Christian must think in reading "De

Profundis." It is as well to say frankly, that I write as a Catholic,

and, in this section of my criticism, for those who are also of the

Faith.

I print some extracts from Canon Beeching's sermon:

"One wonders sometimes," said he, "if Englishmen have given up reading

their gospels. A book has lately appeared which presents a caricature of

the portrait of Christ, and especially a travesty of His doctrine about

sin, that is quite astonishing; and with one or two honourable

exceptions the daily and weekly Press have praised the book

enthusiastically, and especially the study it gives of the character of

Christ; whereas, if that picture were true, the Pharisees were right

when they said to Him that He cast out devils through Beelzebub, and the

priests were right in sending Him to death as a perverter of the people.

The writer of the book, who is dead, was a man of exceptional literary

talent, who fell into disgrace; and whether it is pity for his sad fate

or admiration of his style in writing that has cast a spell upon the

reviewers and blinded them to his meaning, I cannot say; but I do say

they have not done their duty to English society by lauding the book as

they have done, without giving parents and guardians some hint that it

preaches a doctrine of sin, which, if taken into romantic and

impressionable hearts, will send them quickly down the road of shame.

The chief point on which the writer fixes is Christ's behaviour to the

sinners; and his theory is that Christ consorted with them because He

found them more interesting than the good people, who were stupid. 'The

world,' he says, 'had always loved the saint as being the nearest

possible approach to the perfection of God; Christ, through some divine

instinct in Him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being the

nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. To turn an

interesting thief into a tedious honest man was not His aim.... But in a

manner not yet understood of the world He regarded sin and suffering as

being in themselves beautiful and holy things, and modes of perfection.'

It seems to have struck the writer at this point that our Lord had

Himself explained that He consorted with sinners, as a physician with

the sick, to call them to repentance. For he goes on:--'Of course the

sinner must repent; but why?--simply because otherwise he would be

unable to realise what he had done.' In other words, a man is the

better for any sort of emotional experience, when it is past, because he

is fertilised by it as by a crop of wild oats; a form of philosophy

which Tennyson in 'In Memoriam' well characterised as 'Procuress to the

Lords of Hell.' But even this writer, absolutely shameless and unabashed

as he is, does not hint that Christ Himself gained His moral beauty by

sinning. The lowest depth of woe is theirs who call evil good and good

evil, for that is a poisoning of the well of life. What is the use of

calling Jesus "good" if we destroy the very meaning of goodness? May God

have pardoned the sin of the man who put this stumbling-block in the way

of the simple, and may He shield our boys and young men from that

doctrine of devils that the way of perfection lies through sin."

These words, although they are obviously said without any sympathy

whatever for Oscar Wilde, have the germ of truth within them. Strong as

they are, and no one who had really studied the whole work and life of

Oscar Wilde would perhaps care to make so fierce a statement, they are,

nevertheless, words of weight and value. I have no record among my

documents of any Catholic priest who dealt with the Christian aspect of

"De Profundis" upon its publication. Nevertheless, I have conversed with

Christians of all denominations on the subject of Wilde's "discovery"

of Christ, and I am certain that I am only representing the Christian

point of view when I state that a wholesale condemnation of the

doctrines Wilde enunciated is the only thing possible for us. Of the way

in which his doctrines were enunciated no one with a literary sense and

who takes a joy in fine, artistic achievement, can fail to give a

tribute of whole-hearted praise and admiration.

Let us consider.

Morality, philosophy, religion, Wilde has already confessed have no

controlling force or power for him. Yet, he takes up the position of

those dim and early seekers after the Presence of Divinity. He would see

"Jesus." Accordingly, Wilde writes of our Lord very beautifully indeed.

He tells us that the basis of "His nature was an intense and flame-like

imagination.... There is almost something incredible in the idea of the

young Galilean Peasant imagining that he could bear on his own shoulders

the burden of the entire world--all that has been done and suffered, and

all that was to be done and suffered--and not merely imagining it, but

achieving it."

