“It is true that Mallarmé has not written much, but all he has done is valuable. Some of his verses are most beautiful whilst Wilde seemed never to finish anything. The works of the English aesthete are very interesting, because they characterize his epoch; his pages are useful from a documentary point of view, but are not extraordinary from a literary standpoint. In the Duchess of Padua, he imitates Hugo and Sardou; the Picture of Dorian Grey was inspired by Huysmans; Intentions is a vade-mecum of symbolism, and all the ideas contained therein are to be found in Mallarmé and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. As for Wilde’s poetry, it closely follows the lines laid down by Swinburne. His most original composition is Poems in Prose. They give a correct idea of his home-chat, but not when he was at his best; that no doubt, is because the art of talking must always be inferior to any form of literary composition. Thoughts properly set forth in print after due correction must always be more charming than a finely sketched idea hurriedly enunciated when conversing with a few disciples. In ordinary table-talk we meet nothing more than ghosts of new-born ideas fore-doomed to perish. The jokes of a wit seldom survive the speaker. When we quote the epigrams of Wilde, it is as if we were exhibiting in a glass case, a collection of beautiful butterflies, whose wings have lost the brilliancy of their once gaudy colours. Lively talk pleases, because of the man who utters it, and we are impressed also by the gestures which accompany his frothy discourse. What remains of the sprightly quips and anecdotes of such celebrated hommes d’esprit, as Scholl, Becque, Barbey d’Aurevilly! Some stories of the XVIIIth. century have been transmitted to us by Chamfort, but only because he carefully remodelled them by the aid of his clever pen.”[2]
These opinions of Rebell questionable though they may be, show us plainly something of the charm and the weakness of Wilde.
A perfect artist desiring to leave his mark on the temple-columns of Fame must not live among his fellow men ambitious to taste the bitterness and the sweetness alike of every caress of existence, but submit himself pitilessly to the thraldom of the writing desk. Some authors may produce masterpieces amidst the busy throng; but there are others who lose all power of creation unless they shut themselves up for a time and live severely by rote. When Wilde was dragging out a wretched life in the sordid room of a cheap, furnished hotel, where he eventually died, did he ever remember while reading Balzac by the flickering light of his one candle that the great master of French literature often sought solitude and wrestled for eighteen hours at a stretch with the demon of severe toil? Did he ever repeat the doleful wail of the Author of La Comédie Humaine who was sometimes heard to exclaim in sad tones: “I ought not to have done that.... I ought to have put black on white, black on white....”
Few experiments are really necessary for the literary creator who seeks to analyse the stuff of which Life is composed in order to dissolve for us all its elements and demonstrate its ever-present underlying essence. The romance writer must stand away from the crowd, if only for a time, and reflect deeply upon what he has seen and heard. The power of thought, to be free and fruitful, cannot flourish without the strength of ascetism. We must yield to that law which decrees that action may not be the twin-sister of dreams. Those who live a life of pleasure can only give us colourless falsehoods when they try to depict sincerity of feeling. The confessions of sensualists resemble volcanic ashes.
Wilde himself gives us the key to his errors and his weakness:
“Human life is the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there is nothing else of any value. It is true that as one watches life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one cannot wear over one’s face a mask of glass nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshappen dreams. There are poisons so subtle that to know their properties one has to sicken of them. There are maladies so strange that one has to pass through them if one seeks to understand their nature. And yet what a great reward one receives! How wonderful the whole world becomes to one! To note the curious, hard logic of passion and the emotional, coloured life of the intellect—to observe where they meet, and where they separate, at what point they are in unison and at what point they are in discord—there is a delight in that! What matter what the cost is? One can never pay too high a price for any sensation.”[3]
The brain becomes dulled at this sport, which it would be illusory to call a study. He who uses his intellect to serve only his sensuality can produce nothing elaborate but what is artificial. Such is the dilemma of Wilde, whose collections of writings is like a painted stage-scene, mere garish canvas, behind which there is never anything substantial.
“When I first saw Wilde, he had not yet been seared by the brand of general reprobation. Often I changed my opinion of him, but at first I felt the enthusiasm which young literary aspirants always feel for those who have made their mark; then the law-suit took place, followed by the dramatic thunderclap of a criminal prosecution; and my soul revolted as if some great iniquity had been consummated. Later on, it seemed to me that the man of fashion had swallowed up the literary god, his baggage seemed light, and his brilliant butterfly-life had perhaps been of more importance to him than the small pile of volumes bearing his name.
“To-day, I seem clearly to understand what sort of a man he was—extraordinary beyond a doubt; but never has artificial sentiment been so cunningly mingled with seemingly natural simplicity and pulsating pleasure in one and the same man.”[4]
“I must say to myself that I ruined myself and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. 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. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.