August 21, 2013
For yourself, I have but this last thing to say. Do not be afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, do not believe them. The past, the present, and the future are one moment in the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of thought; the Imagination can transcend them, and move in a free sphere of ideal existences. Things, also, are in their essence of what we choose to make them. A thing is according to the mode in which we look at it. 'Where others', says Blake, 'see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the sons of God shouting for joy.' What seemed to the world and to myself my future I lost when I allowed myself to be taunted into taking the action against your father: had, I dare say, lost it really long before that. What lies before me is my past. I have got to make myself look on that with different eyes, to make God look on it with different eyes. This I cannot do by ignoring it, or slighting it, or praising it, or denying it; it is only to be done by accepting it as an inevitable part of the evolution of my life and character: by bowing my head to everything I have suffered. How far I am away from the true temper of soul, this letter in its changing uncertain moods, its scorn and bitterness, its aspirations and its failure to realise those aspirations, shows quite clearly. But do not forget in what a terrible school I am sitting at my task, and incomplete, imperfect as I am, yet from me you may have still much to gain. You came to me to learn the pleasure of life and the pleasure of art. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something more wonderful, the meaning of sorrow and its beauty.
Oscar Wilde - De Profundis
Posted by amin at August 21, 2013 1:25 AM