OSCAR WILDE, 1893.
Then, turning suddenly towards me, he said, 'Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life—I have put only my talent into my works.'
It was only too true. The best of his writing is but a poor reflection of his brilliant conversation. Those who have heard him talk find him disappointing to read. Dorian Gray in its conception was a wonderful story, far superior to La Peau de Chagrin, and far more significant! Alas! when written, what a masterpiece spoiled. In his most delightful tales literary influence makes itself too much felt. However graceful they may be, one notices too much literary effort; affectation and delicacy of phrase[2] conceal the beauty of the first conception of them. One feels in them, and one cannot help feeling in them, the three periods of their generation. The first idea contained in them is very beautiful, simple, profound, and certain to make itself heard; a kind of latent necessity holds the parts firmly together, but from that point the gift stops. The development of the parts is done in an artificial manner; there is a lack of arrangement about them, and when Wilde elaborates his sentences and endeavours to give them their full value, he does so by overloading them prodigiously with tiny conceits and quaint and trifling fancies. The result is that one's emotion is held at bay, and the dazzling of the surface so blinds one's eyes and mind, that the deep central emotion is lost.
He spoke of returning to London, as a well-known peer was insulting him, challenging him, and taunting him with running away.
'But if you go back what will happen? 'I asked him. 'Do you know the risk you are running?'
'It is best never to know,' he answered. 'My friends are extraordinary—they beg me to be careful. Careful? but can I be careful? That would be a backward step. I must go on as far as possible. I cannot go much further. Something is bound to happen ... something else.'
Here he broke off, and the next day he left for England.
The rest of the story is well-known. That 'something else' was hard labour.