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diff --git a/16894-8.txt b/16894-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebdf5bc --- /dev/null +++ b/16894-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8545 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2), by Frank Harris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) + His Life and Confessions + +Author: Frank Harris + +Release Date: October 17, 2005 [EBook #16894] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OSCAR WILDE, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +OSCAR WILDE + +HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS + +BY + +FRANK HARRIS + +VOLUME I + +[Illustration: Oscar Wilde at About Thirty] + +PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR + +29 WAVERLEY PLACE +NEW YORK CITY + +MCMXVIII + +Imprime en Allemagne +Printed in Germany + +Copyright, 1916, +BY FRANK HARRIS + + + + +CONTENTS + + +VOLUME I + +CHAPTER PAGE + +INTRODUCTION iii + + I. Oscar's Father and Mother on Trial 1 + + II. Oscar Wilde as a Schoolboy 23 + + III. Trinity, Dublin: Magdalen, Oxford 37 + + IV. Formative Influences: Oscar's Poems 50 + + V. Oscar's Quarrel with Whistler and Marriage 73 + + VI. Oscar Wilde's Faith and Practice 91 + + VII. Oscar's Reputation and Supporters 102 + + VIII. Oscar's Growth to Originality About 1890 112 + + IX. The Summer of Success: Oscar's First Play 133 + + X. The First Meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas 144 + + XI. The Threatening Cloud Draws Nearer 156 + + XII. Danger Signals: the Challenge 175 + + XIII. Oscar Attacks Queensberry and is Worsted 202 + + XIV. How Genius is Persecuted in England 229 + + XV. The Queen _vs._ Wilde: The First Trial 261 + + XVI. Escape Rejected: The Second Trial and Sentence 292 + + +VOLUME II + +[Transcriber's Note: Volume II is also available on Project +Gutenberg.] + + XVII. Prison and the Effects of Punishment 321 + +XVIII. Mitigation of Punishment; but not Release 345 + + XIX. His St. Martin's Summer: His Best Work 363 + + XX. The Results of His Second Fall: His Genius 406 + + XXI. His Sense of Rivalry; His Love of Life and Laziness 433 + + XXII. "A Great Romantic Passion!" 450 + +XXIII. His Judgments of Writers and of Women 469 + + XXIV. We Argue About His "Pet Vice" and Punishment 488 + + XXV. The Last Hope Lost 509 + + XXVI. The End 532 + +XXVII. A Last Word 542 + + Shaw's "Memories" 1-32 + +THE APPENDIX, 549 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +VOLUME I + +Oscar Wilde at About Thirty Frontispiece + + FACING PAGE +Dr. Sir William Wilde 22 + +Oscar Wilde at Twenty-Seven, as He First Appeared in America 75 + +Oscar Wilde 90 +[Transcriber's Note: This illustration is not in the original list.] + + +VOLUME II + +Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas About 1893 321 + +"Speranza": Lady Wilde as a Young Woman 358 + +Note to Warder Martin 576 + + + + + THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE GUILTY IS STILL MORE AWE-INSPIRING + THAN THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE INNOCENT; WHAT DO WE MEN KNOW OF + INNOCENCE? + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +I was advised on all hands not to write this book, and some English +friends who have read it urge me not to publish it. + +"You will be accused of selecting the subject," they say, "because +sexual viciousness appeals to you, and your method of treatment lays +you open to attack. + +"You criticise and condemn the English conception of justice, and +English legal methods: you even question the impartiality of English +judges, and throw an unpleasant light on English juries and the +English public--all of which is not only unpopular but will convince +the unthinking that you are a presumptuous, or at least an outlandish, +person with too good a conceit of himself and altogether too free a +tongue." + +I should be more than human or less if these arguments did not give me +pause. I would do nothing willingly to alienate the few who are still +friendly to me. But the motives driving me are too strong for such +personal considerations. I might say with the Latin: + + "Non me tua fervida terrent, + Dicta, ferox: Di me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." + +Even this would be only a part of the truth. Youth it seems to me +should always be prudent, for youth has much to lose: but I am come to +that time of life when a man can afford to be bold, may even dare to +be himself and write the best in him, heedless of knaves and fools or +of anything this world may do. The voyage for me is almost over: I am +in sight of port: like a good shipman, I have already sent down the +lofty spars and housed the captious canvas in preparation for the long +anchorage: I have little now to fear. + +And the immortals are with me in my design. Greek tragedy treated of +far more horrible and revolting themes, such as the banquet of +Thyestes: and Dante did not shrink from describing the unnatural meal +of Ugolino. The best modern critics approve my choice. "All depends on +the subject," says Matthew Arnold, talking of great literature: +"choose a fitting action--a great and significant action--penetrate +yourself with the feeling of the situation: this done, everything else +will follow; for expression is subordinate and secondary." + +Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the young and was put to death +for the offence. His accusation and punishment constitute surely a +great and significant action such as Matthew Arnold declared was +alone of the highest and most permanent literary value. + +The action involved in the rise and ruin of Oscar Wilde is of the same +kind and of enduring interest to humanity. Critics may say that Wilde +is a smaller person than Socrates, less significant in many ways: but +even if this were true, it would not alter the artist's position; the +great portraits of the world are not of Napoleon or Dante. The +differences between men are not important in comparison with their +inherent likeness. To depict the mortal so that he takes on +immortality--that is the task of the artist. + +There are special reasons, too, why I should handle this story. Oscar +Wilde was a friend of mine for many years: I could not help prizing +him to the very end: he was always to me a charming, soul-animating +influence. He was dreadfully punished by men utterly his inferiors: +ruined, outlawed, persecuted till Death itself came as a deliverance. +His sentence impeaches his judges. The whole story is charged with +tragic pathos and unforgettable lessons. I have waited for more than +ten years hoping that some one would write about him in this spirit +and leave me free to do other things, but nothing such as I propose +has yet appeared. + +Oscar Wilde was greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer, +and no fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story +and paint his portrait, it seems unlikely that anyone else will do it. + +English "strachery" may accuse me of attacking morality: the +accusation is worse than absurd. The very foundations of this old +world are moral: the charred ember itself floats about in space, moves +and has its being in obedience to inexorable law. The thinker may +define morality: the reformer may try to bring our notions of it into +nearer accord with the fact: human love and pity may seek to soften +its occasional injustices and mitigate its intolerable harshness: but +that is all the freedom we mortals enjoy, all the breathing-space +allotted to us. + +In this book the reader will find the figure of the Prometheus-artist +clamped, so to speak, with bands of steel to the huge granitic cliff +of English puritanism. No account was taken of his manifold virtues +and graces: no credit given him for his extraordinary achievements: he +was hounded out of life because his sins were not the sins of the +English middle-class. The culprit was in[1] much nobler and better +than his judges. + +Here are all the elements of pity and sorrow and fear that are +required in great tragedy. + +The artist who finds in Oscar Wilde a great and provocative subject +for his art needs no argument to justify his choice. If the picture +is a great and living portrait, the moralist will be satisfied: the +dark shadows must all be there, as well as the high lights, and the +effect must be to increase our tolerance and intensify our pity. + +If on the other hand the portrait is ill-drawn or ill-painted, all the +reasoning in the world and the praise of all the sycophants will not +save the picture from contempt and the artist from censure. + +There is one measure by which intention as apart from accomplishment +can be judged, and one only: "If you think the book well done," says +Pascal, "and on re-reading find it strong; be assured that the man who +wrote it, wrote it on his knees." No book could have been written more +reverently than this book of mine. + +FRANK HARRIS. +Nice, 1910. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] [Transcriber's Note: Printer error. In the 1930 U.S. edition the +word "in" is deleted.] + + + + +OSCAR WILDE: HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +On the 12th of December, 1864, Dublin society was abuzz with +excitement. A tidbit of scandal which had long been rolled on the +tongue in semi-privacy was to be discussed in open court, and all +women and a good many men were agog with curiosity and expectation. + +The story itself was highly spiced and all the actors in it well +known. + +A famous doctor and oculist, recently knighted for his achievements, +was the real defendant. He was married to a woman with a great +literary reputation as a poet and writer who was idolized by the +populace for her passionate advocacy of Ireland's claim to +self-government; "Speranza" was regarded by the Irish people as a sort +of Irish Muse. + +The young lady bringing the action was the daughter of the professor +of medical jurisprudence at Trinity College, who was also the chief at +Marsh's library. + +It was said that this Miss Travers, a pretty girl just out of her +teens, had been seduced by Dr. Sir William Wilde while under his care +as a patient. Some went so far as to say that chloroform had been +used, and that the girl had been violated. + +The doctor was represented as a sort of Minotaur: lustful stories were +invented and repeated with breathless delight; on all faces, the joy +of malicious curiosity and envious denigration. + +The interest taken in the case was extraordinary: the excitement +beyond comparison; the first talents of the Bar were engaged on both +sides; Serjeant Armstrong led for the plaintiff, helped by the famous +Mr. Butt, Q.C., and Mr. Heron, Q.C., who were in turn backed by Mr. +Hamill and Mr. Quinn; while Serjeant Sullivan was for the defendant, +supported by Mr. Sidney, Q.C., and Mr. Morris, Q.C., and aided by Mr. +John Curran and Mr. Purcell. + +The Court of Common Pleas was the stage; Chief Justice Monahan +presiding with a special jury. The trial was expected to last a week, +and not only the Court but the approaches to it were crowded. + +To judge by the scandalous reports, the case should have been a +criminal case, should have been conducted by the Attorney-General +against Sir William Wilde; but that was not the way it presented +itself. The action was not even brought directly by Miss Travers or by +her father, Dr. Travers, against Sir William Wilde for rape or +criminal assault, or seduction. It was a civil action brought by Miss +Travers, who claimed £2,000 damages for a libel written by Lady Wilde +to her father, Dr. Travers. The letter complained of ran as follows:-- + + TOWER, BRAY, May 6th. + + Sir, you may not be aware of the disreputable conduct of + your daughter at Bray where she consorts with all the low + newspaper boys in the place, employing them to disseminate + offensive placards in which my name is given, and also + tracts in which she makes it appear that she has had an + intrigue with Sir William Wilde. If she chooses to disgrace + herself, it is not my affair, but as her object in insulting + me is in the hope of extorting money for which she has + several times applied to Sir William Wilde with threats of + more annoyance if not given, I think it right to inform you, + as no threat of additional insult shall ever extort money + from our hands. The wages of disgrace she has so basely + treated for and demanded shall never be given her. + + JANE F. WILDE. + + To Dr. Travers. + +The summons and plaint charged that this letter written to the father +of the plaintiff by Lady Wilde was a libel reflecting on the character +and chastity of Miss Travers, and as Lady Wilde was a married woman, +her husband Sir William Wilde was joined in the action as a +co-defendant for conformity. + +The defences set up were:-- + +First, a plea of "No libel": secondly, that the letter did not bear +the defamatory sense imputed by the plaint: thirdly, a denial of the +publication, and, fourthly, a plea of privilege. This last was +evidently the real defence and was grounded upon facts which afforded +some justification of Lady Wilde's bitter letter. + +It was admitted that for a year or more Miss Travers had done her +uttermost to annoy both Sir William Wilde and his wife in every +possible way. The trouble began, the defence stated, by Miss Travers +fancying that she was slighted by Lady Wilde. She thereupon published +a scandalous pamphlet under the title of "Florence Boyle Price, a +Warning; by Speranza," with the evident intention of causing the +public to believe that the booklet was the composition of Lady Wilde +under the assumed name of Florence Boyle Price. In this pamphlet Miss +Travers asserted that a person she called Dr. Quilp had made an +attempt on her virtue. She put the charge mildly. "It is sad," she +wrote, "to think that in the nineteenth century a lady must not +venture into a physician's study without being accompanied by a +bodyguard to protect her." + +Miss Travers admitted that Dr. Quilp was intended for Sir William +Wilde; indeed she identified Dr. Quilp with the newly made knight in a +dozen different ways. She went so far as to describe his appearance. +She declared that he had "an animal, sinister expression about his +mouth which was coarse and vulgar in the extreme: the large protruding +under lip was most unpleasant. Nor did the upper part of his face +redeem the lower part. His eyes were small and round, mean and prying +in expression. There was no candour in the doctor's countenance, where +one looked for candour." Dr. Quilp's quarrel with his victim, it +appeared, was that she was "unnaturally passionless." + +The publication of such a pamphlet was calculated to injure both Sir +William and Lady Wilde in public esteem, and Miss Travers was not +content to let the matter rest there. She drew attention to the +pamphlet by letters to the papers, and on one occasion, when Sir +William Wilde was giving a lecture to the Young Men's Christian +Association at the Metropolitan Hall, she caused large placards to be +exhibited in the neighbourhood having upon them in large letters the +words "Sir William Wilde and Speranza." She employed one of the +persons bearing a placard to go about ringing a large hand bell which +she, herself, had given to him for the purpose. She even published +doggerel verses in the _Dublin Weekly Advertiser_, and signed them +"Speranza," which annoyed Lady Wilde intensely. One read thus:-- + + Your progeny is quite a pest + To those who hate such "critters"; + Some sport I'll have, or I'm blest + I'll fry the Wilde breed in the West + Then you can call them Fritters. + +She wrote letters to _Saunders Newsletter_, and even reviewed a book +of Lady Wilde's entitled "The First Temptation," and called it a +"blasphemous production." Moreover, when Lady Wilde was staying at +Bray, Miss Travers sent boys to offer the pamphlet for sale to the +servants in her house. In fine Miss Travers showed a keen feminine +ingenuity and pertinacity in persecution worthy of a nobler motive. + +But the defence did not rely on such annoyance as sufficient +provocation for Lady Wilde's libellous letter. The plea went on to +state that Miss Travers had applied to Sir William Wilde for money +again and again, and accompanied these applications with threats of +worse pen-pricks if the requests were not acceded to. It was under +these circumstances, according to Lady Wilde, that she wrote the +letter complained of to Dr. Travers and enclosed it in a sealed +envelope. She wished to get Dr. Travers to use his parental influence +to stop Miss Travers from further disgracing herself and insulting and +annoying Sir William and Lady Wilde. + +The defence carried the war into the enemy's camp by thus suggesting +that Miss Travers was blackmailing Sir William and Lady Wilde. + +The attack in the hands of Serjeant Armstrong was still more deadly +and convincing. He rose early on the Monday afternoon and declared at +the beginning that the case was so painful that he would have +preferred not to have been engaged in it--a hypocritical statement +which deceived no one, and was just as conventional-false as his wig. +But with this exception the story he told was extraordinarily clear +and gripping. + +Some ten years before, Miss Travers, then a young girl of nineteen, +was suffering from partial deafness, and was recommended by her own +doctor to go to Dr. Wilde, who was the chief oculist and aurist in +Dublin. Miss Travers went to Dr. Wilde, who treated her successfully. +Dr. Wilde would accept no fees from her, stating at the outset that as +she was the daughter of a brother-physician, he thought it an honour +to be of use to her. Serjeant Armstrong assured his hearers that in +spite of Miss Travers' beauty he believed that at first Dr. Wilde took +nothing but a benevolent interest in the girl. Even when his +professional services ceased to be necessary, Dr. Wilde continued his +friendship. He wrote Miss Travers innumerable letters: he advised her +as to her reading and sent her books and tickets for places of +amusement: he even insisted that she should be better dressed, and +pressed money upon her to buy bonnets and clothes and frequently +invited her to his house for dinners and parties. The friendship went +on in this sentimental kindly way for some five or six years till +1860. + +The wily Serjeant knew enough about human nature to feel that it was +necessary to discover some dramatic incident to change benevolent +sympathy into passion, and he certainly found what he wanted. + +Miss Travers, it appeared, had been burnt low down on her neck when a +child: the cicatrice could still be seen, though it was gradually +disappearing. When her ears were being examined by Dr. Wilde, it was +customary for her to kneel on a hassock before him, and he thus +discovered this burn on her neck. After her hearing improved he still +continued to examine the cicatrice from time to time, pretending to +note the speed with which it was disappearing. Some time in '60 or '61 +Miss Travers had a corn on the sole of her foot which gave her some +pain. Dr. Wilde did her the honour of paring the corn with his own +hands and painting it with iodine. The cunning Serjeant could not help +saying with some confusion, natural or assumed, "that it would have +been just as well--at least there are men of such temperament that it +would be dangerous to have such a manipulation going on." The +spectators in the court smiled, feeling that in "manipulation" the +Serjeant had found the most neatly suggestive word. + +Naturally at this point Serjeant Sullivan interfered in order to stem +the rising tide of interest and to blunt the point of the accusation. +Sir William Wilde, he said, was not the man to shrink from any +investigation: but he was only in the case formally and he could not +meet the allegations, which therefore were "one-sided and unfair" and +so forth and so on. + +After the necessary pause, Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight +and proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this +time, in which he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot, +but to rest it for a few days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal +position while reading a pleasant book. If she would send in, he would +try and send her one. + +"I have now," concluded the Serjeant, like an actor carefully +preparing his effect, "traced this friendly intimacy down to a point +where it begins to be dangerous: I do not wish to aggravate the +gravity of the charge in the slightest by any rhetoric or by an +unconscious over-statement; you shall therefore, gentlemen of the +jury, hear from Miss Travers herself what took place between her and +Dr. Wilde and what she complains of." + +Miss Travers then went into the witness-box. Though thin and past her +first youth, she was still pretty in a conventional way, with regular +features and dark eyes. She was examined by Mr. Butt, Q.C. After +confirming point by point what Serjeant Armstrong had said, she went +on to tell the jury that in the summer of '62 she had thought of going +to Australia, where her two brothers lived, who wanted her to come out +to them. Dr. Wilde lent her £40 to go, but told her she must say it +was £20 or her father might think the sum too large. She missed the +ship in London and came back. She was anxious to impress on the jury +the fact that she had repaid Dr. Wilde, that she had always repaid +whatever he had lent her. + +She went on to relate how one day Dr. Wilde had got her in a kneeling +position at his feet, when he took her in his arms, declaring that he +would not let her go until she called him William. Miss Travers +refused to do this, and took umbrage at the embracing and ceased to +visit at his house: but Dr. Wilde protested extravagantly that he had +meant nothing wrong, and begged her to forgive him and gradually +brought about a reconciliation which was consummated by pressing +invitations to parties and by a loan of two or three pounds for a +dress, which loan, like the others, had been carefully repaid. + +The excitement in the court was becoming breathless. It was felt that +the details were cumulative; the doctor was besieging the fortress in +proper form. The story of embracings, reconciliations and loans all +prepared the public for the great scene. + +The girl went on, now answering questions, now telling bits of the +story in her own way, Mr. Butt, the great advocate, taking care that +it should all be consecutive and clear with a due crescendo of +interest. In October, 1862, it appeared Lady Wilde was not in the +house at Merrion Square, but was away at Bray, as one of the children +had not been well, and she thought the sea air would benefit him. Dr. +Wilde was alone in the house. Miss Travers called and was admitted +into Dr. Wilde's study. He put her on her knees before him and bared +her neck, pretending to examine the burn; he fondled her too much and +pressed her to him: she took offence and tried to draw away. Somehow +or other his hand got entangled in a chain at her neck. She called out +to him, "You are suffocating me," and tried to rise: but he cried out +like a madman: "I will, I want to," and pressed what seemed to be a +handkerchief over her face. She declared that she lost consciousness. + +When she came to herself she found Dr. Wilde frantically imploring her +to come to her senses, while dabbing water on her face, and offering +her wine to drink. + +"If you don't drink," he cried, "I'll pour it over you." + +For some time, she said, she scarcely realized where she was or what +had occurred, though she heard him talking. But gradually +consciousness came back to her, and though she would not open her eyes +she understood what he was saying. He talked frantically: + +"Do be reasonable, and all will be right.... I am in your power ... +spare me, oh, spare me ... strike me if you like. I wish to God I +could hate you, but I can't. I swore I would never touch your hand +again. Attend to me and do what I tell you. Have faith and confidence +in me and you may remedy the past and go to Australia. Think of the +talk this may give rise to. Keep up appearances for your own sake...." + +He then took her up-stairs to a bedroom and made her drink some wine +and lie down for some time. She afterwards left the house; she hardly +knew how; he accompanied her to the door, she thought; but could not +be certain; she was half dazed. + +The judge here interposed with the crucial question: + +"Did you know that you had been violated?" + +The audience waited breathlessly; after a short pause Miss Travers +replied: + +"Yes." + +Then it was true, the worst was true. The audience, excited to the +highest pitch, caught breath with malevolent delight. But the thrills +were not exhausted. Miss Travers next told how in Dr. Wilde's study +one evening she had been vexed at some slight, and at once took four +pennyworth of laudanum which she had bought. Dr. Wilde hurried her +round to the house of Dr. Walsh, a physician in the neighbourhood, who +gave her an antidote. Dr. Wilde was dreadfully frightened lest +something should get out.... + +She admitted at once that she had sometimes asked Dr. Wilde for money: +she thought nothing of it as she had again and again repaid him the +monies which he had lent her. + +Miss Travers' examination in chief had been intensely interesting. The +fashionable ladies had heard all they had hoped to hear, and it was +noticed that they were not so eager to get seats in the court from +this time on, though the room was still crowded. + +The cross-examination of Miss Travers was at least as interesting to +the student of human nature as the examination in chief had been, for +in her story of what took place on that 14th of October, weaknesses +and discrepancies of memory were discovered and at length +improbabilities and contradictions in the narrative itself. + +First of all it was elicited that she could not be certain of the day; +it might have been the 15th or the 16th: it was Friday the 14th, she +thought.... It was a great event to her; the most awful event in her +whole life; yet she could not remember the day for certain. + +"Did you tell anyone of what had taken place?" + +"No." + +"Not even your father?" + +"No." + +"Why not?" + +"I did not wish to give him pain." + +"But you went back to Dr. Wilde's study after the awful assault?" + +"Yes." + +"You went again and again, did you not?" + +"Yes." + +"Did he ever attempt to repeat the offence?" + +"Yes." + +The audience was thunderstruck; the plot was deepening. Miss Travers +went on to say that the Doctor was rude to her again; she did not know +his intention; he took hold of her and tried to fondle her; but she +would not have it. + +"After the second offence you went back?" + +"Yes." + +"Did he ever repeat it again?" + +"Yes." + +Miss Travers said that once again Dr. Wilde had been rude to her. + +"Yet you returned again?" + +"Yes." + +"And you took money from this man who had violated you against your +will?" + +"Yes." + +"You asked him for money?" + +"Yes." + +"This is the first time you have told about this second and third +assault, is it not?" + +"Yes," the witness admitted. + +So far all that Miss Travers had said hung together and seemed +eminently credible; but when she was questioned about the chloroform +and the handkerchief she became confused. At the outset she admitted +that the handkerchief might have been a rag. She was not certain it +was a rag. It was something she saw the doctor throw into the fire +when she came to her senses. + +"Had he kept it in his hands, then, all the time you were +unconscious?" + +"I don't know." + +"Just to show it to you?" + +The witness was silent. + +When she was examined as to her knowledge of chloroform, she broke +down hopelessly. She did not know the smell of it; could not describe +it; did not know whether it burnt or not; could not in fact swear that +it was chloroform Dr. Wilde had used; would not swear that it was +anything; believed that it was chloroform or something like it because +she lost consciousness. That was her only reason for saying that +chloroform had been given to her. + +Again the judge interposed with the probing question: + +"Did you say anything about chloroform in your pamphlet?" + +"No," the witness murmured. + +It was manifest that the strong current of feeling in favour of Miss +Travers had begun to ebb. The story was a toothsome morsel still: but +it was regretfully admitted that the charge of rape had not been +pushed home. It was felt to be disappointing, too, that the chief +prosecuting witness should have damaged her own case. + +It was now the turn of the defence, and some thought the pendulum +might swing back again. + +Lady Wilde was called and received an enthusiastic reception. The +ordinary Irishman was willing to show at any time that he believed in +his Muse, and was prepared to do more than cheer for one who had +fought with her pen for "Oireland" in the _Nation_ side by side with +Tom Davis. + +Lady Wilde gave her evidence emphatically, but was too bitter to be a +persuasive witness. It was tried to prove from her letter that she +believed that Miss Travers had had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, +but she would not have it. She did not for a moment believe in her +husband's guilt. Miss Travers wished to make it appear, she said, that +she had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but in her opinion it was +utterly untrue. Sir William Wilde was above suspicion. There was not a +particle of truth in the accusation; _her_ husband would never so +demean himself. + +Lady Wilde's disdainful speeches seemed to persuade the populace, but +had small effect on the jury, and still less on the judge. + +When she was asked if she hated Miss Travers, she replied that she +did not hate anyone, but she had to admit that she disliked Miss +Travers' methods of action. + +"Why did you not answer Miss Travers when she wrote telling you of +your husband's attempt on her virtue?" + +"I took no interest in the matter," was the astounding reply. + +The defence made an even worse mistake than this. When the time came, +Sir William Wilde was not called. + +In his speech for Miss Travers, Mr. Butt made the most of this +omission. He declared that the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into +the witness box was an admission of guilt; an admission that Miss +Travers' story of her betrayal was true and could not be contradicted. +But the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the box was not, he +insisted, the worst point in the defence. He reminded the jury that he +had asked Lady Wilde why she had not answered Miss Travers when she +wrote to her. He recalled Lady Wilde's reply: + +"I took no interest in the matter." + +Every woman would be interested in such a thing, he declared, even a +stranger; but Lady Wilde hated her husband's victim and took no +interest in her seduction beyond writing a bitter, vindictive and +libellous letter to the girl's father.... + +The speech was regarded as a masterpiece and enhanced the already +great reputation of the man who was afterwards to become the Home Rule +Leader. + +It only remained for the judge to sum up, for everyone was getting +impatient to hear the verdict. Chief Justice Monahan made a short, +impartial speech, throwing the dry, white light of truth upon the +conflicting and passionate statements. First of all, he said, it was +difficult to believe in the story of rape whether with or without +chloroform. If the girl had been violated she would be expected to cry +out at the time, or at least to complain to her father as soon as she +reached home. Had it been a criminal trial, he pointed out, no one +would have believed this part of Miss Travers' story. When you find a +girl does not cry out at the time and does not complain afterwards, +and returns to the house to meet further rudeness, it must be presumed +that she consented to the seduction. + +But was there a seduction? The girl asserted that there was guilty +intimacy, and Sir William Wilde had not contradicted her. It was said +that he was only formally a defendant; but he was the real defendant +and he could have gone into the box if he had liked and given his +version of what took place and contradicted Miss Travers in whole or +in part. + +"It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to draw your own conclusions +from his omission to do what one would have thought would be an +honourable man's first impulse and duty." + +Finally it was for the jury to consider whether the letter was a libel +and if so what the amount of damages should be. + +His Lordship recalled the jury at Mr. Butt's request to say that in +assessing damages they might also take into consideration the fact +that the defence was practically a justification of the libel. The +fair-mindedness of the judge was conspicuous from first to last, and +was worthy of the high traditions of the Irish Bench. + +After deliberating for a couple of hours the jury brought in a verdict +which had a certain humour in it. They awarded to Miss Travers a +farthing damages and intimated that the farthing should carry costs. +In other words they rated Miss Travers' virtue at the very lowest coin +of the realm, while insisting that Sir William Wilde should pay a +couple of thousands of pounds in costs for having seduced her. + +It was generally felt that the verdict did substantial justice; though +the jury, led away by patriotic sympathy with Lady Wilde, the true +"Speranza," had been a little hard on Miss Travers. No one doubted +that Sir William Wilde had seduced his patient. He had, it appeared, +an unholy reputation, and the girl's admission that he had accused her +of being "unnaturally passionless" was accepted as the true key of the +enigma. This was why he had drawn away from the girl, after seducing +her. And it was not unnatural under the circumstances that she should +become vindictive and revengeful. + +Such inferences as these, I drew from the comments of the Irish papers +at the time; but naturally I wished if possible to hear some +trustworthy contemporary on the matter. Fortunately such testimony was +forthcoming. + +A Fellow of Trinity, who was then a young man, embodied the best +opinion of the time in an excellent pithy letter. He wrote to me that +the trial simply established, what every one believed, that "Sir +William Wilde was a pithecoid person of extraordinary sensuality and +cowardice (funking the witness-box left him without a defender!) and +that his wife was a highfalutin' pretentious creature whose pride was +as extravagant as her reputation founded on second-rate +verse-making.... Even when a young woman she used to keep her rooms in +Merrion Square in semi-darkness; she laid the paint on too thick for +any ordinary light, and she gave herself besides all manner of airs." + +This incisive judgment of an able and fairly impartial contemporary +observer[2] corroborates, I think, the inferences which one would +naturally draw from the newspaper accounts of the trial. It seems to +me that both combine to give a realistic photograph, so to speak, of +Sir William and Lady Wilde. An artist, however, would lean to a more +kindly picture. Trying to see the personages as they saw themselves he +would balance the doctor's excessive sensuality and lack of +self-control by dwelling on the fact that his energy and perseverance +and intimate adaptation to his surroundings had brought him in middle +age to the chief place in his profession, and if Lady Wilde was +abnormally vain, a verse-maker and not a poet, she was still a +talented woman of considerable reading and manifold artistic +sympathies. + +Such were the father and mother of Oscar Wilde. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] As he has died since this was written, there is no longer any +reason for concealing his name: R.Y. Tyrrell, for many years before +his death Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The Wildes had three children, two sons and a daughter. The first son +was born in 1852, a year after the marriage, and was christened after +his father William Charles Kingsbury Wills. The second son was born +two years later, in 1854 and the names given to him seem to reveal the +Nationalist sympathies and pride of his mother. He was christened +Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde; but he appears to have suffered +from the pompous string only in extreme youth. At school he concealed +the "Fingal," as a young man he found it advisable to omit the +"O'Flahertie." + +In childhood and early boyhood Oscar was not considered as quick or +engaging or handsome as his brother, Willie. Both boys had the benefit +of the best schooling of the time. They were sent as boarders to the +Portora School at Enniskillen, one of the four Royal schools of +Ireland. Oscar went to Portora in 1864 at the age of nine, a couple of +years after his brother. He remained at the school for seven years and +left it on winning an Exhibition for Trinity College, Dublin, when he +was just seventeen. + +The facts hitherto collected and published about Oscar as a schoolboy +are sadly meagre and insignificant. Fortunately for my readers I have +received from Sir Edward Sullivan, who was a contemporary of Oscar +both at school and college, an exceedingly vivid and interesting +pen-picture of the lad, one of those astounding masterpieces of +portraiture only to be produced by the plastic sympathies of boyhood +and the intimate intercourse of years lived in common. It is love +alone which in later life can achieve such a miracle of representment. +I am very glad to be allowed to publish this realistic miniature, in +the very words of the author. + +"I first met Oscar Wilde in the early part of 1868 at Portora Royal +School. He was thirteen or fourteen years of age. His long straight +fair hair was a striking feature of his appearance. He was then, as he +remained for some years after, extremely boyish in nature, very +mobile, almost restless when out of the schoolroom. Yet he took no +part in the school games at any time. Now and then he would be seen in +one of the school boats on Loch Erne: yet he was a poor hand at an +oar. + +"Even as a schoolboy he was an excellent talker: his descriptive power +being far above the average, and his humorous exaggerations of school +occurrences always highly amusing. + +"A favourite place for the boys to sit and gossip in the late +afternoon in winter time was round a stove which stood in 'The Stone +Hall.' Here Oscar was at his best; although his brother Willie was +perhaps in those days even better than he was at telling a story. + +"Oscar would frequently vary the entertainment by giving us extremely +quaint illustrations of holy people in stained-glass attitudes: his +power of twisting his limbs into weird contortions being very great. +(I am told that Sir William Wilde, his father, possessed the same +power.) It must not be thought, however, that there was any suggestion +of irreverence in the exhibition. + +"At one of these gatherings, about the year 1870, I remember a +discussion taking place about an ecclesiastical prosecution that made +a considerable stir at the time. Oscar was present, and full of the +mysterious nature of the Court of Arches; he told us there was nothing +he would like better in after life than to be the hero of such a +_cause celèbre_ and to go down to posterity as the defendant in such a +case as 'Regina versus Wilde!' + +"At school he was almost always called 'Oscar'--but he had a +nick-name, 'Grey-crow,' which the boys would call him when they wished +to annoy him, and which he resented greatly. It was derived in some +mysterious way from the name of an island in the Upper Loch Erne, +within easy reach of the school by boat. + +"It was some little time before he left Portora that the boys got to +know of his full name, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. Just at +the close of his school career he won the 'Carpenter' Greek Testament +Prize,--and on presentation day was called up to the dais by Dr. +Steele, by all his names--much to Oscar's annoyance; for a great deal +of schoolboy chaff followed. + +"He was always generous, kindly, good-tempered. I remember he and +myself were on one occasion mounted as opposing jockeys on the backs +of two bigger boys in what we called a 'tournament,' held in one of +the class-rooms. Oscar and his horse were thrown, and the result was a +broken arm for Wilde. Knowing that it was an accident, he did not let +it make any difference in our friendship. + +"He had, I think, no very special chums while at school. I was perhaps +as friendly with him all through as anybody, though his junior in +class by a year.... + +"Willie Wilde was never very familiar with him, treating him always, +in those days, as a younger brother.... + +"When in the head class together, we with two other boys were in the +town of Enniskillen one afternoon, and formed part of an audience who +were listening to a street orator. One of us, for the fun of the +thing, got near the speaker and with a stick knocked his hat off and +then ran for home followed by the other three. Several of the +listeners, resenting the impertinence, gave chase, and Oscar in his +hurry collided with an aged cripple and threw him down--a fact which +was duly reported to the boys when we got safely back. Oscar was +afterwards heard telling how he found his way barred by an angry giant +with whom he fought through many rounds and whom he eventually left +for dead in the road after accomplishing prodigies of valour on his +redoubtable opponent. Romantic imagination was strong in him even in +those schoolboy days; but there was always something in his telling of +such a tale to suggest that he felt his hearers were not really being +taken in; it was merely the romancing indulged in so humorously by the +two principal male characters in 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'... + +"He never took any interest in mathematics either at school or +college. He laughed at science and never had a good word for a +mathematical or science master, but there was nothing spiteful or +malignant in anything he said against them; or indeed against anybody. + +"The romances that impressed him most when at school were Disraeli's +novels. He spoke slightingly of Dickens as a novelist.... + +"The classics absorbed almost his whole attention in his later school +days, and the flowing beauty of his oral translations in class, +whether of Thucydides, Plato or Virgil, was a thing not easily to be +forgotten." + +This photograph, so to speak, of Oscar as a schoolboy is astonishingly +clear and lifelike; but I have another portrait of him from another +contemporary, who has since made for himself a high name as a scholar +at Trinity, which, while confirming the general traits sketched by Sir +Edward Sullivan, takes somewhat more notice of certain mental +qualities which came later to the fruiting. + +This observer who does not wish his name given, writes: + +"Oscar had a pungent wit, and nearly all the nicknames in the school +were given by him. He was very good on the literary side of +scholarship, with a special leaning to poetry.... + +"We noticed that he always liked to have editions of the classics that +were of stately size with large print.... He was more careful in his +dress than any other boy. + +"He was a wide reader and read very fast indeed; how much he +assimilated I never could make out. He was poor at music. + +"We thought him a fair scholar but nothing extraordinary. However, he +startled everyone the last year at school in the classical medal +examination, by walking easily away from us all in the _viva voce_ of +the Greek play ('The Agamemnon')." + +I may now try and accentuate a trait or two of these photographs, so +to speak, and then realise the whole portrait by adding an account +given to me by Oscar himself. The joy in humorous romancing and the +sweetness of temper recorded by Sir Edward Sullivan were marked traits +in Oscar's character all through his life. His care in dressing too, +and his delight in stately editions; his love of literature "with a +special leaning to poetry" were all qualities which distinguished him +to the end. + +"Until the last year of my school life at Portora," he said to me +once, "I had nothing like the reputation of my brother Willie. I read +too many English novels, too much poetry, dreamed away too much time +to master the school tasks. + +"Knowledge came to me through pleasure, as it always comes, I +imagine.... + +"I was nearly sixteen when the wonder and beauty of the old Greek life +began to dawn upon me. Suddenly I seemed to see the white figures +throwing purple shadows on the sun-baked palæstra; 'bands of nude +youths and maidens'--you remember Gautier's words--'moving across a +background of deep blue as on the frieze of the Parthenon.' I began to +read Greek eagerly for love of it all, and the more I read the more I +was enthralled: + + Oh what golden hours were for us + As we sat together there, + While the white vests of the chorus + Seemed to wave up a light air; + While the cothurns trod majestic + Down the deep iambic lines + And the rolling anapæstics + Curled like vapour over shrines. + +"The head master was always holding my brother Willie up to me as an +example; but even he admitted that in my last year at Portora I had +made astounding progress. I laid the foundation there of whatever +classical scholarship I possess." + +It occurred to me once to ask Oscar in later years whether the +boarding school life of a great, public school was not responsible for +a good deal of sensual viciousness. + +"Englishmen all say so," he replied, "but it did not enter into my +experience. I was very childish, Frank; a mere boy till I was over +sixteen. Of course I was sensual and curious, as boys are, and had +the usual boy imaginings; but I did not indulge in them excessively. + +"At Portora nine out of ten boys only thought of football or cricket +or rowing. Nearly every one went in for athletics--running and jumping +and so forth; no one appeared to care for sex. We were healthy young +barbarians and that was all." + +"Did you go in for games?" I asked. + +"No," Oscar replied smiling, "I never liked to kick or be kicked." + +"Surely you went about with some younger boy, did you not, to whom you +told your dreams and hopes, and whom you grew to care for?" + +The question led to an intimate personal confession, which may take +its place here. + +"It is strange you should have mentioned it," he said. "There was one +boy, and," he added slowly, "one peculiar incident. It occurred in my +last year at Portora. The boy was a couple of years younger than I--we +were great friends; we used to take long walks together and I talked +to him interminably. I told him what I should have done had I been +Alexander, or how I'd have played king in Athens, had I been +Alcibiades. As early as I can remember I used to identify myself with +every distinguished character I read about, but when I was fifteen or +sixteen I noticed with some wonder that I could think of myself as +Alcibiades or Sophocles more easily than as Alexander or Cæsar. The +life of books had begun to interest me more than real life.... + +"My friend had a wonderful gift for listening. I was so occupied with +talking and telling about myself that I knew very little about him, +curiously little when I come to think of it. But the last incident of +my school life makes me think he was a sort of mute poet, and had much +more in him than I imagined. It was just before I first heard that I +had won an Exhibition and was to go to Trinity. Dr. Steele had called +me into his study to tell me the great news; he was very glad, he +said, and insisted that it was all due to my last year's hard work. +The 'hard' work had been very interesting to me, or I would not have +done much of it. The doctor wound up, I remember, by assuring me that +if I went on studying as I had been studying during the last year I +might yet do as well as my brother Willie, and be as great an honour +to the school and everybody connected with it as he had been. + +"This made me smile, for though I liked Willie, and knew he was a +fairly good scholar, I never for a moment regarded him as my equal in +any intellectual field. He knew all about football and cricket and +studied the school-books assiduously, whereas I read everything that +pleased me, and in my own opinion always went about 'crowned.'" Here +he laughed charmingly with amused deprecation of the conceit. + +"It was only about the quality of the crown, Frank, that I was in any +doubt. If I had been offered the Triple Tiara, it would have appeared +to me only the meet reward of my extraordinary merit.... + +"When I came out from the doctor's I hurried to my friend to tell him +all the wonderful news. To my surprise he was cold and said, a little +bitterly, I thought: + +"'You seem glad to go?' + +"'Glad to go,' I cried; 'I should think I was; fancy going to Trinity +College, Dublin, from this place; why, I shall meet men and not boys. +Of course I am glad, wild with delight; the first step to Oxford and +fame.' + +"'I mean,' my chum went on, still in the same cold way, 'you seem glad +to leave me.' + +"His tone startled me. + +"'You silly fellow,' I exclaimed, 'of course not; I'm always glad to +be with you: but perhaps you will be coming up to Trinity too; won't +you?' + +"'I'm afraid not,' he said, 'but I shall come to Dublin frequently.' + +"'Then we shall meet,' I remarked; 'you must come and see me in my +rooms. My father will give me a room to myself in our house, and you +know Merrion Square is the best part of Dublin. You must come and see +me.' + +"He looked up at me with yearning, sad, regretful eyes. But the future +was beckoning to me, and I could not help talking about it, for the +golden key of wonderland was in my hand, and I was wild with desires +and hopes. + +"My friend was very silent, I remember, and only interrupted me to +ask: + +"'When do you go, Oscar?' + +"'Early,' I replied thoughtlessly, or rather full of my own thoughts, +'early to-morrow morning, I believe; the usual train.' + +"In the morning just as I was starting for the station, having said +'goodbye' to everyone, he came up to me very pale and strangely quiet. + +"'I'm coming with you to the station, Oscar,' he said; 'the Doctor +gave me permission, when I told him what friends we had been.' + +"'I'm glad,' I cried, my conscience pricking me that I had not thought +of asking for his company. 