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diff --git a/16895.txt b/16895.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca71021 --- /dev/null +++ b/16895.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9046 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (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 2 (of 2) + His Life and Confessions + +Author: Frank Harris + +Release Date: October 17, 2005 [EBook #16895] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OSCAR WILDE, VOLUME 2 (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 II + + +[Illustration: Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas About 1893] + + +PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR + +29 WAVERLEY PLACE +NEW YORK CITY + +MCMXVIII + +Imprime en Allemagne +Printed in Germany + + + For he who sins a second time + Wakes a dead soul to pain, + And draws it from its spotted shroud, + And makes it bleed again, + And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, + And makes it bleed in vain. + + --_The Ballad of Reading Gaol._ + + +Copyright, 1916, +BY FRANK HARRIS + + + + +BOOK II + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Prison for Oscar Wilde, an English prison with its insufficient bad +food[1] and soul-degrading routine for that amiable, joyous, eloquent, +pampered Sybarite. Here was a test indeed; an ordeal as by fire. What +would he make of two years' hard labour in a lonely cell? + +There are two ways of taking prison, as of taking most things, and all +the myriad ways between these two extremes; would Oscar be conquered by +it and allow remorse and hatred to corrupt his very heart, or would he +conquer the prison and possess and use it? Hammer or anvil--which? + +Victory has its virtue and is justified of itself like sunshine; defeat +carries its own condemnation. Yet we have all tasted its bitter waters: +only "infinite virtue" can pass through life victorious, Shakespeare +tells us, and we mortals are not of infinite virtue. The myriad +vicissitudes of the struggle search out all our weaknesses; test all +our powers. Every victory shows a more difficult height to scale, a +steeper pinnacle of god-like hardship--that's the reward of victory: it +provides the hero with ever-new battle-fields: no rest for him this side +the grave. + +But what of defeat? What sweet is there in its bitter? This may be said +for it; it is our great school: punishment teaches pity, just as +suffering teaches sympathy. In defeat the brave soul learns kinship with +other men, takes the rub to heart; seeks out the reason for the fall in +his own weakness, and ever afterwards finds it impossible to judge, much +less condemn his fellow. But after all no one can hurt us but ourselves; +prison, hard labour, and the hate of men; what are these if they make +you truer, wiser, kinder? + +Have you come to grief through self-indulgence and good-living? Here are +months in which men will take care that you shall eat badly and lie +hard. Did you lack respect for others? Here are men who will show you no +consideration. Were you careless of others' sufferings? Here now you +shall agonize unheeded: gaolers and governors as well as black cells +just to teach you. Thank your stars then for every day's experience, +for, when you have learned the lesson of it and turned its discipline +into service, the prison shall transform itself into a hermitage, the +dungeon into a home; the burnt skilly shall be sweet in your mouth; and +your rest on the plank-bed the dreamless slumber of a little child. + +And if you are an artist, prison will be more to you than this; an +astonishing vital and novel experience, accorded only to the chosen. +What will you make of it? That's the question for you. It is a wonderful +opportunity. Seen truly, a prison's more spacious than a palace; nay, +richer, and for a loving soul, a far rarer experience. Thank then the +spirit which steers men for the divine chance which has come to you; +henceforth the prison shall be your domain; in future men will not think +of it without thinking of you. Others may show them what the good things +of life do for one; you will show them what suffering can do, cold and +regretful sleepless hours and solitude, misery and distress. Others will +teach the lessons of joy. The whole vast underworld of pity and pain, +fear and horror and injustice is your kingdom. Men have drawn darkness +about you as a curtain, shrouded you in blackest night; the light in you +will shine the brighter. Always provided of course that the light is not +put out altogether. + +Hammer or anvil? How would Oscar Wilde take punishment? + + * * * * * + +We could not know for months. Yet he was an artist by nature--that gave +one a glimmer of hope. We needed it. For outside at first there was an +icy atmosphere of hatred and contempt. The mere mention of his name was +met with expressions of disgust, or frozen silence. + +One bare incident will paint the general feeling more clearly than pages +of invective or description. The day after Oscar's sentence Mr. Charles +Brookfield, who, it will be remembered, had raked together the witnesses +that enabled Lord Queensberry to "justify" his accusation; assisted by +Mr. Charles Hawtrey, the actor, gave a dinner to Lord Queensberry to +celebrate their triumph. Some forty Englishmen of good position were +present at the banquet--a feast to celebrate the ruin and degradation of +a man of genius. + +Yet there are true souls in England, noble, generous hearts. I remember +a lunch at Mrs. Jeune's, where one declared that Wilde was at length +enjoying his deserts; another regretted that his punishment was so +slight, a third with precise knowledge intimated delicately and with +quiet complacence that two years' imprisonment with hard labour usually +resulted in idiocy or death: fifty per cent., it appeared, failed to win +through. It was more to be dreaded on all accounts than five years' +penal servitude. "You see it begins with starvation and solitary +confinement, and that breaks up the strongest. I think it will be +enough for our vainglorious talker." Miss Madeleine Stanley (now Lady +Middleton) was sitting beside me, her fine, sensitive face clouded: I +could not contain myself, I was being whipped on a sore. + +"This must have been the way they talked in Jerusalem," I remarked, +"after the world-tragedy." + +"You were an intimate friend of his, were you not?" insinuated the +delicate one gently. + +"A friend and admirer," I replied, "and always shall be." + +A glacial silence spread round the table, while the delicate one smiled +with deprecating contempt, and offered some grapes to his neighbour; but +help came. Lady Dorothy Nevill was a little further down the table: she +had not heard all that was said, but had caught the tone of the +conversation and divined the rest. + +"Are you talking of Oscar Wilde?" she exclaimed. "I'm glad to hear you +say you are a friend. I am, too, and shall always be proud of having +known him, a most brilliant, charming man." + +"I think of giving a dinner to him when he comes out, Lady Dorothy," I +said. + +"I hope you'll ask me," she answered bravely. "I should be glad to come. +I always admired and liked him; I feel dreadfully sorry for him." + +The delicate one adroitly changed the conversation and coffee came in, +but Miss Stanley said to me: + +"I wish I had known him, there must have been great good in him to win +such friendship." + +"Great charm in any case," I replied, "and that's rarer among men than +even goodness." + +The first news that came to us from prison was not altogether bad. He +had broken down and was in the infirmary, but was getting better. The +brave Stewart Headlam, who had gone bail for him, had visited him, the +Stewart Headlam who was an English clergyman, and yet, wonder of +wonders, a Christian. A little later one heard that Sherard had seen +him, and brought about a reconciliation with his wife. Mrs. Wilde had +been very good and had gone to the prison and had no doubt comforted +him. Much to be hoped from all this.... + +For months and months the situation in South Africa took all my heart +and mind. + +In the first days of January, 1896, came the Jameson Raid, and I sailed +for South Africa. I had work to do for _The Saturday Review_, absorbing +work by day and night. In the summer I was back in England, but the task +of defending the Boer farmers grew more and more arduous, and I only +heard that Oscar was going on as well as could be expected. + +Some time later, after he had been transferred to Reading Gaol, bad news +leaked out, news that he was breaking up, was being punished, +persecuted. His friends came to me, asking: could anything be done? As +usual my only hope was in the supreme authority. Sir Evelyn Ruggles +Brise was the head of the Prison Commission; after the Home Secretary, +the most powerful person, the permanent official behind the +Parliamentary figure-head; the man who knew and acted behind the man who +talked. I sat down and wrote to him for an interview: by return came a +courteous note giving me an appointment. + +I told him what I had heard about Oscar, that his health was breaking +down and his reason going, pointed out how monstrous it was to turn +prison into a torture-chamber. To my utter astonishment he agreed with +me, admitted, even, that an exceptional man ought to have exceptional +treatment; showed not a trace of pedantry; good brains, good heart. He +went so far as to say that Oscar Wilde should be treated with all +possible consideration, that certain prison rules which pressed very +hardly upon him should be interpreted as mildly as possible. He admitted +that the punishment was much more severe to him than it would be to an +ordinary criminal, and had nothing but admiration for his brilliant +gifts. + +"It was a great pity," he said, "that Wilde ever got into prison, a +great pity." + +I was pushing at an open door; besides the year or so which had elapsed +since the condemnation had given time for reflection. Still, Sir Ruggles +Brise's attitude was extraordinary, sympathetic at once and high-minded: +another true Englishman at the head of affairs: infinite hope in that +fact, and solace. + +I had stuck to my text that something should be done at once to give +Oscar courage and hope; he must not be murdered or left to despair. + +Sir Ruggles Brise asked me finally if I would go to Reading and report +on Oscar Wilde's condition and make any suggestion that might occur to +me. He did not know if this could be arranged; but he would see the Home +Secretary and would recommend it, if I were willing. Of course I was +willing, more than willing. Two or three days later, I got another +letter from him with another appointment, and again I went to see him. +He received me with charming kindness. The Home Secretary would be glad +if I would go down to Reading and report on Oscar Wilde's state. + +"Everyone," said Sir Ruggles Brise, "speaks with admiration and delight +of his wonderful talents. The Home Secretary thinks it would be a great +loss to English literature if he were really injured by the prison +discipline. Here is your order to see him alone, and a word of +introduction to the Governor, and a request to give you all +information." + +I could not speak. I could only shake hands with him in silence. + +What a country of anomalies England is! A judge of the High Court a hard +self-satisfied pernicious bigot, while the official in charge of the +prisons is a man of wide culture and humane views, who has the courage +of a noble humanity. + +I went to Reading Gaol and sent in my letter. I was met by the Governor, +who gave orders that Oscar Wilde should be conducted to a room where we +could talk alone. I cannot give an account of my interviews with the +Governor or the doctor; it would smack of a breach of confidence; +besides all such conversations are peculiarly personal: some people call +forth the best in us, others the worst. Without wishing to, I may have +stirred up the lees. I can only say here that I then learned for the +first time the full, incredible meaning of "Man's inhumanity to man." + +In a quarter of an hour I was led into a bare room where Oscar Wilde was +already standing by a plain deal table. The warder who had come with +him then left us. We shook hands and sat down opposite to each other. He +had changed greatly. He appeared much older; his dark brown hair was +streaked with grey, particularly in front and over the ears. He was much +thinner, had lost at least thirty-five pounds, probably forty or more. +On the whole, however, he looked better physically than he had looked +for years before his imprisonment: his eyes were clear and bright; the +outlines of the face were no longer swamped in fat; the voice even was +ringing and musical; he had improved bodily, I thought; though in repose +his face wore a nervous, depressed and harassed air. + +"You know how glad I am to see you, heart-glad to find you looking so +well," I began, "but tell me quickly, for I may be able to help you, +what have you to complain of; what do you want?" + +For a long time he was too hopeless, too frightened to talk. "The list +of my grievances," he said, "would be without end. The worst of it is I +am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to +punish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectly +awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether +millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life +would be livable--any life," he added sadly. + +"The life, then, is hard. Tell me about it." + +"I don't like to," he said, "it is all so dreadful--and ugly and +painful, I would rather not think of it," and he turned away +despairingly. + +"You must tell me, or I shall not be able to help you." Bit by bit I won +the confession from him. + +"At first it was a fiendish nightmare; more horrible than anything I had +ever dreamt of; from the first evening when they made me undress before +them and get into some filthy water they called a bath and dry myself +with a damp, brown rag and put on this livery of shame. The cell was +appalling: I could hardly breathe in it, and the food turned my stomach; +the smell and sight of it were enough: I did not eat anything for days +and days, I could not even swallow the bread; and the rest of the food +was uneatable; I lay on the so-called bed and shivered all night +long.... Don't ask me to speak of it, please. Words cannot convey the +cumulative effect of a myriad discomforts, brutal handling and slow +starvation. Surely like Dante I have written on my face the fact that I +have been in hell. Only Dante never imagined any hell like an English +prison; in his lowest circle people could move about; could see each +other, and hear each other groan: there was some change, some human +companionship in misery...." + +"When did you begin to eat the food?" I asked. + +"I can't tell, Frank," he replied. "After some days I got so hungry I +had to eat a little, nibble at the outside of the bread, and drink some +of the liquid; whether it was tea, coffee or gruel, I could not tell. As +soon as I really ate anything it produced violent diarrhoea and I was +ill all day and all night. From the beginning I could not sleep. I grew +weak and had wild delusions.... You must not ask me to describe it. It +is like asking a man who has gone through fever to describe one of the +terrifying dreams. At Wandsworth I thought I should go mad; Wandsworth +is the worst: no dungeon in hell can be worse; why is the food so bad? +It even smelt bad. It was not fit for dogs." + +"Was the food the worst of it?" I asked. + +"The hunger made you weak, Frank; but the inhumanity was the worst of +it; what devilish creatures men are. I had never known anything about +them. I had never dreamt of such cruelties. A man spoke to me at +exercise. You know you are not allowed to speak. He was in front of me, +and he whispered, so that he could not be seen, how sorry he was for me, +and how he hoped I would bear up. I stretched out my hands to him and +cried, 'Oh, thank you, thank you.' The kindness of his voice brought +tears into my eyes. Of course I was punished at once for speaking; a +dreadful punishment. I won't think of it: I dare not. They are +infinitely cunning in malice here, Frank; infinitely cunning in +punishment.... Don't let us talk of it, it is too painful, too horrible +that men should be so brutal." + +"Give me an instance," I said, "of something less painful; something +which may be bettered." + +He smiled wanly. "All of it, Frank, all of it should be altered. There +is no spirit in a prison but hate, hate masked in degrading formalism. +They first break the will and rob you of hope, and then rule by fear. +One day a warder came into my cell. + +"'Take off your boots,' he said. + +"Of course I began to obey him; then I asked: + +"'What is it? Why must I take off my boots?' + +"He would not answer me. As soon as he had my boots, he said: + +"'Come out of your cell.' + +"'Why?' I asked again. I was frightened, Frank. What had I done? I could +not guess; but then I was often punished for nothing: what was it? No +answer. As soon as we were in the corridor he ordered me to stand with +my face to the wall, and went away. There I stood in my stocking feet +waiting. The cold chilled me through; I began standing first on one +foot and then on the other, racking my brains as to what they were going +to do to me, wondering why I was being punished like this, and how long +it would last; you know the thoughts fear-born that plague the mind.... +After what seemed an eternity I heard him coming back. I did not dare to +move or even look. He came up to me; stopped by me for a moment; my +heart stopped; he threw down a pair of boots beside me, and said: + +"'Go to your cell and put those on,' and I went into my cell shaking. +That's the way they give you a new pair of boots in prison, Frank; +that's the way they are kind to you." + +"The first period was the worst?" I asked. + +"Oh, yes, infinitely the worst! One gets accustomed to everything in +time, to the food and the bed and the silence: one learns the rules, and +knows what to expect and what to fear...." + +"How did you win through the first period?" I asked. + +"I died," he said quietly, "and came to life again, as a patient." I +stared at him. "Quite true, Frank. What with the purgings and the +semi-starvation and sleeplessness and, worst of all, the regret gnawing +at my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker and +weaker; my clothes hung on me; I could scarcely move. One Sunday +morning after a very bad night I could not get out of bed. The warder +came in and I told him I was ill." + +"'You had better get up,' he said; but I couldn't take the good advice. + +"'I can't,' I replied, 'you must do what you like with me.' + +"Half an hour later the doctor came and looked in at the door. He never +came near me; he simply called out: + +"'Get up; no malingering; you're all right. You'll be punished if you +don't get up,' and he went away. + +"I had to get up. I was very weak; I fell off my bed while dressing, and +bruised myself; but I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to go +with the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all out +of tune in praise of their pitiless God. + +"I could hardly stand up; everything kept disappearing and coming back +faintly: and suddenly I must have fallen...." He put his hand to his +head. "I woke up feeling a pain in this ear. I was in the infirmary with +a warder by me. My hand rested on a clean white sheet; it was like +heaven. I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it, +it was so smooth and cool and clean. The nurse with kind eyes said to +me: + +"'Do eat something,' and gave me some thin white bread and butter. +Frank, I shall never forget it. The water came into my mouth in streams; +I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious; I was so weak I +cried," and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears. + +"I shall never forget it: the warder was so kind. I did not like to tell +him I was famished; but when he went away I picked the crumbs off the +sheet and ate them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to the +edge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor and ate those +as well; the white bread was so good and I was so hungry." + +"And now?" I asked, not able to stand more. + +"Oh, now," he said, with an attempt to be cheerful, "of course it would +be all right if they did not take my books away from me. If they would +let me write. If only they would let me write as I wish, I should be +quite content, but they punish me on every pretext. Why do they do it, +Frank? Why do they want to make my life here one long misery?" + +"Aren't you a little deaf still?" I asked, to ease the passion I felt of +intolerable pity. + +"Yes," he replied, "on this side, where I fell in the chapel. I fell on +my ear, you know, and I must have burst the drum of it, or injured it +in some way, for all through the winter it has ached and it often bleeds +a little." + +"But they could give you some cotton wool or something to put in it?" I +said. + +He smiled a poor wan smile: + +"If you think one dare disturb a doctor or a warder for an earache, you +don't know much about a prison; you would pay for it. Why, Frank, +however ill I was now," and he lowered his voice to a whisper and +glanced about him as if fearing to be overheard, "however ill I was I +would not think of sending for the doctor. Not think of it," he said in +an awestruck voice. "I have learned prison ways." + +"I should rebel," I cried; "why do you let it break the spirit?" + +"You would soon be broken, if you rebelled, here. Besides it is all +incidental to the _System_. The _System_! No one outside knows what that +means. It is an old story, I'm afraid, the story of man's cruelty to +man." + +"I think I can promise you," I said, "that the _System_ will be altered +a little. You shall have books and things to write with, and you shall +not be harassed every moment by punishment." + +"Take care," he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine, +"take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they can +do." I grew hot with indignation. + +"Don't say anything, please, of what I have said to you. Promise me, you +won't say anything. Promise me. I never complained, I didn't." His +excitement was a revelation. + +"All right," I replied, to soothe him. + +"No, but promise me, seriously," he repeated. "You must promise me. +Think, you have my confidence, it is private what I have said." He was +evidently frightened out of self-control. + +"All right," I said, "I will not tell; but I'll get the facts from the +others and not from you." + +"Oh, Frank," he said, "you don't know what they do. There is a +punishment here more terrible than the rack." And he whispered to me +with white sidelong eyes: "They can drive you mad in a week, Frank."[2] + +"Mad!" I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him; though he +was white and trembling. + +"What about the warders?" I asked again, to change the subject, for I +began to feel that I had supped full on horrors. + +"Some of them are kind," he sighed. "The one that brought me in here is +so kind to me. I should like to do something for him, when I get out. +He's quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things; +but some of them at Wandsworth were brutes.... I will not think of them +again. I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open them +again: I dare not open them," he cried pitifully. + +"But you ought to tell it all," I said, "that's perhaps the purpose you +are here for: the ultimate reason." + +"Oh, no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to come +here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don't +believe you could do it; I don't believe anybody would be strong enough. +Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone's strength. +Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death. +That's what two years' hard labour means. It's not the labour that's +hard. It's the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard: they +break you down body and soul. And if you resist, they drive you +crazy.... But, please! don't say I said anything; you've promised, you +know you have: you'll remember: won't you!" + +I felt guilty: his insistence, his gasping fear showed me how terribly +he must have suffered. He was beside himself with dread. I ought to have +visited him sooner. I changed the subject. + +"You shall have writing materials and your books, Oscar. Force yourself +to write. You are looking better than you used to look; your eyes are +brighter, your face clearer." The old smile came back into his eyes, the +deathless humour. + +"I've had a rest cure, Frank," he said, and smiled feebly. + +"You should give record of this life as far as you can, and of all its +influences on you. You have conquered, you know. Write the names of the +inhuman brutes on their foreheads in vitriol, as Dante did for all +time." + +"No, no, I cannot: I will not: I want to live and forget. I could not, I +dare not, I have not Dante's strength, nor his bitterness; I am a Greek +born out of due time." He had said the true word at last. + +"I will come again and see you," I replied. "Is there nothing else I can +do? I hear your wife has seen you. I hope you have made it up with her?" + +"She tried to be kind to me, Frank," he said in a dull voice, "she was +kind, I suppose. She must have suffered; I'm sorry...." One felt he had +no sorrow to spare for others. + +"Is there nothing I can do?" I asked. + +"Nothing, Frank, only if you could get me books and writing materials, +if I could be allowed to use them really! But you won't say anything I +have said to you, you promise me you won't?" + +"I promise," I replied, "and I shall come back in a short time to see +you again. I think you will be better then.... + +"Don't dread the coming out; you have friends who will work for you, +great allies--" and I told him about Lady Dorothy Nevill at Mrs. Jeune's +lunch. + +"Isn't she a dear old lady?" he cried, "charming, brilliant, human +creature! She might have stepped out of a page of Thackeray, only +Thackeray never wrote a page quite dainty and charming enough. He came +near it in his 'Esmond.' Oh, I remember you don't like the book, but it +is beautifully written, Frank, in beautiful simple rhythmic English. It +sings itself to the ear. Lady Dorothy" (how he loved the title!) "was +always kind to me, but London is horrible. I could not live in London +again. I must go away out of England. Do you remember talking to me, +Frank, of France?" and he put both his hands on my shoulders, while +tears ran down his face, and sighs broke from him. "Beautiful France, +the one country in the world where they care for humane ideals and the +humane life. Ah! if only I had gone with you to France," and the tears +poured down his cheeks and our hands met convulsively. + +"I'm glad to see you looking so well," I began again. "Books you shall +have; for God's sake keep your heart up, and I will come back and see +you, and don't forget you have good friends outside; lots of us!" + +"Thank you, Frank; but take care, won't you, and remember your promise +not to tell." + +I nodded in assent and went to the door. The warder came in. + +"The interview is over," I said; "will you take me downstairs?" + +"If you will not mind sitting here, sir," he said, "for a minute. I must +take him back first." + +"I have been telling my friend," said Oscar to the warder, "how good you +have been to me," and he turned and went, leaving with me the memory of +his eyes and unforgettable smile; but I noticed as he disappeared that +he was thin, and looked hunched up and bowed, in the ugly ill-fitting +prison livery. I took out a bank note and put it under the blotting +paper that had been placed on the table for me. In two or three minutes +the warder came back, and as I left the room I thanked him for being +kind to my friend, and told him how kindly Oscar had spoken of him. + +"He has no business here, sir," the warder said. "He's no more like one +of our reg'lars than a canary is like one of them cocky little spadgers. +Prison ain't meant for such as him, and he ain't meant for prison. He's +that soft, sir, you see, and affeckshunate. He's more like a woman, he +is; you hurt 'em without meaning to. I don't care what they say, I likes +him; and he do talk beautiful, sir, don't he?" + +"Indeed he does," I said, "the best talker in the world. I want you to +look in the pad on the table. I have left a note there for you." + +"Not for me, sir, I could not take it; no, sir, please not," he cried in +a hurried, fear-struck voice. "You've forgotten something, sir, come +back and get it, sir, do, please. I daren't." + +In spite of my remonstrance he took me back and I had to put the note in +my pocket. + +"I could not, you know, sir, I was not kind to him for that." His manner +changed; he seemed hurt. + +I told him I was sure of it, sure, and begged him to believe, that if I +were able to do anything for him, at any time, I'd be glad, and gave him +my address. He was not even listening--an honest, good man, full of the +milk of human kindness. How kind deeds shine starlike in this prison of +a world. That warder and Sir Ruggles Brise each in his own place: such +men are the salt of the English world; better are not to be found on +earth. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Some years ago _The Daily Chronicle_ proved that though the general +standard of living is lower in Germany and in France than in England; +yet the prison food in France and especially in Germany is far better +than in England and the treatment of the prisoners far more humane. + +[2] He was referring, I suppose, to the solitary confinement in a dark +cell, which English ingenuity has invented and according to all accounts +is as terrible as any of the tortures of the past. For those tortures +were all physical, whereas the modern Englishman addresses himself to +the brain and nerves, and finds the fear of madness more terrifying than +the fear of pain. What a pity it is that Mr. Justice Wills did not know +twenty-four hours of it, just twenty-four hours to teach him what +"adequate punishment" for sensual self-indulgence means, and adequate +punishment, too, for inhuman cruelty. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +On my return to London I saw Sir Ruggles Brise. No one could have shown +me warmer sympathy, or more discriminating comprehension. I made my +report to him and left the matter in his hands with perfect confidence. +I took care to describe Oscar's condition to his friends while assuring +them that his circumstances would soon be bettered. A little later I +heard that the governor of the prison had been changed, that Oscar had +got books and writing materials, and was allowed to have the gas burning +in his cell to a late hour when it was turned down but not out. In fact, +from that time on he was treated with all the kindness possible, and +soon we heard that he was bearing the confinement and discipline better +than could have been expected. Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise had evidently +settled the difficulty in the most humane spirit. + +Later still I was told that Oscar had begun to write "De Profundis" in +prison, and I was very hopeful about that too: no news could have given +me greater pleasure. It seemed to me certain that he would justify +himself to men by turning the punishment into a stepping-stone. And in +this belief when the time came I ventured to call on Sir Ruggles Brise +with another petition. + +"Surely," I said, "Oscar will not be imprisoned for the full term; +surely four or five months for good conduct will be remitted?" + +Sir Ruggles Brise listened sympathetically, but warned me at once that +any remission was exceptional; however, he would let me know what could +be done, if I would call again in a week. Much to my surprise, he did +not seem certain even about the good conduct. + +I returned at the end of the week, and had another long talk with him. +He told me that good conduct meant, in prison parlance, absence of +punishment, and Oscar had been punished pretty often. Of course his +offenses were minor offenses; nothing serious; childish faults indeed +for the most part: he was often talking, and he was often late in the +morning; his cell was not kept so well as it might be, and so forth; +peccadilloes, all; yet a certificate of "good conduct" depended on such +trifling observances. In face of Oscar's record Sir Ruggles Brise did +not think that the sentence would be easily lessened. I was +thunder-struck. But then no rules to me are sacrosanct; indeed, they are +only tolerable because of the exceptions. I had such a high opinion of +Ruggles Brise--his kindness and sense of fair play--that I ventured to +show him my whole mind on the matter. + +"Oscar Wilde," I said to him, "is just about to face life again: he is +more than half reconciled to his wife; he has begun a book, is +shouldering the burden. A little encouragement now and I believe he will +do better things than he has ever done. I am convinced that he has far +bigger things in him than we have seen yet. But he is extraordinarily +sensitive and extraordinarily vain. The danger is that he may be +frightened and blighted by the harshness and hatred of the world. He may +shrink into himself and do nothing if the wind be not tempered a little +for him. A hint of encouragement now, the feeling that men like yourself +think him worthful and deserving of special kindly treatment, and I feel +certain he will do great things. I really believe it is in your hands to +save a man of extraordinary talent, and get the best out of him, if you +care to do it." + +"Of course I care to do it," he cried. "You cannot doubt that, and I see +exactly what you mean; but it will not be easy." + +"Won't you see what can be done?" I persisted. "Put your mind to +discover how it should be done, how the Home Secretary may be induced to +remit the last few months of Wilde's sentence." + +After a little while he replied: + +"You must believe that the authorities are quite willing to help in any +good work, more than willing, and I am sure I speak for the Home +Secretary as well as for myself; but it is for you to give us some +reason for acting--a reason that could be avowed and defended." + +I did not at first catch his drift; so I persevered: + +"You admit that the reason exists, that it would be a good thing to +favour Wilde, then why not do it?" + +"We live," he said, "under parliamentary rule. Suppose the question were +asked in the House, and I think it very likely in the present state of +public opinion that the question would be asked: what should we answer? +It would not be an avowable reason that we hoped Wilde would write new +plays and books, would it? That reason ought to be sufficient, I grant +you; but, you see yourself, it would not be so regarded." + +"You are right, I suppose," I had to admit. "But if I got you a petition +from men of letters, asking you to release Wilde for his health's sake: +would that do?" + +Sir Ruggles Brise jumped at the suggestion. + +"Certainly," he exclaimed, "if some men of letters, men of position, +wrote asking that Wilde's sentence should be diminished by three or +four months on account of his health, I think it would have the best +effect." + +"I will see Meredith at once," I said, "and some others. How many names +should I get?" + +"If you have Meredith," he replied, "you don't need many others. A dozen +would do, or fewer if you find a dozen too many." + +"I don't think I shall meet with any difficulty," I replied, "but I will +let you know." + +"You will find it harder than you think," he concluded, "but if you get +one or two great names the rest may follow. In any case one or two good +names will make it easier for you." + +Naturally I thanked him for his kindness and went away absolutely +content. I had never set myself a task which seemed simpler. Meredith +could not be more merciless than a Royal Commission. I returned to my +office in _The Saturday Review_ and got the Royal Commission report on +this sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard labour. The +Commission recommended that it should be wiped off the Statute Book as +too severe. I drafted a little petition as colourless as possible: + +"In view of the fact that the punishment of two years' imprisonment with +hard labour has been condemned by a Royal Commission as too severe, and +inasmuch as Mr. Wilde has been distinguished by his work in letters and +is now, we hear, suffering in health, we, your petitioners, pray--and +so forth and so on." + +I got this printed, and then sat down to write to Meredith asking when I +could see him on the matter. I wanted his signature first to be printed +underneath the petition, and then issue it. To my astonishment Meredith +did not answer at once, and when I pressed him and set forth the facts +he wrote to me that he could not do what I wished. I wrote again, +begging him to let me see him on the matter. For the first time in my +life he refused to see me: he wrote to me to say that nothing I could +urge would move him, and it would therefore only be painful to both of +us to find ourselves in conflict. + +Nothing ever surprised me more than this attitude of Meredith's. I knew +his poetry pretty well, and knew how severe he was on every sensual +weakness perhaps because it was his own pitfall. I knew too what a +fighter he was at heart and how he loved the virile virtues; but I +thought I knew the man, knew his tender kindliness of heart, the founts +of pity in him, and I felt certain I could count on him for any office +of human charity or generosity. But no, he was impenetrable, hard. He +told me long afterwards that he had rather a low opinion of Wilde's +capacities, instinctive, deep-rooted contempt, too, for the showman in +him, and an absolute abhorrence of his vice. + +"That vile, sensual self-indulgence puts back the hands of the clock," +he said, "and should not be forgiven." + +For the life of me I could never forgive Meredith; never afterwards was +he of any importance to me. He had always been to me a standard bearer +in the eternal conflict, a leader in the Liberation War of Humanity, and +here I found him pitiless to another who had been wounded on the same +side in the great struggle: it seemed to me appalling. True, Wilde had +not been wounded in fighting for us; true, he had fallen out and come to +grief, as a drunkard might. But after all he had been fighting on the +right side: had been a quickening intellectual influence: it was +dreadful to pass him on the wayside and allow him callously to bleed to +death. It was revoltingly cruel! The foremost Englishman of his time +unable even to understand Christ's example, much less reach his height! + +This refusal of Meredith's not only hurt me, but almost destroyed my +hope, though it did not alter my purpose. I wanted a figurehead for my +petition, and the figurehead I had chosen I could not get. I began to +wonder and doubt. I next approached a very different man, the late +Professor Churton Collins, a great friend of mine, who, in spite of an +almost pedantic rigour of mind and character, had in him at bottom a +curious spring of sympathy--a little pool of pure love for the poets and +writers whom he admired. I got him to dinner and asked him to sign the +petition; he refused, but on grounds other than those taken by Meredith. + +"Of course Wilde ought to get out," he said, "the sentence was a savage +one and showed bitter prejudice; but I have children, and my own way to +make in the world, and if I did this I should be tarred with the Wilde +brush. I cannot afford to do it. If he were really a great man I hope I +should do it, but I don't agree with your estimate of him. I cannot +think I am called upon to bell the British cat in his defence: it has +many claws and all sharp." + +As soon as he saw the position was unworthy of him, he shifted to new +ground. + +"If you were justified in coming to me, I should do it; but I am no one; +why don't you go to Meredith, Swinburne or Hardy?" + +I had to give up the Professor, as well as the poet. I knocked in turn +at a great many doors, but all in vain. No one wished to take the odium +on himself. One man, since become celebrated, said he had no position, +his name was not good enough for the purpose. Others left my letters +unanswered. Yet another sent a bare acknowledgment saying how sorry he +was, but that public opinion was against Mr. Wilde; with one accord +they all made excuses.... + +One day Professor Tyrrell of Trinity College, Dublin, happened to be in +my office, while I was setting forth the difference between men of +letters in France and England as exemplified by this conduct. In France +among authors there is a recognised "_esprit de corps_," which +constrains them to hold together. For instance when Zola was threatened +with prosecution for "Nana," a dozen men like Cherbuliez, Feuillet, +Dumas _fils_, who hated his work and regarded it as sensational, tawdry, +immoral even, took up the cudgels for him at once; declared that the +police were not judges of art, and should not interfere with a serious +workman. All these Frenchmen, though they disliked Zola's work, and +believed that his popularity was won by a low appeal, still admitted +that he was a force in letters, and stood by him resolutely in spite of +their own prepossessions and prejudices. But in England the feeling is +altogether more selfish. Everyone consults his own sordid self-interest +and is rather glad to see a social favourite come to grief: not a hand +is stretched out to help him. Suddenly, Tyrrell broke in upon my +exposition: + +"I don't know whether my name is of any good to you," he said, "but I +agree with all you have said, and my name might be classed with that of +Churton Collins, though, of course, I've no right to speak for +literature," and without more ado he signed the petition, adding, +"Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin." + +"When you next see Oscar," he continued, "please tell him that my wife +and I asked after him. We both hold him in grateful memory as a most +brilliant talker and writer, and a charming fellow to boot. Confusion +take all their English Puritanism." + +Merely living in Ireland tends to make an Englishman more humane; but +one name was not enough, and Tyrrell's was the only one I could get. In +despair, and knowing that George Wyndham had had a great liking for +Oscar, and admiration for his high talent, I asked him to lunch at the +Savoy; laid the matter before him, and begged him to give me his name. +He refused, and in face of my astonishment he excused himself by saying +that, as soon as the rumour had reached him of Oscar's intimacy with +Bosie Douglas, he had asked Oscar whether there was any truth in the +scandalous report. + +"You see," he went on, "Bosie is by way of being a relation of mine, and +so I had the right to ask. Oscar gave me his word of honour that there +was nothing but friendship between them. He lied to me, and that I can +never forgive." + +A politician unable to forgive a lie--surely one can hear the mocking +laughter of the gods! I could say nothing to such paltry affected +nonsense. Politician-like Wyndham showed me how the wind of popular +feeling blew, and I recognised that my efforts were in vain. + +There is no fellow-feeling among English men of letters; in fact they +hold together less than any other class and, by himself, none of them +wished to help a wounded member of the flock. I had to tell Sir Ruggles +Brise that I had failed. + +I have been informed since that if I had begun by asking Thomas Hardy, I +might have succeeded. I knew Hardy; but never cared greatly for his +talent. I daresay if I had had nothing else to do I might have succeeded +in some half degree. But all these two years I was extremely busy and +anxious; the storm clouds in South Africa were growing steadily darker +and my attitude to South African affairs was exceedingly unpopular in +London. It seemed to me vitally important to prevent England from making +war on the Boers. I had to abandon the attempt to get Oscar's sentence +shortened, and comfort myself with Sir Ruggles Brise's assurance that he +would be treated with the greatest possible consideration. + +Still, my advocacy had had a good effect. + +Oscar himself has told us what the kindness shown to him in the last +six months of his prison life really did for him. He writes in _De +Profundis_ that for the first part of his sentence he could only wring +his hands in impotent despair and cry, "What an ending, what an +appalling ending!" But when the new spirit of kindness came to him, he +could say with sincerity: "What a beginning, what a wonderful +beginning!" He sums it all up in these words: + +"Had I been released after eighteen months, as I hoped to be, I would +have left my prison loathing it and every official in it with a +bitterness of hatred that would have poisoned my life. I have had six +months more of imprisonment, but humanity has been in the prison with us +all the time, and now when I go out I shall always remember great +kindnesses that I have received here from almost everybody, and on the +day of my release I shall give many thanks to many people, and ask to be +remembered by them in turn." + +This is the man whom Mr. Justice Wills addressed as insensible to any +high appeal. + +Some time passed before I visited Oscar again. The change in him was +extraordinary. He was light-hearted, gay, and looked better than I had +ever seen him: clearly the austerity of prison life suited him. He met +me with a jest: + +"It is you, Frank!" he cried as if astonished, "always original! You +come back to prison of your own free-will!" + +He declared that the new governor--Major Nelson[3] was his name--had +been as kind as possible to him. He had not had a punishment for months, +and "Oh, Frank, the joy of reading when you like and writing as you +please--the delight of living again!" He was so infinitely improved that +his talk delighted me. + +"What books have you?" I asked. + +"I thought I should like the 'Oedipus Rex,'" he replied gravely; "but +I could not read it. It all seemed unreal to me. Then I thought of St. +Augustine, but he was worse still. The fathers of the Church were still +further away from me; they all found it so easy to repent and change +their lives: it does not seem to me easy. At last I got hold of Dante. +Dante was what I wanted. I read the 'Purgatorio' all through, forced +myself to read it in Italian to get the full savour and significance of +it. Dante, too, had been in the depths and drunk the bitter lees of +despair. I shall want a little library when I come out, a library of a +score of books. I wonder if you will help me to get it. I want Flaubert, +Stevenson, Baudelaire, Maeterlinck, Dumas _pere_, Keats, Marlowe, +Chatterton, Anatole France, Theophile Gautier, Dante, Goethe, +Meredith's poems, and his 'Egoist,' the Song of Solomon, too, Job, and, +of course, the Gospels." + +"I shall be delighted to get them for you," I said, "if you will send me +the list. By the by, I hear that you have been reconciled to your wife; +is that true? I should be glad to know it's true." + +"I hope it will be all right," he said gravely, "she is very good and +kind. I suppose you have heard," he went on, "that my mother died since +I came here, and that leaves a great gap in my life.... I always had the +greatest admiration and love for my mother. She was a great woman, +Frank, a perfect idealist. My father got into trouble once in Dublin, +perhaps you have heard about it?" + +"Oh, yes," I said, "I have read the case." (It is narrated in the first +chapter of this book.) + +"Well, Frank, she stood up in court and bore witness for him with +perfect serenity, with perfect trust and without a shadow of common +womanly jealousy. She could not believe that the man she loved could be +unworthy, and her conviction was so complete that it communicated itself +to the jury: her trust was so noble that they became infected by it, and +brought him in guiltless.[4] Extraordinary, was it not? She was quite +sure too of the verdict. It is only noble souls who have that assurance +and serenity.... + +[Illustration: "Speranza": Lady Wilde as a Young Woman] + +"When my father was dying it was the same thing. I always see her +sitting there by his bedside with a sort of dark veil over her head: +quite silent, quite calm. Nothing ever troubled her optimism. She +believed that only good can happen to us. When death came to the man she +loved, she accepted it with the same serenity and when my sister died +she bore it in the same high way. My sister was a wonderful creature, so +gay and high-spirited, 'embodied sunshine,' I used to call her. + +"When we lost her, my mother simply took it that it was best for the +child. Women have infinitely more courage than men, don't you think? I +have never known anyone with such perfect faith as my mother. She was +one of the great figures of the world. What she must have suffered over +my sentence I don't dare to think: I'm sure she endured agonies. She had +great hopes of me. When she was told that she was going to die, and that +she could not see me, for I was not allowed to go to her,[5] she said, +'May the prison help him,' and turned her face to the wall. + +"She felt about the prison as you do, Frank, and really I think you are +both right; it has helped me. There are things I see now that I never +saw before. I see what pity means. I thought a work of art should be +beautiful and joyous. But now I see that that ideal is insufficient, +even shallow; a work of art must be founded on pity; a book or poem +which has no pity in it, had better not be written.... + +"I shall be very lonely when I come out, and I can't stand loneliness +and solitude; it is intolerable to me, hateful, I have had too much of +it.... + +"You see, Frank, I am breaking with the past altogether. I am going to +write the history of it. I am going to tell how I was tempted and fell, +how I was pushed by the man I loved into that dreadful quarrel of his, +driven forward to the fight with his father and then left to suffer +alone.... + +"That is the story I am now going to tell. That is the book[6] of pity +and of love which I am writing now--a terrible book.... + +"I wonder would you publish it, Frank? I should like it to appear in +_The Saturday_." + +"I'd be delighted to publish anything of yours," I replied, "and happier +still to publish something to show that you have at length chosen the +better part and are beginning a new life. I'd pay you, too, whatever the +work turns out to be worth to me; in any case much more than I pay +Bernard Shaw or anyone else." I said this to encourage him. + +"I'm sure of that," he answered. "I'll send you the book as soon as I've +finished it. I think you'll like it"--and there for the moment the +matter ended. + +At length I felt sure that all would be well with him. How could I help +feeling sure? His mind was richer and stronger than it had ever been; +and he had broken with all the dark past. I was overjoyed to believe +that he would yet do greater things than he had ever done, and this +belief and determination were in him too, as anyone can see on reading +what he wrote at this time in prison: + +"There is before me so much to do that I would regard it as a terrible +tragedy if I died before I was allowed to complete at any rate a little +of it. I see new developments in art and life, each one of which is a +fresh mode of perfection. I long to live so that I can explore what is +no less than a new world to me. Do you want to know what this new world +is? I think you can guess what it is. It is the world in which I have +been living. Sorrow, then, and all that it teaches one, is my new +world.... + +"I used to live entirely for pleasure. I shunned suffering and sorrow of +every kind. I hated both...." + +Through the prison bars Oscar had begun to see how mistaken he had been, +how much greater, and more salutary to the soul, suffering is than +pleasure. + +"Out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child +or a star there is pain." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + +[4] I give Oscar's view of the trial just to show how his romantic +imagination turned disagreeable facts into pleasant fiction. Oscar could +only have heard of the trial, and perhaps his mother was his +informant--which adds to the interest of the story. + +[5] Permission to visit a dying mother is accorded in France, even to +murderers. The English pretend to be more religious than the French; but +are assuredly less humane. + +[6] "De Profundis." What Oscar called "the terrible part" of the +book--the indictment of Lord Alfred Douglas--has since been read out in +Court and will be found in the Appendix to this volume. