Of seed−time or harvest, of the reapers bending over the corn, or the grape gatherers threading through the vines, of the grass in the orchard made white with broken blossoms or strewn with fallen fruit: of these we know nothing and can know nothing.
And incomplete, imperfect, as I am, yet from me you may have still much to gain. You came to me to learn the Pleasure of Life and the Pleasure of Art. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something much more wonderful, the meaning of Sorrow, and its beauty.
For yourself, I have but this last thing to say. Do not be afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable. do not believe them. The past, the present and the future are but one moment in
the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of Thought. The Imagination can transcend them, and move in a free sphere of ideal existences. Things, also, are in their essence what we choose to make them.
If one gives to a child a toy too wonderful for its little mind. or too beautiful for its but half-awakened eyes, it breaks the toy, if it is wilful; if it is listless it lets it fall and goes its way to its own companions.
The little cup that is made to hold so much can hoso much and no more, though all the purple vats of Burgundy filled with wine to the brim, and the treaders stand knee-deep in vineyards of Spain.
Instead of trying to be the hero of his own history, he seeks to be the spectator of his own tragedy. He disbelieves in everything,including himself, and yet his doubt helps him not, as it comes not from scepticism but from a divided will.
Language requires to be tuned, likeviolin: and just as too many or too few vibrations in the voice ofthe singer or the trembling of the string will make the note false,sotoo much or too little in words will spoil the message.
I remember as I was sitting in the dock on the occasion of my last trial listening to lockwood's appalling denunciationme-like a thing out of Tacitus, like a passage in Dante, like one of savonarola's indictments of the Popes at rome--and being sickened with horror at what I heard. Suddenly it occurred to me ,"How splendid it would be, if I was saying all this about myself
I saw then at once that what is said of a man is nothing. The point IS, who says it. A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
What was there. as a mere matter of fact, in you that I could influence? Your brain? It was undeveloped. Your imagination? It was dead. Your heart? It was not yet born.
In your own eyes, and some day you will have to think of your conduct, you are not, cannot be quite satisfied at the way in which things have turned out Secretly you must think of yourself with a good deal of shame. A brazen face is a capital thing to show the world, but now and then when you are alone, andhave no audience, you have, I suppose, to take the mask off for mere breathing purposes. Else, indeed, you would be stifled.
Your affectionate friend
OSCAR WILDE
the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of Thought. The Imagination can transcend them, and move in a free sphere of ideal existences. Things, also, are in their essence what we choose to make them.
I saw then at once that what is said of a man is nothing. The point IS, who says it. A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
worse.