That they are beautiful it would be idle to deny. Still we have the sure and dexterous pen employed upon them. There is no faltering in phrase, no hesitation of artistry. It is said by many people who heard the poet recite these stories upon social occasions, tell them to please, amuse, or bewilder one of those gatherings in which he was the centre in a constellation, that, spoken, they were far more beautiful than when at length he wrote them down and published them in the review. I can well believe it. On the two occasions when I myself heard Oscar Wilde talking, I realised how unprecedented his talent for conversation was, and wished that I also could hear him at times when he attempted his highest flights. Yet, even as pieces of prose, the title the author chose for them is perfectly justified. They are indeed "poems" in prose and triumphant examples of technical accomplishment and mastery.
Yet, the condemnation of their teaching can hardly be too severe. With every wish in the world to realise that a paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention, with every desire to give the author his due, no honest man, no Christian, no Catholic, no Protestant, but must turn from these few paragraphs of allegory with sorrow and a sense of something very like shame.
And it is for this reason.
The poet has dared an attempt of invasion into places where neither he nor any artist has right. With an insane pride he dares to patronise, to limit and to explain the Almighty.
Nowhere in this Appreciation have I made a whole-hearted condemnation of anything Wilde has written. Even at times when I most disagreed with his attitude I have attempted, I hope with humility and sincerity, to present the other side of the shield. Here I do not see there is anything to be said in favour of at least two or three of the prose poems—those two or three which give colour to the whole.
There is one of them called "The Doer of Good." It begins in this wise:
"It was night time and He was alone,
And He saw afar off the walls of a round city and went towards the city."
The allegory goes on to say that when Christ came near to the city He heard music and the sounds of happiness and joy. He knocked at the gate and "certain of the gatekeepers opened to Him."
Our Lord passes through the beautiful halls of a palace and sees upon a "couch of sea purple" a man bearing all the signs of an ancient Greek stupefied by pleasure and by wine. The Protagonist asks the man He sees—"Why do you live like this?"