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Shortly before he came out of prison, one of Oscar's intimates told me +he was destitute, and begged me to get him some clothes. I took the name +of his tailor and ordered two suits. The tailor refused to take the +order: he was not going to make clothes for Oscar Wilde. I could not +trust myself to talk to the man and therefore sent my assistant editor +and friend, Mr. Blanchamp, to have it out with him. The tradesman soul +yielded to the persuasiveness of cash in advance. I sent Oscar the +clothes and a cheque, and shortly after his release got a letter[7] +thanking me. + +A little later I heard on good authority a story which Oscar afterwards +confirmed, that when he left Reading Gaol the correspondent of an +American paper offered him L1,000 for an interview dealing with his +prison life and experiences, but he felt it beneath his dignity to take +his sufferings to market. He thought it better to borrow than to earn. +He is partly to be excused, perhaps, when one remembers that he had +still some pounds left of the large sums given him before his +condemnation, by Miss S----, Ross, More Adey, and others. Still his +refusal of such a sum as that offered by the New York paper shows how +utterly contemptuous he was of money, even at a moment when one would +have thought money would have been his chief preoccupation. He always +lived in the day and rather heedlessly. + +As soon as he left prison he crossed with some friends to France, and +went to stay at the Hotel de la Plage at Berneval, a quiet little +village near Dieppe. M. Andre Gide, who called on him there almost as +soon as he arrived, gives a fair mental picture of him at this time. He +tells how delighted he was to find in him the "Oscar Wilde of old," no +longer the sensualist puffed out with pride and good living, but "the +sweet Wilde" of the days before 1891. "I found myself taken back, not +two years," he says, "but four or five. There was the same dreamy look, +the same amused smile, the same voice." + +He told M. Gide that prison had completely changed him, had taught him +the meaning of pity. "You know," he went on, "how fond I used to be of +'Madame Bovary,' but Flaubert would not admit pity into his work, and +that is why it has a petty and restrained character about it. It is the +sense of pity by means of which a work gains in expanse, and by which +it opens up a boundless horizon. Do you know, my dear fellow, it was +pity which prevented my killing myself? During the first six months in +prison I was dreadfully unhappy, so utterly miserable that I wanted to +kill myself; but what kept me from doing so was looking at the others, +and seeing that they were as unhappy as I was, and feeling sorry for +them. Oh dear! what a wonderful thing pity is, and I never knew it." + +He was speaking in a low voice without any excitement. + +"Have you ever learned how wonderful a thing pity is? For my part I +thank God every night, yes, on my knees I thank God for having taught it +to me. I went into prison with a heart of stone, thinking only of my own +pleasure; but now my heart is utterly broken--pity has entered into my +heart. I have learned now that pity is the greatest and the most +beautiful thing in the world. And that is why I cannot bear ill-will +towards those who caused my suffering and those who condemned me; no, +nor to anyone, because without them I should not have known all that. +Alfred Douglas writes me terrible letters. He says he does not +understand me, that he does not understand that I do not wish everyone +ill, and that everyone has been horrid to me. No, he does not understand +me. He cannot understand me any more. But I keep on telling him that in +every letter: we cannot follow the same road. He has his and it is +beautiful--I have mine. His is that of Alcibiades; mine is now that of +St. Francis of Assisi." + +How much of this is sincere and how much merely imagined and stated in +order to incarnate the new ideal to perfection would be hard to say. The +truth is not so saintly simple as the christianised Oscar would have us +believe. The unpublished portions of "De Profundis" which were read out +in the Douglas-Ransome trial prove, what all his friends know, that +Oscar Wilde found it impossible to forgive or forget what seemed to him +personal ill-treatment. There are beautiful pages in "De Profundis," +pages of sweetest Christlike resignation and charity and no doubt in a +certain mood Oscar was sincere in writing them. But there was another +mood in him, more vital and more enduring, if not so engaging, a mood in +which he saw himself as one betrayed and sacrificed and abandoned, and +then he attributed his ruin wholly to his friend and did not hesitate to +speak of him as the "Judas" whose shallow selfishness and imperious +ill-temper and unfulfilled promises of monetary help had driven a great +man to disaster. + +That unpublished portion of "De Profundis" is in essence, from +beginning to end, one long curse of Lord Alfred Douglas, an indictment +apparently impartial, particularly at first; but in reality a bitter and +merciless accusation, showing in Oscar Wilde a curious want of sympathy +even with the man he said he loved. Those who would know Oscar Wilde as +he really was will read that piece of rhetoric with care enough to +notice that he reiterates the charge of shallow selfishness with such +venom, that he discovers his own colossal egotism and essential hardness +of heart. "Love," we are told, "suffereth long and is kind ... beareth +all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all +things"--that sweet, generous, all-forgiving tenderness of love was not +in the pagan, Oscar Wilde, and therefore even his deepest passion never +won to complete reconciliation and ultimate redemption. + +In this same talk with M. Gide, Oscar is reported to have said that he +had known beforehand that a catastrophe was unavoidable; "there was but +one end possible.... That state of things could not last; there had to +be some end to it." + +This view I believe is Gide's and not Oscar's. In any case I am sure +that my description of him before the trials as full of insolent +self-assurance is the truer truth. Of course he must have had +forebodings; he was warned as I've related, again and again; but he +took character-colour from his associates and he met Queensberry's first +attempts at attack with utter disdain. He did not realise his danger at +all. Gide reports him more correctly as adding: + +"Prison has completely changed me. I was relying on it for that--Douglas +is terrible. He cannot understand that--cannot understand that I am not +taking up the same existence again. He accuses the others of having +changed me." + +I may publish here part of a letter of a prison warder which Mr. Stuart +Mason reproduced in his excellent little book on Oscar Wilde. He says: + +"No more beautiful life had any man lived, no more beautiful life could +any man live than Oscar Wilde lived during the short period I knew him +in prison. He wore upon his face an eternal smile; sunshine was on his +face, sunshine of some sort must have been in his heart. People say he +was not sincere: he was the very soul of sincerity when I knew him. If +he did not continue that life after he left prison, then the forces of +evil must have been too strong for him. But he tried, he honestly tried, +and in prison he succeeded." + +All this seems to me in the main, true. Oscar's gay vivacity would have +astonished any stranger. Besides, the regular hours and scant plain food +of prison had improved his health and the solitude and suffering had +lent him a deeper emotional life. But there was an intense bitterness in +him, a profound underlying sense of injury which came continually to +passionate expression. Yet as soon as the miserable petty persecution of +the prison was lifted from him, all the joyous gaiety and fun of his +nature bubbled up irresistibly. There was no contradiction in this +complexity. A man can hold in himself a hundred conflicting passions and +impulses without confusion. At this time the dominant chord in Oscar was +pity for others. + +To my delight the world had evidence of this changed Oscar Wilde in a +very short time. On May 28th, a few days after he left prison, there +appeared in _The Daily Chronicle_ a letter more than two columns in +length, pleading for the kindlier treatment of little children in +English prisons. The letter was written because Warder Martin[8] of +Reading prison had been dismissed by the Commissioners for the dreadful +crime of "having given some sweet biscuits to a little hungry child."... + +I must quote a few paragraphs of this letter; because it shows how +prison had deepened Oscar Wilde, how his own suffering had made him, as +Shakespeare says, "pregnant to good pity," and also because it tells us +what life was like in an English prison in our time. Oscar wrote: + +"I saw the three children myself on the Monday preceding my release. +They had just been convicted, and were standing in a row in the central +hall in their prison dress carrying their sheets under their arms, +previous to their being sent to the cells allotted to them.... They were +quite small children, the youngest--the one to whom the warder gave the +biscuits--being a tiny chap, for whom they had evidently been unable to +find clothes small enough to fit. I had, of course, seen many children +in prison during the two years during which I was myself confined. +Wandsworth prison, especially, contained always a large number of +children. But the little child I saw on the afternoon of Monday, the +17th, at Reading, was tinier than any one of them. I need not say how +utterly distressed I was to see these children at Reading, for I knew +the treatment in store for them. The cruelty that is practised by day +and night on children in English prisons is incredible except to those +that have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system. + +"People nowadays do not understand what cruelty is.... Ordinary cruelty +is simply stupidity. + +"The prison treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not +understanding the peculiar psychology of the child's nature. A child can +understand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent, or +guardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it +cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by society. It cannot +realise what society is.... + +"The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless. I remember once in +Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell +opposite mine a small boy. Two warders--not unkindly men--were talking +to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some +useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other +was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer +terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The next +morning I heard him at breakfast time crying, and calling to be let out. +His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deep +voice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet. Yet he was not +even convicted of whatever little offence he had been charged with. He +was simply on remand. That I knew by his wearing his own clothes, which +seemed neat enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes. +This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, +were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorant +class as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhaps +remit whatever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call this 'not +sending a child to prison.' It is of course a stupid view on their part. +To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after conviction +is not a subtlety of position he can comprehend. To him the horrible +thing is to be there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be a +horrible thing for him to be there at all. + +"This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grown +man also, is of course intensified beyond power of expression by the +solitary cellular system of our prisons. Every child is confined to its +cell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. This is the +appalling thing. To shut up a child in a dimly lit cell for twenty-three +hours out of the twenty-four is an example of the cruelty of stupidity. +If an individual, parent or guardian, did this to a child, he would be +severely punished.... + +"The second thing from which a child suffers in prison is hunger. The +food that is given to it consists of a piece of usually badly baked +prison bread and a tin of water for breakfast at half past seven. At +twelve o'clock it gets dinner, composed of a tin of coarse Indian meal +stirabout, and at half past five it gets a piece of dry bread and a tin +of water for its supper. This diet in the case of a strong man is always +productive of illness of some kind, chiefly, of course, diarrhoea, +with its attendant weakness. In fact, in a big prison, astringent +medicines are served out regularly by the warders as a matter of course. +A child is as a rule incapable of eating the food at all. Anyone who +knows anything about children knows how easily a child's digestion is +upset by a fit of crying, or trouble and mental distress of any kind. A +child who has been crying all day long and perhaps half the night, in a +lonely, dimly lit cell, and is preyed upon by terror, simply cannot eat +food of this coarse, horrible kind. In the case of the little child to +whom Warder Martin gave the biscuits, the child was crying with hunger +on Tuesday morning, and utterly unable to eat the bread and water served +to it for breakfast. + +"Martin went out after the breakfast had been served, and bought the few +sweet biscuits for the child rather than see it starving. It was a +beautiful action on his part, and was so recognised by the child, who, +utterly unconscious of the regulation of the Prison Board, told one of +the senior warders how kind this junior warder had been to him. The +result was, of course, a report and a dismissal.[9] + +"I know Martin extremely well, and I was under his charge for the last +seven weeks of my imprisonment.... I was struck by the singular kindness +and humanity of the way in which he spoke to me and to the other +prisoners. Kind words are much in prison, and a pleasant 'good-morning' +or 'good-evening' will make one as happy as one can be in prison. He was +always gentle and considerate.... + +"A great deal has been talked and written lately about the contaminating +influence of prison on young children. What is said is quite true. A +child is utterly contaminated by prison life. But this contaminating +influence is not that of the prisoners. It is that of the whole prison +system--of the governor, the chaplain, the warders, the solitary cell, +the isolation, the revolting food, the rules of the Prison +Commissioners, the mode of discipline, as it is termed, of the life. + +"Of course no child under fourteen years of age should be sent to prison +at all. It is an absurdity, and, like many absurdities, of absolutely +tragical results...." + +This letter, I am informed, brought about some improvement in the +treatment of young children in British prisons. But in regard to adults +the British prison is still the torture chamber it was in Wilde's time; +prisoners are still treated more brutally there than anywhere else in +the civilised world; the food is the worst in Europe, insufficient +indeed to maintain health; in many cases men are only saved from death +by starvation through being sent to the infirmary. Though these facts +are well known, _Punch_, the pet organ of the British middle-class, was +not ashamed a little while ago to make a mock of some suggested reform, +by publishing a picture of a British convict, with the villainous face +of a Bill Sykes, lying on a sofa in his cell smoking a cigar with +champagne at hand. This is not altogether due to stupidity, as Oscar +tried to believe, but to reasoned selfishness. _Punch_ and the class for +which it caters would like to believe that many convicts are unfit to +live, whereas the truth is that a good many of them are superior in +humanity to the people who punish and slander them. + +While waiting for his wife to join him, Oscar rented a little house, the +Chalet Bourgeat, about two hundred yards away from the hotel at +Berneval, and furnished it. Here he spent the whole of the summer +writing, bathing, and talking to the few devoted friends who visited +him from time to time. Never had he been so happy: never in such perfect +health. He was full of literary projects; indeed, no period of his whole +life was so fruitful in good work. He was going to write some Biblical +plays; one entitled "Pharaoh" first, and then one called "Ahab and +Jezebel," which he pronounced Isabelle. Deeper problems, too, were much +in his mind: he was already at work on "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," but +before coming to that let me first show how happy the song-bird was and +how divinely he sang when the dreadful cage was opened and he was +allowed to use his wings in the heavenly sunshine. + +Here is a letter from him shortly after his release which is one of the +most delightful things he ever wrote. Fitly enough it was addressed to +his friend of friends, Robert Ross, and I can only say that I am +extremely obliged to Ross for allowing me to publish it: + + +Hotel de la Plage. Berneval, near Dieppe, +Monday night, May 31st (1897). + +My dearest Robbie, + +I have decided that the only way in which to get boots properly is to go +to France to receive them. The Douane charged 3 francs. How could you +frighten me as you did? The next time you order boots please come to +Dieppe to get them sent to you. It is the only way and it will be an +excuse for seeing you. + +I am going to-morrow on a pilgrimage. I always wanted to be a pilgrim, +and I have decided to start early to-morrow to the shrine of Notre Dame +de Liesse. Do you know what Liesse is? It is an old word for joy. I +suppose the same as Letizia, Laetitia. I just heard to-night of the +shrine or chapel, by chance, as you would say, from the sweet woman of +the auberge, who wants me to live always at Berneval. She says Notre +Dame de Liesse is wonderful, and helps everyone to the secret of joy--I +do not know how long it will take me to get to the shrine, as I must +walk. But, from what she tells me, it will take at least six or seven +minutes to get there, and as many to come back. In fact the chapel of +Notre Dame de Liesse is just fifty yards from the Hotel. Isn't it +extraordinary? I intend to start after I have had my coffee, and then to +bathe. Need I say that this is a miracle? I wanted to go on a +pilgrimage, and I find the little grey stone chapel of Our Lady of Joy +is brought to me. It has probably been waiting for me all these purple +years of pleasure, and now it comes to meet me with Liesse as its +message. I simply don't know what to say. I wish you were not so hard to +poor heretics,[10] and would admit that even for the sheep who has no +shepherd there is a Stella Maris to guide it home. But you and More, +especially More, treat me as a Dissenter. It is very painful and quite +unjust. + +Yesterday I attended Mass at 10 o'clock and afterwards bathed. So I went +into the water without being a pagan. The consequence was that I was not +tempted by either sirens or mermaidens, or any of the green-haired +following of Glaucus. I really think that this is a remarkable thing. In +my Pagan days the sea was always full of Tritons blowing conchs, and +other unpleasant things. Now it is quite different. And yet you treat me +as the President of Mansfield College; and after I had canonised you +too. + +Dear boy, I wish you would tell me if your religion makes you happy. You +conceal your religion from me in a monstrous way. You treat it like +writing in the _Saturday Review_ for Pollock, or dining in Wardour +Street off the fascinating dish that is served with tomatoes and makes +men mad.[11] I know it is useless asking you, so don't tell me. + +I felt an outcast in Chapel yesterday--not really, but a little in +exile. I met a dear farmer in a corn field and he gave me a seat on his +banc in church: so I was quite comfortable. He now visits me twice a +day, and as he has no children, and is rich, I have made him promise to +adopt _three_--two boys and a girl. I told him that if he wanted them, +he would find them. He said he was afraid that they would turn out +badly. I told him everyone did that. He really has promised to adopt +three orphans. He is now filled with enthusiasm at the idea. He is to go +to the _Cure_ and talk to him. He told me that his own father had fallen +down in a fit one day as they were talking together, and that he had +caught him in his arms, and put him to bed, where he died, and that he +himself had often thought how dreadful it was that if he had a fit there +was no one to catch him in his arms. It is quite clear that he must +adopt orphans, is it not? + +I feel that Berneval is to be my home. I really do. Notre Dame de Liesse +will be sweet to me, if I go on my knees to her, and she will advise me. +It is extraordinary being brought here by a white horse that was a +native of the place, and knew the road, and wanted to see its parents, +now of advanced years. It is also extraordinary that I knew Berneval +existed and was arranged for me. + +M. Bonnet[12] wants to build me a Chalet, 1,000 metres of ground (I +don't know how much that is--but I suppose about 100 miles) and a Chalet +with a studio, a balcony, a salle-a-manger, a huge kitchen, and three +bedrooms--a view of the sea, and trees--all for 12,000 francs--L480. If +I can write a play I am going to have it begun. Fancy one's own lovely +house and grounds in France for L480. No rent of any kind. Pray consider +this, and approve, if you think well. Of course, not till I have done my +play. + +An old gentleman lives here in the hotel. He dines alone in his room, +and then sits in the sun. He came here for two days and has stayed two +years. His sole sorrow is that there is no theatre. Monsieur Bonnet is a +little heartless about this, and says that as the old gentleman goes to +bed at 8 o'clock a theatre would be of no use to him. The old gentleman +says he only goes to bed at 8 o'clock because there is no theatre. They +argued the point yesterday for an hour. I sided with the old gentleman, +but Logic sides with Monsieur Bonnet, I believe. + +I had a sweet letter from the Sphinx.[13] She gives me a delightful +account of Ernest[14] subscribing to Romeike while his divorce suit was +running, and not being pleased with some of the notices. Considering the +growing appreciation of Ibsen I must say that I am surprised the notices +were not better, but nowadays everybody is jealous of everyone else, +except, of course, husband and wife. I think I shall keep this last +remark of mine for my play. + +Have you got my silver spoon[15] from Reggie? You got my silver brushes +out of Humphreys,[16] who is bald, so you might easily get my spoon out +of Reggie, who has so many, or used to have. You know my crest is on it. +It is a bit of Irish silver, and I don't want to lose it. There is an +excellent substitute called Britannia metal, very much liked at the +Adelphi and elsewhere. Wilson Barrett writes, "I prefer it to silver." +It would suit dear Reggie admirably. Walter Besant writes, "I use none +other." Mr. Beerbohm Tree also writes, "Since I have tried it I am a +different actor; my friends hardly recognise me." So there is obviously +a demand for it. + +I am going to write a Political Economy in my heavier moments. The first +law I lay down is, "Whenever there exists a demand, there is _no_ +supply." This is the only law that explains the extraordinary contrast +between the soul of man and man's surroundings. Civilisations continue +because people hate them. A modern city is the exact opposite of what +everyone wants. Nineteenth-century dress is the result of our horror of +the style. The tall hat will last as long as people dislike it. + +Dear Robbie, I wish you would be a little more considerate, and not keep +me up so late talking to you. It is very flattering to me and all that, +but you should remember that I need rest. Good-night. You will find some +cigarettes and some flowers by your bedside. Coffee is served below at 8 +o'clock. Do you mind? If it is too early for you I don't at all mind +lying in bed an extra hour. I hope you will sleep well. You should as +Lloyd is not on the Verandah.[17] + +TUESDAY MORNING, 9.30. + +The sea and sky are opal--no horrid drawing master's line between +them--just one fishing boat, going slowly, and drawing the wind after +it. I am going to bathe. + +6 O'CLOCK. + +Bathed and have seen a Chalet here which I wish to take for the +season--quite charming--a splendid view: a large writing room, a dining +room, and three lovely bedrooms--besides servants' rooms and also a huge +balcony. + +[In this blank space he had I don't know the scale +roughly drawn a ground plan of the drawing, but the +of the imagined Chalet.] rooms are larger than + the plan is. + +1. Salle-a-manger. All on ground floor +2. Salon. with steps from balcony +3. Balcony. to ground. + +The rent for the season or year is, what do you think?--L32. + +Of course I must have it: I will take my meals here--separate and +reserved table: it is within two minutes walk. Do tell me to take it. +When you come again your room will be waiting for you. All I need is a +domestique. The people here are most kind. + +I made my pilgrimage--the interior of the Chapel is of course a modern +horror--but there is a black image of Notre Dame de Liesse--the chapel +is as tiny as an undergraduate's room at Oxford. I hope to get the Cure +to celebrate Mass in it soon; as a rule the service is only held there +in July and August; but I want to see a Mass quite close. + +There is also another thing I must write to you about. + +I adore this place. The whole country is lovely, and full of forest and +deep meadow. It is simple and healthy. If I live in Paris I may be +doomed to things I don't desire. I am afraid of big towns. Here I get up +at 7.30. I am happy all day. I go to bed at 10. I am frightened of +Paris. I want to live here. + +I have seen the "terrain." It is the best here, and the only one left. I +must build a house. If I could build a chalet for 12,000 +francs--L500--and live in a home of my own, how happy I would be. I must +raise the money somehow. It would give me a home, quiet, retired, +healthy, and near England. If I live in Egypt I know what my life would +be. If I live in the south of Italy I know I should be idle and worse. I +want to live here. Do think over this and send me over the +architect.[18] M. Bonnet is excellent and is ready to carry out any +idea. I want a little chalet of wood and plaster walls, the wooden beams +showing and the white square of plaster diapering the framework--like, I +regret to say--Shakespeare's house--like old English sixteenth-century +farmers' houses. So your architect has me waiting for him, as he is +waiting for me. + +Do you think the idea absurd? + +I got the _Chronicle_, many thanks. I see the writer on +Prince--A.2.11.--does not mention my name--foolish of her--it is a +woman. + +I, as you, the poem of my days, are away, am forced to write. I have +begun something that I think will be very good. + +I breakfast to-morrow with the Stannards: what a great passionate, +splendid writer John Strange Winter is! How little people understand her +work! _Bootle's Baby_ is an "oeuvre symboliste"--it is really only the +style and the subject that are wrong. Pray never speak lightly of +_Bootle's Baby_--Indeed pray never speak of it at all--I never do. + +Yours, + +OSCAR. + +Please send a _Chronicle_ to my wife. + + MRS. C.M. HOLLAND, + Maison Benguerel, + Bevaix, + Pres de Neuchatel, + +just marking it--and if my second letter appears, mark that. + +Also cut out the letter[19] and enclose it in an envelope to: + + MR. ARTHUR CRUTHENDEN, + Poste Restante, G.P.O., Reading, + +with just these lines: + + Dear friend, + + The enclosed will interest you. There is also another letter + waiting in the post office for you from me with a little money. + Ask for it if you have not got it. + + Yours sincerely, + + C.3.3. + +I have no one but you, dear Robbie, to do anything. Of course the letter +to Reading must go at once, as my friends come out on Wednesday morning +early. + + +This letter displays almost every quality of Oscar Wilde's genius in +perfect efflorescence--his gaiety, joyous merriment and exquisite +sensibility. Who can read of the little Chapel to Notre Dame de Liesse +without emotion quickly to be changed to mirth by the sunny humour of +those delicious specimens of self-advertisement: "Mr. Beerbohm Tree also +writes: 'Since I have tried it, I am a different actor, my friends +hardly recognise me.'" + +This letter is the most characteristic thing Oscar Wilde ever wrote, a +thing produced in perfect health at the topmost height of happy hours, +more characteristic even than "The Importance of Being Earnest," for it +has not only the humour of that delightful farce-comedy, but also more +than a hint of the deeper feeling which was even then forming itself +into a master-work that will form part of the inheritance of men +forever. + +"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" belongs to this summer of 1897. A fortunate +conjuncture of circumstances--the prison discipline excluding all +sense-indulgence, the kindness shown him towards the end of his +imprisonment and of course the delight of freedom--gave him perfect +physical health and hope and joy in work, and so Oscar was enabled for a +few brief months to do better than his best. He assured me and I believe +that the conception of "The Ballad" came to him in prison and was due to +the alleviation of his punishment and the permission accorded to him to +write and read freely--a divine fruit born directly of his pity for +others and the pity others felt for him. + +"The Ballad of Reading Gaol"[20] was published in January, 1898, over +the signature of C.3.3., Oscar's number in prison. In a few weeks it ran +through dozens of editions in England and America and translations +appeared in almost every European language, which is proof not so much +of the excellence of the poem as the great place the author held in the +curiosity of men. The enthusiasm with which it was accepted in England +was astounding. One reviewer compared it with the best of Sophocles; +another said that "nothing like it has appeared in our time." No word of +criticism was heard: the most cautious called it a "simple poignant +ballad, ... one of the greatest in the English language." This praise is +assuredly not too generous. Yet even this was due to a revulsion of +feeling in regard to Oscar himself rather than to any understanding of +the greatness of his work. The best public felt that he had been +dreadfully over-punished, and made a scapegoat for worse offenders and +was glad to have the opportunity of repairing its own fault by +over-emphasising Oscar's repentance and over-praising, as it imagined, +the first fruits of the converted sinner. + +"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is far and away the best poem Oscar Wilde +ever wrote; we should try to appreciate it as the future will appreciate +it. We need not be afraid to trace it to its source and note what is +borrowed in it and what is original. After all necessary qualifications +are made, it will stand as a great and splendid achievement. + +Shortly before "The Ballad" was written, a little book of poetry called +"A Shropshire Lad" was published by A.E. Housman, now I believe +professor of Latin at Cambridge. There are only a hundred odd pages in +the booklet; but it is full of high poetry--sincere and passionate +feeling set to varied music. His friend, Reginald Turner, sent Oscar a +copy of the book and one poem in particular made a deep impression on +him. It is said that "his actual model for 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' +was 'The Dream of Eugene Aram' with 'The Ancient Mariner' thrown in on +technical grounds"; but I believe that Wilde owed most of his +inspiration to "A Shropshire Lad." + +Here are some verses from Housman's poem and some verses from "The +Ballad": + + On moonlit heath and lonesome bank + The sheep beside me graze; + And yon the gallows used to clank + Fast by the four cross ways. + + A careless shepherd once would keep + The flocks by moonlight there,[21] + And high amongst the glimmering sheep + The dead men stood on air. + + They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail: + The whistles blow forlorn, + And trains all night groan on the rail + To men that die at morn. + + There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night, + Or wakes, as may betide, + A better lad, if things went right, + Than most that sleep outside. + + And naked to the hangman's noose + The morning clocks will ring + A neck God made for other use + Than strangling in a string. + + And sharp the link of life will snap, + And dead on air will stand + Heels that held up as straight a chap + As treads upon the land. + + So here I'll watch the night and wait + To see the morning shine + When he will hear the stroke of eight + And not the stroke of nine; + + And wish my friend as sound a sleep + As lads I did not know, + That shepherded the moonlit sheep + A hundred years ago. + + +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL + + It is sweet to dance to violins + When Love and Life are fair: + To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes, + Is delicate and rare: + But it is not sweet with nimble feet + To dance upon the air! + + And as one sees most fearful things + In the crystal of a dream, + We saw the greasy hempen rope + Hooked to the blackened beam + And heard the prayer the hangman's snare + Strangled into a scream. + + And all the woe that moved him so + That he gave that bitter cry, + And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, + None knew so well as I: + For he who lives more lives than one + More deaths than one must die. + +There are better things in "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" than those +inspired by Housman. In the last of the three verses I quote there is a +distinction of thought which Housman hardly reached. + + "For he who lives more lives than one + More deaths than one must die." + +There are verses, too, wrung from the heart which have a diviner +influence than any product of the intellect: + + The Chaplain would not kneel to pray + By his dishonoured grave: + Nor mark it with that blessed Cross + That Christ for sinners gave, + Because the man was one of those + Whom Christ came down to save. + + * * * * * + + This too I know--and wise were it + If each could know the same-- + That every prison that men build + Is built with bricks of shame, + And bound with bars lest Christ should see + How men their brothers maim. + + With bars they blur the gracious moon, + And blind the goodly sun: + And they do well to hide their Hell, + For in it things are done + That Son of God nor son of man + Ever should look upon! + + The vilest deeds like poison weeds + Bloom well in prison-air: + It is only what is good in Man + That wastes and withers there: + Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, + And the Warder is Despair. + + * * * * * + + And he of the swollen purple throat, + And the stark and staring eyes, + Waits for the holy hands that took + The Thief to Paradise; + And a broken and a contrite heart + The Lord will not despise. + +"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is beyond all comparison the greatest +ballad in English: one of the noblest poems in the language. This is +what prison did for Oscar Wilde. + +When speaking to him later about this poem I remember assuming that his +prison experiences must have helped him to realise the suffering of the +condemned soldier and certainly lent passion to his verse. But he would +not hear of it. + +"Oh, no, Frank," he cried, "never; my experiences in prison were too +horrible, too painful to be used. I simply blotted them out altogether +and refused to recall them." + +"What about the verse?" I asked: + + "We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, + We turned the dusty drill: + We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, + And sweated on the mill: + And in the heart of every man + Terror was lying still." + +"Characteristic details, Frank, merely the _decor_ of prison life, not +its reality; that no one could paint, not even Dante, who had to turn +away his eyes from lesser suffering." + +It may be worth while to notice here, as an example of the hatred with +which Oscar Wilde's name and work were regarded, that even after he had +paid the penalty for his crime the publisher and editor, alike in +England and America, put anything but a high price on his best work. +They would have bought a play readily enough because they would have +known that it would make them money, but a ballad from his pen nobody +seemed to want. The highest price offered in America for "The Ballad of +Reading Gaol" was one hundred dollars. Oscar found difficulty in getting +even L20 for the English rights from the friend who published it; yet it +has sold since by hundreds of thousands and is certain always to sell. + +I must insert here part of another letter from Oscar Wilde which +appeared in _The Daily Chronicle_, 24th March, 1898, on the cruelties of +the English prison system; it was headed, "Don't read this if you want +to be happy to-day," and was signed by "The Author of 'The Ballad of +Reading Gaol.'" It was manifestly a direct outcome of his prison +experiences. The letter was simple and affecting; but it had little or +no influence on the English conscience. The Home Secretary was about to +reform (!) the prison system by appointing more inspectors. Oscar Wilde +pointed out that inspectors could do nothing but see that the +regulations were carried out. He took up the position that it was the +regulations which needed reform. His plea was irrefutable in its +moderation and simplicity: but it was beyond the comprehension of an +English Home Secretary apparently, for all the abuses pointed out by +Oscar Wilde still flourish. I can't help giving some extracts from this +memorable indictment: memorable for its reserve and sanity and complete +absence of any bitterness: + +"... The prisoner who has been allowed the smallest privilege dreads the +arrival of the inspectors. And on the day of any prison inspection the +prison officials are more than usually brutal to the prisoners. Their +object is, of course, to show the splendid discipline they maintain. + +"The necessary reforms are very simple. They concern the needs of the +body and the needs of the mind of each unfortunate prisoner. + +"With regard to the first, there are three permanent punishments +authorised by law in English prisons: + +"1. Hunger. + +"2. Insomnia. + +"3. Disease. + +"The food supplied to prisoners is entirely inadequate. Most of it is +revolting in character. All of it is insufficient. Every prisoner +suffers day and night from hunger.... + +"The result of the food--which in most cases consists of weak gruel, +badly baked bread, suet and water--is disease in the form of incessant +diarrhoea. This malady, which ultimately with most prisoners becomes a +permanent disease, is a recognised institution in every prison. At +Wandsworth Prison, for instance--where I was confined for two months, +till I had to be carried into hospital, where I remained for another +two months--the warders go round twice or three times a day with +astringent medicine, which they serve out to the prisoners as a matter +of course. After about a week of such treatment it is unnecessary to say +that the medicine produces no effect at all. + +"The wretched prisoner is thus left a prey to the most weakening, +depressing and humiliating malady that can be conceived, and if, as +often happens, he fails from physical weakness to complete his required +evolutions at the crank, or the mill, he is reported for idleness and +punished with the greatest severity and brutality. Nor is this all. + +"Nothing can be worse than the sanitary arrangements of English +prisons.... The foul air of the prison cells, increased by a system of +ventilation that is utterly ineffective, is so sickening and unwholesome +that it is not uncommon for warders, when they come into the room out of +the fresh air, and open and inspect each cell, to be violently sick.... + +"With regard to the punishment of insomnia, it only exists in Chinese +and English prisons. In China it is inflicted by placing the prisoner in +a small bamboo cage; in England by means of the plank bed. The object of +the plank bed is to produce insomnia. There is no other object in it, +and it invariably succeeds. And even when one is subsequently allowed a +hard mattress, as happens in the course of imprisonment, one still +suffers from insomnia. It is a revolting and ignorant punishment. + +"With regard to the needs of the mind, I beg that you will allow me to +say something. + +"The present prison system seems almost to have for its aim the wrecking +and the destruction of the mental faculties. The production of insanity +is, if not its object, certainly its result. That is a well-ascertained +fact. Its causes are obvious. Deprived of books, of all human +intercourse, isolated from every humane and humanising influence, +condemned to eternal silence, robbed of all intercourse with the +external world, treated like an unintelligent animal, brutalised below +the level of any of the brute-creation, the wretched man who is confined +in an English prison can hardly escape becoming insane." + +This letter ended by saying that if all the reforms suggested were +carried out much would still remain to be done. It would still be +advisable to "humanise the governors of prisons, to civilise the +warders, and to Christianise the Chaplains." + +This letter was the last effort of the new Oscar, the Oscar who had +manfully tried to put the prison under his feet and to learn the +significance of sorrow and the lesson of love which Christ brought into +the world. + +In the beautiful pages about Jesus which form the greater part of _De +Profundis_, also written in those last hopeful months in Reading Gaol, +Oscar shows, I think, that he might have done much higher work than +Tolstoi or Renan had he set himself resolutely to transmute his new +insight into some form of art. Now and then he divined the very secret +of Jesus: + +"When he says 'Forgive your enemies' it is not for the sake of the +enemy, but for one's own sake that he says so, and because love is more +beautiful than hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell all +that thou hast and give to the poor,' it is not of the state of the poor +that he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that +wealth was marring." + +In many of these pages Oscar Wilde really came close to the divine +Master; "the image of the Man of Sorrows," he says, "has fascinated and +dominated art as no Greek god succeeded in doing."... And again: + +"Out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth had come a personality +infinitely greater than any made by myth and legend, and one, strangely +enough, destined to reveal to the world the mystical meaning of wine and +the real beauties of the lilies of the field as none, either on +Cithaeron or Enna, has ever done. The song of Isaiah, 'He is despised +and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we +hid as it were our faces from him,' had seemed to him to prefigure +himself, and in him the prophecy was fulfilled." + +In this spirit Oscar made up his mind that he would write about "Christ +as the precursor of the romantic movement in life" and about "The +artistic life considered in its relation to conduct." + +By bitter suffering he had been brought to see that the moment of +repentance is the moment of absolution and self-realisation, that tears +can wash out even blood. In "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" he wrote: + + And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, + The hand that held the steel: + For only blood can wipe out blood, + And only tears can heal: + And the crimson stain that was of Cain + Became Christ's snow-white seal. + +This is the highest height Oscar Wilde ever reached, and alas! he only +trod the summit for a moment. But as he says himself: "One has perhaps +to go to prison to understand that. And, if so, it may be worth while +going to prison." He was by nature a pagan who for a few months became a +Christian, but to live as a lover of Jesus was impossible to this +"Greek born out of due time," and he never even dreamed of a reconciling +synthesis.... + +The arrest of his development makes him a better representative of his +time: he was an artistic expression of the best English mind: a Pagan +and Epicurean, his rule of conduct was a selfish Individualism:--"Am I +my brother's keeper?" This attitude must entail a dreadful Nemesis, for +it condemns one Briton in every four to a pauper's grave. The result +will convince the most hardened that such selfishness is not a creed by +which human beings can live in society. + + * * * * * + +This summer of 1897 was the harvest time in Oscar Wilde's Life; and his +golden Indian summer. We owe it "De Profundis," the best pages of prose +he ever wrote, and "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," his only original poem; +yet one that will live as long as the language: we owe it also that +sweet and charming letter to Bobbie Ross which shows him in his habit as +he lived. I must still say a word or two about him in this summer in +order to show the ordinary working of his mind. + +On his release, and, indeed, for a year or two later, he called himself +Sebastian Melmoth. But one had hardly spoken a half a dozen words to +him, when he used to beg to be called Oscar Wilde. I remember how he +pulled up someone who had just been introduced to him, who persisted in +addressing him as Mr. Melmoth. + +"Call me Oscar Wilde," he pleaded, "Mr. Melmoth is unknown, you see." + +"I thought you preferred it," said the stranger excusing himself. + +"Oh, dear, no," interrupted Oscar smiling, "I only use the name Melmoth +to spare the blushes of the postman, to preserve his modesty," and he +laughed in the old delightful way. + +It was always significant to me the eager delight with which he shuffled +off the new name and took up the old one which he had made famous. + +An anecdote from his life in the Chalet at this time showed that the old +witty pagan in Oscar was not yet extinct. + +An English lady who had written a great many novels and happened to be +staying in Dieppe heard of him, and out of kindness or curiosity, or +perhaps a mixture of both motives, wrote and invited him to luncheon. He +accepted the invitation. The good lady did not know how to talk to Mr. +Sebastian Melmoth, and time went heavily. At length she began to +expatiate on the cheapness of things in France; did Mr. Melmoth know how +wonderfully cheap and good the living was? + +"Only fancy," she went on, "you would not believe what that claret you +are drinking costs." + +"Really?" questioned Oscar, with a polite smile. + +"Of course I get it wholesale," she explained, "but it only costs me +sixpence a quart." + +"Oh, my dear lady, I'm afraid you have been cheated," he exclaimed, +"ladies should never buy wine. I'm afraid you have been sadly +overcharged." + +The humour may excuse the discourtesy, but Oscar was so uniformly polite +to everyone that the incident simply shows how ineffably he had been +bored. + +This summer of 1897 was the decisive period and final turning-point in +Oscar Wilde's career. So long as the sunny weather lasted and friends +came to visit him from time to time Oscar was content to live in the +Chalet Bourgeat; but when the days began to draw in and the weather +became unsettled, the dreariness of a life passed in solitude, indoors, +and without a library became insupportable. He was being drawn in two +opposite directions. I did not know it at the time; indeed he only told +me about it months later when the matter had been decided irrevocably; +but this was the moment when his soul was at stake between good and +evil. The question was whether his wife would come to him again or +whether he would yield to the solicitations of Lord Alfred Douglas and +go to live with him. + +Mr. Sherard has told in his book how he brought about the first +reconciliation between Oscar and his wife; and how immediately +afterwards he received a letter from Lord Alfred Douglas threatening to +shoot him like a dog, if, by any words of his, Wilde's friendship was +lost to him, Douglas. + +Unluckily Mrs. Wilde's family were against her going back to her +husband; they begged her not to go; talked to her of her duty to her +children and herself, and the poor woman hesitated. Finally her advisers +decided for her, and Mrs. Wilde wrote this decision to Oscar's +solicitors shortly before his release: Oscar's probation was to last at +least a year. I do not know enough about Mrs. Wilde and her relations +with her family and with her husband even to discuss her inaction: I +dare not criticise her: but she did not go to her husband when if she +had gone boldly she might have saved him. She knew Lord Alfred Douglas' +influence over him; knew that it had already brought him to grief. Gide +says, and Oscar himself told me afterwards, that he had come out of +prison determined not to go back to Alfred Douglas and the old life. It +seems a pity that his wife did not act promptly; she allowed herself to +believe that a time of probation was necessary. The delay wounded +Oscar, and all the while, as he told me a little later, he was resisting +an influence which had dominated his life in the past. + +"I got a letter almost every day, Frank, begging me to come to +Posilippo, to the villa which Lord Alfred Douglas had rented. Every day +I heard his voice calling, 'Come, come, to sunshine and to me. Come to +Naples with its wonderful museum of bronzes and Pompeii and Paestum, the +city of Poseidon: I am waiting to welcome you. Come.' + +"Who could resist it, Frank? love calling, calling with outstretched +arms; who could stay in bleak Berneval and watch the sheets of rain +falling, falling--and the grey mist shrouding the grey sea, and think of +Naples and love and sunshine; who could resist it all? I could not, +Frank, I was so lonely and I hated solitude. I resisted as long as I +could, but when chill October came and Bosie came to Rouen for me, I +gave up the struggle and yielded." + +Could Oscar Wilde have won and made for himself a new and greater life? +The majority of men are content to think that such a victory was +impossible to him. Everyone knows that he lost; but I at least believe +that he might have won. His wife was on the point of yielding, I have +since been told; on the point of complete reconciliation when she heard +that he had gone to Naples and returned to his old habit of living; a +few days made all the difference. + +It was at the instigation of Lord Alfred Douglas that Oscar began the +insane action against Lord Queensberry, in which he put to hazard his +success, his position, his good name and liberty, and lost them all. Two +years later at the same tempting, he committed soul-suicide. + +He was not only better in health than he had ever been; but he was +talking and writing better than ever before and full of literary +projects which would certainly have given him money and position and a +measure of happiness besides increasing his reputation. From the moment +he went to Naples he was lost, and he knew it himself; he never +afterwards wrote anything: as he used to say, he could never afterwards +face his own soul. + +He could never have won up again, the world says, and shrugs careless +shoulders. It is a cheap, unworthy conclusion. Some of us still persist +in believing that Oscar Wilde might easily have won and never again been +caught in that dreadful wind which whips the victims of sensual desire +about unceasingly, driving them hither and thither without rest in that +awful place where: "Nulla speranza gli conforta mai." (No hope ever +comforts!) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Reproduced in the Appendix. + +[8] Fac-simile copies of some of the notes Oscar wrote to Warder Martin +about these children are reproduced in the Appendix. The notes were +written on scraps of paper and pushed under his cell-door; they are +among the most convincing evidences of Oscar's essential humanity and +kindness of heart. + +[9] The Home Secretary, Sir Matthew White Ridley, when questioned by Mr. +Michael Davitt in the House of Commons, May 25, 1897, declared that this +dismissal of a warder for feeding a little hungry child at his own +expense was "fully justified" and a "proper step." This same Home +Secretary appointed his utterly incompetent brother to be a judge of the +High Court. + +[10] The correspondent to whom Wilde writes and the other friend +referred to are Roman Catholics. + +[11] This refers to a story which Wilde was much interested in at the +time. + +[12] The proprietor of the hotel. + +[13] The Sphinx is a nickname for Mrs. Leverson, author of "The Eleventh +Hour," and other witty novels. + +[14] Ernest was her husband. + +[15] The silver spoon is a proposed line for a play given by Ross to +Turner (Reggie). + +[16] Wilde's solicitor in Regina v. Wilde. + +[17] A reference to the "Vailima Letters" of Stevenson which Wilde read +when he was in prison. + +[18] An architect who sent Wilde books on his release from prison. + +[19] His letter to _The Daily Chronicle_ about Warder Martin and the +little children. + +[20] The Ballad was finished in Naples and Alfred Douglas has since +declared that he helped Oscar Wilde to write it. I have no wish to +dispute this: Alfred Douglas' poetic gift was extraordinary, far greater +than Oscar Wilde's. The poem was conceived in prison and a good deal of +it was printed before Oscar went near Alfred Douglas and some of the +best stanzas in it are to be found in this earlier portion: no part of +the credit of it, in my opinion, belongs to Alfred Douglas. See Appendix +for Ross's opinion. + +[21] Hanging in chains was called keeping sheep by moonlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + "Non dispetto, ma doglia."