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An Interview With Oscar Wilde
by Charly Mann
informZoo: Thank you, Mr. Wilde, for affording us the first interview with you since you have come out of the closet about your secret life in the United States for the last century.
Oscar Wilde: Illusion is the first of all pleasures. Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. You found me, and now you threaten to reveal where I am living unless I consent to talk to you, so what we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of lying.
informZoo: So let me begin by asking, just how it is you are not in Heaven or Hell, or just decomposing in your grave in Paris?
Oscar Wilde: God told me that no other human had such an undignified end to life as me, and that I should return to the world to enjoy my resurgence in popularity.
informZoo: That’s incredible and a little hard to believe.
Oscar Wilde: Ah, you see the true mysteries of this world are the visible, like me sitting here talking to you at 154 years old, and not the invisible.
informZoo: Well, I admit you are sitting here, and you look less than one third your actual age, but I just never thought God let people come back from the dead and live anonymously with us for so long.
Oscar Wilde: It was during my years in prison, and my last years living destitute and miserable in Paris, that I prayed for this, and God told me soon after I died that the way he punishes most people, including myself, is to answer their prayers.
informZoo: Okay, this makes a little more sense, but surely you must be pleased to see how much you are admired today, and feel vindicated about what was done to you.
Oscar Wilde: One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation. In most respects I enjoyed my life in the late 19th century much more than I do now. Besides, God has condemned me to live in the United States, the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
informZoo: Oscar, you are certainly one of the most brilliant men who has ever lived. Yet your downfall seemed to be a libel suit you brought against the Marquis of Queensbury for calling you a sodomite. It seems that most people disliked Queensbury, and all your friends advised you just to ignore this irrational man.
Oscar Wilde: Yes, I think my overindulgence in alcohol caused me to go against my own advice of being careful in the choice of my enemies. It was my recklessness in going against him that ruined me, but I have forgiven him, and nothing annoys an enemy more than this.
I could say more about the suffering and indignity of not being able to acknowledge my homosexuality in this era, but a man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite.
informZoo: Both of your parents were somewhat eccentric. Your father was a respected eye and ear surgeon who had several illegitimate children from extramarital affairs. Your mother was rather flamboyant and unconventional for her time, a champion for women’s rights, an Irish nationalist, and a poet. How much impact did they have on your life?
Oscar Wilde: I began by loving my parents; after a time I judged them for their faults; I still have not forgiven them. I firmly believe fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
On the whole one’s family is simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die
informZoo: Your only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is hugely popular today, but was considered immoral by the critics and was poorly received when it was published in 1890. One review at the time implied the book was homoerotic saying, “one element of the novel will taint every young mind that comes in contact with it.” In retrospect how do you assess this criticism?
Oscar Wilde: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. The press hated me, and morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
informZoo: Well as an aside, I love the book and have read it at least three times.
Oscar Wilde: If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
informZoo: The theme of Dorian Gray is that goodness and beauty are not necessarily linked, seem to me, more poigant today in our youth and sex obsessed celebrity culture, than when you wrote it.
Oscar Wilde: I believe now that youth and beauty are overrated, and having a meaningful life is preferable to one obsessed by physical beauty. Most people waste their lives vainly believing that happiness can be achieved by looking young and attracting or possessing artificial beauty. It took me most of my life to fully learn this lesson.
informZoo: You were ruined because your writing and personal behavior was considered effeminate. Today the world is a much more open and safer place to be a homosexual, yet recently the majority of the voters in California, our most progressive state, enacted legislation preventing same sex couples from marrying.
Oscar Wilde: The security of society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members.
informZoo: Your legacy and reputation was made as a playwright. In three short years, between 1893 and 1895, you wrote Lady Windermere’s Fan followed by A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and finally The Importance of Being Earnest. All were highly popular then and continue to be so today.
Oscar Wilde: I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. These plays highlight my individualism as an artist.
informZoo: You did not have literary success until you were in your late thirties, but your socializing, self promotion, and the characterizations of you in the London press and stage, combined to make you famous for being you. In fact you may have been the world’s first real celebrity.
Oscar Wilde: Caricature and celebrity is the tribute that mediocrity pays to my genius.
informZoo: But didn’t you create your celebrity? You said the following when you graduated from college. “I’ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I’ll be famous, and if not famous, I’ll be notorious.”
Oscar Wilde: Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. I knew I had genius and that I wanted to live well. My family raised me to live a life of leisure, however my father died in debt. Nevertheless I was determined to use my talent, which is my artistic genius, to live the life I felt destined to live.
informZoo: You certainly got yourself noticed early on. At a time when upper class men wore dark suits and inconspicuous ties, you covered your hands with flashy rings, wore a huge bow tie, and carried a cane for effect. You also usually had on white pants with matching gloves, and patent leather shoes. You even had a brightly colored handkerchief in the breast pocket of your jacket. You certainly must have looked outlandish by the standards of the day.
