MR. OSCAR WILDE.╤ Mr. Oscar Wilde died at Paris last Friday, in his forty-fifth year. He was the son of Sir William Wilde, an eminent Irish surgeon, and his mother was a woman of considerable literary ability. In 1874 he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won his two ╥firsts╙ in the Classical School, and also the Newdigate Prize for English verse. But the bent of his mind was not academic or scholarly. Even while he was at Oxford he was the most prominent leader in the new ╥aesthetic╙ movement, as it was called. The aestheticism of the day was largely a misreading of the spirit of Hellenism. The modern world is apt to draw a false antithesis between the good and the pleasant, and to make hard and fast distinctions between the moral, intellectual, and physical sides of life. The Greeks knew nothing of this antithesis. Moral and physical excellence were alike ╥beautiful;╙ moral and physical defects were alike ╥ugly.╙ Hence the philosophic basis of the new aesthetic movement, or cult of the beautiful. The beautiful in life was the only thing worth pursuing; ugliness was the thing to be avoided. Of course there is a degree of truth in all this. But the fallacy of the aesthetic doctrine of that day, as many understood it, was that it narrowed down the comprehensive Greek ideal of beauty to mere physical or material beauty. The extravagances of the aesthetic school are almost forgotten now, but its warped and one-sided philosophy was not born with Wilde, nor has it died with him.
He had great literary gifts. His romance ╥The Picture of Dorian Gray,╙ which embodies his philosophy of aestheticism, is a book of unmistakable tragic power. In 1892 he appeared as a writer of comedies with ╥Lady Windermere╒s Fan.╙ This was followed by ╥A Woman of No Importance╙ and ╥An Ideal Husband.╙ His plays were witty, paradoxical and perverse. There was little variety in the characterisation, but the work in other respects was technically admirable. In 1895 Wilde disappeared from public life. Two years later, on his release from prison, he published ╥The Ballad of Reading Gaol,╙ perhaps his most powerful piece of writing. Wilde╒s life is one of the saddest in English literature.
His abilities were sufficient to win him an honoured place as a man of letters, but they struggled in vain against his lack of character.
