This explains clearly enough the motive for suppressing the passages. Buteven after making allowance for the natural timidity and apprehensivenessof the publishers' reader, I cannot quite understand why those particularpassages were cut out. Here is one of them: "I had genius, a distinguishedname, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring; I made art aphilosophy and philosophy an art. I altered the minds of men and thecolours of things; there was nothing I said or did that did not makepeople wonder. I took the drama, the most objective form known to art, andmade it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or sonnet; at thesame time I widened its range and enriched its characteristics. Drama,novel, poem in prose, poem in rhyme, subtle or fantastic dialogue,whatever I touched I made beautiful in a new mode of beauty. To truthitself I gave what is false no less than what is true as its rightfulprovince, and showed that the false and the true are merely forms ofintellectual existence. I treated art as the supreme reality and life as amere mode of fiction. I awoke the imagination of my century so that itcreated myth and legend around me. I summed up all systems in a phrase,and all existence in an epigram. Along with these things I had things thatwere different. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senselessand sensual ease." It is difficult to see anything in the factitious butdelightful brilliance of this very characteristic swagger that could haveendangered the book's reception.
* * * * *
Mr. Ross's letter to me concludes thus: "'De Profundis,' however, even inits present form, is only a fragment. The whole work could not bepublished in the lifetime of the present generation." This makes, within amonth, the third toothsome dish as to which I have had the exasperatingnews that it is being reserved for that spoiled child, posterity. I maysay, however, that I do not regard "De Profundis" as one of Wilde's bestbooks. I was disappointed with it. It is too frequently insincere, andthe occasion was not one for pose. And it has another fault. I happened tomeet M. Henry Davray several times while he was translating the book intoFrench. M. Davray's knowledge of English is profound, and I wasaccordingly somewhat disconcerted when one day, pointing to a sentence inthe original, he asked, "What does that mean?" I thought, "Is Davray atlast 'stumped'?" I examined the sentence with care, and then answered, "Itdoesn't mean anything." "I thought so," said M. Davray. We looked at eachother. M. Davray was an old friend of Wilde's, and was one of the dozenmen who attended his desolating funeral. And I was an enthusiastic admirerof Wilde's style at its best. We said no more. But a day or two later asimilar incident happened, and yet another.
* * * * *
Wilde's letters to Mr. Ross from prison are extremely good. They beginsombrely, but after a time the wit lightens, and towards the end it isplaying continually. The first gleam of it is this: "I am going to take upthe study of German. Indeed prison seems to be the proper place for sucha study." On the subject of the natural life, he says a thing which isexquisitely wise: "Stevenson's letters are most disappointing also. I seethat romantic surroundings are the worst surroundings for a romanticwriter. In Gower Street Stevenson would have written a new 'TroisMousquetaires,' in Samoa he writes letters to the _Times_ about Germans. Isee also the traces of a terrible strain to lead a natural life. To chopwood with any advantage to oneself or profit to others, one should not beable to describe the process. In point of fact the natural life is theunconscious life. Stevenson merely extended the sphere of the artificialby taking to digging. The whole dreary book has given me a lesson. If Ispend my future life reading Baudelaire in a cafe I shall be leading amore natural life than if I take to hedger's work or plant cacao inmud-swamps."
HOLIDAY READING
[_4 Aug. '10_]
I came away for a holiday without any books, except one, and I cut off thewhole of my supply of newspapers, except one. As a rule my baggage is mostinjurious to railway porters, and on the Continent very costly, because ofthe number of books and neckties it contains. I wear the neckties, but Inever read the books. I am always meaning to read them, but something isalways preventing me. Before starting, the awful thought harasses me:Supposing I wanted to read and I had naught! This time I decided that itwould be agreeably perilous to run the risk. The unique book which Ipacked was the sixth volume of Montaigne in the Temple Classics edition.We are all aware, from the writings of Mr. A.B. Walkley, Sir WilliamRobertson Nicoll, Mr. Hall Caine, and others, what a peerless companion isMontaigne; how in Montaigne there is a page to suit every mood; how themost diverse mentalities--the pious, the refined, the libertine, thephilosophic, the egoistic, the altruistic, the merely silly--may find inhim the food of sympathy. I knew I should be all right with Montaigne. Iinvariably read in bed of a night (unless paying in my temples the priceof excess), and nobody who ever talked about bed-books has succeeded inleaving out Montaigne from his list. My luggage cost much less than usual.I positively looked forward to reading Montaigne. Yet when the first nightin a little French hotel arrived, and I had perched the candle on the topof the ewer on the night-table in order to get it high enough, Idiscovered that instead of Montaigne I was going to read a verbatimaccount of a poisoning trial in the Paris _Journal_. That is about threeweeks ago, and I have not yet opened my Montaigne. I have, however, talkedenthusiastically to sundry French people about Montaigne, and explained tothem that Florio's translation is at least equal to the original, and thatMontaigne is truly beloved and understood in England alone.