'I'm very glad. My last hours at school +will always be associated with you.' + +"He just glanced up at me, and the glance surprised me; it was like a +dog looks at one. But my own hopes soon took possession of me again, +and I can only remember being vaguely surprised by the appeal in his +regard. + +"When I was settled in my seat in the train, he did not say 'goodbye' +and go, and leave me to my dreams; but brought me papers and things +and hung about. + +"The guard came and said: + +"'Now, sir, if you are going.' + +"I liked the 'Sir.' To my surprise my friend jumped into the carriage +and said: + +"'All right, guard, I'm not going, but I shall slip out as soon as you +whistle.' + +"The guard touched his cap and went. I said something, I don't know +what; I was a little embarrassed. + +"'You will write to me, Oscar, won't you, and tell me about +everything?' + +"'Oh, yes,' I replied, 'as soon as I get settled down, you know. There +will be such a lot to do at first, and I am wild to see everything. I +wonder how the professors will treat me. I do hope they will not be +fools or prigs; what a pity it is that all professors are not +poets....' And so I went on merrily, when suddenly the whistle sounded +and a moment afterwards the train began to move. + +"'You must go now,' I said to him. + +"'Yes,' he replied, in a queer muffled voice, while standing with his +hand on the door of the carriage. Suddenly he turned to me and cried: + +"'Oh, Oscar,' and before I knew what he was doing he had caught my +face in his hot hands, and kissed me on the lips. The next moment he +had slipped out of the door and was gone.... + +"I sat there all shaken. Suddenly I became aware of cold, sticky drops +trickling down my face--his tears. They affected me strangely. As I +wiped them off I said to myself in amaze: + +"'This is love: this is what he meant--love.'... + +"I was trembling all over. For a long while I sat, unable to think, +all shaken with wonder and remorse." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Oscar Wilde did well at school, but he did still better at college, +where the competition was more severe. He entered Trinity on October +19th, 1871, just three days after his seventeenth birthday. Sir Edward +Sullivan writes me that when Oscar matriculated at Trinity he was +already "a thoroughly good classical scholar of a brilliant type," and +he goes on to give an invaluable snap-shot of him at this time; a +likeness, in fact, the chief features of which grew more and more +characteristic as the years went on. + +"He had rooms in College at the north side of one of the older +squares, known as Botany Bay. These rooms were exceedingly grimy and +ill-kept. He never entertained there. On the rare occasions when +visitors were admitted, an unfinished landscape in oils was always on +the easel, in a prominent place in his sitting room. He would +invariably refer to it, telling one in his humorously unconvincing way +that 'he had just put in the butterfly.' Those of us who had seen his +work in the drawing class presided over by 'Bully' Wakeman at Portora +were not likely to be deceived in the matter.... + +"His college life was mainly one of study; in addition to working for +his classical examinations, he devoured with voracity all the best +English writers. + +"He was an intense admirer of Swinburne and constantly reading his +poems; John Addington Symond's works too, on the Greek authors, were +perpetually in his hands. He never entertained any pronounced views on +social, religious or political questions while in College; he seemed +to be altogether devoted to literary matters. + +"He mixed freely at the same time in Dublin society functions of all +kinds, and was always a very vivacious and welcome guest at any house +he cared to visit. All through his Dublin University days he was one +of the purest minded men that could be met with. + +"He was not a card player, but would on occasions join in a game of +limited loo at some man's rooms. He was also an extremely moderate +drinker. He became a member of the junior debating society, the +Philosophical, but hardly ever took any part in their discussions. + +[Illustration: Dr. Sir William Wilde] + +"He read for the Berkeley medal (which he afterwards gained) with an +excellent, but at the same time broken-down, classical scholar, John +Townsend Mills, and, besides instruction, he contrived to get a good +deal of amusement out of his readings with his quaint teacher. He +told me for instance that on one occasion he expressed his sympathy +for Mills on seeing him come into his rooms wearing a tall hat +completely covered in crape. Mills, however, replied, with a smile, +that no one was dead--it was only the evil condition of his hat that +had made him assume so mournful a disguise. I have often thought that +the incident was still fresh in Oscar Wilde's mind when he introduced +John Worthing in 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' in mourning for +his fictitious brother.... + +"Shortly before he started on his first trip to Italy, he came into my +rooms in a very striking pair of trousers. I made some chaffing remark +on them, but he begged me in the most serious style of which he was so +excellent a master not to jest about them. + +"'They are my Trasimene trousers, and I mean to wear them there.'" + +Already his humour was beginning to strike all his acquaintances, and +what Sir Edward Sullivan here calls his "puremindedness," or what I +should rather call his peculiar refinement of nature. No one ever +heard Oscar Wilde tell a suggestive story; indeed he always shrank +from any gross or crude expression; even his mouth was vowed always to +pure beauty. + +The Trinity Don whom I have already quoted about Oscar's school-days +sends me a rather severe critical judgment of him as a student. There +is some truth in it, however, for in part at least it was borne out +and corroborated by Oscar's later achievement. It must be borne in +mind that the Don was one of his competitors at Trinity, and a +successful one; Oscar's mind could not limit itself to college tasks +and prescribed books. + +"When Oscar came to college he did excellently during the first year; +he was top of his class in classics; but he did not do so well in the +long examinations for a classical scholarship in his second year. He +was placed fifth, which was considered very good, but he was plainly +not, the man for the [Greek: dolichos] (or long struggle), though +first-rate for a short examination." + +Oscar himself only completed these spirit-photographs by what he told +me of his life at Trinity. + +"It was the fascination of Greek letters, and the delight I took in +Greek life and thought," he said to me once, "which made me a scholar. +I got my love of the Greek ideal and my intimate knowledge of the +language at Trinity from Mahaffy and Tyrrell; they were Trinity to me; +Mahaffy was especially valuable to me at that time. Though not so good +a scholar as Tyrrell, he had been in Greece, had lived there and +saturated himself with Greek thought and Greek feeling. Besides he +took deliberately the artistic standpoint towards everything, which +was coming more and more to be my standpoint. He was a delightful +talker, too, a really great talker in a certain way--an artist in +vivid words and eloquent pauses. Tyrrell, too, was very kind to +me--intensely sympathetic and crammed with knowledge. If he had known +less he would have been a poet. Learning is a sad handicap, Frank, an +appalling handicap," and he laughed irresistibly. + +"What were the students like in Dublin?" I asked. "Did you make +friends with any of them?" + +"They were worse even than the boys at Portora," he replied; "they +thought of nothing but cricket and football, running and jumping; and +they varied these intellectual exercises with bouts of fighting and +drinking. If they had any souls they diverted them with coarse +_amours_ among barmaids and the women of the streets; they were simply +awful. Sexual vice is even coarser and more loathsome in Ireland than +it is in England:-- + + "'Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.' + +"When I tried to talk they broke into my thought with stupid gibes and +jokes. Their highest idea of humour was an obscene story. No, no, +Tyrrell and Mahaffy represent to me whatever was good in Trinity." + +In 1874 Oscar Wilde won the gold medal for Greek. The subject of the +year was "The Fragments of the Greek Comic Poets, as edited by +Meineke." In this year, too, he won a classical scholarship--a +demyship of the annual value of £95, which was tenable for five years, +which enabled him to go to Oxford without throwing an undue strain on +his father's means. + +He noticed with delight that his success was announced in the _Oxford +University Gazette_ of July 11th, 1874. He entered Magdalen College, +Oxford, on October 17th, a day after his twentieth birthday. + +Just as he had been more successful at Trinity than at school, so he +was destined to be far more successful and win a far greater +reputation at Oxford than in Dublin. + +He had the advantage of going to Oxford a little later than most men, +at twenty instead of eighteen, and thus was enabled to win high +honours with comparative ease, while leading a life of cultured +enjoyment. + +He was placed in the first class in "Moderations" in 1876 and had even +then managed to make himself talked about in the life of the place. +The Trinity Don whom I have already quoted, after admitting that there +was not a breath against his character either at school or Trinity, +goes on to write that "at Trinity he did not strike us as a very +exceptional person," and yet there must have been some sharp eyes at +Trinity, for our Don adds with surprising divination: + +"I fancy his rapid development took place after he went to Oxford, +where he was able to specialize more; in fact where he could study +what he most affected. It is, I feel sure, from his Oxford life more +than from his life in Ireland that one would be able to trace the good +and bad features by which he afterwards attracted the attention of the +world." + +In 1878 Oscar won a First Class in "Greats." In this same Trinity +term, 1878, he further distinguished himself by gaining the Newdigate +prize for English verse with his poem "Ravenna," which he recited at +the annual Commemoration in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26th. His +reciting of the poem was the literary event of the year in Oxford. + +There had been great curiosity about him; he was said to be the best +talker of the day, and one of the ripest scholars. There were those in +the University who predicted an astonishing future for him, and indeed +all possibilities seemed within his reach. "His verses were listened +to," said _The Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal_, "with +rapt attention." It was just the sort of thing, half poetry, half +rhythmic rhetoric, which was sure to reach the hearts and minds of +youth. His voice, too, was of beautiful tenor quality, and exquisitely +used. When he sat down people crowded to praise him and even men of +great distinction in life flattered him with extravagant compliments. +Strange to say he used always to declare that his appearance about the +same time as Prince Rupert, at a fancy dress ball, given by Mrs. +George Morrell, at Headington Hill Hall, afforded him a far more +gratifying proof of the exceptional position he had won. + +"Everyone came round me, Frank, and made me talk. I hardly danced at +all. I went as Prince Rupert, and I talked as he charged but with more +success, for I turned all my foes into friends. I had the divinest +evening; Oxford meant so much to me.... + +"I wish I could tell you all Oxford did for me. + +"I was the happiest man in the world when I entered Magdalen for the +first time. Oxford--the mere word to me is full of an inexpressible, +an incommunicable charm. Oxford--the home of lost causes and +impossible ideals; Matthew Arnold's Oxford--with its dreaming spires +and grey colleges, set in velvet lawns and hidden away among the +trees, and about it the beautiful fields, all starred with cowslips +and fritillaries where the quiet river winds its way to London and the +sea.... The change, Frank, to me was astounding; Trinity was as +barbarian as school, with coarseness superadded. If it had not been +for two or three people, I should have been worse off at Trinity than +at Portora; but Oxford--Oxford was paradise to me. My very soul seemed +to expand within me to peace and joy. Oxford--the enchanted valley, +holding in its flowerlet cup all the idealism of the middle ages.[3] +Oxford is the capital of romance, Frank; in its own way as memorable +as Athens, and to me it was even more entrancing. In Oxford, as in +Athens, the realities of sordid life were kept at a distance. No one +seemed to know anything about money or care anything for it. +Everywhere the aristocratic feeling; one must have money, but must not +bother about it. And all the appurtenances of life were perfect: the +food, the wine, the cigarettes; the common needs of life became +artistic symbols, our clothes even won meaning and significance. It +was at Oxford I first dressed in knee breeches and silk stockings. I +almost reformed fashion and made modern dress æsthetically beautiful; +a second and greater reformation, Frank. What a pity it is that Luther +knew nothing of dress, had no sense of the becoming. He had courage +but no fineness of perception. I'm afraid his neckties would always +have been quite shocking!" and he laughed charmingly. + +"What about the inside of the platter, Oscar?" + +"Ah, Frank, don't ask me, I don't know; there was no grossness, no +coarseness; but all delicate delights! + + "'Fair passions and bountiful pities and loves without pain,'"[4] + +and he laughed mischievously at the misquotation. + +"Loves?" I questioned, and he nodded his head smiling; but would not +be drawn. + +"All romantic and ideal affections. Every successive wave of youths +from the public schools brought some chosen spirits, perfectly +wonderful persons, the most graceful and fascinating disciples that a +poet could desire, and I preached the old-ever-new gospel of +individual revolt and individual perfection. I showed them that sin +with its curiosities widened the horizons of life. Prejudices and +prohibitions are mere walls to imprison the soul. Indulgence may hurt +the body, Frank, but nothing except suffering hurts the spirit; it is +self-denial and abstinence that maim and deform the soul." + +"Then they knew you as a great talker even at Oxford?" I asked in some +surprise. + +"Frank," he cried reprovingly, laughing at the same time delightfully, +"I was a great talker at school. I did nothing at Trinity but talk, my +reading was done at odd hours. I was the best talker ever seen in +Oxford." + +"And did you find any teacher there like Mahaffy?" I asked, "any +professor with a touch of the poet?" + +He came to seriousness at once. + +"There were two or three teachers, Frank," he replied, "greater than +Mahaffy; teachers of the world as well as of Oxford. There was Ruskin +for instance, who appealed to me intensely--a wonderful man and a most +wonderful writer. A sort of exquisite romantic flower; like a violet +filling the whole air with the ineffable perfume of belief. Ruskin has +always seemed to me the Plato of England--a Prophet of the Good and +True and Beautiful, who saw as Plato saw that the three are one +perfect flower. But it was his prose I loved, and not his piety. His +sympathy with the poor bored me: the road he wanted us to build was +tiresome. I could see nothing in poverty that appealed to me, nothing; +I shrank away from it as from a degradation of the spirit; but his +prose was lyrical and rose on broad wings into the blue. He was a +great poet and teacher, Frank, and therefore of course a most +preposterous professor; he bored you to death when he taught, but was +an inspiration when he sang. + +"Then there was Pater, Pater the classic, Pater the scholar, who had +already written the greatest English prose: I think a page or two of +the greatest prose in all literature. Pater meant everything to me. He +taught me the highest form of art: the austerity of beauty. I came to +my full growth with Pater. He was a sort of silent, sympathetic elder +brother. Fortunately for me he could not talk at all; but he was an +admirable listener, and I talked to him by the hour. I learned the +instrument of speech with him, for I could see by his face when I had +said anything extraordinary. He did not praise me but quickened me +astonishingly, forced me always to do better than my best--an intense +vivifying influence, the influence of Greek art at its supremest." + +"He was the Gamaliel then?" I questioned, "at whose feet you sat?" + +"Oh, no, Frank," he chided, "everyone sat at my feet even then. But +Pater was a very great man. Dear Pater! I remember once talking to +him when we were seated together on a bench under some trees in +Oxford. I had been watching the students bathing in the river: the +beautiful white figures all grace and ease and virile strength. I had +been pointing out how Christianity had flowered into romance, and how +the crude Hebraic materialism and all the later formalities of an +established creed had fallen away from the tree of life and left us +the exquisite ideals of the new paganism.... + +"The pale Christ had been outlived: his renunciations and his +sympathies were mere weaknesses: we were moving to a synthesis of art +where the enchanting perfume of romance should be wedded to the severe +beauty of classic form. I really talked as if inspired, and when I +paused, Pater--the stiff, quiet, silent Pater--suddenly slipped from +his seat and knelt down by me and kissed my hand. I cried: + +"'You must not, you really must not. What would people think if they +saw you?' + +"He got up with a white strained face. + +"'I had to,' he muttered, glancing about him fearfully, 'I had +to--once....'" + +I must warn my readers that this whole incident is ripened and set in +a higher key of thought by the fact that Oscar told it more than ten +years after it happened. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Oscar was always fond of loosely quoting or paraphrasing in +conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers. He said +them exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as the +original. This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of +originality. In especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence +upon him, almost as great indeed as Pater. + +[4] "Stain," not "pain," in the original. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The most important event in Oscar's early life happened while he was +still an undergraduate at Oxford: his father, Sir William Wilde, died +in 1876, leaving to his wife, Lady Wilde, nearly all he possessed, +some £7,000, the interest of which was barely enough to keep her in +genteel poverty. The sum is so small that one is constrained to +believe the report that Sir William Wilde in his later years kept +practically open house--"lashins of whisky and a good larder," and was +besides notorious for his gallantries. Oscar's small portion, a little +money and a small house with some land, came to him in the nick of +time: he used the cash partly to pay some debts at Oxford, partly to +defray the expenses of a trip to Greece. It was natural that Oscar +Wilde, with his eager sponge-like receptivity, should receive the best +academic education of his time, and should better that by travel. We +all get something like the education we desire, and Oscar Wilde, it +always seemed to me, was over-educated, had learned, that is, too much +from books and not enough from life and had thought too little for +himself; but my readers will be able to judge of this for themselves. + +In 1877 he accompanied Professor Mahaffy on a long tour through +Greece. The pleasure and profit Oscar got from the trip were so great +that he failed to return to Oxford on the date fixed. The Dons fined +him forty-five pounds for the breach of discipline; but they returned +the money to him in the following year when he won First Honours in +"Greats" and the Newdigate prize. + +This visit to Greece when he was twenty-three confirmed the view of +life which he had already formed and I have indicated sufficiently +perhaps in that talk with Pater already recorded. But no one will +understand Oscar Wilde who for a moment loses sight of the fact that +he was a pagan born: as Gautier says, "One for whom the visible world +alone exists," endowed with all the Greek sensuousness and love of +plastic beauty; a pagan, like Nietzsche and Gautier, wholly out of +sympathy with Christianity, one of "the Confraternity of the faithless +who _cannot_ believe,"[5] to whom a sense of sin and repentance are +symptoms of weakness and disease. + +Oscar used often to say that the chief pleasure he had in visiting +Rome was to find the Greek gods and the heroes and heroines of Greek +story throned in the Vatican. He preferred Niobe to the Mater Dolorosa +and Helen to both; the worship of sorrow must give place, he declared, +to the worship of the beautiful. + +Another dominant characteristic of the young man may here find its +place. + +While still at Oxford his tastes--the bent of his mind, and his +temperament--were beginning to outline his future. He spent his +vacations in Dublin and always called upon his old school friend +Edward Sullivan in his rooms at Trinity. Sullivan relates that when +they met Oscar used to be full of his occasional visits to London and +could talk of nothing but the impression made upon him by plays and +players. From youth on the theatre drew him irresistibly; he had not +only all the vanity of the actor; but what might be called the born +dramatist's love for the varied life of the stage--its paintings, +costumings, rhetoric--and above all the touch of emphasis natural to +it which gives such opportunity for humorous exaggeration. + +"I remember him telling me," Sullivan writes, "about Irving's +'Macbeth,' which made a great impression on him; he was fascinated by +it. He feared, however, that the public might be similarly affected--a +thing which, he declared, would destroy his enjoyment of an +extraordinary performance." He admired Miss Ellen Terry, too, +extravagantly, as he admired Marion Terry, Mrs. Langtry, and Mary +Anderson later. + +The death of Sir William Wilde put an end to the family life in +Dublin, and set the survivors free. Lady Wilde had lost her husband +and her only daughter in Merrion Square: the house was full of sad +memories to her, she was eager to leave it all and settle in London. + +The _Requiescat_ in Oscar's first book of poems was written in memory +of this sister who died in her teens, whom he likened to "a ray of +sunshine dancing about the house." He took his vocation seriously even +in youth: he felt that he should sing his sorrow, give record of +whatever happened to him in life. But he found no new word for his +bereavement. + +Willie Wilde came over to London and got employment as a journalist +and was soon given almost a free hand by the editor of the society +paper _The World_. With rare unselfishness, or, if you will, with +Celtic clannishness, he did a good deal to make Oscar's name known. +Every clever thing that Oscar said or that could be attributed to him, +Willie reported in _The World_. This puffing and Oscar's own uncommon +power as a talker; but chiefly perhaps a whispered reputation for +strange sins, had thus early begun to form a sort of myth around him. +He was already on the way to becoming a personage; there was a certain +curiosity about him, a flutter of interest in whatever he did. He had +published poems in the Trinity College magazine, _Kottabos_, and +elsewhere. People were beginning to take him at his own valuation as a +poet and a wit; and the more readily as that ambition did not clash in +any way with their more material strivings. + +The time had now come for Oscar to conquer London as he had conquered +Oxford. He had finished the first class in the great World-School and +was eager to try the next, where his mistakes would be his only tutors +and his desires his taskmasters. His University successes flattered +him with the belief that he would go from triumph to triumph and be +the exception proving the rule that the victor in the academic lists +seldom repeats his victories on the battlefield of life. + +It is not sufficiently understood that the learning of Latin and Greek +and the forming of expensive habits at others' cost are a positive +disability and handicap in the rough-and-tumble tussle of the great +city, where greed and unscrupulous resolution rule, and where there +are few prizes for feats of memory or taste in words. When the +graduate wins in life he wins as a rule in spite of his so-called +education and not because of it. + +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. + +The first part of life's voyage was over for Oscar Wilde; let us try +to see him as he saw himself at this time and let us also determine +his true relations to the world. Fortunately he has given us his own +view of himself with some care. + +In Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_, Oscar Wilde described himself on +leaving Oxford as a "Professor of Æsthetics, and a Critic of Art"--an +announcement to me at once infinitely ludicrous and pathetic. +"Ludicrous" because it betrays such complete ignorance of life all +given over to men industrious with muck-rakes: "Gadarene swine," as +Carlyle called them, "busily grubbing and grunting in search of +pignuts." "Pathetic" for it is boldly ingenuous as youth itself with a +touch of youthful conceit and exaggeration. Another eager human soul +on the threshold longing to find some suitable high work in the world, +all unwitting of the fact that ideal strivings are everywhere despised +and discouraged--jerry-built cottages for the million being the day's +demand and not oratories or palaces of art or temples for the spirit. + +Not the time for a "professor of æsthetics," one would say, and +assuredly not the place. One wonders whether Zululand would not be +more favourable for such a man than England. Germany, France, and +Italy have many positions in universities, picture-galleries, museums, +opera houses for lovers of the beautiful, and above all an educated +respect for artists and writers just as they have places too for +servants of Truth in chemical laboratories and polytechnics endowed by +the State with excellent results even from the utilitarian point of +view. But rich England has only a few dozen such places in all at +command and these are usually allotted with a cynical contempt for +merit; miserable anarchic England, soul-starved amid its creature +comforts, proving now by way of example to helots that man cannot live +by bread alone:--England and Oscar Wilde! the "Black Country" and +"the professor of æsthetics"--a mad world, my masters! + +It is necessary for us now to face this mournful truth that in the +quarrel between these two the faults were not all on one side, mayhap +England was even further removed from the ideal than the would-be +professor of æsthetics, which fact may well give us pause and food for +thought. Organic progress we have been told; indeed, might have seen +if we had eyes, evolution so-called is from the simple to the complex; +our rulers therefore should have provided for the ever-growing +complexity of modern life and modern men. The good gardener will even +make it his ambition to produce new species; our politicians, however, +will not take the trouble to give even the new species that appear a +chance of living; they are too busy, it appears, in keeping their +jobs. + +No new profession has been organized in England since the Middle Ages. +In the meantime we have invented new arts, new sciences and new +letters; when will these be organized and regimented in new and living +professions, so that young ingenuous souls may find suitable fields +for their powers and may not be forced willy-nilly to grub for pignuts +when it would be more profitable for them and for us to use their +nobler faculties? Not only are the poor poorer and more numerous in +England than elsewhere; but there is less provision made for the +"intellectuals" too, consequently the organism is suffering at both +extremities. It is high time that both maladies were taken in hand, +for by universal consent England is now about the worst organized of +all modern States, the furthest from the ideal. + +Something too should be done with the existing professions to make +them worthy of honourable ambition. One of them, the Church, is a +noble body without a soul; the soul, our nostrils tell us, died some +time ago, while the medical profession has got a noble spirit with a +wretched half-organized body. It says much for the inherent integrity +and piety of human nature that our doctors persist in trying to cure +diseases when it is clearly to their self-interest to keep their +patients ailing--an anarchic world, this English one, and stupefied +with self-praise. What will this professor of Æsthetics make of it? + +Here he is, the flower of English University training, a winner of +some of the chief academic prizes without any worthy means of earning +a livelihood, save perchance by journalism. And journalism in England +suffers from the prevailing anarchy. In France, Italy, and Germany +journalism is a career in which an eloquent and cultured youth may +honourably win his spurs. In many countries this way of earning one's +bread can still be turned into an art by the gifted and high-minded; +but in England thanks in the main to the anonymity of the press +cunningly contrived by the capitalist, the journalist or modern +preacher is turned into a venal voice, a soulless Cheapjack paid to +puff his master's wares. Clearly our "Professor of Æsthetics and +Critic of Art" is likely to have a doleful time of it in nineteenth +century London. + +Oscar had already dipped into his little patrimony, as we have seen, +and he could not conceal from himself that he would soon have to live +on what he could earn--a few pounds a week. But then he was a poet and +had boundless confidence in his own ability. To the artist nature the +present is everything; just for to-day he resolved that he would live +as he had always lived; so he travelled first class to London and +bought all the books and papers that could distract him on the way: +"Give me the luxuries," he used to say, "and anyone can have the +necessaries." + +In the background of his mind there were serious misgivings. Long +afterwards he told me that his father's death and the smallness of his +patrimony had been a heavy blow to him. He encouraged himself, +however, at the moment by dwelling on his brother's comparative +success and waved aside fears and doubts as unworthy. + +It is to his credit that at first he tried to cut down expenses and +live laborious days. He took a couple of furnished rooms in Salisbury +Street off the Strand, a very Grub Street for a man of fashion, and +began to work at journalism while getting together a book of poems for +publication. His journalism at first was anything but successful. It +was his misfortune to appeal only to the best heads and good heads are +not numerous anywhere. His appeal, too, was still academic and +laboured. His brother Willie with his commoner sympathies appeared to +be better equipped for this work. But Oscar had from the first a +certain social success. + +As soon as he reached London he stepped boldly into the limelight, +going to all "first nights" and taking the floor on all occasions. He +was not only an admirable talker but he was invariably smiling, eager, +full of life and the joy of living, and above all given to unmeasured +praise of whatever and whoever pleased him. This gift of enthusiastic +admiration was not only his most engaging characteristic, but also, +perhaps, the chief proof of his extraordinary ability. It was +certainly, too, the quality which served him best all through his +life. He went about declaring that Mrs. Langtry was more beautiful +than the "Venus of Milo," and Lady Archie Campbell more charming than +Rosalind and Mr. Whistler an incomparable artist. Such enthusiasm in a +young and brilliant man was unexpected and delightful and doors were +thrown open to him in all sets. Those who praise passionately are +generally welcome guests and if Oscar could not praise he shrugged his +shoulders and kept silent; scarcely a bitter word ever fell from those +smiling lips. No tactics could have been more successful in England +than his native gift of radiant good-humour and enthusiasm. He got to +know not only all the actors and actresses, but the chief patrons and +frequenters of the theatre: Lord Lytton, Lady Shrewsbury, Lady Dorothy +Nevill, Lady de Grey and Mrs. Jeune; and, on the other hand, Hardy, +Meredith, Browning, Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold--all Bohemia, in +fact, and all that part of Mayfair which cares for the things of the +intellect. + +But though he went out a great deal and met a great many distinguished +people, and won a certain popularity, his social success put no money +in his purse. It even forced him to spend money; for the constant +applause of his hearers gave him self-confidence. He began to talk +more and write less, and cabs and gloves and flowers cost money. He +was soon compelled to mortgage his little property in Ireland. + +At the same time it must be admitted he was still indefatigably intent +on bettering his mind, and in London he found more original teachers +than in Oxford, notably Morris and Whistler. Morris, though greatly +overpraised during his life, had hardly any message for the men of his +time. He went for his ideals to an imaginary past and what he taught +and praised was often totally unsuited to modern conditions. Whistler +on the other hand was a modern of the moderns, and a great artist to +boot: he had not only assimilated all the newest thought of the day, +but with the alchemy of genius had transmuted it and made it his own. +Before even the de Goncourts he had admired Chinese porcelain and +Japanese prints and his own exquisite intuition strengthened by +Japanese example had shown that his impression of life was more +valuable than any mere transcript of it. Modern art he felt should be +an interpretation and not a representment of reality, and he taught +the golden rule of the artist that the half is usually more expressive +than the whole. He went about London preaching new schemes of +decoration and another Renaissance of art. Had he only been a painter +he would never have exercised an extraordinary influence; but he was a +singularly interesting appearance as well and an admirable talker +gifted with picturesque phrases and a most caustic wit. + +Oscar sat at his feet and imbibed as much as he could of the new +æsthetic gospel. He even ventured to annex some of the master's most +telling stories and thus came into conflict with his teacher. + +One incident may find a place here. + +The art critic of _The Times_, Mr. Humphry Ward, had come to see an +exhibition of Whistler's pictures. Filled with an undue sense of his +own importance, he buttonholed the master and pointing to one picture +said: + +"That's good, first-rate, a lovely bit of colour; but that, you know," +he went on, jerking his finger over his shoulder at another picture, +"that's bad, drawing all wrong ... bad!" + +"My dear fellow," cried Whistler, "you must never say that this +painting's good or that bad, never! Good and bad are not terms to be +used by you; but say, I like this, and I dislike that, and you'll be +within your right. And now come and have a whiskey for you're sure to +like that." + +Carried away by the witty fling, Oscar cried: + +"I wish I had said that." + +"You will, Oscar, you will," came Whistler's lightning thrust. + +Of all the personal influences which went to the moulding of Oscar +Wilde's talent, that of Whistler, in my opinion, was the most +important; Whistler taught him that men of genius stand apart and are +laws unto themselves; showed him, too, that all qualities--singularity +of appearance, wit, rudeness even, count doubly in a democracy. But +neither his own talent nor the bold self-assertion learned from +Whistler helped him to earn money; the conquest of London seemed +further off and more improbable than ever. Where Whistler had missed +the laurel how could he or indeed anyone be sure of winning? + +A weaker professor of Æsthetics would have been discouraged by the +monetary and other difficulties of his position and would have lost +heart at the outset in front of the impenetrable blank wall of English +philistinism and contempt. But Oscar Wilde was conscious of great +ability and was driven by an inordinate vanity. Instead of diminishing +his pretensions in the face of opposition he increased them. He began +to go abroad in the evening in knee breeches and silk stockings +wearing strange flowers in his coat--green cornflowers and gilded +lilies--while talking about Baudelaire, whose name even was +unfamiliar, as a world poet, and proclaiming the strange creed that +"nothing succeeds like excess." Very soon his name came into +everyone's mouth; London talked of him and discussed him at a +thousand tea-tables. For one invitation he had received before, a +dozen now poured in; he became a celebrity. + +Of course he was still sneered at by many as a mere _poseur_; it still +seemed to be all Lombard Street to a china orange that he would be +beaten down under the myriad trampling feet of middle-class +indifference and disdain. + +Some circumstances were in his favour. Though the artistic movement +inaugurated years before by the Pre-Raphaelites was still laughed at +and scorned by the many as a craze, a few had stood firm, and slowly +the steadfast minority had begun to sway the majority as is often the +case in democracies. Oscar Wilde profited by the victory of these +art-loving forerunners. Here and there among the indifferent public, +men were attracted by the artistic view of life and women by the +emotional intensity of the new creed. Oscar Wilde became the prophet +of an esoteric cult. But notoriety even did not solve the monetary +question, which grew more and more insistent. A dozen times he waved +it aside and went into debt rather than restrain himself. Somehow or +other he would fall on his feet, he thought. Men who console +themselves in this way usually fall on someone else's feet and so did +Oscar Wilde. At twenty-six years of age and curiously enough at the +very moment of his insolent-bold challenge of the world with +fantastic dress, he stooped to ask his mother for money, money which +she could ill spare, though to do her justice she never wasted a +second thought on money where her affections were concerned, and she +not only loved Oscar but was proud of him. Still she could not give +him much; the difficulty was only postponed; what was to be done? + +His vanity had grown with his growth; the dread of defeat was only a +spur to the society favourite; he cast about for some means of +conquering the Philistines, and could think of nothing but his book of +poems. He had been trying off and on for nearly a year to get it +published. The publishers told him roundly that there was no money in +poetry and refused the risk. But the notoriety of his knee-breeches +and silken hose, and above all the continual attacks in the society +papers, came to his aid and his book appeared in the early summer of +1881 with all the importance that imposing form, good paper, broad +margins, and high price (10/6) could give it. The truth was, he paid +for the printing and production of the book himself, and David Bogue, +the publisher, put his name on for a commission. + +Oscar had built high fantastic hopes on this book. To the very end of +his life he believed himself a poet and in the creative sense of the +word he was assuredly justified, but he meant it in the singing sense +as well, and there his claim can only be admitted with serious +qualifications. But whether he was a singer or not the hopes founded +on this book were extravagant; he expected to make not only reputation +by it, but a large amount of money, and money is not often made in +England by poetry. + +The book had an extraordinary success, greater, it may safely be said, +than any first book of real poetry has ever had in England or indeed +is ever likely to have: four editions were sold in a few weeks. Two of +the Sonnets in the book were addressed to Ellen Terry, one as +"Portia," the other as "Henrietta Maria"; and these partly account for +the book's popularity, for Miss Terry was delighted with them and +praised the book and its author to the skies.[6] I reproduce the +"Henrietta Maria" sonnet here as a fair specimen of the work: + + QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA + + In the lone tent, waiting for victory, + She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, + Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: + The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, + War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry, + To her proud soul no common fear can bring: + Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King, + Her soul aflame with passionate ecstasy. + O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face! + Made for the luring and the love of man! + With thee I do forget the toil and stress, + The loveless road that knows no resting-place, + Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness, + My freedom and my life republican. + +Lyric poetry is by its excellence the chief art of England, as music +is the art of Germany. A book of poetry is almost sure of fair +appreciation in the English press which does not trouble to notice a +"Sartor Resartus" or the first essays of an Emerson. The excessive +consideration given to Oscar's book by the critics showed that already +his personality and social success had affected the reporters. + +_The Athenæum_ gave the book the place of honour in its number for the +23rd of July. The review was severe; but not unjust. "Mr. Wilde's +volume of poems," it says, "may be regarded as the evangel of a new +creed. From other gospels it differs in coming after, instead of +before, the cult it seeks to establish.... We fail to see, however, +that the apostle of the new worship has any distinct message." + +The critic then took pains to prove that "nearly all the book is +imitative" ... and concluded: "Work of this nature has no element of +endurance." + +_The Saturday Review_ dismissed the book at the end of an article on +"Recent Poetry" as "neither good nor bad." The reviewer objected in +the English fashion to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up +fairly enough: "This book is not without traces of cleverness, but it +is marred everywhere by imitation, insincerity, and bad taste." + +At the same time the notices in _Punch_ were extravagantly bitter, +while of course the notices in _The World_, mainly written by Oscar's +brother, were extravagantly eulogistic. _Punch_ declared that "Mr. +Wilde may be æsthetic, but he is not original ... a volume of echoes +... Swinburne and water." + +Now what did _The Athenæum_ mean by taking a new book of imitative +verse so seriously and talking of it as the "evangel of a new creed," +besides suggesting that "it comes after the cult," and so forth? + +It seems probable that _The Athenæum_ mistook Oscar Wilde for a +continuator of the Pre-Raphaelite movement with the sub-conscious and +peculiarly English suggestion that whatever is "æsthetic" or +"artistic" is necessarily weak and worthless, if not worse. + +Soon after Oscar left Oxford _Punch_ began to caricature him and +ridicule the cult of what it christened "The Too Utterly Utter." Nine +Englishmen out of ten took delight in the savage contempt poured upon +what was known euphemistically as "the æsthetic craze" by the pet +organ of the English middle class. + +This was the sort of thing _Punch_ published under the title of "A +Poet's Day": + +"Oscar at Breakfast! Oscar at Luncheon!! +Oscar at Dinner!!! Oscar at Supper!!!!" + +"'You see I am, after all, mortal,' remarked the poet, with an +ineffable affable smile, as he looked up from an elegant but +substantial dish of ham and eggs. Passing a long willowy hand through +his waving hair, he swept away a stray curl-paper, with the +nonchalance of a D'Orsay. + +"After this effort Mr. Wilde expressed himself as feeling somewhat +faint; and with a half apologetic smile ordered another portion of Ham +and Eggs." + +_Punch's_ verses on the subject were of the same sort, showing spite +rather than humour. Under the heading of "Sage Green" (by a fading-out +Æsthete) it published such stuff as this: + + My love is as fair as a lily flower. + (_The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!_) + Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower. + (_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_) + + * * * * * + + And woe is me that I never may win; + (_The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!_) + For the Bard's hard up, and she's got no tin. + (_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_) + +Taking the criticism as a whole it would be useless to deny that there +is an underlying assumption of vicious sensuality in the poet which is +believed to be reflected in the poetry. This is the only way to +explain the condemnation which is much more bitter than the verse +deserves. + +The poems gave Oscar pocket money for a season; increased too his +notoriety; but did him little or no good with the judicious: there was +not a memorable word or a new cadence, or a sincere cry in the book. +Still, first volumes of poetry are as a rule imitative and the +attempt, if inferior to "Venus and Adonis," was not without interest. + +Oscar was naturally disappointed with the criticism, but the sales +encouraged him and the stir the book made and he was as determined as +ever to succeed. What was to be done next? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] His own words in "De Profundis." + +[6] In her "Recollections" Miss Terry says that she was more impressed +by the genius of Oscar Wilde and of Whistler than by that of any other +men. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The first round in the battle with Fate was inconclusive. Oscar Wilde +had managed to get known and talked about and had kept his head above +water for a couple of years while learning something about life and +more about himself. On the other hand he had spent almost all his +patrimony, had run into some debt besides; yet seemed as far as ever +from earning a decent living. The outlook was disquieting. + +Even as a young man Oscar had a very considerable understanding of +life. He could not make his way as a journalist, the English did not +care for his poetry; but there was still the lecture-platform. In his +heart he knew that he could talk better than he wrote. + +He got his brother to announce boldly in _The World_ that owing to the +"astonishing success of his 'Poems' Mr. Oscar Wilde had been invited +to lecture in America." + +The invitation was imaginary; but Oscar had resolved to break into +this new field; there was money in it, he felt sure. + +Besides he had another string to his bow. When the first rumblings of +the social storm in Russia reached England, our aristocratic +republican seized occasion by the forelock and wrote a play on the +Nihilist Conspiracy called _Vera_. This drama was impregnated with +popular English liberal sentiment. With the interest of actuality +about it _Vera_ was published in September, 1880; but fell flat. + +The assassination of the Tsar Alexander, however, in March, 1881; the +way Oscar's poems published in June of that year were taken up by Miss +Terry and puffed in the press, induced Mrs. Bernard Beere, an actress +of some merit, to accept _Vera_ for the stage. It was suddenly +announced that _Vera_ would be put on by Mrs. Bernard Beere at The +Adelphi in December, '81; but the author had to be content with this +advertisement. December came and went and _Vera_ was not staged. It +seemed probable to Oscar that it might be accepted in America; at any +rate, there could be no harm in trying: he sailed for New York. + +It was on the cards that he might succeed in his new adventure. The +taste of America in letters and art is still strongly influenced, if +not formed, by English taste, and, if Oscar Wilde had been properly +accredited, it is probable that his extraordinary gift of speech would +have won him success in America as a lecturer. + +[Illustration: Oscar Wilde as He Appeared at Twenty-seven: on His +First Visit to America] + +His phrase to the Revenue officers on landing: "I have nothing to +declare except my genius," turned the limelight full upon him and +excited comment and discussion all over the country. But the fuglemen +of his caste whose praise had brought him to the front in England were +almost unrepresented in the States, and never bold enough to be +partisans. Oscar faced the American Philistine public without his +accustomed _claque_, and under these circumstances a half-success was +evidence of considerable power. His subjects were "The English +Renaissance" and "House Decoration." + +His first lecture at Chickering Hall on January 9, 1882, was so much +talked about that the famous impresario, Major Pond, engaged him for a +tour which, however, had to be cut short in the middle as a monetary +failure. _The Nation_ gave a very fair account of his first lecture: +"Mr. Wilde is essentially a foreign product and can hardly succeed in +this country. What he has to say is not new, and his extravagance is +not extravagant enough to amuse the average American audience. His +knee-breeches and long hair are good as far as they go; but Bunthorne +has really spoiled the public for Wilde." + +_The Nation_ underrated American curiosity. Oscar lectured some ninety +times from January till July, when he returned to New York. The gross +receipts amounted to some £4,000: he received about £1,200, which +left him with a few hundreds above his expenses. His optimism regarded +this as a triumph. + +One is fain to confess today that these lectures make very poor +reading. There is not a new thought in them; not even a memorable +expression; they are nothing but student work, the best passages in +them being mere paraphrases of Pater and Arnold, though the titles +were borrowed from Whistler. Dr. Ernest Bendz in his monograph on _The +Influence of Pater and Matthew Arnold in the Prose-Writings of Oscar +Wilde_ has established this fact with curious erudition and +completeness. + +Still, the lecturer was a fine figure of a man: his knee-breeches and +silk stockings set all the women talking, and he spoke with suave +authority. Even the dullest had to admit that his elocution was +excellent, and the manner of speech is keenly appreciated in America. +In some of the Eastern towns, in New York especially, he had a certain +success, the success of sensation and of novelty, such success as +every large capital gives to the strange and eccentric. + +In Boston he scored a triumph of character. Fifty or sixty Harvard +students came to his lecture dressed to caricature him in "swallow +tail coats, knee breeches, flowing wigs and green ties. They all wore +large lilies in their buttonholes and each man carried a huge +sunflower as he limped along." That evening Oscar appeared in ordinary +dress and went on with his lecture as if he had not noticed the +rudeness. The chief Boston paper gave him due credit: + + "Everyone who witnessed the scene on Tuesday evening must + feel about it very much as we do, and those who came to + scoff, if they did not exactly remain to pray, at least left + the Music Hall with feelings of cordial liking, and, perhaps + to their own surprise, of respect for Oscar Wilde."