As another Anglican minister, Canon Gorton, appointed out at the time,

Wilde states that Christ ranks next to the poets. There is nothing in

the highest drama which can approach the last act of Christ's Passion.

Our Lord becomes, in Wilde's eyes, the source of all art. He is a

requisite for the beautiful. He is in "Romeo and Juliet," in "The

Winter's Tale" in Provencal poetry, and in "The Ancient Mariner." "Hence

Christ becomes the palpitating centre of romance, He has all the colour

elements of life, mystery, strangeness, pathos, suggestion, ecstasy,

love."

And then Wilde finally says "that is why he is so fascinating to

artists." This summing up of the personality and mission of the Saviour

of the world as a mere element in the life of mental or spiritual

pleasure enjoyed by those who are cultivated to such a life at all,

strikes the Christian man or woman with dismay. It is horrible, this

patronising analysis of the Redeemer as another and great Dante, merely

a supreme artist to whom artists should bow because of that, and no

more.

Wilde, in fact, definitely states that the artistic life means for him

the tasting in turn of good and evil, the entertainment of saints and

devils, for the sake of extending the circle of his friends. He

approaches the Personality of Christ _sub specie artis_, and only in

this way, and his words are the more terrible to the devout Christian

because they are so beautiful. Do we not remember, indeed, that once

when a young man knelt to our Lord and called Him "good," the Saviour

put him aside? Does it not strike one that there is something very

nearly blasphemous in the man who had lived the consciously antinomian

life that Oscar Wilde lived daring to call the Saviour idyllic, poetic,

dramatic, charming, fascinating? Does not the poet use the personality

of our Lord as a mere peg on which to hang his own gorgeous and jewelled

imagery, a reed through which he should make his own artistic music? Our

Lord did not come into the world to win admiration but to win the soul

from sin. His appeal was not to our imagination, but to our dormant

souls to rouse and strengthen them.

Oscar Wilde writes of Jesus, but there is no Cross. There is a Saviour,

but no repentance, no renewal, of life, no effort after Holiness.

It is terrible, indeed, to think of the poor unhappy author striving to

appreciate Jesus, though surely even his blind semi-appreciation of the

Personality of our Lord was better than none at all, and then to know

that even the little germ of truth which seemed to have come into his

life was forgotten and pushed away when once more the "appreciator" of

Jesus of Nazareth returned to the world.

As an English minister pointed out, the moral of Wilde's attitude

towards the Christian Faith is as old as Scripture itself, and as modern

as Browning also, who, in the painter's question--"gave art, and what

more wish you?" replied--

"To become now self-acquainters,

And paint man, man, whatever the issue,

Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,

New fears aggrandise the rags and tatters,

To bring the invisible full into play,

Let the visible go to the dogs--what matters?"

* * * * *

Finally we have to ask ourselves what is the precise value of this last

legacy Oscar Wilde has left to us? I think it is just this. We have upon

our shelves a piece of incomparable prose. I know of nothing written in

recent years that comes anywhere near it as an almost flawless work of

art. Nobody who cares for English literature or who understands in the

least degree, what fine writing is and means, will ever neglect this

minor classic. From another point of view also, it has its value. We who

appreciate the immense genius of Oscar Wilde and mourn for a wrecked

life and the extinction of a bright intellect, will care for and

treasure this volume for its personal pathos, its high and serene beauty

of expression, and also because, as a psychological document, it throws

a greater light upon the extraordinary brain and personality of its

author than anything he had written in the past.

