OSCAR WILDE AS A LITERARY ARTIST.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2052, 17 May 1895, Page 3

OSCAR WILDE AS A LITERARY ARTIST.

Mr Oscar Wiide is before the public at present in a distinctly unenviable light. He has posed in a good many lights in his time, mostly tinted. From the days when he was the centre of a '' too-too-utferly-utter" cult at Brasenose College, Oxford, doing his best to "live up to his blue china,'' down the later peried, when lie set the odious fashion of wearing green carnations, dyed in verdagris, and told a London audience that it

had done itself an honor in appreciating one of his plays, lie has managed to kesp himself before the public by reason of his aesthetic and other eccentricities. As lie has remarked, "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Some people have said that he was a fool ; others, who knew him better, were ft ware that he was only pretending to be one. lie has managed to create a reputation for being sincere in 'nothing but insincerity. "A little sincerity,' he once said, "is a dangerous thing , a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. What people call our insincerity is simply a method by which we cm multiply our personalities." The last play he has produced is called The Importance of Being in Earnest. Probably this title, and the action he has broug.it against the Marquis of 'juemsberry, are the only two thoroughly earnest tilings he has ever been concerned in, and that he has made a mistake in so venturing out of his element in at leist one of these respects cannot, in view of the result, be doubted. Everyone is familiar with the name of Oscar Wilde—i 'scar (J'Flaherty Wilde, to give his full denomination—but not many people, perhaps, know very much about his literary v,ork. Most of his books are expensive. He values his thoughts as "precious," and insists upon issuing them in dainty vuiumes, ornate with gilt and printed on the finest paper. But despite affectations, there is real genius in Oscar's literary work, and, eccentricities notwithstanding, his a peculiarly interesting personality. At Oxford he was one of Mr Buskin's young men. While "the master" was professor of line arts, from 1870 to IS7!\ lie tried to It-ad his students to healthy and ust-lul recreations, and, in pursuance of this object, led them to go out early in the mornings to make a road. Oscar was one of the students who joined in this exercise, and. it is raid, on his own authority, lie "had the honor of tilling Mr Buskin's especial whclbarrow on these occasions." iio iirst bur.-t into the full bioom of publicity, however. i'i * er.icction wilh the ultr.v-a s'Jictic m tvt.i. i.t ».f the early eighties, winn j. -ed as ;:n ajio.stln of a suntiower and n lily evangel, ami whs pli'itiyraphed and disI'layfd all over England in black velvet kniekt r": ■•, kit •»•, silk stockings ami long hnir. IBs le:ture on

"The House ILanur.u " was delivered in very many places in America. as well as in London and the Kn:'!ish provinces. The .*<-slli«t;c icovcni-nt was exquisitely caricatured by Da Maurier in " Punch,'' and by Gilbert in the comic opera "Patience." .Esthedjism is dead now,and its high priest has been spending his days in the Central Criminal Court, where sunflowers bloom no: ar.d the fragance ol the l:lv is unknown.

Oscar is a who has trained himself to speak in epigrams, and explain his meaning in paradoxes. "To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be artistic." he has said. His bocl;« and plays sparkle with clever and startling things of this kind. Take another. " A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I nave not oiot one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me." One v.onders whether lie now appreciates them ! " Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. " There arc only two kinds of people who are absolutely fss ciiiating: people w.iO know absolutely everything and people who know absolutely nothing. '' The man who sees both sides of a question is the man who ce>'S absolutely iu>t.';:ng at all. ' " Life imitates art far m re :'mm art imitates life. A great artist invents a type, and life tries to c> py :t. In n >vord, L'ie is Art's best. Art's only pupil." "It is because humanity has never known where it w„s going that it lias been able to find its way." " Divorces are made in heaven." "1 am always bored in the country ; they eall it agricultural depression.

< )n« could simply quote columns of Oscar Wilde's smart hashes in this style, until, indeed, th« inert reading of them would become tedious. Ilis books and plays, indeed, cloy with excess ct' cleverness. Sarah Bernhardt characterised hi.n with some degree of critical neatness, if with some exaggeration, when she described him as "Lord Byron and oau sucree."