--_Dante._ + + +Oscar Wilde did not stay long in Naples, a few brief months; the +forbidden fruit quickly turned to ashes in his mouth. + +I give the following extracts from a letter he wrote to Robert Ross in +December, 1897, shortly after leaving Naples, because it describes the +second great crisis in his life and is besides the bitterest thing he +ever wrote and therefore of peculiar value: + + "The facts of Naples are very bald. Bosie for four months, by + endless lies, offered me a home. He offered me love, + affection, and care, and promised that I should never want for + anything. After four months I accepted his offer, but when we + met on our way to Naples, I found he had no money, no plans, + and had forgotten all his promises. His one idea was that I + should raise the money for us both; I did so to the extent of + L120. On this Bosie lived quite happy. When it came to his + having to pay his own share he became terribly unkind and + penurious, except where his own pleasures were concerned, and + when my allowance ceased, he left. + + "With regard to the L500[22] which he said was a debt of + honour, he has written to me to say that he admits the debt of + honour, but as lots of gentlemen don't pay their debts of + honour, it is quite a common thing and no one thinks any the + worse of them. + + "I don't know what you said to Constance, but the bald fact is + that I accepted the offer of the home, and found that I was + expected to provide the money, and when I could no longer do + so I was left to my own devices. It is the most bitter + experience of a bitter life. It is a blow quite awful. It had + to come, but I know it is better I should never see him again, + I don't want to, it fills me with horror." + +A word of explanation will explain his reference to his wife, Constance, +in this letter: by a deed of separation made at the end of his +imprisonment, Mrs. Wilde undertook to allow Oscar L150 a year for life, +under the condition that the allowance was to be forfeited if Oscar ever +lived under the same roof with Lord Alfred Douglas. Having forfeited the +allowance Oscar got Robert Ross to ask his wife to continue it and in +spite of the forfeiture Mrs. Wilde continually sent Oscar money through +Robert Ross, merely stipulating that her husband should not be told +whence the money came. Ross, too, who had also sent him L150 a year, +resumed his monthly payments as soon as he left Douglas. + +My friendship with Oscar Wilde, which had been interrupted after he left +prison by a silly gibe directed rather against the go-between he had +sent to me than against him, was renewed in Paris early in 1898. I have +related the little misunderstanding in the Appendix. I had never felt +anything but the most cordial affection for Oscar and as soon as I went +to Paris and met him I explained what had seemed to him unkind. When I +asked him about his life since his release he told me simply that he had +quarrelled with Bosie Douglas. + +I did not attribute much importance to this; but I could not help +noticing the extraordinary change that had taken place in him since he +had been in Naples. His health was almost as good as ever; in fact, the +prison discipline with its two years of hard living had done him so +much good that his health continued excellent almost to the end. + +But his whole manner and attitude to life had again changed: he now +resembled the successful Oscar of the early nineties: I caught echoes, +too, in his speech of a harder, smaller nature; "that talk about +reformation, Frank, is all nonsense; no one ever really reforms or +changes. I am what I always was." + +He was mistaken: he took up again the old pagan standpoint; but he was +not the same; he was reckless now, not thoughtless, and, as soon as one +probed a little beneath the surface, depressed almost to despairing. He +had learnt the meaning of suffering and pity, had sensed their value; he +had turned his back upon them all, it is true, but he could not return +to pagan carelessness, and the light-hearted enjoyment of pleasure. He +did his best and almost succeeded; but the effort was there. His creed +now was what it used to be about 1892: "Let us get what pleasure we may +in the fleeting days; for the night cometh, and the silence that can +never be broken." + +The old doctrine of original sin, we now call reversion to type; the +most lovely garden rose, if allowed to go without discipline and +tendance, will in a few generations become again the common scentless +dog-rose of our hedges. Such a reversion to type had taken place in +Oscar Wilde. It must be inferred perhaps that the old pagan Greek in him +was stronger than the Christian virtues which had been called into being +by the discipline and suffering of prison. Little by little, as he began +to live his old life again, the lessons learned in prison seemed to drop +from him and be forgotten. But in reality the high thoughts he had lived +with, were not lost; his lips had been touched by the divine fire; his +eyes had seen the world-wonder of sympathy, pity and love and, strangely +enough, this higher vision helped, as we shall soon see, to shake his +individuality from its centre, and thus destroyed his power of work and +completed his soul-ruin. Oscar's second fall--this time from a +height--was fatal and made writing impossible to him. It is all clear +enough now in retrospect though I did not understand it at the time. +When he went to live with Bosie Douglas he threw off the Christian +attitude, but afterwards had to recognise that "De Profundis" and "The +Ballad of Reading Gaol" were deeper and better work than any of his +earlier writings. He resumed the pagan position; outwardly and for the +time being he was the old Oscar again, with his Greek love of beauty and +hatred of disease, deformity and ugliness, and whenever he met a +kindred spirit, he absolutely revelled in gay paradoxes and brilliant +flashes of humour. But he was at war with himself, like Milton's Satan +always conscious of his fall, always regretful of his lost estate and by +reason of this division of spirit unable to write. Perhaps because of +this he threw himself more than ever into talk. + +He was beyond all comparison the most interesting companion I have ever +known: the most brilliant talker, I cannot but think, that ever lived. +No one surely ever gave himself more entirely in speech. Again and again +he declared that he had only put his talent into his books and plays, +but his genius into his life. If he had said into his talk, it would +have been the exact truth. + +People have differed a great deal about his mental and physical +condition after he came out of prison. All who knew him really, Ross, +Turner, More Adey, Lord Alfred Douglas and myself, are agreed that in +spite of a slight deafness he was never better in health, never indeed +so well. But some French friends were determined to make him out a +martyr. + +In his picture of Wilde's last years, Gide tells us that "he had +suffered too grievously from his imprisonment.... His will had been +broken ... nothing remained in his shattered life but a mouldy +ruin,[23] painful to contemplate, of his former self. At times he seemed +to wish to show that his brain was still active. Humour there was; but +it was far-fetched, forced and threadbare." + +These touches may be necessary in order to complete a French picture of +the social outcast. They are not only untrue when applied to Oscar +Wilde, but the reverse of the truth; he never talked so well, was never +so charming a companion as in the last years of his life. + +In the very last year his talk was more genial, more humorous, more +vivid than ever, with a wider range of thought and intenser stimulus +than before. He was a born _improvisatore_. At the moment he always +dazzled one out of judgment. A phonograph would have discovered the +truth; a great part of his charm was physical; much of his talk mere +topsy-turvy paradox, the very froth of thought carried off by gleaming, +dancing eyes, smiling, happy lips, and a melodious voice. + +The entertainment usually started with some humorous play on words. One +of the company would say something obvious or trivial, repeat a proverb +or commonplace tag such as, "Genius is born, not made," and Oscar would +flash in smiling, "not 'paid,' my dear fellow, not 'paid.'" + +An interesting comment would follow on some doing of the day, a skit on +some accepted belief or a parody of some pretentious solemnity, a winged +word on a new book or a new author, and when everyone was smiling with +amused enjoyment, the fine eyes would become introspective, the +beautiful voice would take on a grave music and Oscar would begin a +story, a story with symbolic second meaning or a glimpse of new thought, +and when all were listening enthralled, of a sudden the eyes would +dance, the smile break forth again like sunshine and some sparkling +witticism would set everyone laughing. + +The spell was broken, but only for a moment. A new clue would soon be +given and at once Oscar was off again with renewed brio to finer +effects. + +The talking itself warmed and quickened him extraordinarily: he loved to +show off and astonish his audience, and usually talked better after an +hour or two than at the beginning. His verve was inexhaustible. But +always a great part of the fascination lay in the quick changes from +grave to gay, from pathos to mockery, from philosophy to fun. + +There was but little of the actor in him. When telling a story he never +mimicked his personages; his drama seldom lay in clash of character, but +in thought; it was the sheer beauty of the words, the melody of the +cadenced voice, the glowing eyes which fascinated you and always and +above all the scintillating, coruscating humour that lifted his +monologues into works of art. + +Curiously enough he seldom talked of himself or of the incidents of his +past life. After the prison he always regarded himself as a sort of +Prometheus and his life as symbolic; but his earlier experiences never +suggested themselves to him as specially significant; the happenings of +his life after his fall seemed predestined and fateful to him; yet of +those he spoke but seldom. Even when carried away by his own eloquence, +he kept the tone of good society. + +When you came afterwards to think over one of those wonderful evenings +when he had talked for hours, almost without interruption, you hardly +found more than an epigram, a fugitive flash of critical insight, an +apologue or pretty story charmingly told. Over all this he had cast the +glittering, sparkling robe of his Celtic gaiety, verbal humour, and +sensual enjoyment of living. It was all like champagne; meant to be +drunk quickly; if you let it stand, you soon realised that some still +wines had rarer virtues. But there was always about him the magic of a +rich and _puissant_ personality; like some great actor he could take a +poor part and fill it with the passion and vivacity of his own nature, +till it became a living and memorable creation. + +He gave the impression of wide intellectual range, yet in reality he was +not broad; life was not his study nor the world-drama his field. His +talk was all of literature and art and the vanities; the light +drawing-room comedy on the edge of farce was his kingdom; there he ruled +as a sovereign. + +Anyone who has read Oscar Wilde's plays at all carefully, especially +"The Importance of Being Earnest," must, I think, see that in kindly, +happy humour he is without a peer in literature. Who can ever forget the +scene between the town and country girl in that delightful farce-comedy. +As soon as the London girl realises that the country girl has hardly any +opportunity of making new friends or meeting new men, she exclaims: + +"Ah! now I know what they mean when they talk of agricultural +depression." + +This sunny humour is Wilde's especial contribution to literature: he +calls forth a smile whereas others try to provoke laughter. Yet he was +as witty as anyone of whom we have record, and some of the best epigrams +in English are his. "The cynic knows the price of everything and the +value of nothing" is better than the best of La Rochefoucauld, as good +as the best of Vauvenargues or Joubert. He was as wittily urbane as +Congreve. But all the witty things that one man can say may be numbered +on one's fingers. It was through his humour that Wilde reigned supreme. +It was his humour that lent his talk its singular attraction. He was the +only man I have ever met or heard of who could keep one smiling with +amusement hour after hour. True, much of the humour was merely verbal, +but it was always gay and genial: summer-lightning humour, I used to +call it, unexpected, dazzling, full of colour yet harmless. + +Let me try and catch here some of the fleeting iridescence of that +radiant spirit. Some years before I had been introduced to Mdlle. Marie +Anne de Bovet by Sir Charles Dilke. Mdlle. de Bovet was a writer of +talent and knew English uncommonly well; but in spite of masses of fair +hair and vivacious eyes she was certainly very plain. As soon as she +heard I was in Paris, she asked me to present Oscar Wilde to her. He had +no objection, and so I made a meeting between them. When he caught sight +of her, he stopped short: seeing his astonishment, she cried to him in +her quick, abrupt way: + +"N'est-ce pas, M. Wilde, que je suis la femme la plus laide de France?" +(Come, confess, Mr. Wilde, that I am the ugliest woman in France.) + +Bowing low, Oscar replied with smiling courtesy: + +"Du monde, Madame, du monde." (In the world, madame, in the world.) + +No one could help laughing; the retort was irresistible. He should have +said: "Au monde, madame, au monde," but the meaning was clear. + +Sometimes this thought-quickness and happy dexterity had to be used in +self-defence. Jean Lorrain was the wittiest talker I have ever heard in +France, and a most brilliant journalist. His life was as abandoned as it +could well be; in fact, he made a parade of strange vices. In the days +of Oscar's supremacy he always pretended to be a friend and admirer. +About this time Oscar wanted me to know Stephane Mallarme. He took me to +his rooms one afternoon when there was a reception. There were a great +many people present. Mallarme was standing at the other end of the room +leaning against the chimney piece. Near the door was Lorrain, and we +both went towards him, Oscar with outstretched hands: + +"Delighted to see you, Jean." + +For some reason or other, most probably out of tawdry vanity, Lorrain +folded his arms theatrically and replied: + +"I regret I cannot say as much: I can no longer be one of your friends, +M. Wilde." + +The insult was stupid, brutal; yet everyone was on tiptoe to see how +Oscar would answer it. + +"How true that is," he said quietly, as quickly as if he had expected +the traitor-thrust, "how true and how sad! At a certain time in life all +of us who have done anything like you and me, Lorrain, must realise that +we no longer have any friends in this world; but only lovers." (Plus +d'amis, seulement des amants.) + +A smile of approval lighted up every face. + +"Well said, well said," was the general exclamation. His humour was +almost invariably generous, kind. + +One day in a Paris studio the conversation turned on the character of +Marat: one Frenchman would have it that he was a fiend, another saw in +him the incarnation of the revolution, a third insisted that he was +merely the gamin of the Paris streets grown up. Suddenly one turned to +Oscar, who was sitting silent, and asked his opinion: he took the ball +at once, gravely. + +"_Ce malheureux! Il n'avait pas de veine--pour une fois qu'il a pris un +bain_...." (Poor devil, he was unlucky! To come to such grief for once +taking a bath.) + +For a little while Oscar was interested in the Dreyfus case, and +especially in the Commandant Esterhazy, who played such a prominent +part in it with the infamous _bordereau_ which brought about the +conviction of Dreyfus. Most Frenchmen now know that the _bordereau_ was +a forgery and without any real value. + +I was curious to see Esterhazy, and Oscar brought him to lunch one day +at Durand's. He was a little below middle height, extremely thin and as +dark as any Italian, with an enormous hook nose and heavy jaw. He looked +to me like some foul bird of prey: greed and cunning in the restless +brown eyes set close together, quick resolution in the out-thrust, bony +jaws and hard chin; but manifestly he had no capacity, no mind: he was +meagre in all ways. For a long time he bored us by insisting that +Dreyfus was a traitor, a Jew, and a German; to him a trinity of faults, +whereas he, Esterhazy, was perfectly innocent and had been very badly +treated. At length Oscar leant across the table and said to him in +French with, strange to say, a slight Irish accent, not noticeable when +he spoke English: + +"The innocent," he said, "always suffer, M. le Commandant; it is their +_metier_. Besides, we are all innocent till we are found out; it is a +poor, common part to play and within the compass of the meanest. The +interesting thing surely is to be guilty and so wear as a halo the +seduction of sin." + +Esterhazy appeared put out for a moment, and then he caught the genial +gaiety of the reproof and the hint contained in it. His vanity would not +allow him to remain long in a secondary _role_, and so, to our +amazement, he suddenly broke out: + +"Why should I not make my confession to you? I will. It is I, Esterhazy, +who alone am guilty. I wrote the _bordereau_. I put Dreyfus in prison, +and all France can not liberate him. I am the maker of the plot, and the +chief part in it is mine." + +To his surprise we both roared with laughter. The influence of the +larger nature on the smaller to such an extraordinary issue was +irresistibly comic. At the time no one even suspected Esterhazy in +connection with the _bordereau_. + +Another example, this time of Oscar's wit, may find a place here. Sir +Lewis Morris was a voluminous poetaster with a common mind. He once +bored Oscar by complaining that his books were boycotted by the press; +after giving several instances of unfair treatment he burst out: +"There's a conspiracy against me, a conspiracy of silence; but what can +one do? What should I do?" + +"Join it," replied Oscar smiling. + +Oscar's humour was for the most part intellectual, and something like +it can be found in others, though the happy fecundity and lightsome +gaiety of it belonged to the individual temperament and perished with +him. I remember once trying to give an idea of the different sides of +his humour, just to see how far it could be imitated. + +I made believe to have met him at Paddington, after his release from +Reading, though he was brought to Pentonville in private clothes by a +warder on May 18th, and was released early the next morning, two years +to the hour from the commencement of the Sessions at which he was +convicted on May 25th. The Act says that you must be released from the +prison in which you are first confined. I pretended, however, that I had +met him. The train, I said, ran into Paddington Station early in the +morning. I went across to him as he got out of the carriage: grey dawn +filled the vast echoing space; a few porters could be seen scattered +about; it was all chill and depressing. + +"Welcome, welcome, Oscar!" I cried holding out my hands. "I am sorry I'm +alone. You ought to have been met by troops of boys and girls +flower-crowned, but alas! you will have to content yourself with one +middle-aged admirer." + +"Yes, it's really terrible, Frank," he replied gravely. "If England +persists in treating her criminals like this, she does not deserve to +have any...." + +"Ah," said an old lady to him one day at lunch, "I know you people who +pretend to be a great deal worse than you are, I know you. I shouldn't +be afraid of you." + +"Naturally we pretend to be bad, dear lady," he replied; "it is the only +way to make ourselves interesting to you. Everyone believes a man who +pretends to be good, he is such a bore; but no one believes a man who +says he is evil. That makes him interesting." + +"Oh, you are too clever for me," replied the old lady nodding her head. +"You see in my day none of us went to Girton and Newnham. There were no +schools then for the higher education of women." + +"How absurd such schools are, are they not?" cried Oscar. "Were I a +despot, I should immediately establish schools for the lower education +of women. That's what they need. It usually takes ten years living with +a man to complete a woman's education." + +"Then what would you do," asked someone, "about the lower education of +man?" + +"That's already provided for, my dear fellow, amply provided for; we +have our public schools and universities to see to that. What we want +are schools for the higher education of men, and schools for the lower +education of women." + +Genial persiflage of this sort was his particular _forte_ whether my +imitation of it is good or bad. + +His kindliness was ingrained. I never heard him say a gross or even a +vulgar word, hardly even a sharp or unkind thing. Whether in company or +with one person, his mind was all dedicated to genial, kindly, +flattering thoughts. He hated rudeness or discussion or insistence as he +hated ugliness or deformity. + +One evening of this summer a trivial incident showed me that he was +sinking deeper in the mud-honey of life. + +A new play was about to be given at the Francais and because he +expressed a wish to see it I bought a couple of tickets. We went in and +he made me change places with him in order to be able to talk to me; he +was growing nearly deaf in the bad ear. After the first act we went +outside to smoke a cigarette. + +"It's stupid," Oscar began, "fancy us two going in there to listen to +what that foolish Frenchman says about love; he knows nothing about it; +either of us could write much better on the theme. Let's walk up and +down here under the columns and talk." + +The people began to go into the theatre again and, as they were +disappearing, I said: + +"It seems rather a pity to waste our tickets; so many wish to see the +play." + +"We shall find someone to give them to," he said indifferently, stopping +by one of the pillars. + +At that very moment as if under his hand appeared a boy of about fifteen +or sixteen, one of the gutter-snipe of Paris. To my amazement, he said: + +"Bon soir, Monsieur Wilde." + +Oscar turned to him smiling. + +"Vous etes Jules, n'est-ce pas?" (you are Jules, aren't you?) he +questioned. + +"Oui, M. Wilde." + +"Here is the very boy you want," Oscar cried; "let's give him the +tickets, and he'll sell them, and make something out of them," and Oscar +turned and began to explain to the boy how I had given two hundred +francs for the tickets, and how, even now, they should be worth a louis +or two. + +"Des jaunets" (yellow boys), cried the youth, his sharp face lighting +up, and in a flash he had vanished with the tickets. + +"You see he knows me, Frank," said Oscar, with the childish pleasure of +gratified vanity. + +"Yes," I replied drily, "not an acquaintance to be proud of, I should +think." + +"I don't agree with you, Frank," he said, resenting my tone, "did you +notice his eyes? He is one of the most beautiful boys I have ever seen; +an exact replica of Emilienne D'Alencon,[24] I call him Jules D'Alencon, +and I tell her he must be her brother. I had them both dining with me +once and the boy is finer than the girl, his skin far more beautiful. + +"By the way," he went on, as we were walking up the Avenue de l'Opera, +"why should we not see Emilienne; why should she not sup with us, and +you could compare them? She is playing at Olympia, near the Grand Hotel. +Let's go and compare Aspasia and Agathon, and for once I shall be +Alcibiades, and you the moralist, Socrates." + +"I would rather talk to you," I replied. + +"We can talk afterwards, Frank, when all the stars come out to listen; +now is the time to live and enjoy." + +"As you will," I said, and we went to the Music Hall and got a box, and +he wrote a little note to Emilienne D'Alencon, and she came afterwards +to supper with us. Though her face was pretty she was pre-eminently dull +and uninteresting without two ideas in her bird's head. She was all +greed and vanity, and could talk of nothing but the hope of getting an +engagement in London: could he help her, or would Monsieur, referring to +me, as a journalist get her some good puffs in advance? Oscar promised +everything gravely. + +While we were supping inside, Oscar caught sight of the boy passing +along the Boulevard. At once he tapped on the window, loud enough to +attract his attention. Nothing loth, the boy came in, and the four of us +had supper together--a strange quartette. + +"Now, Frank," said Oscar, "compare the two faces and you will see the +likeness," and indeed there was in both the same Greek beauty--the same +regularity of feature, the same low brow and large eyes, the same +perfect oval. + +"I am telling my friend," said Oscar to Emilienne in French, "how alike +you two are, true brother and sister in beauty and in the finest of +arts, the art of living," and they both laughed. + +"The boy is better looking," he went on to me in English. "Her mouth is +coarse and hard; her hands common, while the boy is quite perfect." + +"Rather dirty, don't you think?" I could not help remarking. + +"Dirty, of course, but that's nothing; nothing is so immaterial as +colouring; form is everything, and his form is perfect, as exquisite as +the David of Donatello. That's what he's like, Frank, the David of +Donatello," and he pulled his jowl, delighted to have found the painting +word. + +As soon as Emilienne saw that we were talking of the boy, her interest +in the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. She +had to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontented +curiosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of affected +politeness. + +"_Au revoir, n'est-ce pas? a Charing Cross, n'est-ce-pas, Monsieur? Vous +ne m'oublierez pas?..._" + +As we turned to walk along the boulevard I noticed that the boy, too, +had disappeared. The moonlight was playing with the leaves and boughs of +the plane trees and throwing them in Japanese shadow-pictures on the +pavement: I was given over to thought; evidently Oscar imagined I was +offended, for he launched out into a panegyric on Paris. + +"The most wonderful city in the world, the only civilised capital; the +only place on earth where you find absolute toleration for all human +frailties, with passionate admiration for all human virtues and +capacities. + +"Do you remember Verlaine, Frank? His life was nameless and terrible, he +did everything to excess, was drunken, dirty and debauched, and yet +there he would sit in a cafe on the Boul' Mich', and everybody who came +in would bow to him, and call him _maitre_ and be proud of any sign of +recognition from him because he was a great poet. + +"In England they would have murdered Verlaine, and men who call +themselves gentlemen would have gone out of their way to insult him in +public. England is still only half-civilised; Englishmen touch life at +one or two points without suspecting its complexity. They are rude and +harsh." + +All the while I could not help thinking of Dante and his condemnation of +Florence, and its "hard, malignant people," the people who still had +something in them of "the mountain and rock" of their birthplace:--"_E +tiene ancor del monte e del macigno._" + +"You are not offended, Frank, are you, with me, for making you meet two +caryatides of the Parisian temple of pleasure?" + +"No, no," I cried, "I was thinking how Dante condemned Florence and its +people, its ungrateful malignant people, and how when his teacher, +Brunetto Latini, and his companions came to him in the underworld, he +felt as if he, too, must throw himself into the pit with them. Nothing +prevented him from carrying out his good intention (_buona voglia_) +except the fear of being himself burned and baked as they were. I was +just thinking that it was his great love for Latini which gave him the +deathless words: + + ... "Non dispetto, ma doglia + La vostra condizion dentro mi fisse. + +"Not contempt but sorrow...." + +"Oh, Frank," cried Oscar, "what a beautiful incident! I remember it all. +I read it this last winter in Naples.... Of course Dante was full of +pity as are all great poets, for they know the weakness of human +nature." + +But even "the sorrow" of which Dante spoke seemed to carry with it some +hint of condemnation; for after a pause he went on: + +"You must not judge me, Frank: you don't know what I have suffered. No +wonder I snatch now at enjoyment with both hands. They did terrible +things to me. Did you know that when I was arrested the police let the +reporters come to the cell and stare at me. Think of it--the degradation +and the shame--as if I had been a monster on show. Oh! you knew! Then +you know, too, how I was really condemned before I was tried; and what a +farce my trial was. That terrible judge with his insults to those he was +sorry he could not send to the scaffold. + +"I never told you the worst thing that befell me. When they took me from +Wandsworth to Reading, we had to stop at Clapham Junction. We were +nearly an hour waiting for the train. There we sat on the platform. I +was in the hideous prison clothes, handcuffed between two warders. You +know how the trains come in every minute. Almost at once I was +recognised, and there passed before me a continual stream of men and +boys, and one after the other offered some foul sneer or gibe or scoff. +They stood before me, Frank, calling me names and spitting on the +ground--an eternity of torture." + +My heart bled for him. + +"I wonder if any punishment will teach humanity to such people, or +understanding of their own baseness?" + +After walking a few paces he turned to me: + +"Don't reproach me, Frank, even in thought. You have no right to. You +don't know me yet. Some day you will know more and then you will be +sorry, so sorry that there will be no room for any reproach of me. If I +could tell you what I suffered this winter!" + +"This winter!" I cried. "In Naples?" + +"Yes, in gay, happy Naples. It was last autumn that I really fell to +ruin. I had come out of prison filled with good intentions, with all +good resolutions. My wife had promised to come back to me. I hoped she +would come very soon. If she had come at once, if she only had, it might +all have been different. But she did not come. I have no doubt she was +right from her point of view. She has always been right. + +"But I was alone there in Berneval, and Bosie kept on calling me, +calling, and as you know I went to him. At first it was all wonderful. +The bruised leaves began to unfold in the light and warmth of +affection; the sore feeling began to die out of me. + +"But at once my allowance from my wife was stopped. Yes, Frank," he +said, with a touch of the old humour, "they took it away when they +should have doubled it. I did not care. When I had money I gave it to +him without counting, so when I could not pay I thought Bosie would pay, +and I was content. But at once I discovered that he expected me to find +the money. I did what I could; but when my means were exhausted, the +evil days began. He expected me to write plays and get money for us both +as in the past; but I couldn't; I simply could not. When we were dunned +his temper went to pieces. He has never known what it is to want really. +You have no conception of the wretchedness of it all. He has a terrible, +imperious, irritable temper." + +"He's the son of his father," I interjected. + +"Yes," said Oscar, "I am afraid that's the truth, Frank; he is the son +of his father; violent, and irritable, with a tongue like a lash. As +soon as the means of life were straitened, he became sullen and began +reproaching me; why didn't I write? Why didn't I earn money? What was +the good of me? As if I could write under such conditions. No man, +Frank, has ever suffered worse shame and humiliation. + +"At last there was a washing bill to be paid; Bosie was dunned for it, +and when I came in, he raged and whipped me with his tongue. It was +appalling; I had done everything for him, given him everything, lost +everything, and now I could only stand and see love turned to hate: the +strength of love's wine making the bitter more venomous. Then he left +me, Frank, and now there is no hope for me. I am lost, finished, a +derelict floating at the mercy of the stream, without plan or +purpose.... And the worst of it is, I know, if men have treated me +badly, I have treated myself worse; it is our sins against ourselves we +can never forgive.... Do you wonder that I snatch at any pleasure?" + +He turned and looked at me all shaken; I saw the tears pouring down his +cheeks. + +"I cannot talk any more, Frank," he said in a broken voice, "I must go." + +I called a cab. My heart was so heavy within me, so sore, that I said +nothing to stop him. He lifted his hand to me in sign of farewell, and I +turned again to walk home alone, understanding, for the first time in my +life, the full significance of the marvellous line in which Shakespeare +summed up his impeachment of the world and his own justification: the +only justification of any of us mortals: + + "A man more sinn'd against than sinning." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] This was the sum promised by the whole Queensberry family and by +Lord Alfred Douglas in particular to Oscar to defray the costs of that +first action for libel which they persuaded him to bring against Lord +Queensberry. Ross has since stated in court that it was never paid. The +history of the monies promised and supplied to Oscar at that time is so +extraordinary and so characteristic of the age that it might well +furnish a chapter to itself. Here it is enough just to say that those +who ought to have supplied him with money evaded the obligation, while +others upon whom he had no claim, helped him liberally; but even large +sums slipped through his careless fingers like water. + +[23] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + +[24] One of the prettiest daughters of the game to be found in Paris at +the time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The more I considered the matter, the more clearly I saw, or thought I +saw, that the only chance of salvation for Oscar was to get him to work, +to give him some purpose in life, and the reader should remember here +that at this time I had not read "De Profundis" and did not know that +Oscar in prison had himself recognised this necessity. After all, I said +to myself, nothing is lost if he will only begin to write. A man should +be able to whistle happiness and hope down the wind and take despair to +his bed and heart, and win courage from his harsh companion. Happiness +is not essential to the artist: happiness never creates anything but +memories. If Oscar would work and not brood over the past and study +himself like an Indian Fakir, he might yet come to soul-health and +achievement. He could win back everything; his own respect, and the +respect of his fellows, if indeed that were worth winning. An artist, I +knew, must have at least the self-abnegation of the hero, and heroic +resolution to strive and strive, or he will never bring it far even in +his art. If I could only get Oscar to work, it seemed to me everything +might yet come right. I spent a week with him, lunching and dining and +putting all this before him, in every way. + +I noticed that he enjoyed the good eating and the good drinking as +intensely as ever. He was even drinking too much I thought, was +beginning to get stout and flabby again, but the good living was a +necessity to him, and it certainly did not prevent him from talking +charmingly. But as soon as I pressed him to write he would shake his +head: + +"Oh, Frank, I cannot, you know my rooms; how could I write there? A +horrid bedroom like a closet, and a little sitting room without any +outlook. Books everywhere; and no place to write; to tell you the truth +I cannot even read in it. I can do nothing in such miserable poverty." + +Again and again he came back to this. He harped upon his destitution, so +that I could not but see purpose in it. He was already cunning in the +art of getting money without asking for it. My heart ached for him; one +goes down hill with such fatal speed and ease, and the mire at the +bottom is so loathsome. I hastened to say: + +"I can let you have a little money; but you ought to work, Oscar. After +all why should anyone help you, if you will not help yourself? If I +cannot aid you to save yourself, I am only doing you harm." + +"A base sophism, Frank, mere sophistry, as you know: a good lunch is +better than a bad one for any living man." + +I smiled, "Don't do yourself injustice: you could easily gain thousands +and live like a prince again. Why not make the effort?" + +"If I had pleasant, sunny rooms I'd try.... It's harder than you think." + +"Nonsense, it's easy for you. Your punishment has made your name known +in every country in the world. A book of yours would sell like wildfire; +a play of yours would draw in any capital. You might live here like a +prince. Shakespeare lost love and friendship, hope and health to +boot--everything, and yet forced himself to write 'The Tempest.' Why +can't you?" + +"I'll try, Frank, I'll try." + +I may just mention here that any praise of another man, even of +Shakespeare, was sure to move Oscar to emulation. He acknowledged no +superior. In some articles in _The Saturday Review_ I had said that no +one had ever given completer record of himself than Shakespeare. "We +know him better than we know any of our contemporaries," I went on, "and +he is better worth knowing." At once Oscar wrote to me objecting to this +phrase. "Surely, Frank, you have forgotten me. Surely, I am better +worth knowing than Shakespeare?" + +The question astonished me so that I could not make up my mind at once; +but when he pressed me later I had to tell him that Shakespeare had +reached higher heights of thought and feeling than any modern, though I +was probably wrong in saying that I knew him better than I knew a living +man. + +I had to go back to England and some little time elapsed before I could +return to Paris; but I crossed again early in the summer, and found he +had written nothing. + +I often talked with him about it; but now he changed his ground a +little. + +"I can't write, Frank. When I take up my pen all the past comes back: I +cannot bear the thoughts ... regret and remorse, like twin dogs, wait to +seize me at any idle moment. I must go out and watch life, amuse, +interest myself, or I should go mad. You don't know how sore it is about +my heart, as soon as I am alone. I am face to face with my own soul; the +Oscar of four years ago, with his beautiful secure life, and his +glorious easy triumphs, comes up before me, and I cannot stand the +contrast.... My eyes burn with tears. If you care for me, Frank, you +will not ask me to write." + +"You promised to try," I said somewhat harshly, "and I want you to try. +You haven't suffered more than Dante suffered in exile and poverty; yet +you know if he had suffered ten times as much, he would have written it +all down. Tears, indeed! the fire in his eyes would have dried the +tears." + +"True enough, Frank, but Dante was all of one piece whereas I am drawn +in two different directions. I was born to sing the joy and pride of +life, the pleasure of living, the delight in everything beautiful in +this most beautiful world, and they took me and tortured me till I +learned pity and sorrow. Now I cannot sing the joy, heartily, because I +know the suffering, and I was never made to sing of suffering. I hate +it, and I want to sing the love songs of joy and pleasure. It is joy +alone which appeals to my soul; the joy of life and beauty and love--I +could sing the song of Apollo the Sun-God, and they try to force me to +sing the song of the tortured Marsyas." + +This to me was his true and final confession. His second fall after +leaving prison had put him "at war with himself." This is, I think, the +very heart of truth about his soul; the song of sorrow, of pity and +renunciation was not his song, and the experience of suffering prevented +him from singing the delight of life and the joy he took in beauty. It +never seemed to occur to him that he could reach a faith which should +include both self-indulgence and renunciation in a larger acceptance of +life. + +In spite of his sunny nature he had a certain amount of jealousy and +envy in him which was always brought to light by the popular success of +those whom he had known and measured. I remember his telling me once +that he wrote his first play because he was annoyed at the way Pinero +was being praised--"Pinero, who can't write at all: he is a +stage-carpenter and nothing else. His characters are made of dough; and +never was there such a worthless style, or rather such a complete +absence of style: he writes like a grocer's assistant." + +I noticed now that this trait of jealousy was stronger in him than ever. +One day I showed him an English illustrated paper which I had bought on +my way to lunch. It contained a picture of George Curzon (I beg his +pardon, Lord Curzon) as Viceroy of India. He was photographed in a +carriage with his wife by his side: the gorgeous state carriage drawn by +four horses, with outriders, and escorted by cavalry and cheering +crowds--all the paraphernalia and pomp of imperial power. + +"Do you see that?" cried Oscar angrily; "fancy George Curzon being +treated like that. I know him well; a more perfect example of plodding +mediocrity was never seen in the world. He had never a thought or phrase +above the common." + +"I know him pretty well, too," I replied. "His incurable commonness is +the secret of his success. He 'voices,' as he would say himself, the +opinion of the average man on every subject. He might be a leader-writer +on the _Mail_ or _Times_. What do you know of the average man or of his +opinions? But the man in the street, as he is called to-day, can only +learn from the man who is just one step above himself, and so the George +Curzons come to success in life. That, too, is the secret of the +popularity of this or that writer. Hall Caine is an even larger George +Curzon, a better endowed mediocrity." + +"But why should he have fame and state and power?" Oscar cried +indignantly. + +"State and power, because he is George Curzon, but fame he never will +have, and I suspect if the truth were known, in the moments when he too +comes face to face with his own soul, as you say, he would give a good +deal of his state and power for a very little of your fame." + +"That is probably true, Frank," cried Oscar, "that is almost certainly +the crumpled rose-leaf of his couch, but how grossly he is +over-estimated and over-rewarded.... Do you know Wilfred Blunt?" + +"I have met him," I replied, "but don't know him. We met once and he +bragged preposterously about his Arab ponies. I was at that time editor +of _The Evening News_: and Mr. Blunt tried hard to talk down to my +level." + +"He is by way of being a poet, and he has a very real love of +literature." + +"I know," I said; "I really know his work and a good deal about him and +have nothing but praise for the way he championed the Egyptians, and for +his poetry when he has anything to say." + +"Well, Frank, he had a sort of club at Crabbett Park, a club for poets, +to which only poets were invited, and he was a most admirable and +perfect host. Lady Blunt could never make out what he was up to. He used +to get us all down to Crabbett, and the poet who was received last had +to make a speech about the new poet--a speech in which he was supposed +to tell the truth about the new-comer. Blunt took the idea, no doubt, +from the custom of the French Academy. Well, he asked me down to +Crabbett Park, and George Curzon, if you please, was the poet picked to +make the speech about me." + +"Good God," I cried, "Curzon a poet. It's like Kitchener being taken for +a great captain, or Salisbury for a statesman." + +"He writes verses, Frank, but of course there is not a line of poetry in +him: his verses are good enough though, well-turned, I mean, and sharp, +if not witty. Well, Curzon had to make this speech about me after +dinner. We had a delightful dinner, quite perfect, and then Curzon got +up. He had evidently prepared his speech carefully, it was bristling +with innuendoes; sneering side-hits at strange sins. Everyone looked at +his fellow and thought the speech the height of bad taste. + +"Mediocrity always detests ability, and loathes genius; Curzon wanted to +prove to himself that at any rate in the moralities he was my superior. + +"When he sat down I had to answer him. That was the programme. Of course +I had not prepared a speech, had not thought about Curzon, or what he +might say, but I got up, Frank, and told the kindliest truth about him, +and everyone took it for the bitterest sarcasm, and cheered and cheered +me, though what I said was merely the truth. I told how difficult it was +for Curzon to work and study at Oxford. Everyone wanted to know him +because of his position, because he was going into Parliament, and +certain to make a great figure there; and everyone tried to make up to +him, but he knew that he must not yield to such seduction, so he sat in +his room with a wet towel about his head, and worked and worked without +ceasing. + +"In the earlier examinations, which demand only memory, he won first +honours. But even success could not induce him to relax his efforts; he +lived laborious days and took every college examination seriously; he +made out dates in red ink, and hung them on his wall, and learnt pages +of uninteresting events and put them in blue ink in his memory, and at +last came out of the 'Final Schools' with second honours. And now, I +concluded, 'this model youth is going into life, and he is certain to +treat it seriously, certain to win at any rate second honours in it, and +have a great and praiseworthy career.' + +"Frank, they roared with laughter, and, to do Curzon justice, at the end +he came up to me and apologised, and was charming. Indeed, they all made +much of me and we had a great night. + +"I remember we talked all the night through, or rather I talked and +everyone else listened, for the great principle of the division of +labour is beginning to be understood in English Society. The host gives +excellent food, excellent wine, excellent cigarettes, and +super-excellent coffee, that's his part, and all the men listen, that's +theirs: while I talk and the stars twinkle their delight. + +"Wyndham was there, too; you know George Wyndham, with his beautiful +face and fine figure: he is infinitely cleverer than Curzon but he has +not Curzon's push and force, or perhaps, as you say, he is not in such +close touch with the average man as Curzon; he was charming to me. + +"In the morning we all trooped out to see the dawn, and some of the +young ones, wild with youth and high spirits, Curzon of course among the +number, stripped off their clothes and rushed down to the lake and began +swimming and diving about like a lot of schoolboys. There is a great +deal of the schoolboy in all Englishmen, that is what makes them so +lovable. When they came out they ran over the grass to dry themselves, +and then began playing lawn tennis, just as they were, stark naked, the +future rulers of England. I shall never forget the scene. Wilfred Blunt +had gone up to his wife's apartments and had changed into some fantastic +pyjamas; suddenly he opened an upper window and came out and perched +himself, cross-legged, on the balcony, looking down at the mad game of +lawn tennis, for all the world like a sort of pink and green Buddha, +while I strolled about with someone, and ordered fresh coffee and talked +till the dawn came with silent silver feet lighting up the beautiful +greenery of the park.... + +"Now George Curzon plays king in India: Wyndham is on the way to power, +and I'm hiding in shame and poverty here in Paris, an exile and outcast. +Do you wonder that I cannot write, Frank? The awful injustice of life +maddens me. After all, what have they done in comparison with what I +have done? + +"Close the eyes of all of us now and fifty years hence, or a hundred +years hence, no one will know anything about Curzon or Wyndham or Blunt: +whether they lived or died will be a matter of indifference to everyone; +but my comedies and my stories and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' will be +known and read by millions, and even my unhappy fate will call forth +world-wide sympathy." + +It was all true enough, and good to keep in mind; but even when Oscar +spoke of greater men than himself, he took the same attitude: his +self-esteem was extraordinary. He did not compare his work with that of +others; was not anxious to find his true place, as even Shakespeare was. +From the beginning, from youth on, he was convinced that he was a great +man and going to do great things. Many of us have the same belief and +are just as persuaded, but the belief is not ever present with us as it +was with Oscar, moulding all his actions. For instance, I remarked once +that his handwriting was unforgettable and characteristic. "I worked at +it," he said, "as a boy; I wanted a distinctive handwriting; it had to +be clear and beautiful and peculiar to me. At length I got it but it +took time and patience. I always wanted everything about me to be +distinctive," he added, smiling. + +He was proud of his physical appearance, inordinately pleased with his +great height, vain of it even. "Height gives distinction," he declared, +and once even went so far as to say, "One can't picture Napoleon as +small; one thinks only of his magnificent head and forgets the little +podgy figure; it must have been a great nuisance to him: small men have +no dignity." + +All this utterly unconscious of the fact that most tall men have no ever +present-sense of their height as an advantage. Yet on the whole one +agrees with Montaigne that height is the chief beauty of a man: it gives +presence. + +Oscar never learned anything from criticism; he had a good deal of +personal dignity in spite of his amiability, and when one found fault +with his work, he would smile vaguely or change the subject as if it +didn't interest him. + +Again and again I played on his self-esteem to get him to write; but +always met the same answer. + +"Oh, Frank, it's impossible, impossible for me to work under these +disgraceful conditions." + +"But you can have better conditions now and lots of money if you'll +begin to work." + +He shook his head despairingly. Again and again I tried, but failed to +move him, even when I dangled money before him. I didn't then know that +he was receiving regularly more than L300 a year. I thought he was +completely destitute, dependent on such casual help as friends could +give him. I have a letter from him about this time asking me for even +L5[25] as if he were in extremest need. + +On one of my visits to Paris after discussing his position, I could not +help saying to him: + +"The only thing that will make you write, Oscar, is absolute, blank +poverty. That's the sharpest spur after all--necessity." + +"You don't know me," he replied sharply. "I would kill myself. I can +endure to the end; but to be absolutely destitute would show me suicide +as the open door." + +Suddenly his depressed manner changed and his whole face lighted up. + +"Isn't it comic, Frank, the way the English talk of the 'open door,' +while their doors are always locked, and barred, and bolted, even their +church doors? Yet it is not hypocrisy in them; they simply cannot see +themselves as they are; they have no imagination." + +A long pause, and he went on gravely: + +"Suicide, Frank, is always the temptation of the unfortunate, a great +temptation." + +"Suicide is the natural end of the world-weary," I replied; "but you +enjoy life intensely. For you to talk of suicide is ridiculous." + +"Do you know that my wife is dead, Frank?"[26] + +"I had heard it," I said. + +"My way back to hope and a new life ends in her grave," he went on. +"Everything I do, Frank, is irrevocable." + +He spoke with a certain grave sincerity. + +"The great tragedies of the world are all final and complete; Socrates +would not escape death, though Crito opened the prison door for him. I +could not avoid prison, though you showed me the way to safety. We are +fated to suffer, don't you think? as an example to humanity--'an echo +and a light unto eternity.'" + +"I think it would be finer, instead of taking the punishment lying down, +to trample it under your feet, and make it a rung of the ladder." + +"Oh, Frank, you would turn all the tragedies into triumphs, you are a +fighter. My life is done." + +"You love life," I cried, "as much as ever you did; more than anyone I +have ever seen." + +"It is true," he cried, his face lighting up quickly, "more than anyone, +Frank. Life delights me. The people passing on the Boulevards, the play +of the sunshine in the trees; the noise, the quick movement of the cabs, +the costumes of the _cochers_ and _sergents-de-ville_; workers and +beggars, pimps and prostitutes--all please me to the soul, charm me, and +if you would only let me talk instead of bothering me to write I should +be quite happy. Why should I write any more? I have done enough for +fame. + +"I will tell you a story, Frank," he broke off, and he told me a slight +thing about Judas. The little tale was told delightfully, with eloquent +inflections of voice and still more eloquent pauses.... + +"The end of all this is," I said before going back to London, "that you +will not write?" + +"No, no, Frank," he said, "that I cannot write under these conditions. +If I had money enough; if I could shake off Paris, and forget those +awful rooms of mine and get to the Riviera for the winter and live in +some seaside village of the Latins with the blue sea at my feet, and the +blue sky above, and God's sunlight about me and no care for money, then +I would write as naturally as a bird sings, because I should be happy +and could not help it.... + +"You write stories taken from the fight of life; you are careless of +surroundings, I am a poet and can only sing in the sunshine when I am +happy." + +"All right," I said, snatching at the half-promise. "It is just possible +that I may get hold of some money during the next few months, and, if I +do, you shall go and winter in the South, and live as you please without +care of money. If you can only sing when the cage is beautiful and +sunlight floods it, I know the very place for you." + +With this sort of vague understanding we parted for some months. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] _Cfr._ Appendix. + +[26] See Appendix. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +"A GREAT ROMANTIC PASSION" + + +There is no more difficult problem for the writer, no harder task than +to decide how far he should allow himself to go in picturing human +weakness. We have all come from the animal and can all without any +assistance from books imagine easily enough the effects of unrestrained +self-indulgence. Yet it is instructive and pregnant with warning to +remark that, as soon as the sheet anchor of high resolve is gone, the +frailties of man tend to become master-vices. All our civilisation is +artificially built up by effort; all high humanity is the reward of +constant striving against natural desires. + +In the fall of this year, 1898, I sold _The Saturday Review_ to Lord +Hardwicke and his friends, and as soon as the purchase was completed, I +think in November, I wired to Oscar that I should be in Paris in a short +time, and ready to take him to the South for his holiday. I sent him +some money to pave the way. + +A few days later I crossed and wired to him from Calais to dine with me +at Durand's, and to begin dinner if I happened to be late. + +While waiting for dinner, I said: + +"I want to stay two or three days in Paris to see some pictures. Would +you be ready to start South on Thursday next?" It was then Monday, I +think. + +"On Thursday?" he repeated. "Yes, Frank, I think so." + +"There is some money for anything you may want to buy," I said and +handed him a cheque I had made payable to self and signed, for he knew +where he could cash it. + +"How good of you, Frank, I cannot thank you enough. You start on +Thursday," he added, as if considering it. + +"If you would rather wait a little," I said, "say so: I'm quite +willing." + +"No, Frank, I think Thursday will do. We are really going to the South +for the whole winter. How wonderful; how gorgeous it will be." + +We had a great dinner and talked and talked. He spoke of some of the new +Frenchmen, and at great length of Pierre Louys, whom he described as a +disciple: + +"It was I, Frank, who induced him to write his 'Aphrodite' in prose." He +spoke, too, of the Grand Guignol Theatre. + +"Le Grand Guignol is the first theatre in Paris. It looks like a +nonconformist chapel, a barn of a room with a gallery at the back and a +little wooden stage. There you see the primitive tragedies of real life. +They are as ugly and as fascinating as life itself. You must see it and +we will go to Antoine's as well: you must see Antoine's new piece; he is +doing great work." + +We kept dinner up to an unconscionable hour. I had much to tell of +London and much to hear of Paris, and we talked and drank coffee till +one o'clock, and when I proposed supper Oscar accepted the idea with +enthusiasm. + +"I have often lunched with you from two o'clock till nine, Frank, and +now I am going to dine with you from nine o'clock till breakfast +to-morrow morning." + +"What shall we drink?" I asked. + +"The same champagne, Frank, don't you think?" he said, pulling his jowl; +"there is no wine so inspiring as that dry champagne with the exquisite +_bouquet_. You were the first to say my plays were the champagne of +literature." + +When we came out it was three o'clock and I was tired and sleepy with my +journey, and Oscar had drunk perhaps more than was good for him. Knowing +how he hated walking I got a _voiture de cercle_ and told him to take +it, and I would walk to my hotel. He thanked me and seemed to hesitate. + +"What is it now?" I asked, wanting to get to bed. + +"Just a word with you," he said, and drew me away from the carriage +where the _chasseur_ was waiting with the rug. When he got me three or +four paces away he said, hesitatingly: + +"Frank, could you ... can you let me have a few pounds? I'm very hard +up." + +I stared at him; I had given him a cheque at the beginning of the +dinner: had he forgotten? Or did he perchance want to keep the hundred +pounds intact for some reason? Suddenly it occurred to me that he might +be without even enough for the carriage. I took out a hundred franc note +and gave it to him. + +"Thank you, so much," he said, thrusting it into his waistcoat pocket, +"it's very kind of you." + +"You will turn up to-morrow at lunch at one?" I said, as I put him into +the little brougham. + +"Yes, of course, yes," he cried, and I turned away. + +Next day at lunch he seemed to meet me with some embarrassment: + +"Frank, I want to ask you something. I'm really confused about last +night; we dined most wisely, if too well. This morning I found you had +given me a cheque, and I found besides in my waistcoat pocket a note for +a hundred francs. Did I ask you for it at the end? 