INDEX

AEsthetic Movement, 7-9, 12, 19, 22, 29

AEsthetics--

Art and morality, 337-344

Art criticism distinguished from, 333

Meaning and scope of, 332

Ruskin's teaching regarding, 338-340

Wilde's belief in his vocation as to, 331;

his writings, 333;

his lectures, 334-336

America, Wilde's tour in, 18, 29;

quotation from his lectures, 334-336

Anderson, Miss Mary, 199-200

_Apologia_, 269

Aristotle cited, 342

Art--

Art's sake, for, 345

Morality and, 337-344

Wilde's writings on, 333

_Ave Imperatrix_, 248-250

_Ballad of Reading Gaol_--

Criticisms of, 285-286

Dedication of, 287

Estimate of, 262, 283-284, 298

Quotations from, 287-297

Revision of, 286

Otherwise mentioned, 86, 273

Ballad parody, 266

_Ballade de Marguerite_, 264-265

Baudelaire, Charles, influence of, on Wilde, 245-246, 258, 273, 274, 282;

quoted, 245, 252;

_Danse Macabre_ quoted, 274-276

Baugham, E. A., quoted--on _Salome_, 195-197

Beardsley, Aubrey, 40-41

Beeching, Canon, quoted--on _De Profundis_, 387-389

Berneval, Wilde's life at, 84

Bernhardt, Mme. Sarah, 161, 187-188;

Wilde's sonnet to, 267

_Birthday of the Infanta, The_, 239

Boswell quoted, 373-374

_Chanson_, 265

_Charmides_, 263-264

Currie, Lady, quoted, 285-286

_Daily Chronicle_--

"Salome" _Critique_ in, quoted, 190-192

Wilde's letters to, cited, 81-84

_Daily Mirror_ cited, 74

_Daily Telegraph_, extract from, 65-68

D'Aubrevilly, Barbey, quoted, 283

_De Profundis_--

Authenticity of, as prison-written, 71-76, 364-365

Biblical influence, 376-377

Christ as depicted in, 386-392

Estimate of, 362, 393

Extracts from, 359-360, 376, 378, 383-386, 390-391

Preface to, 366-367

Press criticisms on, 380

Publication and reception of, 362-363

Ross, R., on publication of, 363-366

Self-revelation in, 360, 379-386

Sincerity of, 382, 384-385

Style of, 371-373, 375-378;

Subject matter of, 367-371

_Des Sponettes_, 269

_Devoted Friend, The_, 229, 233-234

_Dole of the King's Daughter, The_, 265

Dress, _rationale_ of, 14-15

_Duchess of Padua, The_--

Anderson, Miss Mary, refusal by, 199-200

Estimate of, 199, 205-206

Influences in, 49

Plot of, 200-204

Production of, in Berlin, 205

_E Tenebris_, 256, 257

_Endymion_, 263

Fairy Stories, the--

_Format_ of 1891 Edition of, 239-240

Pathos of, 228

Sacred matters, allusions to, 230-231

Style of, 229

_Fisherman and his Soul, The_, 240-241

_Florentine Tragedy, The_--

Plot of, 217-218

Production of, 215, 216, 219

Theft of, 215

Flowers--

Decorative effect of, 45-46

Wilde's love of, 250-251, 260, 271

_Fortnightly Review_--

_Ballad of Reading Gaol_ criticised in, 285-286

_Poems in Prose_ in, 348

_Soul of Man, The_, in, 352

_Fourth Movement, The_, 268

Fyfe, Hamilton, cited, 75

_Garden of Eros, The_, 250-253

Gide, Andre, 77

Gorton, Canon, cited, 390

Grolleau, Charles, estimate of Wilde by, 47-48

_Happy Prince and Other Tales, The_, 227-231.

