Oscar Wilde was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting." Wilde blamed himself, though, for the ethical degradation of character that he allowed Douglas to bring about in him and took responsibility for his own fall, "I am here for having tried to put your father in prison." The first half concludes with Wilde forgiving Douglas, for his own sake as much as Douglas's. The second half of the letter traces Wilde's spiritual journey of redemption and fulfilment through his prison reading. He realised that his ordeal had filled his soul with the fruit of experience, however
Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture Maggi Hambling's "A Conversation with Oscar Wilde" was unveiled in 1998. Discussing the work in her 2012 article "Sculpting Irishness: a discussion of Dublin's commemorative statues of Oscar Wilde and Phil Lynott" for "Sculpture Journal", Sarah Smith writes: Another distinction is the figure's facial expression, which, disrupting the realism of the figure, might be described as a rather contorted sneer. Intended by the artist to represent two antithetical sides of Wilde, one half of his face is smiling widely ... while the other bears a sombre expression ... and this divide is echoed in his posture on either side. Because