ABSTRACT
Wilde’s descent into the abyss seemed at the time to be the death-blow to what little influence he had already gained. The hasty verdict of a rather superficial morality said then that his influence must havebeen essentially unhealthy. From that time to the publication of De Profundis it was even deemed a breach of manners to allude to Wilde in any way. However, that interesting posthumous book has been the cause of a partial change of the public attitude. We are once more allowed to discuss Wilde’s book without hearing a shocked ‘hush,’ or being suspected of loose views on moral matters. Whatever one’s opinion may be as to the genuineness of the repentance shown in De Profundis, one may at any rate be deeply thankful for what it has undoubtedly done toward the rehabilitation of its author. He is no longer under a ban. He may eventually receive a high place in English literature. After all, his admitted writings cannot fairly be deemed unhealthy. Those who see ‘an under-current of nasty suggestion’ in some of his literary productions must surely be so obsessed by their knowledge of his unfortunate behaviour as to lose all power of disconnecting two absolutely independent things, namely, his art and his private life. The ludicrous charges of immorality brought against that book of painted words and lordly language, Dorian Gray, fall to the ground at once when it is known that the book was written solely for money. As Mr. Sherard says in his Life of Oscar Wilde, no author would risk the financial success of a book by filling it with immoral teachings. The marvel
to me is that Wilde managed to produce such a transcendent work of art under the pressure of such a prosaic stimulus.
