ABSTRACT
Oscar Wilde was a prodigious entertainer, and now that his complete works are brought together-eleven volumes of them, with another or two to come, in white and pale gold covers, fine paper, print, and margins, each volume separate, so that they can be arranged in what order you like-they have the aspect of a kind of Thousand and One Nights, so vari-coloured are they. The whole pageant is decorative, and passes swiftly; blood streams harmlessly across stages where a sphinx sits, with and without a secret, repeating clanging verse and mysterious prose, and where Sicilian shepherds and young girls on English lawns pass and return, and everywhere paradox-puppets turn somersaults like agile acrobats to the sound of a faint music which sometimes rises to a wild clamour. Verse and prose are spoken by carefully directed marionettes; songs, dialogues, and dramas are presented, with changing scenery and bewildering lights. At times the showman comes before the curtain, and, cutting a caper, argues, expostulates, and calls the attention of the audience to the perfection of the mechanism by which his effects are produced, and his own skill in the handling of the wires. Scene follows scene, without rest or interval, until suddenly the lights go out, and the play is over.
