The Advertiser - Monday, May 27, 1895

ERRATIC, EROTIC.

The unhappy case of the man Oscar Wilde has ended at last in the manner sufficiently obvious from the beginning. But a few weeks ago he may be said to have had two capitals at his feet. He was one of the few Englishmen perfectly at home in Paris, for which city, indeed, he once threatened, with his usual style of indolent affectation, to desert London. As for the latter, he had lived down years of ridicule in it, and his name from being known only as that of the apostle of an exaggerated and unreal æstheticism, was accepted generally as that of a playwright amongst the first half-dozen. One only of his plays has been seen in Adelaide, but that one, "Lady Windermere's Fan," was accepted by reason of a marked brilliancy of dialogue rather than from any freshness of situation or character-delineation. It has, however, been extolled by a leading English critic as "the best representation extant of the frivolity and flutter of London fashionable life." His later plays, "A Woman of No Importance," "An Ideal Husband," and "The Importance of Being Earnest," would doubtless have reached this city in due course, but whether they will do so now seems uncertain. While this charge has hung over their author they have been played to crowded houses, though his name was removed from the play-bills. This extraordinary compromise has attracted much comment, and Mr. Sydney Grundy, with accustomed charity, gave utterance to the general feeling that it was unfair to deprive a man of credit for his work well done while condemning him for his evil deeds. The most curious feature of the situation, indeed, was the way in which his ultimate conviction was taken for granted. The Marquis of Queensberry's action, viewed in the light of later revelations, must be regarded as the legitimate, though desperate, conduct of a man resolved to save a son in spite of himself, from a companionship which could only result in harm. Eccentric that action was, no doubt, but eccentricity is a privilege of the Douglas family. The proceeding of Wilde in bringing an action for criminal libel must similarly be regarded as a desperate expedient resorted to on the chance of saving a lost reputation. It has of course had exactly the opposite result, and when the Marquis was acquitted the so-called libel was practically proved. Many there were who thought that the discredited man would take the old-fashioned method of escape, and that he lived to be arrested was therefore something of a surprise. Yet he has made a great fight of it, and even induced a jury to disagree on the question which the general public had long ago decided for itself. A curious thing is that the author of "The Green Carnation" seems to have been in the secret long ago. The crime of Oscar Wilde has been great, but the punishment, though apparently light, must to him be great also. Setting aside the loss of name and fame, it would be difficult to mention to anyone on whom the fare, the routine, and the discipline of prison life should tell more hardly than this modern Sybarite, this man-about-town "with the soul of a Greek of the Anthology" as Andrew Lang somewhere says of Herrick. Unstable as water, he could not long excel. With all the possibilities of life before him, he has deliberately thrown them away. Erratic and erotic throughout, he has gone to a justly-deserved fate.