'Tap' you, the French +call it," he added, trying to laugh. + +I nodded. + +"How dreadful!" he cried. "How dreadful poverty is! I had forgotten that +you had given me a cheque, and I was so hard up, so afraid you might go +away without giving me anything, that I asked you for it. Isn't poverty +dreadful?" + +I nodded; I could not say a word: the fact told so much. + +The chastened mood of self-condemnation did not last long with him or go +deep; soon he was talking as merrily and gaily as ever. + +Before parting I said to him: + +"You won't forget that you are going on Thursday night?" + +"Oh, really!" he cried, to my surprise, "Thursday is very near; I don't +know whether I shall be able to come." + +"What on earth do you mean?" I asked. + +"The truth is, you know, I have debts to pay, and I have not enough." + +"But I will give you more," I cried, "what will clear you?" + +"Fifty more I think will do. How good you are!" + +"I will bring it with me to-morrow morning." + +"In notes please, will you? French money. I find I shall want it to pay +some little things at once, and the time is short." + +I thought nothing of the matter. The next day at lunch I gave him the +money in French notes. That night I said to him: + +"You know we are going away to-morrow evening: I hope you'll be ready? I +have got the tickets for the _Train de Luxe_." + +"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he cried, "I can't be ready." + +"What is it now?" I asked. + +"Well, it's money. Some more debts have come in." + +"Why will you not be frank with me, and tell me what you owe? I will +give you a cheque for it. I don't want to drag it out of you bit by bit. +Tell me a sum that will make you free, and I will give it to you. I want +you to have a perfect six months, and how can you if you are bothered +with debts?" + +"How kind you are to me! Do you really mean it?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Really?" he said. + +"Yes," I said, "tell me what it is." + +"I think, I believe ... would another fifty be too much?" + +"I will give it you to-morrow. Are you sure that will be enough?" + +"Oh, yes, Frank; but let's go on Sunday. Sunday is such a good day for +travelling, and it's always so dull everywhere, we might just as well +spend it on the train. Besides, no one travels on Sunday in France, so +we are sure to be able to take our ease in our train. Won't Sunday do, +Frank?" + +"Of course it will," I replied laughing; but a day or two later he was +again embarrassed, and again told me it was money, and then he confessed +to me that he was afraid at first I should not have paid all his debts, +if I had known how much they were, and so he thought by telling me of +them little by little, he would make sure at least of something. This +pitiful, pitiable confession depressed me on his account. It showed +practice in such petty tricks and all too little pride. Of course it did +not alter my admiration of his qualities; nor weaken in any degree my +resolve to give him a fair chance. If he could be saved, I was +determined to save him. + +We met at the Gare de Lyons on Sunday evening. I found he had dined at +the buffet: there was a surprising number of empty bottles on the table; +he seemed terribly depressed. + +"Someone was dining with me, Frank, a friend," he offered by way of +explanation. + +"Why did he not wait? I should like to have seen him." + +"Oh, he was no one you would have cared about, Frank," he replied. + +I sat with him and took a cup of coffee, whilst waiting for the train. +He was wretchedly gloomy; scarcely spoke indeed; I could not make it +out. From time to time he sighed heavily, and I noticed that his eyes +were red, as if he had been crying. + +"What is the matter?" I asked. + +"I will tell you later, perhaps. It is very hard; parting is like +dying," and his eyes filled with tears. + +We were soon in the train running out into the night. I was as +light-hearted as could be. At length I was free of journalism, I +thought, and I was going to the South to write my Shakespeare book, and +Oscar would work, too, when the conditions were pleasant. But I could +not win a single smile from him; he sat downcast, sighing hopelessly +from time to time. + +"What on earth's the matter?" I cried. "Here you are going to the +sunshine, to blue skies, and the wine-tinted Mediterranean, and you're +not content. We shall stop in a hotel near a little sun-baked valley +running down to the sea. You walk from the hotel over a carpet of pine +needles, and when you get into the open, violets and anemones bloom +about your feet, and the scent of rosemary and myrtle will be in your +nostrils; yet instead of singing for joy the bird droops his feathers +and hangs his head as if he had the 'pip.'" + +"Oh, don't," he cried, "don't," and he looked at me with tears filling +his eyes; "you don't know, Frank, what a great romantic passion is." + +"Is that what you are suffering from?" + +"Yes, a great romantic passion." + +"Good God!" I laughed; "who has inspired this new devotion?" + +"Don't make fun of me, Frank, or I will not tell you; but if you will +listen I will try to tell you all about it, for I think you should know, +besides, I think telling it may ease my pain, so come into the cabin and +listen. + +"Do you remember once in the summer you wired me from Calais to meet you +at Maire's restaurant, meaning to go afterwards to Antoine's Theatre, +and I was very late? You remember, the evening Rostand was dining at the +next table. Well, it was that evening. I drove up to Maire's in time, +and I was just getting out of the victoria when a little soldier passed, +and our eyes met. My heart stood still; he had great dark eyes and an +exquisite olive-dark face--a Florentine bronze, Frank, by a great +master. He looked like Napoleon when he was first Consul, only--less +imperious, more beautiful.... + +"I got out hypnotised, and followed him down the Boulevard as in a +dream; the _cocher_ came running after me, I remember, and I gave him a +five franc piece, and waved him off; I had no idea what I owed him; I +did not want to hear his voice; it might break the spell; mutely I +followed my fate. I overtook the boy in a short time and asked him to +come and have a drink, and he said to me in his quaint French way: + +"'_Ce n'est pas de refus!_' (Too good to refuse.) + +"We went into a cafe, and I ordered something, I forget what, and we +began to talk. I told him I liked his face; I had had a friend once like +him; and I wanted to know all about him. I was in a hurry to meet you, +but I had to make friends with him first. He began by telling me all +about his mother, Frank, yes, his mother." Oscar smiled here in spite of +himself. + +"But at last I got from him that he was always free on Thursdays, and he +would be very glad to see me then, though he did not know what I could +see in him to like. I found out that the thing he desired most in the +world was a bicycle; he talked of nickel-plated handle bars, and +chains--and finally I told him it might be arranged. He was very +grateful and so we made a rendezvous for the next Thursday, and I came +on at once to dine with you." + +"Goodness!" I cried laughing. "A soldier, a nickel-plated bicycle and a +great romantic passion!" + +"If I had said a brooch, or a necklace, some trinket which would have +cost ten times as much, you would have found it quite natural." + +"Yes," I admitted, "but I don't think I'd have introduced the necklace +the first evening if there had been any romance in the affair, and the +nickel-plated bicycle to me seems irresistibly comic." + +"Frank," he cried reprovingly, "I cannot talk to you if you laugh; I am +quite serious. I don't believe you know what a great romantic passion +is; I am going to convince you that you don't know the meaning of it." + +"Fire away," I replied, "I am here to be convinced. But I don't think +you will teach me that there is any romance except where there is +another sex." + +"Don't talk to me of the other sex," he cried with distaste in voice and +manner. "First of all in beauty there is no comparison between a boy and +a girl. Think of the enormous, fat hips which every sculptor has to tone +down, and make lighter, and the great udder breasts which the artist +has to make small and round and firm, and then picture the exquisite +slim lines of a boy's figure. No one who loves beauty can hesitate for a +moment. The Greeks knew that; they had the sense of plastic beauty, and +they understood that there is no comparison." + +"You must not say that," I replied; "you are going too far; the Venus of +Milo is as fine as any Apollo, in sheer beauty; the flowing curves +appeal to me more than your weedy lines." + +"Perhaps they do, Frank," he retorted, "but you must see that the boy is +far more beautiful. It is your sex-instinct, your sinful sex-instinct +which prevents you worshipping the higher form of beauty. Height and +length of limb give distinction; slightness gives grace; women are +squat! You must admit that the boy's figure is more beautiful; the +appeal it makes far higher, more spiritual." + +"Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other," I barked. "Your sculptor +knows it is just as hard to find an ideal boy's figure as an ideal +girl's; and if he has to modify the most perfect girl's figure, he has +to modify the most perfect boy's figure as well. If he refines the +girl's breasts and hips he has to pad the boy's ribs and tone down the +great staring knee-bones and the unlovely large ankles; but please go +on, I enjoy your special pleading and your romantic passion interests +me; though you have not yet come to the romance, let alone the passion." + +"Oh, Frank," he cried, "the story is full of romance; every meeting was +an event in my life. You have no idea how intelligent he is; every +evening we spent together he was different; he had grown, developed. I +lent him books and he read them, and his mind opened from week to week +like a flower, till in a short time, a few months, he became an +exquisite companion and disciple. Frank, no girl grows like that; they +have no minds, and what intelligence they have is all given to wretched +vanities, and personal jealousies. There is no intellectual +companionship possible with them. They want to talk of dress, and not of +ideas, and how persons look and not of what they are. How can you have +the flower of romance without a brotherhood of soul?" + +"Sisterhood of soul seems to me infinitely finer," I said, "but go on." + +"I shall convince you," he declared; "I must be able to, because all +reason is on my side. Let me give you one instance. Of course my boy had +his bicycle; he used to come to me on it and go to and fro from the +barracks on it. When you came to Paris in September, you invited me to +dine one night, one Thursday night, when he was to come to me. I told +him I had to go and dine with you. He didn't mind; but was glad when I +said I had an English editor for a friend, glad that I should have +someone to talk to about London and the people I used to know. If it had +been a woman I loved, I should have been forced to tell lies: she would +have been jealous of my past. I told him the truth, and when I spoke +about you he grew interested and excited, and at last he put a wish +before me. He wanted to know if he might come and leave his bicycle +outside and look through the window of the restaurant, just to see us at +dinner. I told him there might possibly be women-guests. He replied that +he would be delighted to see me in dress-clothes talking to gentlemen +and ladies. + +"Might he come?" he persisted. + +"Of course I said he could come, and he came, but I never saw him. + +"The next time we met he told me all about it; how he had picked you out +from my description of you, and how he knew Baueer from his likeness to +Dumas _pere_, and he was delightful about it all. + +"Now, Frank, would any girl have come to see you enjoying yourself with +other people? Would any girl have stared through the window and been +glad to see you inside amusing yourself with other men and women? You +know there's not a girl on earth with such unselfish devotion. There is +no comparison, I tell you, between the boy and the girl; I say again +deliberately, you don't know what a great romantic passion is or the +high unselfishness of true love." + +"You have put it with extraordinary ability," I said, "as of course I +knew you would. I think I can understand the charm of such +companionship; but only from the young boy's point of view, not from +yours. I can understand how you have opened to him a new heaven and a +new earth, but what has he given you? Nothing. On the other hand any +finely gifted girl would have given you something. If you had really +touched her heart, you would have found in her some instinctive +tenderness, some proof of unselfish, exquisite devotion that would have +made your eyes prickle with a sense of inferiority. + +"After all, the essence of love, the finest spirit of that companionship +you speak about, of the sisterhood of soul, is that the other person +should quicken you, too; open to you new horizons, discover new +possibilities; and how could your soldier boy help you in any way? He +brought you no new ideas, no new feelings, could reveal no new thoughts +to you. I can see no romance, no growth of soul in such a connection. +But the girl is different from the man in all ways. You have as much to +learn from her as she has from you, and neither of you can come to +ideal growth in any other way: you are both half-parts of +humanity--complements, and in need of each other." + +"You have put it very cunningly, Frank, as I expected you would, to +return your compliment, but you must admit that with the boy, at any +rate, you have no jealousy, no mean envyings, no silly inanities. There +it is, Frank, some of us hate 'cats.' I can give reasons for my dislike, +which to me are conclusive." + +"The boy who would beg for a bicycle is not likely to be without mean +envyings," I replied. "Now you have talked about romance and +companionship," I went on, "but can you really feel passion?" + +"Frank, what a silly question! Do you remember how Socrates says he felt +when the chlamys blew aside and showed him the limbs of Charmides? Don't +you remember how the blood throbbed in his veins and how he grew blind +with desire, a scene more magical than the passionate love-lines of +Sappho? + +"There is no other passion to be compared with it. A woman's passion is +degrading. She is continually tempting you. She wants your desire as a +satisfaction for her vanity more than anything else, and her vanity is +insatiable if her desire is weak, and so she continually tempts you to +excess, and then blames you for the physical satiety and disgust which +she herself has created. With a boy there is no vanity in the matter, no +jealousy, and therefore none of the tempting, not a tenth part of the +coarseness; and consequently desire is always fresh and keen. Oh, Frank, +believe me, you don't know what a great romantic passion is." + +"What you say only shows how little you know women," I replied. "If you +explained all this to the girl who loves you, she would see it at once, +and her tenderness would grow with her self-abnegation; we all grow by +giving. If the woman cares more than the man for caresses and kindness, +it is because she feels more tenderness, and is capable of intenser +devotion." + +"You don't know what you are talking about, Frank," he retorted. "You +repeat the old accepted commonplaces. The boy came to the station with +me to-night. He knew I was going away for six months. His heart was like +lead, tears gathered in his eyes again and again in spite of himself, +and yet he tried to be gay and bright for my sake; he wanted to show me +how glad he was that I should be happy, how thankful he was for all I +had done for him, and the new mental life I had created in him. He did +his best to keep my courage up. I cried, but he shook his tears away. +'Six months will soon be over,' he said, 'and perhaps you will come +back to me, and I shall be glad again.' Meantime he will write charming +letters to me, I'm sure. + +"Would any girl take a parting like that? No; she would be jealous and +envious, and wonder why you were enjoying yourself in the South while +she was condemned to live in the rainy, cold North. Would she ask you to +tell her of all the beautiful girls you met, and whether they were +charming and bright, as the boy asked me to tell him of all the +interesting people I should meet, so that he, too, might take an +interest in them? A girl in his place would have been ill with envy and +malice and jealousy. Again I repeat, you don't know what a high romantic +passion is." + +"Your argument is illogical," I cried, "if the girl is jealous, it is +because she has given herself more completely: her exclusiveness is the +other side of her devotion and tenderness; she wants to do everything +for you, to be with you and help you in every way, and in case of +illness or poverty or danger, you would find how much more she had to +give than your red-breeched soldier." + +"That's merely a rude gibe and not an argument, Frank." + +"As good an argument as your 'cats,'" I replied; "your little soldier +boy with his nickel-plated bicycle only makes me grin," and I grinned. + +"You are unpardonable," he cried, "unpardonable, and in your soul you +know that all the weight of argument is on my side. In your soul you +must know it. What is the food of passion, Frank, but beauty, beauty +alone, beauty always, and in beauty of form and vigour of life there is +no comparison. If you loved beauty as intensely as I do, you would feel +as I feel. It is beauty which gives me joy, makes me drunk as with wine, +blind with insatiable desire...." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +He was an incomparable companion, perfectly amiable, yet vivid, and +eager as a child, always interested and interesting. We awoke at Avignon +and went out in pyjamas and overcoats to stretch our legs and get a bowl +of coffee on the platform in the pearly grey light of early morning. +After coffee and cigarettes he led the way to the other end of the +platform, that we might catch a glimpse of the town wall which, though +terribly restored, yet, when seen from a distance, transports one back +five hundred years to the age of chivalry. + +"How I should have loved to be a troubadour, or a _trouvere_, Frank; +that was my true _metier_, to travel from castle to castle singing love +songs and telling romantic stories to while away the tedium of the lives +of the great. Fancy the reception they would have given me for bringing +a new joy into their castled isolation, new ideas, new passions--a +breath of gossip and scandal from the outside world to relieve the +intolerable boredom of the middle ages. I should have been kept at the +Court of Aix: I think they would have bound me with flower-chains, and +my fame would have spread all through the sunny vineyards and grey +olive-clad hills of Provence." + +When we got into the train again he began: + +"We stop next at Marseilles, don't we, Frank? A great historic town for +nearly three thousand years. One really feels a barbarian in comparison, +and yet all I know of Marseilles is that it is famous for +_bouillabaisse_. Suppose we stop and get some?" + +"_Bouillabaisse_," I replied, "is not peculiar to Marseilles or the _Rue +Cannebiere_. You can get it all along this coast. There is only one +thing necessary to it and that is _rascasse_, a fish caught only among +the rocks: you will get excellent _bouillabaisse_ at lunch where we are +going." + +"Where are we going? You have not told me yet." + +"It is for you to decide," I answered. "If you want perfect quiet there +are two places in the Esterel mountains, Agay and La Napoule. Agay is in +the middle of the Esterel. You would be absolutely alone there except +for the visit of an occasional French painter. La Napoule is eight or +ten miles from Cannes, so that you are within reach of a town and its +amusements. There is still another place I had thought of, quieter than +either, in the mountains behind Nice." + +"Nice sounds wonderful, Frank, but I should meet too many English people +there who would know me, and they are horribly rude. I think we will +choose La Napoule." + +About ten o'clock we got out at La Napoule and installed ourselves in +the little hotel, taking up three of the best rooms on the second or top +floor, much to the delight of the landlord. At twelve we had breakfast +under a big umbrella in the open air, looking over the sea. I had put +the landlord on his mettle, and he gave us a fry of little red mullet, +which made us understand how tasteless whitebait are: then a plain +beefsteak _aux pommes_, a morsel of cheese, and a sweet omelette. We +both agreed that we had had a most excellent breakfast. The coffee left +a good deal to be desired, and there was no champagne on the list fit to +drink; but both these faults could be remedied by the morrow, and were +remedied. + +We spent the rest of the day wandering between the seashore and the +pine-clad hills. The next morning I put in some work, but in the +afternoon I was free to walk and explore. On one of my first tramps I +discovered a monastery among the hills hundreds of feet above the sea, +built and governed by an Italian monk. I got to know the Pere +Vergile[27] and had a great talk with him. He was both wise and strong, +with ingratiating, gentle manners. Had he gone as a boy from his little +Italian fishing village to New York or Paris, he would have certainly +come to greatness and honour. One afternoon I took Oscar to see him: the +monastery was not more than three-quarters of an hour's stroll from our +hotel; but Oscar grumbled at the walk as a nuisance, said it was miles +and miles; the road, too, was rough, and the sun hot. The truth was, he +was abnormally lazy. But he fascinated the Italian with his courteous +manner and vivid speech, and as soon as we were alone the Abbe asked me +who he was. + +"He must be a great man," he said, "he has the stamp of a great man, and +he must have lived in courts: he has the charming, graceful, smiling +courtesy of the great." + +"Yes," I nodded mysteriously, "a great man--incognito." + +The Abbe kept us to dinner, made us taste of his oldest wines, and a +special liqueur of his own distilling; told us how he had built the +monastery with no money, and when we exclaimed with wonder, reproved us +gently: + +"All great things are built with faith, and not with money; why wonder +that this little building stands firmly on that everlasting +foundation?" + +When we came out of the monastery it was already night, and the +moonlight was throwing fantastic leafy shadows on the path, as we walked +down through the avenue of forest to the sea shore. + +"You remember those words of Vergil, Frank--_per amica silentia +lunae_--they always seem to me indescribably beautiful; the most magic +line about the moon ever written, except Browning's in the poem in which +he mentioned Keats--'him even.' I love that 'amica silentia.' What a +beautiful nature the man had who could feel 'the _friendly_ silences of +the moon.'" + +When we got down the hill he declared himself tired. + +"Tired after a mile?" I asked. + +"Tired to death, worn out," he said, laughing at his own laziness. + +"Shall we get a boat and row across the bay?" + +"How splendid! of course, let's do it," and we went down to the landing +stage. I had never seen the water so calm; half the bay was veiled by +the mountain, and opaque like unpolished steel; a little further out, +the water was a purple shield, emblazoned with shimmering silver. We +called a fisherman and explained what we wanted. When we got into the +boat, to my astonishment, Oscar began calling the fisher boy by his +name; evidently he knew him quite well. When we landed I went up from +the boat to the hotel, leaving Oscar and the boy together.... + +A fortnight taught me a good deal about Oscar at this time; he was +intensely indolent: quite content to kill time by the hour talking to +the fisher lads, or he would take a little carriage and drive to Cannes +and amuse himself at some wayside cafe. + +He never cared to walk and I walked for miles daily, so that we spent +only one or at most two afternoons a week together, meeting so seldom +that nearly all our talks were significant. Several times contemporary +names came up and I was compelled to notice for the first time that +really he was contemptuous of almost everyone, and had a sharp word to +say about many who were supposed to be his friends. One day we spoke of +Ricketts and Shannon; I was saying that had Ricketts lived in Paris he +would have had a great reputation: many of his designs I thought +extraordinary, and his intellect was peculiarly French--_mordant_ even. +Oscar did not like to hear praise of anyone. + +"Do you know my word for them, Frank? I like it. I call them 'Temper and +Temperament.'" + +Was his punishment making him a little spiteful or was it the temptation +of the witty phrase? + +"What do you think of Arthur Symons?" I asked. + +"Oh, Frank, I said of him long ago that he was a sad example of an +Egoist who had no Ego." + +"And what of your compatriot, George Moore? He's popular enough," I +continued. + +"Popular, Frank, as if that counted. George Moore has conducted his +whole education in public. He had written two or three books before he +found out there was such a thing as English grammar. He at once +announced his discovery and so won the admiration of the illiterate. A +few years later he discovered that there was something architectural in +style, that sentences had to be built up into a paragraph, and +paragraphs into chapters and so on. Naturally he cried this revelation, +too, from the housetops, and thus won the admiration of the journalists +who had been making rubble-heaps all their lives without knowing it. I'm +much afraid, Frank, in spite of all his efforts, he will die before he +reaches the level from which writers start. It's a pity because he has +certainly a little real talent. He differs from Symons in that he has an +Ego, but his Ego has five senses and no soul." + +"What about Bernard Shaw?" I probed further, "after all he's going to +count." + +"Yes, Frank, a man of real ability but with a bleak mind. Humorous +gleams as of wintry sunlight on a bare, harsh landscape. He has no +passion, no feeling, and without passionate feeling how can one be an +artist? He believes in nothing, loves nothing, not even Bernard Shaw, +and really, on the whole, I don't wonder at his indifference," and he +laughed mischievously. + +"And Wells?" I asked. + +"A scientific Jules Verne," he replied with a shrug. + +"Did you ever care for Hardy?" I continued. + +"Not greatly. He has just found out that women have legs underneath +their dresses, and this discovery has almost wrecked his life. He writes +poetry, I believe, in his leisure moments, and I am afraid it will be +very hard reading. He knows nothing of love; passion to him is a +childish illness like measles--poor unhappy spirit!" + +"You might be describing Mrs. Humphry Ward," I cried. + +"God forbid, Frank," he exclaimed with such mock horror I had to laugh. +"After all, Hardy is a writer and a great landscape painter." + +"I don't know why it is," he went on, "but I am always match-making when +I think of English celebrities. I should so much like to have introduced +Mrs. Humphry Ward blushing at eighteen or twenty to Swinburne, who +would of course have bitten her neck in a furious kiss, and she would +have run away and exposed him in court, or else have suffered agonies of +mingled delight and shame in silence. + +"And if one could only marry Thomas Hardy to Victoria Cross he might +have gained some inkling of real passion with which to animate his +little keepsake pictures of starched ladies. A great many writers, I +think, might be saved in this way, but there would still be left the +Corellis and Hall Caines that one could do nothing with except bind them +back to back, which would not even tantalise them, and throw them into +the river, a new _noyade_: the Thames at Barking, I think, would be +about the place for them...." + +"Where do you go every afternoon?" I asked him once casually. + +"I go to Cannes, Frank, and sit in a cafe and look across the sea to +Capri, where Tiberius used to sit like a spider watching, and I think of +myself as an exile, the victim of one of his inscrutable suspicions, or +else I am in Rome looking at the people dancing naked, but with gilded +lips, through the streets at the _Floralia_. I sup with the _arbiter +elegantiarum_ and come back to La Napoule, Frank," and he pulled his +jowl, "to the simple life and the charm of restful friendship." + +More and more clearly I saw that the effort, the hard work, of writing +was altogether beyond him: he was now one of those men of genius, +talkers merely, half artists, half dreamers, whom Balzac describes +contemptuously as wasting their lives, "talking to hear themselves +talk"; capable indeed of fine conceptions and of occasional fine +phrases, but incapable of the punishing toil of execution; charming +companions, fated in the long run to fall to misery and destitution. + +Constant creation is the first condition of art as it is the first +condition of life. + +I asked him one day if he remembered the terrible passage about those +"eunuchs of art" in "La Cousine Bette." + +"Yes, Frank," he replied; "but Balzac was probably envious of the +artist-talker; at any rate, we who talk should not be condemned by those +to whom we dedicate our talents. It is for posterity to blame us; but +after all I have written a good deal. Do you remember how Browning's +Sarto defends himself? + + "Some good son + Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try." + +He did not see that Balzac, one of the greatest talkers that ever lived +according to Theophile Gautier, was condemning the temptation to which +he himself had no doubt yielded too often. To my surprise, Oscar did not +even read much now. He was not eager to hear new thoughts, a little +rebellious to any new mental influence. He had reached his zenith, I +suppose: had begun to fossilise, as men do when they cease to grow. + +One day at lunch I questioned him: + +"You told me once that you always imagined yourself in the place of +every historic personage. Suppose you had been Jesus, what religion +would you have preached?" + +"What a wonderful question!" he cried. "What religion is mine? What +belief have I? + +"I believe most of all in personal liberty for every human soul. Each +man ought to do what he likes, to develop as he will. England, or rather +London, for I know little of England outside London, was an ideal place +to me, till they punished me because I did not share their tastes. What +an absurdity it all was, Frank: how dared they punish me for what is +good in my eyes? How dared they?" and he fell into moody thought.... The +idea of a new gospel did not really interest him. + +It was about this time he first told me of a new play he had in mind. + +"It has a great scene, Frank," he said. "Imagine a _roue_ of forty-five +who is married; incorrigible, of course, Frank, a great noble who gets +the person he is in love with to come and stay with him in the country. +One evening his wife, who has gone upstairs to lie down with a +headache, is behind a screen in a room half asleep; she is awakened by +her husband's courting. She cannot move, she is bound breathless to her +couch; she hears everything. Then, Frank, the husband comes to the door +and finds it locked, and knowing that his wife is inside with the host, +beats upon the door and will have entrance, and while the guilty ones +whisper together--the woman blaming the man, the man trying to think of +some excuse, some way out of the net--the wife gets up very quietly and +turns on the lights while the two cowards stare at her with wild +surmise. She passes to the door and opens it and the husband rushes in +to find his hostess as well as the host and his wife. I think it is a +great scene, Frank, a great stage picture." + +"It is," I said, "a great scene; why don't you write it?" + +"Perhaps I shall, Frank, one of these days, but now I am thinking of +some poetry, a 'Ballad of a Fisher Boy,' a sort of companion to 'The +Ballad of Reading Gaol,' in which I sing of liberty instead of prison, +joy instead of sorrow, a kiss instead of an execution. I shall do this +joy-song much better than I did the song of sorrow and despair." + +"Like Davidson's 'Ballad of a Nun,'" I said, for the sake of saying +something. + +"Naturally Davidson would write the 'Ballad of a Nun,' Frank; his talent +is Scotch and severe; but I should like to write 'The Ballad of a Fisher +Boy,'" and he fell to dreaming. + +The thought of his punishment was oft with him. It seemed to him +hideously wrong and unjust. But he never questioned the right of society +to punish. He did not see that, if you once grant that, the wrong done +to him could be defended. + +"I used to think myself a lord of life," he said. "How dared those +little wretches condemn me and punish me? Everyone of them tainted with +a sensuality which I loathe." + +To call him out of this bitter way of regret I quoted Shakespeare's +sonnet: + + "For why should others' false adulterate eyes + Give salutation to my sportive blood? + Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, + Which in their wills count bad what I think good?" + +"His complaint is exactly yours, Oscar." + +"It's astonishing, Frank, how well you know him, and yet you deny his +intimacy with Pembroke. To you he is a living man; you always talk of +him as if he had just gone out of the room, and yet you persist in +believing in his innocence." + +"You misapprehend me," I said, "the passion of his life was for Mary +Fitton, to give her a name; I mean the 'dark lady' of the sonnets, who +was Beatrice, Cressida and Cleopatra, and you yourself admit that a man +who has a mad passion for a woman is immune, I think the doctors call +it, to other influences." + +"Oh, yes, Frank, of course; but how could Shakespeare with his beautiful +nature love a woman to that mad excess?" + +"Shakespeare hadn't your overwhelming love of plastic beauty," I +replied; "he fell in love with a dominant personality, the complement of +his own yielding, amiable disposition." + +"That's it," he broke in, "our opposites attract us irresistibly--the +charm of the unknown!" + +"You often talk now," I went on, "as if you had never loved a woman; yet +you must have loved--more than one." + +"My salad days, Frank," he quoted, smiling, "when I was green in +judgment, cold of blood." + +"No, no," I persisted, "it is not a great while since you praised Lady +So and So and the Terrys enthusiastically." + +"Lady ----," he began gravely (and I could not but notice that the mere +title seduced him to conventional, poetic language), "moves like a lily +in water; I always think of her as a lily; just as I used to think of +Lily Langtry as a tulip, with a figure like a Greek vase carved in +ivory. But I always adored the Terrys: Marion is a great actress with +subtle charm and enigmatic fascination: she was my 'Woman of no +importance,' artificial and enthralling; she belongs to my theatre--" + +As he seemed to have lost the thread, I questioned again. + +"And Ellen?" + +"Oh, Ellen's a perfect wonder," he broke out, "a great character. Do you +know her history?" And then, without waiting for an answer, he +continued: + +"She began as a model for Watts, the painter, when she was only some +fifteen or sixteen years of age. In a week she read him as easily as if +he had been a printed book. He treated her with condescending courtesy, +_en grand seigneur_, and, naturally, she had her revenge on him. + +"One day her mother came in and asked Watts what he was going to do +about Ellen. Watts said he didn't understand. 'You have made Ellen in +love with you,' said the mother, and it is impossible that could have +happened unless you had been attentive to her.' + +"Poor Watts protested and protested, but the mother broke down and +sobbed, and said the girl's heart would be broken, and at length, in +despair, Watts asked what he was to do, and the mother could only +suggest marriage. + +"Finally they were married." + +"You don't mean that," I cried, "I never knew that Watts had married +Ellen Terry." + +"Oh, yes," said Oscar, "they were married all right. The mother saw to +that, and to do him justice, Watts kept the whole family like a +gentleman. But like an idealist, or, as a man of the world would say, a +fool, he was ashamed of his wife; he showed great reserve to her, and +when he gave his usual dinners or receptions, he invited only men and +so, carefully, left her out. + +"One evening he had a dinner; a great many well-known people were +present and a bishop was on his right hand, when, suddenly, between the +cheese and the pear, as the French would say, Ellen came dancing into +the room in pink tights with a basket of roses around her waist with +which she began pelting the guests. Watts was horrified, but everyone +else delighted, the bishop in especial, it is said, declared he had +never seen anything so romantically beautiful. Watts nearly had a fit, +but Ellen danced out of the room with all their hearts in her basket +instead of her roses. + +"To me that's the true story of Ellen Terry's life. It may be true or +false in reality, but I believe it to be true in fact as in symbol; it +is not only an image of her life, but of her art. No one knows how she +met Irving or learned to act, though, as you know, she was one of the +best actresses that ever graced the English stage. A great personality. +Her children even have inherited some of her talent." + +It was only famous actresses such as Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt and +great ladies that Oscar ever praised. He was a snob by nature; indeed +this was the chief link between him and English society. Besides, he had +a rooted contempt for women and especially for their brains. He said +once, of some one: "he is like a woman, sure to remember the trivial and +forget the important." + +It was this disdain of the sex which led him, later, to take up our +whole dispute again. + +"I have been thinking over our argument in the train," he began; "really +it was preposterous of me to let you off with a drawn battle; you should +have been beaten and forced to haul down your flag. We talked of love +and I let you place the girl against the boy: it is all nonsense. A girl +is not made for love; she is not even a good instrument of love." + +"Some of us care more for the person than the pleasure," I replied, "and +others--. You remember Browning: + + Nearer we hold of God + Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe." + +"Yes, yes," he replied impatiently, "but that's not the point. I mean +that a woman is not made for passion and love; but to be a mother. + +"When I married, my wife was a beautiful girl, white and slim as a lily, +with dancing eyes and gay rippling laughter like music. In a year or so +the flower-like grace had all vanished; she became heavy, shapeless, +deformed: she dragged herself about the house in uncouth misery with +drawn blotched face and hideous body, sick at heart because of our love. +It was dreadful. I tried to be kind to her; forced myself to touch and +kiss her; but she was sick always, and--oh! I cannot recall it, it is +all loathsome.... I used to wash my mouth and open the window to cleanse +my lips in the pure air. Oh, nature is disgusting; it takes beauty and +defiles it: it defaces the ivory-white body we have adored, with the +vile cicatrices of maternity: it befouls the altar of the soul. + +"How can you talk of such intimacy as love? How can you idealise it? +Love is not possible to the artist unless it is sterile." + +"All her suffering did not endear her to you?" I asked in amazement; +"did not call forth that pity in you which you used to speak of as +divine?" + +"Pity, Frank," he exclaimed impatiently; "pity has nothing to do with +love. How can one desire what is shapeless, deformed, ugly? Desire is +killed by maternity; passion buried in conception," and he flung away +from the table. + +At length I understood his dominant motive: _trahit sua quemque +voluptas_, his Greek love of form, his intolerant cult of physical +beauty, could take no heed of the happiness or well-being of the +beloved. + +"I will not talk to you about it, Frank; I am like a Persian, who lives +by warmth and worships the sun, talking to some Esquimau, who answers me +with praise of blubber and nights spent in ice houses and baths of foul +vapour. Let's talk of something else." + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] He lived till November, 1910. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +A little later I was called to Monte Carlo and went for a few days, +leaving Oscar, as he said, perfectly happy, with good food, excellent +champagne, absinthe and coffee, and his simple fisher friends. + +When I came back to La Napoule, I found everything altered and altered +for the worse. There was an Englishman of a good class named M---- +staying at the hotel. He was accompanied by a youth of seventeen or +eighteen whom he called his servant. Oscar wanted to know if I minded +meeting him. + +"He is charming, Frank, and well read, and he admires me very much: you +won't mind his dining with us, will you?" + +"Of course not," I replied. But when I saw M---- I thought him an +insignificant, foolish creature, who put to show a great admiration for +Oscar, and drank in his words with parted lips; and well he might, for +he had hardly any brains of his own. He had, however, a certain liking +for the poetry and literature of passion.[28] + +To my astonishment Oscar was charming to him, chiefly I think because +he was well off, and was pressing Oscar to spend the summer with him at +some place he had in Switzerland. This support made Oscar recalcitrant +to any influence I might have had over him. When I asked him if he had +written anything whilst I was away, he replied casually: + +"No, Frank, I don't think I shall be able to write any more. What is the +good of it? I cannot force myself to write." + +"And your 'Ballad of a Fisher Boy'?" I asked. + +"I have composed three or four verses of it," he said, smiling at me, "I +have got them in my head," and he recited two or three, one of which was +quite good, but none of them startling. + +Not having seen him for some days, I noticed that he was growing stout +again: the good living and constant drinking seemed to ooze out of him; +he began to look as he looked in the old days in London just before the +catastrophe. + +One morning I asked him to put the verses on paper which he had recited +to me, but he would not; and when I pressed him, cried: + +"Let me live, Frank; tasks remind me of prison. You do not know how I +abhor even the memory of it: it was degrading, inhuman!" + +"Prison was the making of you," I could not help retorting, irritated by +what seemed to me a mere excuse. "You came out of it better in health +and stronger than I have ever known you. The hard living, regular hours +and compulsory chastity did you all the good in the world. That is why +you wrote those superb letters to the 'Daily Chronicle,' and the 'Ballad +of Reading Gaol'; the State ought really to put you in prison and keep +you there." + +For the first time in my life I saw angry dislike in his eyes. + +"You talk poisonous nonsense, Frank," he retorted. "Bad food is bad for +everyone, and abstinence from tobacco is mere torture to me. Chastity is +just as unnatural and devilish as hunger; I hate both. Self-denial is +the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity." + +To all this M---- giggled applause, which naturally excited the +combative instincts in me--always too alert. + +"All great artists," I replied, "have had to practise chastity; it is +chastity alone which gives vigour and tone to mind and body, while +building up a reserve of extraordinary strength. Your favourite Greeks +never allowed an athlete to go into the palaestra unless he had +previously lived a life of complete chastity for a whole year. Balzac, +too, practised it and extolled its virtues, and goodness knows he loved +all the mud-honey of Paris." + +"You are hopelessly wrong, Frank, what madness will you preach next! You +are always bothering one to write, and now forsooth you recommend +chastity and 'skilly,' though I admit," he added laughing, "that your +'skilly' includes all the indelicacies of the season, with champagne, +Mocha coffee, and absinthe to boot. But surely you are getting too +puritanical. It's absurd of you; the other day you defended conventional +love against my ideal passion." + +He provoked me: his tone was that of rather contemptuous superiority. I +kept silent: I did not wish to retort as I might have done if M---- had +not been present. + +But Oscar was determined to assert his peculiar view. One or two days +afterwards he came in very red and excited and more angry than I had +ever seen him. + +"What do you think has happened, Frank?" + +"I do not know. Nothing serious, I hope." + +"I was sitting by the roadside on the way to Cannes. I had taken out a +Vergil with me and had begun reading it. As I sat there reading, I +happened to raise my eyes, and who should I see but George +Alexander--George Alexander on a bicycle. I had known him intimately in +the old days, and naturally I got up delighted to see him, and went +towards him. But he turned his head aside and pedalled past me +deliberately. He meant to cut me. Of course I know that just before my +trial in London he took my name off the bill of my comedy, though he +went on playing it. But I was not angry with him for that, though he +might have behaved as well as Wyndham,[29] who owed me nothing, don't +you think? + +"Here there was nobody to see him, yet he cut me. What brutes men are! +They not only punish me as a society, but now they are trying as +individuals to punish me, and after all I have not done worse than they +do. What difference is there between one form of sexual indulgence and +another? I hate hypocrisy and hypocrites! Think of Alexander, who made +all his money out of my works, cutting me, Alexander! It is too ignoble. +Wouldn't you be angry, Frank?" + +"I daresay I should be," I replied coolly, hoping the incident would be +a spur to him. + +"I've always wondered why you gave Alexander a play? Surely you didn't +think him an actor?" + +"No, no!" he exclaimed, a sudden smile lighting up his face; "Alexander +doesn't act on the stage; he behaves. But wasn't it mean of him?" + +I couldn't help smiling, the dart was so deserved. + +"Begin another play," I said, "and the Alexanders will immediately go on +their knees to you again. On the other hand, if you do nothing you may +expect worse than discourtesy. Men love to condemn their neighbours' pet +vice. You ought to know the world by this time." + +He did not even notice the hint to work, but broke out angrily: + +"What you call vice, Frank, is not vice: it is as good to me as it was +to Caesar, Alexander, Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It was first of all +made a sin by monasticism, and it has been made a crime in recent times, +by the Goths--the Germans and English--who have done little or nothing +since to refine or exalt the ideals of humanity. They all damn the sins +they have no mind to, and that's their morality. A brutal race; they +overeat and overdrink and condemn the lusts of the flesh, while +revelling in all the vilest sins of the spirit. If they would read the +23rd chapter of St. Matthew and apply it to themselves, they would learn +more than by condemning a pleasure they don't understand. Why, even +Bentham refused to put what you call a 'vice' in his penal code, and you +yourself admitted that it should not be punished as a crime; for it +carries no temptation with it. It may be a malady; but, if so, it +appears only to attack the highest natures. It is disgraceful to punish +it. The wit of man can find no argument which justifies its punishment." + +"Don't be too sure of that," I retorted. + +"I have never heard a convincing argument which condemns it, Frank; I do +not believe such a reason exists." + +"Don't forget," I said, "that this practice which you defend is +condemned by a hundred generations of the most civilised races of +mankind." + +"Mere prejudice of the unlettered, Frank." + +"And what is such a prejudice?" I asked. "It is the reason of a thousand +generations of men, a reason so sanctified by secular experience that it +has passed into flesh and blood and become an emotion and is no longer +merely an argument. I would rather have one such prejudice held by men +of a dozen different races than a myriad reasons. Such a prejudice is +incarnate reason approved by immemorial experience. + +"What argument have you against cannibalism; what reason is there why we +should not fatten babies for the spit and eat their flesh? The flesh is +sweeter, African travellers tell us, than any other meat, tenderer at +once and more sustaining; all reasons are in favour of it. What hinders +us from indulging in this appetite but prejudice, sacred prejudice, an +instinctive loathing at the bare idea? + +"Humanity, it seems to me, is toiling up a long slope leading from the +brute to the god: again and again whole generations, sometimes whole +races, have fallen back and disappeared in the abyss. Every slip fills +the survivors with fear and horror which with ages have become +instinctive, and now you appear and laugh at their fears and tell them +that human flesh is excellent food, and that sterile kisses are the +noblest form of passion. They shudder from you and hate and punish you, +and if you persist they will kill you. Who shall say they are wrong? Who +shall sneer at their instinctive repulsion hallowed by ages of +successful endeavour?" + +"Fine rhetoric, I concede," he replied, "but mere rhetoric. I never +heard such a defence of prejudice before. I should not have expected it +from you. You admit you don't share the prejudice; you don't feel the +horror, the instinctive loathing you describe. Why? Because you are +educated, Frank, because you know that the passion Socrates felt was not +a low passion, because you know that Caesar's weakness, let us say, or +the weakness of Michelangelo or of Shakespeare, is not despicable. If +the desire is not a characteristic of the highest humanity, at least it +is consistent with it."[30] + +"I cannot admit that," I answered. "First of all, let us leave +Shakespeare out of the question, or I should have to ask you for proofs +of his guilt, and there are none. About the others there is this to be +said, it is not by imitating the vices and weaknesses of great men that +we shall get to their level. And suppose we are fated to climb above +them, then their weaknesses are to be dreaded. + +"I have not even tried to put the strongest reasons before you; I should +have thought your own mind would have supplied them; but surely you see +that the historical argument is against you. This vice of yours is +dropping out of life, like cannibalism: it is no longer a practice of +the highest races. It may have seemed natural enough to the Greeks, to +us it is unnatural. Even the best Athenians condemned it; Socrates took +pride in never having yielded to it; all moderns denounce it +disdainfully. You must see that the whole progress of the world, the +current of educated opinion, is against you, that you are now a 'sport,' +a peculiarity, an abnormality, a man with six fingers: not a 'sport' +that is, full of promise for the future, but a 'sport' of the dim +backward and abysm of time, an arrested development." + +"You are bitter, Frank, almost rude." + +"Forgive me, Oscar, forgive me, please; it is because I want you at long +last to open your eyes, and see things as they are." + +"But I thought you were with us, Frank, I thought at least you condemned +the punishment, did not believe in the barbarous penalties." + +"I disbelieve in all punishment," I said; "it is by love and not by hate +that men must be redeemed. I believe, too, that the time is already come +when the better law might be put in force, and above all, I condemn +punishment which strikes a man, an artist like you, who has done +beautiful and charming things as if he had done nothing. At least the +good you have accomplished should be set against the evil. It has always +seemed monstrous to me that you should have been punished like a Taylor. +The French were right in their treatment of Verlaine: they condemned the +sin, while forgiving the sinner because of his genius. The rigour in +England is mere puritanic hypocrisy, shortsightedness and racial +self-esteem." + +"All I can say, Frank, is, I would not limit individual desire in any +way. What right has society to punish us unless it can prove we have +hurt or injured someone else against his will? Besides, if you limit +passion you impoverish life, you weaken the mainspring of art, and +narrow the realm of beauty." + +"All societies," I replied, "and most individuals, too, punish what they +dislike, right or wrong. There are bad smells which do not injure +anyone; yet the manufacturers of them would be indicted for committing a +nuisance. Nor does your plea that by limiting the choice of passion you +impoverish life, appeal to me. On the contrary, I think I could prove +that passion, the desire of the man for the woman and the woman for the +man, has been enormously strengthened in modern times. Christianity has +created, or at least cultivated, modesty, and modesty has sharpened +desire. Christianity has helped to lift woman to an equality with man, +and this modern intellectual development has again intensified passion +out of all knowledge. The woman who is not a slave but an equal, who +gives herself according to her own feeling, is infinitely more desirable +to a man than any submissive serf who is always waiting on his will. And +this movement intensifying passion is every day gaining force. + +"We have a far higher love in us than the Greeks, infinitely higher and +more intense than the Romans knew; our sensuality is like a river +banked in with stone parapets, the current flows higher and more +vehemently in the narrower bed." + +"You may talk as you please, Frank, but you will never get me to believe +that what I know is good to me, is evil. Suppose I like a food that is +poison to other people, and yet quickens me; how dare they punish me for +eating of it?" + +"They would say," I replied, "that they only punish you for inducing +others to eat it." + +He broke in: "It is all ignorant prejudice, Frank; the world is slowly +growing more tolerant and one day men will be ashamed of their barbarous +treatment of me, as they are now ashamed of the torturings of the Middle +Ages. The current of opinion is making in our favour and not against +us." + +"You don't believe what you say," I cried; "if you really thought +humanity was going your way, you would have been delighted to play +Galileo. Instead of writing a book in prison condemning your companion +who pushed you to discovery and disgrace, you would have written a book +vindicating your actions. 'I am a martyr,' you would have cried, 'and +not a criminal, and everyone who holds the contrary is wrong.' + +"You would have said to the jury: + +"'In spite of your beliefs, and your cherished dogmas; in spite of your +religion and prejudice and fanatical hatred of me, you are wrong and I +am right: the world does move.' + +"But you didn't say that, and you don't think it. If you did you would +be glad you went into the Queensberry trial, glad you were accused, glad +you were imprisoned and punished because all these things must bring +your vindication more quickly; you are sorry for them all, because in +your heart you know you were wrong. This old world in the main is right: +it's you who are wrong." + +"Of course everything can be argued, Frank; but I hold to my conviction: +the best minds even now don't condemn us, and the world is becoming more +tolerant.