* * * * *
It was on the second day of my holiday, in another small provincial townin Central France, where I was improving my mind and fitting myself forcultured society in London by the contemplation of cathedrals, that I cameacross, in a draper's and fancy-ware shop, a remaindered stock of Frenchfiction, at 4-1/2d. the volume. Among these, to my intense disgust, was atranslation of a little thing of my own, and also a collection of storiesby Leonide Andreief, translated by Serge Persky, and published by _LeMonde Illustre_. Although I already possessed, in Montaigne, sustenancefor months, I bought this volume, and at once read it. A small book byAndreief, "The Seven that were Hanged," was published in England--lastyear, I think--by Mr. Fifield. It received a very great deal of praise,and was, in fact, treated as a psychological masterpiece. I wasdisappointed with it myself, for the very simple reason that I found ittedious. I had difficulty in finishing it. I gather that Andreief has agreat reputation in Russia, sharing with Gorky the leadership of theyounger school. Well, I don't suppose that I shall ever read any moreGorky, who has assuredly not come up to expectations. There are thingsamong the short stories of Andreief (the volume is entitled "Nouvelles")which are better than "The Seven that were Hanged." "The Governor," forexample, is a pretty good tale, obviously written under the influence ofTolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyitch"; and a story about waiting at a railwaystation remains in the mind not unpleasantly. But the best of the book issecond-rate, vitiated by diffuseness, imitativeness, and the usualsentimentality. Neither Andreief nor Gorky will ever seriously count.Neither of them comes within ten leagues of the late Anton Tchehkoff. Ithink there must be young novelists alive in Russia who are superior tothese two alleged leaders. I have, in fact, heard talk of one Apoutkine,in this country of France, and I am taking measures to read him.
* * * * *
When at length I settled down in a small hotel in a village on the farthercoast of Brittany, I had read nothing but Andreief and criminal processes.Nobody else in the hotel, save one old lady, read anything but criminalprocesses. It is true that it was a sadly vulgar hotel. My fellow-guestswere mainly employees who had escaped for a fortnight from the big Parisshops. In particular there was a handsome young woman from the furdepartment of the Grands Magasins du Louvre, who (weather permitting)spent half her morning in a kimono at her bedroom window while her husband(perfumery department) discussed patriotism and feminism in the cafebelow. When I remember the spectacle, which I have often seen, of thestaff of the Grands Magasins du Louvre troopi
ng into its prison at 7.30a.m. to spend a happy day of eleven and a half hours in humouring thewhims of the great shopping classes, I was charmed to watch this handsomeand vapid creature idling away whole hours at her window and enjoying thegaze of persons like myself. She never read. Once when I had a bit of adiscussion with her husband at lunch upon an intellectual matter, she gotup and walked away with an impatient gesture of disdain, as if to say:"What has all this got to do with Love?" Her husband never read, either.Their friends did not read, not even newspapers. But another couple had aninfant, aged three, and this infant had a rather fierce grandmother, andthis grandmother read a great deal. She and I alone stood for literature.She would stay at home with the infant while the intermediate generationwas away larking. She was always reading the same book. It was a thickbook, with a glossy coloured cover displaying some scene in which homicideand passion were mingled; its price, new, was sixpence halfpenny, and itstitle was simply and magnificently, "Borgia!" with a note of exclamationafter it. She confined herself to "Borgia!" She was tireless with"Borgia!" She went home to Paris reading "Borgia!" It was a shockinghotel, so different from the literary hotels of Switzerland, Bournemouth,and Scarborough, where all the guests read Meredith and Walter Pater. Iought to have been ashamed to be seen in such a place. My only excuse isthat the other two hotels in the remote little village were just as bad,probably worse.