[7] + +As he travelled west to Louisville and Omaha his popularity dwined and +dwindled. Still he persevered and after leaving the States visited +Canada, reaching Halifax in the autumn. + +One incident must find a place here. On September 6 he sent £80 to +Lady Wilde. I have been told that this was merely a return of money +she had advanced; but there can be no doubt that Oscar, unlike his +brother Willie, helped his mother again and again most generously, +though Willie was always her favourite. + +Oscar returned to England in April, 1883, and lectured to the Art +Students at their club in Golden Square. This at once brought about a +break with Whistler who accused him of plagiarism:--"Picking from our +platters the plums for the puddings he peddles in the provinces." + +If one compares this lecture with Oscar's on "The English Renaissance +of Art," delivered in New York only a year before, and with Whistler's +well-known opinions, it is impossible not to admit that the charge was +justified. Such phrases as "artists are not to copy beauty but to +create it ... a picture is a purely decorative thing," proclaim their +author. + +The long newspaper wrangle between the two was brought to a head in +1885, when Whistler gave his famous _Ten o'clock_ discourse on Art. +This lecture was infinitely better than any of Oscar Wilde's. Twenty +odd years older than Wilde, Whistler was a master of all his +resources: he was not only witty, but he had new views on art and +original ideas. As a great artist he knew that "there never was an +artistic period. There never was an Art-loving nation." Again and +again he reached pure beauty of expression. The masterly persiflage, +too, filled me with admiration and I declared that the lecture ranked +with the best ever heard in London with Coleridge's on Shakespeare and +Carlyle's on Heroes. To my astonishment Oscar would not admit the +superlative quality of Whistler's talk; he thought the message +paradoxical and the ridicule of the professors too bitter. +"Whistler's like a wasp," he cried, "and carries about with him a +poisoned sting." Oscar's kindly sweet nature revolted against the +disdainful aggressiveness of Whistler's attitude. Besides, in essence, +Whistler's lecture was an attack on the academic theory taught in the +universities, and defended naturally by a young scholar like Oscar +Wilde. Whistler's view that the artist was sporadic, a happy chance, a +"sport," in fact, was a new view, and Oscar had not yet reached this +level; he reviewed the master in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, a review +remarkable for one of the earliest gleams of that genial humour which +later became his most characteristic gift: "Whistler," he said, "is +indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting in my opinion. And +I may add that in this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs." + +Whistler retorted in _The World_ and Oscar replied, but Whistler had +the best of the argument.... "Oscar--the amiable, irresponsible, +esurient Oscar--with no more sense of a picture than of the fit of a +coat, has the courage of the opinions ... of others!" + +It should be noted here that one of the bitterest of tongues could not +help doing homage to Oscar Wilde's "amiability": Whistler even +preferred to call him "amiable and irresponsible" rather than give +his plagiarism a harsher attribute. + +Oscar Wilde learned almost all he knew of art[8] and of controversy +from Whistler, but he was never more than a pupil in either field; for +controversy in especial he was poorly equipped: he had neither the +courage, nor the contempt, nor the joy in conflict of his great +exemplar. + +Unperturbed by Whistler's attacks, Oscar went on lecturing about the +country on "Personal Impressions of America," and in August crossed +again to New York to see his play "Vera" produced by Marie Prescott at +the Union Square Theatre. It was a complete failure, as might have +been expected; the serious part of it was such as any talented young +man might have written. Nevertheless I find in this play for the first +time, a characteristic gleam of humour, an unexpected flirt of wing, +so to speak, which, in view of the future, is full of promise. At the +time it passed unappreciated. + +September, 1883, saw Oscar again in England. The platform gave him +better results than the theatre, but not enough for freedom or ease. +It is the more to his credit that as soon as he got a couple of +hundred pounds ahead, he resolved to spend it in bettering his mind. + +His longing for wider culture, and perhaps in part, the example of +Whistler, drove him to Paris. He put up at the little provincial Hotel +Voltaire on the Quai Voltaire and quickly made acquaintance with +everyone of note in the world of letters, from Victor Hugo to Paul +Bourget. He admired Verlaine's genius to the full but the grotesque +physical ugliness of the man himself (Verlaine was like a masque of +Socrates) and his sordid and unclean way of living prevented Oscar +from really getting to know him. During this stay in Paris Oscar read +enormously and his French, which had been school-boyish, became quite +good. He always said that Balzac, and especially his poet, Lucien de +Rubempré, had been his teachers. + +While in Paris he completed his blank-verse play, "The Duchess of +Padua," and sent it to Miss Mary Anderson in America, who refused it, +although she had commissioned him, he always said, to write it. It +seems to me inferior even to "Vera" in interest, more academic and +further from life, and when produced in New York in 1891 it was a +complete frost. + +In a few months Oscar Wilde had spent his money and had skimmed the +cream from Paris, as he thought; accordingly he returned to London and +took rooms again, this time in Charles Street, Mayfair. He had learned +some rude lessons in the years since leaving Oxford, and the first +and most impressive lesson was the fear of poverty. Yet his taking +rooms in the fashionable part of town showed that he was more +determined than ever to rise and not to sink. + +It was Lady Wilde who urged him to take rooms near her; she never +doubted his ultimate triumph. She knew all his poems by heart, took +the strass for diamonds and welcomed the chance of introducing her +brilliant son to the Irish Nationalist Members and other pinchbeck +celebrities who flocked about her. + +It was about this time that I first saw Lady Wilde. I was introduced +to her by Willie, Oscar's elder brother, whom I had met in Fleet +Street. Willie was then a tall, well-made fellow of thirty or +thereabouts with an expressive taking face, lit up with a pair of deep +blue laughing eyes. He had any amount of physical vivacity, and told a +good story with immense verve, without for a moment getting above the +commonplace: to him the Corinthian journalism of _The Daily Telegraph_ +was literature. Still he had the surface good nature and good humour +of healthy youth and was generally liked. He took me to his mother's +house one afternoon; but first he had a drink here and a chat there so +that we did not reach the West End till after six o'clock. + +The room and its occupants made an indelible grotesque impression on +me. It seemed smaller than it was because overcrowded with a score of +women and half a dozen men. It was very dark and there were empty +tea-cups and cigarette ends everywhere. Lady Wilde sat enthroned +behind the tea-table looking like a sort of female Buddha swathed in +wraps--a large woman with a heavy face and prominent nose; very like +Oscar indeed, with the same sallow skin which always looked dirty; her +eyes too were her redeeming feature--vivacious and quick-glancing as a +girl's. She "made up" like an actress and naturally preferred shadowed +gloom to sunlight. Her idealism came to show as soon as she spoke. It +was a necessity of her nature to be enthusiastic; unfriendly critics +said hysterical, but I should prefer to say high-falutin' about +everything she enjoyed or admired. She was at her best in misfortune; +her great vanity gave her a certain proud stoicism which was +admirable. + +The Land League was under discussion as we entered, and Parnell's +attitude to it. Lady Wilde regarded him as the predestined saviour of +her country. "Parnell," she said with a strong accent on the first +syllable, "is the man of destiny; he will strike off the fetters and +free Ireland, and throne her as Queen among the nations." + +A murmur of applause came from a thin bird-like woman standing +opposite, who floated towards us clad in a sage-green gown, which +sheathed her like an umbrella case; had she had any figure the dress +would have been indecent. + +"How like 'Speranza'!" she cooed, "dear Lady Wilde!" I noticed that +her glance went towards Willie, who was standing on the other side of +his mother, talking to a tall, handsome girl. Willie's friend seemed +amused at the lyrical outburst of the green spinster, for smiling a +little she questioned him: + +"'Speranza' is Lady Wilde?" she asked with a slight American accent. + +Lady Wilde informed the company with all the impressiveness she had at +command that she did not expect Oscar that afternoon; "he is so busy +with his new poems, you know; they say there has been no such +sensation since Byron," she added; "already everyone is talking of +them." + +"Indeed, yes," sighed the green lily, "do you remember, dear Speranza, +what he said about 'The Sphinx,' that he read to us. He told us the +written verse was quite different from what the printed poem would be +just as the sculptor's clay model differs from the marble. Subtle, +wasn't it?" + +"Perfectly true, too!" cried a man, with a falsetto voice, moving +into the circle; "Leonardo himself might have said that." + +The whole scene seemed to me affected and middle-class, untidy, too, +with an un-English note about it of shiftlessness; the æsthetic +dresses were extravagant, the enthusiasms pumped up and exaggerated. I +was glad to leave quietly. + +It was on this visit to Lady Wilde, or a later one, that I first heard +of that other poem of Oscar, "The Harlot's House," which was also said +to have been written in Paris. Though published in an obscure sheet +and in itself commonplace enough it made an astonishing stir. Time and +advertisement had been working for him. Academic lectures and +imitative poetry alike had made him widely known; and, thanks to the +small body of enthusiastic admirers whom I have already spoken of, his +reputation instead of waning out had grown like the Jinn when released +from the bottle. + +The fuglemen were determined to find something wonderful in everything +he did, and the title of "The Harlot's House," shocking Philistinism, +gave them a certain opportunity which they used to the uttermost. On +all sides one was asked: "Have you seen Oscar's latest?" And then the +last verse would be quoted:--"Divine, don't ye think?" + + "And down the long and silent street, + The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, + Crept like a frightened girl." + +In spite of all this extravagant eulogy Oscar Wilde's early plays and +poems, like his lectures, were unimportant. The small remnant of +people in England who really love the things of the spirit were +disappointed in them, failed to find in them the genius so loudly and +so arrogantly vaunted. + +But, if Oscar Wilde's early writings were failures, his talk was more +successful than ever. He still tried to show off on all occasions and +sometimes fell flat in consequence; but his failures in this field +were few and merely comparative; constant practice was ripening his +extraordinary natural gift. About this time, too, he began to develop +that humorous vein in conversation, which later lent a singular +distinction to his casual utterances. + +His talk brought him numerous invitations to dinner and lunch and +introduced him to some of the best houses in London, but it produced +no money. He was earning very little and he needed money, +comparatively large sums of money, from week to week. + +Oscar Wilde was extravagant in almost every possible way. He wished to +be well-fed, well-dressed, well-wined, and prodigal of "tips." He +wanted first editions of the poets; had a liking for old furniture +and old silver, for fine pictures, Eastern carpets and Renascence +bronzes; in fine, he had all the artist's desires as well as those of +the poet and _viveur_. He was constantly in dire need of cash and did +not hesitate to borrow fifty pounds from anyone who would lend it to +him. He was beginning to experience the truth of the old verse: + + 'Tis a very good world to live in, + To lend or to spend or to give in, + But to beg or to borrow or get a man's own, + 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known. + +The difficulties of life were constantly increasing upon him. He +despised bread and butter and talked only of champagne and caviare; +but without bread, hunger is imminent. Victory no longer seemed +indubitable. It was possible, it began even to be probable that the +fair ship of his fame might come to wreck on the shoals of poverty. + +It was painfully clear that he must do something without further +delay, must either conquer want or overleap it. Would he bridle his +desires, live savingly, and write assiduously till such repute came as +would enable him to launch out and indulge his tastes? He was wise +enough to see the advantages of such a course. Every day his +reputation as a talker was growing. Had he had a little more +self-control, had he waited a little longer till his position in +society was secured, he could easily have married someone with money +and position who would have placed him above sordid care and fear for +ever. But he could not wait; he was colossally vain; he would wear the +peacock's feathers at all times and all costs: he was intensely +pleasure-loving, too; his mouth watered for every fruit. Besides, he +couldn't write with creditors at the door. Like Bossuet he was unable +to work when bothered about small economies:--_s'il était à l'étroit +dans son domestique_. + +What was to be done? Suddenly he cut the knot and married the daughter +of a Q.C., a Miss Constance Lloyd, a young lady without any particular +qualities or beauty, whom he had met in Dublin on a lecture tour. Miss +Lloyd had a few hundreds a year of her own, just enough to keep the +wolf from the door. The couple went to live in Tite Street, Chelsea, +in a modest little house. The drawing-room, however, was decorated by +Godwin and quickly gained a certain notoriety. It was indeed a +charming room with an artistic distinction and appeal of its own. + +As soon as the dreadful load of poverty was removed, Oscar began to go +about a great deal, and his wife would certainly have been invited +with him if he had refused invitations addressed to himself alone; but +from the beginning he accepted them and consequently after the first +few months of marriage his wife went out but little, and later +children came and kept her at home. Having earned a respite from care +by his marriage, Oscar did little for the next three years but talk. +Critical observers began to make up their minds that he was a talker +and not a writer. "He was a power in the art," as de Quincey said of +Coleridge; "and he carried a new art into the power." Every year this +gift grew with him: every year he talked more and more brilliantly, +and he was allowed now, and indeed expected, to hold the table. + +In London there is no such thing as conversation. Now and then one +hears a caustic or witty phrase, but nothing more. The tone of good +society everywhere is to be pleasant without being prominent. In every +other European country, however, able men are encouraged to talk; in +England alone they are discouraged. People in society use a debased +jargon or slang, snobbish shibboleths for the most part, and the +majority resent any one man monopolising attention. But Oscar Wilde +was allowed this privileged position, was encouraged to hold forth to +amuse people, as singers are brought in to sing after dinner. + +Though his fame as a witty and delightful talker grew from week to +week, even his marriage did not stifle the undertone of dislike and +disgust. Now indignantly, now with contempt, men spoke of him as +abandoned, a creature of unnatural viciousness. There were certain +houses in the best set of London society the doors of which were +closed to him. + +[Illustration: Oscar Wilde] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] By way of heaping coals of fire on the students' heads Oscar +presented a cast of the Hermes (then recently unearthed) to the +University of Harvard. + +[8] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +From 1884 on I met Oscar Wilde continually, now at the theatre, now in +some society drawing room; most often, I think, at Mrs. Jeune's +(afterwards Lady St. Helier). His appearance was not in his favour; +there was something oily and fat about him that repelled me. Naturally +being British-born and young I tried to give my repugnance a moral +foundation; fleshly indulgence and laziness, I said to myself, were +written all over him. The snatches of his monologues which I caught +from time to time seemed to me to consist chiefly of epigrams almost +mechanically constructed of proverbs and familiar sayings turned +upside down. Two of Balzac's characters, it will be remembered, +practised this form of humour. The desire to astonish and dazzle, the +love of the uncommon for its own sake, was so evident that I shrugged +my shoulders and avoided him. One evening, however, at Mrs. Jeune's, I +got to know him better. At the very door Mrs. Jeune came up to me: + +"Have you ever met Mr. Oscar Wilde? You ought to know him: he is so +delightfully clever, so brilliant!" + +I went with her and was formally introduced to him. He shook hands in +a limp way I disliked; his hands were flabby, greasy; his skin looked +bilious and dirty. He wore a great green scarab ring on one finger. He +was over-dressed rather than well-dressed; his clothes fitted him too +tightly; he was too stout. He had a trick which I noticed even then, +which grew on him later, of pulling his jowl with his right hand as he +spoke, and his jowl was already fat and pouchy. His appearance filled +me with distaste. I lay stress on this physical repulsion, because I +think most people felt it, and in itself, it is a tribute to the +fascination of the man that he should have overcome the first +impression so completely and so quickly. I don't remember what we +talked about, but I noticed almost immediately that his grey eyes were +finely expressive; in turn vivacious, laughing, sympathetic; always +beautiful. The carven mouth, too, with its heavy, chiselled, +purple-tinged lips, had a certain attraction and significance in spite +of a black front tooth which shocked one when he laughed. He was over +six feet in height and both broad and thick-set; he looked like a +Roman Emperor of the decadence. + +We had a certain interest in each other, an interest of curiosity, for +I remember that he led the way almost at once into the inner drawing +room in order to be free to talk in some seclusion. After half an +hour or so I asked him to lunch next day at _The Café Royal_, then the +best restaurant in London. + +At this time he was a superb talker, more brilliant than any I have +ever heard in England, but nothing like what he became later. His talk +soon made me forget his repellant physical peculiarities; indeed I +soon lost sight of them so completely that I have wondered since how I +could have been so disagreeably affected by them at first sight. There +was an extraordinary physical vivacity and geniality in the man, an +extraordinary charm in his gaiety, and lightning-quick intelligence. +His enthusiasms, too, were infectious. Every mental question +interested him, especially if it had anything to do with art or +literature. His whole face lit up as he spoke and one saw nothing but +his soulful eyes, heard nothing but his musical tenor voice; he was +indeed what the French call a _charmeur_. + +In ten minutes I confessed to myself that I liked him, and his talk +was intensely quickening. He had something unexpected to say on almost +every subject. His mind was agile and powerful and he took a delight +in using it. He was well-read too, in several languages, especially in +French, and his excellent memory stood him in good stead. Even when +he merely reproduced what the great writers had said perfectly, he +added a new colouring. And already his characteristic humour was +beginning to illumine every topic with lambent flashes. + +It was at our first lunch, I think, that he told me he had been asked +by Harper's to write a book of one hundred thousand words and offered +a large sum for it--I think some five thousand dollars--in advance. He +wrote to them gravely that there were not one hundred thousand words +in English, so he could not undertake the work, and laughed merrily +like a child at the cheeky reproof. + +"I have sent their letters and my reply to the press," he added, and +laughed again, while probing me with inquisitive eyes: how far did I +understand the need of self-advertisement? + +About this time an impromptu of his moved the town to laughter. At +some dinner party it appeared the ladies sat a little too long; Oscar +wanted to smoke. Suddenly the hostess drew his attention to a lamp the +shade of which was smouldering. + +"Please put it out, Mr. Wilde," she said, "it's smoking." + +Oscar turned to do as he was told with the remark: + +"Happy lamp!" + +The delightful impertinence had an extraordinary success. + +Early in our friendship I was fain to see that the love of the +uncommon, his paradoxes and epigrams were natural to him, sprang +immediately from his taste and temperament. Perhaps it would be well +to define once for all his attitude towards life with more scope and +particularity than I have hitherto done. + +It is often assumed that he had no clear and coherent view of life, no +belief, no faith to guide his vagrant footsteps; but such an opinion +does him injustice. He had his own philosophy, and held to it for long +years with astonishing tenacity. His attitude towards life can best be +seen if he is held up against Goethe. He took the artist's view of +life which Goethe was the first to state and indeed in youth had +overstated with an astonishing persuasiveness: "the beautiful is more +than the good," said Goethe; "for it includes the good." + +It seemed to Oscar, as it had seemed to young Goethe, that "the +extraordinary alone survives"; the extraordinary whether good or bad; +he therefore sought after the extraordinary, and naturally enough +often fell into the extravagant. But how stimulating it was in London, +where sordid platitudes drip and drizzle all day long, to hear someone +talking brilliant paradoxes. + +Goethe did not linger long in the halfway house of unbelief; the +murderer may win notoriety as easily as the martyr, but his memory +will not remain. "_The fashion of this world passeth away_," said +Goethe, "I would fain occupy myself with that which endures." Midway +in life Goethe accepted Kant's moral imperative and restated his +creed: "A man must resolve to live," he said, "for the Good, and +Beautiful, and for the Common Weal." + +Oscar did not push his thought so far: the transcendental was not his +field. + +It was a pity, I sometimes felt, that he had not studied German as +thoroughly as French; Goethe might have done more for him than +Baudelaire or Balzac, for in spite of all his stodgy German faults, +Goethe is the best guide through the mysteries of life whom the modern +world has yet produced. Oscar Wilde stopped where the religion of +Goethe began; he was far more of a pagan and individualist than the +great German; he lived for the beautiful and extraordinary, but not +for the Good and still less for the Whole; he acknowledged no moral +obligation; _in commune bonis_ was an ideal which never said anything +to him; he cared nothing for the common weal; he held himself above +the mass of the people with an Englishman's extravagant insularity and +aggressive pride. Politics, social problems, religion--everything +interested him simply as a subject of art; life itself was merely +material for art. He held the position Goethe had abandoned in youth. + +The view was astounding in England and new everywhere in its +onesidedness. Its passionate exaggeration, however, was quickening, +and there is, of course, something to be said for it. The artistic +view of life is often higher than the ordinary religious view; at +least it does not deal in condemnations and exclusions; it is more +reasonable, more catholic, more finely perceptive. + +"The artist's view of life is the only possible one," Oscar used to +say, "and should be applied to everything, most of all to religion and +morality. Cavaliers and Puritans are interesting for their costumes +and not for their convictions.... + +"There is no general rule of health; it is all personal, +individual.... I only demand that freedom which I willingly concede to +others. No one condemns another for preferring green to gold. Why +should any taste be ostracised? Liking and disliking are not under our +control. I want to choose the nourishment which suits _my_ body and +_my_ soul." + +I can almost hear him say the words with his charming humorous smile +and exquisite flash of deprecation, as if he were half inclined to +make fun of his own statement. + +It was not his views on art, however, which recommended him to the +aristocratic set in London; but his contempt for social reform, or +rather his utter indifference to it, and his English love of +inequality. The republicanism he flaunted in his early verses was not +even skin deep; his political beliefs and prejudices were the +prejudices of the English governing class and were all in favour of +individual freedom, or anarchy under the protection of the policeman. + +"The poor are poor creatures," was his real belief, "and must always +be hewers of wood and drawers of water. They are merely the virgin +soil out of which men of genius and artists grow like flowers. Their +function is to give birth to genius and nourish it. They have no other +_raison d'être_. Were men as intelligent as bees, all gifted +individuals would be supported by the community, as the bees support +their queen. We should be the first charge on the state just as +Socrates declared that he should be kept in the Prytaneum at the +public expense. + +"Don't talk to me, Frank, about the hardships of the poor. The +hardships of the poor are necessities, but talk to me of the hardships +of men of genius, and I could weep tears of blood. I was never so +affected by any book in my life as I was by the misery of Balzac's +poet, Lucien de Rubempré." + +Naturally this creed of an exaggerated individualism appealed +peculiarly to the best set in London. It was eminently aristocratic +and might almost be defended as scientific, for to a certain extent it +found corroboration in Darwinism. All progress according to Darwin +comes from peculiar individuals; "sports" as men of science call them, +or the "heaven-sent" as rhetoricians prefer to style them. The many +are only there to produce more "sports" and ultimately to benefit by +them. All this is valid enough; but it leaves the crux of the question +untouched. The poor in aristocratic England are too degraded to +produce "sports" of genius, or indeed any "sports" of much value to +humanity. Such an extravagant inequality of condition obtains there +that the noble soul is miserable, the strongest insecure. But Wilde's +creed was intensely popular with the "Smart Set" because of its very +one-sidedness, and he was hailed as a prophet partly because he +defended the cherished prejudices of the "landed" oligarchy. + +It will be seen from this that Oscar Wilde was in some danger of +suffering from excessive popularity and unmerited renown. Indeed if he +had loved athletic sports, hunting and shooting instead of art and +letters, he might have been the selected representative of +aristocratic England. + +In addition to his own popular qualities a strong current was sweeping +him to success. He was detested by the whole of the middle or +shop-keeping class which in England, according to Matthew Arnold, has +"the sense of conduct--and has but little else." This class hated and +feared him; feared him for his intellectual freedom and his contempt +of conventionality, and hated him because of his light-hearted +self-indulgence, and also because it saw in him none of its own sordid +virtues. _Punch_ is peculiarly the representative of this class and of +all English prejudices, and _Punch_ jeered at him now in prose, now in +verse, week after week. Under the heading, "More Impressions" (by +Oscuro Wildgoose) I find this: + + "My little fancy's clogged with gush, + My little lyre is false in tone, + And when I lyrically moan, + I hear the impatient critic's 'Tush!' + + "But I've 'Impressions.' These are grand! + Mere dabs of words, mere blobs of tint, + Displayed on canvas or in print, + Men laud, and think they understand. + + "A smudge of brown, a smear of yellow, + No tale, no subject,--there you are! + Impressions!--and the strangest far + Is--that the bard's a clever fellow." + +A little later these lines appeared: + + "My languid lily, my lank limp lily, + My long, lithe lily-love, men may grin-- + Say that I'm soft and supremely silly-- + What care I, while you whisper still; + What care I, while you smile? Not a pin! + While you smile, while you whisper-- + 'Tis sweet to decay! + I have watered with chlorodine, tears of chagrin, + The churchyard mould I have planted thee in, + Upside down, in an intense way, + In a rough red flower-pot, _sweeter than sin_, + That I bought for a halfpenny, yesterday!" + +The italics are mine; but the suggestion was always implicit; yet this +constant wind of puritanic hatred blowing against him helped instead +of hindering his progress: strong men are made by opposition; like +kites they go up against the wind. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + "Believe me, child, all the gentleman's misfortunes arose + from his being educated at a public + school...."--FIELDING. + + +In England success is a plant of slow growth. The tone of good +society, though responsive to political talent, and openly, eagerly +sensitive to money-making talent, is contemptuous of genius and rates +the utmost brilliancy of the talker hardly higher than the feats of an +acrobat. Men are obstinate, slow, trusting a bank-balance rather than +brains; and giving way reluctantly to sharp-witted superiority. The +road up to power or influence in England is full of pitfalls and far +too arduous for those who have neither high birth nor wealth to help +them. The natural inequality of men instead of being mitigated by law +or custom is everywhere strengthened and increased by a thousand +effete social distinctions. Even in the best class where a certain +easy familiarity reigns there is circle above circle, and the summits +are isolated by heredity. + +The conditions of English society being what they are, it is all but +impossible at first to account for the rapidity of Oscar Wilde's +social success; yet if we tell over his advantages and bring one or +two into the account which have not yet been reckoned, we shall find +almost every element that conduces to popularity. By talent and +conviction he was the natural pet of the aristocracy whose selfish +prejudices he defended and whose leisure he amused. The middle class, +as has been noted, disliked and despised him: but its social influence +is small and its papers, and especially _Punch_, made him notorious by +attacking him in and out of season. The comic weekly, indeed, helped +to build up his reputation by the almost inexplicable bitterness of +its invective. + +Another potent force was in his favour. From the beginning he set +himself to play the game of the popular actor, and neglected no +opportunity of turning the limelight on his own doings. As he said, +his admiration of himself was "a lifelong devotion," and he proclaimed +his passion on the housetops. + +Our names happened to be mentioned together once in some paper, I +think it was _The Pall Mall Gazette_. He asked me what I was going to +reply. + +"Nothing," I answered, "why should I bother? I've done nothing yet +that deserves trumpeting." + +"You're making a mistake," he said seriously. "If you wish for +reputation and fame in this world, and success during your lifetime, +you ought to seize every opportunity of advertising yourself. You +remember the Latin word, 'Fame springs from one's own house.' Like +other wise sayings, it's not quite true; fame comes from oneself," and +he laughed delightedly; "you must go about repeating how great you are +till the dull crowd comes to believe it." + +"The prophet must proclaim himself, eh? and declare his own mission?" + +"That's it," he replied with a smile; "that's it. + +"Every time my name is mentioned in a paper, I write at once to admit +that I am the Messiah. Why is Pears' soap successful? Not because it +is better or cheaper than any other soap, but because it is more +strenuously puffed. The journalist is my 'John the Baptist.' What +would you give, when a book of yours comes out, to be able to write a +long article drawing attention to it in _The Pall Mall Gazette_? Here +you have the opportunity of making your name known just as widely; why +not avail yourself of it? I miss no chance," and to do him justice he +used occasion to the utmost. + +Curiously enough Bacon had the same insight, and I have often wondered +since whether Oscar's worldly wisdom was original or was borrowed from +the great Elizabethan climber. Bacon says: + + "'Boldly sound your own praises and some of them will + stick.'... It will stick with the more ignorant and the + populace, though men of wisdom may smile at it; and the + reputation won with many will amply countervail the disdain + of a few.... And surely no small number of those who are of + solid nature, and who, from the want of this ventosity, + cannot spread all sail in pursuit of their own honour, + suffer some prejudice and lose dignity by their moderation." + +Many of Oscar's letters to the papers in these years were amusing, +some of them full of humour. For example, when he was asked to give a +list of the hundred best books, as Lord Avebury and other mediocrities +had done, he wrote saying that "he could not give a list of the +hundred best books, as he had only written five." + +Winged words of his were always passing from mouth to mouth in town. +Some theatre was opened which was found horribly ugly: one spoke of it +as "Early Victorian." + +"No, no," replied Oscar, "nothing so distinctive. 'Early Maple,' +rather." + +Even his impertinences made echoes. At a great reception, a friend +asked him in passing, how the hostess, Lady S----, could be +recognised. Lady S---- being short and stout, Oscar replied, smiling: + +"Go through this room, my dear fellow, and the next and so on till you +come to someone looking like a public monument, say the effigy of +Britannia or Victoria--that's Lady S----." + +Though he used to pretend that all this self-advertisement was +premeditated and planned, I could hardly believe him. He was eager to +write about himself because of his exaggerated vanity and reflection +afterwards found grounds to justify his inclination. But whatever the +motive may have been the effect was palpable: his name was continually +in men's mouths, and his fame grew by repetition. As Tiberius said of +Mucianus: + +"_Omnium quæ dixerat feceratque, arte quadam ostentator_" (He had a +knack of showing off and advertising whatever he said or did). + +But no personal qualities, however eminent, no gifts, no graces of +heart or head or soul could have brought a young man to Oscar Wilde's +social position and popularity in a few years. + +Another cause was at work lifting him steadily. From the time he left +Oxford he was acclaimed and backed by a small minority of passionate +admirers whom I have called his fuglemen. These admirers formed the +constant factor in his progress from social height to height. For the +most part they were persons usually called "sexual inverts," who +looked to the brilliancy of his intellect to gild their esoteric +indulgence. This class in England is almost wholly recruited from the +aristocracy and the upper middle-class that apes the "smart set." It +is an inevitable product of the English boarding school and University +system; indeed one of the most characteristic products. I shall +probably bring upon myself a host of enemies by this assertion, but it +has been weighed and must stand. Fielding has already put the same +view on record: he says: + + "A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the + calamities which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are + the nurseries of all vice and immorality. All the wicked + fellows whom I remember at the University were bred at + them...." + +If boarding-school life with its close intimacies between boys from +twelve to eighteen years of age were understood by English mothers, it +is safe to say that every boarding-house in every school would +disappear in a single night, and Eton, Harrow, Winchester and the rest +would be turned into day-schools. + +Those who have learned bad habits at school or in the 'Varsity are +inclined to continue the practices in later life. Naturally enough +these men are usually distinguished by a certain artistic sympathy, +and often by most attractive, intellectual qualities. As a rule the +epicene have soft voices and ingratiating manners, and are bold enough +to make a direct appeal to the heart and emotions; they are +considered the very cream of London society. + +These admirers and supporters praised and defended Oscar Wilde from +the beginning with the persistence and courage of men who if they +don't hang together are likely to hang separately. After his trial and +condemnation _The Daily Telegraph_ spoke with contempt of these +"decadents" and "æsthetes" who, it asserted, "could be numbered in +London society on the fingers of one hand"; but even _The Daily +Telegraph_ must have known that in the "smart set" alone there are +hundreds of these acolytes whose intellectual and artistic culture +gives them an importance out of all proportion to their number. It was +the passionate support of these men in the first place which made +Oscar Wilde notorious and successful. + +This fact may well give pause to the thoughtful reader. In the middle +ages, when birth and position had a disproportionate power in life, +the Catholic Church supplied a certain democratic corrective to the +inequality of social conditions. It was a sort of "Jacob's Ladder" +leading from the lowest strata of society to the very heavens and +offering to ingenuous, youthful talent a career of infinite hope and +unlimited ambition. This great power of the Roman Church in the +middle-ages may well be compared to the influence exerted by those +whom I have designated as Oscar Wilde's fuglemen in the England of +today. The easiest way to success in London society is to be notorious +in this sense. Whatever career one may have chosen, however humble +one's birth, one is then certain of finding distinguished friends and +impassioned advocates. If you happen to be in the army and unmarried, +you are declared to be a strategist like Cæsar, or an organizer like +Moltke; if you are an artist, instead of having your faults proclaimed +and your failings scourged, your qualifications are eulogised and you +find yourself compared to Michel Angelo or Titian! I would not +willingly exaggerate here; but I could easily give dozens of instances +to prove that sexual perversion is a "Jacob's Ladder" to most forms of +success in our time in London. + +It seems a curious effect of the great compensatory balance of things +that a masculine rude people like the English, who love nothing so +much as adventures and warlike achievements, should allow themselves +to be steered in ordinary times by epicene æsthetes. But no one who +knows the facts will deny that these men are prodigiously influential +in London in all artistic and literary matters, and it was their +constant passionate support which lifted Oscar Wilde so quickly to +eminence. + +From the beginning they fought for him. He was regarded as a leader +among them when still at Oxford. Yet his early writings show no trace +of such a prepossession; they are wholly void of offence, without even +a suggestion of coarseness, as pure indeed as his talk. Nevertheless, +as soon as his name came up among men in town, the accusation of +abnormal viciousness was either made or hinted. Everyone spoke as if +there were no doubt about his tastes, and this in spite of the +habitual reticence of Englishmen. I could not understand how the +imputation came to be so bold and universal; how so shameful a +calumny, as I regarded it, was so firmly established in men's minds. +Again and again I protested against the injustice, demanded proofs; +but was met only by shrugs and pitying glances as if my prejudice must +indeed be invincible if I needed evidence of the obvious. + +I have since been assured, on what should be excellent authority, that +the evil reputation which attached to Oscar Wilde in those early years +in London was completely undeserved. I, too, must say that in the +first period of our friendship, I never noticed anything that could +give colour even to suspicion of him; but the belief in his abnormal +tastes was widespread and dated from his life in Oxford. + +From about 1886-7 on, however, there was a notable change in Oscar +Wilde's manners and mode of life. He had been married a couple of +years, two children had been born to him; yet instead of settling down +he appeared suddenly to have become wilder. In 1887 he accepted the +editorship of a lady's paper, _The Woman's World_, and was always +mocking at the selection of himself as the "fittest" for such a post: +he had grown noticeably bolder. I told myself that an assured income +and position give confidence; but at bottom a doubt began to form in +me. It can't be denied that from 1887-8 on, incidents occurred from +time to time which kept the suspicion of him alive, and indeed pointed +and strengthened it. I shall have to deal now with some of the more +important of these occurrences. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The period of growth of any organism is the most interesting and most +instructive. And there is no moment of growth in the individual life +which can be compared in importance with the moment when a man begins +to outtop his age, and to suggest the future evolution of humanity by +his own genius. Usually this final stage is passed in solitude: + + _Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,_ + _Sich ein Charakter in dem Strome der Welt._ + +After writing a life of Schiller which almost anyone might have +written, Carlyle retired for some years to Craigenputtoch, and then +brought forth _Sartor Resartus_, which was personal and soul-revealing +to the verge of eccentricity. In the same way Wagner was a mere +continuator of Weber in _Lohengrin_ and _Tannhaeuser_, and first came +to his own in the _Meistersinger_ and _Tristan_, after years of +meditation in Switzerland. + +This period for Oscar Wilde began with his marriage; the freedom from +sordid anxieties allowed him to lift up his head and be himself. +Kepler, I think, it is who praises poverty as the foster-mother of +genius; but Bernard Palissy was nearer the truth when he +said:--_Pauvreté empêche bons esprits de parvenir_ (poverty hinders +fine minds from succeeding). There is no such mortal enemy of genius +as poverty except riches: a touch of the spur from time to time does +good; but a constant rowelling disables. As editor of _The Woman's +World_ Oscar had some money of his own to spend. Though his salary was +only some six pounds a week, it made him independent, and his +editorial work gave him an excuse for not exhausting himself by +writing. For some years after marriage; in fact, till he lost his +editorship, he wrote little and talked a great deal. + +During this period we were often together. He lunched with me once or +twice a week and I began to know his method of work. Everything came +to him in the excitement of talk, epigrams, paradoxes and stories; and +when people of great position or title were about him he generally +managed to surpass himself: all social distinctions appealed to him +intensely. I chaffed him about this one day and he admitted the +snobbishness gaily. + +"I love even historic names, Frank, as Shakespeare did. Surely +everyone prefers Norfolk, Hamilton and Buckingham to Jones or Smith or +Robinson." + +As soon as he lost his editorship he took to writing for the reviews; +his articles were merely the _résumé_ of his monologues. After talking +for months at this and that lunch and dinner he had amassed a store of +epigrams and humorous paradoxes which he could embody in a paper for +_The Fortnightly Review_ or _The Nineteenth Century_. + +These papers made it manifest that Wilde had at length, as Heine +phrased it, reached the topmost height of the culture of his time and +was now able to say new and interesting things. His _Lehrjahre_ or +student-time may be said to have ended with his editorship. The +articles which he wrote on "The Decay of Lying," "The Critic as +Artist," and "Pen, Pencil and Poison"; in fact, all the papers which +in 1891 were gathered together and published in book form under the +title of "Intentions," had about them the stamp of originality. They +achieved a noteworthy success with the best minds, and laid the +foundation of his fame. Every paper contained, here and there, a happy +phrase, or epigram, or flirt of humour, which made it memorable to the +lover of letters. + +They were all, however, conceived and written from the standpoint of +the artist, and the artist alone, who never takes account of ethics, +but uses right and wrong indifferently as colours of his palette. +"The Decay of Lying" seemed to the ordinary, matter-of-fact Englishman +a cynical plea in defence of mendacity. To the majority of readers, +"Pen, Pencil and Poison" was hardly more than a shameful attempt to +condone cold-blooded murder. The very articles which grounded his fame +as a writer, helped to injure his standing and repute. + +In 1889 he published a paper which did him even more damage by +appearing to justify the peculiar rumours about his private life. He +held the opinion, which was universal at that time, that Shakespeare +had been abnormally vicious. He believed with the majority of critics +that Lord William Herbert was addressed in the first series of +Sonnets; but his fine sensibility or, if you will, his peculiar +temperament, led him to question whether Thorpe's dedication to "Mr. +W.H." could have been addressed to Lord William Herbert. He preferred +the old hypothesis that the dedication was addressed to a young actor +named Mr. William Hughes, a supposition which is supported by a +well-known sonnet. He set forth this idea with much circumstance and +considerable ingenuity in an article which he sent to me for +publication in _The Fortnightly Review_. The theme was scabrous; but +his treatment of it was scrupulously reserved and adroit and I saw no +offence in the paper, and to tell the truth, no great ability in his +handling of the subject.