The Sun - Tuesday, April 9, 1895

Max Nordau on Oscar Wilde.

It is noteworthy that an English translation of MAX NORDAU's book on the recent manifestations of degeneracy and disease in literature, should have appeared just before the arrest of the most shocking English example of egomania. The coincidence is the more striking, because the German critic devotes considerable space to a caustic arraignment of the London æsthetic apostle, recognizing in him all the symptoms of a certain depraved type of criminals, for whom, however, in Herr NORDAU's opinion, the proper place of confinement would be, not a prison, but a lunatic asylum.

Curiously enough, WILDE, yielding to what superstitious persons might call a presentiment, but which alienists would describe as a pathological attraction, did not scruple to disclose his sympathy for an earlier English criminal who had some marks of the same type, and who eventually suffered the penalty of his crimes. That WILDE sincerely admired immorality and sin, was made plain by the affectionate tenor of his biographical notice of THOMAS GRIFFITH WAINWRIGHT, painter, author, forger, and murderer. The subject of the notice was referred to as "this remarkable man, so powerful with pen, pencil, and poison." We were also told that WAINWRIGHT "sought by pen or poison to find expression;" and that when a friend reproached him with the murder of HELEN ABERCROMBIE, he shrugged his shoulders and said: "Yes; it was a dreadful thing to do, but she had very thick ankles." WILDE goes on to say that WAINWRIGHT’S "crimes seem to have had an important effect upon his art. They gave a strong personality to his style, a quality that his early work certainly lacked." This led WILDE to remark that "there is no sin except stupidity," and "an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of beng called an idea at all."

In view of what has recently occured in London, it seems a remarkable fact that NORDAU should have detected perverted instincts even in Wilde's eccentricities in the matter of dress. The predilection for strange costume was pronounced a pathological aberration of a healthful racial instinct. The adornment of the person has its origins in the strong desire to be admired by others, and primarily by the opposite sex. It is practiced with the object of producing a favorable impression, and is an outcome of thought about others, of preoccupation with others, that is to say, with the race. If, however, not through mirror misjudgement, but deliberately, such adornment be made of a character to cause irritation to others or to provoke ridicule; if, In other words, it excite disapproval instead of approbation; it then runs exactly counter to the aim of the art of dress, and evinces a perversion of the instinct of vanity. NORDAU maintains it to be a sign of antisocial egomania to irritate the majority unnecessarily. A man who recognizes his duties to society feels himself obliged to repress many manifestations of opinions and desires out of regard for his fellow creatures. To make men understand this is the aim of education; and he who has not learned to impose some restraint upon himself in order not to shock others, is denominated by all decent persons, not an æsthete, but a blackguard.

In a word, NORDAU forsaw and proclaimed, while as yet the axe of English justice had not fallen, that WILDE and men like him, belong to those elements of the race which are most inimical to society. Insensible to its tasks and interests, without the capacity to comprehend a serious thought or a fruitful deed, they dream only of the satisfaction of their basest instincts; and they are pernicious through the example they set as drones, as well as through the confusion they cause in minds insufficiently forewarned, by their abuse of the word art, to mean puerility and degeneration. For a while, at this end of the century, egomaniacs, decadents, and æsthetes have managed to gather the refuse of civilized people under their banner; but NORDAU predicted that it could be only a question of a short time when the healthy human instincts of the great majority would revolt, and consign the perverted professors of the æsthetic type of megalomania and the malodorous preachers of decadentism and diabolism to the penitentiary or the madhouse.