Oscar Wilde: Yes I got many insults for my appearance, but it helped make me the center of attention, and this is what I wanted. As you can see I’m not a naturally handsome person. I’m 6 foot three inches, a bit overweight, and have an overly oval shaped face. Unfortunately also, my teeth are black from the mercury I took for the syphilis I got when I was I college. So my clothing also made me less physically repulsive.
informZoo: After you left college at Oxford you moved to London and seemed to focus on getting invited to A-List parties in town.
Oscar Wilde: It was my charm and wit that got me noticed and made me stand out even in London’s most fashionable circles. Two of the most famous and glamorous actresses of the day, Sara Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry were among my best friends. I even got to know Lillie’s sometime boyfriend, the Prince of Wales.
informZoo: A young William Butler Yeats said he was astonished the first time he met you at one of these parties. He said, “never before have I heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all overnight with labour and yet all spontaneous.”
Oscar Wilde: Yes, I remember the first time I met him as a handsome teenager. He describes me well. I knew that to get into the best society without a title or money, one had either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people. I did the latter two rather well. I learned to talk to every woman as if I loved her, and to every man as if he bored me.
informZoo: Your plays are timeless social criticisms of the hypocrisy in society. Throughout them we see charming and polite people following social convention, yet actually being cruel and manipulative.
Oscar Wilde: I love using satire to expose the vulgar in society. People are always pretending to be something or believe something they do not. Hypocrisy is a necessary component of the social world. People must pretend and conform to the social norm in order to maintain their position. Hypocrisy is the glue that holds relationships and society together.
informZoo: I agree, lies seem to be a necessary tool in a civil society to avoid conflict.
Oscar Wilde: Yes, I want people to acknowledge that lies are essential for civil conversation.
informZoo: There are many who say that your deathbed conversion to Catholicism was a lie.
Oscar Wilde: My father was an agnostic, but my mother had secretly baptized me as a Catholic when I was young. I had been moving close to converting to Catholicism on my own for many years before my death. While I was in prison I spent much of my time reading St Augustine, the Bible, Dante, and a biography of St Francis of Assisi. The first thing I did when I left prison was to write to the Jesuits begging them to take me in for six-months. Sadly they did not accept me.
informZoo: Nevertheless, many of your admirers today have a hard time accepting the outrageous and irreverent Oscar Wilde as a Christian. Stephen Fry in his recent movie biography of you simply ignores this part of your life.
Oscar Wilde: Fry is a magnificent actor and director, but like any artist what he has created is more a film about himself than me. Life is complex and people grow and learn. His portrayal of me is one-dimensional because I stay the same person throughout my life. Unfortunately, consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, and that was never me.
informZoo: So you sincerely wanted to be a Catholic at the end?
Oscar Wilde: Yes, my friend, the year of my death I even attended Easter Sunday mass with the Pope in Rome. I had been attending mass on a regular basis for years. As my health declined I often asked my friend Robert Ross to bring a priest to me so I could be baptized again. He was always reluctant, but promised to bring one when I was dying. When the priest did come, I could not speak, but signaled clearly to him that I wanted to be baptized, and for the next two days until my death, said prayers with him.
informZoo: So now after you have died and met God what is your opinion of him?
Oscar Wilde: l love God, but I think in creating man he somewhat overestimated his ability.
informZoo: One final question, what is the purpose of life?
Oscar Wilde: The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.
© Charly Mann 2008
Painting by Kathryn Mann
Uplifting Visions
a guide to happiness, good health, and success
by Charly Mann
From the age of seven I have been enchanted with the idea of living happily ever after, and have made it a life quest to find that answer. I have spoken to hundreds of people – usually older and wiser than me, and read countless books and articles on the subject. In my website Uplifting Visions I share what I consider the best insights I have learned about achieving happiness in life.
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
-- Albert Einstein
The great breakthrough in one's life comes when you realize that you can learn anything you need to learn to accomplish any goal you set for yourself. This means there are no limits on what you can be.
-- William Robert Mann
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
-- Galileo Galilei
We're not meant to fit in. We're meant to stand out.
-- Sarah Ban Breathnach
If you love life, life will love you back.
-- Arthur Rubinstein
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw
Making a living is not the same as making a life.
-- Fred Castrovinci
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think of you.
-- John Wooden
Ideas that matter; information that inspires
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod, my shadow does that much better.
-- Plutarch
If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.
-- Mitsugi Saotome
Judge yourself by your actions and not your intentions.
-- Charly Mann
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.
