OSCAR WILDE :sx A CONSIDERATION .sx ( Born Oct .sx 16th , 1854 ; died Nov .sx 30th , 1900 .sx ) BY PATRICK BRAYBROOKE , F.R.S.L. .sx Read January 28th , 1931 .sx NOT very long ago I happened to meet a youth who knew more about a straight bat than about our literature .sx On the table in the room in which the meeting took place there lay a book , on the jacket of which was a really excellent portrait of a modern author .sx The title of the book was " Oscar Wilde :sx A Study .sx " The youth turned to me , and with a burst of literary enthusiasm said :sx " Who's Oscar Wilde is he an actor ' fellah ' or something ?sx " I am sure that this young man did not realize that his innocent question contained a germ of an assertion that has ever been made by many about Wilde naively , that he was , in all his moods , merely an actor , a poseur .sx But the question seemed to me to suggest that it would not be mere waste of time to think again about the Victorian genius who passed away in a third-rate hotel in Paris thirty years ago with a smile on his lips , spring in his wit , but with dead winter in his heart .sx Thirty years , always a long time , is a length of time in which a literary position may change tremendously or remain completely stationary .sx In November of last year the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Wilde left England uninterested , though .sx I suspect a slight tremor passed through the gaol at Reading .sx And yet only a few years more than thirty had elapsed since Wilde , the darling of all lionizing London , found those same eulogizing " lions " savage monsters literally gasping for his blood .sx But this afternoon let us leave as far as we can on one side the tragedy of Wilde's life and fall ; let us rather consider in this brief time something of the genius of the writer who , not content with giving us ` The Importance of Being Earnest,' has left with us a whole sheaf of witty sayings , one of which , and not the least meritorious , was that which asked " whether it was the fogs which made the English people or the English people who produced the fogs .sx " We may as well start our consideration of Wilde with a thought or two about ` The Importance of Being Earnest .sx ' By the writing of this play he gained for himself a place , perhaps a small place , among the playwrights who live .sx With this play Wilde places himself in the forefront of imaginative dramatists ; he takes the art of creation , gathers it very tenderly to himself , and Bunbury is born .sx You will recall that Bunbury is the admirable relation who helps in the living of a double life , the excellent auxiliary who saves you from boring dinner parties .sx So Wilde tells us of the functions of Bunbury when he writes :sx I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury , in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose .sx With this invention Wilde can be called a dramatist who started the philosophy of " Bunburyism " which is still in existence , and I fear frequently forgets to whom it is indebted .sx All the way through this play Wilde seems to say :sx " I will make you laugh , " but " please read between the lines now and then .sx " The whole essence of his wit in this play is that it is smart wit which deals with smart people .sx It is smart wit which lets us know that Lady Bracknell cannot understand how people can live on the wrong side of Belgrave Square ; it is again smart wit which gives us a picture of Lady Bracknell's distress that Jack should have been bred in a handbag , and her refusal to be comforted on being told that the waiting-room in which he was left at Victoria was on the Brighton line .sx All this is clever fooling , but it is something more .sx It is a man of genius not only finding his genius , but risking his genius by being almost too funny .sx It is , I think , a true criticism that Wilde makes his characters too clever .sx For instance , you will recall Miss Prism , the charming governess who I am sure still picks blackberries in the English lanes .sx She is not a fool , she is prim and careful in speech , but I do not think she would speak like this .sx She is talking to Cecily , and Wilde makes her say :sx Miss Prism :sx Cecily , you will read your political economy in my absence .sx The chapter on the fall of the rupee you may omit .sx It is somewhat too sensational .sx Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic sides .sx This , I suggest , is not Miss Prism speaking , but Wilde , and Wilde a little careless of character creation , Wilde letting his cleverness lead him by the nose , and not being quite clever enough to realize that a brake must be put on his own imagination sometimes .sx ` The Importance of Being Earnest ' represents Wilde at the height of his fame , in the days when he really did think that the world belonged to him , in the days when he knew that money was only valuable in so much as it could buy some new sensation ; and yet there is always in the midst of this glut of success the sober thinker suddenly murmuring , almost as if ashamed of its common sense , " but you cannot buy a sunset .sx " And he was , indeed , to know that his own sunset , not long after , was never quite to be sold .sx We shall not understand this play if we are merely content to laugh at it ; we shall not understand it unless we are prepared to admit quite frankly that often Wilde makes the characters in it his slaves ; we shall not understand it unless we recognize also that not seldom the characters are remarkably true to life .sx Let us turn to a much more ordinary play , yet one of high dramatic worth ' A Woman of No Importance .sx ' In writing this play Wilde wrote a drama that was almost conventional .sx The main character , Lord Illingworth , is a typical Wilde