(_See also titles of the stories._)

_Harlot's House, The_, 272-274

_Helas_, 248

Holloway Prison, journalistic account of Wilde in, 59-64

House decoration, 44-46

_House of Pomegranates, The_, 235-239

_Humanitad_, 270

_Ideal Husband, The_--

Characters of, 129-131

Estimate of, 129, 148

Plot of, 131-148

_Importance Of Being Earnest, The_--

Estimate of, 149

Plot of, 150-154

Quotations from, 154-156

Reception of, 150, 156

Otherwise mentioned, 40

_Impression de Voyage_, 267

_Impression du Matin_, 263

_Impressions de Theatre_, 267

_Incomparable and Ingenious History of Mr W. H., The_--

Story of, 320-322

Theft of, 215, 220, 302

Theory of, 323-327

Value of, 322

_Intentions_, 49, 336, 337, 345-348, 375

Irving, Sir Henry, Wilde's Sonnet to, 267

Japanese artistic sense, 46

Johnson, Dr, quoted, 374

Keats, influence of, on Wilde, 246, 263, 264;

Wilde's epitaph on, 266-267

_La Bella Donna della mia Mante_, 263

Labouchere, H., estimate of Wilde by, 17-19

_Lady Windermere's Fan_--

Extracts from, 111-118

Plot of, 107-109

Reception of, by the public, 95, 106;

by critics, 104-106

Le Gallienne, Richard, cited, 336-337

_Le Reveillon_, 268

_Lord Arthur Savile's Crime_, 320

_Madonna Mia_, 257

_Magdalen Walks_, 262-263

Meyerfeld, Dr Max, 192-193

Moonlight, Wilde's sentiment for, 168

Moore, Sturge, 216

Morris, Wm., Wilde's estimate of, 251

Nature, Wilde's love of, 260, 271-272

Nicholson, Dr, cited, 75

_Nightingale and the Rose, The_, 231-232

Nordau, Dr Max, 9-12;

criticism of Wilde by, 12-16

Oxford Union debate on the AEsthetic Movement, 39-41

_Panthea_, 267-268

Pater, Walter, quoted, 371-372;

cited, 374

_Pen, Pencil and Poison_, cited, 379-380

Pennington, Harper, portrait of Wilde by, 44

_Picture of Dorian Gray, The_--

Epigrams from, in Wilde's plays, 315

Estimate of, 319

Extracts from, 312-313, 316-318

Huysmans' influence in, 49

Preface to, 303

Story of, 304-312

Poe, E. A., influence of, on Wilde, 246, 273

_Poems in Prose_, 348-352, 373

Poems, pastoral, 259-262.

(_See also titles of Poems._)

Poetry, Wilde's views as to simplicity in, 246-247

Precious stones, Wilde's knowledge of, 312

Proverbs, Wilde's transmutations of, 319

_Punch_, 21-22, 38;

bibliography of references to Wilde in, 23-28;

quotations, 29-34, 271

Queensberry case, 56

_Quia Multi Amori_, 269

_Ravenna_, 247-248

Reading Gaol--

_Ballad of Reading Gaol_, see that title

Cruelties perpetrated in, 81-83

Wilde's removal to, 370;

his life in, 76-78, 85

Rebell, Hugues, estimate of Wilde by, 48-50

_Remarkable Rocket, The_, 234-235

_Requiescat_, 253-254

Ricketts, C. S., 192, 193, 239-240, 283

Roman Catholic Church, influence of, on Wilde, 240, 254-255, 258, 272,

315

_Rome Unvisited_, 240, 256

Ross, Robert, quoted--on theft of Wilde's MSS., 215;

on publication of _De Profundis_, 363-366;

cited, 217;

mentioned, 75

Rossetti, D. G., influence of, on Wilde, 246, 252, 254, 256-258, 265

Ruskin, John, quoted, 338-340

_Sage Green_, 266

_St James's Gazelle_, extract from, 72-74

_Salome_--

Beardsley's illustrations to, 184-185

Bernhardt, written for, 161;

her dealings regarding, 187-188

Censor's prohibition of, 187

Criticisms on, quoted, 190-198

German popularity of, 365

Language of, 186

Production of--in Paris, 188;

in London, 189-193;

in various Continental countries, 193-194;

in Berlin, 195;

