It is true that the majority of English 'Varsity men give themselves an
infinitely better education than that provided by the authorities. They devote
themselves to athletic sports with whole-hearted enthusiasm. Fortunately for
them it is impossible to develop the body without at the same time steeling the
will. The would-be athlete has to live laborious days; he may not eat to his
liking, nor drink to his thirst. He learns deep lessons almost unconsciously;
to conquer his desires and make light of pain and discomfort. He needs no
Aristotle to teach him the value of habits; he is soon forced to use them as
defences against his pet weaknesses; above all he finds that self-denial has its
reward in perfect health; that the thistle pain, too, has its flower. It is a
truism that 'Varsity athletes generally succeed in life, Spartan discipline
proving itself incomparably superior to Greek accidence.

Oscar Wilde knew nothing of this discipline. He had never trained his body
to endure or his will to steadfastness. He was the perfect flower of academic
study and leisure. At Magdalen he had been taught luxurious living, the delight
of gratifying expensive tastes; he had been brought up and enervated so to speak
in Capua. His vanity had been full-fed with cloistered triumphs; he was at
once pleasure-loving, vainly self-confident and weak; he had been encouraged
for years to give way to his emotions and to pamper his sensations, and as the
Cap-and-Bells of Folly to cherish a fantastic code of honour even in mortal
combat, while despising the religion which might have given him some hold on
the respect of his compatriots. What chance had this cultured honour-loving
Sybarite in the deadly grapple of modern life where the first quality is will
power, the only knowledge needed a knowledge of the value of money. I must not
be understood here as in any degree disparaging Oscar. I can surely state that
a flower is weaker than a weed without exalting the weed or depreciating the
flower.