[31] I didn't justify myself in court because I was told I +should be punished lightly if I respected the common prejudices, and +when I tried to speak afterwards the judge would not let me." + +"And I believe," I retorted, "that you were hopelessly beaten and could +never have made a fight of it, because you felt the Time-spirit was +against you. How else was a silly, narrow judge able to wave you to +silence? Do you think he could have silenced me? Not all the judges in +Christendom. Let me give you an example. I believe with Voltaire that +when modesty goes out of life it goes into the language as prudery. I am +quite certain that our present habit of not discussing sexual questions +in our books is bound to disappear, and that free and dignified speech +will take the place of our present prurient mealy-mouthedness. I have +long thought it possible, probable even, in the present state of society +in England, where we are still more or less under the heel of the +illiterate and prudish Philistinism of our middle class, that I might be +had up to answer some charge of publishing an indecent book. The current +of the time appears to be against me. In the spacious days of Elizabeth, +in the modish time of the Georges, a freedom of speech was habitual +which to-day is tabooed. Our cases, therefore, are somewhat alike. Do +you think I should dread the issue or allow myself to be silenced by a +judge? I would set forth my defence before the judge and before the jury +with the assurance of victory in me! I should not minimise what I had +written; I should not try to explain it away; I should seek to make it +stronger. I should justify every word, and finally I'd warn both judge +and jury that if they condemned and punished me they would only make my +ultimate triumph more conspicuous. 'All the great men of the past are +with me,' I would cry; 'all the great minds of to-day in other +countries, and some of the best in England; condemn me at your peril: +you will only condemn yourselves. You are spitting against the wind and +the shame will be on your own faces.' + +"Do you believe I should be left to suffer? I doubt it even in England +to-day. If I'm right, and I'm sure I'm right, then about me there would +be an invisible cloud of witnesses. You would see a strange movement of +opinion in my favour. The judge would probably lecture me and bind me +over to come up for judgment; but if he sentenced me vindictively then +the Home Secretary[32] would be petitioned and the movement in my favour +would grow, till it swept away opposition. This is the very soul of my +faith. If I did not believe with every fibre in me that this poor stupid +world is honestly groping its way up the altar stairs to God, and not +down, I would not live in it an hour." + +"Why do you argue against me, Frank? It is brutal of you." + +"To induce you even now to turn and pull yourself out of the mud. You +are forty odd years of age, and the keenest sensations of life are over +for you. Turn back whilst there's time, get to work, write your ballad +and your plays, and not the Alexanders alone, but all the people who +really count, the best of all countries--the salt of the earth--will +give you another chance. Begin to work and you'll be borne up on all +hands: No one sinks to the dregs but by his own weight. If you don't +bear fruit why should men care for you?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned from me with disdainful +indifference. + +"I've done enough for their respect, Frank, and received nothing but +hatred. Every man must dree his own weird. Thank Heaven, life's not +without compensations. I'm sorry I cannot please you," and he added +carelessly, "M----has asked me to go and spend the summer with him at +Gland in Switzerland. _He_ does not mind whether I write or not." + +"I assure you," I cried, "it is not my pleasure I am thinking about. +What can it matter to me whether you write or not? It is your own good I +am thinking of." + +"Oh, bother good! One's friends like one as one is; the outside public +hate one or scoff at one as they please." + +"Well, I hope I shall always be your friend," I replied, "but you will +yet be forced to see, Oscar, that everyone grows tired of holding up an +empty sack." + +"Frank, you insult me." + +"I don't mean to; I'm sorry; I shall never be so brutally frank again; +but you had to hear the truth for once." + +"Then, Frank, you only cared for me in so far as I agreed with you?" + +"Oh, that's not fair," I replied. "I have tried with all my strength to +prevent you committing soul-suicide, but if you are resolved on it, I +can't prevent you. I must draw away. I can do no good." + +"Then you won't help me for the rest of the winter?" + +"Of course I will," I replied, "I shall do all I promised and more; but +there's a limit now, and till now the only limit was my power, not my +will." + +It was at Napoule a few days later that an incident occurred which gave +me to a certain extent a new sidelight on Oscar's nature by showing just +what he thought of me. I make no scruple of setting forth his opinion +here in its entirety, though the confession took place after a futile +evening when he had talked to M---- of great houses in England and the +great people he had met there. The talk had evidently impressed M---- +as much as it had bored me. I must first say that Oscar's bedroom was +separated from mine by a large sitting-room we had in common. As a rule +I worked in my bedroom in the mornings and he spent a great deal of time +out of doors. On this especial morning, however, I had gone into the +sitting-room early to write some letters. I heard him get up and splash +about in his bath: shortly afterwards he must have gone into the next +room, which was M----'s, for suddenly he began talking to him in a loud +voice from one room to the other, as if he were carrying on a +conversation already begun, through the open door. + +"Of course it's absurd of Frank talking of social position or the great +people of English society at all. He never had any social position to be +compared with mine!" (The petulant tone made me smile; but what Oscar +said was true: nor did I ever pretend to have such a position.) + +"He had a house in Park Lane and owned _The Saturday Review_ and had a +certain power; but I was the centre of every party, the most honoured +guest everywhere, at Clieveden and Taplow Court and Clumber. The +difference was Frank was proud of meeting Balfour while Balfour was +proud of meeting me: d'ye see?" (I was so interested I was unconscious +of any indiscretion in listening: it made me smile to hear that I was +proud of meeting Arthur Balfour: it would never have occurred to me that +I should be proud of that: still no doubt Oscar was right in a general +way). + +"When Frank talks of literature, he amuses me: he pretends to bring new +standards into it; he does: he brings America to judge Oxford and +London, much like bringing Macedon or Boeotia to judge Athens--quite +ridiculous! What can Americans know about English literature?... + +"Yet the curious thing is he has read a lot and has a sort of vision: +that Shakespeare stuff of his is extraordinary; but he takes sincerity +for style, and poetry as poetry has no appeal for him. You heard him +admit that himself last night.... + +"He's comic, really: curiously provincial like all Americans. Fancy a +Jeremiad preached by a man in a fur coat! Frank's comic. But he's really +kind and fights for his friends. He helped me in prison greatly: +sympathy is a sort of religion to him: that's why we can meet without +murder and separate without suicide.... + +"Talking literature with him is very like playing Rugby football.... I +never did play football, you know; but talking literature with Frank +must be very like playing Rugby where you end by being kicked violently +through your own goal," and he laughed delightedly. + +I had listened without thinking as I often listened to his talk for the +mere music of the utterance; now, at a break in the monologue, I went +into the next room, feeling that to listen consciously would be +unworthy. On the whole his view of me was not unkindly: he disliked to +hear any opinion that differed from his own and it never came into his +head that Oxford was no nearer the meridian of truth than Lawrence, +Kansas, and certainly at least as far from Heaven. + +Some weeks later I left La Napoule and went on a visit to some friends. +He wrote complaining that without me the place was dull. I wired him and +went over to Nice to meet him and we lunched together at the Cafe de la +Regence. He was terribly downcast, and yet rebellious. He had come over +to stay at Nice, and stopped at the Hotel Terminus, a tenth-rate hotel +near the station; the proprietor called on him two or three days +afterwards and informed him he must leave the hotel, as his room had +been let. + +"Evidently someone has told him, Frank, who I am. What am I to do?" + +I soon found him a better hotel where he was well treated, but the +incident coming on top of the Alexander affair seemed to have frightened +him. + +"There are too many English on this coast," he said to me one day, "and +they are all brutal to me. I think I should like to go to Italy if you +would not mind." + +"The world is all before you," I replied. "I shall only be too glad for +you to get a comfortable place," and I gave him the money he wanted. He +lingered on at Nice for nearly a week. I saw him several times. He +lunched with me at the Reserve once at Beaulieu, and was full of delight +at the beauty of the bay and the quiet of it. In the middle of the meal +some English people came in and showed their dislike of him rudely. He +at once shrank into himself, and as soon as possible made some pretext +to leave. Of course I went with him. I was more than sorry for him, but +I felt as unable to help him as I should have been unable to hold him +back if he had determined to throw himself down a precipice. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + +[29] The incident is worth recording for the honour of human nature. At +the moment of Oscar's trial Charles Wyndham had let his theatre, the +Criterion, to Lewis Waller and H.H. Morell to produce in it "An Ideal +Husband" which had been running for over 100 nights at the Haymarket. +When Alexander took Oscar's name off the bill, Wyndham wrote to the +young Managers, saying that, if under the altered circumstances they +wished to cancel their agreement, he would allow them to do so. But if +they "put on" a play of Mr. Wilde's, the author's name must be on all +the bills and placards as usual. He could not allow his theatre to be +used to insult a man who was on his trial. + +[30] Cfr. end of Appendix:--A Last Word. + +[31] Cfr. end of Appendix:--A Last Word. + +[32] This was written years before a Home Secretary, Mr. Reginald +MacKenna, tortured women and girls in prison in England by forcible +feeding, because they tried to present petitions in favour of Woman's +Suffrage. He afterwards defended himself in Parliament by declaring that +"'forcible feeding' was not unpleasant." The torturers of the +Inquisition also befouled cruelty with hypocritical falsehood: they +would burn their victims; but would not shed blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + "The Gods are just and of our pleasant vices + Make instruments to plague us." + + +It was full summer before I met Oscar again; he had come back to Paris +and taken up his old quarters in the mean little hotel in the Rue des +Beaux Arts. He lunched and dined with me as usual. His talk was as +humorous and charming as ever, and he was just as engaging a companion. +For the first time, however, he complained of his health: + +"I ate some mussels and oysters in Italy, and they must have poisoned +me; for I have come out in great red blotches all over my arms and chest +and back, and I don't feel well." + +"Have you consulted a doctor?" + +"Oh, yes, but doctors are no good: they all advise you differently; the +best of it is they all listen to you with an air of intense interest +when you are talking about yourself--which is an excellent tonic." + +"They sometimes tell one what's the matter; give a name and significance +to the unknown," I interjected. + +"They bore me by forbidding me to smoke and drink. They are worse than +M----, who grudged me his wine." + +"What do you mean?" I asked in wonder. + +"A tragi-comic history, Frank. You were so right about M---- and I was +mistaken in him. You know he wanted me to stay with him at Gland in +Switzerland, begged me to come, said he would do everything for me. When +the weather got warm at Genoa I went to him. At first he seemed very +glad to see me and made me welcome. The food was not very good, the +drink anything but good, still I could not complain, and I put up with +the discomforts. But in a week or two the wine disappeared, and beer +took its place, and I suggested I must be going. He begged me so +cordially not to go that I stayed on; but in a little while I noticed +that the beer got less and less in quantity, and one day when I ventured +to ask for a second bottle at lunch he told me that it cost a great deal +and that he could not afford it. Of course I made some decent pretext +and left his house as soon as possible. If one has to suffer poverty, +one had best suffer alone. But to get discomforts grudgingly and as a +charity is the extremity of shame. I prefer to look on it from the other +side; M---- grudging me his small beer belongs to farce." + +He spoke with bitterness and contempt, as he used never to speak of +anyone. + +I could not help sympathising with him, though visibly the cloth was +wearing threadbare. He asked me now at once for money, and a little +later again and again. Formerly he had invented pretexts; he had not +received his allowance when he expected it, or he was bothered by a bill +and so forth; but now he simply begged and begged, railing the while at +fortune. It was distressing. He wanted money constantly, and spent it as +always like water, without a thought. + +I asked him one day whether he had seen much of his soldier boy since he +had returned to Paris. + +"I have seen him, Frank, but not often," and he laughed gaily. "It's a +farce-comedy; sentiment always begins romantically and ends in +laughter--_tabulae solvuntur risu_. I taught him so much, Frank, that he +was made a corporal and forthwith a nursemaid fell in love with his +stripes. He's devoted to her: I suppose he likes to play teacher in his +turn." + +"And so the great romantic passion comes to this tame conclusion?" + +"What would you, Frank? Whatever begins must also end." + +"Is there anyone else?" I asked, "or have you learned reason at last?" + +"Of course there's always someone else, Frank: change is the essence of +passion: the _reason_ you talk of is merely another name for impotence." + +"Montaigne declares," I said, "that love belongs to early youth, 'the +next period after infancy,' is his phrase, but that is at the best a +Frenchman's view of it. Sophocles was nearer the truth when he called +himself happy in that age had freed him from the whip of passion. When +are you going to reach that serenity?" + +"Never, Frank, never, I hope: life without desire would not be worth +living to me. As one gets older one is more difficult to please: but the +sting of pleasure is even keener than in youth and far more egotistic. + +"One comes to understand the Marquis de Sade and that strange, scarlet +story of de Retz--the pleasure they got from inflicting pain, the +curious, intense underworld of cruelty--" + +"That's unlike you, Oscar," I broke in. "I thought you shrank from +giving pain always: to me it's the unforgivable sin." + +"To me, also," he rejoined instantly, "intellectually one may understand +it; but in reality it's horrible. I want my pleasure unembittered by any +drop of pain. That reminds me: I read a terrible, little book the other +day, Octave Mirbeau's 'Le Jardin des Supplices'; it is quite awful, a +_sadique_ joy in pain pulses through it; but for all that it's +wonderful. His soul seems to have wandered in fearsome places. You with +your contempt of fear, will face the book with courage--I--" + +"I simply couldn't read it," I replied; "it was revolting to me, +impossible--" + +"A sort of grey adder," he summed up and I nodded in complete agreement. + +I passed the next winter on the Riviera. A speculation which I had gone +in for there had caused me heavy loss and much anxiety. In the spring I +returned to Paris, and of course, asked him to meet me. He was much +brighter than he had been for a long time. Lord Alfred Douglas, it +appeared, had come in for a large legacy from his father's estate and +had given him some money, and he was much more cheerful. We had a great +lunch at Durand's and he was at his very best. I asked him about his +health. + +"I'm all right, Frank, but the rash continually comes back, a ghostly +visitant, Frank: I'm afraid the doctors are in league with the devil. It +generally returns after a good dinner, a sort of aftermath of champagne. +The doctors say I must not drink champagne, and must stop smoking, the +silly people, who regard pleasure as their natural enemies; whereas it +is our pleasures which provide them with a living!" + +He looked fairly well, I thought; he was a little fatter, his skin a +little dingier than of old, and he had grown very deaf, but in every +other way he seemed at his best, though he was certainly drinking too +freely--spirits between times as well as wine at meals. + +I had heard on the Riviera during the winter that Smithers had tried to +buy a play from him, so one day I brought up the subject. + +"By the way, Smithers says that you have been working on your play; you +know the one I mean, the one with the great screen scene in it." + +"Oh, yes, Frank," he remarked indifferently. + +"Won't you tell me what you've done?" I asked. "Have you written any of +it?" + +"No, Frank," he replied casually, "it's the scenario Smithers talked +about." + +A little while afterwards he asked me for money. I told him I could not +afford any at the moment, and pressed him to write his play. + +"I shall never write again, Frank," he said. "I can't, I simply can't +face my thoughts. Don't ask me!" Then suddenly: "Why don't you buy the +scenario and write the play yourself?" + +"I don't care for the stage," I replied; "it's a sort of rude encaustic +work I don't like; its effects are theatrical!" + +"A play pays far better than a book, you know--" + +But I was not interested. That evening thinking over what he had said, I +realised all at once that a story I had in mind to write would suit +"the screen scene" of Oscar's scenario; why shouldn't I write a play +instead of a story? When we met next day I broached the idea to Oscar: + +"I have a story in my head," I said, "which would fit into that scenario +of yours, so far as you have sketched it to me. I could write it as a +play and do the second, third and fourth acts very quickly, as all the +personages are alive to me. Could you do the first act?" + +"Of course I could, Frank." + +"But," I said, "will you?" + +"What would be the good, you could not sell it, Frank." + +"In any case," I went on, "I could try; but I would infinitely prefer +you to write the whole play if you would; then it would sell fast +enough." + +"Oh, Frank, don't ask me." + +The idea of the collaboration was a mistake; but it seemed to me at the +moment the best way to get him to do something. Suddenly he asked me to +give him L50 for the scenario at once, then I could do what I liked with +it. + +After a good deal of talk I consented to give him the L50 if he would +promise to write the first act; he promised and I gave him the +money.[33] + +A little later I noticed a certain tension in his relations with Lord +Alfred Douglas. One day he told me frankly that Lord Alfred Douglas had +come into a fortune of L15,000 or L20,000, "and," he added, "of course +he's always able to get money. He'll marry an American millionairess or +some rich widow" (Oscar's ideas of life were nearly all conventional, +derived from novels and plays); "and I wanted him to give me enough to +make my life comfortable, to settle enough on me to make a decent life +possible to me. It would only have cost him two or three thousand +pounds, perhaps less. I get L150 a year and I wanted him to make it up +to L300.[34] I lost that through going to him at Naples. I think he +ought to give me that at the very least, don't you? Won't you speak to +him, Frank?" + +"I could not possibly interfere," I replied. + +"I gave him everything," he went on, in a depressed way. "When I had +money, he never had to ask for it; all that was mine was his. And now +that he is rich, I have to beg from him, and he gives me small sums and +puts me off. It is terrible of him; it is really very, very wrong of +him." + +I changed the subject as soon as I could; there was a note of bitterness +which I did not like, which indeed I had already remarked in him. + +I was destined very soon to hear the other side. A day or two later Lord +Alfred Douglas told me that he had bought some racehorses and was +training them at Chantilly; would I come down and see them? + +"I am not much of a judge of racehorses," I replied, "and I don't know +much about racing; but I should not mind coming down one evening. I +could spend the night at an hotel, and see the horses and your stable in +the morning. The life of the English stable lads in France must be +rather peculiar." + +"It is droll," he said, "a complete English colony in France. There are +practically no French jockeys or trainers worth their salt; it is all +English, English slang, English ways, even English food and of course +English drinks. No French boy seems to have nerve enough to make a good +rider." + +I made an arrangement with him and went down. I missed my train and was +very late; I found that Lord Alfred Douglas had dined and gone out. I +had my dinner, and about midnight went up to my room. Half an hour later +there came a knocking at the door. I opened it and found Lord Alfred +Douglas. + +"May I come in?" he asked. "I'm glad you've not gone to bed yet." + +"Of course," I said, "what is it?" He was pale and seemed +extraordinarily excited. + +"I have had such a row with Oscar," he jerked out, nervously moving +about (I noticed the strained white face I had seen before at the Cafe +Royal), "such a row, and I wanted to speak to you about it. Of course +you know in the old days when his plays were being given in London he +was rich and gave me some money, and now he says I ought to settle a +large sum on him; I think it ridiculous, don't you?" + +"I would rather not say anything about it," I replied; "I don't know +enough about the circumstances." + +He was too filled with a sense of his own injuries; too excited to catch +my tone or understand any reproof in my attitude. + +"Oscar is really too dreadful," he went on; "he is quite shameless now; +he begs and begs and begs, and of course I have given him money, have +given him hundreds, quite as much as he ever gave me: but he is +insatiable and recklessly extravagant besides. Of course I want to be +quite fair to him: I've already given him back all he gave me. Don't you +think that is all anyone can ask of me?" + +I looked at him in astonishment. + +"That is for you and Oscar," I said, "to decide together. No one else +can judge between you." + +"Why not?" he snapped out in his irritable way, "you know us both and +our relations." + +"No," I replied, "I don't know all the obligations and the interwoven +services. Besides, I could not judge fairly between you." + +He turned on me angrily, though I had spoken with as much kindness as I +could. + +"He seemed to want to make you judge between us," he cried. "I don't +care who's the judge. I think if you give a man back what he has given +you, that is all he can ask. It's a d----d lot more than most people get +in this world." + +After a pause he started off on a new line of thought: + +"The first time I ever noticed any fault in Oscar was over that 'Salome' +translation. He's appallingly conceited. You know I did the play into +English. I found that his choice of words was poor, anything but good; +his prose is wooden.... + +"Of course he's not a poet," he broke off contemptuously, "even you must +admit that." + +"I know what you mean," I replied; "though I should have to make a vast +reservation in favour of the man who wrote 'The Ballad of Reading +Gaol.'" + +"One ballad doesn't make a man a poet," he barked; "I mean by poet one +to whom verse lends power: in that sense he's not a poet and I am." His +tone was that of defiant challenge. + +"You are certainly," I replied. + +"Well, I did the translation of 'Salome' very carefully, as no one else +could have done it," and he flushed angrily, "and all the while Oscar +kept on altering it for the worse. At last I had to tell him the truth, +and we had a row. He imagines he's the greatest person in the world, and +the only person to be considered. His conceit is stupid.... I helped[35] +him again and again with that 'Ballad of Reading Gaol' you're always +praising: I suppose he'd deny that now. + +"He's got his money back; what more can he want? He disgusts me when he +begs." + +I could not contain myself altogether. + +"He seems to blame you," I said quietly, "for egging him on to that +insane action against your father which brought him to ruin." + +"I've no doubt he'd find some reason to blame me," he whipped out. "How +did I know how the case would go?... Why did he take my advice, if he +didn't want to? He was surely old enough to know his own interest.... +He's simply disgusting now; he's getting fat and bloated, and always +demanding money, money, money, like a daughter of the horse-leech--just +as if he had a claim to it." + +I could not stand it any longer; I had to try to move him to kindness. + +"Sometimes one gives willingly to a man one has never had anything from. +Misery and want in one we like and admire have a very strong claim." + +"I do not see that there is any claim at all," he cried bitterly, as if +the very word maddened him, "and I am not going to pamper him any more. +He could earn all the money he wants if he would only write; but he +won't do anything. He is lazy, and getting lazier and lazier every day; +and he drinks far too much. He is intolerable. I thought when he kept +asking me for that money to-night, he was like an old prostitute." + +"Good God!" I cried. "Good God! Has it come to that between you?" + +"Yes," he repeated, not heeding what I said, "he was just like an old +fat prostitute," and he gloated over the word, "and I told him so." + +I looked at the man but could not speak; indeed there was nothing to be +said. Surely at last, I thought, Oscar Wilde has reached the lowest +depth. I could think of nothing but Oscar; this hard, small, bitter +nature made Oscar's suffering plain to me. + +"As I can do no good," I said, "do you mind letting me sleep? I'm simply +tired to death." + +"I'm sorry," he said, looking for his hat; "will you come out in the +morning and see the 'gees'?" + +"I don't think so," I replied, "I'm incapable of a resolution now, I'm +so tired I would rather sleep. I think I'll go up to Paris in the +morning. I have something rather urgent to do." + +He said "Good night" and went away. + +I lay awake, my eyes prickling with sorrow and sympathy for poor Oscar, +insulted in his misery and destitution, outraged and trodden on by the +man he had loved, by the man who had thrust him into the Pit....[36] + +I made up my mind to go to Oscar at once and try to comfort him a +little. After all, I thought, another fifty pounds or so wouldn't make a +great deal of difference to me, and I dwelt on the many delightful hours +I had passed with him, hours of gay talk and superb intellectual +enjoyment. + +I went up by the morning train to Paris, and drove across the river to +Oscar's hotel. + +He had two rooms, a small sitting-room and a still smaller bedroom +adjoining. He was lying half-dressed on the bed as I entered. The rooms +affected me unpleasantly. They were ordinary, mean little French rooms, +furnished without taste; the usual mahogany chairs, gilt clock on the +mantelpiece and a preposterous bilious paper on the walls. What struck +me was the disorder everywhere; books all over the round table; books on +the chairs; books on the floor and higgledy-piggledy, here a pair of +socks, there a hat and cane, and on the floor his overcoat. The sense of +order and neatness which he used to have in his rooms at Tite Street was +utterly lacking. He was not living here, intent on making the best of +things; he was merely existing without plan or purpose. + +I told him I wanted him to come to lunch. While he was finishing +dressing it came to me that his clothes had undergone much the same +change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good +deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was +particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now +he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he +had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took +pleasure in the vanities: it seemed to me a bad sign. + +I had always thought of him as very healthy, likely to live till sixty +or seventy; but he had no longer any hold on himself and that depressed +me; some spring of life seemed broken in him. Bosie Douglas' second +betrayal had been the _coup de grace_. + +In the carriage he was preoccupied, out of sorts, and immediately began +to apologise. + +"I shall be poor company, Frank," he warned me with quivering lips. + +The fragrant summer air in the Champs Elysees seemed to revive him a +little, but he was evidently lost in bitter reflections and scarcely +noticed where he was going. From time to time he sighed heavily as if +oppressed. I talked as well as I could of this and that, tried to lure +him away from the hateful subject that I knew must be in his mind; but +all in vain. Towards the end of the lunch he said gravely: + +"I want you to tell me something, Frank; I want you to tell me honestly +if you think I am in the wrong. I wish I could think I was.... You know +I spoke to you the other day about Bosie; he is rich now and he is +throwing his money away with both hands in racing. + +"I asked him to settle L1,500 or L2,000 on me to buy me an annuity, or +to do something that would give me L150 a year. You said you did not +care to ask him, so I did. I told him it was really his duty to do it at +once, and he turned round and lashed me savagely with his tongue. He +called me dreadful names. Said dreadful things to me, Frank. I did not +think it was possible to suffer more than I suffered in prison, but he +has left me bleeding ..." and the fine eyes filled with tears. Seeing +that I remained silent, he cried out: + +"Frank, you must tell me for our friendship's sake. Is it my fault? Was +he wrong or was I wrong?" + +His weakness was pathetic, or was it that his affection was still so +great that he wanted to blame himself rather than his friend? + +"Of course he seems to me to be wrong," I said, "utterly wrong." I could +not help saying it and I went on: + +"But you know his temper is insane; if he even praises himself, as he +did to me lately, he gets into a rage in order to do it, and perhaps +unwittingly you annoyed him by the way you asked. If you put it to his +generosity and vainglory you would get it easier than from his sense of +justice and right. He has not much moral sense." + +"Oh, Frank," he broke in earnestly, "I put it to him as well as I could, +quite quietly and gently. I talked of our old affection, of the good and +evil days we had passed together: you know I could never be harsh to +him, never. + +"There never was," he burst out, in a sort of exaltation, "there never +was in the world such a betrayal. Do you remember once telling me that +the only flaw you could find in the perfect symbolism of the gospel +story was that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the foreigner from Kerioth, +when he should have been betrayed by John, the beloved disciple; for it +is only those we love who can betray us? Frank, how true, how tragically +true that is! It is those we love who betray us with a kiss." + +He was silent for some time and then went on wearily, "I wish you would +speak to him, Frank, and show him how unjust and unkind he is to me." + +"I cannot possibly do that, Oscar," I said, "I do not know all the +relations between you and the myriad bands that unite you: I should only +do harm and not good." + +"Frank," he cried, "you do know, you must know that he is responsible +for everything, for my downfall and my ruin. It was he who drove me to +fight with his father. I begged him not to, but he whipped me to it; +asked me what his father could do; pointed out to me contemptuously that +he could prove nothing; said he was the most loathsome, hateful creature +in the world, and that it was my duty to stop him, and that if I did +not, everyone would be laughing at me, and he could never care for a +coward. All his family, his brother and his mother, too, begged me to +attack Queensberry, all promised me their support and afterwards-- + +"You know, Frank, in the Cafe Royal before the trial how Bosie spoke to +you, when you warned me and implored me to drop the insane suit and go +abroad; how angry he got. You were not a friend of mine, he said. You +know he drove me to ruin in order to revenge himself on his father, and +then left me to suffer. + +"And that's not the worst of it, Frank: I came out of prison determined +not to see him any more. I promised my poor wife I would not see him +again. I had forgiven him; but I did not want to see him. I had suffered +too much by him and through him, far too much. And then he wrote and +wrote of his love, crying it to me every hour, begging me to come, +telling me he only wanted me, in order to be happy, me in the whole +world. How could I help believing him, how could I keep away from him? +At last I yielded and went to him, and as soon as the difficulties began +he turned on me in Naples like a wild beast, blaming me and insulting +me. + +"I had to fly to Paris, having lost everything through him--wife and +income and self-respect, everything; but I always thought that he was at +least generous as a man of his name should be: I had no idea he could be +stingy and mean; but now he is comparatively rich, he prefers to +squander his money on jockeys and trainers and horses, of which he knows +nothing, instead of lifting me out of my misery. Surely it is not too +much to ask him to give me a tenth when I gave him all? Won't you ask +him?" + +"I think he ought to have done what you want, without asking," I +admitted, "but I am certain my speaking would not do any good. He shows +me hatred already whenever I do not agree with him. Hate is nearer to +him always than sympathy: he is his father's son, Oscar, and I can do +nothing. I cannot even speak to him about it." + +"Oh, Frank, you ought to," said Oscar. + +"But suppose he retorted and said you led him astray, what could I +answer?" + +"Led him astray!" cried Oscar, starting up, "you cannot believe that. +You know better than that. It is not true. It is he who always led, +always dominated me; he is as imperious as a Caesar. It was he who began +our intimacy: he who came to me in London when I did not want to see +him, or rather, Frank, I wanted to but I was afraid; at the very +beginning I was afraid of what it would all lead to, and I avoided him; +the desperate aristocratic pride in him, the dreadful bold, imperious +temper in him terrified me. But he came to London and sent for me to +come to him, said he would come to my house if I didn't. I went, +thinking I could reason with him; but it was impossible. When I told him +we must be very careful, for I was afraid of what might happen, he made +fun of my fears, and encouraged me. He knew that they'd never dare to +punish him; he's allied to half the peerage and he did not care what +became of me.... + +"He led me first to the street, introduced me to the male prostitution +in London. From the beginning to the end he has driven me like the +Oestrum of which the Greeks wrote, which drove the ill-fated to +disaster. + +"And now he says he owes me nothing; I have no _claim_, I who gave to +him without counting; he says he needs all his money for himself: he +wants to win races and to write poetry, Frank, the pretty verses which +he thinks poetry. + +"He has ruined me, soul and body, and now he puts himself in the balance +against me and declares he outweighs me. Yes, Frank, he does; he told me +the other day I was not a poet, not a true poet, and he was, Alfred +Douglas greater than Oscar Wilde. + +"I have not done much in the world," he went on hotly, "I know it better +than anyone, not a quarter of what I should have done, but there are +some things I have done which the world will not forget, can hardly +forget. If all the tribe of Douglas from the beginning and all their +achievements were added together and thrown into the balance, they would +not weigh as dust in comparison. Yet he reviled me, Frank, whipped me, +shamed me.... He has broken me, he has broken me, the man I loved; my +very heart is a cold weight in me," ... and he got up and moved aside +with the tears pouring down his cheeks. + +"Don't take it so much to heart," I said in a minute or two, going after +him, "the loss of affection I cannot help, but a hundred or so a year is +not much; I will see that you get that every year." + +"Oh, Frank, it is not the money; it is his denial, his insults, his hate +that kills me; the fact that I have ruined myself for someone who cares +nothing; who puts a little money before me; it is as if I were choked +with mud.... + +"Once I thought myself master of my life; lord of my fate, who could do +what I pleased and would always succeed. I was as a crowned king till I +met him, and now I am an exile and outcast and despised. + +"I have lost my way in life; the passers-by all scorn me and the man +whom I loved whips me with foul insults and contempt. There is no +example in history of such a betrayal, no parallel. I am finished. It is +all over with me now--all! I hope the end will come quickly," and he +moved away to the window, his tears falling heavily. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[33] The rest of this story concerns me chiefly and I have therefore +relegated it to the Appendix for those who care to read it. + +[34] Oscar was already getting L300 a year from his wife and Robert +Ross, to say nothing of the hundreds given to him from time to time by +other friends. + +[35] The truth about this I have already stated. + +[36] Though I have reported this conversation as faithfully as I can and +have indeed softened the impression Lord Alfred Douglas made upon me at +the time; still I am conscious that I may be doing him some injustice. I +have never really been in sympathy with him and it may well be that in +reporting him here faithfully I am showing him at his worst. I am aware +that the incident does not reveal him at his best. He has proved since +in his writings and notably in some superb sonnets that he had a real +affection and admiration for Oscar Wilde. If I have been in any degree +unfair to him I can best correct it, I think, by reproducing here the +noble sonnet he wrote on Oscar after his death: in sheer beauty and +sincerity of feeling it ranks with Shelley's lament for Keats: + +_The Dead Poet_[37] + + I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face All radiant and unshadowed +of distress, And as of old, in music measureless, I heard his golden +voice and marked him trace Under the common thing the hidden grace, And +conjure wonder out of emptiness, Till mean things put on beauty like a +dress And all the world was an enchanted place. + + And then methought outside a fast locked gate I mourned the loss of +unrecorded words, Forgotten tales and mysteries half said Wonders that +might have been articulate, And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing +birds And so I woke and knew that he was dead. + +[37] In the Appendix I have published the first sketch of this fine +sonnet: lovers of poetry will like to compare them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +In a day or two, however, the clouds lifted and the sun shone as +brilliantly as ever. Oscar's spirits could not be depressed for long: he +took a child's joy in living and in every incident of life. When I left +him in Paris a week or so later, in midsummer, he was full of gaiety and +humour, talking as delightfully as ever with a touch of cynicism that +added piquancy to his wit. Shortly after I arrived in London he wrote +saying he was ill, and that I really ought to send him some money. I had +already paid him more than the amount we had agreed upon at first for +his scenario, and I was hard up and anything but well. I had chronic +bronchitis which prostrated me time and again that autumn. Having heard +from mutual friends that Oscar's illness did not hinder him from dining +out and enjoying himself, I received his plaints and requests with a +certain impatience, and replied to him curtly. His illness appeared to +me to be merely a pretext. When my play was accepted his demands became +as insistent as they were extravagant. + +Finally I went back to Paris in September to see him, persuaded that I +could settle everything amicably in five minutes' talk: he must remember +our agreement. + +I found him well in health, but childishly annoyed that my play was +going to be produced and resolved to get all the money he could from me +by hook or by crook. I never met such persistence in demands. I could +only settle with him decently by paying him a further sum, which I did. + +In the course of this bargaining and begging I realised that contrary to +my previous opinion he was not gifted as a friend, and did not attribute +any importance to friendship. His affection for Bosie Douglas even had +given place to hatred: indeed his liking for him had never been founded +on understanding or admiration; it was almost wholly snobbish: he loved +the title, the romantic name--Lord Alfred Douglas. Robert Ross was the +only friend of whom he always spoke with liking and appreciation: "One +of the wittiest of men," he used to call him and would jest at his +handwriting, which was peculiarly bad, but always good-naturedly; "a +letter merely shows that Bobbie has something to conceal"; but he would +add, "how kind he is, how good," as if Ross's devotion surprised him, as +in fact it did. Ross has since told me that Oscar never cared much for +him. Indeed Oscar cared so little for anyone that an unselfish affection +astonished him beyond measure: he could find in himself no explanation +of it. His vanity was always more active than his gratitude, as indeed +it is with most of us. Now and then when Ross played mentor or took him +to task, he became prickly at once and would retort: "Really, Bobbie, +you ride the high horse so well, and so willingly, it seems a pity that +you never tried Pegasus"--not a sneer exactly, but a rap on the knuckles +to call his monitor to order. Like most men of charming manners, Oscar +was selfish and self-centred, too convinced of his own importance to +spend much thought on others; yet generous to the needy and kind to all. + +After my return to London he kept on begging for money by almost every +post. As soon as my play was advertised I found myself dunned and +persecuted by a horde of people who declared that Oscar had sold them +the scenario he afterwards sold to me.[38] Several of them threatened to +get injunctions to prevent me staging my play, "Mr. and Mrs. Daventry," +if I did not first settle with them. Naturally, I wrote rather sharply +to Oscar for having led me into this hornets' nest. + +It was in the midst of all this unpleasantness that I heard from Turner, +in October, I believe, that Oscar was seriously ill, and that if I owed +him money, as he asserted, it would be a kindness to send it, as he was +in great need. The letter found me in bed. I could not say now whether I +answered it or not: it made me impatient; his friends must have known +that I owed Oscar nothing; but later I received a telegram from Ross +saying that Oscar was not expected to live. I was ill and unable to +move, or I should have gone at once to Paris. As it was I sent for my +friend, Bell, gave him some money and a cheque, and begged him to go +across and let me know if Oscar were really in danger, which I could +hardly believe. As luck would have it, the next afternoon, when I hoped +Bell had started, his wife came to tell me that he had had a severe +asthmatic attack, but would cross as soon as he dared. + +I was too hard up myself to wire money that might not be needed, and +Oscar had cried "wolf" about his health too often to be a credible +witness. Yet I was dissatisfied with myself and anxious for Bell to +start. + +Day after day passed in troubled doubts and fears; but it was not long +when a period was put to all my anxiety. A telegram came telling me he +was dead. I could hardly believe my eyes: it seemed incredible--the +fount of joy and gaiety; the delightful source of intellectual vivacity +and interest stilled forever. The world went greyer to me because of +Oscar Wilde's death. + +Months afterwards Robert Ross gave me the particulars of his last +illness. + +Ross went to Paris in October: as soon as he saw Oscar, he was shocked +by the change in his appearance: he insisted on taking him to a doctor; +but to his surprise the doctor saw no ground for immediate alarm: if +Oscar would only stop drinking wine and _a fortiori_ spirits, he might +live for years: absinthe was absolutely forbidden. But Oscar paid no +heed to the warning and Ross could only take him for drives whenever the +weather permitted and seek to amuse him harmlessly. + +The will to live had almost left Oscar: so long as he could live +pleasantly and without effort he was content; but as soon as ill-health +came, or pain, or even discomfort, he grew impatient for deliverance. + +But to the last he kept his joyous humour and charming gaiety. His +disease brought with it a certain irritation of the skin, annoying +rather than painful. Meeting Ross one morning after a day's separation +he apologised for scratching himself: + +"Really," he exclaimed, "I'm more like a great ape than ever; but I hope +you'll give me a lunch, Bobbie, and not a nut." + +On one of the last drives with this friend he asked for champagne and +when it was brought declared that he was dying as he had lived, "beyond +his means"--his happy humour lighting up even his last hours. + +Early in November Ross left Paris to go down to the Riviera with his +mother: for Reggie Turner had undertaken to stay with Oscar. Reggie +Turner describes how he grew gradually feebler and feebler, though to +the end flashes of the old humour would astonish his attendants. He +persisted in saying that Reggie, with his perpetual prohibitions, was +qualifying for a doctor. "When you can refuse bread to the hungry, +Reggie," he would say, "and drink to the thirsty, you can apply for your +diploma." + +Towards the end of November Reggie wired for Ross and Ross left +everything and reached Paris next day. + +When all was over he wrote to a friend giving him a very complete +account of the last hours of Oscar Wilde; that account he generously +allows me to reproduce and it will be found word for word in the +Appendix; it is too long and too detailed to be used here. + +Ross's letter should be read by the student; but several touches in it +are too timid; certain experiences that should be put in high relief are +slurred over: in conversation with me he told more and told it better. + +For example, when talking of his drives with Oscar, he mentions +casually that Oscar "insisted on drinking absinthe," and leaves it at +that. The truth is that Oscar stopped the victoria at almost the first +cafe, got down and had an absinthe. Two or three hundred yards further +on, he stopped the carriage again to have another absinthe: at the next +stoppage a few minutes later Ross ventured to remonstrate: + +"You'll kill yourself, Oscar," he cried, "you know the doctors said +absinthe was poison to you!" + +Oscar stopped on the sidewalk: + +"And what have I to live for, Bobbie?" he asked gravely. And Ross +looking at him and noting the wreck--the symptoms of old age and broken +health--could only bow his head and walk on with him in silence. What +indeed had he to live for who had abandoned all the fair uses of life? + +The second scene is horrible: but is, so to speak, the inevitable +resultant of the first, and has its own awful moral. Ross tells how he +came one morning to Oscar's death-bed and found him practically +insensible: he describes the dreadful loud death-rattle of his breath, +and says: "terrible offices had to be carried out." + +The truth is still more appalling. Oscar had eaten too much and drunk +too much almost habitually ever since the catastrophe in Naples. The +dreadful disease from which he was suffering, or from the after effects +of which he was suffering, weakens all the tissues of the body, and this +weakness is aggravated by drinking wine and still more by drinking +spirits. Suddenly, as the two friends sat by the bedside in sorrowful +anxiety, there was a loud explosion: mucus poured out of Oscar's mouth +and nose, and-- + +Even the bedding had to be burned. + +If it is true that all those who draw the sword shall perish by the +sword, it is no less certain that all those who live for the body shall +perish by the body, and there is no death more degrading. + + * * * * * + +One more scene, and this the last, and I shall have done. + +When Robert Ross was arranging to bury Oscar at Bagneux he had already +made up his mind as soon as he could to transfer his body to Pere +Lachaise and erect over his remains some worthy memorial. It became the +purpose of his life to pay his friend's debts, annul his bankruptcy, and +publish his books in suitable manner; in fine to clear Oscar's memory +from obloquy while leaving to his lovable spirit the shining raiment of +immortality. In a few years he had accomplished all but one part of his +high task. He had not only paid off all Oscar Wilde's debts; but he had +managed to remit thousands of pounds yearly to his children, and had +established his popularity on the widest and surest foundation. + +He crossed to Paris with Oscar's son, Vyvyan, to render the last service +to his friend. When preparing the body for the grave years before Ross +had taken medical advice as to what should be done to make his purpose +possible. The doctors told him to put Wilde's body in quicklime, like +the body of the man in "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." The quicklime, they +said, would consume the flesh and leave the white bones--the +skeleton--intact, which could then be moved easily. + +To his horror, when the grave was opened, Ross found that the quicklime, +instead of destroying the flesh, had preserved it. Oscar's face was +recognisable, only his hair and beard had grown long. At once Ross sent +the son away, and when the sextons were about to use their shovels, he +ordered them to desist, and descending into the grave, moved the body +with his own hands into the new coffin in loving reverence. + +Those who hold our mortal vesture in respect for the sake of the spirit +will know how to thank Robert Ross for the supreme devotion he showed to +his friend's remains: in his case at least love was stronger than +death. + +One can be sure, too, that the man who won such fervid self-denying +tenderness, had deserved it, called it forth by charm of companionship, +or magic of loving intercourse. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[38] See Appendix: p. 589 and especially p. 592. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was the inhumanity of the prison doctor and the English prison system +that killed Oscar Wilde. The sore place in his ear caused by the fall +when he fainted that Sunday morning in Wandsworth Prison chapel formed +into an abscess and was the final cause of his death. The "operation" +Ross speaks of in his letter was the excision of this tumour. The +imprisonment and starvation, and above all the cruelty of his gaolers, +had done their work. + +The local malady was inflamed, as I have already said, by a more general +and more terrible disease. The doctors attributed the red flush Oscar +complained of on his chest and back, which he declared was due to eating +mussels, to another and graver cause. They warned him at once to stop +drinking and smoking and to live with the greatest abstemiousness, for +they recognised in him the tertiary symptoms of that dreadful disease +which the brainless prudery in England allows to decimate the flower of +English manhood unchecked. + +Oscar took no heed of their advice. He had little to live for. The +pleasures of eating and drinking in good company were almost the only +pleasures left to him. Why should he deny himself the immediate +enjoyment for a very vague and questionable future benefit? + +He never believed in any form of asceticism or self-denial, and towards +the end, feeling that life had nothing more to offer him, the pagan +spirit in him refused to prolong an existence that was no longer joyous. +"I have lived," he would have said with profound truth. + +Much has been made of the fact that Oscar was buried in an +out-of-the-way cemetery at Bagneux under depressing circumstances. It +rained the day of the funeral, it appears, and a cold wind blew: the way +was muddy and long, and only a half-a-dozen friends accompanied the +coffin to its resting-place. But after all, such accidents, depressing +as they are at the moment, are unimportant. The dead clay knows nothing +of our feelings, and whether it is borne to the grave in pompous +procession and laid to rest in a great abbey amid the mourning of a +nation or tossed as dust to the wind, is a matter of utter indifference. + +Heine's verse holds the supreme consolation: + + Immerhin mich wird umgeben + Gotteshimmel dort wie hier + Und wie Todtenlampen schweben + Nachts die Sterne ueber mir. + +Oscar Wilde's work was over, his gift to the world completed years +before. Even the friends who loved him and delighted in the charm of his +talk, in his light-hearted gaiety and humour, would scarcely have kept +him longer in the pillory, exposed to the loathing and contempt of this +all-hating world. + +The good he did lives after him, and is immortal, the evil is buried in +his grave. Who would deny to-day that he was a quickening and liberating +influence? If his life was given overmuch to self-indulgence, it must be +remembered that his writings and conversation were singularly kindly, +singularly amiable, singularly pure. No harsh or coarse or bitter word +ever passed those eloquent laughing lips. If he served beauty in her +myriad forms, he only showed in his works the beauty that was amiable +and of good report. If only half-a-dozen men mourned for him, their +sorrow was unaffected and intense, and perhaps the greatest of men have +not found in their lifetime even half-a-dozen devoted admirers and +lovers. It is well with our friend, we say: at any rate, he was not +forced to drink the bitter lees of a suffering and dishonourable old +age: Death was merciful to him. + +My task is finished. I don't think anyone will doubt that I have done +it in a reverent spirit, telling the truth as I see it, from the +beginning to the end, and hiding or omitting as little as might be of +what ought to be told. Yet when I come to the parting I am painfully +conscious that I have not done Oscar Wilde justice; that some fault or +other in me has led me to dwell too much on his faults and failings and +grudged praise to his soul-subduing charm and the incomparable sweetness +and gaiety of his nature. + +Let me now make amends. When to the sessions of sad memory I summon up +the spirits of those whom I have met in the world and loved, men famous +and men of unfulfilled renown, I miss no one so much as I miss Oscar +Wilde. I would rather spend an evening with him than with Renan or +Carlyle, or Verlaine or Dick Burton or Davidson. I would rather have him +back now than almost anyone I have ever met. I have known more heroic +souls and some deeper souls; souls much more keenly alive to ideas of +duty and generosity; but I have known no more charming, no more +quickening, no more delightful spirit. + +This may be my shortcoming; it may be that I prize humour and +good-humour and eloquent or poetic speech, the artist qualities, more +than goodness or loyalty or manliness, and so over-estimate things +amiable. But the lovable and joyous things are to me the priceless +things, and the most charming man I have ever met was assuredly Oscar +Wilde. I do not believe that in all the realms of death there is a more +fascinating or delightful companion. + +One last word on Oscar Wilde's place in English literature. In the +course of this narrative I have indicated sufficiently, I think, the +value and importance of his work; he will live with Congreve and with +Sheridan as the wittiest and most humorous of all our playwrights. "The +Importance of Being Earnest" has its own place among the best of English +comedies. But Oscar Wilde has done better work than Congreve or +Sheridan: he is a master not only of the smiles, but of the tears of +men. