Show great minds last lament I 1 was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of 0 my at the very dawn of my manhood and had forced my age to realize it afterward few men hold bold such a position in their own lifetime and have it so acknowledged it Is usually dis berned it if discerned at all by the his borlan or the critic long after both the man and his age have passed away with me it was different I 1 felt it myself and made others feel it byron was a symbolic figure but his relations were to the passion of the age and its weariness of passion pa assion mine were to something more noble more permanent of more vital issue of larger scope the gods had given me almost everything but I 1 let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and gensu al at ease I 1 amused myself with being a flanour a dandy aman of fashion I 1 surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner I 1 be came the spendthrift of my own genius and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy tired of being on the heights I 1 deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sen sallon what the paradox was to me in the scheie of thought perversity became to me in the sphere of pas slon sion desire at the end was a mal ady or a madness or both I 1 grew careless of the lives of others I 1 took pleasure w where here it pleased me and passed on I 1 forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character and that there fore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop I 1 ceased to be lord over myself I 1 was no longer he the captain of my soul and did not know it t I 1 allowed pleasure to dominate me I 1 ended in horrible disgrace there Is only one thing for me now absolute humility extracts from de dis by oscar wilde |