Page:Wilde - De profundis, 1915.djvu/19

 or realisation of an equivocal and tragic position. No doubt he felt the latter keenly, but he concealed his feeling as a general rule, and his manifestations of it lasted only a very few days. He was, however, a man with many facets to his character; and he left in regard to that character, and to his attainments, both before and after his downfall, curiously different impressions on professing judges of their fellowmen. To give the whole man would require the art of Boswell, Purcell or Robert Browning. My friend Mr. Sherard will, I think, claim only the biographical genius of Dr. Johnson; and I, scarcely the talent of Theophrastus.—Believe me, dear Dr. Meyerfeld, yours very truly,