[9] + +He had talked over the article with me while he was writing it, and I +told him that I thought the whole theory completely mistaken. +Shakespeare was as sensual as one could well be; but there was no +evidence of abnormal vice; indeed, all the evidence seemed to me to be +against this universal belief. The assumption that the dedication was +addressed to Lord William Herbert I had found it difficult to accept, +at first; the wording of it is not only ambiguous but familiar. If I +assumed that "Mr. W.H." was meant for Lord William Herbert, it was +only because that seemed the easiest way out of the maze. In fine, I +pointed out to Oscar that his theory had very little that was new in +it, and more that was untrue, and advised him not to publish the +paper. My conviction that Shakespeare was not abnormally vicious, and +that the first series of Sonnets proved snobbishness and toadying and +not corrupt passion, seemed to Oscar the very madness of partisanship. + +He smiled away my arguments, and sent his paper to the _Fortnightly_ +office when I happened to be abroad. Much to my chagrin, my assistant +rejected it rudely, whereupon Oscar sent it to Blackwoods, who +published it in their magazine. It set everyone talking and arguing. +To judge by the discussion it created, the wind of hatred and of +praise it caused, one would have thought that the paper was a +masterpiece, though in truth it was nothing out of the common. Had it +been written by anybody else it would have passed unnoticed. But +already Oscar Wilde had a prodigious notoriety, and all his sayings +and doings were eagerly canvassed from one end of society to the +other. + +"The Portrait of Mr. W.H." did Oscar incalculable injury. It gave his +enemies for the first time the very weapon they wanted, and they used +it unscrupulously and untiringly with the fierce delight of hatred. +Oscar seemed to revel in the storm of conflicting opinions which the +paper called forth. He understood better than most men that notoriety +is often the forerunner of fame and is always commercially more +valuable. He rubbed his hands with delight as the discussion grew +bitter, and enjoyed even the sneering of the envious. A wind that +blows out a little fire, he knew, plays bellows to a big one. So long +as people talked about him, he didn't much care what they said, and +they certainly talked interminably about everything he wrote. + +The inordinate popular success increased his self-confidence, and with +time his assurance took on a touch of defiance. The first startling +sign of this gradual change was the publication in _Lippincott's +Magazine_ of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It was attacked immediately +in _The Daily Chronicle_, a liberal paper usually distinguished for a +certain leaning in favour of artists and men of letters, as a "tale +spawned from the leprous literature of the French _decadents_--a +poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic +odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction." + +Oscar as a matter of course replied and the tone of his reply is +characteristic of his growth in self-assurance: he no longer dreads +the imputation of viciousness; he challenges it: "It is poisonous, if +you like; but you cannot deny that it is also perfect, and perfection +is what we artists aim at." + +When Oscar republished "The Picture of Dorian Gray" in book form in +April, 1891, he sent me a large paper copy and with the copy he wrote +a little note, asking me to tell him what I thought of the book. I got +the volume and note early one morning and read the book until noon. I +then sent him a note by hand: "Other men," I wrote, "have given us +wine; some claret, some burgundy, some Moselle; you are the first to +give us pure champagne. Much of this book is wittier even than +Congreve and on an equal intellectual level: at length, it seems to +me, you have justified yourself." + +Half an hour later I was told that Oscar Wilde had called. I went down +immediately to see him. He was bubbling over with content. + +"How charming of you, Frank," he cried, "to have written me such a +divine letter." + +"I have only read a hundred pages of the book," I said; "but they are +delightful: no one now can deny you a place among the wittiest and +most humorous writers in English." + +"How wonderful of you, Frank; what do you like so much?" + +Like all artists, he loved praise and I was enthusiastic, happy to +have the opportunity of making up for some earlier doubting that now +seemed unworthy: + +"Whatever the envious may say, you're with Burke and Sheridan, among +the very ablest Irishmen.... + +"Of course I have heard most of the epigrams from you before, but you +have put them even better in this book." + +"Do you think so, really?" he asked, smiling with pleasure. + +It is worth notice that some of the epigrams in "Dorian Gray" were +bettered again before they appeared in his first play. For example, in +"Dorian Gray" Lord Henry Wotton, who is peculiarly Oscar's mouthpiece, +while telling how he had to bargain for a piece of old brocade in +Wardour Street, adds, "nowadays people know the price of everything +and the value of nothing." In "Lady Windermere's Fan" the same epigram +is perfected, "The cynic is one who knows the price of everything and +the value of nothing." + +Nearly all the literary productions of our time suffer from haste: one +must produce a good deal, especially while one's reputation is in the +making, in order to live by one's pen. Yet great works take time to +form, and fine creations are often disfigured by the stains of hurried +parturition. Oscar Wilde contrived to minimise this disability by +talking his works before writing them. + +The conversation of Lord Henry Wotton with his uncle, and again at +lunch when he wishes to fascinate Dorian Gray, is an excellent +reproduction of Oscar's ordinary talk. The uncle wonders why Lord +Dartmoor wants to marry an American and grumbles about her people: +"Has she got any?" + +Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at concealing +their parents as English women are at concealing their past," he said, +rising to go. + +"They are pork-packers, I suppose?" + +"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that +pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after +politics." + +All this seems to me delightful humour. + +The latter part of the book, however, tails off into insignificance. +The first hundred pages held the result of months and months of +Oscar's talk, the latter half was written offhand to complete the +story. "Dorian Gray" was the first piece of work which proved that +Oscar Wilde had at length found his true vein. + +A little study of it discovers both his strength and his weakness as a +writer. The initial idea of the book is excellent, finer because +deeper than the commonplace idea that is the foundation of Balzac's +"Peau de Chagrin," though it would probably never have been written if +Balzac had not written his book first; but Balzac's sincerity and +earnestness grapple with the theme and wring a blessing out of it, +whereas the subtler idea in Oscar's hands dwindles gradually away till +one wonders if the book would not have been more effective as a short +story. Oscar did not know life well enough or care enough for +character to write a profound psychological study: he was at his best +in a short story or play. + +One day about this time Oscar first showed me the aphorisms he had +written as an introduction to "Dorian Gray." Several of them I thought +excellent; but I found that Oscar had often repeated himself. I cut +these repetitions out and tried to show him how much better the dozen +best were than eighteen of which six were inferior. I added that I +should like to publish the best in "The Fortnightly." He thanked me +and said it was very kind of me. + +Next morning I got a letter from him telling me that he had read over +my corrections and thought that the aphorisms I had rejected were the +best, but he hoped I'd publish them as he had written them. + +Naturally I replied that the final judgment must rest with him and I +published them at once. + +The delight I felt in his undoubted genius and success was not shared +by others. Friends took occasion to tell me that I should not go about +with Oscar Wilde. + +"Why not?" I asked. + +"He has a bad name," was the reply. "Strange things are said about +him. He came down from Oxford with a vile reputation. You have only +got to look at the man." + +"Whatever the disease may be," I replied, "it's not +catching--unfortunately." + +The pleasure men take in denigration of the gifted is one of the +puzzles of life to those who are not envious. + +Men of letters, even people who ought to have known better, were slow +to admit his extraordinary talent; he had risen so quickly, had been +puffed into such prominence that they felt inclined to deny him even +the gifts which he undoubtedly possessed. I was surprised once to find +a friend of mine taking this attitude: Francis Adams, the poet and +writer, chaffed me one day about my liking for Oscar. + +"What on earth can you see in him to admire?" he asked. "He is not a +great writer, he is not even a good writer; his books have no genius +in them; his poetry is tenth rate, and his prose is not much better. +His talk even is fictitious and extravagant." + +I could only laugh at him and advise him to read "The Picture of +Dorian Gray." + +This book, however, gave Oscar's puritanic enemies a better weapon +against him than even "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." The subject, they +declared, was the same as that of "Mr. W.H.," and the treatment was +simply loathsome. More than one middle-class paper, such as _To-Day_ +in the hands of Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, condemned the book as "corrupt," +and advised its suppression. Freedom of speech in England is more +feared than licence of action: a speck on the outside of the platter +disgusts your puritan, and the inside is never peeped at, much less +discussed. + +Walter Pater praised "Dorian Gray" in the _Bookman_; but thereby only +did himself damage without helping his friend. Oscar meanwhile went +about boldly, meeting criticism now with smiling contempt. + +One incident from this time will show how unfairly he was being judged +and how imprudent he was to front defamation with defiance. + +One day I met a handsome youth in his company named John Gray, and I +could not wonder that Oscar found him interesting, for Gray had not +only great personal distinction, but charming manners and a marked +poetic gift, a much greater gift than Oscar possessed. He had besides +an eager, curious mind, and of course found extraordinary stimulus in +Oscar's talk. It seemed to me that intellectual sympathy and the +natural admiration which a younger man feels for a brilliant senior +formed the obvious bond between them. But no sooner did Oscar +republish "Dorian Gray" than ill-informed and worse-minded persons +went about saying that the eponymous hero of the book was John Gray, +though "Dorian Gray" was written before Oscar had met or heard of John +Gray. One cannot help admitting that this was partly Oscar's own +fault. In talk he often alluded laughingly to John Gray as his hero, +"Dorian." It is just an instance of the challenging contempt which he +began to use about this time in answer to the inventions of hatred. + +Late in this year, 1891, he published four stories completely void of +offence, calling the collection "A House of Pomegranates." He +dedicated each of the tales to a lady of distinction and the book made +many friends; but it was handled contemptuously in the press and had +no sale. + +By this time people expected a certain sort of book from Oscar Wilde +and wanted nothing else. They hadn't to wait long. Early in 1892 we +heard that Oscar had written a drama in French called _Salome_, and at +once it was put about that Sarah Bernhardt was going to produce it in +London. Then came dramatic surprise on surprise: while it was being +rehearsed, the Lord Chamberlain refused to license it on the ground +that it introduced Biblical characters. Oscar protested in a brilliant +interview against the action of the Censor as "odious and ridiculous." +He pointed out that all the greatest artists--painters and sculptors, +musicians and writers--had taken many of their best subjects from the +Bible, and wanted to know why the dramatist should be prevented from +treating the great soul-tragedies most proper to his art. When +informed that the interdict was to stand, he declared in a pet that he +would settle in France and take out letters of naturalisation: + +"I am not English. I am Irish--which is quite another thing." Of +course the press made all the fun it could of his show of temper. + +Mr. Robert Ross considers "Salome" "the most powerful and perfect of +all Oscar's dramas." I find it almost impossible to explain, much less +justify, its astonishing popularity. When it appeared, the press, both +in France and in England, was critical and contemptuous; but by this +time Oscar had so captured the public that he could afford to disdain +critics and calumny. The play was praised by his admirers as if it had +been a masterpiece, and London discussed it the more because it was in +French and not clapper-clawed by the vulgar. + +The indescribable cold lewdness and cruelty of "Salome" quickened the +prejudice and strengthened the dislike of the ordinary English reader +for its author. And when the drama was translated into English and +published with the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley, it was disparaged and +condemned by all the leaders of literary opinion. The colossal +popularity of the play, which Mr. Robert Ross proves so triumphantly, +came from Germany and Russia and is to be attributed in part to the +contempt educated Germans and Russians feel for the hypocritical +vagaries of English prudery. The illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, +too, it must be admitted, were an additional offence to the ordinary +English reader, for they intensified the peculiar atmosphere of the +drama. + +Oscar used to say that he invented Aubrey Beardsley; but the truth is, +it was Mr. Robert Ross who first introduced Aubrey to Oscar and +persuaded him to commission the "Salome" drawings which gave the +English edition its singular value. Strange to say, Oscar always hated +the illustrations and would not have the book in his house. His +dislike even extended to the artist, and as Aubrey Beardsley was of +easy and agreeable intercourse, the mutual repulsion deserves a word +of explanation. + +Aubrey Beardsley's genius had taken London by storm. At seventeen or +eighteen this auburn-haired, blue-eyed, fragile looking youth had +reached maturity with his astounding talent, a talent which would have +given him position and wealth in any other country. In perfection of +line his drawings were superior to anything we possess. But the +curious thing about the boy was that he expressed the passions of +pride and lust and cruelty more intensely even than Rops, more +spontaneously than anyone who ever held pencil. Beardsley's precocity +was simply marvellous. He seemed to have an intuitive understanding +not only of his own art but of every art and craft, and it was some +time before one realised that he attained this miraculous virtuosity +by an absolute disdain for every other form of human endeavour. He +knew nothing of the great general or millionaire or man of science, +and he cared as little for them as for fishermen or 'bus-drivers. The +current of his talent ran narrow between stone banks, so to speak; it +was the bold assertion of it that interested Oscar. + +One phase of Beardsley's extraordinary development may be recorded +here. When I first met him his letters, and even his talk sometimes, +were curiously youthful and immature, lacking altogether the personal +note of his drawings. As soon as this was noticed he took the bull by +the horns and pretended that his style in writing was out of date; he +wished us to believe that he hesitated to shock us with his "archaic +sympathies." Of course we laughed and challenged him to reveal +himself. Shortly afterwards I got an article from him written with +curious felicity of phrase, in modish polite eighteenth-century +English. He had reached personal expression in a new medium in a month +or so, and apparently without effort. It was Beardsley's writing that +first won Oscar to recognition of his talent, and for a while he +seemed vaguely interested in what he called his "orchid-like +personality." + +They were both at lunch one day when Oscar declared that he could +drink nothing but absinthe when Beardsley was present. + +"Absinthe," he said, "is to all other drinks what Aubrey's drawings +are to other pictures: it stands alone: it is like nothing else: it +shimmers like southern twilight in opalescent colouring: it has about +it the seduction of strange sins. It is stronger than any other +spirit, and brings out the sub-conscious self in man. It is just like +your drawings, Aubrey; it gets on one's nerves and is cruel. + +"Baudelaire called his poems _Fleurs du Mal_, I shall call your +drawings _Fleurs du Péché_--flowers of sin. + +"When I have before me one of your drawings I want to drink absinthe, +which changes colour like jade in sunlight and takes the senses +thrall, and then I can live myself back in imperial Rome, in the Rome +of the later Cæsars." + +"Don't forget the simple pleasures of that life, Oscar," said Aubrey; +"Nero set Christians on fire, like large tallow candles; the only +light Christians have ever been known to give," he added in a languid, +gentle voice. + +This talk gave me the key. In personal intercourse Oscar Wilde was +more English than the English: he seldom expressed his opinion of +person or prejudice boldly; he preferred to hint dislike and +disapproval. His insistence on the naked expression of lust and +cruelty in Beardsley's drawings showed me that direct frankness +displeased him; for he could hardly object to the qualities which were +making his own "Salome" world-famous. + +The complete history of the relations between Oscar Wilde and +Beardsley, and their mutual dislike, merely proves how difficult it is +for original artists to appreciate one another: like mountain peaks +they stand alone. Oscar showed a touch of patronage, the superiority +of the senior, in his intercourse with Beardsley, and often praised +him ineptly, whereas Beardsley to the last spoke of Oscar as a +showman, and hoped drily that he knew more about literature than he +did about art. For a moment, they worked in concert, and it is +important to remember that it was Beardsley who influenced Oscar, and +not Oscar who influenced Beardsley. Beardsley's contempt of critics +and the public, his artistic boldness and self-assertion, had a +certain hardening influence on Oscar: as things turned out a most +unfortunate influence. + +In spite of Mr. Robert Ross's opinion I regard "Salome," as a student +work, an outcome of Oscar's admiration for Flaubert and his +"Herodias," on the one hand, and "Les Sept Princesses," of Maeterlinck +on the other. He has borrowed the colour and Oriental cruelty with +the banquet-scene from the Frenchman, and from the Fleming the +simplicity of language and the haunting effect produced by the +repetition of significant phrases. Yet "Salome" is original through +the mingling of lust and hatred in the heroine, and by making this +extraordinary virgin the chief and centre of the drama Oscar has +heightened the interest of the story and bettered Flaubert's design. I +feel sure he copied Maeterlinck's simplicity of style because it +served to disguise his imperfect knowledge of French and yet this very +artlessness adds to the weird effect of the drama. + +The lust that inspires the tragedy was characteristic, but the cruelty +was foreign to Oscar; both qualities would have injured him in +England, had it not been for two things. First of all only a few of +the best class of English people know French at all well, and for the +most part they disdain the sex-morality of their race; while the vast +mass of the English public regard French as in itself an immoral +medium and is inclined to treat anything in that tongue with +contemptuous indifference. One can only say that "Salome" confirmed +Oscar's growing reputation for abnormal viciousness. + +It was in 1892 that some of Oscar's friends struck me for the first +time as questionable, to say the best of them. I remember giving a +little dinner to some men in rooms I had in Jermyn Street. I invited +Oscar, and he brought a young friend with him. After dinner I noticed +that the youth was angry with Oscar and would scarcely speak to him, +and that Oscar was making up to him. I heard snatches of pleading from +Oscar--"I beg of you.... It is not true.... You have no cause".... All +the while Oscar was standing apart from the rest of us with an arm on +the young man's shoulder; but his coaxing was in vain, the youth +turned away with petulant, sullen ill-temper. This is a mere snap-shot +which remained in my memory, and made me ask myself afterwards how I +could have been so slow of understanding. + +Looking back and taking everything into consideration--his social +success, the glare of publicity in which he lived, the buzz of talk +and discussion that arose about everything he did and said, the +increasing interest and value of his work and, above all, the +ever-growing boldness of his writing and the challenge of his +conduct--it is not surprising that the black cloud of hate and slander +which attended him persistently became more and more threatening. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +No season, it is said, is so beautiful as the brief northern summer. +Three-fourths of the year is cold and dark, and the ice-bound +landscape is swept by snowstorm and blizzard. Summer comes like a +goddess; in a twinkling the snow vanishes and Nature puts on her robes +of tenderest green; the birds arrive in flocks; flowers spring to life +on all sides, and the sun shines by night as by day. Such a +summertide, so beautiful and so brief, was accorded to Oscar Wilde +before the final desolation. + +I want to give a picture of him at the topmost height of happy hours, +which will afford some proof of his magical talent of speech besides +my own appreciation of it, and, fortunately, the incident has been +given to me. Mr. Ernest Beckett, now Lord Grimthorpe, a lover of all +superiorities, who has known the ablest men of the time, takes +pleasure in telling a story which shows Oscar Wilde's influence over +men who were anything but literary in their tastes. Mr. Beckett had a +party of Yorkshire squires, chiefly fox-hunters and lovers of an +outdoor life, at Kirkstall Grange when he heard that Oscar Wilde was +in the neighbouring town of Leeds. Immediately he asked him to lunch +at the Grange, chuckling to himself beforehand at the sensational +novelty of the experiment. Next day "Mr. Oscar Wilde" was announced +and as he came into the room the sportsmen forthwith began hiding +themselves behind newspapers or moving together in groups in order to +avoid seeing or being introduced to the notorious writer. Oscar shook +hands with his host as if he had noticed nothing, and began to talk. + +"In five minutes," Grimthorpe declares, "all the papers were put down +and everyone had gathered round him to listen and laugh." + +At the end of the meal one Yorkshireman after the other begged the +host to follow the lunch with a dinner and invite them to meet the +wonder again. When the party broke up in the small hours they all went +away delighted with Oscar, vowing that no man ever talked more +brilliantly. Grimthorpe cannot remember a single word Oscar said: "It +was all delightful," he declares, "a play of genial humour over every +topic that came up, like sunshine dancing on waves." + +The extraordinary thing about Oscar's talent was that he did not +monopolise the conversation: he took the ball of talk wherever it +happened to be at the moment and played with it so humorously that +everyone was soon smiling delightedly. The famous talkers of the past, +Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle and the others, were all lecturers: talk +to them was a discourse on a favourite theme, and in ordinary life +they were generally regarded as bores. But at his best Oscar Wilde +never dropped the tone of good society: he could afford to give place +to others; he was equipped at all points: no subject came amiss to +him: he saw everything from a humorous angle, and dazzled one now with +word-wit, now with the very stuff of merriment. + +Though he was the life and soul of every social gathering, and in +constant demand, he still read omnivorously, and his mind naturally +occupied itself with high themes. + +For some years, the story of Jesus fascinated him and tinged all his +thought. We were talking about Renan's "Life" one day: a wonderful +book he called it, one of the three great biographies of the world, +Plato's dialogues with Socrates as hero and Boswell's "Life of +Johnson" being the other two. It was strange, he thought, that the +greatest man had written the worst biography; Plato made of Socrates a +mere phonograph, into which he talked his own theories: Renan did +better work, and Boswell, the humble loving friend, the least talented +of the three, did better still, though being English, he had to keep +to the surface of things and leave the depths to be divined. Oscar +evidently expected Plato and Renan to have surpassed comparison. + +It seemed to me, however, that the illiterate Galilean fishermen had +proved themselves still more consummate painters than Boswell, though +they, too, left a great deal too much to the imagination. Love is the +best of artists; the puddle of rain in the road can reflect a piece of +sky marvellously. + +The Gospel story had a personal interest for Oscar; he was always +weaving little fables about himself as the Master. + +In spite of my ignorance of Hebrew the story of Jesus had always had +the strongest attraction for me, and so we often talked about Him, +though from opposite poles. + +Renan I felt had missed Jesus at his highest. He was far below the +sincerity, the tenderness and sweet-thoughted wisdom of that divine +spirit. Frenchman-like, he stumbled over the miracles and came to +grief. Claus Sluter's head of Jesus in the museum of Dijon is a finer +portrait, and so is the imaginative picture of Fra Angelico. It seemed +to me possible to do a sketch from the Gospels themselves which should +show the growth of the soul of Jesus and so impose itself as a true +portrait. + +Oscar's interest in the theme was different; he put himself frankly +in the place of his model, and appeared to enjoy the jarring antinomy +which resulted. One or two of his stories were surprising in ironical +suggestion; surprising too because they showed his convinced paganism. +Here is one which reveals his exact position: + + "When Joseph of Arimathea came down in the evening from + Mount Calvary where Jesus had died he saw on a white stone a + young man seated weeping. And Joseph went near him and said, + 'I understand how great thy grief must be, for certainly + that Man was a just Man.' But the young man made answer, + 'Oh, it is not for that I am weeping. I am weeping because I + too have wrought miracles. I also have given sight to the + blind, I have healed the palsied and I have raised the dead; + I too have caused the barren fig tree to wither away and I + have turned water into wine ... and yet they have not + crucified me.'" + +At the time this apologue amused me; in the light of later events it +assumed a tragic significance. Oscar Wilde ought to have known that in +this world every real superiority is pursued with hatred, and every +worker of miracles is sure to be persecuted. But he had no inkling +that the Gospel story is symbolic--the life-story of genius for all +time, eternally true. He never looked outside himself, and as the +fruits of success were now sweet in his mouth, a pursuing Fate seemed +to him the most mythical of myths. His child-like self-confidence was +pathetic. The laws that govern human affairs had little interest for +the man who was always a law unto himself. Yet by some extraordinary +prescience, some inexplicable presentiment, the approaching +catastrophe cast its shadow over his mind and he felt vaguely that the +life-journey of genius would be incomplete and farcical without the +final tragedy: whoever lives for the highest must be crucified. + +It seems memorable to me that in this brief summer of his life, Oscar +Wilde should have concerned himself especially with the life-story of +the Man of Sorrows who had sounded all the depths of suffering. Just +when he himself was about to enter the Dark Valley, Jesus was often in +his thoughts and he always spoke of Him with admiration. But after all +how could he help it? Even Dekker saw as far as that: + + "The best of men + That e'er wore earth about Him." + +This was the deeper strain in Oscar Wilde's nature though he was +always disinclined to show it. Habitually he lived in humorous talk, +in the epithets and epigrams he struck out in the desire to please and +astonish his hearers. + +One evening I learned almost by chance that he was about to try a new +experiment and break into a new field. + +He took up the word "lose" at the table, I remember. + +"We lose our chances," he said, laughing, "we lose our figures, we +even lose our characters; but we must never lose our temper. That is +our duty to our neighbour, Frank; but sometimes we mislay it, don't +we?" + +"Is that going in a book, Oscar?" I asked, smiling, "or in an article? +You have written nothing lately." + +"I have a play in my mind," he replied gravely. "To-morrow I am going +to shut myself up in my room, and stay there until it is written. +George Alexander has been bothering me to write a play for some time +and I've got an idea I rather like. I wonder can I do it in a week, or +will it take three? It ought not to take long to beat the Pineros and +the Joneses." It always annoyed Oscar when any other name but his came +into men's mouths: his vanity was extraordinarily alert. + +Naturally enough he minimised Mr. Alexander's initiative. The +well-known actor had "bothered" Oscar by advancing him £100 before the +scenario was even outlined. A couple of months later he told me that +Alexander had accepted his comedy, and was going to produce "Lady +Windermere's Fan." I thought the title excellent. + +"Territorial names," Oscar explained, gravely, "have always a _cachet_ +of distinction: they fall on the ear full toned with secular dignity. +That's how I get all the names of my personages, Frank. I take up a +map of the English counties, and there they are. Our English villages +have often exquisitely beautiful names. Windermere, for instance, or +Hunstanton," and he rolled the syllables over his tongue with a soft +sensual pleasure. + +I had a box the first night and, thinking it might do Oscar some good, +I took with me Arthur Walter of _The Times_. The first scene of the +first act was as old as the hills, but the treatment gave charm to it +if not freshness. The delightful, unexpected humour set off the +commonplace incident; but it was only the convention that Arthur +Walter would see. The play was poor, he thought, which brought me to +wonder. + +After the first act I went downstairs to the _foyer_ and found the +critics in much the same mind. There was an enormous gentleman called +Joseph Knight, who cried out: + +"The humour is mechanical, unreal." Seeing that I did not respond he +challenged me: + +"What do you think of it?" + +"That is for you critics to answer," I replied. + +"I might say," he laughed, "in Oscar's own peculiar way, 'Little +promise and less performance.' Ha! ha! ha!" + +"That's the exact opposite to Oscar's way," I retorted. "It is the +listeners who laugh at his humour." + +"Come now, really," cried Knight, "you cannot think much of the play?" + +For the first time in my life I began to realise that nine critics out +of ten are incapable of judging original work. They seem to live in a +sort of fog, waiting for someone to give them the lead, and +accordingly they love to discuss every new play right and left. + +"I have not seen the whole play," I answered. "I was not at any of the +rehearsals; but so far it is surely the best comedy in English, the +most brilliant: isn't it?" + +The big man started back and stared at me; then burst out laughing. + +"That's good," he cried with a loud unmirthful guffaw. "'Lady +Windermere's Fan' better than any comedy of Shakespeare! Ha! ha! ha! +'more brilliant!' ho! ho!" + +"Yes," I persisted, angered by his disdain, "wittier, and more +humorous than 'As You Like It,' or 'Much Ado.' Strange to say, too, it +is on a higher intellectual level. I can only compare it to the best +of Congreve, and I think it's better." With a grunt of disapproval or +rage the great man of the daily press turned away to exchange +bleatings with one of his _confrères_. + +The audience was a picked audience of the best heads in London, far +superior in brains therefore to the average journalist, and their +judgment was that it was a most brilliant and interesting play. Though +the humour was often prepared, the construction showed a rare mastery +of stage-effect. Oscar Wilde had at length come into his kingdom. + +At the end the author was called for, and Oscar appeared before the +curtain. The house rose at him and cheered and cheered again. He was +smiling, with a cigarette between his fingers, wholly master of +himself and his audience. + +"I am so glad, ladies and gentlemen, that you like my play.[10] I feel +sure you estimate the merits of it almost as highly as I do myself." + +The house rocked with laughter. The play and its humour were a seven +days' wonder in London. People talked of nothing but "Lady +Windermere's Fan." The witty words in it ran from lip to lip like a +tidbit of scandal. Some clever Jewesses and, strange to say, one +Scotchman were the loudest in applause. Mr. Archer, the well-known +critic of _The World_, was the first and only journalist to perceive +that the play was a classic by virtue of "genuine dramatic qualities." +Mrs. Leverson turned the humorous sayings into current social coin in +_Punch_, of all places in the world, and from a favourite Oscar Wilde +rapidly became the idol of smart London. + +The play was an intellectual triumph. This time Oscar had not only won +success but had won also the suffrages of the best. Nearly all the +journalist-critics were against him and made themselves ridiculous by +their brainless strictures; _Truth_ and _The Times_, for example, were +poisonously puritanic, but thinking people came over to his side in a +body. The halo of fame was about him, and the incense of it in his +nostrils made him more charming, more irresponsibly gay, more +genial-witty than ever. He was as one set upon a pinnacle with the +sunshine playing about him, lighting up his radiant eyes. All the +while, however, the foul mists from the underworld were wreathing +about him, climbing higher and higher. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + Thou hast led me like an heathen sacrifice, + With music and with fatal pomp of flowers, + To my eternal ruin.--Webster's _The White Devil_. + + +"Lady Windermere's Fan" was a success in every sense of the word, and +during its run London was at Oscar's feet. There were always a few +doors closed to him; but he could afford now to treat his critics with +laughter, call them fogies and old-fashioned and explain that they had +not a decalogue but a millelogue of sins forbidden and persons tabooed +because it was easier to condemn than to understand. + +I remember a lunch once when he talked most brilliantly and finished +up by telling the story now published in his works as "A Florentine +Tragedy." He told it superbly, making it appear far more effective +than in its written form. A well-known actor, piqued at being +compelled to play listener, made himself ridiculous by half turning +his back on the narrator. But after lunch Willie Grenfell (now Lord +Desborough), a model English athlete gifted with peculiar intellectual +fairness, came round to me: + +"Oscar Wilde is most surprising, most charming, a wonderful talker." + +At the same moment Mr. K. H---- came over to us. He was a man who went +everywhere and knew everyone. He had quiet, ingratiating manners, +always spoke in a gentle smiling way and had a good word to say for +everyone, especially for women; he was a bachelor, too, and wholly +unattached. He surprised me by taking up Grenfell's praise and +breaking into a lyric: + +"The best talker who ever lived," he said; "most extraordinary. I am +so infinitely obliged to you for asking me to meet him--a new delight. +He brings a supernal air into life. I am in truth indebted to +you"--all this in an affected purring tone. I noticed for the first +time that there was a touch of rouge on his face; Grenfell turned away +from us rather abruptly I thought. + +At this first roseate dawn of complete success and universal applause, +new qualities came to view in Oscar. Praise gave him the fillip needed +in order to make him surpass himself. His talk took on a sort of +autumnal richness of colour, and assumed a new width of range; he now +used pathos as well as humour and generally brought in a story or +apologue to lend variety to the entertainment. His little weaknesses, +too, began to show themselves and they grew rankly in the sunshine. He +always wanted to do himself well, as the phrase goes, but now he began +to eat and drink more freely than before. His vanity became defiant. +I noticed one day that he had signed himself, Oscar O'Flahertie Wilde, +I think under some verses which he had contributed years before to his +College magazine. I asked him jokingly what the O'Flahertie stood for. +To my astonishment he answered me gravely: + +"The O'Flaherties were kings in Ireland, and I have a right to the +name; I am descended from them." + +I could not help it; I burst out laughing. + +"What are you laughing at, Frank?" he asked with a touch of annoyance. + +"It seems humorous to me," I explained, "that Oscar Wilde should want +to be an O'Flahertie," and as I spoke a picture of the greatest of the +O'Flaherties, with bushy head and dirty rags, warming enormous hairy +legs before a smoking peat-fire, flashed before me. I think something +of the sort must have occurred to Oscar, too, for, in spite of his +attempt to be grave, he could not help laughing. + +"It's unkind of you, Frank," he said. "The Irish were civilised and +Christians when the English kept themselves warm with tattooings." + +He could not help telling one in familiar talk of Clumber or some +other great house where he had been visiting; he was intoxicated with +his own popularity, a little surprised, perhaps, to find that he had +won fame so easily and on the primrose path, but one could forgive him +everything, for he talked more delightfully than ever. + +It is almost inexplicable, but nevertheless true that life tries all +of us, tests every weak point to breaking, and sets off and +exaggerates our powers. Burns saw this when he wrote: + + "Wha does the utmost that he can + Will whyles do mair." + +And the obverse is true: whoever yields to a weakness habitually, some +day goes further than he ever intended, and comes to worse grief than +he deserved. The old prayer: _Lead us not into temptation_, is perhaps +a half-conscious recognition of this fact. But we moderns are inclined +to walk heedlessly, no longer believing in pitfalls or in the danger +of gratified desires. And Oscar Wilde was not only an unbeliever; but +he had all the heedless confidence of the artist who has won +world-wide popularity and has the halo of fame on his brow. With high +heart and smiling eyes he went to his fate unsuspecting. + +It was in the autumn of 1891 that he first met Lord Alfred Douglas. He +was thirty-six and Lord Alfred Douglas a handsome, slim youth of +twenty-one, with large blue eyes and golden-fair hair. His mother, +the Dowager Lady Queensberry, preserves a photograph of him taken a +few years before, when he was still at Winchester, a boy of sixteen +with an expression which might well be called angelic. + +When I met him, he was still girlishly pretty, with the beauty of +youth, coloring and fair skin; though his features were merely +ordinary. It was Lionel Johnson, the writer, a friend and intimate of +Douglas at Winchester, who brought him to tea at Oscar's house in Tite +Street. Their mutual attraction had countless hooks. Oscar was drawn +by the lad's personal beauty, and enormously affected besides by Lord +Alfred Douglas' name and position: he was a snob as only an English +artist can be a snob; he loved titular distinctions, and Douglas is +one of the few great names in British history with the gilding of +romance about it. No doubt Oscar talked better than his best because +he was talking to Lord Alfred Douglas. To the last the mere name +rolled on his tongue gave him extraordinary pleasure. Besides, the boy +admired him, hung upon his lips with his soul in his eyes; showed, +too, rare intelligence in his appreciation, confessed that he himself +wrote verses and loved letters passionately. Could more be desired +than perfection perfected? + +And Alfred Douglas on his side was almost as powerfully attracted; he +had inherited from his mother all her literary tastes--and more: he +was already a master-poet with a singing faculty worthy to be compared +with the greatest. What wonder if he took this magical talker, with +the luminous eyes and charming voice, and a range and play of thought +beyond his imagining, for a world's miracle, one of the Immortals. +Before he had listened long, I have been told, the youth declared his +admiration passionately. They were an extraordinary pair and were +complementary in a hundred ways, not only in mind, but in character. +Oscar had reached originality of thought and possessed the culture of +scholarship, while Alfred Douglas had youth and rank and beauty, +besides being as articulate as a woman with an unsurpassable gift of +expression. Curiously enough, Oscar was as yielding and amiable in +character as the boy was self-willed, reckless, obstinate and +imperious. + +Years later Oscar told me that from the first he dreaded Alfred +Douglas' aristocratic, insolent boldness: + +"He frightened me, Frank, as much as he attracted me, and I held away +from him. 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. Lord Alfred Douglas' boldness gave Oscar _outrecuidance_, +an insolent arrogance: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in +aristocratic disdain. Without knowing the cause the change in Oscar +astonished me again and again, and in the course of this narrative I +shall have to notice many instances of it. + +One other effect the friendship had of far-reaching influence. Oscar +always enjoyed good living; but for years he had had to earn his +bread: he knew the value of money; he didn't like to throw it away; he +was accustomed to lunch or dine at a cheap Italian restaurant for a +few shillings. But to Lord Alfred Douglas money was only a counter and +the most luxurious living a necessity. As soon as Oscar Wilde began to +entertain him, he was led to the dearest hotels and restaurants; his +expenses became formidable and soon outran his large earnings. For +the first time since I had known him he borrowed heedlessly right and +left, and had, therefore, to bring forth play after play with scant +time for thought. + +Lord Alfred Douglas has declared recently: + +"I spent much more in entertaining Oscar Wilde than he did in +entertaining me"; but this is preposterous self-deception. An earlier +confession of his was much nearer the truth: "It was a sweet +humiliation to me to let Oscar Wilde pay for everything and to ask him +for money." + +There can be no doubt that Lord Alfred Douglas' habitual extravagance +kept Oscar Wilde hard up, and drove him to write without intermission. + +There were other and worse results of the intimacy which need not be +exposed here in so many words, though they must be indicated; for they +derived of necessity from that increased self-assurance which has +already been recorded. As Oscar devoted himself to Lord Alfred Douglas +and went about with him continually, he came to know his friends and +his familiars, and went less into society so-called. Again and again +Lord Alfred Douglas flaunted acquaintance with youths of the lowest +class; but no one knew him or paid much attention to him; Oscar Wilde, +on the other hand, was already a famous personage whose every +movement provoked comment. From this time on the rumours about Oscar +took definite form and shaped themselves in specific accusations: his +enemies began triumphantly to predict his ruin and disgrace. + +Everything is known in London society; like water on sand the truth +spreads wider and wider as it gradually filters lower. The "smart set" +in London has almost as keen a love of scandal as a cathedral town. +About this time one heard of a dinner which Oscar Wilde had given at a +restaurant in Soho, which was said to have degenerated into a sort of +Roman orgy. I was told of a man who tried to get money by blackmailing +him in his own house. I shrugged my shoulders at all these scandals, +and asked the talebearers what had been said about Shakespeare to make +him rave as he raved again and again against "back-wounding calumny"; +and when they persisted in their malicious stories I could do nothing +but show disbelief. Though I saw but little of Oscar during the first +year or so of his intimacy with Lord Alfred Douglas, one scene from +this time filled me with suspicion and an undefined dread. + +I was in a corner of the Café Royal one night downstairs, playing +chess, and, while waiting for my opponent to move, I went out just to +stretch my legs. When I returned I found Oscar throned in the very +corner, between two youths. Even to my short-sighted eyes they +appeared quite common: in fact they looked like grooms. In spite of +their vulgar appearance, however, one was nice looking in a fresh +boyish way; the other seemed merely depraved. Oscar greeted me as +usual, though he seemed slightly embarrassed. I resumed my seat, which +was almost opposite him, and pretended to be absorbed in the game. To +my astonishment he was talking as well as if he had had a picked +audience; talking, if you please, about the Olympic games, telling how +the youths wrestled and were scraped with strigulæ and threw the +discus and ran races and won the myrtle-wreath. His impassioned +eloquence brought the sun-bathed palæstra before one with a magic of +representment. Suddenly the younger of the boys asked: + +"Did you sy they was niked?" + +"Of course," Oscar replied, "nude, clothed only in sunshine and +beauty." + +"Oh, my," giggled the lad in his unspeakable Cockney way. I could not +stand it. + +"I am in an impossible position," I said to my opponent, who was the +amateur chess player, Montagu Gattie. "Come along and let us have some +dinner." With a nod to Oscar I left the place. On the way out Gattie +said to me: + +"So that's the famous Oscar Wilde." + +"Yes," I replied, "that's Oscar, but I never saw him in such company +before." + +"Didn't you?" remarked Gattie quietly; "he was well known at Oxford. I +was at the 'Varsity with him. His reputation was always +rather--'_high_,' shall we call it?" + +I wanted to forget the scene and blot it out of my memory, and +remember my friend as I knew him at his best. But that Cockney boy +would not be banned; he leered there with rosy cheeks, hair plastered +down in a love-lock on his forehead, and low cunning eyes. I felt +uncomfortable. I would not think of it. I recalled the fact that in +all our talks I had never heard Oscar use a gross word. His mind, I +said to myself, is like Spenser's, vowed away from coarseness and +vulgarity: he's the most perfect intellectual companion in the world. +He may have wanted to talk to the boys just to see what effect his +talk would have on them. His vanity is greedy enough to desire even +such applause as theirs.... Of course, that was the +explanation--vanity. My affection for him, tormented by doubt, had +found at length a satisfactory solution. It was the artist in him, I +said to myself, that wanted a model. + +But why not boys of his own class? The answer suggested itself; boys +of his own class could teach him nothing; his own boyhood would +supply him with all the necessary information about well-bred youth. +But if he wanted a gutter-snipe in one of his plays, he would have to +find a gutter-lad and paint him from life. That was probably the +truth, I concluded. So satisfied was I with my discovery that I +developed it to Gattie; but he would not hear of it. + +"Gattie has nothing of the artist in him," I decided, "and therefore +cannot understand." And I went on arguing, if Gattie were right, why +_two_ boys? It seemed evident to me that my reading of the riddle was +the only plausible one. Besides it left my affection unaffected and +free. Still, the giggle, the plastered oily hair and the venal leering +eyes came back to me again and again in spite of myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +There is a secret apprehension in man counselling sobriety and +moderation, a fear born of expediency distinct from conscience, which +is ethical; though it seems to be closely connected with conscience +acting, as it does, by warnings and prohibitions. The story of +Polycrates and his ring is a symbol of the instinctive feeling that +extraordinary good fortune is perilous and can not endure. + +A year or so after the first meeting between Oscar Wilde and Lord +Alfred Douglas I heard that they were being pestered on account of +some amorous letters which had been stolen from them. There was talk +of blackmail and hints of an interesting exposure. + +Towards the end of the year it was announced that Lord Alfred Douglas +had gone to Egypt; but this "flight into Egypt," as it was wittily +called, was gilded by the fact that a little later he was appointed an +honorary attaché to Lord Cromer. I regarded his absence as a piece of +good fortune, for when he was in London, Oscar had no time to himself, +and was seen in public with associates he would have done better to +avoid. Time and again he had praised Lord Alfred Douglas to me as a +charming person, a poet, and had grown lyrical about his violet eyes +and honey-coloured hair. I knew nothing of Lord Alfred Douglas, and +had no inkling of his poetic talent. I did not like several of Oscar's +particular friends, and I had a special dislike for the father of Lord +Alfred Douglas. I knew Queensberry rather well. I was a member of the +old Pelican Club, and I used to go there frequently for a talk with +Tom, Dick or Harry, about athletics, or for a game of chess with +George Edwards. Queensberry was there almost every night, and someone +introduced me to him. I was eager to know him because he had surprised +me. At some play,[11] I think it was "The Promise of May," by +Tennyson, produced at the Globe, in which atheists were condemned, he +had got up in his box and denounced the play, proclaiming himself an +atheist. I wanted to know the Englishman who could be so contemptuous +of convention. Had he acted out of aristocratic insolence, or was he +by any possibility high-minded? To one who knew the man the mere +question must seem ridiculous. + +Queensberry was perhaps five feet nine or ten in height, with a plain, +heavy, rather sullen face, and quick, hot eyes. He was a mass of +self-conceit, all bristling with suspicion, and in regard to money, +prudent to meanness. He cared nothing for books, but liked outdoor +sports and under a rather abrupt, but not discourteous, manner hid an +irritable, violent temper. He was combative and courageous as very +nervous people sometimes are, when they happen to be +strong-willed--the sort of man who, just because he was afraid of a +bull and had pictured the dreadful wound it could give, would +therefore seize it by the horns. + +The insane temper of the man got him into rows at the Pelican more +than once. I remember one evening he insulted a man whom I liked +immensely. Haseltine was a stockbroker, I think, a big, fair, handsome +fellow who took Queensberry's insults for some time with cheerful +contempt. Again and again he turned Queensberry's wrath aside with a +fair word, but Queensberry went on working himself into a passion, and +at last made a rush at him. Haseltine watched him coming and hit out +in the nick of time; he caught Queensberry full in the face and +literally knocked him heels over head. Queensberry got up in a sad +mess: he had a swollen nose and black eye and his shirt was all +stained with blood spread about by hasty wiping. Any other man would +have continued the fight or else have left the club on the spot; +Queensberry took a seat at a table, and there sat for hours silent. I +could only explain it to myself by saying that his impulse to fly at +once from the scene of his disgrace was very acute, and therefore he +resisted it, made up his mind not to budge, and so he sat there the +butt of the derisive glances and whispered talk of everyone who came +into the club in the next two or three hours. He was just the sort of +person a wise man would avoid and a clever one would use--a dangerous, +sharp, ill-handled tool. + +Disliking his father, I did not care to meet Lord Alfred Douglas, +Oscar's newest friend. + +I saw Oscar less frequently after the success of his first play; he no +longer needed my editorial services, and was, besides, busily engaged; +but I have one good trait to record of him. Some time before I had +lent him £50; so long as he was hard up I said nothing about it; but +after the success of his second play, I wrote to him saying that the +£50 would be useful to me if he could spare it. He sent me a cheque at +once with a charming letter. + +He was now continually about again with Lord Alfred Douglas who, it +appeared, had had a disagreement with Lord Cromer and returned to +London. Almost immediately scandalous stories came into circulation +concerning them: "Have you heard the latest about Lord Alfred and +Oscar? I'm told they're being watched by the police," and so forth and +so on interminably. One day a story came to me with such wealth of +weird detail that it was manifestly at least founded on fact. Oscar +was said to have written extraordinary letters to Lord Alfred Douglas: +a youth called Alfred Wood had stolen the letters from Lord Alfred +Douglas' rooms in Oxford and had tried to blackmail Oscar with them. +The facts were so peculiar and so precise that I asked Oscar about it. +He met the accusation at once and very fairly, I thought, and told me +the whole story. It puts the triumphant power and address of the man +in a strong light, and so I will tell it as he told it to me. + +"When I was rehearsing 'A Woman of No Importance' at the Haymarket," +he began, "Beerbohm Tree showed me a letter I had written a year or so +before to Alfred Douglas. He seemed to think it dangerous, but I +laughed at him and read the letter with him, and of course he came to +understand it properly. A little later a man called Wood told me he +had found some letters which I had written to Lord Alfred Douglas in a +suit of clothes which Lord Alfred had given to him. He gave me back +some of the letters and I gave him a little money. But the letter, a +copy of which had been sent to Beerbohm Tree, was not amongst them. + +"Some time afterwards a man named Allen called upon me one night in +Tite Street, and said he had got a letter of mine which I ought to +have. + +"The man's manner told me that he was the real enemy. 