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. 'Salomé,' 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 _précis_ 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 quæ 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 mediæval 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 spondæ, 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
Æsthetic Movement, 7-9, 12, 19, 22, 29
Æsthetics-- 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 Marguérite_, 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 _Salomé_, 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_-- "Salomé" _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, André, 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 Théâtre_, 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 Æsthetic 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
_Salomé_-- 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 personæ 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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End of Project Gutenberg's Oscar Wilde, by Leonard Cresswell Ingleby