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is the best ballad in English; it is +more, it is the noblest utterance that has yet reached us from a modern +prison, the only high utterance indeed that has ever come from that +underworld of man's hatred and man's inhumanity. In it, and by the +spirit of Jesus which breathes through it, Oscar Wilde has done much, +not only to reform English prisons, but to abolish them altogether, for +they are as degrading to the intelligence as they are harmful to the +soul. What gaoler and what gaol could do anything but evil to the +author of such a verse as this: + + This too I know--and wise it were + If each could know the same-- + That every prison that men build + Is built with bricks of shame, + And bound with bars, lest Christ should see + How men their brothers maim. + +Indeed, is it not clear that the man who, in his own wretchedness, wrote +that letter to the warder which I have reproduced, and was eager to +bring about the freeing of the little children at his own cost, is far +above the judge who condemned him or the society which sanctions such +punishments? "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," I repeat, and some pages of +"De Profundis," and, above all, the tragic fate of which these were the +outcome, render Oscar Wilde more interesting to men than any of his +peers. + +He has been indeed well served by the malice and cruelty of his enemies; +in this sense his word in "De Profundis" that he stood in symbolic +relation to the art and life of his time is justified. + +The English drove Byron and Shelley and Keats into exile and allowed +Chatterton, Davidson and Middleton to die of misery and destitution; but +they treated none of their artists and seers with the malevolent cruelty +they showed to Oscar Wilde. His fate in England is symbolic of the fate +of all artists; in some degree they will all be punished as he was +punished by a grossly materialised people who prefer to go in blinkers +and accept idiotic conventions because they distrust the intellect and +have no taste for mental virtues. + +All English artists will be judged by their inferiors and condemned, as +Dante's master was condemned, for their good deeds (_per tuo ben far_): +for it must not be thought that Oscar Wilde was punished solely or even +chiefly for the evil he wrought: he was punished for his popularity and +his preeminence, for the superiority of his mind and wit; he was +punished by the envy of journalists, and by the malignant pedantry of +half-civilised judges. Envy in his case overleaped itself: the hate of +his justicers was so diabolic that they have given him to the pity of +mankind forever; they it is who have made him eternally interesting to +humanity, a tragic figure of imperishable renown. + +THE END. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +Here are the two poems of Lord Alfred Douglas which were read out in +Court, on account of which the prosecution sought to incriminate Oscar +Wilde. My readers can judge for themselves the value of any inference to +be drawn from such work by another hand. To me, I must confess, the +poems themselves seem harmless and pretty--I had almost said, academic +and unimportant. + + +TWO LOVES + +TO "THE SPHINX" + + Two loves I have of comfort and despair + That like two spirits do suggest me still, + My better angel is a man right fair, + My worse a woman tempting me to ill.--_Shakespeare_. + + I dreamed I stood upon a little hill, + And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed + Like a waste garden, flowering at its will + With flowers and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed + Black and unruffled; there were white lilies + A few, and crocuses, and violets + Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries + Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets + Blue eyes of shy pervenche winked in the sun. + And there were curious flowers, before unknown, + Flowers that were stained with moonlight, or with shades + Of Nature's wilful moods; and here a one + That had drunk in the transitory tone + Of one brief moment in a sunset; blades + Of grass that in an hundred springs had been + Slowly but exquisitely nurtured by the stars, + And watered with the scented dew long cupped + In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen + Only God's glory, for never a sunrise mars + The luminous air of heaven. Beyond, abrupt, + A gray stone wall, o'ergrown with velvet moss + Uprose. And gazing I stood long, all mazed + To see a place so strange, so sweet, so fair. + And as I stood and marvelled, lo! across + The garden came a youth, one hand he raised + To shield him from the sun, his wind-tossed hair + Was twined with flowers, and in his hand he bore + A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes + Were clear as crystal, naked all was he, + White as the snow on pathless mountains frore, + Red were his lips as red wine-spilth that dyes + A marble floor, his brow chalcedony. + And he came near me, with his lips uncurled + And kind, and caught my hand and kissed my mouth, + And gave me grapes to eat, and said, "Sweet friend, + Come, I will show thee shadows of the world + And images of life. See, from the south + Comes the pale pageant that hath never an end." + And lo! within the garden of my dream + I saw two walking on a shining plain + Of golden light. The one did joyous seem + And fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain + Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids + And joyous love of comely girl and boy; + His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades + Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy. + And in his hands he held an ivory lute, + With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, + And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, + And round his neck three chains of roses were. + But he that was his comrade walked aside; + He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes + Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide + With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs + That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white + Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red + Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, + And yet again unclenched, and his head + Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. + A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold + With the device of a great snake, whose breath + Was fiery flame: which when I did behold + I fell a-weeping and I cried, "Sweet youth + Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove + These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth + What is thy name?" He said, "My name is Love." + Then straight the first did turn himself to me + And cried, "He lieth, for his name is Shame, + But I am Love, and I was wont to be + Alone in this fair garden, till he came + Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill + The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame." + Then sighing said the other, "Have thy will, + I am the Love that dare not speak its name." + +LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS. + +September, 1892. + + +IN PRAISE OF SHAME + + Unto my bed last night, methought there came + Our lady of strange dreams, and from an urn + She poured live fire, so that mine eyes did burn + At sight of it. Anon the floating flame + Took many shapes, and one cried, "I am Shame + That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn + Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern + And see my loveliness, and praise my name." + + And afterward, in radiant garments dressed, + With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips, + A pomp of all the passions passed along, + All the night through; till the white phantom ships + Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song, + "Of all sweet passions Shame is loveliest." + +LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS. + + +THE UNPUBLISHED PORTION OF "DE PROFUNDIS" + +This is not the whole of the unpublished portion of "De Profundis"; but +that part only which was read out in Court and used for the purpose of +discrediting Lord Alfred Douglas; still, it is more than half of the +whole in length and absolutely more than the whole in importance: +nothing of any moment is omitted, except the reiteration of accusations +and just this repetition weakens the effect of the argument and +strengthens the impression of querulous nagging instead of dispassionate +statement. If the whole were printed Oscar Wilde would stand worse; +somewhat more selfish and more vindictive. + +I have commented the document as it stands mainly for the sake of +clearness and because it justifies in every particular and almost in +every epithet the shadows of the portrait which I have endeavoured to +paint in this book. Curiously enough Oscar Wilde depicts himself +unconsciously in this part of "De Profundis" in a more unfavourable +light than that accorded him in my memory. I believe mine is the more +faithful portrait of him, but that is for my readers to determine. + +FRANK HARRIS. + +NEW YORK, December, 1915. + + +H.M. Prison, +Reading. + +DEAR BOSIE, + +After long and fruitless waiting I have determined to write to you +myself, as much for your sake as for mine, as I would not like to think +that I had passed through two long years of imprisonment without ever +having received a single line from you, or any news or message even, +except such as gave me pain. + +Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin and +public infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is often +with me, and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt should +for ever take the place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me; +and you yourself will, I think, feel in your heart that to write to me +as I lie in the loneliness of prison life is better than to publish my +letters without my permission, or to dedicate poems to me unasked, +though the world will know nothing of whatever words of grief or +passion, of remorse or indifference, you may choose to send as your +answer or your appeal. + +I have no doubt that in this letter which I have to write of your life +and mine, of the past and of the future, of sweet things changed to +bitterness and of bitter things that may be turned to joy, there will be +much that will wound your vanity to the quick. If it prove so, read the +letter over and over again till it kills your vanity. If you find in it +something of which you feel that you are unjustly accused, remember that +one should be thankful that there is any fault of which one can be +unjustly accused. If there be in it one single passage that brings tears +to your eyes, weep as we weep in prison, where the day no less than the +night is set apart for tears. It is the only thing that can save you. If +you go complaining to your mother, as you did with reference to the +scorn of you I displayed in my letter to Robbie, so that she may flatter +and soothe you back into self-complacency or conceit, you will be +completely lost. If you find one false excuse for yourself you will soon +find a hundred, and be just what you were before. Do you still say, as +you said to Robbie in your answer, that I "attribute unworthy motives" +to you? Ah! you had no motives in life. You had appetites merely. A +motive is an intellectual aim. That you were "very young" when our +friendship began? Your defect was not that you knew so little about +life, but that you knew so much. The morning dawn of boyhood with its +delicate bloom, its clear pure light, its joy of innocence and +expectation, you had left far behind you. With very swift and running +feet you had passed from Romance to Realism. The gutter and the things +that live in it had begun to fascinate you. That was the origin of the +trouble[39] in which you sought my aid, and I, unwisely, according to +the wisdom of this world, out of pity and kindness, gave it to you. You +must read this letter right through, though each word may become to you +as the fire or knife of the surgeon that makes the delicate flesh burn +or bleed. Remember that the fool to the eyes of the gods and the fool to +the eyes of man are very different. One who is entirely ignorant[40] of +the modes of Art in its revelation or the moods of thought in its +progress, of the pomp of the Latin line or the richer music of the +vowelled Greek, of Tuscan sculpture or Elizabethan song, may yet be full +of the very sweetest wisdom. The real fool, such as the gods mock or +mar, is he who does not know himself. I was such a one too long. You +have been such a one too long. Be so no more. Do not be afraid. The +supreme vice is shallowness. Everything that is realised is right. +Remember also that whatever is misery to you to read, is still greater +misery to me to set down. They have permitted you to see the strange and +tragic shapes of life as one sees shadows in a crystal. The head of +Medusa that turns living men to stone, you have been allowed to look at +in a mirror merely. You yourself have walked free among the flowers. +From me the beautiful world of colour and motion has been taken away. + +I will begin by telling you that I blame myself terribly. As I sit in +this dark cell in convict clothes, a disgraced and ruined man, I blame +myself. In the perturbed and fitful nights of anguish, in the long +monotonous days of pain, it is myself I blame. I blame myself for +allowing an intellectual friendship, a friendship whose primary aim was +not the creation and contemplation of beautiful things, entirely to +dominate my life. From the very first there was too wide a gap between +us. You had been idle at your school, worse than idle[41] at your +university. You did not realise that an artist, and especially such an +artist as I am, one, that is to say, the quality of whose work depends +on the intensification of personality, requires an intellectual +atmosphere, quiet, peace, and solitude. You admired my work when it was +finished: you enjoyed the brilliant successes of my first nights, and +the brilliant banquets that followed them: you were proud, and quite +naturally so, of being the intimate friend of an artist so +distinguished: but you could not understand the conditions requisite for +the production of artistic work. I am not speaking in phrases of +rhetorical exaggeration, but in terms of absolute truth to actual fact +when I remind you that during the whole time we were together I never +wrote one single line. Whether at Torquay, Goring, London, Florence, or +elsewhere, my life, as long as you were by my side, was entirely sterile +and uncreative. And with but few intervals, you were, I regret to say, +by my side always. + +I remember, for instance, in September, '93, to select merely one +instance out of many, taking a set of chambers, purely in order to work +undisturbed, as I had broken my contract with John Hare, for whom I had +promised to write a play, and who was pressing me on the subject. During +the first week you kept away. We had, not unnaturally indeed, differed +on the question of the artistic value[42] of your translation of +_Salome_. So you contented yourself with sending me foolish letters on +the subject. In that week I wrote and completed in every detail, as it +was ultimately performed, the first act of an _An Ideal Husband_. The +second week you returned, and my work practically had to be given up. I +arrived at St. James's Place every morning at 11.30 in order to have the +opportunity of thinking and writing without the interruption inseparable +from my own household, quiet and peaceful as that household was. But the +attempt was vain. At 12 o'clock you drove up and stayed smoking +cigarettes and chattering till 1.30, when I had to take you out to +luncheon at the Cafe Royal or the Berkeley. Luncheon with its liqueurs +lasted usually till 3.30. For an hour you retired to White's. At tea +time you appeared again and stayed till it was time to dress for +dinner. You dined with me either at the Savoy or at Tite Street. We did +not separate as a rule till after midnight, as supper at Willis' had to +wind up the entrancing day. That was my life for those three months, +every single day, except during the four days when you went abroad. I +then, of course, had to go over to Calais to fetch you back. For one of +my nature and temperament it was a position at once grotesque and +tragic. + +You surely must realise that now. You must see now that your incapacity +of being alone: your nature so exigent in its persistent claim on the +attention and time of others: your lack of any power of sustained +intellectual concentration: the unfortunate accident--for I like to +think it was no more--that you had not been able to acquire the "Oxford +temper" in intellectual matters, never, I mean, been one who could play +gracefully with ideas, but had arrived at violence of opinion +merely--that all these things, combined with the fact that your desires +and your interests were in Life, not in Art, were as destructive to your +own progress in culture as they were to my work as an artist. When I +compare my friendship with you to my friendship with still younger men, +as John Gray and Pierre Louys, I feel ashamed. My real life, my higher +life, was with them and such as they. + +Of the appalling results of my friendship with you I don't speak at +present. I am thinking merely of its quality while it lasted. It was +intellectually degrading to me. You had the rudiments[43] of an artistic +temperament in its germ. But I met you either too late or too soon. I +don't know which. When you were away I was all right. The moment, in the +early December of the year to which I have been alluding, I had +succeeded in inducing your mother to send you out of England, I +collected again the torn and ravelled web of my imagination, got my life +back into my own hands, and not merely finished the three remaining acts +of the _Ideal Husband_, but conceived and had almost completed two other +plays of a completely different type, the _Florentine Tragedy_ and _La +Sainte Courtesane_, when suddenly, unbidden, unwelcome, and under +circumstances fatal to my happiness, you returned. The two works left +then imperfect I was unable to take up again. The mood that created them +I could never recover. You now, having yourself published a volume of +verse, will be able to recognise the truth of everything I have said +here. Whether you can or not it remains as a hideous truth in the very +heart of our friendship. While you were with me you were the absolute +ruin of my art, and in allowing you to stand persistently between Art +and myself, I give to myself shame and blame in the fullest degree. You +couldn't appreciate, you couldn't know, you couldn't understand. I had +no right to expect it of you at all. Your interests were merely in your +meals and moods. Your desires were simply for amusements, for ordinary +or less ordinary pleasures. They were what your temperament needed, or +thought it needed for the moment. I should have forbidden you my house +and my chambers except when I specially invited you. I blame myself +without reserve for my weakness. It was merely weakness. One half-hour +with Art was always more to me than a cycle with you. Nothing really at +any period of my life was ever of the smallest importance[44] to me +compared with Art. But in the case of an artist, weakness is nothing +less than a crime when it is a weakness that paralyses the imagination. + +I blame myself for having allowed you to bring me to utter and +discreditable financial ruin. I remember one morning in the early +October of '92, sitting in the yellowing woods at Bracknell with your +mother. At that time I knew very little of your real nature. I had +stayed from a Saturday to Monday with you at Oxford. You had stayed with +me at Cromer for ten days and played golf. The conversation turned on +you, and your mother began to speak to me about your character. She told +me of your two chief faults, your vanity, and your being, as she termed +it, "all wrong about money." I have a distinct recollection of how I +laughed. I had no idea that the first would bring me to prison and the +second to bankruptcy. I thought vanity a sort of graceful flower for a +young man to wear, as for extravagance--the virtues of prudence and +thrift were not in my own nature or my own race. But before our +friendship was one month older I began to see what your mother really +meant. Your insistence on a life of reckless profusion: your incessant +demands for money: your claim that all your pleasures should be paid for +by me, whether I was with you or not, brought me, after some time, into +serious monetary difficulties, and what made the extravagance to me, at +any rate, so monotonously uninteresting, as your persistent grasp on my +life grew stronger and stronger, was that the money was spent on little +more than the pleasures of eating, drinking and the like. Now and then +it is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses, but you +outstripped all taste and temperance. You demanded without grace and +received without thanks. You grew to think that you had a sort of right +to live at my expense, and in a profuse luxury to which you had never +been accustomed, and which, for that reason, made your appetites all the +more keen, and at the end, if you lost money gambling in some Algiers +Casino, you simply telegraphed next morning to me in London to lodge the +amount of your losses to your account at your bank, and gave the matter +no further thought of any kind. + +When I tell you that between the autumn of 1892 and the date of my +imprisonment, I spent with you and on you, more than L5,000 in actual +money, irrespective of the bills I incurred, you will have some idea of +the sort of life on which you insisted. Do you think I exaggerate? My +ordinary expenses with you for an ordinary day in London--for luncheon, +dinner, supper, amusements, hansoms, and the rest of it--ranged from L12 +to L20, and the week's expenses were naturally in proportion and ranged +from L80 to L130. For our three months at Goring my expenses (rent, of +course, included) were L1,340. Step by step with the Bankruptcy Receiver +I had to go over every item of my life. It was horrible. "Plain living +and high thinking," was, of course, an ideal you could not at that time +have appreciated, but such an extravagance was a disgrace to both of +us. One of the most delightful dinners I remember ever having had is one +Robbie and I had together in a little Soho Cafe, which cost about as +many shillings as my dinners to you used to cost pounds. Out of my +dinner with Robbie came the first and best of all my dialogues. Idea, +title, treatment, mode, everything was struck out at a 3 franc 50c. +table d'hote. Out of the reckless dinners with you nothing remains but +the memory that too much was eaten and too much was drunk. And my +yielding to your demands was bad for you. You know that now. It made you +grasping often: at times not a little unscrupulous: ungracious always. +There was, on far too many occasions, too little joy or privilege in +being your host. You forgot--I will not say the formal courtesy of +thanks, for formal courtesies will strain a close friendship--but simply +the grace of sweet companionship, the charm of pleasant conversation, +and all those gentle humanities that make life lovely, and are an +accompaniment to life as music might be, keeping things in tune and +filling with melody the harsh or silent places. And though it may seem +strange to you that one in the terrible position in which I am situated, +should find a difference between one disgrace and another, still I +frankly admit that the folly of throwing away all this money on you, and +letting you squander my fortune to your own hurt as well as to mine, +gives to me and in my eyes a note of common profligacy to my bankruptcy +that makes me doubly ashamed of it. I was made for other things. + +But most of all I blame myself for the entire ethical degradation I +allowed you to bring on me. The basis of character is will power, and my +will power became absolutely subject[45] to yours. It sounds a grotesque +thing to say, but it is none the less true. Those incessant scenes that +seemed to be almost physically necessary to you, and in which your mind +and body grew distorted, and you became a thing as terrible to look at +as to listen to: that dreadful mania you inherit from your father, the +mania for writing revolting and loathsome letters: your entire lack of +any control over your emotions as displayed in your long resentful +moods of sullen silence, no less than in the sudden fits of almost +epileptic rage: all these things in reference to which one of my letters +to you, left by you lying about in the Savoy or some other hotel, and so +produced in court by your father's counsel, contained an entreaty not +devoid of pathos, had you at that time been able to recognise pathos +either in its elements or its expression--these, I say, were the origin +and causes of my fatal yielding to you in your daily increasing demands. +You wore me out. It was the triumph of the smaller over the bigger +nature. It was the case of that tyranny of the weak over the strong +which somewhere in one of my plays I describe as being "the only tyranny +that lasts." And it was inevitable. In every relation of life with +others one has to find some _moyen de vivre_. + +I had always thought that my giving up to you in small things meant +nothing: that when a great moment arrived I could myself re-assert my +will power in its natural superiority. It was not so. At the great +moment my will power completely failed me. In life there is really no +great or small thing. All things are of equal value and of equal size. +My habit--due to indifference chiefly at first--of giving up to you in +everything had become insensibly a real part of my nature. Without my +knowing it, it had stereotyped my temperament to one permanent and fatal +mood. That is why, in the subtle epilogue to the first edition of his +essays, Pater says that "Failure is to form habits." When he said it the +dull Oxford people thought the phrase a mere wilful inversion of the +somewhat wearisome text of Aristotelian Ethics, but there is a +wonderful, a terrible truth hidden in it. I had allowed you to sap my +strength of character, and to me the formation of a habit had proved to +be not failure merely, but ruin. Ethically you had been even still more +destructive to me than you had been artistically. + +The warrant once granted, your will, of course, directed everything. At +a time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel and calmly +considering the hideous trap in which I had allowed myself to be +caught--the booby trap, as your father calls it to the present day--you +insisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo, of all revolting places on +God's earth, that all day and all night as well, you might gamble as +long as the casino remained open. As for me--baccarat[46] having no +charms for me--I was left alone outside by myself. You refused to +discuss even for five minutes the position to which you and your father +had brought me. My business was merely to pay your hotel expenses and +your losses. The slightest allusion to the ordeal awaiting me was +regarded as a bore. A new brand of champagne that was recommended to us +had more interest for you. On our return to London those of my friends +who really desired my welfare implored me to retire abroad, and not to +face an impossible trial. You imputed mean motives to them for giving +such advice and cowardice to me for listening to it. You forced me to +stay to brazen it out, if possible, in the box by absurd and silly +perjuries. At the end, of course, I was arrested, and your father became +the hero of the hour. + +As far as I can make out, I ended my friendship with you every three +months regularly. And each time that I did so you managed by means of +entreaties, telegrams, letters, the interposition of your friends, the +interposition of mine, and the like to induce me to allow you back. + +But the froth and folly of our life grew often very wearisome to me: it +was only in the mire that we met: and fascinating, terribly fascinating +though the one[47] topic round which your talk invariably centered was, +still at the end it became quite monotonous to me. I was often bored to +death by it, and accepted it as I accepted your passion for music halls, +or your mania for absurd extravagance in eating and drinking, or any +other of your to me less attractive characteristics, as a thing that is +to say, that one simply had to put up with, a part of the high price one +had to pay for knowing you. + +When you came one Monday evening to my rooms, accompanied by two[48] of +your friends, I found myself actually flying abroad next morning to +escape from you, giving my family some absurd reason for my sudden +departure, and leaving a false address with my servant for fear you +might follow me by the next train.... + +Our friendship had always been a source of distress to my wife: not +merely because she had never liked you personally, but because she saw +how your continual companionship altered me, and not for the better. + +You started without delay for Paris, sending me passionate telegrams on +the road to beg me to see you once, at any rate. I declined. You arrived +in Paris late on a Saturday night and found a brief letter from me +waiting for you at your hotel stating that I would not see you. Next +morning I received in Tite Street a telegram of some ten or eleven pages +in length from you. You stated in it that no matter what you had done to +me you could not believe that I would absolutely decline to see you; you +reminded me that for the sake of seeing me even for one hour you had +travelled six days and six nights across Europe without stopping once on +the way; you made what I must admit was a most pathetic appeal, and +ended with what seemed to me a threat of suicide and one not thinly +veiled. You had yourself often told me how many of your race there had +been who had stained their hands in their own blood: your uncle +certainly, your grandfather possibly; many others in the mad bad line +from which you come. Pity, my old affection for you, regard for your +mother, to whom your death under such dreadful circumstances would have +been a blow almost too great for her to bear, the horror of the idea +that so young a life, and one that amidst all its ugly faults had still +promise of beauty in it, should come to so revolting an end, mere +humanity itself--all these, if excuses be necessary, must serve as an +excuse for consenting to accord you one last interview. When I arrived +in Paris, your tears breaking out again and again all through the +evening, and falling over your cheeks like rain as we sat at dinner +first at Voisin's, at supper at Paillard's afterwards, the unfeigned joy +you evinced at seeing me, holding my hand whenever you could, as though +you were a gentle and penitent child; your contrition, so simple and +sincere at the moment made me consent to renew our friendship. Two days +after we had returned to London, your father saw you having luncheon +with me at the Cafe Royal, joined my table, drank of my wine, and that +afternoon, through a letter addressed to you, began his first attack on +me.... It may be strange, but I had once again, I will not say the +chance, but the duty, of separating from you forced on me. I need hardly +remind you that I refer to your conduct to me at Brighton from October +10th to 13th, 1894. Three years is a long time for you to go back. But +we who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, +have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter +moments. We have nothing else to think of. Suffering, curious as it may +sound to you, is the means by which we exist, because it is the only +means by which we become conscious of existing; and the remembrance of +suffering in the past is necessary to us as the warrant, the evidence, +of our continued identity. Between myself and the memory of joy lies a +gulf no less deep than that between myself and joy in its actuality. Had +our life together been as the world fancied it to be, one simply of +pleasure, profligacies and laughter, I would not be able to recall a +single passage in it. It is because it was full of moments and days +tragic, bitter, sinister in their warnings, dull or dreadful in their +monotonous scenes and unseemly violences, that I can see or hear each +separate incident in its detail, can indeed see or hear little else. So +much in this place do men live by pain that my friendship with you, in +the way through which I am forced to remember it, appears to me always +as a prelude consonant with those varying modes of anguish which each +day I have to realise, nay more, to necessitate them even; as though my +life, whatever it had seemed to myself and others, had all the while +been a real symphony of sorrow, passing through its rhythmically linked +movements to its certain resolution, with that inevitableness that in +Art characterises the treatment of every great theme.... I spoke of your +conduct to me on three successive days three years ago, did I not? + +I entertained you, of course, I had no option in the matter; but +elsewhere, and not in my own home. The next day, Monday, your companion +returned to the duties[49] of his profession, and you stayed with me. +Bored with Worthing, and still more, I have no doubt, with my fruitless +efforts to concentrate my attention on my play, the only thing that +really interested me at the moment, you insist on being taken to the +Grand Hotel at Brighton. + +The night we arrive you fall ill with that dreadful low fever that is +foolishly called the influenza, your second, if not your third, attack. +I need not remind you how I waited on you, and tended you, not merely +with every luxury of fruit, flowers, presents, books and the like that +money can procure, but with that affection, tenderness and love that, +whatever you may think, is not to be procured for money. Except for an +hour's walk in the morning, an hour's drive in the afternoon, I never +left the hotel. I got special grapes from London for you as you did not +care for those the hotel supplied; invented things to please you; +remained either with you or in the room next to yours; sat with you +every evening to quiet or amuse you. + +After four or five days you recover, and I take lodgings in order to try +and finish my play. You, of course, accompany me. The morning after the +day on which we were installed I feel extremely ill. + +The doctor finds I have caught the influenza from you. + +There is no manservant to wait on me, not even any one to send out on a +message, or to get what the doctor orders. But you are there. I feel no +alarm. The next two days you leave me entirely alone without care, +without attendance, without anything. It was not a question of grapes, +flowers and charming gifts: it was a question of mere necessities. + +And when I was left all day without anything to read, you calmly tell me +that you bought the book I wanted, and that they had promised to send it +down, a statement which I found by chance afterwards to have been +entirely untrue, from beginning to end. All the while you are, of +course, living at my expense, driving about, dining at the Grand Hotel, +and indeed only appearing in my room for money. On the Saturday night, +you having completely left me unattended and alone since the morning, I +asked you to come back after dinner, and sit with me for a little. With +irritable voice and ungracious manner you promise to do so. I wait till +11 o'clock, and you never appear. + +At three in the morning, unable to sleep, and tortured with thirst, I +made my way in the dark and cold, down to the sitting-room in the hopes +of finding some water there. I found you. You fell on me with every +hideous word an intemperate mood, an undisciplined and untutored nature +could suggest. By the terrible alchemy of egotism you converted your +remorse into rage. You accused me of selfishness in expecting you to be +with me when I was ill; of standing between you and your amusements; of +trying to deprive you of your pleasures. + +You told me, and I know it was quite true, that you had come back at +midnight simply in order to change your dress-clothes, and go out again. + +I told you at length to leave the room; you pretended to do so, but when +I lifted up my head from the pillow in which I had buried it, you were +still there, and with brutality of laughter and hysteria of rage you +moved suddenly towards me. A sense of horror came over me, for what +exact reason I could not make out; but I got out of my bed at once, and +bare-footed and just as I was, made my way down the two nights of stairs +to the sitting-room. + +You returned silently for money; took what you could find on the +dressing table, and mantelpiece, and left the house with your luggage. +Need I tell you what I thought of you during the two lonely wretched +days of illness that followed? Is it necessary for me to state, that I +saw clearly that it would be a dishonour to myself to continue even an +acquaintance with such a one as you had showed yourself to be? That I +recognised that the ultimate moment had come and recognised it as being +really a great relief? And that I knew that for the future my art and +life would be freer and better and more beautiful in every possible way? +Ill as I was, I felt at ease. The fact that the separation was +irrevocable gave me peace. + +Wednesday was my birthday. Amongst the telegrams and communications on +my table was a letter in your handwriting. I opened it with a sense of +sadness on me. I knew that the time had gone by when a pretty phrase, an +expression of affection, a word of sorrow, would make me take you back. +But I was entirely deceived. I had underrated you. + +You congratulated me on my prudence in leaving the sick bed, on my +sudden flight downstairs. "It was an ugly moment for you," you said, +"uglier than you imagine." Ah! I felt it but too well. What it had +really meant I do not know; whether you had with you the pistol you had +bought to try to frighten your father with, and that thinking it to be +unloaded, you had once fired off in a public restaurant in my company; +whether your hand was moving towards a common dinner knife that by +chance was lying on the table between us; whether forgetting in your +rage your low[50] stature and inferior strength, you had thought of some +special personal insult, or attack even, as I lay ill there; I could not +tell. I do not know to the present moment. All I know is that a feeling +of utter horror had come over me, and that I had felt that unless I left +the room at once and got away, you would have done or tried to do +something that would have been, even to you, a source of lifelong +shame.... + +On your return to town from the actual scene of the tragedy to which you +had been summoned, you came at once to me very sweetly and very simply, +in your suit of woe, and with your eyes dim with tears. You sought +consolation and help, as a child might seek it. I opened to you my +house, my home, my heart. I made your sorrow mine also, that you might +have help in bearing it. Never even by one word, did I allude to your +conduct towards me, to the revolting scenes, and the revolting letter. + +The gods are strange. It is not our vices only they make instruments to +scourge us. They bring us to ruin through what in us is good, gentle, +humane, loving. But for my pity and affection for you and yours, I would +not now be weeping in this terrible place. + +Of course, I discern in all our relations, not destiny merely, but +Doom--Doom that walks always swiftly, because she goes to the shedding +of blood. Through your father you come of a race, marriage with whom is +horrible, friendship fatal, and that lays violent hands either on its +own life, or on the lives of others. + +In every little circumstance in which the ways of our lives met, in +every point of great or seemingly trivial import in which you came to me +for pleasure or help, in the small chances, the slight accidents that +look, in their relation to life, to be no more than the dust that dances +in a beam, or the leaf that flutters from a tree, ruin followed like the +echo of a bitter cry, or the shadow that hunts with the beast of prey. + +Our friendship really begins with your begging me, in a most pathetic +and charming letter, to assist you in a position appalling to anyone, +doubly so to a young man at Oxford. I do so, and ultimately, through +your using my name as your friend with Sir George Lewis I begin to lose +his esteem and friendship, a friendship of fifteen years' standing. When +I was deprived of his advice and help and regard, I was deprived of the +one great safeguard of my life. You send me a very nice poem of the +undergraduate school of verse for my approval. I reply by a letter of +fantastic literary conceits; I compare you to Hylas, or Hyacinth, +Jonquil or Narcissus, or some one whom the Great God of Poetry favoured, +and honoured with his love. The letter is like a passage from one of +Shakespeare's sonnets transposed to a minor key. + +It was, let me say frankly, the sort of letter I would, in a happy, if +wilful moment, have written to any graceful young man of either +university who had sent me a poem of his own making, certain that he +would have sufficient wit, or culture, to interpret rightly its +fantastic phrases. Look at the history of that letter! It passes from +you into the hands of a loathsome companion[51], from him to a gang of +blackmailers, copies of it are sent about London to my friends, and to +the manager[52] of the theatre where my work is being performed, every +construction but the right one is put on it, society is thrilled with +the absurd rumours that I have had to pay a high sum of money for having +written an infamous letter to you; this forms the basis of your father's +worst attack. + +I produce the original letter myself in court to show what it really is; +it is denounced by your father's counsel as a revolting and insidious +attempt to corrupt innocence; ultimately it forms part of a criminal +charge; the crown takes it up; the judge sums up on it with little +learning and much morality; I go to prison for it at last. That is the +result of writing you a charming letter. + +It makes me feel sometimes as if you yourself had been merely a puppet +worked by some secret and unseen hand to bring terrible events to a +terrible issue. But puppets themselves have passions. They will bring a +new plot into what they are presenting, and twist the ordered issue of +vicissitude to suit some whim or appetite of their own. To be entirely +free, and at the same time entirely dominated by law, is the eternal +paradox of human life that we realise at every moment; and this, I often +think, is the only explanation possible of your nature, if indeed for +the profound and terrible mystery of a human soul there is any +explanation at all, except one that makes the mystery all the more +marvellous still. + +I thought life was going to be a brilliant comedy, and that you were to +be one of the graceful figures in it. I found it to be a revolting and +repellent tragedy, and that the sinister occasion of the great +catastrophe, sinister in its concentration of aim and intensity of +narrowed will power, was yourself stripped of the mask of joy and +pleasure by which you, no less than I, had been deceived and led astray. + +The memory of our friendship is the shadow that walks with me here: that +seems never to leave me: that wakes me up at night to tell me the same +story over and over till its wearisome iteration makes all sleep abandon +me till dawn: at dawn it begins again: it follows me into the prison +yard and makes me talk to myself as I tramp round: each detail that +accompanied each dreadful moment I am forced to recall: there is nothing +that happened in those ill-starred years that I cannot recreate in that +chamber of the brain which is set apart for grief or for despair; every +strained note of your voice, every twitch and gesture of your nervous +hands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase comes back to me: I +remember the street or river down which we passed: the wall or woodland +that surrounded us; at what figure on the dial stood the hands of the +clock; which way went the wings of the wind, the shape and colour of the +moon. + +There is, I know, one answer to all that I have said to you, and that is +that you loved me: that all through those two and a half years during +which the fates were weaving into one scarlet pattern the threads of our +divided lives you really loved me. + +Though I saw quite clearly that my position in the world of art, the +interest that my personality had always excited, my money, the luxury in +which I lived, the thousand and one things that went to make up a life +so charmingly and so wonderfully improbable as mine was, were, each and +all of them, elements that fascinated you and made you cling to me; yet +besides all this there was something more, some strange attraction for +you: you loved me far better than you loved anyone else. But you, like +myself, have had a terrible tragedy in your life, though one of an +entirely opposite character to mine. Do you want to learn what it was? +It was this. In you, hate was always stronger than love. Your hatred[53] +of your father was of such stature that it entirely outstripped, +overgrew, and overshadowed your love of me. There was no struggle +between them at all, or but little; of such dimensions was your hatred +and of such monstrous growth. You did not realise that there was no room +for both passions in the same soul: they cannot live together in that +fair carven house. Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become +wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are; by which we +can see life as a whole; by which and by which alone, we can understand +others in their real as in their ideal relations. Only what is fine, and +finely conceived, can feed love. But anything will feed hate. There was +not a glass of champagne that you drank, not a rich dish that you ate of +in all those years, that did not feed your hate and make it fat. So to +gratify it, you gambled with my life, as you gambled with my money, +carelessly, recklessly, indifferent to the consequences. If you lost, +the loss would not, you fancied, be yours. If you won, yours, you knew, +would be the exultation and the advantages of victory. + +Hate blinds people. You were not aware of that. Love can read the +writing on the remotest star, but hate so blinded you that you could see +no further than the narrow, walled in, and already lust-withered garden +of your common desires. Your terrible lack of imagination, the one +really fatal defect in your character, was entirely the result of the +hate that lived in you. Subtly, silently, and in secret, hate gnawed at +your nature, as the lichen bites at the root of some sallow plant, till +you grew to see nothing but the most meagre interests and the most petty +aims. That faculty in you which love would have fostered, hate poisoned +and paralysed. + +The idea of your being the object of a terrible quarrel between your +father and a man of my position seemed to delight you. + +You scented the chance of a public scandal and flew to it. The prospect +of a battle in which you would be safe delighted you. + +You know what my art was to me, the great primal note by which I had +revealed, first myself to myself, and then myself to the world, the +great passion of my life, the love to which all other loves were as +marsh water to red wine, or the glow worm of the marsh to the magic +mirror of the moon.... Don't you understand now that your lack of +imagination was the one really fatal defect of your character? What you +had to do was quite simple, and quite clear before you; but hate had +blinded you, and you could see nothing. + +Life is quite lovely to you. And yet, if you are wise, and wish to find +life much lovelier still, and in a different manner you will let the +reading of this terrible letter--for such I know it is--prove to you as +important a crisis and turning point of your life as the writing of it +is to me. Your pale face used to flush easily with wine or pleasure. If, +as you read what is here written, it from time to time becomes scorched, +as though by a furnace blast, with shame, it will be all the better for +you. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right. + +How clearly I saw it then, as now, I need not tell you. But I said to +myself, "At all costs I must keep love in my heart. If I go into prison +without love, what will become of my soul?" The letters I wrote to you +at that time from Holloway were my efforts to keep love as the dominant +note of my own nature. I could, if I had chosen, have torn you to pieces +with bitter reproaches. I could have rent you with maledictions. + +The sins of another were being placed to my account. Had I so chosen, I +could on either trial have saved myself at his expense, not from shame +indeed, but from imprisonment.[54] Had I cared to show that the crown +witnesses--the three most important--had been carefully coached by your +father and his solicitors, not in reticences merely, but in assertions, +in the absolute transference deliberate, plotted, and rehearsed, of the +actions and doings of someone else on to me, I could have had each one +of them dismissed from the box by the judge, more summarily than even +wretched perjured Atkins was. I could have walked out of court with my +tongue in my cheek, and my hands in my pockets, a free man. The +strongest pressure was put upon me to do so, I was earnestly advised, +begged, entreated to do so by people, whose sole interest was my +welfare, and the welfare of my house. But I refused. I did not choose to +do so. I have never regretted my decision for a single moment, even in +the most bitter periods of my imprisonment. Such a course of action +would have been beneath me. Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are +maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured. Sins of the +soul alone are shameful. To have secured my acquittal by such means +would have been a life-long torture to me. But do you really think that +you were worthy of the love I was showing you then, or that for a single +moment I thought you were? Do you really think that any period of our +friendship you were worthy of the love I showed you, or that for a +single moment I thought you were? I knew you were not. But love does not +traffic in a market place, nor use a huckster's scales. Its joy, like +the joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive. The aim of love is to +love; no more, and no less. You were my enemy; such an enemy as no man +ever had. I had given you my life; and to gratify the lowest and most +contemptible of all human passions, hatred and vanity and greed, you had +thrown it away. In less than three years you had entirely ruined me from +every point of view. + +After my terrible sentence, when the prison dress was on me, and the +prison house closed, I sat amidst the ruins of my wonderful life, +crushed by anguish, bewildered with terror, dazed through pain. But I +would not hate you. Every day I said to myself, "I must keep love in my +heart to-day, else how shall I live through the day?" I reminded myself +that you meant no evil to me at any rate.... + +It all flashed across me, and I remember that for the first and last +time in my entire prison life, I laughed. In that laugh was all the +scorn of all the world. Prince Fleur de lys! I saw that nothing that had +happened had made you realise a single thing. You were, in your own +eyes, still the graceful prince of a trivial comedy, not the sombre +figure of a tragic show. + +Had there been nothing in your heart to cry out against so vulgar a +sacrilege, you might at least have remembered the sonnet he wrote who +saw with such sorrow and scorn the letters of John Keats sold by public +auction in London, and have understood at last the real meaning of my +lines: + + "... I think they love not art + Who break the crystal of a poet's heart + That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat." + +One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed on one, nor rise +up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul. + +I cannot allow you to go through life bearing in your heart the burden +of having ruined a man like me. + +Does it ever occur to you what an awful position I would have been in +if, for the last two years, during my appalling sentence, I had been +dependent on you as a friend? Do you ever think of that? Do you ever +feel any gratitude to those who by kindness without stint, devotion +without limit, cheerfulness and joy in giving, have lightened my black +burden for me, have arranged my future life for me, have visited me +again and again, have written to me beautiful and sympathetic letters, +have managed my affairs for me, have stood by me in the teeth of +obloquy, taunt, open sneer or insult even? I thank God every day that he +gave me friends other than you. I owe everything to them. The very books +in my cell are paid for by Robbie out of his pocket money. From the same +source[55] are to come clothes for me when I am released. I am not +ashamed of taking a thing that is given by love and affection. I am +proud of it. But do you ever think of what friends such as More Adey, +Robbie, Robert Sherard, Frank Harris, and Arthur Clifton have been to me +in giving me comfort, help, affection, sympathy and the like?... + +I know that your mother, Lady Queensberry, puts the blame on me. I hear +of it, not from people who know you, but from people who do not know +you, and do not desire to know you. I hear of it often. She talks of the +influence of an elder over a younger man, for instance. It is one of her +favourite attitudes towards the question, as it is always a successful +appeal to popular prejudice and ignorance. I need not ask you what +influence I had over you. You know I had none. + +It was one of your frequent boasts that I had none, the only one indeed, +that was well founded. What was there, as a mere matter of fact, in you +that I could influence? Your brain? It was undeveloped. Your +imagination? It was dead. Your heart? It was not yet born. Of all the +people who have ever crossed my life, you were the one, and the only +one, I was unable in any way to influence in any direction. + +I waited month after month to hear from you. Even if I had not been +waiting but had shut the doors against you, you should have remembered +that no one can possibly shut the doors against love forever. The unjust +judge in the gospels rises up at length to give a just decision because +justice comes daily knocking at his door: and at night time the friend, +in whose heart there is no real friendship, yields at length to his +friend "because of his importunity." There is no prison in any world +into which love cannot force an entrance. If you did not understand +that, you did not understand anything about love at all.... + +Write to me with full frankness, about yourself: about your life: your +friends: your occupations: your books. Whatever you have to say for +yourself, say it without fear. Don't write what you don't mean: that is +all. If anything in your letter is false or counterfeit I shall detect +it by the ring at once. It is not for nothing, or to no purpose that in +my lifelong cult of literature, I have made myself, + + "Miser of sound and syllable, no less + Than Midas of his coinage." + +Remember also that I have yet to know you. Perhaps we have yet to know +each other. For myself, I have but this last thing to say. Do not be +afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, do not +believe them. The past, the present and the future are but one moment in +the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, +succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of a thought. +The imagination can transcend them and more, in a free sphere of ideal +existences. Things, also, are in their essence what we choose to make +them. A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at it. "Where +others," says Blake, "see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the +sons of God shouting for joy." What seemed to the world and to myself my +future I lost irretrievably when I let myself be taunted into taking the +action against your father, had, I daresay, lost in reality long before +that. What lies before me is the past. I have got to make myself look on +that with different eyes, to make the world look on it with different +eyes, to make God look on it with different eyes. This I cannot do by +ignoring it, or slighting it, or praising it, or denying it. It is only +to be done fully by accepting it as an inevitable part of the evolution +of my life and character: by bowing my head to everything that I have +suffered. + +How far I am away from the true temper of soul, this letter in its +changing, uncertain moods, its scorn and bitterness, its aspirations and +its failures to realise those aspirations shows you quite clearly. But +do not forget in what a terrible school I am setting at my task. And +incomplete, imperfect, as I am, yet from me you may have still much to +gain. You came to me to learn the pleasure of life and the pleasure of +art. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something much more wonderful, the +meaning of sorrow and its beauty. + +Your affectionate friend, + +OSCAR WILDE. + + +This letter of Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas is curiously +self-revealing and characteristic. While reading it one should recall +Oscar's provocation. Lord Alfred Douglas had driven him to the +prosecution, and then deserted him and left him in prison without using +his influence to mitigate his friend's suffering or his pen to console +and encourage him. The abandonment was heartless and complete. The +letter, however, is vindictive: in spite of its intimate revelations +Oscar took care that his indictment should be made public. The flagrant +self-deceptions of the plea show its sincerity: Oscar even accuses young +Alfred Douglas of having induced him to eat and drink too much. + +The tap-root of the letter is a colossal vanity; the bitterness of it, +wounded egotism; the falseness of it, a self-righteous pose of ineffable +superiority as of a superman. Oscar denies to Alfred Douglas +imagination, scholarship, or even a knowledge of poetry: he tells him in +so many words:--he is without brain or heart. Then why did he allow +himself to be hag-ridden to his ruin by such a creature? + +Yet how human the letter is, how pathetic! + + +OSCAR WILDE'S KINDNESS OF HEART + +Here is a note which Oscar Wilde wrote to Warder Martin towards the end +of his imprisonment in Reading Gaol. Warder Martin, it will be +remembered, was dismissed from his post for having given some sweet +biscuits, bought with his own money, to some hungry little children +confined in the prison. + +Wilde happened to see the children and immediately wrote this note on a +scrap of paper and slipped it under his door so that it should catch +Warder Martin's eye as he patrolled the corridor. + + Please find out for me the name of A.2.11. Also, the names of + the children who are in for the rabbits, and the amount of the + fine. + + Can I pay this and get them out? If so I will get them out + tomorrow. Please, dear friend, do this for me. I must get them + out. + + Think what a thing for me it would be to be able to help three + little children. I would be delighted beyond words: if I can + do this by paying the fine tell the children that they are to + be released tomorrow by a friend, and ask them to be happy and + not to tell anyone. + +Here is a second note which shows Oscar's peculiar sensitiveness; what +is ugly and terrible cannot, he thinks, furnish even the subject of art; +he shrinks from whatever gives pain. + + I hope to write about prison-life and to try and change it for + others, but it is too terrible and ugly to make a work of art + of. I have suffered too much in it to write plays about it. + +A third note simply thanks Warder Martin for all his kindness. It ends +with the words: + + ... Everyone tells me I am looking better and happier. + + This is because I have a good friend who gives me _The + Chronicle_ and PROMISES me ginger biscuits. O.W. + + +MY COLDNESS TOWARDS OSCAR IN 1897 + +(See page 408) + +When I talked with Oscar in Reading Gaol, he told me that the only +reason he didn't write was that no one would accept his work. I assured +him that I would publish it in _The Saturday Review_ and would pay for +it not only at the rate I paid Bernard Shaw but also if it increased the +sale of the journal I'd try to compute its value to the paper and give +him that besides. He told me that was too liberal; he would be quite +content with what I paid Shaw: he feared that no one else in England +would ever publish his work again. + +He promised to send me the book "De Profundis" as soon as it was +finished. Just before his release his friend, Mr. More Adey, called upon +me and wanted to know whether I would publish Oscar's work. I said I +would. He then asked me what I would give for it. I told him I didn't +want to make anything out of Oscar and would give him as much as I +could, rehearsing the proposal I had made to Oscar. Thereupon he told me +Oscar would prefer a fixed price. I thought the answer extraordinary and +the gentle, urbane manner of Mr. More Adey, whom I hardly knew at that +time and misunderstood, got on my nerves. I replied curtly that before I +could state a price, I'd have to see the work, adding at the same time +that I had wished to do Oscar a good turn, but, if he could find another +publisher, I'd be delighted. Mr. More Adey assured me that there was +nothing in the book to which any prude even could object, no _arriere +pensee_ of any kind, and so forth and so on. I answered with a jest, a +wretched play on his French phrase. + +That night I happened to dine with Whistler and telling him of what had +occurred called forth a most stinging gibe at Oscar's expense. +Whistler's _mot_ cannot be published. + +A week or two later Oscar asked me to get him some clothes, which I did +and on his release sent them to him, and received in reply a letter +thanking me which I reproduce on page 583. + +In that same talk with Oscar in Reading Gaol, I was so desirous of +helping him that I proposed a driving tour through France. I told him of +one I had made a couple of years before which was full of delightful +episodes--an entrancing holiday. He jumped at the idea, said nothing +would please him better, he would feel safe with me, and so forth. In +order to carry out the idea in the best way I ordered an American mail +phaeton so that a pair of horses would find the load, even with luggage, +ridiculously light. I asked Mr. More Adey whether Oscar had spoken to +him of this proposed trip: he told me he had heard nothing of it. + +In one letter to me Oscar asked me to postpone the tour; afterwards he +never mentioned it. I thought I had been treated rather cavalierly. As I +had gone to some expense in getting everything ready and making myself +free, I, no doubt, expressed some amazement at Oscar's silence on the +matter. At any rate the idea got about that I was angry with him, and +Oscar believed it. Nothing could have been further from the truth. What +I had done and proposed was simply in his interest: I expected no +benefit of any kind and therefore could not be cross; but the belief +that I was angry drew this sincere and touching letter from Oscar, which +I think shows him almost as perfectly as that still more beautiful +letter to Robert Ross which I have inserted in Chapter XIX. + + +From +M. Sebastian Melmoth, +Hotel de la Plage, +Bernavol-sur-Mer, +Dieppe. + +June 13, '97 + +MY DEAR FRANK: + +I know you do not like writing letters, but still I think you might have +written me a line in answer, or acknowledgment of my letter[56] to you +from Dieppe. I am thinking of a story to be called "The Silence of Frank +Harris." + +I have, however, heard during the last few days that you do not speak of +me in the friendly manner I would like. This distresses me very much. + +I am told that you are hurt with me because my letter of thanks to you +was not sufficiently elaborated in expression. This I can hardly credit. +It seems so unworthy of a big strong nature like yours, that knows the +realities of life. I told you I was grateful to you for your kindness to +me. Words, _now_, to me signify things, actualities, real emotions, +realised thoughts. I learnt in prison to be grateful. I used to think +gratitude a burden. Now I know that it is something that makes life +lighter as well as lovelier for one. I am grateful for a thousand +things, from my good friends down to the sun and the sea. But I cannot +say more than that I am grateful. I cannot make phrases about it. For +_me_ to use such a word shows an enormous development in my nature. Two +years ago I did not know the feeling the word denotes. Now I know it, +and I am thankful that I have learnt that much, at any rate, by having +been in prison. But I must say again that I no longer make _roulades_ of +phrases about the deep things I feel. When I write directly to you, I +speak directly: violin variations don't interest me. I am grateful to +you. If that does not content you, then you do not understand, what you +of all men should understand, how sincerity of feeling expresses itself. +But I dare say the story told of you is untrue. It comes from so many +quarters that it probably is. + +I am told also that you are hurt[57] because I did not go on the +driving-tour with you. You should understand, that in telling you that +it was impossible for me to do so, I was thinking as much of _you_ as of +myself. To think of the feelings and happiness of others is not an +entirely new emotion in my nature. I would be unjust to myself and my +friends, if I said it was. But I think of those things far more than I +used to do. If I had gone with you, you would not have been happy, nor +enjoyed yourself. Nor would I. You must try to realise what two years +cellular confinement is, and what two years of absolute silence means +to a man of my intellectual power. To have survived at all--to have come +out sane in mind and sound of body--is a thing so marvellous to me, that +it seems to me sometimes, not that the age of miracles is over, but that +it is just beginning; that there are powers in God, and powers in man, +of which the world has up to the present known little. But while I am +cheerful, happy, and have sustained to the full that passionate interest +in life and art that was the dominant chord of my nature, and made all +modes of existence and all forms of expression utterly fascinating to me +always--still I need rest, quiet, and often complete solitude. Friends +have come to see me here for a day, and have been delighted to find me +like my old self, in all intellectual energy and sensitiveness to the +play of life, but it has always proved afterwards to have been a strain +upon a nervous force, much of which has been destroyed. I have now no +_storage_[58] of nervous force. When I expend what I have, in an +afternoon, nothing remains. I look to quiet, to a simple mode of +existence, to nature in all the infinite meanings of an infinite word, +to charge the cells for me. Every day, if I meet a friend, or write a +letter longer than a few lines, or even read a book that makes, as all +fine books do, a direct claim on me, a direct appeal, an intellectual +challenge of any kind, I am utterly exhausted in the evening, and often +sleep badly. And yet it is three whole weeks since I was released. + +Had I gone with you on the driving tour, where we would have of +necessity been in immediate contact with each other from dawn to sunset, +I would have certainly broken off the tour the third day, probably +broken down the second. You would have then found yourself in a pitiable +position: your tour would have been arrested at its outset: your +companion would have been ill without doubt: perhaps might have needed +care and attendance, in some little remote French village. You would +have given it to me, I know. But I felt it would have been wrong, +stupid, and thoughtless of me to have started an expedition doomed to +swift failure, and perhaps fraught with disaster and distress. You are a +man of dominant personality: your intellect is exigent, more so than +that of any man I ever knew: your demands on life are enormous: you +require response, or you annihilate: the pleasure of being with you is +in the clash of personality, the intellectual battle, the war of ideas. +To survive you, one must have a strong brain, an assertive ego, a +dynamic character. In your luncheon parties, in the old days, the +remains of the guests were taken away with the _debris_ of the feast. I +have often lunched with you in Park Lane and found myself the only +survivor. I might have driven on the white roads, or through the leafy +lanes, of France, with a fool, or with the wisest of all things, a +child: with you, it would have been impossible. You should thank me +sincerely for having saved you from an experience that each of us would +have always regretted. + +Will you ask me why then, when I was in prison, I accepted with grateful +thanks your offer? My dear Frank, I don't think you will ask so +thoughtless a question. The prisoner looks to liberty as an immediate +return to all his ancient energy, quickened into more vital forces by +long disuse. When he goes out, he finds he has still to suffer: his +punishment, as far as its effects go, lasts intellectually and +physically just as it lasts socially: he has still to pay: one gets no +receipt for the past when one walks out into the beautiful air.... + +I have now spent the whole of my Sunday afternoon--the first real day of +summer we have had--in writing to you this long letter of explanation. + +I have written directly and simply: I need not tell the author of "Elder +Conklin" that sweetness and simplicity of expression take more out of +one than fiddling harmonics on one string. I felt it my duty to write, +but it has been a distressing one. It would have been _better_ for me to +have lain in the brown grass on the cliff, or to have walked slowly by +the sea. It would have been kinder of you to have written to me directly +about whatever harsh or hurt feelings you may have about me. It would +have saved me an afternoon of strain, and tension. + +But I have something more to say. It is pleasanter to me, now, to write +about others, than about myself. + +The enclosed is from a brother prisoner of mine: released June 4th: pray +read it: you will see his age, offence, and aim in life. + +If you can give him a trial, do so. If you see your way to this kind +action, and write to him to come and see you, kindly state in your +letter that it is about a situation. He may think otherwise that it is +about the flogging of A.2.11., a thing that does not interest _you_, +and about which _he_ is a little afraid to talk. + +If the result of this long letter will be that you will help this fellow +prisoner of mine to a place in your service, I shall consider my +afternoon better spent than any afternoon for the last two years, and +three weeks. + +In any case I have now written to you fully on all things as reported to +me. + +I again assure you of my gratitude for your kindness to me during my +imprisonment, and on my release. + +And am always + +Your sincere friend and admirer + +OSCAR WILDE. + +_With regard to Lawley_ + +All soldiers are neat, and smart, and make capital servants. He would be +a good _groom_: he is, I believe, a 3rd Hussars man--he was a quiet, +well-conducted chap in Reading always. + + +Naturally I replied to this letter at once, saying that he had been +misinformed, that I was not angry and if I could do anything for him I +should be delighted: I did my best, too, for Lawley. + +Here is his letter of thanks to me for helping him when he came out of +prison. + + +Sandwich Hotel, +Dieppe. + +MY DEAR FRANK: + +Just a line to thank you for your great kindness to me--for the lovely +clothes, and for the generous cheque. + +You have been a real good friend to me--and I shall never forget your +kindness: to remember such a debt as mine to you--a debt of kind +fellowship--is a pleasure. + +About our tour--later on let us think about it. My friends have been so +kind to me here that I am feeling happy already. + +Yours, + +OSCAR WILDE. + +If you write to me please do so under cover to R.B. Ross, who is here +with me. + + +In the next letter of his which I have kept Oscar is perfectly friendly +again; he tells me that he is "entirely without money, having received +nothing from his Trustees for months," and asks me for even L5, adding, +"I drift in ridiculous impecuniosity without a sou." + + +THE MYSTERY OF PERSONALITY + +I transcribe here another letter of Oscar to me from the second year +after his release to show his interest in all intellectual things and +for a flash of characteristic humour at the expense of the Paris police. +The envelope is dated October 13, 1898:-- + + +From +M. Sebastian Melmoth, +Hotel d'Alsace, +Rue des Beaux-arts, +Paris. + +MY DEAR FRANK: + +How are you? I read your appreciation of Rodin's "Balzac" with intensest +pleasure, and I am looking forward to more Shakespeare--you will of +course put all your Shakespearean essays into a book, and, equally of +course, I must have a copy. It is a great era in Shakespearean +criticism--the first time that one has looked in the plays not for +philosophy, for there is none, but for the wonder of a great +personality--something far better, and far more mysterious than any +philosophy--it is a great thing that you have done. I remember writing +once in "Intentions" that the more objective a work of art is in form, +the more subjective it really is in matter--and that it is only when you +give the poet a mask that he can tell you the truth. But you have shown +it fully in the case of the one artist whose personality was supposed to +be a mystery of deep seas, a secret as impenetrable as the secret of the +moon. + +Paris is terrible in its heat. I walk in streets of brass, and there is +no one here. Even the criminal classes have gone to the seaside, and the +gendarmes yawn and regret their enforced idleness. Giving wrong +directions to the English tourists is the only thing that consoles them. + +You were most kind and generous last month in letting me have a +cheque--it gives me just the margin to live on and to live by. May I +have it again this month? or has gold flown away from you? + +Ever yours, + +OSCAR. + + +THE DEDICATION OF "AN IDEAL HUSBAND" + +I received the following letter from Oscar early in 1899 I imagine. It +was written in the spring after the winter we spent in La Napoule. + + +From M. Sebastian Melmoth, +Gland, +Canton Vaud, +Switzerland. + +MY DEAR FRANK: + +I am, as you see from above, in Switzerland with M----: a rather +dreadful combination: the villa is pretty, and on the borders of the +lake with pretty pines about: on the other side are the mountains of +Savoy and Mont Blanc: we are an hour, by a slow train, from Geneva. But +M----is tedious, and lacks conversation: also he gives me Swiss wine to +drink: it is horrible: he occupies himself with small economies, and +mean domestic interests, so I suffer very much. _Ennui_ is the enemy. + +I want to know if you will allow me to dedicate to you my next play, +"The Ideal Husband"--which Smithers is bringing out for me in the same +form as the others, of which I hope you received your copy. I should so +much like to write your name and a few words on the dedicatory page. + +I look back with joy and regret to the lovely sunlight of the Riviera, +and the charming winter you so generously and kindly gave me: it was +most good of you: how can it ever be forgotten by me. + +Next week a petroleum launch is to arrive here, so that will console me +a little, as I love to be on the water: and the Savoy side is starred +with pretty villages and green valleys. + +Of course we won our bet--the phrase on Shelley is in Arnold's preface +to Byron: but M---- won't pay me! He suffers agony over a franc. It is +very annoying as I have had no money since my arrival here. However I +regard the place as a Swiss Pension--where there is no weekly bill.... + +Ever yours, + +OSCAR. + + +I believe I answered; but am not sure. I was naturally delighted to have +just "An Ideal Husband" dedicated to me, because I had suggested the +plot of it to Oscar--not that the plot was in any true sense mine. An +interesting and clever American in Cairo, a Mr. Cope Whitehouse, had +given it to me as I tell in this book. The story Whitehouse told may not +be true; but my mind jumped at once to the thought of a story where an +English Minister would be confronted with some early sin of that sort. I +had hardly bettered the story given to me when I related it to Oscar who +used it almost immediately with great effect. Dedicatory words are +usually as flattering as epitaphs; those of "An Ideal Husband" run: + + TO + + FRANK HARRIS + + A SLIGHT TRIBUTE TO + + HIS POWER AND DISTINCTION + + AS AN ARTIST + + HIS CHIVALRY AND NOBILITY + + AS A FRIEND + + +MRS. WILDE'S EPITAPH + +(See page 447) + +An evil fate seems to have pursued even Oscar's wife. She died in Genoa +and was buried in the corner of the Campo Santo set apart for +Protestants. This is what one reads on her tombstone: + + CONSTANCE + + DAUGHTER OF THE LATE + + HORATIO LLOYD, Q.C. + + BORN ---- DIED ---- + +No reference to her marriage or to the famous man who was the father of +her two sons. + +The irony of chance wills it that the late Horatio Lloyd, Q.C., had been +more than suspected of sexual viciousness: cfr. "Criticisms by Robert +Ross" at end of Appendix. + + +SONNET + +(See page 517) + +TO OSCAR WILDE + + I dreamed of you last night, I saw your face + All radiant and unshadowed of distress, + And as of old, in measured tunefulness, + I heard your golden voice and marked you trace + Under the common thing the hidden grace, + And conjure wonder out of emptiness, + Till mean things put on Beauty like a dress, + And all the world was an enchanted place. + + And so I knew that it was well with you, + And that unprisoned, gloriously free, + Across the dark you stretched me out your hand. + And all the spite of this besotted crew, + (Scrabbling on pillars of Eternity) + How small it seems! Love made me understand. + +ALFRED DOUGLAS. + +December 10, 1900. + + +Whoever chooses to compare this first sketch of the sonnet of 1900 with +the sonnet as it was published in 1910 will remark three notable +differences. + +The first sketch was entitled "To Oscar Wilde," the revision to "The +Dead Poet." + +In the early draft, the first line: + +"I dreamed of you last night, I saw your face," has become less +intimate, having been changed into: + +"I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face." + +Finally the sextet which in the first sketch was very inferior to the +rest has now been discarded in favour of six lines which are worthy of +the octave. The published sonnet is assuredly superior to the first +sketch, superb though that was. + + +THE STORY OF "MR. AND MRS. DAVENTRY" + +(See page 534) + +There has been so much discussion about the play entitled "Mr. and Mrs. +Daventry," and Oscar Wilde's share in it, that I had better set forth +here briefly what happened. + +When I returned to London in the summer of 1899 after buying, as I +thought, all rights in the sketch of the scenario from Oscar, I wrote at +once the second, third and fourth acts of the play, as I had told Oscar +I would. I sent him what I had written and asked him to write the first +act as he had promised for the L50. + +Some time before this I had seen Mr. Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Patrick +Campbell in "Hamlet," and Mrs. Patrick Campbell's Ophelia had made a +deeper impression on me than even the Hamlet of Forbes Robertson. I +wished her to take my play, and as luck would have it, she had just gone +into management on her own account and leased the Royalty Theatre. + +I read her my play one afternoon, and at once she told me she would take +it; but I must write a first act. I told her that I was no good at +preliminary scenes and that Oscar Wilde had promised to write a first +act, which would, of course, enhance the value of the play enormously. + +To my surprise Mrs. Patrick Campbell would not hear of it: "Quite +impossible," she said, "a play's not a patchwork quilt; you must write +the first act yourself." + +"I must write to Oscar then," I replied, "and see whether he has +finished it already or not." + +Mrs. Campbell insisted that the play, if she was to accept it, must be +the work of one hand. I wrote to Oscar at once, asking him whether he +had written the first act, adding that if he had not written it and +would send me his idea of the scenario, I would write it. I was +overjoyed to tell him that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had provisionally +accepted the play. + +To my astonishment Oscar replied in evident ill-temper to say that he +could not write the first act, or the scenario, but at the same time he +hoped I would now send him some money for having helped to make my +_debut_ on the stage. + +I returned to tell Mrs. Campbell my disappointment and to see if she had +any idea of what she wanted in the first act. She was delighted with my +news, and said that all I had to do was to write an act introducing my +characters, and that I ought, for the sake of contrast, to give her a +mother. Some impish spirit suggested to me the idea of making a mother +much younger than her daughter, that is, a very flighty ordinary woman, +impulsive and feather-brained, with a mania for attending sales and +collecting odds and ends at bargain prices. Full of this idea I wrote +the first act off hand. + +Mrs. Patrick Campbell did not like it much, and in this, as indeed +always, showed excellent judgment and an extraordinary understanding of +the requirements of the stage; nevertheless she accepted the play and +settled terms. A little later I went to Leeds, where she was playing, +and read the play to her and her "Company." We discussed the cast, and I +suggested Mr. Kerr to play Mr. Daventry. Mrs. Patrick Campbell jumped at +the idea, and everything was settled. + +I wrote the good news to Oscar, and back came another letter from him, +more ill-tempered than the first, saying he had never thought I would +take his scenario; I had no right to touch it; but as I had taken it, I +must really pay him something substantial. + +The claim was absurd, but I hated to dispute with him or even appear to +bargain. + +I wrote to him that if I made anything out of the play I would send him +some more money. He replied that he was sure my play would be a failure; +but I ought to get a good sum down in advance of royalties from Mrs. +Patrick Campbell, and at once send him half of it. His letters were +childishly ill-conditioned and unreasonable; but, believing him to be in +extreme indigence, I felt too sorry for him even to argue the point. +Again and again I had helped him, and it seemed sordid and silly to hurt +our old friendship for money. I couldn't believe that he would talk of +my having done anything that I ought not to have done if we met, so as +soon as I could I crossed to Paris to have it out with him. + +To my astonishment I found him obdurate in his wrong-headedness. When I +asked him what he had sold me for the L50 I paid him, he coolly said he +didn't think I was serious, that no man would write a play on another +man's scenario; it was absurd, impossible--"_C'est ridicule!_" he +repeated again and again. When I reminded him that Shakespeare had done +it, he got angry: it was altogether different then--today: "_C'est +ridicule!_" Tired of going over and over the old ground I pressed him to +tell me what he wanted. For hours he wouldn't say: then at length he +declared he ought to have half of all the play fetched, and even that +wouldn't be fair to him, as he was a dramatist and I was not, and I +ought not to have touched his scenario and so on, over and over again. + +I returned to my hotel wearied in heart and head by his ridiculous +demands and reiterations. After thrashing the beaten straw to dust on +the following day, I agreed at length to give him another L50 down and +another L50 later. Even then he pretended to be very sorry indeed that I +had taken what he called "his play," and assured me in the same breath +that "Mr. and Mrs. Daventry" would be a rank failure: "Plays cannot be +written by amateurs; plays require knowledge of the stage. It's quite +absurd of you, Frank, who hardly ever go to the theatre, to think you +can write a successful play straight off. I always loved the theatre, +always went to every first night in London, have the stage in my blood," +and so forth and so on. I could not help recalling what he had told me +years before, that when he had to write his first play for George +Alexander, he shut himself up for a fortnight with the most successful +modern French plays, and so learned his _metier_. + +Next day I returned to London, understanding now something of the +unreasonable persistence in begging which had aroused Lord Alfred +Douglas' rage. + +As soon as my play was advertised a crowd of people confronted me with +claims I had never expected. Mrs. Brown Potter wrote to me saying that +some years before she had bought a play from Oscar Wilde which he had +not delivered, and as she understood that I was bringing it out, she +hoped I would give it to her to stage. I replied saying that Oscar had +not written a word of my play. She wrote again, saying that she had paid +L100 for the scenario: would I see Mr. Kyrle Bellew on the matter? I saw +them both a dozen times; but came to no decision. + +While these negotiations were going on, a host of other Richmonds came +into the field. Horace Sedger had also bought the same scenario, and +then in quick succession it appeared that Tree and Alexander and Ada +Rehan had also paid for the same privilege. When I wrote to Oscar about +this expressing my surprise he replied coolly that he could have gone on +selling the play now to French managers, and later to German managers, +if I had not interfered: "You have deprived me of a certain income:" was +his argument, "and therefore you owe me more than you will ever get from +the play, which is sure to fall flat." + +A little later Miss Nethersole presented herself, and when I would not +yield to her demands, went to Paris, and Oscar wrote to me saying she +ought to stage the piece as she would do it splendidly, or at least I +should repay her the money she had advanced to him. + +This letter showed me that Oscar had not only deceived me, but, for some +cause or other, some pricking of vanity I couldn't understand, was +willing to embarrass me as much as possible without any scruple. + +Finally Smithers, the publisher of three of Oscar's books, whom I knew +to be a real friend of Oscar, came to me with a still more appealing +story. When Oscar was in Italy, and in absolute need, Smithers got a man +named Roberts to advance L100 on the scenario. I found that Oscar had +written out the whole scenario for him and outlined the characters of +his drama. This was evidently the completest claim that had yet been +brought before me: it was also, Smithers proved, the earliest, and +Smithers himself was in dire need. I wrote to Oscar that I thought +Smithers had the best claim because he was the first buyer, and +certainly ought to have something. Oscar replied, begging me not to be +a fool: to send him the money and tell Smithers to go to Sheol. +Thereupon I told Smithers I could not afford to give him any money at +the moment; but if the play was a success he should have something out +of it. + +The play was a success: it was stopped for a week by Queen Victoria's +death, in January, and was, I think, the only play that survived that +ordeal. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was good enough to allow me to rewrite the +first act for the fiftieth performance, and it ran, if I remember +rightly, some 130 nights. About the twentieth representation I paid +Smithers. + +For the first weeks of the run I was bombarded with letters from Oscar, +begging money and demanding money in every tone. He made nothing of the +fact that I had already paid him three times the price agreed upon, and +paid Smithers to boot, and lost through his previous sales of the +scenario whatever little repute the success of the piece might have +brought me. Nine people out of ten believed that Oscar had written the +play and that I had merely lent my name to the production in order to +enable him, as a bankrupt, to receive the money from it. Even men of +letters deceived themselves in this way. George Moore told Bernard Shaw +that he recognised Oscar's hand in the writing again and again, though +Shaw himself was far too keen-witted to be so misled. As a matter of +fact Oscar did not write a word of the play and the characters he +sketched for Smithers and Roberts were altogether different from mine +and were not known to me when I wrote my story. + +I have set forth the bare facts of the affair here because Oscar managed +to half-persuade Ross and Turner and other friends that I owed him money +which I would not pay; though Ross had discounted most of his +complaints, even before hearing my side. + +Oscar got me over to Paris in September under the pretext that he was +ill; but I found him as well as could be, and anxious merely to get more +money out of me by any means. I put it all down to his poverty. I did +not then know that Ross was giving him L150 a year; that indeed all his +friends had helped him and were helping him with singular generosity, +and I recalled the fact that when he had had money he never showed any +meanness, or any desire to over-reach. Want is a dreadful teacher, and I +did not hold Oscar altogether responsible for his weird attitude to me +personally. + + +OSCAR'S LAST DAYS! + +LETTER FROM ROBERT ROSS TO ---- + +Dec. 14th, 1900. + +On Tuesday, October 9th, I wrote to Oscar, from whom I had not heard for +some time, that I would be in Paris on Thursday, October the 18th, for a +few days, when I hoped to see him. On Thursday, October 11th, I got a +telegram from him as follows:--"Operated on yesterday--come over as soon +as possible." I wired that I would endeavour to do so. A wire came in +response, "Terribly weak--please come." I started on the evening of +Tuesday, October 16th. On Wednesday morning I went to see him about +10.30. He was in very good spirits; and though he assured me his +sufferings were dreadful, at the same time he shouted with laughter and +told many stories against the doctors and himself. I stayed until 12.30 +and returned about 4.30, when Oscar recounted his grievances about the +Harris play. Oscar, of course, had deceived Harris about the whole +matter--as far as I could make out the story--Harris wrote the play +under the impression that only Sedger had to be bought off at L100, +which Oscar had received in advance for the commission; whereas Kyrle +Bellew, Louis Nethersole, Ada Rehan, and even Smithers, had all given +Oscar L100 on different occasions, and all threatened Harris with +proceedings--Harris, therefore, only gave Oscar L50 on account,[59] as +he was obliged to square these people first--hence Oscar's grievance. +When I pointed out to him that he was in a much better position than +formerly, because Harris, at any rate, would eventually pay off the +people who had advanced money and that Oscar would eventually get +something himself, he replied in the characteristic way, "Frank has +deprived me of my only source of income by taking a play on which I +could always have raised L100." + +I continued to see Oscar every day until I left Paris. Reggie and myself +sometimes dined or lunched in his bedroom, when he was always very +talkative, although he looked very ill. On October 25th, my brother +Aleck came to see him, when Oscar was in particularly good form. His +sister-in-law, Mrs. Willie, and her husband, Texeira, were then passing +through Paris on their honeymoon, and came at the same time. On this +occasion he said he was "dying above his means" ... he would never +outlive the century ... the English people would not stand him--he was +responsible for the failure of the Exhibition, the English having gone +away when they saw him there so well-dressed and happy ... all the +French people knew this, too, and would not stand him any more.... On +October the 29th, Oscar got up for the first time at mid-day, and after +dinner in the evening insisted on going out--he assured me that the +doctor had said he might do so and would not listen to any protest. + +I had urged him to get up some days before as the doctor said he might +do so, but he had hitherto refused. We went to a small cafe in the Latin +Quartier, where he insisted on drinking absinthe. He walked there and +back with some difficulty, but seemed fairly well. Only I thought he had +suddenly aged in face, and remarked to Reggie next day how different he +looked when up and dressed. He appeared _comparatively_ well in bed. (I +noticed for the first time that his hair was slightly tinged with grey. +I had always remarked that his hair had never altered its colour while +he was in Reading;[60] it retained its soft brown tone. You must +remember the jests he used to make about it, he always amused the +warders by saying that his hair was perfectly white.) Next day I was not +surprised to find Oscar suffering with a cold and great pain in his ear; +however, Dr. Tucker said he might go out again, and the following +afternoon, a very mild day, we drove in the Bois. Oscar was much +better, but complained of giddiness; we returned about 4.30. On Saturday +morning, November 3rd, I met the Panseur Hennion (Reggie always called +him the Libre Penseur), he came every day to dress Oscar's wounds. He +asked me if I was a great friend or knew Oscar's relatives. He assured +me that Oscar's general condition was very serious--that he could not +live more than three or four months unless he altered his way of +life--that I ought to speak to Dr. Tucker, who did not realise Oscar's +serious state--that the ear trouble was not of much importance in +itself, but a grave symptom. On Sunday morning I saw Dr. Tucker--he is a +silly, kind, excellent man; he said Oscar ought to write more--that he +was much better, and that his condition would only become serious when +he got up and went about in the usual way. I begged him to be frank. He +promised to ask Oscar if he might talk to me openly on the subject of +Oscar's health. I saw him on the Tuesday following by appointment; he +was very vague; and though he endorsed Hennion's view to some extent, +said that Oscar was getting well now, though he could not live long +unless he stopped drinking. On going to see Oscar later in the day I +found him very agitated. He said he did not want to know what the doctor +had told me. He said he did not care if he had only a short time to live +and then went off on to the subject of his debts, which I gather +amounted to something over more than L400.[61] He asked me to see that +at all events some of them were paid if I was in a position to do so +after he was dead; he suffered remorse about some of his creditors. +Reggie came in shortly afterwards much to my relief. Oscar told us that +he had had a horrible dream the previous night--"that he had been +supping with the dead." Reggie made a very typical response, "My dear +Oscar, you were probably the life and soul of the party." This delighted +Oscar, who became high-spirited again, almost hysterical. I left feeling +rather anxious. That night I wrote to Douglas saying that I was +compelled to leave Paris--that the doctor thought Oscar very ill--that +---- ought to pay some of his bills as they worried him very much, and +the matter was retarding his recovery--a great point made by Dr. Tucker. +On November 2nd, All Souls' Day, I had gone to Pere la Chaise with ----. +Oscar was much interested and asked me if I had chosen a place for his +tomb. He discussed epitaphs in a perfectly light-hearted way, and I +never dreamt he was so near death. + +On Monday, November 12th, I went to the Hotel d'Alsace with Reggie to +say good-bye, as I was leaving for the Riviera next day. It was late in +the evening after dinner. Oscar went all over his financial troubles. He +had just had a letter from Harris about the Smithers claim, and was much +upset; his speech seemed to me a little thick, but he had been given +morphia the previous night, and he always drank too much champagne +during the day. He knew I was coming to say good-bye, but paid little +attention when I entered the room, which at the time I thought rather +strange; he addressed all his observations to Reggie. While we were +talking, the post arrived with a very nice letter from Alfred Douglas, +enclosing a cheque. It was partly in response to my letter I think. +Oscar wept a little but soon recovered himself. Then we all had a +friendly discussion, during which Oscar walked around the room and +declaimed in rather an excited way. About 10.30 I got up to go. Suddenly +Oscar asked Reggie and the nurse to leave the room for a minute, as he +wanted to say good-bye. He rambled at first about his debts in Paris: +and then he implored me not to go away, because he felt that a great +change had come over him during the last few days. I adopted a rather +stern attitude, as I really thought that Oscar was simply hysterical, +though I knew that he was genuinely upset at my departure. Suddenly he +broke into a violent sobbing, and said he would never see me again +because he felt that everything was at an end--this very painful +incident lasted about three-quarters of an hour. + +He talked about various things which I can scarcely repeat here. Though +it was very harrowing, I really did not attach any importance to my +farewell, and I did not respond to poor Oscar's emotion as I ought to +have done, especially as he said, when I was going out of the room, +"Look out for some little cup in the hills near Nice where I can go when +I am better, and where you can come and see me often." Those were the +last articulate words he ever spoke to me. + +I left for Nice the following evening, November 13th. + +During my absence Reggie went every day to see Oscar, and wrote me short +bulletins every other day. Oscar went out several times with him +driving, and seemed much better. On Tuesday, November 27th, I received +the first of Reggie's letters, which I enclose (the others came after I +had started), and I started back for Paris; I send them because they +will give you a very good idea of how things stood. I had decided that +when I had moved my mother to Mentone on the following Friday, I would +go to Paris on Saturday, but on the Wednesday evening, at five-thirty, I +got a telegram from Reggie saying, "Almost hopeless." I just caught the +express and arrived in Paris at 10.20 in the morning. Dr. Tucker and Dr. +Kleiss, a specialist called in by Reggie, were there. They informed me +that Oscar could not live for more than two days. His appearance was +very painful, he had become quite thin, the flesh was livid, his +breathing heavy. He was trying to speak. He was conscious that people +were in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether he +understood. He pressed our hands. I then went in search of a priest, and +after great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunn, of the Passionists, +who came with me at once and administered Baptism and Extreme +Unction--Oscar could not take the Eucharist. You know I had always +promised to bring a priest to Oscar when he was dying, and I felt rather +guilty that I had so often dissuaded him from becoming a Catholic, but +you know my reasons for doing so. I then sent wires to Frank Harris, to +Holman (for communicating with Adrian Hope) and to Douglas. Tucker +called again later and said that Oscar might linger a few days. A _garde +malade_ was requisitioned as the nurse had been rather overworked. + +Terrible offices had to be carried out into which I need not enter. +Reggie was a perfect wreck. + +He and I slept at the Hotel d'Alsace that night in a room upstairs. We +were called twice by the nurse, who thought Oscar was actually dying. +About 5.30 in the morning a complete change came over him, the lines of +the face altered, and I believe what is called the death rattle began, +but I had never heard anything like it before; it sounded like the +horrible turning of a crank, and it never ceased until the end. His eyes +did not respond to the light test any longer. Foam and blood came from +his mouth, and had to be wiped away by someone standing by him all the +time. At 12 o'clock I went out to get some food, Reggie mounting guard. +He went out at 12.30. From 1 o'clock we did not leave the room; the +painful noise from the throat became louder and louder. Reggie and +myself destroyed letters to keep ourselves from breaking down. The two +nurses were out, and the proprietor of the hotel had come up to take +their place; at 1.45 the time of his breathing altered. I went to the +bedside and held his hand, his pulse began to flutter. He heaved a deep +sigh, the only natural one I had heard since I arrived, the limbs seemed +to stretch involuntarily, the breathing came fainter; he passed at 10 +minutes to 2 p.m. exactly. + +After washing and winding the body, and removing the appalling _debris_ +which had to be burnt, Reggie and myself and the proprietor started for +the Maine to make the official declaration. There is no use recounting +the tedious experiences which only make me angry to think about. The +excellent Dupoirier lost his head and complicated matters by making a +mystery over Oscar's name, though there was a difficulty, as Oscar was +registered under the name of Melmoth at the hotel, and it is contrary to +the French law to be under an assumed name in your hotel. From 3.30 till +5 p.m. we hung about the Maine and the Commissaire de Police offices. I +then got angry and insisted on going to Gesling, the undertaker to the +English Embassy, to whom Father Cuthbert had recommended me. After +settling matters with him I went off to find some nuns to watch the +body. I thought that in Paris of all places this would be quite easy, +but it was only after incredible difficulties I got two Franciscan +sisters. + +Gesling was most intelligent and promised to call at the Hotel d'Alsace +at 8 o'clock next morning. While Reggie stayed at the hotel interviewing +journalists and clamorous creditors, I started with Gesling to see +officials. We did not part till 1.30, so you can imagine the formalities +and oaths and exclamations and signing of papers. Dying in Paris is +really a very difficult and expensive luxury for a foreigner. + +It was in the afternoon the District Doctor called and asked if Oscar +had committed suicide or was murdered. He would not look at the signed +certificates of Kleiss and Tucker. Gesling had warned me the previous +evening that owing to the assumed name and Oscar's identity, the +authorities might insist on his body being taken to the Morgue. Of +course I was appalled at the prospect, it really seemed the final touch +of horror. After examining the body, and, indeed, everybody in the +hotel, and after a series of drinks and unseasonable jests, and a +liberal fee, the District Doctor consented to sign the permission for +burial. Then arrived some other revolting official; he asked how many +collars Oscar had, and the value of his umbrella. (This is quite true, +and not a mere exaggeration of mine.) Then various poets and literary +people called, Raymond de la Tailhade, Tardieu, Charles Sibleigh, Jehan +Rictus, Robert d'Humieres, George Sinclair, and various English people, +who gave assumed names, together with two veiled women. They were all +allowed to see the body when they signed their names.... + +I am glad to say dear Oscar looked calm and dignified, just as he did +when he came out of prison, and there was nothing at all horrible about +the body after it had been washed. Around his neck was the blessed +rosary which you gave me, and on the breast a Franciscan medal given me +by one of the nuns, a few flowers placed there by myself and an +anonymous friend who had brought some on behalf of the children, though +I do not suppose the children know that their father is dead. Of course +there was the usual crucifix, candles and holy water. + +Gesling had advised me to have the remains placed in the coffin at once, +as decomposition would begin very rapidly, and at 8.30 in the evening +the men came to screw it down. An unsuccessful photograph of Oscar was +taken by Maurice Gilbert at my request, the flashlight did not work +properly. Henri Davray came just before they had put on the lid. He was +very kind and nice. On Sunday, the next day, Alfred Douglas arrived, and +various people whom I do not know called. I expect most of them were +journalists. On Monday morning at 9 o'clock, the funeral started from +the hotel--we all walked to the Church of St. Germain des Pres behind +the hearse--Alfred Douglas, Reggie Turner and myself, Dupoirier, the +proprietor of the hotel, Henri the nurse, and Jules, the servant of the +hotel, Dr. Hennion and Maurice Gilbert, together with two strangers whom +I did not know. After a low mass, said by one of the vicaires at the +altar behind the sanctuary, part of the burial office was read by Father +Cuthbert. The Suisse told me that there were fifty-six people +present--there were five ladies in deep mourning--I had ordered three +coaches only, as I had sent out no official notices, being anxious to +keep the funeral quiet. The first coach contained Father Cuthbert and +the acolyte; the second Alfred Douglas, Turner, the proprietor of the +hotel, and myself; the third contained Madame Stuart Merrill, Paul Fort, +Henri Davray and Sar Luis; a cab followed containing strangers unknown +to me. The drive took one hour and a half; the grave is at Bagneux, in a +temporary concession hired in my name--when I am able I shall purchase +ground elsewhere at Pere la Chaise for choice. I have not yet decided +what to do, or the nature of the monument. There were altogether +twenty-four wreaths of flowers; some were sent anonymously. The +proprietor of the hotel supplied a pathetic bead trophy, inscribed, "A +mon locataire," and there was another of the same kind from "The service +de l'Hotel," the remaining twenty-two were, of course, of real flowers. +Wreaths came from, or at the request of, the following: Alfred Douglas, +More Adey, Reginald Turner, Miss Schuster, Arthur Clifton, the Mercure +de France, Louis Wilkinson, Harold Mellor, Mr. and Mrs. Texiera de +Mattos, Maurice Gilbert, and Dr. Tucker. At the head of the coffin I +placed a wreath of laurels inscribed, "A tribute to his literary +achievements and distinction." I tied inside the wreath the following +names of those who had shown kindness to him during or after his +imprisonment, "Arthur Humphreys, Max Beerbohm, Arthur Clifton, Ricketts, +Shannon, Conder, Rothenstein, Dal Young, Mrs. Leverson, More Adey, +Alfred Douglas, Reginald Turner, Frank Harris, Louis Wilkinson, Mellor, +Miss Schuster, Rowland Strong," and by special request a friend who +wished to be known as "C.B." + +I can scarcely speak in moderation of the magnanimity, humanity and +charity of John Dupoirier, the proprietor of the Hotel d'Alsace. Just +before I left Paris Oscar told me he owed him over L190. From the day +Oscar was laid up he never said anything about it. He never mentioned +the subject to me until after Oscar's death, and then I started the +subject. He was present at Oscar's operation, and attended to him +personally every morning. He paid himself for luxuries and necessities +ordered by the doctor or by Oscar out of his own pocket. I hope that +---- or ---- will at any rate pay him the money still owing. Dr. Tucker +is also owed a large sum of money. He was most kind and attentive, +although I think he entirely misunderstood Oscar's case. + +Reggie Turner had the worst time of all in many ways--he experienced all +the horrible uncertainty and the appalling responsibility of which he +did not know the extent. It will always be a source of satisfaction to +those who were fond of Oscar, that he had someone like Reggie near him +during his last days while he was articulate and sensible of kindness +and attention.... + +ROBERT ROSS. + + +CRITICISMS + +BY ROBERT ROSS + +Vol. I. Page 80 Line 3. I demur very much to your statement in this +paragraph. Wilde was too much of a student of Greek to have learned +anything about controversy from Whistler. No doubt Whistler was more +nimble and more naturally gifted with the power of repartee, but when +Wilde indulged in controversy with his critics, whether he got the best +of it or not, he never borrowed the Whistlerian method. Cf. his +controversy with Henley over Dorian Gray. + +Then whatever you may think of Ruskin, Wilde learnt a great deal about +the History and Philosophy of Art from him. He learned more from Pater +and he was the friend and intimate of Burne-Jones long before he knew +Whistler. I quite agree with your remark that he had "no joy in +conflict" and no doubt he had little or no knowledge of the technique of +Art in the modern expert's sense. + +[There never was a greater master of controversy than Whistler, and I +believe Wilde borrowed his method of making fun of the adversary. Robert +Ross's second point is rather controversial. Shaw agrees with me that +Wilde never knew anything really of music or of painting and neither the +history nor the so-called philosophy of art makes one a connoisseur of +contemporary masters. F.H.] + +Page 94. Last line. For "happy candle" read "Happy Lamp." It was at the +period when oil lamps were put in the middle of the dinner table just +before the general introduction of electric light; by putting "candle" +you lose the period. Cf. Du Maurier's pictures of dinner parties in +_Punch_. + +Page 115. I