'I suppose you +mean that beautiful letter of mine to Lord Alfred Douglas,' I said. +'If you had not been so foolish as to send a copy of it to Mr. +Beerbohm Tree, I should have been glad to have paid you a large sum +for it, as I think it is one of the best I ever wrote.' Allen looked +at me with sulky, cunning eyes and said: + +"'A curious construction could be put upon that letter.' + +"'No doubt, no doubt,' I replied lightly; 'art is not intelligible to +the criminal classes.' He looked me in the face defiantly and said: + +"'A man has offered me £60 for it.' + +"'You should take the offer,' I said gravely; '£60 is a great price. I +myself have never received such a large sum for any prose work of that +length. But I am glad to find that there is someone in England who +will pay such a large sum for a letter of mine. I don't know why you +come to me,' I added, rising, 'you should sell the letter at once.' + +"Of course, Frank, as I spoke my body seemed empty with fear. The +letter could be misunderstood, and I have so many envious enemies; but +I felt that there was nothing else for it but bluff. As I went to the +door Allen rose too, and said that the man who had offered him the +money was out of town. I turned to him and said: + +"'He will no doubt return, and I don't care for the letter at all.' + +"At this Allen changed his manner, said he was very poor, he hadn't a +penny in the world, and had spent a lot trying to find me and tell me +about the letter. I told him I did not mind relieving his distress, +and gave him half a sovereign, assuring him at the same time that the +letter would shortly be published as a sonnet in a delightful +magazine. I went to the door with him, and he walked away. I closed +the door; but didn't shut it at once, for suddenly I heard a +policeman's step coming softly towards my house--pad, pad! A dreadful +moment, then he passed by. I went into the room again all shaken, +wondering whether I had done right, whether Allen would hawk the +letter about--a thousand vague apprehensions. + +"Suddenly a knock at the street door. My heart was in my mouth, still +I went and opened it: a man named Cliburn was there. + +"'I have come to you with a letter of Allen's.' + +"'I cannot be bothered any more,' I cried, 'about that letter; I don't +care twopence about it. Let him do what he likes with it.' + +"To my astonishment Cliburn said: + +"'Allen has asked me to give it back to you,' and he produced it. + +"'Why does he give it back to me?' I asked carelessly. + +"'He says you were kind to him and that it is no use trying to "rent" +you; you only laugh at us.' + +"I looked at the letter; it was very dirty, and I said: + +"'I think it is unpardonable that better care should not have been +taken of a manuscript of mine.' + +"He said he was sorry; but it had been in many hands. I took the +letter up casually: + +"'Well, I will accept the letter back. You can thank Mr. Allen for +me.' + +"I gave Cliburn half a sovereign for his trouble, and said to him: + +"'I am afraid you are leading a desperately wicked life.' + +"'There's good and bad in every one of us,' he replied. I said +something about his being a philosopher, and he went away. That's the +whole story, Frank." + +"But the letter?" I questioned. + +"The letter is nothing," Oscar replied; "a prose poem. I will give you +a copy of it." + +Here is the letter: + + "MY OWN BOY,--Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it + is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be + made no less for the madness of music and song than for the + madness of kissing. Your slim-gilt soul walks between + passion and poetry. No Hyacinthus followed Love so madly as + you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do + you go to Salisbury? Do go there and cool your hands in the + grey twilight of Gothic things. Come here whenever you like. + It is a lovely place and only lacks you. Do go to Salisbury + first. Always with undying love, + + Yours, + + OSCAR." + + * * * * * + +This letter startled me; "slim-gilt" and the "madness of kissing" were +calculated to give one pause; but after all, I thought, it may be +merely an artist's letter, half pose, half passionate admiration. +Another thought struck me. + +"But how did such a letter," I cried, "ever get into the hands of a +blackmailer?" + +"I don't know," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Lord Alfred +Douglas is very careless and inconceivably bold. You should know him, +Frank; he's a delightful poet." + +"But how did he come to know a creature like Wood?" I persisted. + +"How can I tell, Frank," he answered a little shortly; and I let the +matter drop, though it left in me a certain doubt, an uncomfortable +suspicion. + +The scandal grew from hour to hour, and the tide of hatred rose in +surges. + +One day I was lunching at the Savoy, and while talking to the head +waiter, Cesari, who afterwards managed the Elysée Palace Hotel in +Paris, I thought I saw Oscar and Douglas go out together. Being a +little short-sighted, I asked: + +"Isn't that Mr. Oscar Wilde?" + +"Yes," said Cesari, "and Lord Alfred Douglas. We wish they would not +come here; it does us a lot of harm." + +"How do you mean?" I asked sharply. + +"Some people don't like them," the quick Italian answered immediately. + +"Oscar Wilde," I remarked casually, "is a great friend of mine," but +the super-subtle Italian was already warned. + +"A clever writer, I believe," he said, smiling in bland acquiescence. + +This incident gave me warning, strengthened again in me the exact +apprehension and suspicion which the Douglas letter had bred. Oscar I +knew was too self-centred, went about too continually with admirers to +have any understanding of popular feeling. He would be the last man +to realize how fiercely hate, malice and envy were raging against him. +I wanted to warn him; but hardly knew how to do it effectively and +without offence: I made up my mind to keep my eyes open and watch an +opportunity. + +A little later I gave a dinner at the Savoy and asked him to come. He +was delightful, his vivacious gaiety as exhilarating as wine. But he +was more like a Roman Emperor than ever: he had grown fat: he ate and +drank too much; not that he was intoxicated, but he became flushed, +and in spite of his gay and genial talk he affected me a little +unpleasantly; he was gross and puffed up. But he gave one or two +splendid snapshots of actors and their egregious vanity. It seemed to +him a great pity that actors should be taught to read and write: they +should learn their pieces from the lips of the poet. + +"Just as work is the curse of the drinking classes of this country," +he said laughing, "so education is the curse of the acting classes." + +Yet even when making fun of the mummers there was a new tone in him of +arrogance and disdain. He used always to be genial and kindly even to +those he laughed at; now he was openly contemptuous. The truth is that +his extraordinarily receptive mind went with an even more abnormal +receptivity of character: unlike most men of marked ability, he took +colour from his associates. In this as in love of courtesies and +dislike of coarse words he was curiously feminine. Intercourse with +Beardsley, for example, had backed his humorous gentleness with a sort +of challenging courage; his new intimacy with Lord Alfred Douglas, +coming on the top of his triumph as a playwright, was lending him +aggressive self-confidence. There was in him that [Greek: hubris] +(insolent self-assurance) which the Greek feared, the pride which +goeth before destruction. I regretted the change in him and was +nervously apprehensive. + +After dinner we all went out by the door which gives on the +Embankment, for it was after 12.30. One of the party proposed that we +should walk for a minute or two--at least as far as the Strand, before +driving home. Oscar objected. He hated walking; it was a form of penal +servitude to the animal in man, he declared; but he consented, +nevertheless, under protest, laughing. When we were going up the steps +to the Strand he again objected, and quoted Dante's famous lines: + + "Tu proverai si come sa di sale + Lo pane altrui; e com' è duro calle + Lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale." + +The impression made by Oscar that evening was not only of +self-indulgence but of over-confidence. I could not imagine what had +given him this insolent self-complacence. I wanted to get by myself +and think. Prosperity was certainly doing him no good. + +All the while the opposition to him, I felt, was growing in force. How +could I verify this impression, I asked myself, so as to warn him +effectually? + +I decided to give a lunch to him, and on purpose I put on the +invitations: "To meet Mr. Oscar Wilde and hear a new story." Out of a +dozen invitations sent out to men, seven or eight were refused, three +or four telling me in all kindness that they would rather not meet +Oscar Wilde. This confirmed my worst fears: when Englishmen speak out +in this way the dislike must be near revolt. + +I gave the lunch and saw plainly enough that my forebodings were +justified. Oscar was more self-confident, more contemptuous of +criticism, more gross of body than ever, but his talk did not suffer; +indeed, it seemed to improve. At this lunch he told the charming fable +of "Narcissus," which is certainly one of his most characteristic +short stories. + +"When Narcissus died the Flowers of the Field were plunged in grief, +and asked the River for drops of water that they might mourn for him. + +"'Oh,' replied the River, 'if only my drops of water were tears, I +should not have enough to weep for Narcissus myself--I loved him.' + +"'How could you help loving Narcissus?' said the flowers, 'so +beautiful was he.' + +"'Was he beautiful?' asked the River. + +"'Who should know that better than you?' said the flowers, 'for every +day, lying on your bank, he would mirror his beauty in your waters.'" + +Oscar paused here, and then went on: + +"'If I loved him,' replied the River, 'it is because, when he hung +over me, I saw the reflection of my own loveliness in his eyes.'" + +After lunch I took him aside and tried to warn him, told him that +unpleasant stories were being put about against him; but he paid no +heed to me. + +"All envy, Frank, and malice. What do I care? I go to Clumber this +summer; besides I am doing another play which I rather like. I always +knew that play-writing was my province. As a youth I tried to write +plays in verse; that was my mistake. Now I know better; I'm sure of +myself and of success." + +Somehow or other in spite of his apparent assurance I felt he was in +danger and I doubted his quality as a fighter. But after all it was +not my business: wilful man must have his way. + +It seems to me now that my mistrust dated from the second paper war +with Whistler, wherein to the astonishment of everyone Oscar did not +come off victorious. As soon as he met with opposition his power of +repartee seemed to desert him and Whistler, using mere rudeness and +man-of-the-world sharpness, held the field. Oscar was evidently not a +born fighter. + +I asked him once how it was he let Whistler off so lightly. He +shrugged his shoulders and showed some irritation. + +"What could I say, Frank? Why should I belabour the beaten? The man is +a wasp and delights in using his sting. I have done more perhaps than +anyone to make him famous. I had no wish to hurt him." + +Was it magnanimity or weakness or, as I think, a constitutional, a +feminine shrinking from struggle and strife. Whatever the cause, it +was clear that Oscar was what Shakespeare called himself, "an +unhurtful opposite." + +It is quite possible that if he had been attacked face to face, Oscar +would have given a better account of himself. At Mrs. Grenfell's (now +Lady Desborough) he crossed swords once with the Prime Minister and +came off victorious. Mr. Asquith began by bantering him, in +appearance lightly, in reality, seriously, for putting many of his +sentences in italics. + +"The man who uses italics," said the politician, "is like the man who +raises his voice in conversation and talks loudly in order to make +himself heard." + +It was the well-known objection which Emerson had taken to Carlyle's +overwrought style, pointed probably by dislike of the way Oscar +monopolised conversation. + +Oscar met the stereotyped attack with smiling good-humour. + +"How delightful of you, Mr. Asquith, to have noticed that! The +brilliant phrase, like good wine, needs no bush. But just as the +orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising or +lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams +with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweller--an +excusable love of one's art, not all mere vanity, I like to +think"--all this with the most pleasant smile and manner. + +In measure as I distrusted Oscar's fighting power and admired his +sweetness of nature I took sides with him and wanted to help him. One +day I heard some talk at the Pelican Club which filled me with fear +for him and quickened my resolve to put him on his guard. I was going +in just as Queensberry was coming out with two or three of his +special cronies. + +"I'll do it," I heard him cry, "I'll teach the fellow to leave my son +alone. I'll not have their names coupled together." + +I caught a glimpse of the thrust-out combative face and the hot grey +eyes. + +"What's it all about?" I asked. + +"Only Queensberry," said someone, "swearing he'll stop Oscar Wilde +going about with that son of his, Alfred Douglas." + +Suddenly my fears took form: as in a flash I saw Oscar, heedless and +smiling, walking along with his head in the air, and that violent +combative insane creature pouncing on him. I sat down at once and +wrote begging Oscar to lunch with me the next day alone, as I had +something important to say to him. He turned up in Park Lane, +manifestly anxious, a little frightened, I think. + +"What is it, Frank?" + +I told him very seriously what I had heard and gave besides my +impression of Queensberry's character, and his insane pugnacity. + +"What can I do, Frank?" said Oscar, showing distress and apprehension. +"It's all Bosie." + +"Who is Bosie?" I asked. + +"That is Lord Alfred Douglas' pet name. It's all Bosie's fault. He has +quarrelled with his father, or rather his father has quarrelled with +him. He quarrels with everyone; with Lady Queensberry, with Percy +Douglas, with Bosie, everyone. He's impossible. What can I do?" + +"Avoid him," I said. "Don't go about with Lord Alfred Douglas. Give +Queensberry his triumph. You could make a friend of him as easily as +possible, if you wished. Write him a conciliatory letter." + +"But he'll want me to drop Bosie, and stop seeing Lady Queensberry, +and I like them all; they are charming to me. Why should I cringe to +this madman?" + +"Because he is a madman." + +"Oh, Frank, I can't," he cried. "Bosie wouldn't let me." + +"'Wouldn't let you'? I repeated angrily. "How absurd! That Queensberry +man will go to violence, to any extremity. Don't you fight other +people's quarrels: you may have enough of your own some day." + +"You're not sympathetic, Frank," he chided weakly. "I know you mean it +kindly, but it's impossible for me to do as you advise. I cannot give +up my friend. I really cannot let Lord Queensberry choose my friends +for me. It's too absurd." + +"But it's wise," I replied. "There's a very bad verse in one of Hugo's +plays. It always amused me--he likens poverty to a low door and +declares that when we have to pass through it the man who stoops +lowest is the wisest. So when you meet a madman, the wisest thing to +do is to avoid him and not quarrel with him." + +"It's very hard, Frank; of course I'll think over what you say. But +really Queensberry ought to be in a madhouse. He's too absurd," and in +that spirit he left me, outwardly self-confident. He might have +remembered Chaucer's words: + + Beware also to spurne again a nall; + Strive not as doeth a crocke with a wall; + Deme thy selfe that demest others dede, + And trouth thee shall deliver, it is no drede. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] "The Promise of May" was produced in November, 1882. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +These two years 1893-4 saw Oscar Wilde at the very zenith of success. +Thackeray, who always felt himself a monetary failure in comparison +with Dickens, calls success "one of the greatest of a great man's +qualities," and Oscar was not successful merely, he was triumphant. +Not Sheridan the day after his marriage, not Byron when he awoke to +find himself famous, ever reached such a pinnacle. His plays were +bringing in so much that he could spend money like water; he had won +every sort of popularity; the gross applause of the many, and the +finer incense of the few who constitute the jury of Fame; his personal +popularity too was extraordinary; thousands admired him, many liked +him; he seemed to have everything that heart could desire and perfect +health to boot. Even his home life was without a cloud. Two stories +which he told at this time paint him. One was about his two boys, +Vyvyan and Cyril. + +"Children are sometimes interesting," he began. "The other night I was +reading when my wife came and asked me to go upstairs and reprove the +elder boy: Cyril, it appeared, would not say his prayers. He had +quarrelled with Vyvyan, and beaten him, and when he was shaken and +told he must say his prayers, he would not kneel down, or ask God to +make him a good boy. Of course I had to go upstairs and see to it. I +took the chubby little fellow on my knee, and told him in a grave way +that he had been very naughty; naughty to hit his younger brother, and +naughty because he had given his mother pain. He must kneel down at +once, and ask God to forgive him and make him a good boy. + +"'I was not naughty,' he pouted, 'it was Vyvyan; he was naughty.' + +"I explained to him that his temper was naughty, and that he must do +as he was told. With a little sigh he slipped off my knee, and knelt +down and put his little hands together, as he had been taught, and +began 'Our Father.' When he had finished the 'Lord's Prayer,' he +looked up at me and said gravely, 'Now I'll pray to myself.' + +"He closed his eyes and his lips moved. When he had finished I took +him in my arms again and kissed him. 'That's right,' I said. + +"'You said you were sorry,' questioned his mother, leaning over him, +'and asked God to make you a good boy?' + +"'Yes, mother,' he nodded, 'I said I was sorry and asked God to make +Vyvyan a good boy.' + +"I had to leave the room, Frank, or he would have seen me smiling. +Wasn't it delightful of him! We are all willing to ask God to make +others good." + +This story shows the lovable side of him. There was another side not +so amiable. In April, 1893, "A Woman of No Importance" was produced by +Herbert Beerbohm Tree at The Haymarket and ran till the end of the +season, August 16th, surviving even the festival of St. Grouse. The +astonishing success of this second play confirmed Oscar Wilde's +popularity, gave him money to spend and increased his self-confidence. +In the summer he took a house up the river at Goring, and went there +to live with Lord Alfred Douglas. Weird stories came to us in London +about their life together. Some time in September, I think it was, I +asked him what was the truth underlying these reports. + +"Scandals and slanders, Frank, have no relation to truth," he replied. + +"I wonder if that's true," I said, "slander often has some substratum +of truth; it resembles the truth like a gigantic shadow; there is a +likeness at least in outline." + +"That would be true," he retorted, "if the canvas, so to speak, on +which the shadows fall were even and true; but it is not. Scandals +and slander are related to the hatred of the people who invent them +and are not in any shadowy sense even, effigies or images of the +person attacked." + +"Much smoke, then," I queried, "and no fire?" + +"Only little fires," he rejoined, "show much smoke. The foundation for +what you heard is both small and harmless. The summer was very warm +and beautiful, as you know, and I was up at Goring with Bosie. Often +in the middle of the day we were too hot to go on the river. One +afternoon it was sultry-close, and Bosie proposed that I should turn +the hose pipe on him. He went in and threw his things off and so did +I. A few minutes later I was seated in a chair with a bath towel round +me and Bosie was lying on the grass about ten yards away, when the +vicar came to pay us a call. The servant told him that we were in the +garden, and he came and found us there. Frank, you have no idea the +sort of face he pulled. What could I say?" + +"'I am the vicar of the parish,' he bowed pompously. + +"'I'm delighted to see you,' I said, getting up and draping myself +carefully, 'you have come just in time to enjoy a perfectly Greek +scene. I regret that I am scarcely fit to receive you, and Bosie +there'--and I pointed to Bosie lying on the grass. The vicar turned +his head and saw Bosie's white limbs; the sight was too much for him; +he got very red, gave a gasp and fled from the place. + +"I simply sat down in my chair and shrieked with laughter. How he may +have described the scene, what explanation he gave of it, what vile +gloss he may have invented, I don't know and I don't care. I have no +doubt he wagged his head and pursed his lips and looked unutterable +things. But really it takes a saint to suffer such fools gladly." + +I could not help smiling when I thought of the vicar's face, but +Oscar's tone was not pleasant. + +The change in him had gone further than I had feared. He was now +utterly contemptuous of criticism and would listen to no counsel. He +was gross, too, the rich food and wine seemed to ooze out of him and +his manner was defiant, hard. He was like some great pagan determined +to live his own life to the very fullest, careless of what others +might say or think or do. Even the stories which he wrote about this +time show the worst side of his paganism: + +"When Jesus was minded to return to Nazareth, Nazareth was so changed +that He no longer recognised His own city. The Nazareth where he had +lived was full of lamentations and tears; this city was filled with +outbursts of laughter and song.... + +"Christ went out of the house and, behold, in the street he saw a +woman whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod +with pearls, and behind her walked a man who wore a cloak of two +colours, and whose eyes were bright with lust. And Christ went up to +the man and laid His hand on his shoulder, and said to him, 'Tell me, +why art thou following this woman, and why dost thou look at her in +such wise?' The man turned round, recognised Him and said, 'I was +blind; Thou didst heal me; what else should I do with my sight?'" + +The same note is played on in two or three more incidents, but the one +I have given is the best, and should have been allowed to stand alone. +It has been called blasphemous; it is not intentionally blasphemous; +as I have said, Oscar always put himself quite naïvely in the place of +any historical character. + +The disdain of public opinion which Oscar now showed not only in his +writings, but in his answers to criticism, quickly turned the public +dislike into aggressive hatred. In 1894 a book appeared, "The Green +Carnation," which was a sort of photograph of Oscar as a talker and a +caricature of his thought. The gossipy story had a surprising success, +altogether beyond its merits, which simply testified to the intense +interest the suspicion of extraordinary viciousness has for common +minds. Oscar's genius was not given in the book at all, but his humour +was indicated and a malevolent doubt of his morality insisted upon +again and again. Rumour had it that the book was true in every +particular, that Mr. Hichens had taken down Oscar's talks evening +after evening and simply reproduced them. I asked Oscar if this was +true. + +"True enough, Frank," he replied with a certain contempt which was +foreign to him. "Hichens got to know Bosie Douglas in Egypt. They went +up the Nile together, I believe with 'Dodo' Benson. Naturally Bosie +talked a great deal about me and Hichens wanted to know me. When they +returned to town, I thought him rather pleasant, and saw a good deal +of him. I had no idea that he was going to play reporter; it seems to +me a breach of confidence--ignoble." + +"It is not a picture of you," I said, "but there is a certain +likeness." + +"A photograph is always like and unlike, Frank," he replied; "the sun +too, when used mechanically, is merely a reporter, and traduces +instead of reproducing you." + +"The Green Carnation" ruined Oscar Wilde's character with the general +public. On all sides the book was referred to as confirming the worst +suspicions: the cloud which hung over him grew continually darker. + +During the summer of 1894 he wrote the "Ideal Husband," which was the +outcome of a story I had told him. I had heard it from an American I +had met in Cairo, a Mr. Cope Whitehouse. He told me that Disraeli had +made money by entrusting the Rothschilds with the purchase of the Suez +Canal shares. It seemed to me strange that this statement, if true, +had never been set forth authoritatively; but the story was peculiarly +modern, and had possibilities in it. Oscar admitted afterwards that he +had taken the idea and used it in "An Ideal Husband." + +It was in this summer also that he wrote "The Importance of Being +Earnest," his finest play. He went to the seaside and completed it, he +said, in three weeks, and, when I spoke of the delight he must feel at +having two plays performed in London at the same time, he said: + +"Next year, Frank, I may have four or five; I could write one every +two months with the greatest ease. It all depends on money. If I need +money I shall write half a dozen plays next year." + +His words reminded me of what Goethe had said about himself: in each +of the ten years he spent on his "Theory of Light" he could have +written a couple of plays as good as his best. The land of +Might-have-been is peopled with these gorgeous shadow-shapes. + +Oscar had already found his public, a public capable of appreciating +the very best he could do. As soon as "The Importance of Being +Earnest" was produced it had an extraordinary success, and success of +the best sort. Even journalist critics had begun to cease exhibiting +their own limitations in foolish fault-finding, and now imitated their +betters, parroting phrases of extravagant laudation. + +Oscar took the praise as he had taken the scandal and slander, with +complacent superiority. He had changed greatly and for the worse: he +was growing coarser and harder every year. All his friends noticed +this. Even M. André Gide, who was a great admirer and wrote, shortly +after his death, the best account of him that appeared, was compelled +to deplore his deterioration. He says: + +"One felt that there was less tenderness in his looks, that there was +something harsh in his laughter, and a wild madness in his joy. He +seemed at the same time to be sure of pleasing, and less ambitious to +succeed therein. He had grown reckless, hardened and conceited. +Strangely enough he no longer spoke in fables...." + +His brother Willie made a similar complaint to Sir Edward Sullivan. +Sir Edward writes: + + "William Wilde told me, when Oscar was in prison, that the + only trouble between him and his brother was caused by + Oscar's inordinate vanity in the period before his + conviction. 'He had surrounded himself,' William said, 'with + a gang of parasites who praised him all day long, and to + whom he used to give his cigarette-cases, breast pins, etc., + in return for their sickening flattery. No one, not even I, + his brother, dared offer any criticism on his works without + offending him.'" + +If proof were needed both of his reckless contempt for public opinion +and the malignancy with which he was misjudged, it could be found in +an incident which took place towards the end of 1894. A journal +entitled _The Chameleon_ was produced by some Oxford undergraduates. +Oscar wrote for it a handful of sayings which he called "Phrases and +Philosophies for the Use of the Young." His epigrams were harmless +enough; but in the same number there appeared a story entitled "The +Priest and the Acolyte" which could hardly be defended. The mere fact +that his work was printed in the same journal called forth a storm of +condemnation though he had never seen the story before it was +published nor had he anything to do with its insertion. + +Nemesis was following hard after him. Late in this year he spoke to +me of his own accord about Lord Queensberry. He wanted my advice: + +"Lord Queensberry is annoying me," he said; "I did my best to +reconcile him and Bosie. One day at the Café Royal, while Bosie and I +were lunching there, Queensberry came in and I made Bosie go over and +fetch his father and bring him to lunch with us. He was half friendly +with me till quite recently; though he wrote a shameful letter to +Bosie about us. What am I to do?" + +I asked him what Lord Queensberry objected to. + +"He objects to my friendship with Bosie." + +"Then why not cease to see Bosie?" I asked. + +"It is impossible, Frank, and ridiculous; why should I give up my +friends for Queensberry?" + +"I should like to see Queensberry's letter," I said. "Is it possible?" + +"I'll bring it to you, Frank, but there's nothing in it." A day or two +later he showed me the letter, and after I had read it he produced a +copy of the telegram which Lord Alfred Douglas had sent to his father +in reply. Here they both are; they speak for themselves loudly enough: + + ALFRED,-- + + It is extremely painful for me to have to write to you in + the strain I must; but please understand that I decline to + receive any answers from you in writing in return. After + your recent hysterical impertinent ones I refuse to be + annoyed with such, and I decline to read any more letters. + If you have anything to say do come here and say it in + person. Firstly, am I to understand that, having left Oxford + as you did, with discredit to yourself, the reasons of which + were fully explained to me by your tutor, you now intend to + loaf and loll about and do nothing? All the time you were + wasting at Oxford I was put off with an assurance that you + were eventually to go into the Civil Service or to the + Foreign Office, and then I was put off with an assurance + that you were going to the Bar. It appears to me that you + intend to do nothing. I utterly decline, however, to just + supply you with sufficient funds to enable you to loaf + about. You are preparing a wretched future for yourself, and + it would be most cruel and wrong for me to encourage you in + this. Secondly, I come to the more painful part of this + letter--your intimacy with this man Wilde. It must either + cease or I will disown you and stop all money supplies. I am + not going to try and analyse this intimacy, and I make no + charge; but to my mind to pose as a thing is as bad as to be + it. With my own eyes I saw you both in the most loathsome + and disgusting relationship as expressed by your manner and + expression. Never in my experience have I ever seen such a + sight as that in your horrible features. No wonder people + are talking as they are. Also I now hear on good authority, + but this may be false, that his wife is petitioning to + divorce him for sodomy and other crimes. Is this true, or do + you not know of it? If I thought the actual thing was true, + and it became public property, I should be quite justified + in shooting him at sight. These Christian English cowards + and men, as they call themselves, want waking up. + + Your disgusted so-called father, + + QUEENSBERRY. + +In reply to this letter Lord Alfred Douglas telegraphed: + + "What a funny little man you are! ALFRED DOUGLAS." + +This telegram was excellently calculated to drive Queensberry frantic +with rage. There was feminine cunning in its wound to vanity. + +A little later Oscar told me that Queensberry accompanied by a friend +had called on him. + +"What happened?" I asked. + +"I said to him, 'I suppose, Lord Queensberry, you have come to +apologise for the libellous letter you wrote about me?' + +"'No,' he replied, 'the letter was privileged; it was written to my +son.' + +"'How dared you say such a thing about your son and me?' + +"'You were both kicked out of The Savoy Hotel for disgusting conduct,' +he replied. + +"'That's untrue,' I said, 'absolutely untrue.' + +"'You were blackmailed too for a disgusting letter you wrote my son,' +he went on. + +"'I don't know who has been telling you all these silly stories,' I +replied, 'but they are untrue and quite ridiculous.' + +"He ended up by saying that if he caught me and his son together again +he would thrash me. + +"'I don't know what the Queensberry rules are,' I retorted, 'but my +rule is to shoot at sight in case of personal violence,' and with +that I told him to leave my house." + +"Of course he defied you?" I questioned. + +"He was rude, Frank, and preposterous to the end." + +As Oscar was telling me the story, it seemed to me as if another +person were speaking through his mouth. The idea of Oscar "standing +up" to Queensberry or "shooting at sight" was too absurd. Who was +inspiring him? Alfred Douglas? + +"What has happened since?" I enquired. + +"Nothing," he replied, "perhaps he will be quiet now. Bosie has +written him a terrible letter; he must see now that, if he goes on, he +will only injure his own flesh and blood." + +"That won't stop him," I replied, "if I read him aright. But if I +could see what Alfred Douglas wrote, I should be better able to judge +of the effect it will have on Queensberry." + +A little later I saw the letter: it shows better than words of mine +the tempers of the chief actors in this squalid story: + + "As you return my letters unopened, I am obliged to write on + a postcard. I write to inform you that I treat your absurd + threats with absolute indifference. Ever since your + exhibition at O.W.'s house, I have made a point of appearing + with him at many public restaurants such as The Berkeley, + Willis's Rooms, the Café Royal, etc., and I shall continue + to go to any of these places whenever I choose and with + whom I choose. I am of age and my own master. You have + disowned me at least a dozen times, and have very meanly + deprived me of money. You have therefore no right over me, + either legal or moral. If O.W. was to prosecute you in the + Central Criminal Court for libel, you would get seven years' + penal servitude for your outrageous libels. Much as I detest + you, I am anxious to avoid this for the sake of the family; + but if you try to assault me, I shall defend myself with a + loaded revolver, which I always carry; and if I shoot you or + if he shoots you, we shall be completely justified, as we + shall be acting in self-defence against a violent and + dangerous rough, and I think if you were dead many people + would not miss you.--A.D." + +This letter of the son seemed to me appalling. My guess was right; it +was he who was speaking through Oscar; the threat of shooting at sight +came from him. I did not then understand all the circumstances; I had +not met Lady Queensberry. I could not have imagined how she had +suffered at the hands of her husband--a charming, cultivated woman, +with exquisite taste in literature and art; a woman of the most +delicate, aspen-like sensibilities and noble generosities, coupled +with that violent, coarse animal with the hot eyes and combative +nature. Her married life had been a martyrdom. Naturally the children +had all taken her side in the quarrel, and Lord Alfred Douglas, her +especial favourite, had practically identified himself with her, +which explains to some extent, though nothing can justify, the +unnatural animosity of his letter. The letter showed me that the +quarrel was far deeper, far bitterer than I had imagined--one of those +dreadful family quarrels, where the intimate knowledge each has of the +other whips anger to madness. All I could do was to warn Oscar. + +"It's the old, old story," I said. "You are putting your hand between +the bark and the tree, and you will suffer for it." But he would not +or could not see it. + +"What is one to do with such a madman?" he asked pitiably. + +"Avoid him," I replied, "as you would avoid a madman, who wanted to +fight with you; or conciliate him; there is nothing else to do." + +He would not be warned. A little later the matter came up again. At +the first production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" Lord +Queensberry appeared at the theatre carrying a large bouquet of +turnips and carrots. What the meaning was of those vegetables only the +man himself and his like could divine. I asked Oscar about the matter. +He seemed annoyed but on the whole triumphant. + +"Queensberry," he said, "had engaged a stall at the St. James's +Theatre, no doubt to kick up a row; but as soon as I heard of it I got +Alick (George Alexander) to send him back his money. On the night of +the first performance Queensberry appeared carrying a large bundle of +carrots. He was refused admittance at the box-office, and when he +tried to enter the gallery the police would not let him in. He must be +mad, Frank, don't you think? I am glad he was foiled." + +"He is insanely violent," I said, "he will keep on attacking you." + +"But what can I do, Frank?" + +"Don't ask for advice you won't take," I replied. "There's a French +proverb I've always liked: 'In love and war don't seek counsel.' But +for God's sake, don't drift. Stop while you can." + +But Oscar would have had to take a resolution and act in order to +stop, and he was incapable of such energy. The wild horses of Fate had +run away with the light chariot of his fortune, and what the end would +be no one could foresee. It came with appalling suddenness. + +One evening, in February, '95, I heard that the Marquis of Queensberry +had left an insulting card for Oscar at the Albemarle Club. My +informant added gleefully that now Oscar would have to face the music +and we'd all see what was in him. There was no malice in this, just +an Englishman's pleasure in a desperate fight, and curiosity as to +the issue. + +A little later I received a letter from Oscar, asking me if he could +call on me that afternoon. I stayed in, and about four o'clock he came +to see me. + +At first he used the old imperious mask, which he had lately +accustomed himself to wear. + +"I am bringing an action against Queensberry, Frank," he began +gravely, "for criminal libel. He is a mere wild beast. My solicitors +tell me that I am certain to win. But they say some of the things I +have written will be brought up against me in court. Now you know all +I have written. Would you in your position as editor of _The +Fortnightly_ come and give evidence for me, testify for instance that +'Dorian Gray' is not immoral?" + +"Yes," I replied at once, "I should be perfectly willing, and I could +say more than that; I could say that you are one of the very few men I +have ever known whose talk and whose writings were vowed away from +grossness of any sort." + +"Oh! Frank, would you? It would be so kind of you," he cried out. "My +solicitors said I ought to ask you, but they were afraid you would not +like to come: your evidence will win the case. It is good of you." His +whole face was shaken; he turned away to hide the tears. + +"Anything I can do, Oscar," I said, "I shall do with pleasure, and, as +you know, to the uttermost; but I want you to consider the matter +carefully. An English court of law gives me no assurance of a fair +trial or rather I am certain that in matters of art or morality an +English court is about the worst tribunal in the civilised world." + +He shook his head impatiently. + +"I cannot help it, I cannot alter it," he said. + +"You must listen to me," I insisted. "You remember the Whistler and +Ruskin action. You know that Whistler ought to have won. You know that +Ruskin was shamelessly in fault; but the British jury and the +so-called British artists treated Whistler and his superb work with +contempt. Take a different case altogether, the Belt case, where all +the Academicians went into the witness box, and asserted honestly +enough that Belt was an impostor, yet the jury gave him a verdict of +£5,000, though a year later he was sent to penal servitude for the +very frauds which the jury in the first trial had declared by their +verdict he had not committed. An English law court is all very well +for two average men, who are fighting an ordinary business dispute. +That's what it's made for, but to judge a Whistler or the ability or +the immorality of an artist is to ask the court to do what it is +wholly unfit to do. There is not a judge on the bench whose opinion on +such a matter is worth a moment's consideration, and the jury are a +thousand years behind the judge." + +"That may be true, Frank; but I cannot help it." + +"Don't forget," I persisted, "all British prejudices will be against +you. Here is a father, the fools will say, trying to protect his young +son. If he has made a mistake, it is only through excess of laudable +zeal; you would have to prove yourself a religious maniac in order to +have any chance against him in England." + +"How terrible you are, Frank. You know it is Bosie Douglas who wants +me to fight, and my solicitors tell me I shall win." + +"Solicitors live on quarrels. Of course they want a case that will +bring hundreds if not thousands of pounds into their pockets. Besides +they like the fight. They will have all the kudos of it and the fun, +and you will pay the piper. For God's sake don't be led into it: that +way madness lies." + +"But, Frank," he objected weakly, "how can I sit down under such an +insult. I must do something." + +"That's another story," I replied. "Let us by all means weigh what is +to be done. But let us begin by putting the law-courts out of the +question. Don't forget that you are challenged to mortal combat. Let +us consider how the challenge should be met, but we won't fight under +Queensberry rules because Queensberry happens to be the aggressor. +Don't forget that if you lose and Queensberry goes free, everyone will +hold that you have been guilty of nameless vice. Put the law courts +out of your head. Whatever else you do, you must not bring an action +for criminal libel against Queensberry. You are sure to lose it; you +haven't a dog's chance, and the English despise the beaten--_væ +victis_! Don't commit suicide." + +Nothing was determined when the time came to part. + +This conversation took place, I believe, on the Friday or Saturday. I +spent the whole of Sunday trying to find out what was known about +Oscar Wilde and what would be brought up against him. I wanted to know +too how he was regarded in an ordinary middle-class English home. + +My investigations had appalling results. Everyone assumed that Oscar +Wilde was guilty of the worst that had ever been alleged against him; +the very people who received him in their houses condemned him +pitilessly and, as I approached the fountain-head of information, the +charges became more and more definite; to my horror, in the Public +Prosecutor's office, his guilt was said to be known and classified. + +All "people of importance" agreed that he would lose his case against +Queensberry; "no English jury would give Oscar Wilde a verdict against +anyone," was the expert opinion. + +"How unjust!" I cried. + +A careless shrug was the only reply. + +I returned home from my enquiries late on Sunday afternoon, and in a +few minutes Oscar called by appointment. I told him I was more +convinced than ever that he must not go on with the prosecution; he +would be certain to lose. Without beating about the bush I declared +that he had no earthly chance. + +"There are letters," I said, "which are infinitely worse than your +published writings, which will be put in evidence against you." + +"What letters do you mean, Frank?" he questioned. "The Wood letters to +Lord Alfred Douglas I told you about? I can explain all of them." + +"You paid blackmail to Wood for letters you had written to Douglas," I +replied, "and you will not be able to explain that fact to the +satisfaction of a jury. I am told it is possible that witnesses will +be called against you. Take it from me, Oscar, you have not a ghost +of a chance." + +"Tell me what you mean, Frank, for God's sake," he cried. + +"I can tell you in a word," I replied; "you will lose your case. I +have promised not to say more." + +I tried to persuade him by his vanity. + +"You must remember," I said, "that you are a sort of standard bearer +for future generations. If you lose you will make it harder for all +writers in England; though God knows it is hard enough already; you +will put back the hands of the clock for fifty years." + +I seemed almost to have persuaded him. He questioned me: + +"What is the alternative, Frank, the wisest thing to do in your +opinion? Tell me that." + +"You ought to go abroad," I replied, "go abroad with your wife, and +let Queensberry and his son fight out their own miserable quarrels; +they are well-matched." + +"Oh, Frank," he cried, "how can I do that?" + +"Sleep on it," I replied; "I am going to, and we can talk it all over +in a day or two." + +"But I must know," he said wistfully, "to-morrow morning, Frank." + +"Bernard Shaw is lunching with me to-morrow," I replied, "at the Café +Royal." + +He made an impatient movement of his head. + +"He usually goes early," I went on, "and if you like to come after +three o'clock we can have a talk and consider it all." + +"May I bring Bosie?" he enquired. + +"I would rather you did not," I replied, "but it is for you to do just +as you like. I don't mind saying what I have to say, before anyone," +and on that we parted. + +Somehow or other next day at lunch both Shaw and I got interested in +our talk, and we were both at the table when Oscar came in. I +introduced them, but they had met before. Shaw stood up and proposed +to go at once, but Oscar with his usual courtesy assured him that he +would be glad if he stayed. + +"Then, Oscar," I said, "perhaps you won't mind Shaw hearing what I +advise?" + +"No, Frank, I don't mind," he sighed with a pitiful air of depression. + +I am not certain and my notes do not tell me whether Bosie Douglas +came in with Oscar or a little later, but he heard the greater part of +our talk. I put the matter simply. + +"First of all," I said, "we start with the certainty that you are +going to lose the case against Queensberry. You must give it up, drop +it at once; but you cannot drop it and stay in England. Queensberry +would probably attack you again and again. I know him well; he is +half a savage and regards pity as a weakness; he has absolutely no +consideration for others. + +"You should go abroad, and, as ace of trumps, you should take your +wife with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a +letter as you alone can write to _The Times_. You should set forth how +you have been insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and how you went +naturally to the Courts for a remedy, but you found out very soon that +this was a mistake. No jury would give a verdict against a father, +however mistaken he might be. The only thing for you to do therefore +is to go abroad, and leave the whole ring, with its gloves and ropes, +its sponges and pails, to Lord Queensberry. You are a maker of +beautiful things, you should say, and not a fighter. Whereas the +Marquis of Queensberry takes joy only in fighting. You refuse to fight +with a father under these circumstances." + +Oscar seemed to be inclined to do as I proposed. I appealed to Shaw, +and Shaw said he thought I was right; the case would very likely go +against Oscar, a jury would hardly give a verdict against a father +trying to protect his son. Oscar seemed much moved. I think it was +about this time that Bosie Douglas came in. At Oscar's request, I +repeated my argument and to my astonishment Douglas got up at once, +and cried with his little white, venomous, distorted face: + +"Such advice shows you are no friend of Oscar's." + +"What do you mean?" I asked in wonderment; but he turned and left the +room on the spot. To my astonishment Oscar also got up. + +"It is not friendly of you, Frank," he said weakly. "It really is not +friendly." + +I stared at him: he was parrotting Douglas' idiotic words. + +"Don't be absurd," I said; but he repeated: + +"No, Frank, it is not friendly," and went to the door and disappeared. + +Like a flash I saw part at least of the truth. It was not Oscar who +had ever misled Douglas, but Lord Alfred Douglas who was driving Oscar +whither he would. + +I turned to Shaw. + +"Did I say anything in the heat of argument that could have offended +Oscar or Douglas?" + +"Nothing," said Shaw, "not a word: you have nothing to reproach +yourself with."