Christa Giles

Wilde’s and Huysmans’ interest in satanism is in
part a product of their interest in psychology. It is likely
that Wilde read De Sade (we know Beardsley did) and in
1882 Huysmans read La Philosophie dans le Boudoir, which
his publisher sent him from Brussels. In a letter he wrote to
Kistemaeckers (1882), Huysmans expressed his fascination
with De Sade:
Thank you first of all for the Philosophie that
you were so kind as to send. I’ve just finished
reading this document from La Salpetrière
and Mazaz. It is beyond doubt the nadir of
debasement, but it is of the greatest interest
from the mental point of view. . . 206
Similarly, in ˝The Critic as Artist,˝ Wilde indicates his
interest in sin and the darker aspects of human behaviour:
People sometimes say that fiction is getting
too morbid. As far as psychology is
concerned, it has never been morbid enough.
We have merely touched the surface of the
soul, that is all. In one single ivory cell of the
brain there are stored away things more
marvellous and more terrible than even they
have dreamed of, who, like the author of Le
Rouge et le Noir, have sought to track the soul
in its most secret places, and to make life
confess its dearest sins. 207
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