Oscar Wilde Read Free

Alas! a misunderstanding arose; for we really must acknowledge that Wilde is not a great writer. Thus, all that was accomplished by the lead buoys which were thrown out to him was his ruin; his works, far from bearing him up, seemed to sink down with him. In vain did a few hands reach out to help. The wave of the world closed over him; all was over,
    At the time, one could not at all think of defending him differently. Instead of trying to hide the man behind his work, the first thing to do was to show that the man was admirable, as I shall try to do today—the work itself then taking on an illumination. “I have put all my genius into my life; I have put only my talent into my works,” said Wilde, A great writer, no, but a great viveur, if the word may be permitted to take on its full meaning. Like the philosophers of Greece, Wilde did not write but talked and lived his wisdom, imprudently entrusting it to the fluid memory of men, as if inscribing it on water. Let those who knew him longer tell the story of his life; one of those who listened to him most eagerly here simply sets down a few personal memories.
    A. G.
    1 Written in December 1901.

OSCAR WILDE’S DE PROFUNDIS
    That religion and morals make such recommendations, well and good; but we are shocked to see them set down in a code … I shall say as much for the harsh measures taken to assure the rule of our morals and manners. The most serious abuses are less damaging than a system of inquisition which degrades character.
    â€” RENAN

I
    T HOSE WHO CAME INTO CONTACT WITH W ILDE ONLY toward the end of his life have a poor notion, from the weakened and broken being whom the prison returned to us, of the prodigious being he was at first. It was in ’91 that I met him for the first time. Wilde had at the time what Thackeray calls “the chief gift of great men”: success. His gesture, his look triumphed. His success was so certain that it seemed that it preceded Wilde and that all he needed do was go forward to meet it. His books astonished, charmed. His plays were to be the talk of London. He was rich; he was tall; he was handsome; laden with good fortune and honors. Some compared him to an AsiaticBacchus; others to some Roman emperor; others to Apollo himself—and the fact is that he was radiant.
    At Paris, no sooner did he arrive, than his name ran from mouth to mouth; a few absurd anecdotes were related about him: Wilde was still only theman who smoked gold-tipped cigarettes and who walked about in the streets with a sunflower in his hand. For, Wilde, clever at duping the makers of worldly celebrity, knew how to project, beyond his real character, an amusing phantom which he played most spiritedly.
    I heard him spoken of at the home of Mallarmé: he was portrayed as a brilliant talker, and I wished to know him, though I had no hope of managing to do so. A happy chance, or rather a friend, to whom I had told my desire, served me. Wilde was invited to dinner. It was at the restaurant. There were four of us, but Wilde was the only one who talked.
    Wilde did not converse: he narrated. Throughout almost the whole of the meal, he did not stop narrating. He narrated gently, slowly; his very voice was wonderful. He knew French admirably, but he pretended to hunt about a bit for the words which he wanted to keep waiting. He had almost no accent, or at least only such as it pleased him to retain and which might give the words a sometimes new and strange aspect. He was fond of pronouncing skepticisme for “scepticisme”… 1 Thetales which he kept telling us all through the evening were confused and not of his best; Wilde was uncertain of us and was testing us. Of his wisdom or indeed of his folly, he uttered only what he believed his hearer would relish; he served each, according to his appetite, his taste; those who expected nothing of him had nothing, or just a bit of light froth; and as his first concern was to amuse, many of