Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/133

ticularly in the places where he was greatly suspected. He himself was sometimes obliged to confess it, when he was maddened and excited in his most eventful literary life, as I see, for instance, in his Letters on Dorian Gray addressed to the editor of the St. James’ Gazette or Somebody; and I will call “De Profundis” one of the greatest books of morality the modern age has produced. If a hypocrite were to conceal his true character rather than to claim something he has not, wilde is in truth the first person to be entitled a literary hypocrite. There is a long history of hypocricy in England, that is more or less the history of English society artificially created, not naturally grown; when I make him represent the worst side, my mind dwells on his lack of sincerity at least in his early days. Although his cleverness was quite significant, it seems that he was ignorant of the fact that his way of concealing was after all the way of revealing; and the literary tricks or devices he played on us (and he was playing them on himself) are, to say the least, the most shabby part. When he talked on art and beauty, he was rather vague and