Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once
the storm of youth is past,
Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death the silent
pilot comes at last.
THE GRAVE AT BAGNEUX.
And a short time afterwards, Wilde went back to Paris.[1]
His play was not written—it will never be written now. Society well knows what steps to take when it wants to crush a man, and it has means more subtle than death. Wilde had suffered too grievously for the last two years, and in too submissive a manner, and his will had been broken. For the first few months he might still have entertained illusions, but he soon gave them up. It was as though he had signed his abdication. Nothing remained in his shattered life but a mouldy ruin, painful to contemplate, of his former self. At times he seemed to wish to show that his brain was still active. Humour there was, but it was far-fetched, forced, and threadbare.