Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions

nfluences:

ater years kept practically open house —“lashins of whisky and a good larder,” and was besides notorious for his gallantries. Oscar’s small portion, a little money and a small house with some land, came to him in the nick of time: he used the cash partly to pay some debts at Oxford, partly to defray the expenses of a trip to Greece. It was natural that Oscar Wilde, with his eager spong

so great that he failed to return to Oxford on the date fixed. The Dons fined him forty-five pounds for the breach of disci

car Wilde who for a moment loses sight of the fact that he was a pagan born: as Gautier says, “One for whom the visible world alone exists,” endowed with all the Greek sensuousness and love of plastic beauty; a pag

the heroes and heroines of Greek story throned in the Vatican. He preferred Niobe to the Mater Dolorosa

eristic of the young man

relates that when they met Oscar used to be full of his occasional visits to London and could talk of nothing but the impression made upon him by plays and players. From youth on the theatre drew him irresistibly; he had not only all the vanit

He feared, however, that the public might be similarly affected — a thing which, he declared, would destroy his enjoyment of an extrao

vors free. Lady Wilde had lost her husband and her only daughter in Merrion Square: the h

kened to “a ray of sunshine dancing about the house.” He took his vocation seriously even in youth: he felt that he

could be attributed to him, Willie reported in The World. This puffing and Oscar’s own uncommon power as a talker; but chiefly perhaps a whispered reputation for strange sins, had thus early begun to form a sort of myth around him. He was already on the way to becoming a personage; there was a certain curiosi

the next, where his mistakes would be his only tutors and his desires his taskmasters. His University successes flattered him with the belief that he would g

ity and handicap in the rough-and-tumble tussle of the great city, where greed and unscrupulous resolution rule, and where there are few prizes f

ng the will. The would-be athlete has to live laborious days; he may not eat to his liking, nor drink to his thirst. He learns deep lessons almost unconsciously; to conquer his desires and make light of pain and discomfort. He needs no Aristotle to teach him the value of habits; he is soon forced to

ered triumphs; he was at once pleasure-loving, vainly self-confident and weak; he had been encouraged for years to give way to his emotions and to pamper his sensations, and as the Cap-and-Bells of Folly to cherish a fantastic code of honour even in mortal combat, while despising the religion which might have given him some hold on the respect of his compatriots

as he saw himself at this time and let us also determine his true relations to

r to men industrious with muck-rakes: “Gadarene swine,” as Carlyle called them, “busily grubbing and grunting in search of pignuts.” “Pathetic” for it is boldly ingenuous as youth itself with a touch of youthful conceit and exaggeration. Another eager human soul on the th

and above all an educated respect for artists and writers just as they have places too for servants of Truth in chemical laboratories and polytechnics endowed by the State with excellent results even from the utilitarian point of view. But rich England has only a few dozen such places in all at command and th

us pause and food for thought. Organic progress we have been told; indeed, might have seen if we had eyes, evolution so-called is from the simple to the complex; our rulers therefore should have provided for the ever-growing complexity of modern life a

e fields for their powers and may not be forced willy-nilly to grub for pignuts when it would be more profitable for them and for us to use their nobler faculties? Not only are the poor poorer and more numerous in England than elsewhere; but there is less provision

ime ago, while the medical profession has got a noble spirit with a wretched half-organized body. It says much for the inherent integrity and piety of human nature that our doctors persist in trying to c

journalism is a career in which an eloquent and cultured youth may honourably win his spurs. In many countries this way of earning one’s bread can still be turned into an art by the gifted and high-minded; but in England thanks in the main to the anonymity of the press cunn

then he was a poet and had boundless confidence in his own ability. To the artist nature the present is everything; just for today he resolved that he would live as he had always lived;

death and the smallness of his patrimony had been a heavy blow to him. He encouraged himself, however, a

to work at journalism while getting together a book of poems for publication. His journalism at first was anything but successful. It was his misfortune to appeal only to the best heads and good heads are not num