character .sx He is clever and aristocratic a combination more usual than certain politicians would have us believe .sx He is aristocratic and unscrupulous , he speaks in epigrams , and few of them are unworthy of serious attention .sx This play again literally bristles with wit , and it is wit that could only have been written by Wilde .sx Some of the best dialogue is between Mrs. Allonby and Lord Illingworth .sx They are two people bored with life , and who could better interpret two such people than Wilde ?sx It is all quite naturaldialogue .sx Mrs. Allonby is the type of woman who evokes an instant response from Lord Illingworth , while Lord Illingworth finds Mrs. Allonby a strop on which to sharpen his wits .sx Here are a few lines taken at random when these two charming people ( not related to Mr. Michael Arlen ) fence .sx Lord Illingworth has just remarked as a kind of joke that he is a little surprised that Mrs. Allonby only likes him for one thing , for has he not , after all , so many bad qualities ?sx Mrs. Allonby :sx Ah don't be too conceited about them .sx You may lose them as you grow old .sx Lord Illingworth :sx I never intend to grow old .sx The soul is born old but grows young .sx That is the comedy of life .sx Mrs. Allonby :sx And the body is born young and grows old .sx That is life's tragedy .sx In the limited time that I have at my disposal I am only able to touch on two plays of Wilde's .sx Both , I believe indicate that he was not only a front-rank dramatist , but also no mean thinker .sx I believe we can fairly safely predict immortality for ` The Importance of Being Earnest .sx ' It has been said that this play places Wilde by the side of Sheridan .sx We can then rest assured that Sheridan's reputation is permanently secure .sx Wilde is dead , but his plays remain .sx He is for all time a playwright of importance , and may we risk a little joke and say that he is a man of some importance ?sx May I now ask you to consider for a brief space Wilde in that delightful work which he called 'Intentions .sx ' If we wish to consider Wilde in his most perfect form of expression we shall not turn to his plays , nor .sx to his stories , nor even to his verse , but we shall make close acquaintance with his written duologues , which are to be found expressed so exquisitely in ` Intentions .sx ' The form of dialectic based on the Platonian duologues is admirably suited for the interpretation of parts of Wilde's philosophy .sx He was a man who loved intellectual gymnastics and , unlike some intellectuals , he loved to see beautiful thoughts expressed beautifully .sx He was , indeed , ill content that an argument between two young men obviously belonging to the aesthetic school should not take place with a background of the Green Park , and an atmosphere which postulated a champagne supper and a look at the early morning roses in Covent Garden .sx Wilde was practical in this respect :sx he knew that intellectual food had to be kept going by repeated applications of supper .sx He knew only too well that beautiful thoughts came more easily in congenial surroundings .sx ` De Profundis ' was an exception proving a rule .sx ` Intentions ' arose from a fundamental attitude of Wilde towards life .sx He held that , generally speaking , thought was unpopular , and people looked upon thinking as a kind of disease .sx He throws out his main challenge that Nature hates mind .sx Thus he seeks to substantiate his position by means of a few cryptic sentences that are more true in the general than in the particular :sx Nothing is more evident than that Nature hates Mind .sx Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world , and people die of it just as they die of any other disease .sx Fortunately , in England , at any rate , thought is not catching .sx Our splendid physique as a people is entirely due to our national stupidity .sx Now this kind of thinking is typical of Wilde .sx There is the sensible suggestion that thought is unpopular because it implies a breaking away , and then there is that sudden jump into superficiality which has so much discredited Wilde as a serious thinker the absurd idea that the English do not think .sx Such a position is hardly consistent with a nation that still leads the world both in thought and action .sx One of the most important arguments that arise in ` Intentions ' is the assertion that Life imitates Art .sx I do not think that the veracity of this generalization is open to much doubt .sx Wilde then goes on to prove , at least to his own satisfaction , that not only does Life imitate Art , but it plays the part of the sedulous ape further and imitates literature .sx So then we find , according to Wilde , that life imitates bad literature , it imitates good literature .sx So he philosophizes on his little logical excursion , and writes , as though for an instant he had forgotten all about smart wit and had become a professor of psychology in the Oxford which gave him the Newdigate Prize :sx The boy burglar is simply the inevitable result of life's imitative instinct .sx He is Fact , occupied as Fact usually is with trying to reproduce Fiction , and what we see in him is repeated on an extended scale throughout the whole of life .sx Another excellent duologue in ` Intentions,' though really dreadfully sober and sedate , considers the critic as artist .sx It would be uncritical to contend that Wilde has any original arguments .sx He just makes a serious contribution to the problem of criticism , and asks the question rather a fatal one for him unfortunately what do we owe to Greece ?sx It would be a fairer question to ask What do we not owe to Greece ?sx And here is what Wilde tells us we get from Greece .sx Greece will not feel that she had in Wilde no true and loyal admirer .sx