The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-03-05
Oscar Wide Once More.

II ia rather difficult to write about tina
book that Oscar Wilde wrote while Ia
prison and which his friend Robert Ross
publishes under the title DE Profundis'
"a. p. Putnam's sons. The man ia dead
now. with his sins and follies and we have
no sympathy for the phariSaical manner in
which England, at least, tabooed even the
excellent literary work chat he had done.
Yet it is impossible not TO feel shocked at
finding in this book not record OF expert
enoe, not confession, but prose essay
full OF fine writing and paradox in which
the author parades as in the old days and
turns things that to most people are sacred
into the fippant jargon Of himself and his
school.
The beginning il promising. II seems
TO be made up OF extracts OF letters written
10 those who stood by him in spite Of every
thing. He says that he has found humilityi
what he means by that is not clear, unless
1t be that he has found out that there are
things he did not know before. He has no
shame and no regret for the crimes that
brought him to jail he does regret tho
ueanness of the manner in which he came
to justice. He says; Il am born anti
nomian ! am one Of those who are made
LOT tANPDllOnh, ubl lOI laws l1hN NNllN
/ see that there is nothing wrong in what
one does | see that there is something
wrong in what one becomes, Though
he iuggles with words, there is here an in
timation that some sense Of his offence
has pierced even his vanity.
Then he has discovered sorrow. II ia
by no means repentance, and We cannot
see that it is very deep sorrow. or any
thing beyond regret at present discomfort
and some feeling Of lost opportunity. hut
it leads him to write some beautiful pages
on the artistic value Of sorrow, and this
gradually brings him to Christ.
There IL no religion in the Christ that
Oscar Wilde discovers in jail through read
ing the New Testament in Greek. "Ths
very basis OF His nature was the same as
that Of the nature OF the artisan intense
and namelke ina gination. He realized
in the entire sphere of human relations
that imaginative sympathy which in the
sphere of art is the sole secret Of creation
Il had said Of Christ that he ranks with tho
poete. That is true. Shelley and Sopho-
Giles are of his company But wherever
there Ia a romantic movement in art. there
somehow, and under some form. is Christ,
or tho soul of Christ II ever he writes
again. one subject on which he desires to
express himself is Christ as the precursor
Of the romantic movement in life Further
IF the only thing he had ever said had been,
Her sins arc forgiven her because she
loved much it would have been worth
diving to have said it And his comment
after repeating the story of the woman
taken in adultery with the saying Let him
OF you who has never sinned be the first 10
throw the stone at her IL, charac,erishcally.
1T was worth while living to have said that
1t ia no new Oscar Wilde that appears IN
this book. II is the old Oscar Wilde, abso-
lutely unchanged writing delightful En-
glish. hiding the artist in the mounfebank
thinking paradox necessary to attract atten-
ton. It may be that this posthumous
book shows absolute lack of depth or charao-
ter: It may be deliberate hout at what he
called -Philistinisn.' But even In this
message from the grave. he poses in the
superficial snartness and artifciality that
marked him before his fall.