"Baudelaire called his poems _Fleurs du Mal_, I shall call your
drawings _Fleurs du Peche_--flowers of sin.
"When I have before me one of your drawings I want to drink absinthe,
which changes colour like jade in sunlight and takes the senses
thrall, and then I can live myself back in imperial Rome, in the Rome
of the later Caesars."
"Don't forget the simple pleasures of that life, Oscar," said Aubrey;
"Nero set Christians on fire, like large tallow candles; the only
light Christians have ever been known to give," he added in a languid,
gentle voice.
This talk gave me the key. In personal intercourse Oscar Wilde was
more English than the English: he seldom expressed his opinion of
person or prejudice boldly; he preferred to hint dislike and
disapproval. His insistence on the naked expression of lust and
cruelty in Beardsley's drawings showed me that direct frankness
displeased him; for he could hardly object to the qualities which were
making his own "Salome" world-famous.
The complete history of the relations between Oscar Wilde and
Beardsley, and their mutual dislike, merely proves how difficult it is
for original artists to appreciate one another: like mountain peaks
they stand alone. Oscar showed a touch of patronage, the superiority
of the senior, in his intercourse with Beardsley, and often praised
him ineptly, whereas Beardsley to the last spoke of Oscar as a
showman, and hoped drily that he knew more about literature than he
did about art. For a moment, they worked in concert, and it is
important to remember that it was Beardsley who influenced Oscar, and
not Oscar who influenced Beardsley. Beardsley's contempt of critics
and the public, his artistic boldness and self-assertion, had a
certain hardening influence on Oscar: as things turned out a most
unfortunate influence.
In spite of Mr. Robert Ross's opinion I regard "Salome," as a student
work, an outcome of Oscar's admiration for Flaubert and his
"Herodias," on the one hand, and "Les Sept Princesses," of Maeterlinck
on the other. He has borrowed the colour and Oriental cruelty with
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