-- Jim Rohn
Call it Nature, Fate, or Fortune; all are names of God.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Remember to work hard. Look to the future with enthusiasm and hope. Accept responsibility, not only asking for your own rights, but also accepting responsibility for yourself, for other people, for nature and for future generations.
-- Madison Mann
Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it�s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.
-- Anthony Robbins
Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions.
-- Albert Einstein
Ethical existence is the highest manifestation of spirituality.
-- Albert Schweitzer
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.
-- Henry David Thoreau
One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with luck.
-- Carl Zuckmeyer
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
-- The Dalai Lama
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
-- Confucius
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
-- Sophia Lyon Fahs
Adults are obsolete children.
-- Dr. Seuss
You will never be the person you can be if pressure, tension, and discipline are taken out of your life.
-- James Bilkey
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
-- Anais Nin
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
-- Franklin P. Jones
If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take chances.
-- Julia Sorel
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.
-- Washington Irving
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-- Carl Sandberg
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
-- Confucius
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
-- Mark Twain
We can't measure out goodness by what we don't do, by what we deny ourselves, or by what we resist, and who we exclude; but we should measure our goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.
-- from the movie Chocolat
Random information for a more fulfilling life
Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow. It has no real substance of its own. It is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.
-- Shakti Gawain
The difference between adults and children is that adults don't ask questions.
-- Kathryn Mann
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Why is there something rather than nothing? We do not know. We will never know. Why? To what purpose? We do not know whether there is a purpose. But if it is true that nothing is born of nothing, the very existence of something - the world, the universe - would seem to imply that there has always been something: that being is eternal, uncreated, perhaps creator, and this is what some people call God.
-- Andre Comte-Sponville
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
-- Henry David Thoreau
The shortest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.
-- Richard Cech
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
-- Epicurus
A life, if well lived, is long enough.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
-- Albert Einstein
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.
-- Carl Sandberg
The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.
-- Solomon Ibn Gabriol
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.
-- Helen Keller
If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.
-- Alan K. Simpson
Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
-- Leon J. Suenesl
It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of humankind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.
-- Leo Buscaglia
When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease.
-- V.L. Allineare
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.
-- Edmund Burke
Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
-- Donald Trump
The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they're still alive.
-- Olando Battista
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Overcome your fears and you can reach your potential.
-- Charly Mann
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
-- Immanual Kant
Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.
-- William Menninger
Only Ideas have long and lasting consequences, and ideas come mainly from books not television, movies, or video games.
-- Kathryn Mann
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
-- Honore de Balzac
Life is a marathon, not a sprint.
-- Charly Mann
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
-- Vernon Howard
It's not how much money you make that's important - it's how much money you keep and how long you keep it.
-- Robert Kiyosaki
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
-- Albert Einstein
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
-- Walter Lippman
The only way to change your life is to change your mind.
-- Charly Mann
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway to the human spirit.
-- Helen Keller
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
-- Henry David Thoreau
If you are going through hell, keep going.
-- Winston Churchill
I have six great friends that taught me all I knew; their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
-- Rudyard Kipling
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
-- Doris Lessing "The Golden Notebook"
If you cannot accept fear of failure, you will never be successful.
-- Charly Mann
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
-- Buddha
Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
-- Edwin Way Teale
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
-- Abraham Lincoln
A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help.
-- Mohandas Gandhi
Nothing is as weak as a relationship that has not been tested under fire.
-- Mark Twain
Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.
-- Will Rogers
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
-- Plato
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
Money can contribute significantly to happiness if spent wisely.
-- Charly Mann
Universal truths, insights and information for a better life
Money often costs too much.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Passion is the genesis of genius.
-- Anthony Robbins
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
-- Proverbs 17:28
A community that cares about you
Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully. When a man hits you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; when a man takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you; when a man takes what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. Again, if you do good only to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do as much. And if you lend only where you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to each other to be repaid in full. But you must love your enemies and do good; and lend without expecting any return; and you will have a rich reward: you will be sons of the Most High, because he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.
-- Jesus -Luke 6:27-36
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
-- Samuel Smiles
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
-- Socrates
If a problem cannot be solved, then you need to find the best way to manage it.
-- Charly Mann
The greatest wealth is health.
-- Virgil
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
-- Sophocles
You may think that you are the product of events that are largely beyond your control, but you do control the moment. The present is the time you take control of what your future will be.
-- Charly Mann
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
-- Andre Gide
An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.
-- Sidney J. Harris
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
-- John Quincy Adams
Self-pity is our worst enemy.
-- Helen Keller
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
-- Mark Twain
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
-- Pliny the Younger
Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
-- Albert Einstein
An intellectual is a person who is always seeking knowledge and has the ability to change his mind when he learns new information.
-- Charly Mann
Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.
-- Doug Horton
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
-- Bertrand Russell