R.R. A poem, in six words! What did she say?
O.W. What could she say, Robbie? She was delighted. To that impossible question which she had the courage to ask I had given the only impossible answer. Upon that we became friends. How much I have wished since that we could have met again. For the unbeautiful to have so much grace as to become charming is a secret that is worth keeping; and one the keeping of which I should have liked to watch. I would not have asked to know it for myself, for then it would no more be a mystery; but—merely to see her keeping it. In Paris (where almost everything is beautiful), they were very happy together. Now they are gone to America; and in that country, from which all sense of beauty has flown, perhaps she is no longer able to keep, as a secret, that which there would be no eyes to interpret. When I was in America, I did not dare to tell America the truth; but I saw it clearly even then—that the discovery of America was the beginning of the death of Art. But not yet; no, not yet! Whistler left America in order to remain an artist, and Mr. Sargent to become one, I believe.... But now, tell me of England: who are the new writers I ought to be reading, but have not?
L.H. Isn’t to be told what you ought to like rather irritating?
O.W. But I did not say “like”; I said “read.” There are many things one ought to read which one is not bound to like: Byron, Wordsworth—even Henry James, if Robbie will allow me to say so. But tell me whom you yourself find interesting. I shall, at least, be interested to know why. I have already had two books—from you and your brother—which have interested me.
L.H. Like you, as regards my own, I should be interested to know why?
O.W. Yours interested me—shall I confess?—partly because a few years ago it would have interested me so much less. For at that time, believing that I had discovered—that, in a way, I represented the symbol of my age, I was only interested in myself. Now, in an age to which I do not belong, I find myself interested in others. Robbie, who is the most sincere of flatterers, would have me believe that in this transfer of interest I am making a poor exchange. I am not sure. Till recently, absorbed in myself, I might have missed that new strange writer of things impossible in life, who writes under the name of Benjamin Swift. Ought I to have done so? His style has the gleam of a frozen fire. He writes like a sea-pirate driven by contrary winds to a vain search for tropical forests at the North Pole. Why does he look at life only in profile, as though, met face to face, it might mean death to him? Is he as mysterious, as unaccountable to himself, as he seems to others?
L.H. I don’t know whether the fact that he is a well-to-do Scotsman, who finished his education at a German university, can be said to account for him. We have met, and I find him interesting. He reminds me, somehow, of a lion turned hermit, wearing a hair-shirt, and roaring into it to frighten out the fleas. In other words, he is full of contradictions, and revels in them even while they torment him.
O.W. A Scotsman? That explains everything. For a man to be both a genius and a Scotsman is the very stage for tragedy. He apparently perceives it. Generally they are unaware of it.
R.R. My dear Oscar, why cannot a Scotsman be a genius as comfortably as anyone else?
O.W. I ought to have said “artist”: I meant artist. It is much easier for a Scotsman to be a genius than to be an artist. Mr. Gladstone, I believe, claimed to be a Scotsman whenever he stood for a Scottish constituency or spoke to a Scottish audience. The butter-Scotch flavour of it makes me believe it was true. There was no art in that; and yet how truly typical! It was always so successful....