THE BRITISH ACADEMY OF LETTERS
[Sidenote:_18 Aug. '10_]
A correspondent writes angrily to me because I have not written angrilyabout the list of authors recently put forward as Academicians of theproposed new British Academy of Letters. The fact is that the entirescheme of the British Academy of Letters had a near shave of escaping myattention altogether. I only heard of it by accident, being away on aholiday in a land where they have had enough of academies. But for themiracle of a newspaper found on a fishing-boat I might not have even knownwhat on earth my correspondent was raging about. In literary circles suchas mine the new British Academy of Letters has not been extensivelyadvertised. In the main I agree with my correspondent's criticisms of thelist. But I must say that his ire shows a certain naivete. None but ayoung and trustful man could have expected the list to be otherwise thanprofoundly and utterly grotesque. A list of creative artists that did notsuffer acutely from this defect could only be compiled by creative artiststhemselves. Not all, and not nearly all, creative artists would bequalified to sit on the compiling committee, but nobody who was not acreative artist would be qualified. The rest of the world has no sureground of judgment, for the true critical faculty is inseparable from thecreative. The least critical word of the most prejudiced and ignorantcreative artist is more valuable than whole volumes writ by dilettanti ofmeasureless refinement and erudition. I am not aware of the identity ofthe persons who sat down together and compiled the pleasing preliminarylist of twenty-seven academicians, but I am perfectly certain that thepredominant among them were not original artists. The artist, at thepresent stage of social evolution, would as soon think of worrying himselfabout the formation of an academy, as of putting up for the St. PancrasBorough Council. He has something else to do. He fears the deadly contactswith those prim, restless, and tedious dilettanti. And of course he knowsthat academies are the enemies of originality and progress.
* * * * *
That list was undoubtedly sketched out by a coterie of dilettanti. Londonswarms with the dilettanti of letters. They do not belong to the criminalclasses, but their good intentions, their culture, their judiciousness,and their infernal cheek amount perhaps to worse than arson or assault.Their attitude towards the creative artist is always one of large,tolerant pity. They honestly think that if only the artist knew hisbusiness as they know his business, if only he had their discernment andimpartiality, and if only he wasn't so confoundedly ignorant andviolent--how different he would be, how much nicer and better, how muchmore effective! They are eternally ready to show an artist where he iswrong and what he ought to do in order to obtain their laudationsunreserved. In a personal encounter, they will invariably ride over himlike a regiment of polite cavalry, because they are accustomed to personalencounters. They shine at tea, at dinner, and after dinner. They talk moreeasily than he does, and write more easily too. They can expressthemselves more readily. And they know such a deuce of a lot. And they canbalance pros and cons with astonishing virtuosity. The Press is theirwashpot. And they are influential in other places. They can get pensionsfor their favourites. They know the latest methods of pulling an artichoketo pieces. And they will say among themselves, forgiving but slightlypained: "Yes, he's written a very remarkable novel, but he doesn't knowhow to eat an artichoke." They would be higher than the angels were it notfor the fact that, in art, they are exquisitely and perfectly footling.They cannot believe this, the public cannot believe it. Nevertheless,every artist knows it to be true. They have never done anything themselvesexcept fuss around.
* * * * *
As for us, we are their hobby. And since unoriginality is their moststriking characteristic, some of us are occasionally pretty nearly hobbiedto extinction by them. In every generation they select some artist,usually for reasons quite unconnected with art, and put him exceedinglyhigh up in a niche by himself. And when you name his name you must hushyour voice, and discussion ends. Thus in the present generation, inletters, they have selected Joseph Conrad, a great artist, but not theonly artist on the island. When Conrad is mentioned they say, "Ah,Conrad!" and bow the head. And in the list, compiled presumably torepresent what is finest in English literature at an epoch when the novelis admittedly paramount, there are half a dozen of everything exceptnovelists. There is only one practising novelist, and he is not anEnglishman. I said a moment ago that the most striking characteristic ofthe dilettanti is unoriginality. But possibly a serene unhumorousness runsit close.
* * * * *
The master-thought at the bottom of this scheme is not an Academy ofBritish Letters for literary artists, but an Academy of British Lettersfor literary dilettanti. A few genuine artists, if the scheme blossoms,will undoubtedly be found in it. But that will be an accident. Some of themore decorative dilettanti have had a vision of themselves asacademicians. Hence the proposal for an academy. In the public minddilettanti are apt to be confused with artists. Indeed, the greater theartist, the more likely the excellent public is to regard him as a sort ofinferior and unserious barbaric dilettante. (Fortunately posterity doesnot make these mistakes.) A genuine original artist is bound to make a sadspectacle of himself in an academy. Knowing this, Anatole France, thegreatest man in the Academie Francaise, never goes near the sittings. Hehas got from the institution all that advantage of advertisement which hewas legitimately entitled to get, and he has no further use for theAcademie Francaise. His contempt for it as an artist is not concealed.What can academicians do except put on a uniform and make eulogisticdiscourses to each other under the eyes of fashionably-attired Americanfemale tourists? The Authors' Society does more practical good for the artof literature in a year than an Academy of Letters could do in fortyyears.