[12] + +Left to myself I was at a loss to imagine what Lord Alfred Douglas +proposed to himself by hounding Oscar on to attack his father. I was +still more surprised by his white, bitter face. I could not get rid of +the impression it left on me. While groping among these reflections I +was suddenly struck by a sort of likeness, a similarity of expression +and of temper between Lord Alfred Douglas and his unhappy father. I +could not get it out of my head--that little face blanched with rage +and the wild, hating eyes; the shrill voice, too, was Queensberry's. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] I am very glad that Bernard Shaw has lately put in print his +memory of this conversation. The above account was printed, though not +published, in 1911, and in 1914 Shaw published his recollection of +what took place at this consultation. Readers may judge from the +comparison how far my general story is worthy of credence. In the +Introduction to his playlet, "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets," Shaw +writes: + +"Yet he (Harris) knows the taste and the value of humour. He was one +of the few men of letters who really appreciated Oscar Wilde, though +he did not rally fiercely to Wilde's side until the world deserted +Oscar in his ruin. I myself was present at a curious meeting between +the two when Harris on the eve of the Queensberry trial prophesied to +Wilde with miraculous precision exactly what immediately afterwards +happened to him and warned him to leave the country. It was the first +time within my knowledge that such a forecast proved true. Wilde, +though under no illusion as to the folly of the quite unselfish +suit-at-law he had been persuaded to begin, nevertheless so +miscalculated the force of the social vengeance he was unloosing on +himself that he fancied it could be stayed by putting up the editor of +_The Saturday Review_ (as Mr. Harris then was) to declare that he +considered _Dorian Gray_ a highly moral book, which it certainly is. +When Harris foretold him the truth, Wilde denounced him as a +faint-hearted friend who was failing him in his hour of need and left +the room in anger. Harris's idiosyncratic power of pity saved him from +feeling or showing the smallest resentment; and events presently +proved to Wilde how insanely he had been advised in taking the action, +and how accurately Harris had gauged the situation." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +It was weakness in Oscar and not strength that allowed him to be +driven to the conflict by Lord Alfred Douglas; it was his weakness +again which prevented him from abandoning the prosecution, once it was +begun. Such a resolution would have involved a breaking away from his +associates and from his friends; a personal assertion of will of which +he was incapable. Again and again he answered my urging with: + +"I can't, Frank, I can't." + +When I pointed out to him that the defence was growing bolder--it was +announced one morning in the newspapers that Lord Queensberry, instead +of pleading paternal privilege and minimising his accusation, was +determined to justify the libel and declare that it was true in every +particular--Oscar could only say weakly: + +"I can't help it, Frank, I can't do anything; you only distress me by +predicting disaster." + +The fibres of resolution, never strong in him, had been destroyed by +years of self-indulgence, while the influence whipping him was +stronger than I guessed. He was hurried like a sheep to the +slaughter. + +Although everyone who cared to think knew that Queensberry would win +the case, many persons believed that Oscar would make a brilliant +intellectual fight, and carry off the honours, if not the verdict. + +The trial took place at the Central Criminal Court on April 3rd, 1895. +Mr. Justice Collins was the judge and the case was conducted at first +with the outward seemliness and propriety which are so peculiarly +English. An hour before the opening of the case the Court was crowded, +not a seat to be had for love or money: even standing room was at a +premium. + +The Counsel were the best at the Bar; Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., Mr. +Charles Mathews, and Mr. Travers Humphreys for the prosecution; Mr. +Carson, Q.C., Mr. G.C. Gill and Mr. A. Gill for the defence. Mr. +Besley, Q.C., and Mr. Monckton watched the case, it was said, for the +brothers, Lord Douglas of Hawick and Lord Alfred Douglas. + +While waiting for the judge, the buzz of talk in the court grew loud; +everybody agreed that the presence of Sir Edward Clarke gave Oscar an +advantage. Mr. Carson was not so well known then as he has since +become; he was regarded as a sharp-witted Irishman who had still his +spurs to win. Some knew he had been at school with Oscar, and at +Trinity College was as high in the second class as Oscar was in the +first. It was said he envied Oscar his reputation for brilliance. + +Suddenly the loud voice of the clerk called for silence. + +As the judge appeared everyone stood up and in complete stillness Sir +Edward Clarke opened for the prosecution. The bleak face, long upper +lip and severe side whiskers made the little man look exactly like a +nonconformist parson of the old days, but his tone and manner were +modern--quiet and conversational. The charge, he said, was that the +defendant had published a false and malicious libel against Mr. Oscar +Wilde. The libel was in the form of a card which Lord Queensberry had +left at a club to which Mr. Oscar Wilde belonged: it could not be +justified unless the statements written on the card were true. It +would, however, have been possible to have excused the card by a +strong feeling, a mistaken feeling, on the part of a father, but the +plea which the defendant had brought before the Court raised graver +issues. He said that the statement was true and was made for the +public benefit. There were besides a series of accusations in the plea +(everyone held his breath), mentioning names of persons, and it was +said with regard to these persons that Mr. Wilde had solicited them to +commit a grave offence and that he had been guilty with each and all +of them of indecent practices...." My heart seemed to stop. My worst +forebodings were more than justified. Vaguely I heard Clarke's voice, +"grave responsibility ... serious allegations ... credible witnesses +... Mr. Oscar Wilde was the son of Sir William Wilde ..." the voice +droned on and I awoke to feverish clearness of brain. Queensberry had +turned the defence into a prosecution. Why had he taken the risk? Who +had given him the new and precise information? I felt that there was +nothing before Oscar but ruin absolute. Could anything be done? Even +now he could go abroad--even now. I resolved once more to try and +induce him to fly. + +My interest turned from these passionate imaginings to the actual. +Would Sir Edward Clarke fight the case as it should be fought? He had +begun to tell of the friendship between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred +Douglas; the friendship too between Oscar Wilde and Lady Queensberry, +who on her own petition had been divorced from the Marquis; would he +go on to paint the terrible ill-feeling that existed between Lord +Alfred Douglas and his father, and show how Oscar had been dragged +into the bitter family squabble? To the legal mind this had but little +to do with the case. + +We got, instead, a dry relation of the facts which have already been +set forth in this history. Wright, the porter of the Albemarle Club, +was called to say that Lord Queensberry had handed him the card +produced. Witness had looked at the card; did not understand it; but +put it in an envelope and gave it to Mr. Wilde. + +Mr. Oscar Wilde was then called and went into the witness box. He +looked a little grave but was composed and serious. Sir Edward Clarke +took him briefly through the incidents of his life: his successes at +school and the University; the attempts made to blackmail him, the +insults of Lord Queensberry, and then directed his attention to the +allegations in the plea impugning his conduct with different persons. +Mr. Oscar Wilde declared that there was no truth in any of these +statements. Hereupon Sir Edward Clarke sat down. Mr. Carson rose and +the death duel began. + +Mr. Carson brought out that Oscar Wilde was forty years of age and +Lord Alfred Douglas twenty-four. Down to the interview in Tite Street +Lord Queensberry had been friendly with Mr. Wilde. + +"Had Mr. Wilde written in a publication called _The Chameleon_?" + +"Yes." + +"Had he written there a story called 'The Priest and the Acolyte'?" + +"No." + +"Was that story immoral?" + +Oscar amused everyone by replying: + +"Much worse than immoral, it was badly written," but feeling that this +gibe was too light for the occasion he added: + +"It was altogether offensive and perfect twaddle." + +He admitted at once that he did not express his disapproval of it; it +was "beneath him to concern himself with the effusions of an +illiterate undergraduate." + +"Did Mr. Wilde ever consider the effect in his writings of inciting to +immorality?" + +Oscar declared that he aimed neither at good nor evil, but tried to +make a beautiful thing. When questioned as to the immorality in +thought in the article in _The Chameleon_, he retorted "that there is +no such thing as morality or immorality in thought." A hum of +understanding and approval ran through the court; the intellect is +profoundly amoral. + +Again and again he scored in this way off Mr. Carson. + +"No work of art ever puts forward views; views belong to the +Philistines and not to artists."... + +"What do you think of this view?" + +"I don't think of any views except my own." + +All this while Mr. Carson had been hitting at a man on his own level; +but Oscar Wilde was above him and not one of his blows had taken +effect. Every moment, too, Oscar grew more and more at his ease, and +the combat seemed to be turning completely in his favour. Mr. Carson +at length took up "Dorian Gray" and began cross-examining on passages +in it. + +"You talk about one man adoring another. Did you ever adore any man?" + +"No," replied Oscar quietly, "I have never adored anyone but myself." + +The Court roared with laughter. Oscar went on: + +"There are people in the world, I regret to say, who cannot understand +the deep affection that an artist can feel for a friend with a +beautiful personality." + +He was then questioned about his letter (already quoted here) to Lord +Alfred Douglas. It was a prose-poem, he said, written in answer to a +sonnet. He had not written to other people in the same strain, not +even to Lord Alfred Douglas again: he did not repeat himself in +style. + +Mr. Carson read another letter from Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred +Douglas, which paints their relations with extraordinary exactness. +Here it is: + + SAVOY HOTEL, + VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON. + + DEAREST OF ALL BOYS,-- + + Your letter was delightful, red and yellow wine to me; but I + am sad and out of sorts. Bosie, you must not make scenes + with me. They kill me, they wreck the loveliness of life. I + cannot see you, so Greek and gracious, distorted with + passion. I cannot listen to your curved lips saying hideous + things to me. I would sooner ('here a word is + indecipherable,' Mr. Carson went on, 'but I will ask the + witness')[13]--than have you bitter, unjust, hating.... I + must see you soon. You are the divine thing I want, the + thing of genius and beauty; but I don't know how to do it. + Shall I come to Salisbury? My bill here is £49 for a week. I + have also got a new sitting-room.... Why are you not here, + my dear, my wonderful boy? I fear I must leave--no money, no + credit, and a heart of lead. + + YOUR OWN OSCAR. + +Oscar said that it was an expression of his tender admiration for Lord +Alfred Douglas. + +"You have said," Mr. Carson went on, "that all the statements about +persons in the plea of justification were false. Do you still hold to +that assertion?" + +"I do." + +Mr. Carson then paused and looked at the Judge. Justice Collins +shuffled his papers together and announced that the cross-examination +would be continued on the morrow. As the Judge went out, all the +tongues in the court broke loose. Oscar was surrounded by friends +congratulating him and rejoicing. + +I was not so happy and went away to think the matter out. I tried to +keep up my courage by recalling the humorous things Oscar had said +during the cross-examination. I recalled too the dull commonplaces of +Mr. Carson. I tried to persuade myself that it was all going on very +well. But in the back of my mind I realised that Oscar's answers, +characteristic and clever as many of them were, had not impressed the +jury, were indeed rather calculated to alienate them. He had taken the +purely artistic standpoint, had not attempted to go higher and reach a +synthesis which would conciliate the Philistine jurymen as well as the +thinking public, and the Judge. + +Mr. Carson was in closer touch with the jury, being nearer their +intellectual level, and there was a terrible menace in his last words. +To-morrow, I said to myself, he will begin to examine about persons +and not books. He did not win on the literary question, but he was +right to bring it in. The passages he had quoted, and especially +Oscar's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, had created a strong prejudice +in the minds of the jury. They ought not to have had this effect, I +thought, but they had. My contempt for Courts of law deepened: those +twelve jurymen were anything but the peers of the accused: how could +they judge him? + + * * * * * + +The second day of the trial was very different from the first. There +seemed to be a gloom over the Court. Oscar went into the box as if it +had been the dock; he had lost all his spring. Mr. Carson settled down +to the cross-examination with apparent zest. It was evident from his +mere manner that he was coming to what he regarded as the strong part +of his case. He began by examining Oscar as to his intimacy with a +person named Taylor. + +"Has Taylor been to your house and to your chambers?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you been to Taylor's rooms to afternoon tea parties?" + +"Yes." + +"Did Taylor's rooms strike you as peculiar?" + +"They were pretty rooms." + +"Have you ever seen them lit by anything else but candles even in the +day time?" + +"I think so. I'm not sure." + +"Have you ever met there a young man called Wood?" + +"On one occasion." + +"Have you ever met Sidney Mavor there at tea?" + +"It is possible." + +"What was your connection with Taylor?" + +"Taylor was a friend, a young man of intelligence and education: he +had been to a good English school." + +"Did you know Taylor was being watched by the police?" + +"No." + +"Did you know that Taylor was arrested with a man named Parker in a +raid made last year on a house in Fitzroy Square?" + +"I read of it in the newspaper." + +"Did that cause you to drop your acquaintance with Taylor?" + +"No; Taylor explained to me that he had gone there to a dance, and +that the magistrate had dismissed the case against him." + +"Did you get Taylor to arrange dinners for you to meet young men?" + +"No; I have dined with Taylor at a restaurant." + +"How many young men has Taylor introduced to you?" + +"Five in all." + +"Did you give money or presents to these five?" + +"I may have done." + +"Did they give you anything?" + +"Nothing." + +"Among the five men Taylor introduced you to, was one named Parker?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you get on friendly terms with him?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you call him 'Charlie' and allow him to call you 'Oscar'?" + +"Yes." + +"How old was Parker?" + +"I don't keep a census of people's ages. It would be vulgar to ask +people their age." + +"Where did you first meet Parker?" + +"I invited Taylor to Kettner's[14] on the occasion of my birthday, and +told him to bring what friends he liked. He brought Parker and his +brother." + +"Did you know Parker was a gentleman's servant out of work, and his +brother a groom?" + +"No; I did not." + +"But you did know that Parker was not a literary character or an +artist, and that culture was not his strong point?" + +"I did." + +"What was there in common between you and Charlie Parker?" + +"I like people who are young, bright, happy, careless and original. I +do not like them sensible, and I do not like them old; I don't like +social distinctions of any kind, and the mere fact of youth is so +wonderful to me that I would sooner talk to a young man for half an +hour than be cross examined by an elderly Q.C." + +Everyone smiled at this retort. + +"Had you chambers in St. James's Place?" + +"Yes, from October, '93, to April, '94." + +"Did Charlie Parker go and have tea with you there?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you give him money?" + +"I gave him three or four pounds because he said he was hard up." + +"What did he give you in return?" + +"Nothing." + +"Did you give Charlie Parker a silver cigarette case at Christmas?" + +"I did." + +"Did you visit him one night at 12:30 at Park Walk, Chelsea?" + +"I did not." + +"Did you write him any beautiful prose-poems?" + +"I don't think so." + +"Did you know that Charlie Parker had enlisted in the Army?" + +"I have heard so." + +"When you heard that Taylor was arrested what did you do?" + +"I was greatly distressed and wrote to tell him so." + +"When did you first meet Fred Atkins?" + +"In October or November, '92." + +"Did he tell you that he was employed by a firm of bookmakers?" + +"He may have done." + +"Not a literary man or an artist, was he?" + +"No." + +"What age was he?" + +"Nineteen or twenty." + +"Did you ask him to dinner at Kettner's?" + +"I think I met him at a dinner at Kettner's." + +"Was Taylor at the dinner?" + +"He may have been." + +"Did you meet him afterwards?" + +"I did." + +"Did you call him 'Fred' and let him call you 'Oscar'?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you go to Paris with him?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you give him money?" + +"Yes." + +"Was there ever any impropriety between you?" + +"No." + +"When did you first meet Ernest Scarfe?" + +"In December, 1893." + +"Who introduced him to you?" + +"Taylor." + +"Scarfe was out of work, was he not?" + +"He may have been." + +"Did Taylor bring Scarfe to you at St. James's Place?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you give Scarfe a cigarette case?" + +"Yes: it was my custom to give cigarette cases to people I liked." + +"When did you first meet Mavor?" + +"In '93." + +"Did you give him money or a cigarette case?" + +"A cigarette case." + +"Did you know Walter Grainger?"... and so on till the very air in the +court seemed peopled with spectres. + +On the whole Oscar bore the cross-examination very well; but he made +one appalling slip. + +Mr. Carson was pressing him as to his relations with the boy Grainger, +who had been employed in Lord Alfred Douglas' rooms in Oxford. + +"Did you ever kiss him?" he asked. + +Oscar answered carelessly, "Oh, dear, no. He was a peculiarly plain +boy. He was, unfortunately, extremely ugly. I pitied him for it." + +"Was that the reason why you did not kiss him?" + +"Oh, Mr. Carson, you are pertinently insolent." + +"Did you say that in support of your statement that you never kissed +him?" + +"No. It is a childish question." + +But Carson was not to be warded off; like a terrier he sprang again +and again: + +"Why, sir, did you mention that this boy was extremely ugly?" + +"For this reason. If I were asked why I did not kiss a door-mat, I +should say because I do not like to kiss door-mats."... + +"Why did you mention his ugliness?" + +"It is ridiculous to imagine that any such thing could have occurred +under any circumstances." + +"Then why did you mention his ugliness, I ask you?" + +"Because you insulted me by an insulting question." + +"Was that a reason why you should say the boy was ugly?" + +(Here the witness began several answers almost inarticulately and +finished none of them. His efforts to collect his ideas were not aided +by Mr. Carson's sharp staccato repetition: "Why? why? why did you add +that?") At last the witness answered: + +"You sting me and insult me and at times one says things flippantly." + +Then came the re-examination by Sir Edward Clarke, which brought out +very clearly the hatred of Lord Alfred Douglas for his father. Letters +were read and in one letter Queensberry declared that Oscar had +plainly shown the white feather when he called on him. One felt that +this was probably true: Queensberry's word on such a point could be +accepted. + +In the re-examination Sir Edward Clarke occupied himself chiefly with +two youths, Shelley and Conway, who had been passed over casually by +Mr. Carson. In answer to his questions Oscar stated that Shelley was a +youth in the employ of Mathews and Lane, the publishers. Shelley had +very good taste in literature and a great desire for culture. Shelley +had read all his books and liked them. Shelley had dined with him and +his wife at Tite Street. Shelley was in every way a gentleman. He had +never gone with Charlie Parker to the Savoy Hotel. + +A juryman wanted to know at this point whether the witness was aware +of the nature of the article, "The Priest and the Acolyte," in _The +Chameleon_. + +"I knew nothing of it; it came as a terrible shock to me." + +This answer contrasted strangely with the light tone of his reply to +the same question on the previous day. + +The re-examination did not improve Oscar's position. It left all the +facts where they were, and at least a suspicion in every mind. + +Sir Edward Clarke intimated that this concluded the evidence for the +prosecution, whereupon Mr. Carson rose to make the opening speech for +the defence. I was shivering with apprehension. + +He began by admitting the grave responsibility resting on Lord +Queensberry, who accepted it to the fullest. Lord Queensberry was +justified in doing all he could do to cut short an acquaintance which +must be disastrous to his son. Mr. Carson wished to draw the attention +of the jury to the fact that all these men with whom Mr. Wilde went +about were discharged servants and grooms, and that they were all +about the same age. He asked the jury also to note that Taylor, who +was the pivot of the whole case, had not yet been put in the box. Why +not? He pointed out to the jury that the very same idea that was set +forth in "The Priest and the Acolyte" was contained in Oscar Wilde's +letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, and the same idea was to be found in +Lord Alfred Douglas' poem, "The Two Loves,"[15] which was published in +_The Chameleon_. He went on to say that when, in the story of "The +Priest and the Acolyte," the boy was discovered in the priest's +bed,[16] the priest made the same defence as Mr. Wilde had made, that +the world does not understand the beauty of this love. The same idea +was found again in "Dorian Gray," and he read two or three passages +from the book in support of this statement. Mr. Wilde had described +his letter to Lord Alfred Douglas as a prose sonnet. He would read it +again to the court, and he read both the letters. "Mr. Wilde says they +are beautiful," he went on, "I call them an abominable piece of +disgusting immorality." + +At this the Judge again shuffled his papers together and whispered in +a quiet voice that the court would sit on the morrow, and left the +room. + +The honours of the day had all been with Mr. Carson. Oscar left the +box in a depressed way. One or two friends came towards him, but the +majority held aloof, and in almost unbroken silence everyone slipped +out of the court. Strange to say in my mind there was just a ray of +hope. Mr. Carson was still laying stress on the article in _The +Chameleon_ and scattered passages in "Dorian Gray"; on Oscar's letters +to Lord Alfred Douglas and Lord Alfred Douglas' poems in _The +Chameleon_. He must see, I thought, that all this was extremely weak. +Sir Edward Clarke could be trusted to tear all such arguments, founded +on literary work, to shreds. There was room for more than reasonable +doubt about all such things. + +Why had not Mr. Carson put some of the young men he spoke of in the +box? Would he be able to do that? He talked of Taylor as "the pivot of +the case," and gibed at the prosecution for not putting Taylor in the +box. Would he put Taylor in the box? And why, if he had such witnesses +at his beck and call, should he lay stress on the flimsy, weak +evidence to be drawn from passages in books and poems and letters? One +thing was clear: if he was able to put any of the young men in the box +about whom he had examined Oscar, Oscar was ruined. Even if he rested +his defence on the letters and poems he'd win and Oscar would be +discredited, for already it was clear that no jury would give Oscar +Wilde a verdict against a father trying to protect his son. The issue +had narrowed down to terrible straits: would it be utter ruin to Oscar +or merely loss of the case and reputation? We had only sixteen hours +to wait; they seemed to me to hold the last hope. + +I drove to Tite Street, hoping to see Oscar. I was convinced that +Carson had important witnesses at his command, and that the outcome of +the case would be disastrous. Why should not Oscar even now, this very +evening, cross to Calais, leaving a letter for his counsel and the +court abandoning the idiotic prosecution. + +The house at Tite Street seemed deserted. For some time no one +answered my knocking and ringing, and then a man-servant simply told +me that Mr. Wilde was not in: he did not know whether Mr. Wilde was +expected back or not; did not think he was coming back. I turned and +went home. I thought Oscar would probably say to me again: + +"I can do nothing, Frank, nothing." + + * * * * * + +The feeling in the court next morning was good tempered, even jaunty. +The benches were filled with young barristers, all of whom had made up +their minds that the testimony would be what one of them called +"nifty." Everyone treated the case as practically over. + +"But will Carson call witnesses?" I asked. + +"Of course he will," they said, "but in any case Wilde does not stand +a ghost of a chance of getting a verdict against Queensberry; he was a +bally fool to bring such an action." + +"The question is," said someone, "will Wilde face the music?" + +My heart leapt. Perhaps he had gone, fled already to France to avoid +this dreadful, useless torture. I could see the hounds with open +mouths, dripping white fangs, and greedy eyes all closing in on the +defenceless quarry. Would the huntsman give the word? We were not left +long in doubt. + +Mr. Carson continued his statement for the defence. He had +sufficiently demonstrated to the jury, he thought, that, so far as +Lord Queensberry was concerned, he was absolutely justified in +bringing to a climax in the way he had, the connection between Mr. +Oscar Wilde and his son. A dramatic pause. + +A moment later the clever advocate resumed: unfortunately he had a +more painful part of the case to approach. It would be his painful +duty to bring before them one after the other the young men he had +examined Mr. Wilde about and allow them to tell their tales. In no one +of these cases were these young men on an equality in any way with +Mr. Wilde. Mr. Wilde had told them that there was something beautiful +and charming about youth which led him to make these acquaintances. +That was a travesty of the facts. Mr. Wilde preferred to know nothing +of these young men and their antecedents. He knew nothing about Wood; +he knew nothing about Parker; he knew nothing about Scarfe, nothing +about Conway, and not much about Taylor. The truth was Taylor was the +procurer for Mr. Wilde and the jury would hear from this young man +Parker, who would have to tell his unfortunate story to them, that he +was poor, out of a place, had no money, and unfortunately fell a +victim to Mr. Wilde. (Sir Edward Clarke here left the court.) + +On the first evening they met, Mr. Wilde called Parker "Charlie" and +Parker called Mr. Wilde "Oscar." It may be a very noble instinct in +some people to wish to break down social barriers, but Mr. Wilde's +conduct was not ordered by generous instincts. Luxurious dinners and +champagne were not the way to assist a poor man. Parker would tell +them that, after this first dinner, Mr. Wilde invited him to drive +with him to the Savoy Hotel. Mr. Wilde had not told them why he had +that suite of rooms at the Savoy Hotel. Parker would tell them what +happened on arriving there. This was the scandal Lord Queensberry had +referred to in his letter as far back as June or July last year. The +jury would wonder not at the reports having reached Lord Queensberry's +ears, but that Oscar Wilde had been tolerated in London society as +long as he had been. Parker had since enlisted in the Army, and bore a +good character. Mr. Wilde himself had said that Parker was +respectable. Parker would reluctantly present himself to tell his +story to the jury. + +All this time the court was hushed with awe and wonder; everyone was +asking what on earth had induced Wilde to begin the prosecution; what +madness had driven him and why had he listened to the insane advice to +bring the action when he must have known the sort of evidence which +could be brought against him. + +After promising to produce Parker and the others Mr. Carson stopped +speaking and began looking through his papers; when he began again, +everyone held his breath; what was coming now? He proceeded in the +same matter-of-fact and serious way to deal with the case of the +youth, Conway. Conway, it appeared, had known Mr. Wilde and his family +at Worthing. Conway was sixteen years of age.... At this moment Sir +Edward Clarke returned with Mr. Charles Mathews, and asked permission +of the judge to have a word or two with Mr. Carson. At the close of a +few minutes' talk between the counsel, Sir Edward Clarke rose and told +the Judge that after communicating with Mr. Oscar Wilde he thought it +better to withdraw the prosecution and submit to a verdict of "not +guilty." + +He minimised the defeat. He declared that, in respect to matters +connected with literature and the letters, he could not resist the +verdict of "not guilty," having regard to the fact that Lord +Queensberry had not used a direct accusation, but the words "posing +as," etc. Besides, he wished to spare the jury the necessity of +investigating in detail matter of the most appalling character. He +wished to make an end of the case--and he sat down. + +Why on earth did Sir Edward Clarke not advise Oscar in this way weeks +before? Why did he not tell him his case could not possibly be won? + +I have heard since on excellent authority that before taking up the +case Sir Edward Clarke asked Oscar Wilde whether he was guilty or not, +and accepted in good faith his assurance that he was innocent. As soon +as he realised, in court, the strength of the case against Oscar he +advised him to abandon the prosecution. To his astonishment Oscar was +eager to abandon it. Sir Edward Clarke afterwards defended his +unfortunate client out of loyalty and pity, Oscar again assuring him +of his innocence. + +Mr. Carson rose at once and insisted, as was his right, that this +verdict of "not guilty" must be understood to mean that Lord +Queensberry had succeeded in his plea of justification. + +Mr. Justice Collins thought that it was not part of the function of +the Judge and jury to insist on wading through prurient details, which +had no bearing on the matter at issue, which had already been decided +by the consent of the prosecutors to a verdict of "not guilty." Such a +verdict meant of course that the plea of justification was proved. The +jury having consulted for a few moments, the Clerk of Arraigns asked: + +"Do you find the plea of justification has been proved or not?" + +Foreman: "Yes." + +"You say that the defendant is 'not guilty,' and that is the verdict +of you all?" + +Foreman: "Yes, and we also find that it is for the public benefit." + +The last kick to the dead lion. As the verdict was read out the +spectators in the court burst into cheers. + +Mr. Carson: "Of course the costs of the defence will follow?" + +Mr. Justice Collins: "Yes." + +Mr. C.F. Gill: "And Lord Queensberry may be discharged?" + +Mr. Justice Collins: "Certainly." + +The Marquis of Queensberry left the dock amid renewed cheering, which +was taken up again and again in the street. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] The words which Mr. Carson could not read were: "I would sooner +be rented than, etc." Rent is a slang term for blackmail. + +[14] A famous Italian restaurant in Soho: it had several "private +rooms." + +[15] This early poem of Lord Alfred Douglas is reproduced in the +Appendix at the end of this book together with another poem by the +same author, which was also mentioned in the course of the trial. + +[16] Mr. Carson here made a mistake; there is no such incident in the +story: the error merely shows how prejudiced his mind was. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The English are very proud of their sense of justice, proud too of +their Roman law and the practice of the Courts in which they have +incorporated it. They boast of their fair play in all things as the +French boast of their lightness, and if you question it, you lose +caste with them, as one prejudiced or ignorant or both. English +justice cannot be bought, they say, and if it is dear, excessively +dear even, they rather like to feel they have paid a long price for a +good article. Yet it may be that here, as in other things, they take +outward propriety and decorum for the inward and ineffable grace. That +a judge should be incorruptible is not so important as that he should +be wise and humane. + +English journalists and barristers were very much amused at the +conduct of the Dreyfus case; yet, when Dreyfus was being tried for the +second time in France, two or three instances of similar injustice in +England were set forth with circumstance in one of the London +newspapers, but no one paid any effective attention to them. If +Dreyfus had been convicted in England, it is probable that no voice +would ever have been raised in his favour; it is absolutely certain +that there would never have been a second trial. A keen sense of +abstract justice is only to be found in conjunction with a rich fount +of imaginative sympathy. The English are too self-absorbed to take +much interest in their neighbours' affairs, too busy to care for +abstract questions of right or wrong. + +Before the trial of Oscar Wilde I still believed that in a criminal +case rough justice would be done in England. The bias of an English +judge, I said to myself, is always in favour of the accused. It is an +honourable tradition of English procedure that even the Treasury +barristers should state rather less than they can prove against the +unfortunate person who is being attacked by all the power and +authority of the State. I was soon forced to see that these honourable +and praiseworthy conventions were as withes of straw in the fire of +English prejudice. The first thing to set me doubting was that the +judge did not try to check the cheering in Court after the verdict in +favour of Lord Queensberry. English judges always resent and resist +such popular outbursts: why not in this case? After all, no judge +could think Queensberry a hero: he was too well known for that, and +yet the cheering swelled again and again, and the judge gathered up +his papers without a word and went his way as if he were deaf. A +dreadful apprehension crept over me: in spite of myself I began to +realise that my belief in English justice might be altogether +mistaken. It was to me as if the solid earth had become a quaking bog, +or indeed as if a child had suddenly discovered its parent to be +shameless. The subsequent trials are among the most painful +experiences of my life. I shall try to set down all the incidents +fairly. + +One peculiarity had first struck me in the conduct of the case between +Oscar Wilde and Lord Queensberry that did not seem to occur to any of +the numberless journalists and writers who commented on the trial. It +was apparent from his letter to his son (which I published in a +previous chapter), and from the fact that he called at Oscar Wilde's +house that Lord Queensberry at the beginning did not believe in the +truth of his accusations; he set them forth as a violent man sets +forth hearsay and suspicion, knowing that as a father he could do this +with impunity, and accordingly at first he pleaded privilege. Some +time between the beginning of the prosecution and the trial, he +obtained an immense amount of unexpected evidence. He then justified +his libel and gave the names of the persons whom he intended to call +to prove his case. Where did he get this new knowledge? + +I have spoken again and again in the course of this narrative of +Oscar's enemies, asserting that the English middle-class as puritans +detested his attitude and way of life, and if some fanatic or +representative of the nonconformist conscience had hunted up evidence +against Wilde and brought him to ruin there would have been nothing +extraordinary in a vengeance which might have been regarded as a duty. +Strange to say the effective hatred of Oscar Wilde was shown by a man +of the upper class who was anything but a puritan. It was Mr. Charles +Brookfield, I believe, who constituted himself private prosecutor in +this case and raked Piccadilly to find witnesses against Oscar Wilde. +Mr. Brookfield was afterwards appointed Censor of Plays on the +strength apparently of having himself written one of the "riskiest" +plays of the period. As I do not know Mr. Brookfield, I will not judge +him. But his appointment always seemed to me, even before I knew that +he had acted against Wilde, curiously characteristic of English life +and of the casual, contemptuous way Englishmen of the governing class +regard letters. In the same spirit Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister +made a journalist Poet Laureate simply because he had puffed him for +years in the columns of _The Standard_. Lord Salisbury probably +neither knew nor cared that Alfred Austin had never written a line +that could live. One thing Mr. Brookfield's witnesses established: +every offence alleged against Oscar Wilde dated from 1892 or +later--after his first meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas. + +But at the time all such matters were lost for me in the questions: +would the authorities arrest Oscar? or would they allow him to escape? +Had the police asked for a warrant? Knowing English custom and the +desire of Englishmen to pass in silence over all unpleasant sexual +matters, I thought he would be given the hint to go abroad and allowed +to escape. That is the ordinary, the usual English procedure. Everyone +knows the case of a certain lord, notorious for similar practices, who +was warned by the police that a warrant had been issued against him: +taking the hint he has lived for many years past in leisured ease as +an honoured guest in Florence. Nor is it only aristocrats who are so +favoured by English justice: everyone can remember the case of a Canon +of Westminster who was similarly warned and also escaped. We can come +down the social scale to the very bottom and find the same practice. A +certain journalist unwittingly offended a great personage. Immediately +he was warned by the police that a warrant issued against him in India +seventeen years before would at once be acted upon if he did not make +himself scarce. For some time he lived in peaceful retirement in +Belgium. Moreover, in all these cases the warrants had been issued on +the sworn complaints of the parties damnified or of their parents and +guardians: no one had complained of Oscar Wilde. Naturally I thought +the dislike of publicity which dictated such lenience to the lord and +the canon and the journalist would be even more operative in the case +of a man of genius like Oscar Wilde. In certain ways he had a greater +position than even the son of a duke: the shocking details of his +trial would have an appalling, a world-wide publicity. + +Besides, I said to myself, the governing class in England is steeped +in aristocratic prejudice, and particularly when threatened by +democratic innovations, all superiorities, whether of birth or wealth, +or talent, are conscious of the same _raison d'être_ and have the same +self-interest. The lord, the millionaire and the genius have all the +same reason for standing up for each other, and this reason is usually +effective. Everyone knows that in England the law is emphatically a +respecter of persons. It is not there to promote equality, much less +is it the defender of the helpless, the weak and the poor; it is a +rampart for the aristocracy and the rich, a whip in the hands of the +strong. It is always used to increase the effect of natural and +inherited inequality, and it is not directed by a high feeling of +justice; but perverted by aristocratic prejudice and snobbishness; it +is not higher than democratic equality, but lower and more sordid. + +The case was just a case where an aristocratic society could and +should have shown its superiority over a democratic society with its +rough rule of equality. For equality is only half-way on the road to +justice. More than once the House of Commons has recognised this +fundamental truth; it condemned Clive but added that he had rendered +"great and distinguished services to his country"; and no one thought +of punishing him for his crimes. + +Our time is even more tolerant and more corrupt. For a worse crime +than extortion Cecil Rhodes was not even brought to trial, but +honoured and fêted, while his creatures, who were condemned by the +House of Commons Committee, were rewarded by the Government. + +Had not Wilde also rendered distinguished services to his country? The +wars waged against the Mashonas and Matabeles were a doubtful good; +but the plays of Oscar Wilde had already given many hours of innocent +pleasure to thousands of persons, and were evidently destined to +benefit tens of thousands in the future. Such a man is a benefactor of +humanity in the best and truest sense, and deserves peculiar +consideration. + +To the society favourite the discredit of the trial with Lord +Queensberry was in itself a punishment more than sufficient. Everyone +knew when Oscar Wilde left the court that he left it a ruined and +disgraced man. Was it worth while to stir up all the foul mud again, +in order to beat the beaten? Alas! the English are pedants, as Goethe +saw; they think little of literary men, or of merely spiritual +achievements. They love to abide by rules and pay no heed to +exceptions, unless indeed the exceptions are men of title or great +wealth, or "persons of importance" to the Government. The majority of +the people are too ignorant to know the value of a book and they +regard poetry as the thistle-down of speech. It does not occur to +Englishmen that a phrase may be more valuable and more enduring in its +effects than a long campaign and a dozen victories. Yet, the sentence, +"Let him that is without sin among you first cast the stone," or +Shakespeare's version of the same truth: "if we had our deserts which +of us would escape whipping?" is likely to outlast the British Empire, +and prove of more value to humanity. + +The man of genius in Great Britain is feared and hated in exact +proportion to his originality, and if he happens to be a writer or a +musician he is despised to boot. The prejudice against Oscar Wilde +showed itself virulently on all hands. Mr. Justice Collins did not +attempt to restrain the cheering of the court that greeted the success +of Lord Queensberry. Not one of the policemen who stood round the door +tried to stop the "booing" of the crowd who pursued Oscar Wilde with +hootings and vile cries when he left the court. He was judged already +and condemned before being tried. + +The police, too, acted against him with extraordinary vigour. It has +been stated by Mr. Sherard in his "Life" that the police did not +attempt to execute the warrant against Wilde, "till after the last +train had left for Dover," and that it was only Oscar's obstinacy in +remaining in London that necessitated his arrest. This idea is wholly +imaginary. + +It is worth while to know exactly what took place at this juncture. +From Oscar's conduct in this crisis the reader will be able to judge +whether he has been depicted faithfully or not in this book. He has +been described as amiable, weak, of a charming disposition--easily led +in action, though not in thought: now we shall see how far we were +justified, for he is at one of those moments which try the soul. +Fortunately every incident of that day is known: Oscar himself told +me generally what happened and the minutest details of the picture +were filled in for me a little later by his best friend, Robert Ross. + +In the morning Mr. Mathews, one of Oscar's counsel, came to him and +said: "If you wish it, Clarke and I will keep the case going and give +you time to get to Calais." + +Oscar refused to stir. "I'll stay," was all he would say. Robert Ross +urged him to accept Mathew's offer; but he would not: why? I am sure +he had no reason, for I put the question to him more than once, and +even after reflecting, he had no explanation to give. He stayed +because to stay was easier than to make an immediate decision and act +on it energetically. He had very little will power to begin with and +his mode of life had weakened his original endowment. + +After the judgment had been given in favour of Queensberry, Oscar +drove off in a brougham, accompanied by Alfred Douglas, to consult +with his solicitor, Humphreys. At the same time he gave Ross a cheque +on his bank in St. James's Street. At that moment he intended to fly. + +Ross noticed that he was followed by a detective. He drew about £200 +from the bank and raced off to meet Oscar at the Cadogan Hotel, in +Sloane Street, where Lord Alfred Douglas had been staying for the past +four or five weeks. Ross reached the Cadogan Hotel about 1.45 and +found Oscar there with Reggie Turner. Both of them advised Oscar to go +at once to Dover and try to get to France; but he would only say, "the +train has gone; it is too late." He had again lapsed into inaction. + +He asked Ross to go to see his wife and tell her what had occurred. +Ross did this and had a very painful scene: Mrs. Wilde wept and said, +"I hope Oscar is going away abroad." + +Ross returned to the Cadogan Hotel and told Oscar what his wife had +said, but even this didn't move him to action. + +He sat as if glued to his chair, and drank hock and seltzer steadily +in almost unbroken silence. About four o'clock George Wyndham came to +see his cousin, Alfred Douglas; not finding him, he wanted to see +Oscar, but Oscar, fearing reproaches, sent Ross instead. Wyndham said +it was a pity