But he wouldn't have it; he sought me out again and again and I couldn't resist him.

That is my only fault.

That's what ruined me.

He increased my expenses so that I could not meet them; over and over again I tried to free myself from him; but he came back and I yielded--alas!" Though this is Oscar's later gloss on what actually happened, it is fairly accurate.

He was never able to realise how his meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas had changed the world to him and him to the world.
The effect on the harder fibre of the boy was chiefly mental: to Alfred Douglas, Oscar was merely a quickening, inspiring, intellectual influence; but the boy's effect on Oscar was of character and induced imitation.