I did not attribute much importance to this; but I could not help
noticing the extraordinary change that had taken place in him since he
had been in Naples. His health was almost as good as ever; in fact, the
prison discipline with its two years of hard living had done him so
much good that his health continued excellent almost to the end.
But his whole manner and attitude to life had again changed: he now
resembled the successful Oscar of the early nineties: I caught echoes,
too, in his speech of a harder, smaller nature; "that talk about
reformation, Frank, is all nonsense; no one ever really reforms or
changes. I am what I always was."
He was mistaken: he took up again the old pagan standpoint; but he was
not the same; he was reckless now, not thoughtless, and, as soon as one
probed a little beneath the surface, depressed almost to despairing. He
had learnt the meaning of suffering and pity, had sensed their value; he
had turned his back upon them all, it is true, but he could not return
to pagan carelessness, and the light-hearted enjoyment of pleasure. He
did his best and almost succeeded; but the effort was there. His creed
now was what it used to be about 1892: "Let us get what pleasure we may
in the fleeting days; for the night cometh, and the silence that can
never be broken."
The old doctrine of original sin, we now call reversion to type; the
most lovely garden rose, if allowed to go without discipline and
tendance, will in a few generations become again the common scentless
dog-rose of our hedges. Such a reversion to type had taken place in
Oscar Wilde. It must be inferred perhaps that the old pagan Greek in him
was stronger than the Christian virtues which had been called into being
by the discipline and suffering of prison. Little by little, as he began
to live his old life again, the lessons learned in prison seemed to drop
from him and be forgotten. But in reality the high thoughts he had lived
with, were not lost; his lips had been touched by the divine fire; his
eyes had seen the world-wonder of sympathy, pity and love and, strangely
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