that Bosie Douglas should be with Oscar, and Ross +immediately told him that Wilde's friends for years past had been +trying to separate them and that if he, Wyndham, would keep his cousin +away, he would be doing Oscar the very greatest kindness. At this +Wyndham grew more civil, though still "frightfully agitated," and +begged Ross to get Oscar to leave the country at once to avoid +scandal. Ross replied that he and Turner had been trying to bring +that about for hours. In the middle of the conversation Bosie, having +returned, burst into the room with: "I want to see my cousin," and +Ross rejoined Oscar. In a quarter of an hour Bosie followed him to say +that he was going out with Wyndham to see someone of importance. + +About five o'clock a reporter of the _Star_ newspaper came to see +Oscar, a Mr. Marlowe, who is now editor of _The Daily Mail_, but again +Oscar refused to see him and sent Ross. Mr. Marlowe was sympathetic +and quite understood the position; he informed Ross that a tape +message had come through to the paper saying that a warrant for Oscar +Wilde had already been issued. Ross immediately went into the other +room and told Oscar, who said nothing, but "went very grey in the +face." + +A moment later Oscar asked Ross to give him the money he had got at +the bank, though he had refused it several times in the course of the +day. Ross gave it to him, naturally taking it for a sign that he had +at length made up his mind to start, but immediately afterwards Oscar +settled down in his chair and said, "I shall stay and do my sentence +whatever it is"--a man evidently incapable of action. + +For the next hour the trio sat waiting for the blow to fall. Once or +twice Oscar asked querulously where Bosie was, but no one could tell +him. + +At ten past six the waiter knocked at the door and Ross answered it. +There were two detectives. The elder entered and said, "We have a +warrant here, Mr. Wilde, for your arrest on a charge of committing +indecent acts." Wilde wanted to know whether he would be given bail; +the detective replied: + +"That is a question for the magistrate." + +Oscar then rose and asked, "Where shall I be taken?" + +"To Bow Street," was the reply. + +As he picked up a copy of the Yellow Book and groped for his overcoat, +they all noticed that he was "very drunk" though still perfectly +conscious of what he was doing. + +He asked Ross to go to Tite Street and get him a change of clothes and +bring them to Bow Street. The two detectives took him away in a +four-wheeler, leaving Ross and Turner on the curb. + +Ross hurried to Tite Street. He found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had gone +to the house of a relative and there was only Wilde's man servant, +Arthur, in the house, who afterwards went out of his mind, and is +still, it is said, in an asylum. He had an intense affection for +Oscar. Ross found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had locked up Oscar's bedroom +and study. He burst open the bedroom door and, with the help of +Arthur, packed up a change of things. He then hurried to Bow Street, +where he found a howling mob shouting indecencies. He was informed by +an inspector that it was impossible to see Wilde or to leave any +clothes for him. + +Ross returned at once to Tite Street, forced open the library door and +removed a certain number of letters and manuscripts of Wilde's; but +unluckily he couldn't find the two MSS. which he knew had been +returned to Tite Street two days before, namely, "A Florentine +Tragedy" and the enlarged version of "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." + +Ross then drove to his mother's and collapsed. Mrs. Ross insisted that +he should go abroad, and in order to induce him to do it gave £500 for +Oscar's defence. Ross went to the Terminus Hotel at Calais, where +Bosie Douglas joined him a little later. They both stayed there while +Oscar was being tried before Mr. Justice Charles and one day George +Wyndham crossed the Channel to see Bosie Douglas. + +There is of course some excuse to be made for the chief actor. Oscar +was physically tired and morally broken. He had pulled the fair +building of reputation and success down upon his own head, and, with +the "booing" of the mob still in his ears, he could think of nothing +but the lost hours when he ought to have used his money to take him +beyond the reach of his pursuers. + +His enemies, on the other hand, had acted with the utmost promptitude. +Lord Queensberry's solicitor, Mr. Charles Russell, had stated that it +was not his client's intention to take the initiative in any criminal +prosecution of Mr. Oscar Wilde, but, on the very same morning when +Wilde withdrew from the prosecution, Mr. Russell sent a letter to the +Hon. Hamilton Cuffe, the Director of Public Prosecutions, with a copy +of "all our witnesses' statements, together with a copy of the +shorthand notes of the trial." + +The Treasury authorities were at least as eager. As soon as possible +after leaving the court Mr. C.F. Gill, Mr. Angus Lewis, and Mr. +Charles Russell waited on Sir John Bridge at Bow Street in his private +room and obtained a warrant for the arrest of Oscar Wilde, which was +executed, as we have seen, the same evening. + +The police showed him less than no favour. About eight o'clock Lord +Alfred Douglas drove to Bow Street and wanted to know if Wilde could +be bailed out, but was informed that his application could not be +entertained. He offered to procure comforts for the prisoner: this +offer also was peremptorily refused by the police inspector just as +Ross's offer of night clothes had been refused. It is a common belief +that in England a man is treated as innocent until he has been proved +guilty, but those who believe this pleasant fiction, have never been +in the hands of the English police. As soon as a man is arrested on +any charge he is at once treated as if he were a dangerous criminal; +he is searched, for instance, with every circumstance of indignity. +Before his conviction a man is allowed to wear his own clothes; but a +change of linen or clothes is denied him, or accorded in part and +grudgingly, for no earthly reason except to gratify the ill-will of +the gaolers. + +The warrant on which Oscar Wilde was arrested charged him with an +offence alleged to have been committed under Section xi. of the +Criminal Amendment Act of 1885; in other words, he was arrested and +tried for an offence which was not punishable by law ten years before. +This Act was brought in as a result of the shameful and sentimental +stories (evidently for the most part manufactured) which Mr. Stead had +published in _The Pall Mall Gazette_ under the title of "Modern +Babylon." In order to cover and justify their prophet some of the +"unco guid" pressed forward this so-called legislative reform, by +which it was made a criminal offence to take liberties with a girl +under thirteen years of age--even with her own consent. Intimacy with +minors under sixteen was punishable if they consented or even tempted. +Mr. Labouchere, the Radical member, inflamed, it is said, with a +desire to make the law ridiculous, gravely proposed that the section +be extended, so as to apply to people of the same sex who indulged in +familiarities or indecencies. The Puritan faction had no logical +objection to the extension, and it became the law of the land. It was +by virtue of this piece of legislative wisdom, which is without a +model and without a copy in the law of any other civilised country, +that Oscar Wilde was arrested and thrown into prison. + +His arrest was the signal for an orgy of Philistine rancour such as +even London had never known before. The puritan middle class, which +had always regarded Wilde with dislike as an artist and intellectual +scoffer, a mere parasite of the aristocracy, now gave free scope to +their disgust and contempt, and everyone tried to outdo his neighbour +in expressions of loathing and abhorrence. This middle class +condemnation swept the lower class away in its train. To do them +justice, the common people, too, felt a natural loathing for the +peculiar vice attributed to Wilde; most men condemn the sins they have +no mind to; but their dislike was rather contemptuous than profound, +and with customary humour they soon turned the whole case into a +bestial, obscene joke. "Oscar" took the place of their favourite word +as a term of contempt, and they shouted it at each other on all sides; +bus-drivers, cabbies and paper sellers using it in and out of season +with the keenest relish. For the moment the upper classes lay +mum-chance and let the storm blow over. Some of them of course agreed +with the condemnation of the Puritans, and many of them felt that +Oscar and his associates had been too bold, and ought to be pulled up. + +The English journals, which are nothing but middle-class shops, took +the side of their patrons. Without a single exception they outdid +themselves in condemnation of the man and all his works. You might +have thought to read their bitter diatribes that they themselves lived +saintly lives, and were shocked at sensual sin. One rubbed one's eyes +in amazement. The Strand and Fleet Street, which practically belong to +this class and have been fashioned by them, are the haunt of as vile a +prostitution as can be found in Europe; the public houses which these +men frequent are low drinking dens; yet they all lashed Oscar Wilde +with every variety of insult as if they themselves had been above +reproach. The whole of London seemed to have broken loose in a rage of +contempt and loathing which was whipped up and justified each morning +by the hypocritical articles of the "unco guid" in the daily this and +the weekly that. In the streets one heard everywhere the loud jests of +the vulgar, decked out with filthy anecdotes and punctuated by obscene +laughter, as from the mouth of the Pit. + +In spite of the hatred of the journalists pandering to the prejudice +of their paymasters, one could hope still that the magistrate would +show some regard for fair play. The expectation, reasonable or +unreasonable, was doomed to disappointment. On Saturday morning, the +6th, Oscar Wilde, "described as a gentleman," the papers said in +derision, was brought before Sir John Bridge. Mr. C.F. Gill, who had +been employed in the Queensberry trial, was instructed by Mr. Angus +Lewis of the Treasury, and conducted the prosecution; Alfred Taylor +was placed in the dock charged with conspiracy with Oscar Wilde. The +witnesses have already been described in connection with the +Queensberry case. Charles Parker, William Parker, Alfred Wood, Sidney +Mavor and Shelley all gave evidence. + +After lasting all day the case was adjourned till the following +Thursday. + +Mr. Travers Humphreys applied for bail for Mr. Wilde, on the ground +that he knew the warrant against him was being applied for on Friday +afternoon, but he made no attempt to leave London. Sir John Bridge +refused bail. + +On Thursday, the 11th, the case was continued before Sir John Bridge, +and in the end both the accused were committed for trial. Again Mr. +Humphreys applied for bail, and again the magistrate refused to accept +bail. + +Now to refuse bail in cases of serious crime may be defended, but in +the case of indecent conduct it is usually granted. To run away is +regarded as a confession of guilt, and what could one wish for more +than the perpetual banishment of the corrupt liver, consequently there +is no reason to refuse bail. But in this case, though bail was offered +to any amount, it was refused peremptorily in spite of the fact that +every consideration should have been shown to an accused person who +had already had a good opportunity to leave the country and had +refused to budge. Moreover, Oscar Wilde had already been criticised +and condemned in a hundred papers. There was widespread prejudice +against him, no risk to the public in accepting bail, and considerable +injury done to the accused in refusing it. His affairs were certain to +be thrown into confusion; he was known not to be rich and yet he was +deprived of the power to get money together and to collect evidence +just when the power which freedom confers was most needed by him. + +The magistrate was as prejudiced as the public; he had no more idea of +standing for justice and fair play than Pilate; probably, indeed, he +never gave himself the trouble to think of fairness in the matter. A +large salary is paid to magistrates in London, £1,500 a year, but it +is rare indeed that any of them rises above the vulgarest prejudice. +Sir John Bridge not only refused bail but he was careful to give his +reasons for refusing it: he had not the slightest scruple about +prejudicing the case even before he had heard a word of the defence. +After hearing the evidence for the prosecution he said: + +"The responsibility of accepting or refusing bail rests upon me. The +considerations that weigh with me are the gravity of the offences and +the strength of the evidence. I must absolutely refuse bail and send +the prisoners for trial." + +Now these reasons, which he proffered voluntarily, and especially the +use of the word "absolutely," showed not only prejudice on the part of +Sir John Bridge, but the desire to injure the unfortunate prisoner in +the public mind and so continue the evil work of the journalists. + +The effect of this prejudice and rancour on the part of the whole +community had various consequences. + +The mere news that Oscar Wilde had been arrested and taken to Holloway +startled London and gave the signal for a strange exodus. Every train +to Dover was crowded; every steamer to Calais thronged with members of +the aristocratic and leisured classes, who seemed to prefer Paris, or +even Nice out of the season, to a city like London, where the police +might act with such unexpected vigour. The truth was that the cultured +æsthetes whom I have already described had been thunderstruck by the +facts which the Queensberry trial had laid bare. For the first time +they learned that such houses as Taylor's were under police +supervision, and that creatures like Wood and Parker were classified +and watched. They had imagined that in "the home of liberty" such +practices passed unnoticed. It came as a shock to their preconceived +ideas that the police in London knew a great many things which they +were not supposed to concern themselves with, and this unwelcome glare +of light drove the vicious forth in wild haste. + +Never was Paris so crowded with members of the English governing +classes; here was to be seen a famous ex-Minister; there the fine face +of the president of a Royal society; at one table in the Café de la +Paix, a millionaire recently ennobled, and celebrated for his +exquisite taste in art; opposite to him a famous general. It was even +said that a celebrated English actor took a return ticket for three or +four days to Paris, just to be in the fashion. The mummer returned +quickly; but the majority of the migrants stayed abroad for some time. +The wind of terror which had swept them across the Channel opposed +their return, and they scattered over the Continent from Naples to +Monte Carlo and from Palermo to Seville under all sorts of pretexts. + +The gravest result of the magistrate's refusal to accept bail was +purely personal. Oscar's income dried up at the source. His books were +withdrawn from sale; no one went to see his plays; every shop keeper +to whom he owed a penny took immediate action against him. Judgments +were obtained and an execution put into his house in Tite Street. +Within a month, at the very moment when he most needed money to fee +counsel and procure evidence, he was beggared and sold up, and because +of his confinement in prison the sale was conducted under such +conditions that, whereas in ordinary times his effects would have +covered the claims against him three times over, all his belongings +went for nothing, and the man who was making £4,000 or £5,000 a year +by his plays was adjudicated a bankrupt for a little over £1,000. £600 +of this sum were for Lord Queensberry's costs which the Queensberry +family--Lord Douglas of Hawick, Lord Alfred Douglas and their +mother--had promised in writing to pay, but when the time came, +absolutely refused to pay. Most unfortunately many of Oscar's MSS. +were stolen or lost in the disorder of the sheriff's legal +proceedings. Wilde could have cried, with Shylock, "You take my life +when you do take away the means whereby I live." But at the time nine +Englishmen out of ten applauded what was practically persecution. + +A worse thing remains to be told. The right of free speech which +Englishmen pride themselves on had utterly disappeared, as it always +does disappear in England when there is most need of it. It was +impossible to say one word in Wilde's defence or even in extenuation +of his sin in any London print. At this time I owned the greater part +of the _Saturday Review_ and edited it. Here at any rate one might +have thought I could have set forth in a Christian country a sane and +liberal view. I had no wish to minimise the offence. No one condemned +unnatural vice more than I, but Oscar Wilde was a distinguished man of +letters; he had written beautiful things, and his good works should +have been allowed to speak in his favour. I wrote an article setting +forth this view. My printers immediately informed me that they +thought the article ill-advised, and when I insisted they said they +would prefer not to print it. Yet there was nothing in it beyond a +plea to suspend judgment and defer insult till after the trial. +Messrs. Smith and Sons, the great booksellers, who somehow got wind of +the matter (through my publisher, I believe), sent to say that they +would not sell any paper that attempted to defend Oscar Wilde; it +would be better even, they added, not to mention his name. The English +tradesman-censors were determined that this man should have Jedburg +justice. I should have ruined the _Saturday Review_ by the mere +attempt to treat the matter fairly. + +In this extremity I went to the great leader of public opinion in +England. Mr. Arthur Walter, the manager of _The Times_, had always +been kind to me; he was a man of balanced mind, who had taken high +honours at Oxford in his youth, and for twenty years had rubbed +shoulders with the leading men in every rank of life. I went down to +stay with him in Berkshire, and I urged upon him what I regarded as +the aristocratic view. In England it was manifest that under the +circumstances there was no chance of a fair trial, and it seemed to me +the duty of _The Times_ to say plainly that this man should not be +condemned beforehand, and that if he were condemned his merits should +be taken into consideration in his punishment, as well as his +demerits. + +While willing to listen to me, Mr. Walter did not share my views. A +man who had written a great poem or a great play did not rank in his +esteem with a man who had won a skirmish against a handful of unarmed +savages, or one who had stolen a piece of land from some barbarians +and annexed it to the Empire. In his heart he held the view of the +English landed aristocracy, that the ordinary successful general or +admiral or statesman was infinitely more important than a Shakespeare +or a Browning. He could not be persuaded to believe that the names of +Gladstone, Disraeli, Wolseley, Roberts, and Wood, would diminish and +fade from day to day till in a hundred years they would scarcely be +known, even to the educated; whereas the fame of Browning, Swinburne, +Meredith, or even Oscar Wilde, would increase and grow brighter with +time, till, in one hundred or five hundred years, no one would dream +of comparing pushful politicians like Gladstone or Beaconsfield with +men of genius like Swinburne or Wilde. He simply would not see it and +when he perceived that the weight of argument was against him he +declared that if it were true, it was so much the worse for humanity. +In his opinion anyone living a clean life was worth more than a +writer of love songs or the maker of clever comedies--Mr. John Smith +worth more than Shakespeare! + +He was as deaf as only Englishmen can be deaf to the plea for abstract +justice. + +"You don't even say Wilde's innocent," he threw at me more than once. + +"I believe him to be innocent," I declared truthfully, "but it is +better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one man should not +have a fair trial. And how can this man have a fair trial now when the +papers for weeks past have been filled with violent diatribes against +him and his works?" + +One point, peculiarly English, he used again and again. + +"So long as substantial justice is done," he said, "it is all we care +about." + +"Substantial justice will never be done," I cried, "so long as that is +your ideal. Your arrow can never go quite so high as it is aimed." But +I got no further. + +If Oscar Wilde had been a general or a so-called empire builder, _The +Times_ might have affronted public opinion and called attention to his +virtues, and argued that they should be taken in extenuation of his +offences; but as he was only a writer no one seemed to owe him +anything or to care what became of him. + +Mr. Walter was fair-minded in comparison with most men of his class. +There was staying with him at this very time an Irish gentleman, who +listened to my pleading for Wilde with ill-concealed indignation. +Excited by Arthur Walter's obstinacy to find fresh arguments, I +pointed out that Wilde's offence was pathological and not criminal and +would not be punished in a properly constituted state. + +"You admit," I said, "that we punish crime to prevent it spreading; +wipe this sin off the statute book and you would not increase the +sinners by one: then why punish them?" + +"Oi'd whip such sinners to death, so I would," cried the Irishman; +"hangin's too good for them." + +"You only punished lepers," I went on, "in the middle ages, because +you believed that leprosy was catching: this malady is not even +catching." + +"Faith, Oi'd punish it with extermination," cried the Irishman. + +Exasperated by the fact that his idiot prejudice was hurting my +friend, I said at length with a smile: + +"You are very bitter: I'm not; you see, I have no sexual jealousy to +inflame me." + +On this Mr. Walter had to interfere between us to keep the peace, but +the mischief was done: my advocacy remained without effect. + +It is very curious how deep-rooted and enduring is the prejudice +against writers in England. Not only is no attempt made to rate them +at their true value, at the value which posterity puts upon their +work; but they are continually treated as outcasts and denied the most +ordinary justice. The various trials of Oscar Wilde are to the thinker +an object lesson in the force of this prejudice, but some may explain +the prejudice against Wilde on the score of the peculiar abhorrence +with which the offence ascribed to him is regarded in England. + +Let me take an example from the papers of to-day--I am writing in +January, 1910. I find in my _Daily Mail_ that at Bow Street police +court a London magistrate, Sir Albert de Rutzen, ordered the +destruction of 272 volumes of the English translation of Balzac's "Les +Contes Drolatiques" on the ground that the book was obscene. "Les +Contes Drolatiques" is an acknowledged masterpiece, and is not nearly +so free spoken as "Lear" or "Hamlet" or "Tom Jones" or "Anthony and +Cleopatra." What would be thought of a French magistrate or a German +magistrate who ordered a fair translation of "Hamlet" or of "Lear" to +be burnt, because of its obscenity? He would be regarded as demented. +One can only understand such a judgment as an isolated fact. But in +England this monstrous stupidity is the rule. Sir A. de Rutzen was not +satisfied with ordering the books to be burnt and fining the +bookseller; he went on to justify his condemnation and praise the +police: + +"It is perfectly clear to my mind that a more foul and filthy black +spot has not been found in London for a long time, and the police have +done uncommonly well in bringing the matter to light. I consider that +the books are likely to do a great deal of harm." + +Fancy the state of mind of the man who can talk such poisonous +nonsense; who, with the knowledge of what Piccadilly is at night in +his mind, can speak of the translation of a masterpiece as one of the +"most filthy black spots" to be found in London. To say that such a +man is insane is, I suppose, going too far; but to say that he does +not know the value or the meaning of the words he uses, to say that he +is driven by an extraordinary and brainless prejudice, is certainly +the modesty of truth. + +It is this sort of perversity on the part of Sir A. de Rutzen and of +nine out of ten Englishmen that makes Frenchmen, Germans and Italians +speak of them as ingrained hypocrites. But they are not nearly so +hypocritical as they are uneducated and unintelligent, rebellious to +the humanising influence of art and literature. The ordinary +Englishman would much prefer to be called an athlete than a poet. The +Puritan Commonwealth Parliament ordered the pictures of Charles I. to +be sold, but such of them as were indecent to be burnt; accordingly +half a dozen Titians were solemnly burnt and the nucleus of a great +national gallery destroyed. One can see Sir A. de Rutzen solemnly +assisting at this holocaust and devoutly deciding that all the +masterpieces which showed temptingly a woman's beautiful breasts were +"foul and filthy black spots" and must be burnt as harmful. Or rather +one can see that Sir A. de Rutzen has in two and a half centuries +managed to get a little beyond this primitive Puritan standpoint: he +might allow a pictorial masterpiece to-day to pass unburnt, but a +written masterpiece is still to him anathema. + +A part of this prejudice comes from the fact that the English have a +special dislike for every form of sexual indulgence. It is not +consistent with their ideal of manhood, and, like the poor foolish +magistrate, they have not yet grasped the truth, which one might have +thought the example of the Japanese would have made plain by now to +the dullest, that a nation may be extraordinarily brave, vigorous and +self-sacrificing and at the same time intensely sensuous, and +sensitive to every refinement of passion. If the great English middle +class were as well educated as the German middle class, such a +judgment as this of Sir A. de Rutzen would be scouted as ridiculous +and absurd, or rather would be utterly unthinkable. + +In Anglo-Saxon countries both the artist and the sexual passion are +under a ban. The race is more easily moved martially than amorously +and it regards its overpowering combative instincts as virtuous just +as it is apt to despise what it likes to call "languishing love." The +poet Middleton couldn't put his dream city in England--a city of fair +skies and fairer streets: + + And joy was there; in all the city's length + I saw no fingers trembling for the sword; + Nathless they doted on their bodies' strength, + That they might gentler be. Love was their lord. + +Both America and England to-day offer terrifying examples of the +despotism of an unenlightened and vulgar public opinion in all the +highest concerns of man--in art, in literature and in religion. There +is no despotism on earth so soul-destroying to the artist: it is baser +and more degrading than anything known in Russia. The consequences of +this tyranny of an uneducated middle class and a barbarian aristocracy +are shown in detail in the trial of Oscar Wilde and in the savagery +with which he was treated by the English officers of justice. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +As soon as I heard that Oscar Wilde was arrested and bail refused, I +tried to get permission to visit him in Holloway. I was told I should +have to see him in a kind of barred cage; and talk to him from the +distance of at least a yard. It seemed to me too painful for both of +us, so I went to the higher authorities and got permission to see him +in a private room. The Governor met me at the entrance of the prison: +to my surprise he was more than courteous; charmingly kind and +sympathetic. + +"We all hope," he said, "that he will soon be free; this is no place +for him. Everyone likes him, everyone. It is a great pity." + +He evidently felt much more than he said, and my heart went out to +him. He left me in a bare room furnished with a small square deal +table and two kitchen chairs. In a moment or two Oscar came in +accompanied by a warder. In silence we clasped hands. He looked +miserably anxious and pulled down and I felt that I had nothing to do +but cheer him up. + +"I am glad to see you," I cried. "I hope the warders are kind to +you?" + +"Yes, Frank," he replied in a hopeless way, "but everyone else is +against me: it is hard." + +"Don't harbour that thought," I answered; "many whom you don't know, +and whom you will never know, are on your side. Stand for them and for +the myriads who are coming afterwards and make a fight of it." + +"I'm afraid I'm not a fighter, Frank, as you once said," he replied +sadly, "and they won't give me bail. How can I get evidence or think +in this place of torture? Fancy refusing me bail," he went on, "though +I stayed in London when I might have gone abroad." + +"You should have gone," I cried in French, hot with indignation; "why +didn't you go, the moment you came out of the court?" + +"I couldn't think at first," he answered in the same tongue; "I +couldn't think at all: I was numbed." + +"Your friends should have thought of it," I insisted, not knowing then +that they had done their best. + +At this moment the warder, who had turned away towards the door, came +back. + +"You are not allowed, sir, to talk in a foreign language," he said +quietly. "You will understand we have to obey the rules. Besides, the +prisoner must not speak of this prison as a place of torture. I ought +to report that; I'm sorry." + +The misery of it all brought tears to my eyes: his gaolers even felt +sorry for him. I thanked the warder and turned again to Oscar. + +"Don't let yourself fear at all," I exclaimed. "You will have your +chance again and must take it; only don't lose heart and don't be +witty next time in court. The jury hate it. They regard it as +intellectual superiority and impudence. Treat all things seriously and +with grave dignity. Defend yourself as David would have defended his +love for Jonathan. Make them all listen to you. I would undertake to +get free with half your talent even if I were guilty; a resolution not +to be beaten is always half the battle.... Make your trial memorable +from your entrance into the court to the decision of the jury. Use +every opportunity and give your real character a chance to fight for +you." + +I spoke with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart. + +"I will do my best, Frank," he said despondingly, "I will do my best. +If I were out of this place, I might think of something, but it is +dreadful to be here. One has to go to bed by daylight and the nights +are interminable." + +"Haven't you a watch?" I cried. + +"They don't allow you to have a watch in prison," he replied. + +"But why not?" I asked in amazement. I did not know that every rule +in an English prison is cunningly devised to annoy and degrade the +unfortunate prisoner. + +Oscar lifted his hands hopelessly: + +"One may not smoke; not even a cigarette; and so I cannot sleep. All +the past comes back; the golden hours; the June days in London with +the sunshine dappling the grass and the silken rustling of the wind in +the trees. Do you remember Wordsworth speaks 'of the wind in the +trees'? How I wish I could hear it now, breathe it once again. I might +get strength then to fight." + +"Is the food good?" I asked. + +"It's all right; I get it from outside. The food doesn't matter. It is +the smoking I miss, the freedom, the companionship. My mind will not +act when I'm alone. I can only think of what has been and torment +myself. Already I've been punished enough for the sins of a lifetime." + +"Is there nothing I can do for you, nothing you want?" I asked. + +"No, Frank," he answered, "it was kind of you to come to see me, I +wish I could tell you how kind." + +"Don't think of it," I said; "if I'm any good send for me at any +moment: a word will bring me. They allow you books, don't they?" + +"Yes, Frank." + +"I wish you would get the 'Apologia of Plato'," I said, "and take a +big draught of that deathless smiling courage of Socrates." + +"Ah, Frank, how much more humane were the Greeks. They let his friends +see him and talk to him by the hour, though he was condemned to death. +There were no warders there to listen, no degrading conditions." + +"Quite true," I cried, suddenly realising how much better Oscar Wilde +would have been treated in Athens two thousand years ago. "Our +progress is mainly change; we don't shed our cruelty; even Christ has +not been able to humanise us." + +He nodded his head. At first he seemed greatly distressed; but I +managed to encourage him a little, for at the close of the talk he +questioned me: + +"Do you really think I may win, Frank?" + +"Of course you'll win," I replied. "You must win: you must not think +of being beaten. Take it that they will not want to convict you. Say +it to yourself in the court; don't let yourself fear for a moment. +Your enemies are merely stupid, unhappy creatures crawling about for a +few miserable years between earth and sun; fated to die and leave no +trace, no memory. Remember you are fighting for all of us, for every +artist and thinker who is to be born into the English world.... It is +better to win like Galileo than to be burnt like Giordano Bruno. Don't +let them make another martyr. Use all your brains and eloquence and +charm. Don't be afraid. They will not condemn you if they know you." + +"I have been trying to think," he said, "trying to make up my mind to +bear one whole year of this life. It's dreadful, Frank, I had no idea +that prison was so dreadful." + +The warder again drew down his brows. I hastened to change the +subject. + +"That's why you must resolve not to have any more of it," I said; "I +wish I had seen you when you came out of court, but I really thought +you didn't want me; you turned away from me." + +"Oh, Frank, how could I?" he cried. "I should have been so grateful to +you." + +"I'm very shortsighted," I rejoined, "and I thought you did. It is our +foolish little vanities which prevent us acting as we should. But let +me know if I can do anything for you. If you want me, I'll come at any +moment." + +I said this because the warder had already given me a sign; he now +said: + +"Time is up." + +Once again we clasped hands. + +"You must win," I said; "don't think of defeat. Even your enemies are +human. Convert them. You can do it, believe me," and I went with +dread in my heart, and pity and indignation. + + Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season: + Let us endure an hour and see injustice done. + +The Governor met me almost at the door. + +"It is terrible," I exclaimed. + +"This is no place for him," he answered. He has nothing to do with us +here. Everyone likes him and pities him: the warders, everyone. +Anything I can do to make his stay tolerable shall be done." + +We shook hands. I think there were tears in both our eyes as we +parted. This humane Governor had taught me that Oscar's gentleness and +kindness--his sweetness of nature--would win all hearts if it had time +to make itself known. Yet there he was in prison. His face and figure +came before me again and again: the unshaven face; the frightened, sad +air; the hopeless, toneless voice. The cleanliness even of the bare +hard room was ugly; the English are foolish enough to degrade those +they punish. Revolt was blazing in me. + +As I went away I looked up at the mediæval castellated gateway of the +place, and thought how perfectly the architecture suited the spirit of +the institution. The whole thing belongs to the middle ages, and not +to our modern life. Fancy having both prison and hospital side by +side; indeed a hospital even in the prison; torture and +lovingkindness; punishment and pity under the same roof. What a blank +contradiction and stupidity. Will civilisation never reach humane +ideals? Will men always punish most severely the sins they do not +understand and which hold for them no temptation? Did Jesus suffer in +vain? + + * * * * * + +Oscar Wilde was committed on the 19th of April; a "true bill" was +found against him by the grand jury on the 24th; and, as the case was +put down for trial at the Old Bailey almost immediately, a +postponement was asked for till the May sessions, on the ground first +that the defence had not had time to prepare their case and further, +that in the state of popular feeling at the moment, Mr. Wilde would +not get a fair and impartial trial. Mr. Justice Charles, who was to +try the case, heard the application and refused it peremptorily: "Any +suggestion that the defendant would not have a fair trial was +groundless," he declared; yet he knew better. In his summing up of the +case on May 1st he stated that "for weeks it had been impossible to +open a newspaper without reading some reference to the case," and when +he asked the jury not to allow "preconceived opinions to weigh with +them" he was admitting the truth that every newspaper reference was +charged with dislike and contempt of Oscar Wilde. A fair trial indeed! + +The trial took place at the Old Bailey, three days later, April 27th, +1895, before Mr. Justice Charles. Mr. C.F. Gill and A. Gill with Mr. +Horace Avory appeared for the Public Prosecutor. Mr. Wilde was again +defended by Sir Edward Clarke, Mr. Charles Mathews and Mr. Travers +Humphreys, while Mr. J.P. Grain and Mr. Paul Taylor were counsel for +the other prisoner. The trial began on a Saturday and the whole of the +day was taken up with a legal argument. I am not going to give the +details of the case. I shall only note the chief features of it and +the unfairness which characterised it. + +Sir Edward Clarke pointed out that there was one set of charges under +the Criminal Law Amendment Act and another set of charges of +conspiracy. He urged that the charges of conspiracy should be dropped. +Under the counts alleging conspiracy, the defendants could not be +called on as witnesses, which put the defence at a disadvantage. In +the end the Judge decided that there were inconveniences; but he would +not accede to Sir Edward Clarke's request. Later in the trial, +however, Mr. Gill himself withdrew the charges of conspiracy, and the +Judge admitted explicitly in his summing up that, if he had known the +evidence which was to be offered, he would not have allowed these +charges of conspiracy to be made. By this confession he apparently +cleared his conscience just as Pilate washed his hands. But the wrong +had already been done. Not only did this charge of conspiracy +embarrass the defence, but if it had never been made, as it should +never have been made, then Sir Edward Clarke would have insisted and +could have insisted properly that the two men should be tried +separately, and Wilde would not have been discredited by being coupled +with Taylor, whose character was notorious and who had already been in +the hands of the police on a similar charge. + +This was not the only instance of unfairness in the conduct of the +prosecution. The Treasury put a youth called Atkins in the box, thus +declaring him to be at least a credible witness; but Atkins was proved +by Sir Edward Clarke to have perjured himself in the court in the most +barefaced way. In fact the Treasury witnesses against Wilde were all +blackmailers and people of the lowest character, with two exceptions. +The exceptions were a boy named Mavor and a youth named Shelley. With +regard to Mavor the judge admitted that no evidence had been offered +that he could place before the jury; but in his summing up he was +greatly affected by the evidence of Shelley. Shelley was a young man +who seemed to be afflicted with a species of religious mania. Mr. +Justice Charles gave great weight to his testimony. He invited the +jury to say that "although there was, in his correspondence which had +been read, evidence of excitability, to talk of him as a young man who +did not know what he was saying was to exaggerate the effect of his +letters." He went on to ask with much solemnity: "Why should this +young man have invented a tale, which must have been unpleasant to him +to present from the witness box?" + +In the later trial before Mr. Justice Wills the Judge had to rule out +the evidence of Shelley _in toto_, because it was wholly without +corroboration. If the case before Mr. Justice Charles had not been +confused with the charges of conspiracy, there is no doubt that he too +would have ruled out the evidence of Shelley, and then his summing up +must have been entirely in favour of Wilde. + +The singular malevolence of the prosecution also can be estimated by +their use of the so-called "literary argument." Wilde had written in a +magazine called _The Chameleon_. _The Chameleon_ contained an immoral +story, with which Wilde had nothing to do, and which he had +repudiated as offensive. Yet the prosecution tried to make him +responsible in some way for the immorality of a writing which he knew +nothing about. + +Wilde had said two poems of Lord Alfred Douglas were "beautiful." The +prosecution declared that these poems were in essence a defence of the +vilest immorality, but is it not possible for the most passionate +poem, even the most vicious, to be "beautiful"? Nothing was ever +written more passionate than one of the poems of Sappho. Yet a +fragment has been selected out and preserved by the admiration of a +hundred generations of men. The prosecution was in the position all +the time of one who declared that a man who praised a nude picture +must necessarily be immoral. Such a contention would be inconceivable +in any other civilised country. Even the Judge was on much the same +intellectual level. It would not be fair, he admitted, to condemn a +poet or dramatic writer by his works and he went on: + +"It is unfortunately true that while some of our greatest writers have +passed long years in writing nothing but the most wholesome +literature--literature of the highest genius, and which anybody can +read, such as the literature of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens; +it is also true that there were other great writers, more especially +in the eighteenth century, perfectly noble-minded men themselves, who +somehow or other have permitted themselves to pen volumes which it is +painful for persons of ordinary modesty and decency to read." + +It would have been more honest and more liberal to have brushed away +the nonsensical indictment in a sentence. Would the Treasury have put +Shakespeare on trial for "Hamlet" or "Lear," or would they have +condemned the writer of "The Song of Solomon" for immorality, or sent +St. Paul to prison for his "Epistle to the Corinthians"? + +Middle-class prejudice and hypocritic canting twaddle from Judge and +advocate dragged their weary length along for days and days. On +Wednesday Sir Edward Clarke made his speech for the defence. He +pointed out the unfairness of the charges of conspiracy which had +tardily been withdrawn. He went on to say that the most remarkable +characteristic of the case was the fact that it had been the occasion +for conduct on the part of certain sections of the press which was +disgraceful, and which imperilled the administration of justice, and +was in the highest degree injurious to the client for whom he was +pleading. Nothing, he concluded, could be more unfair than the way +Mr. Wilde had been criticised in the press for weeks and weeks. But +no judge interfered on his behalf. + +Sir Edward Clarke evidently thought that to prove unfairness would not +even influence the minds of the London jury. He was content to +repudiate the attempt to judge Mr. Wilde by his books or by an article +which he had condemned, or by poems which he had not written. He laid +stress on the fact that Mr. Wilde had himself brought the charge +against Lord Queensberry which had provoked the whole investigation: +"on March 30th, Mr. Wilde," he said, "knew the catalogue of +accusations"; and he asked: did the jury believe that, if he had been +guilty, he would have stayed in England and brought about the first +trial? Insane would hardly be the word for such conduct, if Mr. Wilde +really had been guilty. Moreover, before even hearing the specific +accusations, Mr. Wilde had gone into the witness box to deny them. + +Clarke's speech was a good one, but nothing out of the common: no new +arguments were used in it; not one striking illustration. Needless to +say the higher advocacy of sympathy was conspicuous by its absence. + +Again, the interesting part of the trial was the cross-examination of +Oscar Wilde. + +Mr. Gill examined him at length on the two poems which Lord Alfred +Douglas had contributed to _The Chameleon_, which Mr. Wilde had called +"beautiful." The first was in "Praise of Shame," the second was one +called "Two Loves." Sir Edward Clarke, interposing, said: + +"That's not Mr. Wilde's, Mr. Gill." + +Mr. Gill: "I am not aware that I said it was." + +Sir Edward Clarke: "I thought you would be glad to say it was not." + +Mr. Gill insisted that Mr. Wilde should explain the poem in "Praise of +Shame." + +Mr. Wilde said that the first poem seemed obscure, but, when pressed +as to the "love" described in the second poem, he let himself go for +the first time and perhaps the only time during the trial; he said: + +"The 'love' that dare not speak its name in this century is such a +great affection of an older for a younger man as there was between +David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very base of his philosophy +and such as you find in the sonnets of Michaelangelo and +Shakespeare--a deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is +perfect, and dictates great works of art like those of Shakespeare and +Michaelangelo and those two letters of mine, such as they are, and +which is in this century misunderstood--so misunderstood that, on +account of it, I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful; it is +fine; it is the noblest form of affection. It is intellectual, and it +repeatedly exists between an elder and younger man, when the elder man +has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour +of life. That it should be so the world does not understand. It mocks +at it and sometimes puts one into the pillory for it." + +At this stage there was loud applause in the gallery of the court, and +the learned Judge at once said: "I shall have the Court cleared if +there is the slightest manifestation of feeling. There must be +complete silence preserved." + +Mr. Justice Charles repressed the cheering in favour of Mr. Oscar +Wilde with great severity, though Mr. Justice Collins did not attempt +to restrain the cheering which filled his court and accompanied the +dispersing crowd into the street on the acquittal of Lord Queensberry. + +In spite, however, of the unfair criticisms of the press; in spite of +the unfair conduct of the prosecution, and in spite of the manifest +prejudice and Philistine ignorance of the Judge, the jury disagreed. + +Then followed the most dramatic incident of the whole trial. Once more +Sir Edward Clarke applied for bail on behalf of Oscar Wilde. "After +what has happened," he said, "I do not think the Crown will make any +objection to this application." The Crown left the matter to the +Judge, no doubt in all security; for the Judge immediately refused the +application. Sir Edward Clarke then went on to say that, in the case +of a re-trial, it ought not to take place immediately. He continued: + +"The burden of those engaged in the case is very heavy, and I think it +only right that the Treasury should have an opportunity between this +and another session of considering the mode in which the case should +be presented, if indeed it is presented at all." + +Mr. Gill immediately rose to the challenge. + +"The case will certainly be tried again," he declared, "whether it is +to be tried again at once or in the next sessions will be a matter of +convenience. Probably the most desirable course will be for the case +to go to the next sessions. That is the usual course." + +Mr. Justice Charles: "If that is the usual course, let it be so." + +The next session of the Central Criminal Court opened on the 20th of +the same month. + +Not three weeks' respite, still it might be enough: it was +inconceivable that a Judge in Chambers would refuse to accept bail: +fortunately the law allows him no option. + + * * * * * + +The application for bail was made in due course to a Judge in +Chambers, and in spite of the bad example of the magistrate, and of +Mr. Justice Charles, it was granted and Wilde was set free in his own +recognizance of £2,500 with two other sureties for £1,250 each. It +spoke volumes for the charm and fascination of the man that people +were found to undertake this onerous responsibility. Their names +deserve to be recorded; one was Lord Douglas of Hawick, the other a +clergyman, the Rev. Stewart Headlam. I offered to be one bail: but I +was not a householder at the time and my name was, therefore, not +acceptable. I suppose the Treasury objected, which shows, I am +inclined to think, some glimmering of sense on its part. + +As soon as the bail was accepted I began to think of preparations for +Oscar's escape. It was high time something was done to save him from +the wolves. The day after his release a London morning journal was not +ashamed to publish what it declared was a correct analysis of the +voting of the jury on the various counts. According to this authority, +ten jurors were generally for conviction and two against, in the case +of Wilde; the statement was widely accepted because it added that the +voting was more favourable to Taylor than to Wilde, which was so +unexpected and so senseless that it carried with it a certain +plausibility: _Credo quia incredible_. + +I had seen enough of English justice and English judges and English +journals to convince me that Oscar Wilde had no more chance of a fair +trial than if he had been an Irish "Invincible." Everyone had made up +his mind and would not even listen to reason: he was practically +certain to be convicted, and if convicted perfectly certain to be +punished with savage ferocity. The judge would probably think he was +showing impartiality by punishing him for his qualities of charm and +high intelligence. For the first time in my life I understood the full +significance of Montaigne's confession that if he were accused of +stealing the towers of Notre Dame, he would fly the kingdom rather +than risk a trial, and Montaigne was a lawyer. I set to work at once +to complete my preparations. + +I did not think I ran any risk in helping Oscar to get away. The +newspapers had seized the opportunity of the trials before the +magistrate and before Mr. Justice Charles and had overwhelmed the +public with such a sea of nauseous filth and impurity as could only be +exposed to the public nostrils in pudibond England. Everyone, I +thought, must be sick of the testimony and eager to have done with the +whole thing. In this I may have been mistaken. The hatred of Wilde +seemed universal and extraordinarily malignant. + +I wanted a steam yacht. Curiously enough on the very day when I was +thinking of running down to Cowes to hire one, a gentleman at lunch +mentioned that he had one in the Thames. I asked him could I charter +it? + +"Certainly," he replied, "and I will let you have it for the bare cost +for the next month or two." + +"One month will do for me," I said. + +"Where are you going?" he asked. + +I don't know why, but a thought came into my head: I would tell him +the truth, and see what he would say. I took him aside and told him +the bare facts. At once he declared that the yacht was at my service +for such work as that without money: he would be too glad to lend it +to me: it was horrible that such a man as Wilde should be treated as a +common criminal. + +He felt as Henry VIII felt in Shakespeare's play of that name: + + "... there's some of ye, I see, + More out of malice than integrity, + Would try him to the utmost, ..." + +It was not the generosity in my friend's offer that astonished me, but +the consideration for Wilde; I thought the lenity so singular in +England that I feel compelled to explain it. Though an Englishman born +and bred my friend was by race a Jew--a man of the widest culture, who +had no sympathy whatever with the vice attributed to Oscar. Feeling +consoled because there was at least one generous, kind heart in the +world, I went next day to Willie Wilde's house in Oakley Street to see +Oscar. I had written to him on the previous evening that I was coming +to take Oscar out to lunch. + +Willie Wilde met me at the door; he was much excited apparently by the +notoriety attaching to Oscar; he was volubly eager to tell me that, +though we had not been friends, yet my support of Oscar was most +friendly and he would therefore bury the hatchet. He had never +interested me, and I was unconscious of any hatchet and careless +whether he buried it or blessed it. I repeated drily that I had come +to take Oscar to lunch. + +"I know you have," he said, "and it's most kind of you; but he can't +go." + +"Why not?" I asked as I went in. + +Oscar was gloomy, depressed, and evidently suffering. Willie's +theatrical insincerity had annoyed me a little, and I was eager to get +away. Suddenly I saw Sherard, who has since done his best for Oscar's +memory. In his book there is a record of this visit of mine. He was +standing silently by the wall. + +"I've come to take you to lunch," I said to Oscar. + +"But he cannot go out," cried Willie. + +"Of course he can," I insisted, "I've come to take him." + +"But where to?" asked Willie. + +"Yes, Frank, where to?" repeated Oscar meekly. + +"Anywhere you like," I said, "the Savoy if you like, the Café Royal +for choice." + +"Oh, Frank, I dare not," cried Oscar. + +"No, no," cried Willie, "there would be a scandal; someone'll insult +him and it would do harm; set people's backs up." + +"Oh, Frank, I dare not," echoed Oscar. + +"No one will insult him. There will be no scandal," I replied, "and it +will do good." + +"But what will people say?" cried Willie. + +"No one ever knows what people will say," I retorted, "and people +always speak best of those who don't care a damn what they do say." + +"Oh, Frank, I could not go to a place like the Savoy where I am well +known," objected Oscar. + +"All right," I agreed, "you shall go where you like. All London is +before us. I must have a talk with you, and it will do you good to get +out into the air, and sun yourself and feel the wind in your face. +Come, there's a hansom at the door." + +It was not long before I had conquered his objections and Willie's +absurdities and taken him with me. Scarcely had we left the house when +his spirits began to lift, and he rippled into laughter. + +"Really, Frank, it is strange, but I do not feel frightened and +depressed any more, and the people don't boo and hiss at me. Is it not +dreadful the way they insult the fallen?" + +"We are not going to talk about it," I said; "we are going to talk of +victories and not of defeats." + +"Ah, Frank, there will be no more victories for me." + +"Nonsense," I cried; "now where are we going?" + +"Some quiet place where I shall not be known." + +"You really would not like the Café Royal?" I asked. "Nothing will +happen to you, and I think you would probably find that one or two +people would wish you luck. You have had a rare bad time, and there +must be some people who understand what you have gone through and know +that it is sufficient punishment for any sin." + +"No, Frank," he persisted, "I cannot, I really cannot." + +At length we decided on a restaurant in Great Portland Street. We +drove there and had a private room. + +I had two purposes in me, springing from the one root, the intense +desire to help him. I felt sure that if the case came up again for +trial he would only be convicted through what I may call good, honest +testimony. The jury with their English prejudice; or rather I should +say with their healthy English instincts would not take the evidence +of vile blackmailers against him; he could only be convicted through +untainted evidence such as the evidence of the chambermaids at the +Savoy Hotel, and their evidence was over two years old and was weak, +inasmuch as the facts, if facts, were not acted upon by the +management. Still their testimony was very clear and very positive, +and, taken together with that of the blackmailers, sufficient to +ensure conviction. After our lunch I laid this view before Oscar. He +agreed with me that it was probably the chambermaids' testimony which +had weighed most heavily against him. Their statement and Shelley's +had brought about the injurious tone in the Judge's summing up. The +Judge himself had admitted as much. + +"The chambermaids' evidence is wrong," Oscar declared. "They are +mistaken, Frank. It was not me they spoke about at the Savoy Hotel. It +was ----. I was never bold enough. I went to see ---- in the morning +in his room." + +"Thank God," I said, "but why didn't Sir Edward Clarke bring that +out?" + +"He wanted to; but I would not let him. I told him he must not. I must +be true to my friend. I could not let him." + +"But he must," I said, "at any rate if he does not I will. I have +three weeks and in that three weeks I am going to find the +chambermaid. I am going to get a plan of your room and your friend's +room, and I'm going to make her understand that she was mistaken. She +probably remembered you because of your size: she mistook you for the +guilty person; everybody has always taken you for the ringleader and +not the follower." + +"But what good is it, Frank, what good is it?" he cried. "Even if you +convinced the chambermaid and she retracted; there would still be +Shelley, and the Judge laid stress on Shelley's evidence as +untainted." + +"Shelley is an accomplice," I cried, "his testimony needs +corroboration. You don't understand these legal quibbles; but there +was not a particle of corroboration. Sir Edward Clarke should have had +his testimony ruled out. 'Twas that conspiracy charge," I cried, +"which complicated the matter. Shelley's evidence, too, will be ruled +out at the next trial, you'll see." + +"Oh, Frank," he said, "you talk with passion and conviction, as if I +were innocent." + +"But you are innocent," I cried in amaze, "aren't you?" + +"No, Frank," he said, "I thought you knew that all along." + +I stared at him stupidly. "No," I said dully, "I did not know. I did +not believe the accusation. I did not believe it for a moment." + +I suppose the difference in my tone and manner struck him, for he +said, timidly putting out his hand: + +"This will make a great difference to you, Frank?" + +"No," I said, pulling myself together and taking his hand; and after a +pause I went on: "No: curiously enough it has made no difference to me +at all. I do not know why; I suppose I have got more sympathy than +morality in me. It has surprised me, dumbfounded me. The thing has +always seemed fantastic and incredible to me and now you make it exist +for me; but it has no effect on my friendship; none upon my resolve to +help you. But I see that the battle is going to be infinitely harder +than I imagined. In fact, now I don't think we have a chance of +winning a verdict. I came here hoping against fear that it could be +won, though I always felt that it would be better in the present state +of English feeling to go abroad and avoid the risk of a trial. Now +there is no question: you would be insane, as Clarke said, to stay in +England. But why on earth did Alfred Douglas, knowing the truth, ever +wish you to attack Queensberry?" + +"He's very bold and obstinate, Frank," said Oscar weakly. + +"Well, now I must play Crito," I resumed, smiling, "and take you away +before the ship comes from Delos." + +"Oh, Frank, that would be wonderful; but it's impossible, quite +impossible. I should be arrested before I left London, and shamed +again in public: they would boo at me and shout insults.... Oh, it is +impossible; I could not risk it." + +"Nonsense," I replied, "I believe the authorities would be only too +glad if you went. I think Clarke's challenge to Gill was curiously +ill-advised. He should have let sleeping dogs lie. Combative Gill was +certain to take up the gauntlet. If Clarke had lain low there might +have been no second trial. But that can't be helped now. Don't believe +that it's even difficult to get away; it's easy. I don't propose to go +by Folkestone or Dover." + +"But, Frank, what about the people who have stood bail for me? I +couldn't leave them to suffer; they would lose their thousands." + +"I shan't let them lose," I replied, "I am quite willing to take half +on my own shoulders at once and you can pay the other thousand or so +within a very short time by writing a couple of plays. American papers +would be only too glad to pay you for an interview. The story of your +escape would be worth a thousand pounds; they would give you almost +any price for it. + +"Leave everything to me, but in the meantime I want you to get out in +the air as much as possible. You are not looking well; you are not +yourself." + +"That house is depressing, Frank. Willie makes such a merit of giving +me shelter; he means well, I suppose; but it is all dreadful." + +My notes of this talk finish in this way, but the conversation left on +me a deep impression of Oscar's extraordinary weakness or rather +extraordinary softness of nature backed up and redeemed by a certain +magnanimity: he would not leave the friends in the lurch who had gone +bail for him; he would not give his friend away even to save himself; +but neither would he exert himself greatly to win free. He was like a +woman, I said to myself in wonder, and my pity for him grew keener. +He seemed mentally stunned by the sudden fall, by the discovery of how +violently men can hate. He had never seen the wolf in man before; the +vile brute instinct that preys upon the fallen. He had not believed +that such exultant savagery existed; it had never come within his ken; +now it appalled him. And so he stood there waiting for what might +happen without courage to do anything but suffer. My heart ached with +pity for him, and yet I felt a little impatient with him as well. Why +give up like that? The eternal quarrel of the combative nature with +those who can't or won't fight. + +Before getting into the carriage to drive back to his brother's, I +ascertained that he did not need any money. He told me that he had +sufficient even for the expenses of a second trial: this surprised me +greatly, for he was very careless about money; but I found out from +him later that a very noble and cultured woman, a friend of both of +us, Miss S----, a Jewess by race tho' not by religion, had written to +him asking if she could help him financially, as she had been +distressed by hearing of his bankruptcy, and feared that he might be +in need. If that were the case she begged him to let her be his +banker, in order that he might be properly defended. He wrote in +reply, saying that he was indeed in uttermost distress, that he +wanted money, too, to help his mother as he had always helped her, and +that he supposed the expenses of the second trial would be from £500 +to £1,000. Thereupon Miss S---- sent him a cheque for £1,000, assuring +him that it cost her little even in self-sacrifice, and declaring that +it was only inadequate recognition of the pleasure she had had through +his delightful talks. Such actions are beyond praise; it is the +perfume of such sweet and noble human sympathy that makes this wild +beasts' cage of a world habitable for men. + +Before parting we had agreed to meet a few nights afterwards at Mrs. +Leverson's, where he had been invited to dinner, and where I also had +been invited. By that time, I thought to myself, all my preparations +would be perfected. + +Looking back now I see clearly that my affection for Oscar Wilde dates +from his confession to me that afternoon. I had been a friend of his +for years; but what had bound us together had been purely +intellectual, a community of literary tastes and ambitions. Now his +trust in me and frankness had thrown down the barrier between us; and +made me conscious of the extraordinary femininity and gentle weakness +of his nature, and, instead of condemning him as I have always +condemned that form of sexual indulgence, I felt only pity for him +and a desire to protect and help him. From that day on our friendship +became intimate: I began to divine him; I knew now that his words +would always be more generous and noble than his actions; knew too +that I must take his charm of manner and vivacity of intercourse for +real virtues, and indeed they were as real as the beauty of flowers; +and I was aware as by some sixth sense that, where his vanity was +concerned, I might expect any injustice from him. I was sure +beforehand, however, that I should always forgive him, or rather that +I should always accept whatever he did and love him for the charm and +sweetness and intellect in him and hold myself more than recompensed +for anything I might be able to do, by his delightful companionship. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +In spite of the wit of the hostess and her exquisite cordiality, our +dinner at Mrs. Leverson's was hardly a success. Oscar was not himself; +contrary to his custom he sat silent and downcast. From time to time +he sighed heavily, and his leaden dejection gradually infected all of +us. I was not sorry, for I wanted to get him away early; by ten +o'clock we had left the house and were in the Cromwell Road. He +preferred to walk: without his noticing it I turned up Queen's Gate +towards the park. After walking for ten minutes I said to him: + +"I want to speak to you seriously. Do you happen to know where Erith +is?" + +"No, Frank." + +"It is a little landing place on the Thames," I went on, "not many +miles away: it can be reached by a fast pair of horses and a brougham +in a very short time. There at Erith is a steam yacht ready to start +at a moment's notice; she has steam up now, one hundred pounds +pressure to the square inch in her boilers; her captain's waiting, her +crew ready--a greyhound in leash; she can do fifteen knots an hour +without being pressed. In one hour she would be free of the Thames +and on the high seas--(delightful phrase, eh?)--high seas indeed where +there is freedom uncontrolled. + +"If one started now one could breakfast in France, at Boulogne, let us +say, or Dieppe; one could lunch at St. Malo or St. Enogat or any place +you like on the coast of Normandy, and one could dine comfortably at +the Sables d'Olonne, where there is not an Englishman to be found, and +where sunshine reigns even in May from morning till night. + +"What do you say, Oscar, will you come and try a homely French +bourgeois dinner to-morrow evening at an inn I know almost at the +water's edge? We could sit out on the little terrace and take our +coffee in peace under the broad vine leaves while watching the silver +pathway of the moon widen on the waters. We could smile at the +miseries of London and its wolfish courts shivering in cold grey mist +hundreds of miles away. Does not the prospect tempt you?" + +I spoke at leisure, tasting each delight, looking for his gladness. + +"Oh, Frank," he cried, "how wonderful; but how impossible!" + +"Impossible! don't be absurd," I retorted. "Do you see those lights +yonder?" and I showed him some lights at the Park gate on the top of +the hill in front of us. + +"Yes, Frank." + +"That's a brougham," I said, "with a pair of fast horses. It will take +us for a midnight visit to the steam yacht in double-quick time. +There's a little library on board of French books and English; I've +ordered supper in the cabin--lobster à l'Americaine and a bottle of +Pommery. You've never seen the mouth of the Thames at night, have you? +It's a scene from wonderland; houses like blobs of indigo fencing you +in; ships drifting past like black ghosts in the misty air, and the +purple sky above never so dark as the river, the river with its +shifting lights of ruby and emerald and topaz, like an oily, opaque +serpent gliding with a weird life of its own.... Come; you must visit +the yacht." + +I turned to him, but he was no longer by my side. I gasped; what had +happened? The mist must have hidden him; I ran back ten yards, and +there he was leaning against the railing, hung up with his head on his +arm shaking. + +"What's the matter, Oscar?" I cried. "What on earth's the matter?" + +"Oh, Frank, I can't go," he cried, "I can't. It would be too +wonderful; but it's impossible. I should be seized by the police. You +don't know the police." + +"Nonsense," I cried, "the police can't stop you and not a man of them +will see you from start to finish. Besides, I have loose money for any +I do meet, and none of them can resist a 'tip.' You will simply get +out of the brougham and walk fifty yards and you will be on the yacht +and free. In fact, if you like you shall not come out of the brougham +until the sailors surround you as a guard of honour. On board the +yacht no one will touch you. No warrant runs there. Come on, man!" + +"Oh, Frank," he groaned, "it's impossible!" + +"What's impossible?" I insisted. "Let's consider everything anew at +breakfast to-morrow morning in France. If you want to come back, +there's nothing to prevent you. The yacht will take you back in +twenty-four hours. You will not have broken your bail; you'll have +done nothing wrong. You can go to France, Germany or Siberia so long +as you come back by the twentieth of May. Take it that I offer you a +holiday in France for ten days. Surely it is better to spend a week +with me than in that dismal house in Oakley Street, where the very +door gives one the creeps." + +"Oh, Frank, I'd love to," he groaned. "I see everything you say, but I +can't. I dare not. I'm caught, Frank, in a trap, I can only wait for +the end." + +I began to get impatient; he was weaker than I had imagined, weaker a +hundred times. + +"Come for a trip, then, man," I cried, and I brought him within twenty +yards of the carriage; but there he stopped as if he had made up his +mind. + +"No, no, I can't come. I could not go about in France feeling that the +policeman's hand might fall on my shoulder at any moment. I could not +live a life of fear and doubt: it would kill me in a month." His tone +was decided. + +"Why let your imagination run away with you?" I pleaded. "Do be +reasonable for once. Fear and doubt would soon be over. If the police +don't get you in France within a week after the date fixed for the +trial, you need have no further fear, for they won't get you at all: +they don't want you. You're making mountains out of molehills with +nervous fancies." + +"I should be arrested." + +"Nonsense," I replied, "who would arrest you? No one has the right. +You are out on bail: your bail answers for you till the 20th. Money +talks, man; Englishmen always listen to money. It'll do you good with +the public and the jury to come back from France to stand your trial. +Do come," and I took him by the arm; but he would not move. To my +astonishment he faced me and said: + +"And my sureties?" + +"We'll pay 'em," I replied, "both of 'em, if you break your bail. +Come," but he would not. + +"Frank, if I were not in Oakley Street to-night Willie would tell the +police." + +"Your brother?" I cried. + +"Yes," he said, "Willie." + +"Good God!" I exclaimed; "but let him tell. I have not mentioned Erith +or the steam yacht to a soul. It's the last place in the world the +police would suspect and before he talks we shall be out of reach. +Besides they cannot do anything; you are doing nothing wrong. Please +trust me, you do nothing questionable even till you omit to enter the +Old Bailey on the 20th of May." + +"You don't know Willie," he continued, "he has made my solicitors buy +letters of mine; he has blackmailed me." + +"Whew!" I whistled. "But in that case you'll have no compunction in +leaving him without saying 'goodbye.' Let's go and get into the +brougham." + +"No, no," he repeated, "you don't understand; I can't go, I cannot +go." + +"Do you mean it really?" I asked. "Do you mean you will not come and +spend a week yachting with me?" + +"I cannot." + +I drew him a few paces nearer the carriage: something of desolation +and despair in his voice touched me: I looked at him. Tears were +pouring down his face; he was the picture of misery, yet I could not +move him. + +"Come into the carriage," I said, hoping that the swift wind in his +face would freshen him up, give him a moment's taste of the joy of +living and sharpen the desire of freedom. + +"Yes, Frank," he said, "if you will take me to Oakley Street." + +"I would as soon take you to prison," I replied; "but as you wish." + +The next moment we had got in and were swinging down Queen's Gate. The +mist seemed to lend keenness to the air. At the bottom of Queen's Gate +the coachman swept of himself to the left into the Cromwell Road; +Oscar seemed to wake out of his stupor. + +"No, Frank," he cried, "no, no," and he fumbled at the handle of the +door, "I must get out; I will not go. I will not go." + +"Sit still," I said in despair, "I'll tell the coachman," and I put my +head out of the window and cried: + +"Oakley Street, Oakley Street, Chelsea, Robert." + +I do not think I spoke again till we got to Oakley Street. I was +consumed with rage and contemptuous impatience. I had done the best I +knew and had failed. Why? I had no idea. I have never known why he +refused to come. I don't think he knew himself. Such resignation I had +never dreamt of. It was utterly new to me. I used to think of +resignation in a vague way as of something rather beautiful; ever +since, I have thought of it with impatience: resignation is the +courage of the irresolute. Oscar's obstinacy was the obverse of his +weakness. It is astonishing how inertia rules some natures. The +attraction of waiting and doing nothing is intense for those who live +in thought and detest action. As we turned into Oakley Street, Oscar +said to me: + +"You are not angry with me, Frank?" and he put out his hand. + +"No, no," I said, "why should I be angry? You are the master of your +fate. I can only offer advice." + +"Do come and see me soon," he pleaded. + +"My bolt is shot," I replied; "but I'll come in two or three days' +time, as soon as I have anything of importance to say.... Don't +forget, Oscar, the yacht is there and will be there waiting until the +20th; the yacht will always be ready and the brougham." + +"Good night, Frank," he said, "good night, and thank you." + +He got out and went into the house, the gloomy sordid house where the +brother lived who would sell his blood for a price! + + * * * * * + +Three or four days later we met again, but to my amaze Oscar had not +changed his mind. To talk of him as cast down is the precise truth; he +seemed to me as one who had fallen from a great height and lay half +conscious, stunned on the ground. The moment you moved him, even to +raise his head, it gave him pain and he cried out to be left alone. +There he lay prone, and no one could help him. It was painful to +witness his dumb misery: his mind even, his sunny bright intelligence, +seemed to have deserted him. + +Once again he came out with me to lunch. Afterwards we drove through +Regent's Park as the quietest way to Hampstead and had a talk. The air +and swift motion did him good. The beauty of the view from the heath +seemed to revive him. I tried to cheer him up. + +"You must know," I said, "that you can win if you want to. You can not +only bring the jury to doubt, but you can make the judge doubt as +well. I was convinced of your innocence in spite of all the witnesses, +and I knew more about you than they did. In the trial before Mr. +Justice Charles, the thing that saved you was that you spoke of the +love of David and Jonathan and the sweet affection which the common +world is determined not to understand. There is another point against +you which you have not touched on yet: Gill asked you what you had in +common with those serving-men and stable boys. You have not explained +that. You have explained that you love youth, the brightness and the +gaiety of it, but you have not explained what seems inexplicable to +most men, that you should go about with servants and strappers." + +"Difficult to explain, Frank, isn't it, without the truth?" Evidently +his mind was not working. + +"No," I replied, "easy, simple. Think of Shakespeare. How did he know +Dogberry and Pistol, Bardolph and Doll Tearsheet? He must have gone +about with them. You don't go about with public school boys of your +own class, for you know them; you have nothing to learn from them: +they can teach you nothing. But the stable boy and servant you cannot +sketch in your plays without knowing him, and you can't know him +without getting on his level, and letting him call you 'Oscar' and +calling him 'Charlie.' If you rub this in, the judge will see that he +is face to face with the artist in you and will admit at least that +your explanation is plausible. He will hesitate to condemn you, and +once he hesitates you'll win. + +"You fought badly because you did not show your own nature +sufficiently; you did not use your brains in the witness box and +alas--" I did not continue; the truth was I was filled with fear; for +I suddenly realised that he had shown more courage and self-possession +in the Queensberry trial than in the trial before Mr. Justice Charles +when so much more was at stake; and I felt that in the next trial he +would be more depressed still, and less inclined to take the +initiative than ever. I had already learned too that I could not help +him; that he would not be lifted out of that "sweet way of despair," +which so attracts the artist spirit. But still I would do my best. + +"Do you understand?" I asked. + +"Of course, Frank, of course, but you have no conception how weary I +am of the whole thing, of the shame and the struggling and the hatred. +To see those people coming into the box one after the other to witness +against me makes me sick. The self-satisfied grin of the barristers, +the pompous foolish judge with his thin lips and cunning eyes and hard +jaw. Oh, it's terrible. I feel inclined to stretch out my hands and +cry to them, 'Do what you will with me, in God's name, only do it +quickly; cannot you see that I am worn out? If hatred gives you +pleasure, indulge it.' They worry one, Frank, with ravening jaws, as +dogs worry a rabbit. Yet they call themselves men. It is appalling." + +The day was dying, the western sky all draped with crimson, saffron +and rosy curtains: a slight mist over London, purple on the horizon, +closer, a mere wash of blue; here and there steeples pierced the thin +veil like fingers pointing upward. On the left the dome of St. Paul's +hung like a grey bubble over the city; on the right the twin towers of +Westminster with the river and bridge which Wordsworth sang. Peace and +beauty brooding everywhere, and down there lost in the mist the "rat +pit" that men call the Courts of Justice. There they judge their +fellows, mistaking indifference for impartiality, as if anyone could +judge his fellowman without love, and even with love how far short we +all come of that perfect sympathy which is above forgiveness and takes +delight in succouring the weak, comforting the broken-hearted. + + * * * * * + +The days went swiftly by and my powerlessness to influence him filled +me with self-contempt. Of course, I said to myself, if I knew him +better I should be able to help him. Would vanity do anything? It was +his mainspring; I could but try. He might be led by the hope of making +Englishmen talk of him again, talk of him as one who had dared to +escape; wonder what he would do next. I would try, and I did try. But +his dejection foiled me: his dislike of the struggle seemed to grow +from day to day. + +He would scarcely listen to me. He was counting the days to the trial: +willing to accept an adverse decision; even punishment and misery and +shame seemed better than doubt and waiting. He surprised me by saying: + +"A year, Frank, they may give me a year? half the possible sentence: +the middle course, that English Judges always take: the sort of +compromise they think safe?" and his eyes searched my face for +agreement. + +I felt no such confidence in English Judges; their compromises are +usually bargainings; when they get hold of an artist they give rein to +their intuitive fear and hate. + +But I would not discourage him. I repeated: + +"You can win, Oscar, if you like:--" my litany to him. His wan +dejected smile brought tears to my eyes. + + * * * * * + +"Don't you want to make them all speak of you and wonder at you again? +If you were in France, everyone would be asking: will he come back or +disappear altogether? or will he manifest himself henceforth in some +new comedies, more joyous and pagan than ever?" + +I might as well have talked to the dead: he seemed numbed, hypnotised +with despair. The punishment had already been greater than he could +bear. I began to fear that prison, if he were condemned to it, would +rob him of his reason; I sometimes feared that his mind was already +giving way, so profound was his depression, so hopeless his despair. + + * * * * * + +The trial opened before Mr. Justice Wills on the 21st of May, 1895. +The Treasury had sent Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., to lead Mr. C.F. +Gill, Mr. Horace Avory, and Mr. Sutton. Oscar was represented by the +same counsel as on the previous occasion. + +The whole trial to me was a nightmare, and it was characterised from +the very beginning by atrocious prejudice and injustice. The High +Priests of Law were weary of being balked; eager to make an end. As +soon as the Judge took his seat, Sir Edward Clarke applied that the +defendants should be tried separately. As they had already been +acquitted on the charge of conspiracy, there was no reason why they +should be tried together. + +The Judge called on the Solicitor-General to answer the application. + +The Solicitor-General had nothing to say, but thought it was in the +interests of the defendants to be tried together; for, in case they +were tried separately, it would be necessary to take the defendant +Taylor first. + +Sir Edward Clarke tore this pretext to pieces, and Mr. Justice Wills +brought the matter to a conclusion by saying that he was in possession +of all the evidence that had been taken at the previous trials, and +his opinion was that the two defendants should be tried separately. + +Sir Edward Clarke then applied that the case of Mr. Wilde should be +taken first as his name stood first on the indictment, and as the +first count was directed against him and had nothing to do with +Taylor.... "There are reasons present, I am sure, too, in your +Lordship's mind, why Wilde should not be tried immediately after the +other defendant." + +Mr. Justice Wills remarked, with seeming indifference, "It ought not +to make the least difference, Sir Edward. I am sure I and the jury +will do our best to take care that the last trial has no influence at +all on the present." + +Sir Edward Clarke stuck to his point. He urged respectfully that as +Mr. Wilde's name stood first on the indictment his case should be +taken first. + +Mr. Justice Wills said he could not interfere with the discretion of +the prosecution, nor vary the ordinary procedure. Justice and fair +play on the one side and precedent on the other: justice was waved out +of court with serene indifference. Thereupon Sir Edward Clarke pressed +that the trial of Mr. Oscar Wilde should stand over till the next +sessions. But again Mr. Justice Wills refused. Precedent was silent +now but prejudice was strong as ever. + +The case against Taylor went on the whole day and was resumed next +morning. Taylor went into the box and denied all the charges. The +Judge summed up dead against him, and at 3.30 the jury retired to +consider their verdict: in forty-five minutes they came into court +again with a question which was significant. In answer to the judge +the foreman stated that "they had agreed that Taylor had introduced +Parker to Wilde, but they were not satisfied with Wilde's guilt in the +matter." + +Mr. Justice Wills: "Were you agreed as to the charge on the other +counts?" + +Foreman: "Yes, my Lord." + +Mr. Justice Wills: "Well, possibly it would be as well to take your +verdict upon the other counts." + +Through the foreman the jury accordingly intimated that they found +Taylor guilty with regard to Charles and William Parker. + +In answer to his Lordship, Sir F. Lockwood said he would take the +verdict given by the jury of "guilty" upon the two counts. + +A formal verdict having been entered, the judge ordered the prisoner +to stand down, postponing sentence. Did he postpone the sentence in +order not to frighten the next jury by the severity of it? Other +reason I could find none. + +Sir Edward Clarke then got up and said that as it was getting rather +late, perhaps after the second jury had disagreed as to Mr. Wilde's +guilt-- + +Sir F. Lockwood here interposed hotly: "I object to Sir Edward Clarke +making these little speeches." + +Mr. Justice Wills took the matter up as well. + +"You can hardly call it a disagreement, Sir Edward," though what else +he could call it, I was at a loss to imagine. + +He then adjourned the case against Oscar Wilde till the next day, when +a different jury would be impanelled. But whatever jury might be +called they would certainly hear that their forerunners had found +Taylor guilty and they would know that every London paper without +exception had approved the finding. What a fair chance to give Wilde! +It was like trying an Irish Secretary before a jury of Fenians. + +The next morning, May 23d, Oscar Wilde appeared in the dock. The +Solicitor-General opened the case, and then called his witnesses. One +of the first was Edward Shelley, who in cross-examination admitted +that he had been mentally ill when he wrote Mr. Wilde those letters +which had been put in evidence. He was "made nervous from over-study," +he said. + +Alfred Wood admitted that he had had money given him quite recently, +practically blackmailing money. He was as venomous as possible. "When +he went to America," he said, "he told Wilde that he wanted to get +away from mixing with him (Wilde) and Douglas." + +Charlie Parker next repeated his disgusting testimony with ineffable +impudence and a certain exultation. Bestial ignominy could go no +lower; he admitted that since the former trial he had been kept at the +expense of the prosecution. After this confession the case was +adjourned and we came out of court. + +When I reached Fleet Street I was astonished to hear that there had +been a row that same afternoon in Piccadilly between Lord Douglas of +Hawick and his father, the Marquis of Queensberry. Lord Queensberry, +it appears, had been writing disgusting letters about the Wilde case +to Lord Douglas's wife. Meeting him in Piccadilly Percy Douglas +stopped him and asked him to cease writing obscene letters to his +wife. The Marquis said he would not and the father and son came to +blows. Queensberry it seems was exasperated by the fact that Douglas +of Hawick was one of those who had gone bail for Oscar Wilde. One of +the telegrams which the Marquis of Queensberry had sent to Lady +Douglas I must put in just to show the insane nature of the man who +could exult in a trial which was damning the reputation of his own +son. The letter was manifestly written after the result of the Taylor +trial: + + Must congratulate on verdict, cannot on Percy's appearance. + Looks like a dug up corpse. Fear too much madness of + kissing. Taylor guilty. Wilde's turn to-morrow. + + QUEENSBERRY. + +In examination before the magistrate, Mr. Hannay, it was stated that +Lord Queensberry had been sending similar letters to Lady Douglas +"full of the most disgusting charges against Lord Douglas, his wife, +and Lord Queensberry's divorced wife and her family." But Mr. Hannay +thought all this provocation was of no importance and bound over both +father and son to keep the peace--an indefensible decision, a +decision only to be explained by the sympathy everywhere shown to +Queensberry because of his victory over Wilde, otherwise surely any +honest magistrate would have condemned the father who sent obscene +letters to his son's wife--a lady above reproach. These vile letters +and the magistrate's bias, seemed to me to add the final touch of the +grotesque to the horrible vileness of the trial. It was all worthy of +the seventh circle of Dante, but Dante had never imagined such a +father and such judges! + + * * * * * + +Next morning Oscar Wilde was again put in the dock. The evidence of +the Queensberry trial was read and therewith the case was closed for +the Crown. + +Sir Edward Clarke rose and submitted that there was no case to go to +the jury on the general counts. After a long legal argument for and +against, Mr. Justice Wills said that he would reserve the question for +the Court of Appeal. The view he took was that "the evidence was of +the slenderest kind"; but he thought the responsibility must be left +with the jury. To this judge "the slenderest kind" of evidence was +worthful so long as it told against the accused. + +Sir Edward Clarke then argued that the cases of Shelley, Parker and +Wood failed on the ground of the absence of corroboration. Mr. +Justice Wills admitted that Shelley showed "a peculiar exaltation" of +mind; there was, too, mental derangement in his family, and worst of +all there was no corroboration of his statements. Accordingly, in +spite of the arguments of the Solicitor-General, Shelley's evidence +was cut out. But Shelley's evidence had already been taken, had +already prejudiced the jury. Indeed, it had been the evidence which +had influenced Mr. Justice Charles in the previous trial to sum up +dead against the defendant: Mr. Justice Charles called Shelley "the +only serious witness." + +Now it appeared that Shelley's evidence should never have been taken +at all, that the jury ought never to have heard Shelley's testimony or +the Judge's acceptance of it! + + * * * * * + +When the court opened next morning I knew that the whole case depended +on Oscar Wilde, and the showing he would make in the box, but alas! he +was broken and numbed. He was not a fighter, and the length of this +contest might have wearied a combative nature. The Solicitor-General +began by examining him on his letters to Lord Alfred Douglas and we +had the "prose poem" again and the rest of the ineffable nonsensical +prejudice of the middle-class mind against passionate sentiment. It +came out in evidence that Lord Alfred Douglas was now in Calais. His +hatred of his father was the _causa causans_ of the whole case; he had +pushed Oscar into the fight and Oscar, still intent on shielding him, +declared that he had asked him to go abroad. + +Sir Edward Clarke again did his poor best. He pointed out that the +trial rested on the evidence of mere blackmailers. He would not +quarrel with that and discuss it, but it was impossible not to see +that if blackmailers were to be listened to and believed, their +profession might speedily become a more deadly mischief and danger to +society than it had ever been. + +The speech was a weak one; but the people in court cheered Sir Edward +Clarke; the cheers were immediately suppressed by the Judge. + +The Solicitor-General took up the rest of the day with a rancorous +reply. Sir Edward Clarke even had to remind him that law officers of +the Crown should try to be impartial. One instance of his prejudice +may be given. Examining Oscar as to his letters to Lord Alfred +Douglas, Sir Frank Lockwood wanted to know whether he thought them +"decent"? + +The witness replied, "Yes." + +"Do you know the meaning of the word, sir?" was this gentleman's +retort. + +I went out of the court feeling certain that the case was lost. Oscar +had not shown himself at all; he had not even spoken with the vigour +he had used at the Queensberry trial. He seemed too despairing to +strike a blow. + +The summing up of the Judge on May 25th was perversely stupid and +malevolent. He began by declaring that he was "absolutely impartial," +though his view of the facts had to be corrected again and again by +Sir Edward Clarke: he went on to regret that the charge of conspiracy +should have been introduced, as it had to be abandoned. He then +pointed out that he could not give a colourless summing up, which was +"of no use to anybody." His intelligence can be judged from one +crucial point: he fastened on the fact that Oscar had burnt the +letters which he bought from Wood, which he said were of no +importance, except that they concerned third parties. The Judge had +persuaded himself that the letters were indescribably bad, forgetting +apparently that Wood or his associates had selected and retained the +very worst of them for purposes of blackmail and that this Judge +himself, after reading it, couldn't attribute any weight to it; still +he insisted that burning the letters was an act of madness; whereas it +seemed to everyone of the slightest imagination the most natural thing +in the world for an innocent man to do. At the time Oscar burnt the +letters he had no idea that he would ever be on trial. His letters had +been misunderstood and the worst of them was being used against him, +and when he got the others he naturally threw them into the fire. The +Judge held that it was madness, and built upon this inference a +pyramid of guilt. "Nothing said by Wood should be believed, as he +belongs to the vilest class of criminals; the strength of the +accusation depends solely upon the character of the original +introduction of Wood to Wilde as illustrated and fortified by the +story with regard to the letters and their burning." + +A pyramid of guilt carefully balanced on its apex! If the foolish +Judge had only read his Shakespeare! What does Henry VI say: + + Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester + Than from true evidence of good esteem + He be approved in practice culpable. + +There was no "true evidence of good esteem" against Wilde, but the +Judge turned a harmless action into a confession of guilt. + +Then came an interruption which threw light on the English conception +of justice. The foreman of the jury wanted to know, in view of the +intimate relations between Lord Alfred Douglas and the defendant, +whether a warrant against Lord Alfred Douglas was ever issued. + +Mr. Justice Wills: "I should say not; we have never heard of it." + +Foreman: "Or ever contemplated?" + +Mr. Justice Wills: "That I cannot say, nor can we discuss it. The +issue of such a warrant would not depend upon the testimony of the +parties, but whether there was evidence of such act. Letters pointing +to such relations would not be sufficient. Lord Alfred Douglas was not +called, and you can give what weight you like to that." + +Foreman: "If we are to deduce any guilt from these letters, it would +apply equally to Lord Alfred Douglas." + +Mr. Justice Wills concurred in that view, but after all he thought it +had nothing to do with the present trial, which was the guilt of the +accused. + +The jury retired to consider their verdict at half past three. After +being absent two hours they returned to know whether there was any +evidence of Charles Parker having slept at St. James's Place. + +His Lordship replied, "No." + +The jury shortly afterwards returned again with the verdict of +"Guilty" on all the counts. + +It may be worth while to note again that the Judge himself admitted +that the evidence on some of the counts was of "the slenderest kind"; +but, when backed by his prejudiced summing up, it was more than +sufficient for the jury. + +Sir Edward Clarke pleaded that sentence should be postponed till the +next sessions, when the legal argument would be heard. + +Mr. Justice Wills would not be balked: sentence, he thought, should be +given immediately. Then, addressing the prisoners, he said, and again +I give his exact words, lest I should do him wrong: + +"Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor, the crime of which you have been +convicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's +self to prevent one's self from describing in language which I would +rather not use the sentiments which must rise to the breast of every +man of honour who has heard the details of these two terrible trials. + +"That the jury have arrived at a correct verdict in this case I cannot +persuade myself to entertain the shadow of a doubt; and I hope, at all +events, that those who sometimes imagine that a Judge is half-hearted +in the cause of decency and morality because he takes care no +prejudice shall enter into the case may see that that is consistent at +least with the utmost sense of indignation at the horrible charges +brought home to both of you. + +"It is no use for me to address you. People who can do these things +must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any +effect upon them. It is the worst case I have ever tried.... That you, +Wilde, have been the centre of a circle of extensive corruption of the +most hideous kind among young men it is impossible to doubt. + +"I shall under such circumstances be expected to pass the severest +sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate +for such a case as this. + +"The sentence of the court is that each of you be imprisoned and kept +to hard labour for two years." + +The sentence hushed the court in shocked surprise. + +Wilde rose and cried, "Can I say anything, my lord?" + +Mr. Justice Wills waved his hand deprecatingly amid cries of "Shame" +and hisses from the public gallery; some of the cries and hisses were +certainly addressed to the Judge and well deserved. What did he mean +by saying that Oscar was a "centre of extensive corruption of the most +hideous kind"? No evidence of this had been brought forward by the +prosecution. It was not even alleged that a single innocent person had +been corrupted. The accusation was invented by this "absolutely +impartial" Judge to justify his atrocious cruelty. The unmerited +insults and appalling sentence would have disgraced the worst Judge of +the Inquisition. + +Mr. Justice Wills evidently suffered from the peculiar "exaltation" of +mind which he had recognised in Shelley. This peculiarity is shared in +a lesser degree by several other Judges on the English bench in all +matters of sexual morality. What distinguished Mr. Justice Wills was +that he was proud of his prejudice and eager to act on it. He +evidently did not know, or did not care, that the sentence which he +had given, declaring it was "totally inadequate," had been condemned +by a Royal Commission as "inhuman." He would willingly have pushed +"inhumanity" to savagery, out of sheer bewigged stupidity, and that he +was probably well-meaning only intensified the revolt one felt at such +brainless malevolence. + +The bitterest words in Dante are not bitter enough to render my +feeling: + + "Non ragioniam di lor ma guarda e passa." + +The whole scene had sickened me. Hatred masquerading as justice, +striking vindictively and adding insult to injury. The vile picture +had its fit setting outside. We had not left the court when the +cheering broke out in the streets, and when we came outside there were +troops of the lowest women of the town dancing together and kicking +up their legs in hideous abandonment, while the surrounding crowd of +policemen and spectators guffawed with delight. As I turned away from +the exhibition, as obscene and soul-defiling as anything witnessed in +the madness of the French revolution, I caught a glimpse of Wood and +the Parkers getting into a cab, laughing and leering. + +These were the venal creatures Oscar Wilde was punished for having +corrupted! + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2), by Frank Harris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OSCAR WILDE, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) *** + +***** This file should be named 16894-8.txt or 16894-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/9/16894/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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