The one work of his which, so far as the cables have informed us, has been quoted during the trial just concluded, is his story The Picture of Dorian Gray. This is undoubtedly a powerful and exceedingly clerer book, but a most unconscionably wicked one. It is the tale of a singularly fascinating and handsome youth—"a beautiful personality," Oscar would probably call him, pace recent evidence—who falls under the evil influence of a cynical man of the world named Lord Henry Wotton. The whole atmosphere of the book is heavy with perfume, and the scenes in which the action takes place are lavishly luxurious as to furniture and surroundings. The author allowed his fancy for beautiful things to roam at will in describing the surrounding" or his hero. The picture referred to in the title of the book, is that of a " young man of extraordinary beauty," who is in fact Dorian Gray. Dorian is led on a path of vicious pleasures by Lord Hi.rry. The peculiar thing is that despite ail, bis beautiful face remains unchanged, but the portrait by some occult mystery undergoes the most horrible alterations ot aspect. The impress of vicious living on the part of Dorian, manifests itself on the face of the picture. Nobody knows the secret of this but Dorian himself. He keeps the picture in a room, locked, with its face to the wall. Day by day the picture grows more and mare hideous, whilst his own face remains unchaned.

""Was it true that he could nerer change ? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood—his rosewhite boyhood, as Lord Harry had once called it. He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corrupti«n, and given horror to his fancy ; that lie had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so, and that of the lives that had crossed his own it had been th« fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame." Haunted by the horror of the things and the thoughts, he rushes madly to th# room where the portrait is hanging. He takes a big: knif«, with the intent to rip it from its He cannot bear the thought of ithis picture beariag the story

of his shameful life upon it. " There was a cry heard and cwi&sh. The cry was so horrible in its agony that the frightened servants woke, «nd crept out of their rooms. . . . When they entered they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master 3.9 thejr had last seen him, in all the wonder of lu» exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man in eveuicg drees, with a knife 111 his heart. he w<» withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examine® the rings that they recognised who it was.' This story is told with a full compter. CH| of the cynical aphorisms which characterise Mr Wilde's style. Take a few : —" I hese who are faithful know only tho j leasursi of love : it is the faitlucss win' k.tow love's tragedies. ' 'Men marry uecause they are tired : women because they^are curious; both aie disappoint eu. V-hat they call their loyalty and fidelity 1 ca.t either the lethargy of custom <<v the lack of imagination. Faithlessness is I') t..# emotional life what consistency 11 O the intellectual life, simply a euueasi. n of failure.'' " Every experience is of value, and whatever we may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience. •'Whenever a man docs a stupid tlung is always from the noblest motives. Oscar Wilde lias onlv lately conv" 1 into

notoriety as a dramatist, and his plays re characterised by just the same .sort or brilliant cynical wit as everything -ose he writes. "It is the public, not ti.e play 1 desire to make a success, he said on a recent occasion ; " the public makes a success when it realises that a play is a work of art.' His stag? characters say the most dazzling thing I '. acd in sheer wit of dialogue no play v. r..lit of modern times lias come near Oscar Wilde. "The truth is rarely put a and never simple, lie says in his latesr play. And again Tim amount of woiuer. who flirt with their husbands in L-r.d-v, is simply scandalous; it is washing ones clean linen in public." As a poet i heir has chiefly distinguished, himself as a sonneteer. He has'mastered the sonnet form, and given to literature some flawless specimens. One example itl his sonnet-writing may conclude this article. It is "On Till'. -' .E V AIVTION OF IvI'VTS* 1 .Vl' i.KTTKRS." These are the letters which Endymion wrote To one ho loved in secret and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mark Bargain and Lid for each poor blotted aote — Ay ! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant's price. I think they lore not art Who break the :ry s ta! of a poet's hairt. That small a:d si;kly eyes may glare gloat. B. it not sai I thst nr.r.y years ago, In a far ea-'irr i xn.soine soldiers ran With torches t..:- ugh the midnight, aacl began To wrangb f r.v"-ac raiment, and to throw Bice for the £&:: tnte of a wretched mac, I\ot knowing zr.e ucd's wonder or His woe.