Happy Birthday to...

Oscar Wilde!

I remember when I discovered Oscar Wilde. My friend Charlotte, whom I've written about several times, had a small book of his fairy tales. I couldn't have been more than ten years old when I read The Happy Prince for the first time. I sobbed at the end. I still sob. When my husband read it, he sobbed. It is so beautiful, so touching.

I was hooked. I read all the stories. I still reread them from time to time. The Nightingale and the Rose, The Remarkable Rocket, The Selfish Giant, The Young King, the Fisherman and His Soul, The Star-Child. There are many other stories, which you can check out HERE.



In high school I read The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel, and wondered if he would have written other novels had he lived longer. I didn't know about or understand what happened to him due to his sexual orientation, until I was much older. It is sad that barely a month after turning 46, heart broken, beaten down, and destitute, he died of cerebral meningitis in Paris.

"Tomb of Oscar Wilde, Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris, France"
 by Agateller - Via Wikipedia.

Because is he so very quotable, here are 12 quotes.

1. A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

2. Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.

3. Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

4. I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.

5. In war the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor.

6. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

7. Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

8. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

9. I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

10. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

11. I can resist anything except temptation.

12. With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?

***

Do you have a favorite Oscar Wilde quote? A favorite story? Favorite play? Of these quotes, I'm rather partial to #5 and #12. The Happy Prince and The Picture of Dorian Gray will always be my favorite stories. The Importance of Being Ernest is my favorite play.

Random Thoughts Friday

Oscar Wilde. "One should either be a work of art, or wear one." I first became aware of Oscar Wilde through a book Charlotte had. It was a collection of his fairy tales. I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 the first time I read was THE HAPPY PRINCE. I cried at the end. I still cry when I read it. I fell in love with all his fairy tales and that book was one of the ones I pulled from Charlotte's shelves on a regular basis. Sometime in my teens I was mesmerized by THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. But it wasn't until I was adult (20s? 30s?) that I began to learn about the life of this remarkable, brilliant, humorous, and tortured human being.

It has always saddened me that the trauma of being sent to prison silenced him, killed him. He was only 54 when he died, alone and penniless.

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“Who, being loved, is poor?”

“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.”

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.”

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

“It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution”

“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

"I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.”

“The heart was made to be broken.”

Tagged!

I have been tagged! I've heard about being tagged, but this is my first try at this game. I hope I can follow the rules, which are:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to Vijaya's blog once you've posted your three sentences.

The nearest book happens to be Oscar Wild: Complete Short Fiction. On page 123 we have the story "The Devoted Friend." (Hmmm...coincidence or cosmic forces at work?)

Here are the three sentences:
It was a very wild night, and the wind was blowing and roaring round the house so terribly that at first he thought it was merely the storm. But a second rap came, and then a third, louder than either of the others.
"It is some poor traveller," said little Hans to himself, and he ran to the door.

I hope these next five people will forgive my impertinence for passing the tag on to them.
Susan at: Susan Sandmore
Donna at: wordwrangler
Angela at: Making Sense of Life
Janelle at: writermorphosis
Peta at: Peta's Journal


And, I have learned something: how to post a link to other blogs!