The year 1885 was likewise marked by a new statute which presented a direct threat to many gentlemen, including those who sought to conceal their unconventional leanings through the shelter of marriage, much as Mr. Oscar Wilde had himself done.

“I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand….The gods had given me almost everything.  But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease.  I amused myself with being a flâneur, a dandy, a man of fashion.  I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds.  I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy.  Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation.  What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion.  Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both.  I grew careless of the lives of others.  I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on.  I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop.  I ceased to be lord over myself.  I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it.  I allowed pleasure to dominate me.  I ended in horrible disgrace.  There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.”

De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages."

I remain an enigma, inscrutable to all who would seek to unravel my true nature. Indeed, I don many masks, playing diverse roles upon the world's stage. Yet, there exists one secret, known only to myself: the portrait sequestered in the attic, a reflection of my true self, hidden from prying eyes.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

What is worth dying for?

What is good enough to live for?

The will to live keeps us from imminent, as the wish to die keeps us alive.

Indulge in temptation's sweet allure yet resist its fatal enticement.

Society may write a book about me. Then, they will deem its content Immoral.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

In the dimly lit alleys of society, we all dwell in shadows, yet some souls yearn for celestial beauty. Like stars piercing through darkness, their dreams illuminate the gutter we inhabit. My own heart beats with this longing – to rise above corruption and decay, and shine with eternal radiance, like the portrait that haunts my every step.

Live a Gilded Life.

“When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink”.

Oscar

It all begins with an idea.

The British have came and went.

“Spirit Photography a Fallacy.”

W. Mumler's most famous image, showing Mary T. Lincoln with the ghost of her late husband, Abraham Lincoln.