hich served him best all through his life. He went about declaring that Mrs. Langtry was more beautiful than the “Venus of Milo,” and Lady Archie Campbell more charming than Rosalind and Mr. Whistler an incomparable artist. Such enthusiasm in a young and brilliant man was unexpected and delightful and doors were thrown open to him in all sets. Those who praise passionately are generally welcome guests and if Oscar could not praise he shrugged his shoulders and kept silent; scarcely a bitter word ever f

money in his purse. It even forced him to spend money; for the constant applause of his hearers gave him self-confidence. He began to

the moderns, and a great artist to boot: he had not only assimilated all the newest thought of the day, but with the alchemy of genius had transmuted it and made it his own. Before even the de Goncourts he had admired Chinese porcelain and Japanese prints and his own exquisite intuition strengthened by Japanese example had shown that his impression of life was more valuable than any mere transcript of it. Modern art he felt should be an interpret

?sthetic gospel. He even ventured to annex some of the master’s m

t may find

bition of Whistler’s pictures. Filled with an undue sense of his own i

you know,” he went on, jerking his finger over his shoulder

ever! Good and bad are not terms to be used by you; but say, I like this, and I dislike that,

the witty flin

I had sa

u will,” came Whistl

laws unto themselves; showed him, too, that all qualities — singularity of appearance, wit, rudeness even, count doubly in a democracy. But neither his own talent nor the bold self-assertion learned

inordinate vanity. Instead of diminishing his pretensions in the face of opposition he increased them. He began to go abroad in the evening in knee breeches and silk stockings wearing strange flowers in his coat — green cornflowers and gilded lilies — while talking about Baudelaire, whose name even w

ed to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be beaten dow

ew of life and women by the emotional intensity of the new creed. Oscar Wilde became the prophet of an esoteric cult. But notoriety even did not solve the monetary question, which grew more and more insistent. A dozen times he waved it aside and went into debt rather than restrain himself. Somehow or other he would fall on his feet, he thought. Men who console themselves in this way usually fall on someone else’s feet and so did Oscar Wilde. At

it published. The publishers told him roundly that there was no money in poetry and refused the risk. But the notoriety of his knee-breeches and silken hose, and above all the continual attacks in the society papers, came to his aid and his book appeared in the ear

ified, but he meant it in the singing sense as well, and there his claim can only be admitted with serious qualifications. But whether he was a singer or not the hop

were sold in a few weeks. Two of the Sonnets in the book were addressed to Ellen Terry, one as “Portia,” the other as “Henrietta Maria”; and these partly account for the book’s p

enriett

tent, waitin

eyes marred by t

lily overdrenc

ang of arms, the

and the wrec

oul no common

rrieth for her

me with passi

d! O Crimson

luring and th

forget the to

ad that knows n

pulse, the soul’

and my life

ppreciation in the English press which does not trouble to notice a “Sartor Resartus” or the first essays of an Emerson. The excessiv

s volume of poems,” it says, “may be regarded as the evangel of a new creed. From other gospels it differs in coming after, instead o

all the book is imitative” . . . and concluded: “

e reviewer objected in the English fashion to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up fairly enough: “This

e World, mainly written by Oscar’s brother, were extravagantly eulogistic. Punch declared that “Mr

erse so seriously and talking of it as the “evangel of a new creed

–Raphaelite movement with the sub-conscious and peculiarly English suggestion that w

d “The Too Utterly Utter.” Nine Englishmen out of ten took delight in the savage contempt poured upon

g Punch published under t

at Luncheon!! Oscar at Di

looked up from an elegant but substantial dish of ham and eggs. Passing a long willowy hand

feeling somewhat faint; and with a half apologet

g spite rather than humour. Under the heading of “Sage Gree

s fair as a

blue has a

the blooms in h

Ho! for the sw

*

me that I n

blue has a

hard up, and sh

Ho! for the sw

ption of vicious sensuality in the poet which is believed to be reflected in the poetry. This

the judicious: there was not a memorable word or a new cadence, or a sincere cry in the book. Still, first volum

s encouraged him and the stir the book made and he was as determi