Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions

this book, and some English friends wh

y say, "because sexual viciousness appeals to you,

ges, and throw an unpleasant light on English juries and the English public - all of which is not only unpopular but will convince the unt

do nothing willingly to alienate the few who are still friendly to me. But the motives

ua fervid

me terrent, et

rd to be bold, may even dare to be himself and write the best in him, heedless of knaves and fools or of anything this world may do. The voyage for me is almost over: I am in

bing the unnatural meal of Ugolino. The best modern critics approve my choice. "All depends on the subject," says Matthew Arnold, talking of great literature: "choose a fitting a

. His accusation and punishment constitute surely a great and significant action such

es, less significant in many ways: but even if this were true, it would not alter the artist's position; the great portraits of the world are not of Napoleon or Dante. The

ence. He was dreadfully punished by men utterly his inferiors: ruined, outlawed, persecuted till Death itself came as a deliverance. His sentence impeaches his judges. The whole story is charged with tragic path

and no fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story a

space, moves and has its being in obedience to inexorable law. The thinker may define morality: the reformer may try to bring our notions of it into nearer accord with the fact: human

f English puritanism. No account was taken of his manifold virtues and graces: no credit given him for his extraordinary achievements: he wa

pity and sorrow and fear that

choice. If the picture is a great and living portrait, the moralist will be satisfied: the dark shadows must al

the reasoning in the world and the praise of all the sycophants w

u think the book well done," says Pascal, "and on re-reading find it strong; be assured that the man who