* * * * *
The existing British Academy of Learning may or may not be a dignified andserious institution. I do not know. But I see no reason why it should notbe. It has not interested the public, and it never will. Advertisementdoes not enter into it to any appreciable extent. Moreover, it is muchmore difficult to be a dilettante of learning than a dilettante ofletters. You are sooner found out. Further, learning can be organized, andorganized with advantage. Creative art cannot. All artistic academies arebad. The one real use of an artistic academy is to advertise the art whichit represents, to cause the excellent public to think and chatter aboutthat art and to support it by buying specimens of it. The Royal Academyhas admirably succeeded in this business, as may be seen at BurlingtonGardens any afternoon in the season. But it has succeeded at the price ofmaking itself gr
otesque and vicious; and it retards, though of course itcannot stop, the progress of graphic art. Certain arts are in need ofadvertisement. For example, sculpture. An Academy of Sculpture might, justnow, do some good and little harm. But literature is in no need ofadvertisement in this country. It is advertised more than all the othersarts put together. It includes the theatre. It is advertised to death. Besure that if it really did stand in need of advertisement, no dilettantewould have twice looked at it. The one point which interests me about theproposed academy is whether uniforms are comprised in the scheme.
UNFINISHED PERUSALS
[_25 Aug. '10_]
One of the moral advantages of not being a regular professional, labelled,literary critic is that when one has been unable to read a book to theend, one may admit the same cheerfully. It often happens to theprofessional critic not to be able to finish a book, but of course he musthide the weakness, for it is his business to get to the end of bookswhether they weary him or not. It is as much his living to finish readinga book as it is mine to finish writing a book. Twice lately I have gotignominiously "stuck" in novels, and in each case I particularly regrettedthe sad breakdown. Gabriele d'Annunzio's "Forse che si forse che no" hasbeen my undoing. I began it in the French version by Donatella Cross(Calmann-Levy, 3 fr. 50), and I began it with joy and hope. Thetranslation, by the way, is very good. Whatever mountebank tricksd'Annunzio may play as a human being, he has undoubtedly written some verygreat works. He is an intensely original artist. You may sometimes thinkhim silly, foppish, extravagant, or even caddish (as in "Il Fuoco"), butyou have to admit that the English notions of what constitutesextravagance or caddishness are by no means universally held. And anyhowyou have to admit that here is a man who really holds an attitude towardslife, who is steeped in the sense of style, and who has a superb passionfor beauty. Some of d'Annunzio's novels were a revelation, dazzling. Andwho that began even "Il Fuoco" could resist it? How adult, how subtle, how(in the proper signification) refined, seems the sexuality of d'Annunzioafter the timid, gawky, infantile, barbaric sexuality of our "islandstory"! People are not far wrong on the Continent when they say, as theydo say, that English novelists cannot deal with an Englishwoman--or couldnot up till a few years ago. They never get into the same room with her.They peep like schoolboys through the crack of the door. D'Annunzio candeal with an Italian woman. He does so in the first part of "Forse che siforse che no." She is only one sort of woman, but she _is_ one sort--andthat's something! He has not done many things better than the long scenein the Mantuan palace. There is nothing to modern British taste positivelyimmoral in this first part, but it is tremendously sexual. It contains adescription of a kiss--just a kiss and nothing more--that is magnificentand overwhelming. You may say that you don't want a magnificent andoverwhelming description of a kiss in your fiction. To that I reply that Ido want it. Unfortunately d'Annunzio leaves the old palace and goes out onto the aviation ground, and, for me, gradually becomes unreadable. Theagonies that I suffered night after night fighting against the wild tediumof d'Annunzio's airmanship, and determined that I would find out what hewas after or perish, and in the end perishing--in sleep! To this hour Idon't know for sure what he was driving at--what is the theme of the book!But if his theme is what I dimly guess it to be, then the less said aboutit the better in Britain.