venture to think that you should state that Wilde at the end +of his story of 'Mr. W.H.' definitely says that the theory is all +nonsense. It always appeared to me a semi-satire of Shakespearean +commentary. I remember Wilde saying to me after it was published that +his next Shakespearean book would be a discussion as to whether the +commentators on Hamlet were mad or only pretending to be. I think you +take Wilde's phantasy too seriously but I am not disputing whether you +are right or wrong in your opinion of it; but it strikes me as a little +solemn when on Page 116 you say that the 'whole theory is completely +mistaken'; but you are quite right when you say that it did Wilde a +great deal of harm. [Ross does not seem to realise that if the theory +were merely fantastic the public might be excused for condemning Oscar +for playing with such a subject. As a matter of fact I remember Oscar +defending the theory to me years later with all earnestness: that's why +I stated my opinion of it. F.H.] + +Page 142 Line 19. What Wilde said in front of the curtain was: "I have +enjoyed this evening immensely." + +[I seem to remember that Wilde said this; my note was written after a +dinner a day or two later when Oscar acted the whole scene over again +and probably elaborated his effect. I give the elaboration as most +characteristic. F.H.] + +Vol. II. Page 357 Line 3. Major Nelson was the name of the Governor at +Reading prison. He was one of the most charming men I ever came across. +I think he was a little hurt by the "Ballad of Reading Gaol," which he +fancied rather reflected on him though Major Isaacson was the Governor +at the time the soldier was executed. Isaacson was a perfect monster. +Wilde sent Nelson copies of his books, "The Ideal Husband" and "The +Importance of Being Earnest," which were published as you remember after +the release, and Nelson acknowledged them in a most delightful way. He +is dead now. + +[Major Isaacson was the governor who boasted to me that he was knocking +the nonsense out of Wilde; he seemed to me almost inhuman. My report got +him relieved and Nelson appointed in his stead. Nelson was an ideal +governor. F.H.] + +Page 387. In the First Edition of the "Ballad of Reading Gaol" issued by +Methuen I have given the original draft of the poem which was in my +hands in September 1897, long before Wilde rejoined Douglas. I will send +you a copy of it if you like, but it is much more likely to reach you if +you order it through Putnam's in New York as they are Methuen's agents. +I would like you to see it because it fortifies your opinion about +Douglas' ridiculous contention; though I could explode the whole thing +by Wilde's letters to myself from Berneval. Certain verses were indeed +added at Naples. I do not know what you will think, but to me they prove +the mental decline due to the atmosphere and life that Wilde was leading +at the time. Let us be just and say that perhaps Douglas assisted more +than he was conscious of in their composition. To me they are terribly +poor stuff, but then, unlike yourself, I am a heretic about the Ballad. + +Page 411. In fairness to Gide: Gide is describing Wilde after he had +come back from Naples in the year 1898, not in 1897, when he had just +come out of prison. + +Appendix Page 438 Line 20. Forgive me if I say it, but I think your +method of sneering at Curzon unworthy of Frank Harris. Sneer by all +means; but not in that particular way. + +[Robert Ross is mistaken here: no sneer was intended. I added Curzon's +title to avoid giving myself the air of an intimate. F.H.] + +Page 488 Line 17. You really are wrong about Mellor's admiration for +Wilde. He liked his society but loathed his writing. I was quite angry +in 1900 when Mellor came to see me at Mentone (after Wilde's death, of +course), when he said he could never see any merit whatever in Wilde's +plays or books. However the point is a small one. + +Page 490 Line 6. The only thing I can claim to have invented in +connection with Wilde were the two titles "De Profundis" and "The +Ballad of Reading Gaol," for which let me say I can produce documentary +evidence. The publication of "De Profundis" was delayed for a month in +1905 because I could not decide on what to call it. It happened to catch +on but I do not think it a very good title. + +Page 555 Line 18. Do you happen to have compared Douglas' translation of +Salome in Lane's First edition (with Beardsley's illustrations) with +Lane's Second edition (with Beardsley's illustrations) or Lane's little +editions (without Beardsley's illustrations)? Or have you ever compared +the aforesaid First edition with the original? Douglas' translation +omits a great deal of the text and is actually wrong as a rendering of +the text in many cases. I have had this out with a good many people. I +believe Douglas is to this day sublimely unconscious that his text, of +which there were never more than 500 copies issued in England, has been +entirely scrapped; his name at my instance was removed from the current +issues for the very good reason that the new translation is not his. But +this is merely an observation not a correction. + +[I talked this matter over with Douglas more than once. He did not know +French well; but he could understand it and he was a rarely good +translator as his version of a Baudelaire sonnet shows. In any dispute +as to the value of a word or phrase I should prefer his opinion to +Oscar's. But Ross is doubtless right on this point. F.H.] + +Appendix Page 587. Your memory is at fault here. The charge against +Horatio Lloyd was of a normal kind. It was for exposing himself to +nursemaids in the gardens of the Temple. + +[I have corrected this as indeed I have always used Ross's corrections +on matters of fact. F.H.] + +Page 596 Line 13. I think there ought to be a capital "E" in exhibition +to emphasise that it is the 1900 Exhibition in Paris. + + +THE SOUL OF MAN UNDER SOCIALISM + +When I was editing "The Fortnightly Review," Oscar Wilde wrote for me +"The Soul of Man Under Socialism." On reading it then it seemed to me +that he knew very little about Socialism and I disliked his airy way of +dealing with a religion he hadn't taken the trouble to fathom. The essay +now appears to me in a somewhat different light. Oscar had no deep +understanding of Socialism, it is true, much less of the fact that in a +healthy body corporate socialism or co-operation would govern all public +utilities and public services while the individual would be left in +possession of all such industries as his activity can control. + +But Oscar's genius was such that as soon as he had stated one side of +the problem he felt that the other side had to be considered and so we +get from him if not the ideal of an ordered state at least _apercus_ of +astounding truth and value. + +For example he writes: "Socialism ... by converting private property +into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will +restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy +organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the +community." + +Then comes the return on himself: "But for the full development of Life +... something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism." + +And the ideal is always implicit: "Private property has led +Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim." + +Humor too is never far away: "Only one class thinks more about money +than the rich and that is the poor." + +His short stay in the United States also benefited him.... "Democracy +means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. +It has been found out." + +Taken all in all a provocative delightful essay which like _Salome_ in +the aesthetic field marks the end of his _Lehrjahre_ and the beginning of +his work as a master. + + +A LAST WORD + +In the couple of years that have elapsed since the first edition of this +book was published, I have received many letters from readers asking for +information about Wilde which I have omitted to give. I have been +threatened with prosecution and must not speak plainly; but something +may be said in answer to those who contend that Oscar might have brought +forward weightier arguments in his defence than are to be found in +Chapter XXIV. As a matter of fact I have made him more persuasive than +he was. When Oscar declared (as recorded on page 496) that his weakness +was "consistent with the highest ideal of humanity if not a +characteristic of it," I asked him: "would he make the same defence for +the Lesbians?" He turned aside showing the utmost disgust in face and +words, thus in my opinion giving his whole case away. + +He could have made a better defence. He might have said that as we often +eat or drink or smoke for pleasure, so we may indulge in other +sensualities. If he had argued that his sin was comparatively venial and +so personal-peculiar that it carried with it no temptation to the normal +man, I should not have disputed his point. + +Moreover, love at its highest is independent of sex and sensuality. +Since Luther we have been living in a centrifugal movement, in a wild +individualism where all ties of love and affection have been loosened, +and now that the centripetal movement has come into power we shall find +that in another fifty years or so friendship and love will win again to +honor and affinities of all sorts will proclaim themselves without shame +and without fear. In this sense Oscar might have regarded himself as a +forerunner and not as a survival or "sport." And it may well be that +some instinctive feeling of this sort was at the back of his mind though +too vague to be formulated in words. For even in our dispute (see Page +500) he pleaded that the world was becoming more tolerant, which, one +hopes, is true. To become more tolerant of the faults of others is the +first lesson in the religion of Humanity. + +_The End._ + + +_A letter from Lord Alfred Douglas to Oscar Wilde that I reproduce here +speaks for itself and settles once for all, I imagine, the question of +their relations. Had Lord Alfred Douglas not denied the truth and posed +as Oscar Wilde's patron, I should never have published this letter +though it was given to me to establish the truth. This letter was +written between Oscar's first and second trial; ten days later Oscar +Wilde was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor._ + +_FRANK HARRIS._ + + +HOTEL DES DEUX MONDES +22, Avenue de l'Opera, 22 +PARIS +Wednesday, May 15, 1895. + +My darling Oscar: + +Have just arrived here. + +It seems too dreadful to be here without you, but I hope you will join +me next week. Dieppe was too awful for anything; it is the most +depressing place in the world, even Petits Chevaux was not to be had as +the Casino was closed. They are very nice here, and I can stay as long +as I like without paying my bill which is a good thing, as I am quite +penniless. + +The proprietor is very nice and most sympathetic; he asked after you at +once and expressed his regret and indignation at the treatment you had +received. I shall have to send this by a cab to the Gare du Nord to +catch the post as I want you to get it first post to-morrow. + +I am going to see if I can find Robert Sherard to-morrow if he is in +Paris. + +Charlie is with me and sends you his best love. + +I had a long letter from More (Adey) this morning about you. Do keep up +your spirits, my dearest darling. I continue to think of you day and +night and I send you all my love. + +I am always your own loving and devoted boy. + +BOSIE. + + +_This letter now published for the first time is the most characteristic +I received from Oscar Wilde in the years after his imprisonment. It +dates I think from the winter of 1897, say some eight months after his +release. F.H._ + +HOTEL DE NICE +Rue des Beaux Arts +PARIS + +My dear Frank: + +I cannot express to you how deeply touched I am by your letter--it is +_une vraie poignee de main_. I simply long to see you and to come again +in contact with your strong sane wonderful personality. + +I cannot understand about the poem (The Ballad of Reading Gaol) my +publisher tells me that, as I had begged him to do, he sent the two +_first_ copies to the "Saturday" and the "Chronicle"--and he also tells +me that Arthur Symons told him he had written especially to you to ask +you to allow him to do a _signed_ article. + +I suppose publishers are untrustworthy. They certainly always look it. I +hope some notice will appear, as your paper, or rather yourself, is a +great force in London and when you speak men listen. + +I of course feel that the poem is too autobiographical and that real +experience are alien things that should never influence one, but it was +wrung out of me, a cry of pain, the cry of Marsyas, not the song of +Apollo. Still, there are some good things in it. I feel as if I had made +a sonnet out of skilly, and that is something. + +When you return from Monte Carlo please let me know. I long to dine with +you. + +As regards a comedy, my dear Frank, I have lost the mainspring of life +and art--_la joie de vivre_--it is dreadful. I have pleasures and +passions, but the joy of life is gone. I am going under, the Morgue +yawns for me. I go and look at my zinc bed there. After all I had a +wonderful life, which is, I fear, over. But I must dine once with you +first. + +Ever yours, + +OSCAR WILDE. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[39] Oscar told me this story; but as it only concerns Lord Alfred +Douglas, and throws no new light on Oscar's character, I don't use it. + +[40] This is extravagant condemnation of Lord Alfred Douglas' want of +education; for he certainly knew a great deal about the poetic art even +then and he has since acquired a very considerable knowledge of +"Elizabethan Song." + +[41] Whoever wishes to understand this bitter allusion should read his +father's letter to Lord Alfred Douglas transcribed in the first volume. +The Marquis of Queensberry doesn't hesitate to hint why his son was +"sent down" from Oxford. + +[42] Cfr. Appendix: "Criticisms by Robert Ross." + +[43] Oscar is not flattering his friend in this: Lord Alfred Douglas has +written two or three sonnets which rank among the best in the language. + +[44] This statement--more than half true--is Oscar Wilde's _Apologia_ +and justification. + +[45] This is, I believe, true and the explanation that follows is +probably true also. + +[46] Baccarat is not played in the Casino: _roulette_ and _trente et +quarante_ are the games: roulette was Lord Alfred Douglas' favourite. + +[47] This is a confession almost as much as an accusation. + +[48] Oscar here crosses the _t's_ and dots the _i's_ of his charge. + +[49] The previous accusation repeated, with bitterest sarcasm. + +[50] Lord Alfred Douglas is well above the middle height: he holds +himself badly but is fully five feet nine inches in height. + +[51] The old accusation. + +[52] Mr. Beerbohm Tree. + +[53] The very truth, it seems to me. + +[54] Proving another guilty would not have exculpated Oscar. Readers of +my book will remember that I urged Oscar to tell the truth and how he +answered me. + +[55] As will be seen from a letter of Oscar Wilde which I reproduce +later, I supplied the clothes. + +[56] His letter was merely an acknowledgment that he had received the +clothes and cheque and was grateful. I saw nothing in it to answer as he +had not even mentioned the driving tour. + +[57] I felt hurt that he dropped the idea without giving me any reason +or even letting me know his change of purpose. + +[58] I think this was true; though it had never struck me till I read +this letter. Later, in order to excuse himself for not working, he +magnified the effect on his health of prison life. A year after his +release I think he had as large a reserve of nervous energy as ever. + +[59] Fifty pounds was all Oscar asked me: the whole sum agreed upon. As +a matter of fact I gave him fifty pounds more before leaving Paris. I +didn't then know that he had ever told the scenario to anyone else, much +less sold it; though I ought perhaps to have guessed it.--F.H. + +[60] I (Frank Harris) noticed at Reading that his hair was getting grey +in front and at the sides; but when we met later the grey had +disappeared. I thought he used some dye. I only mention this to show how +two good witnesses can differ on a plain matter of fact. + +[61] Ross found afterwards that they amounted to L620. + + + + +MEMORIES OF OSCAR WILDE + +BY G. BERNARD SHAW + + +Copyright, 1918, +BY BERNARD SHAW + + +INTRODUCTION + +George Bernard Shaw ordered a special copy of this book of mine: +"Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions," as soon as it was announced. +I sent it to him and asked him to write me his opinion of the book. + +In due course I received the following MSS. from him in which he tells +me what he thinks of my work:--"the best life of Wilde, ... Wilde's +memory will have to stand or fall by it"; and then goes on to relate +all his own meetings with Wilde, the impressions they made upon him +and his judgment of Wilde as a writer and as a man. + +He has given himself this labor, he says, in order that I may publish +his views in the Appendix to my book if I think fit--an example, not +only of Shaw's sympathy and generosity, but of his light way of +treating his own kindness. + +I am delighted to be able to put Shaw's considered judgment of Wilde +beside my own for the benefit of my readers. For if there had been +anything I had misseen or misjudged in Wilde, or any prominent trait +of his character I had failed to note, the sin, whether of omission or +commission, could scarcely have escaped this other pair of keen eyes. +Now indeed this biography of Wilde may be regarded as definitive. + +Shaw says his judgment of Wilde is severer than mine--"far sterner," +are his words; but I am not sure that this is an exact estimate. + +While Shaw accentuates Wilde's snobbishness, he discounts his "Irish +charm," and though he praises highly his gifts as dramatist and +story-teller he lays little stress on his genuine kindness of nature +and the courteous smiling ways which made him so incomparable a +companion and intimate. + +On the other hand he excuses Wilde's perversion as pathological, as +hereditary "giantism," and so lightens the darkest shadows just as he +has toned down the lights. + +I never saw anything abnormal in Oscar Wilde either in body or soul +save an extravagant sensuality and an absolute adoration of beauty and +comeliness; and so, with his own confessions and practises before me, +I had to block him in, to use painters' jargon, with black shadows, +and was delighted to find high lights to balance them--lights of +courtesies, graces and unselfish kindness of heart. + +On the whole I think our two pictures are very much alike and I am +sure a good many readers will be almost as grateful to Shaw for his +collaboration and corroboration as I am. + + +POSTSCRIPT + +Since writing this foreword I have received the proof of his +contribution which I had sent to Shaw. He has made some slight +corrections in the text which, of course, have been carried out, and +some comments besides on my notes as Editor. These, too, I have +naturally wished to use and so, to avoid confusion, have inserted them +in italics and with his initials. I hope the sequence will be clear to +the reader. + + +MY MEMORIES OF OSCAR WILDE + +BY BERNARD SHAW + + +MY DEAR HARRIS:-- + +"I have an interesting letter of yours to answer; but when you ask me +to exchange biographies, you take an unfair advantage of the changes +of scene and bustling movement of your own adventures. My +autobiography would be like my best plays, fearfully long, and not +divided into acts. Just consider this life of Wilde which you have +just sent me, and which I finished ten minutes ago after putting aside +everything else to read it at one stroke. + +"Why was Wilde so good a subject for a biography that none of the +previous attempts which you have just wiped out are bad? Just because +his stupendous laziness simplified his life almost as if he knew +instinctively that there must be no episodes to spoil the great +situation at the end of the last act but one. It was a well made life +in the Scribe sense. It was as simple as the life of Des Grieux, Manon +Lescaut's lover; and it beat that by omitting Manon and making Des +Grieux his own lover and his own hero. + +"Des Grieux was a worthless rascal by all conventional standards; and +we forgive him everything. We think we forgive him because he was +unselfish and loved greatly. Oscar seems to have said: 'I will love +nobody: I will be utterly selfish; and I will be not merely a rascal +but a monster; and you shall forgive me everything. In other words, I +will reduce your standards to absurdity, not by writing them down, +though I could do that so well--in fact, _have_ done it--but by +actually living them down and dying them down.' + +"However, I mustn't start writing a book to you about Wilde: I must +just tumble a few things together and tell you them. To take things in +the order of your book, I can remember only one occasion on which I +saw Sir William Wilde, who, by the way, operated on my father to +correct a squint, and overdid the correction so much that my father +squinted the other way all the rest of his life. To this day I never +notice a squint: it is as normal to me as a nose or a tall hat. + +"I was a boy at a concert in the Antient Concert Rooms in Brunswick +Street in Dublin. Everybody was in evening dress; and--unless I am +mixing up this concert with another (in which case I doubt if the +Wildes would have been present)--the Lord Lieutenant was there with +his blue waistcoated courtiers. Wilde was dressed in snuffy brown; and +as he had the sort of skin that never looks clean, he produced a +dramatic effect beside Lady Wilde (in full fig) of being, like +Frederick the Great, Beyond Soap and Water, as his Nietzschean son was +beyond Good and Evil. He was currently reported to have a family in +every farmhouse; and the wonder was that Lady Wilde didn't +mind--evidently a tradition from the Travers case, which I did not +know about until I read your account, as I was only eight in 1864. + +"Lady Wilde was nice to me in London during the desperate days between +my arrival in 1876 and my first earning of an income by my pen in +1885, or rather until, a few years earlier, I threw myself into +Socialism and cut myself contemptuously loose from everything of which +her at-homes--themselves desperate affairs enough, as you saw for +yourself--were part. I was at two or three of them; and I once dined +with her in company with an ex-tragedy queen named Miss Glynn, who, +having no visible external ears, reared a head like a turnip. Lady +Wilde talked about Schopenhauer; and Miss Glynn told me that Gladstone +formed his oratorical style on Charles Kean. + +"I ask myself where and how I came across Lady Wilde; for we had no +social relations in the Dublin days. The explanation must be that my +sister, then a very attractive girl who sang beautifully, had met and +made some sort of innocent conquest of both Oscar and Willie. I met +Oscar once at one of the at-homes; and he came and spoke to me with an +evident intention of being specially kind to me. We put each other out +frightfully; and this odd difficulty persisted between us to the very +last, even when we were no longer mere boyish novices and had become +men of the world with plenty of skill in social intercourse. I saw him +very seldom, as I avoided literary and artistic society like the +plague, and refused the few invitations I received to go into society +with burlesque ferocity, so as to keep out of it without offending +people past their willingness to indulge me as a privileged lunatic. + +"The last time I saw him was at that tragic luncheon of yours at the +Cafe Royal; and I am quite sure our total of meetings from first to +last did not exceed twelve, and may not have exceeded six. + +"I definitely recollect six: (1) At the at-home aforesaid. (2) At +Macmurdo's house in Fitzroy Street in the days of the Century Guild +and its paper '_The Hobby Horse_.' (3) At a meeting somewhere in +Westminster at which I delivered an address on Socialism, and at which +Oscar turned up and spoke. Robert Ross surprised me greatly by telling +me, long after Oscar's death, that it was this address of mine that +moved Oscar to try his hand at a similar feat by writing 'The Soul of +Man Under Socialism.' (4) A chance meeting near the stage door of the +Haymarket Theatre, at which our queer shyness of one another made our +resolutely cordial and appreciative conversation so difficult that our +final laugh and shake-hands was almost a reciprocal confession. (5) A +really pleasant afternoon we spent together on catching one another in +a place where our presence was an absurdity. It was some exhibition in +Chelsea: a naval commemoration, where there was a replica of Nelson's +Victory and a set of P. & O. cabins which made one seasick by mere +association of ideas. I don't know why I went or why Wilde went; but +we did; and the question what the devil we were doing in that galley +tickled us both. It was my sole experience of Oscar's wonderful gift +as a raconteur. I remember particularly an amazingly elaborate story +which you have no doubt heard from him: an example of the cumulation +of a single effect, as in Mark Twain's story of the man who was +persuaded to put lightning conductor after lightning conductor at +every possible point on his roof until a thunderstorm came and all the +lightning in the heavens went for his house and wiped it out. + +"Oscar's much more carefully and elegantly worked out story was of a +young man who invented a theatre stall which economized space by +ingenious contrivances which were all described. A friend of his +invited twenty millionaires to meet him at dinner so that he might +interest them in the invention. The young man convinced them +completely by his demonstration of the saving in a theatre holding, in +ordinary seats, six hundred people, leaving them eager and ready to +make his fortune. Unfortunately he went on to calculate the annual +saving in all the theatres of the world; then in all the churches of +the world; then in all the legislatures; estimating finally the +incidental and moral and religious effects of the invention until at +the end of an hour he had estimated a profit of several thousand +millions: the climax of course being that the millionaires folded +their tents and silently stole away, leaving the ruined inventor a +marked man for life. + +"Wilde and I got on extraordinarily well on this occasion. I had not +to talk myself, but to listen to a man telling me stories better than +I could have told them. We did not refer to Art, about which, +excluding literature from the definition, he knew only what could be +picked up by reading about it. He was in a tweed suit and low hat like +myself, and had been detected and had detected me in the act of +clandestinely spending a happy day at Rosherville Gardens instead of +pontificating in his frock coat and so forth. And he had an audience +on whom not one of his subtlest effects was lost. And so for once our +meeting was a success; and I understood why Morris, when he was dying +slowly, enjoyed a visit from Wilde more than from anybody else, as I +understand why you say in your book that you would rather have Wilde +back than any friend you have ever talked to, even though he was +incapable of friendship, though not of the most touching kindness[1] +on occasion. + +[Footnote 1: Excellent analysis. [Ed.]] + +"Our sixth meeting, the only other one I can remember, was the one at +the Cafe Royal. On that occasion he was not too preoccupied with his +danger to be disgusted with me because I, who had praised his first +plays handsomely, had turned traitor over 'The Importance of Being +Earnest.' Clever as it was, it was his first really heartless play. In +the others the chivalry of the eighteenth century Irishman and the +romance of the disciple of Theophile Gautier (Oscar was really +old-fashioned in the Irish way, except as a critic of morals) not only +gave a certain kindness and gallantry to the serious passages and to +the handling of the women, but provided that proximity of emotion +without which laughter, however irresistible, is destructive and +sinister. In 'The Importance of Being Earnest' this had vanished; and +the play, though extremely funny, was essentially hateful. I had no +idea that Oscar was going to the dogs, and that this represented a +real degeneracy produced by his debaucheries. I thought he was still +developing; and I hazarded the unhappy guess that 'The Importance of +Being Earnest' was in idea a young work written or projected long +before under the influence of Gilbert and furbished up for Alexander +as a potboiler. At the Cafe Royal that day I calmly asked him whether +I was not right. He indignantly repudiated my guess, and said loftily +(the only time he ever tried on me the attitude he took to John Gray +and his more abject disciples) that he was disappointed in me. I +suppose I said, 'Then what on earth has happened to you?' but I +recollect nothing more on that subject except that we did not quarrel +over it. + +"When he was sentenced I spent a railway journey on a Socialist +lecturing excursion to the North drafting a petition for his release. +After that I met Willie Wilde at a theatre which I think must have +been the Duke of York's, because I connect it vaguely with St. +Martin's Lane. I spoke to him about the petition, asking him whether +anything of the sort was being done, and warning him that though I and +Stewart Headlam would sign it, that would be no use, as we were two +notorious cranks, and our names would by themselves reduce the +petition to absurdity and do Oscar more harm than good. Willie +cordially agreed, and added, with maudlin pathos and an inconceivable +want of tact: 'Oscar was NOT a man of bad character: you +could have trusted him with a woman anywhere.' He convinced me, as you +discovered later, that signatures would not be obtainable; so the +petition project dropped; and I don't know what became of my draft. + +"When Wilde was in Paris during his last phase I made a point of +sending him inscribed copies of all my books as they came out; and he +did the same to me. + +"In writing about Wilde and Whistler, in the days when they were +treated as witty triflers, and called Oscar and Jimmy in print, I +always made a point of taking them seriously and with scrupulous good +manners. Wilde on his part also made a point of recognizing me as a +man of distinction by his manner, and repudiating the current estimate +of me as a mere jester. This was not the usual reciprocal-admiration +trick: I believe he was sincere, and felt indignant at what he thought +was a vulgar underestimate of me; and I had the same feeling about +him. My impulse to rally to him in his misfortune, and my disgust at +'the man Wilde' scurrilities of the newspapers, was irresistible: I +don't quite know why; for my charity to his perversion, and my +recognition of the fact that it does not imply any general depravity +or coarseness of character, came to me through reading and +observation, not through sympathy. + +"I have all the normal violent repugnance to homosexuality--if it is +really normal, which nowadays one is sometimes provoked to doubt. + +"Also, I was in no way predisposed to like him: he was my +fellow-townsman, and a very prime specimen of the sort of +fellow-townsman I most loathed: to wit, the Dublin snob. His Irish +charm, potent with Englishmen, did not exist for me; and on the whole +it may be claimed for him that he got no regard from me that he did +not earn. + +"What first established a friendly feeling in me was, unexpectedly +enough, the affair of the Chicago anarchists, whose Homer you +constituted yourself by '_The Bomb_.' I tried to get some literary men +in London, all heroic rebels and skeptics on paper, to sign a memorial +asking for the reprieve of these unfortunate men. The only signature I +got was Oscar's. It was a completely disinterested act on his part; +and it secured my distinguished consideration for him for the rest of +his life. + +"To return for a moment to Lady Wilde. You know that there is a +disease called giantism, caused by 'a certain morbid process in the +sphenoid bone of the skull--viz., an excessive development of the +anterior lobe of the pituitary body' (this is from the nearest +encyclopedia). 'When this condition does not become active until after +the age of twenty-five, by which time the long bones are consolidated, +the result is acromegaly, which chiefly manifests itself in an +enlargement of the hands and feet.' I never saw Lady Wilde's feet; but +her hands were enormous, and never went straight to their aim when +they grasped anything, but minced about, feeling for it. And the +gigantic splaying of her palm was reproduced in her lumbar region. + +"Now Oscar was an overgrown man, with something not quite normal about +his bigness--something that made Lady Colin Campbell, who hated him, +describe him as 'that great white caterpillar.' You yourself describe +the disagreeable impression he made on you physically, in spite of his +fine eyes and style. Well, I have always maintained that Oscar was a +giant in the pathological sense, and that this explains a good deal of +his weakness. + +"I think you have affectionately underrated his snobbery, mentioning +only the pardonable and indeed justifiable side of it; the love of +fine names and distinguished associations and luxury and good +manners.[2] You say repeatedly, and _on certain planes_, truly, that +he was not bitter and did not use his tongue to wound people. But this +is not true on the snobbish plane. On one occasion he wrote about T.P. +O'Connor with deliberate, studied, wounding insolence, with his +Merrion Square Protestant pretentiousness in full cry against the +Catholic. He repeatedly declaimed against the vulgarity of the British +journalist, not as you or I might, but as an expression of the odious +class feeling that is itself the vilest vulgarity. He made the mistake +of not knowing his place. He objected to be addressed as Wilde, +declaring that he was Oscar to his intimates and Mr. Wilde to others, +quite unconscious of the fact that he was imposing on the men with +whom, as a critic and journalist, he had to live and work, the +alternative of granting him an intimacy he had no right to ask or a +deference to which he had no claim. The vulgar hated him for snubbing +them; and the valiant men damned his impudence and cut him. Thus he +was left with a band of devoted satellites on the one hand, and a +dining-out connection on the other, with here and there a man of +talent and personality enough to command his respect, but utterly +without that fortifying body of acquaintance among plain men in which +a man must move as himself a plain man, and be Smith and Jones and +Wilde and Shaw and Harris instead of Bosie and Robbie and Oscar and +Mister. This is the sort of folly that does not last forever in a man +of Wilde's ability; but it lasted long enough to prevent Oscar laying +any solid social foundations.[3] + +[Footnote 2: I had touched on the evil side of his snobbery, I +thought, by saying that it was only famous actresses and great ladies +that he ever talked about, and in telling how he loved to speak of the +great houses such as Clumber to which he had been invited, and by half +a dozen other hints scattered through my book. I had attacked English +snobbery so strenuously in my book on "The Man Shakespeare," had +resented its influence on the finest English intelligence so bitterly, +that I thought if I again laid stress on it in Wilde, people would +think I was crazy on the subject. But he was a snob, both by nature +and training, and I understand by snob what Shaw evidently understands +by it here.] + +[Footnote 3: The reason that Oscar, snobbish as he was, and admirer of +England and the English as he was, could not lay any solid social +foundations in England was, in my opinion, his intellectual interests +and his intellectual superiority to the men he met. No one with a fine +mind devoted to things of the spirit is capable of laying solid social +foundations in England. Shaw, too, has no solid social foundations in +that country. + +_This passing shot at English society serves it right. Yet able men +have found niches in London. Where was Oscar's?--G.B.S._] + +"Another difficulty I have already hinted at. Wilde started as an +apostle of Art; and in that capacity he was a humbug. The notion that +a Portora boy, passed on to T.C.D. and thence to Oxford and spending +his vacations in Dublin, could without special circumstances have any +genuine intimacy with music and painting, is to me ridiculous.[4] +When Wilde was at Portora, I was at home in a house where important +musical works, including several typical masterpieces, were being +rehearsed from the point of blank amateur ignorance up to fitness for +public performance. I could whistle them from the first bar to the +last as a butcher's boy whistles music hall songs, before I was +twelve. The toleration of popular music--Strauss's waltzes, for +instance--was to me positively a painful acquirement, a sort of +republican duty. + +[Footnote 4: I had already marked it down to put in this popular +edition of my book that Wilde continually pretended to a knowledge of +music which he had not got. He could hardly tell one tune from +another, but he loved to talk of that "scarlet thing of Dvorak," +hoping in this way to be accepted as a real critic of music, when he +knew nothing about it and cared even less. His eulogies of music and +painting betrayed him continually though he did not know it.] + +"I was so fascinated by painting that I haunted the National Gallery, +which Doyle had made perhaps the finest collection of its size in the +world; and I longed for money to buy painting materials with. This +afterwards saved me from starving: it was as a critic of music and +painting in the _World_ that I won through my ten years of journalism +before I finished up with you on the _Saturday Review_. I could make +deaf stockbrokers read my two pages on music, the alleged joke being +that I knew nothing about it. The real joke was that I knew all about +it. + +"Now it was quite evident to me, as it was to Whistler and Beardsley, +that Oscar knew no more about pictures[5] than anyone of his general +culture and with his opportunities can pick up as he goes along. He +could be witty about Art, as I could be witty about engineering; but +that is no use when you have to seize and hold the attention and +interest of people who really love music and painting. Therefore, +Oscar was handicapped by a false start, and got a reputation[6] for +shallowness and insincerity which he never retrieved until it was too +late. + +[Footnote 5: I touched upon Oscar's ignorance of art sufficiently I +think, when I said in my book that he had learned all he knew of art +and of controversy from Whistler, and that his lectures on the +subject, even after sitting at the feet of the Master, were almost +worthless.] + +[Footnote 6: Perfectly true, and a notable instance of Shaw's +insight.] + +"Comedy: the criticism of morals and manners _viva voce_, was his real +forte. When he settled down to that he was great. But, as you found +when you approached Meredith about him, his initial mistake had +produced that 'rather low opinion of Wilde's capacities,' that +'deep-rooted contempt for the showman in him,' which persisted as a +first impression and will persist until the last man who remembers his +esthetic period has perished. The world has been in some ways so +unjust to him that one must be careful not to be unjust to the world. + +"In the preface on education, called 'Parents and Children,' to my +volume of plays beginning with _Misalliance_, there is a section +headed 'Artist Idolatry,' which is really about Wilde. Dealing with +'the powers enjoyed by brilliant persons who are also connoisseurs in +art,' I say, 'the influence they can exercise on young people who have +been brought up in the darkness and wretchedness of a home without +art, and in whom a natural bent towards art has always been baffled +and snubbed, is incredible to those who have not witnessed and +understood it. He (or she) who reveals the world of art to them opens +heaven to them. They become satellites, disciples, worshippers of the +apostle. Now the apostle may be a voluptuary without much conscience. +Nature may have given him enough virtue to suffice in a reasonable +environment. But this allowance may not be enough to defend him +against the temptation and demoralization of finding himself a little +god on the strength of what ought to be a quite ordinary culture. He +may find adorers in all directions in our uncultivated society among +people of stronger character than himself, not one of whom, if they +had been artistically educated, would have had anything to learn from +him, or regarded him as in any way extraordinary apart from his actual +achievements as an artist. Tartufe is not always a priest. Indeed, he +is not always a rascal: he is often a weak man absurdly credited with +omniscience and perfection, and taking unfair advantages only because +they are offered to him and he is too weak to refuse. Give everyone +his culture, and no one will offer him more than his due.' + +"That paragraph was the outcome of a walk and talk I had one afternoon +at Chartres with Robert Ross. + +"You reveal Wilde as a weaker man than I thought him: I still believe +that his fierce Irish pride had something to do with his refusal to +run away from the trial. But in the main your evidence is conclusive. +It was part of his tragedy that people asked more moral strength from +him that he could bear the burden of, because they made the very +common mistake--of which actors get the benefit--of regarding style as +evidence of strength, just as in the case of women they are apt to +regard paint as evidence of beauty. Now Wilde was so in love with +style that he never realized the danger of biting off more than he +could chew: in other words, of putting up more style than his matter +would carry. Wise kings wear shabby clothes, and leave the gold lace +to the drum major. + +"You do not, unless my memory is betraying me as usual, quite +recollect the order of events just before the trial. That day at the +Cafe Royal, Wilde said he had come to ask you to go into the witness +box next day and testify that _Dorian Gray_ was a highly moral work. +Your answer was something like this: 'For God's sake, man, put +everything on that plane out of your head. You don't realize what is +going to happen to you. It is not going to be a matter of clever talk +about your books. They are going to bring up a string of witnesses +that will put art and literature out of the question. Clarke will +throw up his brief. He will carry the case to a certain point; and +then, when he sees the avalanche coming, he will back out and leave +you in the dock. What you have to do is to cross to France to-night. +Leave a letter saying that you cannot face the squalor and horror of a +law case; that you are an artist and unfitted for such things. Don't +stay here clutching at straws like testimonials to _Dorian Gray_. _I +tell you I know._ I know what is going to happen. I know Clarke's +sort. I know what evidence they have got. You must go.' + +"It was no use. Wilde was in a curious double temper. He made no +pretence either of innocence or of questioning the folly of his +proceedings against Queensberry. But he had an infatuate haughtiness +as to the impossibility of his retreating, and as to his right to +dictate your course. Douglas sat in silence, a haughty indignant +silence, copying Wilde's attitude as all Wilde's admirers did, but +quite probably influencing Wilde as you suggest, by the copy. Oscar +finally rose with a mixture of impatience and his grand air, and +walked out with the remark that he had now found out who were his real +friends; and Douglas followed him, absurdly smaller, and imitating his +walk, like a curate following an archbishop.[7] You remember it the +other way about; but just consider this. Douglas was in the wretched +position of having ruined Wilde merely to annoy his father, and of +having attempted it so idiotically that he had actually prepared a +triumph for him. He was, besides, much the youngest man present, and +looked younger than he was. You did not make him welcome: as far as I +recollect you did not greet him by a word or nod. If he had given the +smallest provocation or attempted to take the lead in any way, I +should not have given twopence for the chance of your keeping your +temper. And Wilde, even in his ruin--which, however, he did not yet +fully realize--kept his air of authority on questions of taste and +conduct. It was practically impossible under such circumstances that +Douglas should have taken the stage in any way. Everyone thought him a +horrid little brat; but I, not having met him before to my knowledge, +and having some sort of flair for his literary talent, was curious to +hear what he had to say for himself. But, except to echo Wilde once or +twice, he said nothing.[8] You are right in effect, because it was +evident that Wilde was in his hands, and was really echoing him. But +Wilde automatically kept the prompter off the stage and himself in the +middle of it. + +[Footnote 7: This is an inimitable picture, but Shaw's fine sense of +comedy has misled him. The scene took place absolutely as I recorded +it. Douglas went out first saying--"Your telling him to run away shows +that you are no friend of Oscar's." Then Oscar got up to follow him. +He said good-bye to Shaw, adding a courteous word or two. As he turned +to the door I got up and said:--"I hope you do not doubt my +friendship; you have no reason to." + +"I do not think this is friendly of you, Frank," he said, and went on +out.] + +[Footnote 8: I am sure Douglas took the initiative and walked out +first. + +_I have no doubt you are right, and that my vision of the exit is +really a reminiscence of the entrance. In fact, now that you prompt my +memory, I recall quite distinctly that Douglas, who came in as the +follower, went out as the leader, and that the last word was spoken by +Wilde after he had gone.--G.B.S._] + +"What your book needs to complete it is a portrait of yourself as good +as your portrait of Wilde. Oscar was not combative, though he was +supercilious in his early pose. When his snobbery was not in action, +he liked to make people devoted to him and to flatter them exquisitely +with that end. Mrs. Calvert, whose great final period as a stage old +woman began with her appearance in my _Arms and the Man_, told me one +day, when apologizing for being, as she thought, a bad rehearser, that +no author had ever been so nice to her except Mr. Wilde. + +"Pugnacious people, if they did not actually terrify Oscar, were at +least the sort of people he could not control, and whom he feared as +possibly able to coerce him. You suggest that the Queensberry +pugnacity was something that Oscar could not deal with successfully. +But how in that case could Oscar have felt quite safe with you? You +were more pugnacious than six Queensberrys rolled into one. When +people asked, 'What has Frank Harris been?' the usual reply was, +'Obviously a pirate from the Spanish Main.' + +"Oscar, from the moment he gained your attachment, could never have +been afraid of what you might do to him, as he was sufficient of a +connoisseur in Blut Bruderschaft to appreciate yours; but he must +always have been mortally afraid of what you might do or say to his +friends.[9] + +[Footnote 9: This insight on Shaw's part makes me smile because it is +absolutely true. Oscar commended Bosie Douglas to me again and again +and again, begged me to be nice to him if we ever met by chance; but I +refused to meet him for months and months.] + +"You had quite an infernal scorn for nineteen out of twenty of the men +and women you met in the circles he most wished to propitiate; and +nothing could induce you to keep your knife in its sheath when they +jarred on you. The Spanish Main itself would have blushed rosy red at +your language when classical invective did not suffice to express your +feelings. + +"It may be that if, say, Edmund Gosse had come to Oscar when he was +out on bail, with a couple of first class tickets in his pocket, and +gently suggested a mild trip to Folkestone, or the Channel Islands, +Oscar might have let himself be coaxed away. But to be called on to +gallop _ventre a terre_ to Erith--it might have been Deal--and hoist +the Jolly Roger on board your lugger, was like casting a light +comedian and first lover for _Richard III_. Oscar could not see +himself in the part. + +"I must not press the point too far; but it illustrates, I think, what +does not come out at all in your book: that you were a very different +person from the submissive and sympathetic disciples to whom he was +accustomed. There are things more terrifying to a soul like Oscar's +than an as yet unrealized possibility of a sentence of hard labor. A +voyage with Captain Kidd may have been one of them. Wilde was a +conventional man: his unconventionality was the very pedantry of +convention: never was there a man less an outlaw than he. You were a +born outlaw, and will never be anything else. + +"That is why, in his relations with you, he appears as a man always +shirking action--more of a coward (all men are cowards more or less) +than so proud a man can have been. Still this does not affect the +truth and power of your portrait. Wilde's memory will have to stand or +fall by it. + +"You will be blamed, I imagine, because you have not written a lying +epitaph instead of a faithful chronicle and study of him; but you will +not lose your sleep over that. As a matter of fact, you could not have +carried kindness further without sentimental folly. I should have made +a far sterner summing up. I am sure Oscar has not found the gates of +heaven shut against him: he is too good company to be excluded; but he +can hardly have been greeted as, 'Thou good and faithful servant.' The +first thing we ask a servant for is a testimonial to honesty, sobriety +and industry; for we soon find out that these are the scarce things, +and that geniuses[10] and clever people are as common as rats. Well, +Oscar was not sober, not honest, not industrious. Society praised him +for being idle, and persecuted him savagely for an aberration which it +had better have left unadvertized, thereby making a hero of him; for +it is in the nature of people to worship those who have been made to +suffer horribly: indeed I have often said that if the crucifixion +could be proved a myth, and Jesus convicted of dying of old age in +comfortable circumstances, Christianity would lose ninety-nine per +cent. of its devotees. + +[Footnote 10: The English paste in Shaw; genius is about the rarest +thing on earth whereas the necessary quantum of "honesty, sobriety and +industry," is beaten by life into nine humans out of ten.--ED. + +_If so, it is the tenth who comes my way.--G.B.S._] + +"We must try to imagine what judgment we should have passed on Oscar +if he had been a normal man, and had dug his grave with his teeth in +the ordinary respectable fashion, as his brother Willie did. This +brother, by the way, gives us some cue; for Willie, who had exactly +the same education and the same chances, must be ruthlessly set aside +by literary history as a vulgar journalist of no account. Well, +suppose Oscar and Willie had both died the day before Queensberry left +that card at the Club! Oscar would still have been remembered as a wit +and a dandy, and would have had a niche beside Congreve in the drama. +A volume of his aphorisms would have stood creditably on the library +shelf with La Rochefoucauld's Maxims. We should have missed the +'Ballad of Reading Gaol' and 'De Profundis'; but he would still have +cut a considerable figure in the Dictionary of National Biography, and +been read and quoted outside the British Museum reading room. + +"As to the 'Ballad' and 'De Profundis,' I think it is greatly to +Oscar's credit that, whilst he was sincere and deeply moved when he +was protesting against the cruelty of our present system to children +and to prisoners generally, he could not write about his own +individual share in that suffering with any conviction or +sympathy.[11] Except for the passage where he describes his exposure +at Clapham Junction, there is hardly a line in 'De Profundis' that he +might not have written as a literary feat five years earlier. But in +the 'Ballad,' even in borrowing form and melody from Coleridge, he +shews that he could pity others when he could not seriously pity +himself. And this, I think, may be pleaded against the reproach that +he was selfish. Externally, in the ordinary action of life as +distinguished from the literary action proper to his genius, he was no +doubt sluggish and weak because of his giantism. He ended as an +unproductive drunkard and swindler; for the repeated sales of the +Daventry plot, in so far as they imposed on the buyers and were not +transparent excuses for begging, were undeniably swindles. For all +that, he does not appear in his writings a selfish or base-minded man. +He is at his worst and weakest in the suppressed[12] part of 'De +Profundis'; but in my opinion it had better be published, for several +reasons. It explains some of his personal weakness by the stifling +narrowness of his daily round, ruinous to a man whose proper place was +in a large public life. And its concealment is mischievous because, +first, it leads people to imagine all sorts of horrors in a document +which contains nothing worse than any record of the squabbles of two +touchy idlers; and, second, it is clearly a monstrous thing that +Douglas should have a torpedo launched at him and timed to explode +after his death. The torpedo is a very harmless squib; for there is +nothing in it that cannot be guessed from Douglas's own book; but the +public does not know that. By the way, it is rather a humorous stroke +of Fate's irony that the son of the Marquis of Queensberry should be +forced to expiate his sins by suffering a succession of blows beneath +the belt. + +[Footnote 11: Superb criticism.] + +[Footnote 12: I have said this in my way.] + +"Now that you have written the best life of Oscar Wilde, let us have +the best life of Frank Harris. Otherwise the man behind your works +will go down to posterity[13] as the hero of my very inadequate +preface to 'The Dark Lady of the Sonnets.'" + +G. BERNARD SHAW. + +[Footnote 13: A characteristic flirt of Shaw's humor. He is a great +caricaturist and not a portrait-painter. + +When he thinks of my Celtic face and aggressive American frankness he +talks of me as pugnacious and a pirate: "a Captain Kidd": in his +preface to "The Fair Lady of the Sonnets" he praises my "idiosyncratic +gift of pity"; says that I am "wise through pity"; then he extols me +as a prophet, not seeing that a pitying sage, prophet and pirate +constitute an inhuman superman. + +I shall do more for Shaw than he has been able to do for me; he is the +first figure in my new volume of "Contemporary Portraits." I have +portrayed him there at his best, as I love to think of him, and +henceforth he'll have to try to live up to my conception and that will +keep him, I'm afraid, on strain. + +_God help me!--G.B.S._] + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2), by Frank Harris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OSCAR WILDE, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) *** + +***** This file should be named 16895.txt or 16895.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/9/16895/ + +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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