Page:Writings of Oscar Wilde - Volume 01.djvu/30

16 tic and Niagara as it speaks of the classics it never reads. I believe that Wilde was genuinely disappointed with the Atlantic, as many another of us, crossing it monotonously in those vulgar sea-going hotels we call liners, have surely been; and he said so quite simply to the interviewers as he landed. I know that to attribute anything like simplicity to the great apostle of pose may seem far-fetched, but those who knew him were well aware of that quality in him, alongside of his elaborate affectations; for he was a poet, and in a poet's soul, however overlaid it may be with surface insincerities, there is always something left of the child. It was the essential sincerity of Wilde's nature which gave force even to his insincerities and all the vagaries of his fantastic career. Intellectual sincerity was certainly his, and the power of his best epigrams lies in the strong brainwork behind them. It used often to be said that anyone could make them, that they were merely proverbs turned upside down, and, of course, that was often the case—though, even so, the effect of turning the proverb upside down had a decidedly novel effect of truth. A great deal