ABSTRACT
In spite of his showy paradoxes, Mr. Oscar Wilde, in his volume of essays called Intentions (Osgood, McIlvaine & Co.), succeeds in proving that he has something to say, and it is a pity that he should think, or find, it necessary to resort to the tricks of the smart advertiser in order to attract attention to his wares. He runs the risk of making his readers throw down his book in disgust, and he spoils his style by making it mechanical. To call Mr. Wilde’s favourite rhetorical figure by the name of paradox is really too complimentary; he carries his joke too far, and makes paradox ridiculous. The form of language in which he chooses to conceal his thoughts is easily described. His method is this: he takes some well-established truth, something in which the wisdom of centuries and the wit of the greatest men have concurred, and asserts the contrary; then he whittles his assertion down, and when at his best arrives at the point which might have been reached by starting at the other end. Piquant at first, but soon wearisome, his method does sometimes succeed in that illumination of the commonplace which constitutes originality. The first essay, called ‘The Decay of Lying’ (which means the growth of realism), is by far the cleverest. Here Mr. Wilde, in theintervals of his labour over paradoxes and self-contradictions, has spared time to think for himself. In speaking of writers about art Mr. Ruskin must, of course, be left in the place which he incontestably occupies by himself. But speaking of lesser people, after ‘Vernon Lee’ hardly any one has a better claim than Mr. Wilde to be named as a contributor of something fresh, something original and stimulating, amongst the mass of matter about art that has been written during the last twenty years. Next to ‘The Decay of Lying’ comes a paper on Wainewright the poisoner, which is not much above the ordinary level of magazine padding, and then Mr. Wilde returns to art matters. In two essays on ‘The Critic as Artist’ his besetting habit holds the mastery over him, and the reader becomes heartily weary of it. Making every allowance for Mr. Wilde’s tiresome way of expressing himself, one cannot extract anything of much value from these two papers. In the 118 pages which they occupy Mr. Wilde has attempted to make sense of a number of propositions such as these:—that it is more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it, and that to do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world; that all art is immoral, and all thought dangerous; that criticism is more creative than creation, and so on. He is at times naturally driven to desperate assertions. He says that ordinary people have a glib, ignorant way of saying, ‘Why should we read what is written about Shakespeare and Milton? We can read the plays and the poems. That is enough.’ The obvious truth is, of course, that ordinary people say and do just the reverse. And ordinary people, too, who write spend their labour in writing about literature instead of labouring to write literature. Again, what can Mr. Wilde have been thinking of, except effect, when he said that bad artists always admire each other’s work, as a summary of his theory that good ones do otherwise? Had he forgotten his Vasari and the evidence of the golden age of the great Italian artists? His statement that ‘to the aesthetic temperament the vague is always repellent’ is almost as reckless. When he speaks of Matthew Arnold’s definition of ‘literature’ as a criticism of life he is worse than reckless. When he speaks of the Caffè Florian at Venice as ‘Florio’s’, of the author of the ‘Ode to Evening’ as Collin, and of Wainewright’s being in ‘gaol,’ he shows, perhaps, that
strict accuracy is beneath him. But these are trifles. No one can read Mr. Wilde’s book without being convinced of the strong ability which he does so much to hide, and without hoping that he has now sufficiently sown his literary wild oats and will some day devote himself to writing something more solid and reasonable and not less brilliant than Intentions.