in New York, 195

Stage directions of, 167, 185-186

Stagecraft of, 181-182

Story of, 162-180

Tone of, 183

_San Miniato_, 255

Scott, Clement, criticism by, of _Lady Windermere's Fan_, quoted, 104,

105

_Selfish Giant, The_, 232-233

_Serenade, A_, 263

Shakespeare's influence on Wilde, 264

Shannon, Mr, 239

Shaw, G. B., _Don Juan in Hell_, cited, 121-123, 157

Sherard, R. H., cited, 6, 11, 84

Sibbern, cited, 342

Simon, J. A., quoted, 39-41

Socialism, Wilde's views on, 353

_Soul of Man, The_, 235, 352-355

_Sphinx, The_, 272, 276-283

_Star-Child, The_, 241-242

_Story of an Unhappy Friendship, The_, cited, 6

Style, 246, 371-378

Swinburne, A. C., Wilde's estimate of, 251

Symons, Arthur, cited, 333

Tapestry, Wilde's knowledge of, 313

Terry, Miss Ellen, Wilde's sonnets to, 267

_Times, The_--

_Ballad of Reading Gaol_ praised by, 285

_De Profundis_ criticised by, 380-381

_Tribune_, extract from, 215-217

_Truth_, extract from, 69-70

_Vera, or The Nihilists_--

Dramatis personae of, 207-208

Estimate of, 212-213

Plot of, 208-212

Production of, in America, 207

Wainwright the poisoner, 379

Wilde, Constance Mary, 235, 248;

quoted, 44-46

Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills--

Ancestry of, 11

Appreciation of, growth of, 3-5

Career of--

first period, 7, 16-42;

second, 42-53,

third, 53-79;

fourth, 79-90;

tour in America, 18, 29;

bankruptcy, 215, 220, 368;

refusal to forfeit his bail, 54-57;

the Queensberry case, 56;

trial and sentence, 65;

Clapham Junction episode, 370;

life in Reading Gaol, 76-78, 85;

release, 76;

last years, 84-88;

death, 88

Characteristics of--

Charm of manner, 46

Complexity, 50-51, 79

Conversational brilliancy, 34, 46, 86, 349

Eccentricity, 38

Egoism, 51-52, 349, 382

Flowers, love of, 250-251, 260

Generosity, 46, 51

Humour, 17

Imaginative faculty, 301

Kindliness and gentleness, 46, 51, 77

Language, felicity of, 252, 378

Loyalty to friends, 53, 55

Moonlight, sentiment for, 168

Narrowness of view, 383

Nature, love of, 260, 271-272

Perversity and whimsicality, 34

Profusion and splendour, taste for, 46

Self-plagiarism, 315

Versatility, 90, 301

Wit, 46, 98, 103

Dramatic powers of--

Brilliancy of dialogue, 95-99, 110

Plot interest, 97-98

Reality of characters and scenes, 96, 100, 102

Estimates of, by--

Grolleau, M. Charles, 47-48

Labouchere, H., 17-19

Nordau, Dr Max, 12-16

Rebell, Hugues, 48-50

Fiction of, characteristics of, 302-303

Home of, at Chelsea, 43-44

Insanity of, 11-12, 91, 382, 384

Interview with, quoted, 35-38

_Life of_, by Sherard, cited, 6

Literary style of, 371-378

Portrait of, by Penninton, 44

Work of, absolutely distinct from private life, 4, 68

Wilde, William, cited, 55

_Woman Covered With Jewels, The_--

Bernhardt, written for, 221

Loss of MS. of, 220-221

Plot of, 222-223

_Woman Of No Importance, A_--

Characters of, 126-128

Dialogue of, 120-123

Plot of, 123-125

Popularity of, 121-123, 128

Reception of, 119

_Woman's World, The_, Wilde's editorship of, 42

Words, Wilde's felicitous choice of, 252

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MUDDOCK (J. E. Preston), Tangled Destinies. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.

MUDDOCK (J. E. Preston), Thurtell's Crime. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s.

End of Project Gutenberg's Oscar Wilde, by Leonard Cresswell Ingleby